tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-204575072024-03-13T03:19:08.108-07:00The Hue and Cry"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." --Walt WhitmanUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger447125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-86113126476794417122014-05-26T19:15:00.004-07:002014-05-26T19:18:13.877-07:00My Trip to Athens [Bryan]<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For anyone who cares, below is a blow-by-blow account of a recent trip to Athens. </span></span> <br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><u>Sunday</u></i>.
Arrived in Athens around 11:30 at my hotel north of Syntagma square. I was told
immediately that the day was Election Day, so all of the sites would be closing
early. I rushed off to see the Acropolis. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">First impressions of Athens: clean, but run down and covered
with graffiti (something I had been told to prepare for, but was shocking
nonetheless in its scope). Consists mostly of nondescript apartment blocks. Everywhere you
turn there are ancient ruins -- sometimes just a city block of excavated
buildings, without even a sign to designate what the ruins are. There is a constant
traffic of scooters (sometimes on the sidewalks running down pedestrians),
taxis, and tourist buses. Dogs are everywhere, including stray dogs at ancient
sites (however, every dog I encountered seems to be fat, happy, and lazy. I
only heard one dog bark out of the hundreds that I saw!) </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">After entering a neighborhood of Plaka, which is an
interesting mix of extreme tourism and almost seeming untouched narrow back
roads, I ascended the Acropolis, an easy hike with a big crowd. Saw the cute
little Temple of Nike, the enormous entrance gate the Propylaia, and the
Parthenon (covered with Scaffolding on the east side, which is the back side). (Speaking
of scaffolding, I never saw any workers actually working on the building. The
workers also did odd things, like put the construction trailers both right next
to and <i>inside</i> the Parthenon itself!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Anyway, this was a moment I have been looking forward to for
years! It was dampened somewhat by the throngs of stupid tourists ("which
building is the Parthenon?"), the scaffolding, the jet lag, my
solitariness, and the awareness that the sun was beating down mercilessly and that
I'd forgotten my hat and sunscreen. But still, it was amazing to be there. I
didn't know which way to look. On the one side you had the ancient structures
whose size and delicate construction was unmistakable, and on the other side
the city of Athens lying beneath you on all sides. I tried to imagine the
festival of the Panathenaea, where the whole city would walk up the hill,
sacrifice hundreds of cattle, and present the <i>Peplos</i>, the massive garment that the chosen young girls of Athena
would weave all year. I also imagined modern Greek history, where this was a site
of resistance to the Nazi invaders. I walked around all the buildings twice and
then descended to the Parthenon museum. This was impressive. It is actually
built on stilts over an old Christian settlement, which you can peer at through
glass windows in the floor. There, the amazing things were the statues from the
porch of the Caryatids and the original sculpture from the pediments and freezes
from the Parthenon. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As I was leaving the museum, I was accosted by an aggressive
street vendor selling flowers. She said I looked like George Clooney, gave me a
flower and demanded payment, because she had a little "bambino"
inside of her. It got me thinking about why I am accosted by scammers and
aggressive vendors like this when I am abroad. I think it is my propensity to
make eye contact. Most others don't even look at these people. I vowed to make
no more eye contact! The road around the Acropolis was thick with street
merchants, puppeteers, and street musicians. I continued to walk around the
Plaka after the museum. I bought two souvenirs, a bust of Socrates and a little
Athena X statue for Nora. Had a dinner at a taverna in Plaka consisting of tzaziki,
olive oil and bread, and fresh fish. I also stumbled across a quiet, but fascinating
little neighborhood right under the northern base of the Acropolis, the
Anafiotika. This is a neighborhood cut out of the hillside, with lanes
sometimes no more than two feet wide. It had old stone houses, flower patches,
tiny churches, punctuated with views overlooking Athens. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I took the street tours from my guidebook of the Plaka and
Monastiraki neighborhoods. Monastiraki felt like real Athens, where the
Athenians shop and hang out. In Monastiraki square there was interesting mix of
people: Africans playing drums, break dancers, Greeks hanging out, and an
occasional tourist. There was an old mosque, Pantanassa church, Roman ruins (Library
of Hadrian), all existing alongside break dancers and African drummers. It was
an interesting mix of worlds.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Since I had some time, I decided to go and find the spot of
Aristotle's school the Lycaem. After some searching, I found it east of
Syntagma square. It was closed at that time, so I took pictures from the
outside. Mostly just foundations are left. Along the way I saw various
political demonstrations and people watching election results. I also saw armed
police with machine guns and riot gear. I considered starting a running street
battle with riot police in order to make my Athens experience unique, but decided
against it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I went up to the top of my hotel that night to get another
glimpse of the Acropolis, this time from a distance. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><u>Monday</u>.</i>
Spent the morning at my conference hearing interesting power-point
