Catching brown recluse spiders without chemical pesticides

We had been finding lots of spiders in our old brick house, and didn't think much of it. We stepped on some and captured others and took them outside. That was before 13 year old daughter Charlotte pointed out that these spiders appeared to be brown recluse spiders. We took macro photos of them and looked at them closely and, indeed, they mostly seemed to be brown recluse spiders. Our neighbor Joe is a pest control guy who talked about chemical pesticides, which we've never used because we don't want our children exposed to these. Therefore, Joe recommended sticky pads. You can buy a box of 50 for $20. Spiders walk on the pads and get stuck. We put 20 pads in various parts of the house and we were shocked at how many spiders we caught. Check out the photo above, a typical pad, which caught 10 big and small spiders in 3 days. We don't see any spiders any more other than those caught on the pads. Some of our pads have caught 25 spiders. I'm writing this in case anyone else is having problems with any kind of spider and wants to avoid chemical pesticides.brown recluse

Continue ReadingCatching brown recluse spiders without chemical pesticides

The damage done by helicopter parenting

As one who is finding helicopter parents increasingly annoying, I appreciated the many good points made by this article by Tim Elmore. Here is his take home:

Bottom line? Your child does not have to love you every minute. He’ll get over the disappointment of failure but he won’t get over the effects of being spoiled. So let them fail, let them fall, and let them fight for what they really value. If we treat our kids as fragile, they will surely grow up to be fragile adults. We must prepare them for the world that awaits them. Our world needs resilient adults not fragile ones.

Continue ReadingThe damage done by helicopter parenting

How a high ranking Mormon lost his faith

How did this high ranking Mormon lose his faith? It wasn't the result of someone getting in his face and telling him he was an idiot. The NYT tells the story:

When fellow believers in Sweden first began coming to him with information from the Internet that contradicted the church’s history and teachings, he dismissed it as “anti-Mormon propaganda,” the whisperings of Lucifer. He asked his superiors for help in responding to the members’ doubts, and when they seemed to only sidestep the questions, Mr. Mattsson began his own investigation.

But when he discovered credible evidence that the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, was a polygamist and that the Book of Mormon and other scriptures were rife with historical anomalies, Mr. Mattsson said he felt that the foundation on which he had built his life began to crumble.

Continue ReadingHow a high ranking Mormon lost his faith

EFF offers copyright curriculum for high school students

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a curriculum for high school students on the topic of Copyright. I spent some time reviewing it, and it looks like an excellent resource for anyone wanting to know more about this important subject.

Continue ReadingEFF offers copyright curriculum for high school students

U.S. media pummels Edward Snowden with snobbishness

When they don't like you, media outlets can crucify you with irrelevant personal attacks. This means that there is always an out for those who don't really want to report a story. That's what happened regarding Edward Snowden. He didn't graduate from high school, though he did pick up a GED. Nonetheless, he has repeatedly been smeared as a "dropout." FAIR reports on this hatchet job.   It turns out that Snowden is in fine company. Consider this excerpt:

Consider these high-school dropouts: Founding father and genius inventor Benjamin Franklin. Founding Father and First President George Washington. The founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. American aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright. The first lady of civil rights, Rosa Parks, who refused a Montgomery Alabama bus driver's order to give up her seat to a white passenger. The man who gave the world its most popular chocolate bar, Milton Hershey. Before he would become America's most beloved author, Mark Twain left school at the age of 12 to become a printer's apprentice. The great man who saved the Union, Abraham Lincoln.
There are many others, including Bill Cosby, and presumably Jesus. But as we've seen, calling someone a "dropout" is a selectively used weapon, not a truly relevant aspect to most stories. To compound things, many of the smartest people I know do not have college diplomas, yet they too are treated miserably by a society that seeks quick, easy and often wrong answers to the question of who is "smart" or worthy of respect. This is a travesty for all of us, credentialed or otherwise.

Continue ReadingU.S. media pummels Edward Snowden with snobbishness