presentations. At the conference they served traditional Greek breakfast and
lunches. Chicken was prominent and I loved the salad dressings. I met a nice
guy from Turkey that I had lunch with. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I left in the late afternoon to go explore
the city again, this time heading north from my hotel. I visited the National
Archeological museum. The most impressive things there were (1) the Cycladic
art, (2) the bronze <i>Horse with Little
Jockey</i>, (3) <i>Aphrodite and Pan</i>,
(4) golden baby burial clothes next to the so-called "mask of Agamemnon,"
(5) the huge <i>Volomandra Kouros</i>, (6)
and funeral monument or stele that depicted a dead mother with a baby reaching
out to her, (7) the bronze computational device, (8) the <i>Philosopher of Antikythira</i>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">After that, I struck out east through Athens into an unknown
and gritty, un-touristy neighborhood to find the site of Plato's academy. I got
lost several times, which is a bit nerve-wracking in a gritty part of the city like
that. Eventually I found what I was looking for. Plato's academy is now a
little park with a few signs talking about the excavation sites. It is
neglected. No tourists and few markers. Most impressive was the gymnasium that
was there, including a site for the bathing of the athletes. I tried to imagine
Plato walking around and giving lectures. I tried to soak up some of the wisdom
and brilliance that had been exercised there.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For dinner, I returned to my hotel and, having enough
adventures, decided to eat at the rooftop hotel restaurant. I had an odd, but
fairly tasty beef dish, swimming in some sort of puree. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><u>Tuesday.</u></i>
Spent the morning and early afternoon at the conference. Gave my paper (ran out
of time) and chaired a session. Then, I struck out for my "walk around the
rock." </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I started at the Roman Agora. There I saw the famous
"Tower of Winds," which was an old sundial and water clock. The
sculptures depicting the winds I found particularly interesting, a culture that
was so dialed in the world around them and cared so much about the way the wind
was blowing that they gave the wind personalities. Also of note was a public Roman
restroom where people sat around doing "their business" together.
After the Roman Agora, I went to the Ancient Greek Agora. I followed by
guidebook around to the different sites and, again, tried to imagine Socrates
walking around mixing it up intellectually with the unsuspecting populace. Of
note where was the Temple of Hephaestus and the Triton statues. It was a quiet
place, a nice break from the hustle and bustle of Athens. Tourists were there,
but not as thick as on the Acropolis. The Stoa of Attalos was a wonderful break
from the sun and I felt kinship with the ancient Greeks finding such
refreshment inside. I found that little potty chair from the 7th century BC. From there, I headed south up the
Aeropagus, where Paul is said to have talked with the Athenian philosophers.
Great view of the Acropolis from there! There were many locals hanging out, particularly lovers. Then
I hiked up Filopappos hill to the monument of Philopappus. Crowds were
non-existent. On the one side, a breath-taking view of the Acropolis. On the
other, you could stand and hear the din of modern Athens rising up, see out to
the Pireaus and the Saronic Gulf to the nearby islands. I then went searching
for the Pnyx, which is the speaking area where the Ancient Athenians met and
practiced their democracy. Alas, I was not able to stand on the platform and
rehearse a speech from Demosthenes. From there, I went back up the Acropolis
and visited the Parthenon again. In the late afternoon, the crowds were much
thinner and the sunlight made the marble gleam with a golden light. It was a
much more impressive experience the second time. Descending the Parthenon, I
visited Odeon of Herodes Atticus and the Theatre of Dionysus, where I imagined
plays being performed by Sophocles or Euripides. A bit disappointing is that, much of what I saw in Greece,
was actually a built-up Roman versions of things on the old Greeks sites. So,
Sophocles was not so much performed at that theatre, alas, but on that site.
Impressive still. I purchased some wonderful nuts to eat at that place (a
common theater food in ancient Greece) and headed west to the plaza of
Lysikrates. This little monument has Corinthian columns and is dedicated to a
victory in the theater competitions. My final site of the day was the Roman
temple of Olympian Zeus. I finished my nuts there and contemplated the sheer
size of that temple. The columns were 75 feet tall. It must have been
absolutely enormous. I had dinner that night at a lovely little taverna in
Plaka and had chicken slouvaki with a great side of fried potatoes and a
delightful old Greek owner. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><u>Wednesday.</u></i>
Got up early to go with the conference on a cruise to the Saronic Islands of
Hydra, Poros, and Agina. Met some LDS folks on the ship who live in Dubai. On
the ship they had a group playing traditional Greek music and dancing. First stop was the beautiful island of
Hydra, where cars are not permitted and they travel by donkey. Quintessential
seaside Greek village with white houses and red roofs. I had a wonderful gelato
in the port there. Lots of tourists, but I hiked up the side of the hill into
the old neighborhood and it suddenly became very quiet. The wind was blowing
through the narrow little streets, no one was around except an old lady waling
up the road, and it seemed very peaceful. After lunch on the boat, the next
stop was Poros. This was still picturesque, but it was much busier. We didn't
spend much time there. I walked up the hill to the clock tower, took some
pictures, took a quick visit in the archeological museum (every island seemed
to have one of these), and watched some little Greek boys playing soccer.
Finally, we went to Agina. I went up with the tour group to the Temple of
Aphaia. It was beautifully situated, with the Saronic gulf spreading out
everywhere. You could see to Athens. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Everywhere you went you could see pistachio
trees. I had the best pistachio ice cream, indeed some of the best ice cream I
have ever had, at the Temple of Aphaia. I also purchased some lovely pistachio
nuts, which seems crunchier and fresher than I have ever had before. We
returned to Athens and we had dinner that night at the street side. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><u>Thursday</u></i>. A
powerful day. We took at day trip to Delphi. Delphi, the site of the temple of
Apollo and the Delphic Oracle was one of the most important sites in the
ancient world. The bus stopped on the way at a place were you could get fresh
squeezed orange juice, which was yummy. Given the heat, dryness, and my
constant walking, I had an almost unquenchable thirst the whole time I was in
Greece. As we approach Mount Paranasses, I began to feel at home. It is much
like the Wasatch Mountains, although the valley is greener. Delphi sits on the
slopes of a breathtaking mountain valley. Like the temple of Aphaia, it really felt like a sacred
place, even without all the temples. There are ruins spread up the hillside. We
walked up the "sacred way," the path that the ancient people took
with their most burning questions. It was easy to imagine walking past the
treasures and votive offerings that lined the path -- the most valuable and
impressive objects and offerings of the ancient world. What made it real was
the writing that was everywhere. Instead of modern graffiti, though, it was
ancient writing. Dedications. Tributes by freed slaves. As you walked up the
road you could see the imposing temple looming above you. I don't worship
Apollo, but it really felt like a sacred spot. I can only imagine how it must
have felt to enter that temple, see the ivory statue of Apollo, descend the pit
to the Pithia, hear the burbling of the gases bubbling up, and receive the
oracle -- all after spending weeks of travel to get there, offering sacrifices,
and participating the cleansing washings. The museum of Delphi was wonderful,
too, with (1) a statue of a philosopher, (2) the omphalos stone, (3) the bronze
statue of the young charioteer, (4) the statuary from the shrines depicting
ancient battles. Also there was a theater and a stadium, and our tour guide
pointed out how the body (stadium), mind (theater), and temple (soul) were all
sacred to the Greeks. We had a great tour guide, by the way. She had a PhD.
After the shrine, we stopped for lunch and at some of the small hillside
communities -- a mixture of alpine resort towns and Greek seaside villages. We
could look down into the valley, saw the wild olive trees, and the gulf of
Corinth to the north. We returned home. I went back for another walk around the
rock. I went up the surrounding hills, saw a sunset over Athens on the
Areopagus, and returned to a tavern in Anafiotika (my little neighborhood
discovery) for a meal of Greek salad, mousaka, bread with oil, olives, a
complimentary desert. </span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-41267103127592483402012-10-01T12:36:00.000-07:002012-10-01T12:36:47.040-07:00Movie recommendation: A Separation [Bryan]Just saw a wonderful film: <i>A Separation</i>. I can't even begin to detail the rich and intriguing (but not complicated) plot. It is an emotionally powerful ride through family relationships, human motivations, political change, and religious faith. The film creates a messy situation, full of believably complicated characters, and then refuses to tell us who is right. I am a lover of Iranian films, and this is one of the best and most accessible. The reviewer for the LA Times <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/30/entertainment/la-et-separation-20111230">summed it up</a> well: <br />
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Perhaps the most impressive thing about the way "A
Separation's" exquisitely human situations unfold is that the narration
allows for as many points of view as there are characters. Everyone is
fallible yet everyone feels justified in their own particular
grievances, and the film is at pains not to pick sides. The great French
director Jean Renoir, who would have loved this film, exactly sums up
its situation in one of his most famous phrases: "The real hell of life
is that everyone has his reasons."</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-12325991989040744862012-09-30T20:25:00.001-07:002012-10-01T12:37:12.137-07:00The Desperate Love of God: Thoughts on the Worth of a Soul [Bryan] <style>@font-face {
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">[Delivered in the Hilliard Ward, Sept. 23, 2012] </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">How much is a human soul worth? How can we calculate its
value? One way would be to try to use a dollar amount. If your body was reduced
to its basic elements, Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Calcium, and so
forth, it is estimated that you would be worth about $160 dollars, most of that
value coming from the potassium and sodium. Your potassium, in fact, would
account for about 2/3rds of the value of your body’s elements, were it reduced
to its basic compounds. So, $160 -- doesn’t seem like much. <a href="http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/april12011/index.html">Link</a>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">Another way to calculate the value of a human life is to
think about how much it would take, say, to purchase a slave. How much would it
cost to actually own another human being? Based on my research on the Internet,
I found that, in 1857, it cost about $1400 dollars to buy a slave in Antebellum
American South. That translates into about $25,000 in today’s money. It is
interesting, and very troubling, that you could have bought a slave, a human
being, for about the cost of an average car today. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/">Link</a>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">What about if we do the sort of cost benefit analysis
that is popular today in the business world? Ford Motor Company attempted this
back in the 1970s. Ford President Lee Iacocca had stipulated that, in order to
compete with the economical Japanese cars that were coming in the market, he
wanted to design a car that would weigh less than 2,000 pounds and that would
be priced at less than $2,000. This idea became the legendary Ford Pinto. There
was one major and tragic flaw with the Pinto’s original design, a flaw that
cost dozens of lives. In the event of the rear end collision, even at low
speeds, the gas tank would be pushed forward and punctured by the protruding
bolts of the differential.<sup> </sup>Gasoline would come pouring out,
explosions would occur, and people would be in danger of dying a fiery death.
When Ford discovered this problem during the initial crash tests, they did a
cost benefit analysis. They found a solution to the problem that cost $11 per
car. Overall, the cost to redesign and rework the Pinto's gas tank, at that
late stage, would cost about $137 million. Ford experts then calculated that
they could be held liable for $200,000 per traffic fatality. Using an estimate
of 180 deaths and 180 serious burns, Ford calculated that their possible liability costs worked out
to around $49 million. So, because the $137 million cost to fix the problem was
greater than the 49 million in liability, they, tragically and infamously,
decided not to fix the Pinto. Many people died or were severely burned. So, in
this sad story, there is another estimate of a human life: $200,000. <a href="http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1971-1980-ford-pinto12.htm">Link</a>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">Yet another way to think about your worth as a human
being to to think how much your individual organs are worth. There is,
unfortunately, a thriving black market for human organs throughout the world.
Turns out that a human heart is worth $290,000 in South Korea, where a human <b><span style="font-weight: normal;">liver is also worth</span> </b>$290,000. A
kidney is worth $145,000 in Turkey, and a pancreas is worth $140,000 in
Singapore, where a lung also sells for $290,000. <a href="http://scienceroll.com/2010/06/22/how-much-are-my-organs-worth/">Link</a>. According to a recent article
in <i>Wired</i></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">
magazine, a full human body could be worth up to $45 million if we sell the
bone marrow, DNA, lungs, kidneys, heart, etc., as separate components. I, for
one, will be worth more money dead than I every will be alive!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">Now, none of this has been particularly pleasant to think
about. That discomfort stems from our moral issues, I think, with the thought
of buying a slave, doing a cost benefit analysis on a human life, selling body
parts on the black market, and so forth. But our discomfort is more than that.
I think we sense that the value of a human life is being missed in these
calculations. In the D&C 18:10, we read that we should “Remember the worth
of souls is great in the sight of God.” This begins to tell us something
about our worth as human beings. Is there a way, though, we can get a more
precise sense of this worth? Is there a way we can feel it on a more gut level,
with more emotional punch.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">To get
this sort of glimpse of the worth of a soul, I want to turn to three stories
from the New Testament, three parables, that deal with this same topic. The
text that I wish to focus on is the 15<sup>th</sup> chapter of the Gospel of
Luke.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">In the beginning of this chapter, we are given the
setting in which these three parables are told. Picture the scene: Jesus is
teaching. A group of sinner and publicans (who were basically seen as traitors
to Israel) approach him. This group is the lowest of low on the Israelite
social ladder. They are the outcast and despised. And what does Jesus do? We
are told only that Pharisees and scribes start to complain, saying, this man
“receives sinners and eats with them.” It is in response to this complaint that Jesus offers to the Pharisees three famous parables.
Start in verse four: </span><br />
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<span class="verse"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">4 </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">What man of you, [he asks] having an hundred sheep, if he
lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go
after that which is lost, until he find it?</span></div>
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<span class="verse"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">5 </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">And when he hath found <span class="clarityword">it,</span>
he layeth <span class="clarityword">it</span> on his shoulders, rejoicing.</span></div>
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<span class="verse"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">6 </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">And when he cometh home, he calleth together <span class="clarityword">his</span> friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice
with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.</span></div>
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<span class="verse"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">I love this striking and intimate imagine, the image of a shepherd
laying the lost sheep on his shoulders, cradling it, carrying back to safety,
to home. I hope that we can all remember this image in those times when we have
wandered or are lost, times when we feel alone, or afraid. In those times, the
parable asks us to imagine a shepherd gently putting his arms around us, stroking us softly, lifting us up to his shoulders, and carrying us back
to safety. How much is a human soul worth? Well, think of that beautiful image,
the shepherd going out into the wilderness, gently carrying back the one lost sheep.
Imagine that shepherd calling for a celebration. That intimate imagine suggests
how much we are worth.</span></span></div>
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<span class="verse"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="verse"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">Another parable:</span></span></div>
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<span class="verse"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">8 </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">¶Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she
lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek
diligently till she find <span class="clarityword">it?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;"> <span class="verse">9 </span>And when she hath found <span class="clarityword">it,</span> she calleth <span class="clarityword">her</span>
friends and <span class="clarityword">her</span> neighbours together, saying,
Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">Notice in
this story, the woman seems to lose the coin at night. Notice that she doesn’t
wait until morning to search. She lights a candle. She is so desperate to find
this coin that she stays up all night, sweeping, desperately looking for it!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">Now, I
want you to think of times in your life when you have lost something important,
something that simply could not be lost. Try to remember how you felt. I think
of a time on my honeymoon. Ellie and I went on our honeymoon to San Diego California. We had a wonderful time, staying in a resort
right next to the beach, going to parks and museums, starting out our married
adventure together. I remember feeling in those early days that I wanted to
show to everyone, particularly Ellie, that I could be competent husband, and
that Ellie hadn’t made a huge mistake marrying me. On our last day in San
Diego, we decided to take one more romantic walk on the beach, young newlyweds
without a care in the world. As we walked back to the hotel to check out, I
reached in my back pocket and found, to my horror and embarrassment, that my
wallet was missing. Everything I needed was in that wallet, my credit cards, my
money, my identification to get on the flight that would take us home, a flight
leaving in less than two hours. More than that, in that wallet was <i>my very
credibility</i>, my chance to be seen as a competent husband. I sprinted back to
the beach, frenziedly, frantically, perhaps even hysterically, a wave of
desperation washing over me. I can imagine that this is how the women in the
parable felt, staying up all night seeking for this coin. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">I should
note that, however frantic I felt in that moment, it is nothing compared to the
times when we have briefly lost children in busy public places. Those of you
who have lost your children know the feeling: That frantic desperation. And
when you find a lost child, you can understand the relief that is also captured
in these stories. You can understand why someone would want to have a party, a
celebration, when what was lost has been found. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">Think,
then, about that moment when you lost something, something that simply could not be
lost. Recreate in your minds and hearts the feelings that you experienced as
you were looking for it. And think about the relief you felt when
you found it, or the sorrow you felt when realized it was gone forever.
Recreate in your mind that sense of desperate desire, that terrible emotion, the emotion that keeps us up all night looking for something, that emotion
that gets us sprinting back to the beach. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">In those
emotions, we can begin to understand, on a gut level, the true worth of the
soul. That frantic feeling to find that which was lost? <i>That</i> is the worth of
the soul. That unforgettable relief and joy when you found it, a joy worth
celebrating? <i>That</i> is what you are worth. In these stories, we are being told
that this desperate love is how God seeks for us when we are lost. <i>That</i> is the answer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">Recall
the setting in which Jesus told this story. Think about what Jesus is saying
here to these complaining Pharisees, as he tells these stories. It is as if
Jesus is saying, “You think it is bad that I am sitting down and eating with
these publicans and sinners. Well, you should know: not only will I eat with
these sinners and outcasts, these lost souls, I desperately love them with a
love you cannot understand. I would stay up all night looking for them with a
candle clenched in my worried hand. I would go out into the wilderness alone
looking for them, carrying them back rejoicing on my shoulders. That is how
much I love them.” I can only imagine how scandalous that message would have
been to the Pharisees. Jesus not only eats with these sinners, he desperately
cares for them! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">Some of
you may know the story of The Giving Tree, a book by Shel Silversteen. I love
this story. I must admit, however, that I actually have a complicated
relationship with it (I guess it shows how weird I am to have a complicated
relationship with a children’s book). The story goes like this: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">Once, there was a tree…<br />
And she loved a little boy.<br />
And every day the boy would come<br />
And he would gather her leaves<br />
And swing from her branches<br />
And eat apples<br />
And they would play hide-and-go-seek.<br />
And when he was tired, he would sleep in her shade.<br />
And the boy loved the tree… very much…<br />
And the tree was happy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">But time went by,<br />
And the boy grew older.<br />
And the tree was often alone.<br />
Then, one day, the boy came to the tree and the tree said:<br />
"Come, Boy, come and climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and eat
apples and play in my shade and be happy!"<br />"I am too big to climb and play," said the boy. "I want to buy things and have
fun. I want some money.Can you give me some money?" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">"I’m sorry", said the tree, "but I have no money. I have only leaves and apples.
Take my apples, Boy, and sell them in city. Then you will have money and you’ll
be happy."<br />
And so the boy climbed up the tree and gathered her apples and carried them
away.<br />
And the tree was happy…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">The story
continues. The boy comes back again and again, asking more and more from the
tree. He takes her apples and branches. Finally, the story says the boy was
away for a long time. He returns again and makes the ultimate demand of the tree. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">And when he came back, the tree was so happy she could hardly speak.<br />
"Come, Boy," she whispered, "Come and play."<br />
"I am too old and sad to play," said the boy. "I want a boat that will
take me away from here. Can you give me a boat?"<br />
"Cut down my trunk and make a boat," said the tree. "Then you can sail away…
and be happy."<br />
And so the boy cut down her trunk<br />
And made a boat and sailed away.<br />
And the tree was happy…<br />
But not really.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">And after a long time the boy came back again.<br />
"I am sorry, Boy," said the tree, "but I have nothing left to give you – My
apples are gone....My branches are gone....My trunk is gone" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">"I am sorry," sighed the tree. "I wish that I could give you
something… but I have nothing left. I am just an old stump. I am sorry…"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">"I don’t need very much now,” said the boy. “Just a quiet place to sit and
rest. I am very tired."<br />
"Well," said the tree, straightening herself up as much as she could, "well,
an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, Boy, sit down… sit down and
rest."<br />
And the boy did.<br />
And the tree was happy…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">If you go
on the Internet, there is actually a heated debate about the merits of this book.
Some have said that this actually isn’t a very good story. I have thought such
things myself – hence my complicated relationship with the book. In the story a
tree gives all that she has without asking anything in return or getting
anything from the relationship. The boy: he takes and takes and takes. The
tree: she gives and gives and gives. She seems exploited, a doormat, letting
the boy walk all over her. Why should we find admirable what the tree gives
here?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">For an
answer, let’s return to Luke 15. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;"> <span class="verse">11 </span>¶And [Jesus] said, A certain
man had two sons:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;"> <span class="verse">12 </span>And the younger of them said
to <span class="clarityword">his</span> father, Father, give me the portion of
goods that falleth <span class="clarityword">to me.</span> And he divided unto
them <span class="clarityword">his</span> living.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;"> <span class="verse">13 </span>And not many days after the
younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and
there wasted his substance with riotous living.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">It is
important to read this story in the way they would have read it in the ancient
world. The key point is that the son is insulting his father in a way we cannot
comprehend. The father isn’t even dead, and the younger son is already asking
his inheritance. He is basically saying, “Father, you are dead to me.” Just as
bad is how the boy so quickly leaves and wastes the money. He goes off to a
“far country,” which I read as symbolic of leaving the covenant people, leaving
the church, and he goes and lives in a riotous way. He is using his father’s
estate in a way that goes against everything the father stands for. The
audience hearing this story in Jesus’s time would have thought that this son
deserves only punishment and shame. That and nothing more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">The son
heads off, wasting the money on wine and women. He falls are hard times. He
realizes that he would be better off as a slave to his father. Notice the story
never says the son felt bad for what he did and how he treated his father. He rehearses a self-serving little speech that he is going to give his
father when he returns. The
son remains selfish, thinking only of himself. “The father is going to beat
this son senseless when he comes home!,” the audience begins to think.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">But, of
course, this is not what happens. You remember how the author of Luke recounts the story:
“But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion,
and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” The father seems to have been
anxiously waiting for any sign of his son, <i>waiting literally by the window</i>, so
that he sees him from a distance. Like me frantically sprinting back to the
beach, the father frantically sprints to his lost son. He has lost something of
inestimable value. He is experiencing that frantic desire of the woman looking
for the coin. Instead of beating his son, the son is embraced; instead of
giving the son what he deserves, the son is given compassion and mercy; instead
of stern words, the son is given tenderness, kindness, forgiveness; instead of
anger, the father kisses the son on his neck. The father responds with an
almost irrational love: “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad:
for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">How much
is a human soul worth? I believe that, to understand the worth of the human
soul, on a gut level, there are three images to remember. I want you to
remember the image of the lost sheep, alone and frightened in the wilderness,
cradled in the arms of the shepherd, lifted on his shoulders. I want you to
remember the woman searching all night, frantically and desperately, trying to
find her lost coin. I want you to remember the father, who had been so despised
and insulted by his son, who still waits anxiously by his window, waiting for
his son to come home. I particularly want you to remember these images when you
feel lost or alone, when you feel nobody cares, when you feel like you’ve made
mistakes, when you feel unloved. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">How much
is a human soul worth? A gentle lift in the wilderness to safety, a frantic
search at night, a tireless vigil by the window. Remember these images and,
most of all, remember the image of a Heavenly Father, who loved the world, who
loved you, so much that he sent his son, to suffer and to die. I bear testimony
of this love. <span class="verse"></span></span></div>
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<span class="verse"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">(For the link between the Giving Tree and the Prodigal Son, I am indebted to: http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/04/the-sacrificial-tree.html) </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">
</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-43156892108674787612012-09-03T11:36:00.002-07:002012-09-03T11:41:35.779-07:00Authoritative Parenting [Bryan]Below is some <a href="http://news.discovery.com/human/take-that-tiger-mom-120307.html">recent research on parenting</a>. The endorsement of "authoritative parenting" is not particularly new, and I'm not sure the difference between these types of parenting is as clear in practice as we might like, but it is interesting nonetheless:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Authoritarian parents are more likely to end up with disrespectful
children who engage in delinquent behaviors, the study found, compared
to parents who listen to their kids with the goal of gaining trust. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It was the first study to look at how parenting styles affect the way teens view their parents and, in turn, how they behave.<br />
<br />
The study considered three general styles of parenting. Authoritative
parents are demanding and controlling while also being warm and
sensitive to their children’s needs.<br />
<br />
Authoritarian parents, by contrast, are demanding and controlling
without those compassionate layers of caring, attachment and
receptiveness. They take a "my way or the highway" approach to their
kids. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Permissive parents, the third group, have warm and receptive qualities, but they define few boundaries and enforce few rules.<br />
<br />
Using data on nearly 600 kids from an ongoing study of middle school
and high school students in New Hampshire, researchers from the
University of New Hampshire were able to link "my way or the highway"
parenting with more delinquency in kids -- measured in behaviors like
shop-lifting, substance abuse and attacking someone else with the
intention of hurting or killing. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Firm but loving parenting, on the other hand, led to fewer
transgressions. Permissive parenting, surprisingly, didn't seem to make
much of a difference either way.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-83295543884876288162012-08-31T12:21:00.001-07:002012-08-31T12:23:26.821-07:00#InvisibleObama [Bryan]Clint Eastwood at RNC: Instant classic. But probably not for the reason Romney hoped. <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-43067801729177714232012-05-25T10:55:00.002-07:002012-05-25T10:55:46.645-07:00Surviving the Titanic [Bryan]So, why didn't the folks in the Titanic just hop on the iceberg? <a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/overcoming_functional_fixednes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29">Functional fixedness</a>! <br />
<blockquote>
The most famous cognitive obstacle to innovation functional fixedness — an idea first articulated in the 1930s by Karl Duncker in which people tend to fixate on the common use of an object. For
example, the people on the Titanic overlooked the possibility that the
iceberg could have been their lifeboat.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Newspapers from the time estimated the size of the iceberg to be
between 50-100 feet high and 200-400 feet long. Titanic was navigable
for awhile and could have pulled aside the iceberg. Many people could
have climbed aboard it to find flat places to stay out of the water for
the four hours before help arrived. Fixated on the fact that icebergs
sink ships, people overlooked the size and shape of the iceberg (plus
the fact that it would not sink).</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-41160747580236066342012-05-24T07:06:00.001-07:002012-05-24T07:07:28.145-07:00Mormon CuisineI've been busy lately, but I think I can resume some measure of blogging at this point. I've been meaning to point readers to an article on "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/dining/a-new-generation-redefines-mormon-cuisine.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1"><span id="goog_756728492"></span>Mormon Cuisine<span id="goog_756728493"></span></a>" that was published in the NY Times a few months ago. It discusses the history of why we eat like we do (focused on Jello and other convenience foods) and why things are changing (e.g., missionaries gaining a fondest for foreign cuisine in far off locales.)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Mormonism is a young religion, born in the 1830s, leaving little time
for food traditions to evolve. Its food doesn’t reflect one particular
ethnic identity, or a region other than the Wasatch Front....Food was rarely plentiful in the early years, families were large, and
all households tithed at least 10 percent to the church, so women were
strongly encouraged to develop cooking and budget-management skills.
Being industrious and hardworking is highly prized in Mormon culture
(the beehive is a symbol of the church), and for women, cooking provides
a real sense of identity and daily purpose. </div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
In the 1960s, Mormon women (like most Americans) enthusiastically
embraced inexpensive convenience foods like canned fruit, instant
potatoes and, of course, Jell-O. “For some reason, the Utah Mormons took longer to come out of that
phase,” said Christy Spackman, 34, a doctoral student in food studies at
N.Y.U. </div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Ms. Spackman says that in her congregation, in Brooklyn, the tradition
of socializing with food and sharing recipes is just as strong as it was
when she was growing up in Logan, Utah. Only the recipes have changed.
“Now the recipe is more likely to be a grapefruit curd or a new kind of
granola bar than a casserole,” she said. Recipes, like one for homemade
yogurt, “spread like wildfire” in the community, she said. </div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Many Mormon men and some women spend two years abroad working as
missionaries — a custom that has given many a lingering taste for kimchi
or Camembert. In Brazil, Mrs. Wells discovered a passion for dulce de
leche, mangoes and black beans. </div>
</blockquote>
I also loved this description of funeral potatoes.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Funeral potatoes, a rich casserole of grated potatoes, sour cream,
cheese and cream-of-something soup, is delivered to the bereaved, and
serves as a side dish for ham on Christmas and Easter. It tastes like
the inside of a baked potato mashed with plenty of sour cream and
Cheddar, and it takes only one savory, fluffy forkful to see why the
dish is a classic. (During the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, visitors
found these dishes so pervasive that souvenir pins shaped like cubes of
green Jell-O and casseroles of funeral potatoes became hot sellers.)
</blockquote>
Is it lunch time, yet?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-79651686593728614382012-02-24T09:19:00.003-08:002012-02-24T09:20:49.114-08:00Death Star Economics [Bryan]Would the death star be economically feasible? <a href="http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum">Kevin Drum says yes</a>:<br /><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">There's been a lot of loose talk about the Death Star lately. I want to put it into a bit of perspective.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">As background, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.centives.net/S/2012/how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-the-death-star/">some students at Lehigh University</a> have estimated that it would be a very expensive project. The steel alone, assuming the Death Star's mass/volume ratio <img style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 20px 15px 30px;" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/blog_death_star.jpg" align="right" />is about the same as an aircraft carrier, comes to $852 quadrillion, or 13,000 times the world's GDP. Is this affordable?</p> <p style="text-align: left;">Let's sharpen our pencils. For starters, this number is too low. Using the same aircraft carrier metric they did, I figure that the price tag on the latest and greatest <em>Ford</em>-class supercarrier is about 100x the cost of the raw steel that goes into it. If the Death Star is similar, its final cost would be about 1.3 million times the world's GDP.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">But there's more. <em>Star Wars</em> may have taken place "a long time ago," but the technology of the <em>Star Wars</em> universe is well in our future. How far into our future? Well, <em>Star Trek</em> is about 300 years in our future, and the technology of <em>Star Wars</em> is obviously well beyond that. Let's call it 500 years. What will the world's GDP be in the year 2500? Answer: assuming a modest 2% real growth rate, it will be about 20,000 times higher than today. So we can figure that the average world in the <em>Star Wars</em> universe is about 20,000x richer than present-day Earth, which means the Death Star would cost about 65x the average world's GDP.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">However, the original Death Star took a couple of decades to build. So its <em>annual</em> budget is something on the order of 3x the average world's GDP.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">But how big is the Republic/Empire? There's probably a canonical figure somewhere, but I don't know where. So I'll just pull a number out of my ass based on the apparent size of the Old Senate, and figure a bare minimum of 10,000 planets. That means the Death Star requires .03% of the GDP of each planet in the Republic/Empire annually. By comparison, this is the equivalent of about $5 billion per year in the current-day United States.</p> <div style="text-align: left;">In other words, not only is the Death Star affordable, it's not even a big deal.<br /></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-8198507664899226302012-02-16T09:48:00.001-08:002012-02-16T09:55:13.531-08:00Tim vs. Jeremy [Bryan]So, apparently the new sports crush is New York Knick point guard Jeremy Lin. I can't say I'm not also caught up in the hype: from what I have seen, Lin is great fun to watch and cheer for. Of course, we now get the inevitable comparisons to Tim Tebow. I have nothing against Tebow. He seems like a decent kid. There is no real comparison, though, in their respective Cinderella stories. <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/166269/jeremy-lin-why-knicks-new-star-not-new-tebow">This</a> sums it up:<br /><p></p><blockquote>Tim Tebow’s commercials and personal branding speak about how everyone has always doubted him, but in reality, he’s has every privilege and advantage. He was home-schooled but was still allowed to play Florida high school sports. He was allowed to play in a college spread offense built around his rather unique skill set. He was drafted in the first round even though many scouts saw him as a mid- to high-round project. He is treated like an All-American superstar even without the game to back it up....Tim Tebow had the benefit of the doubt. Jeremy Lin was just doubted.</blockquote><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-63232757278065340182012-02-05T20:05:00.000-08:002012-02-06T04:05:28.078-08:00Life according to Stephen [Bryan]<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f15O26bimvw/Ty9Tyj3YfrI/AAAAAAAABQk/XpXwfzHOmdI/s1600/stephencuteness%2B002.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f15O26bimvw/Ty9Tyj3YfrI/AAAAAAAABQk/XpXwfzHOmdI/s400/stephencuteness%2B002.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705871380987805362" border="0" /></a><br />Our son, Stephen, seems to have entered the stage of perfect cuteness. Not a day goes by when he doesn't say something clever. And his hair is just a curly mess of wonderful blond tangles. We can't bring ourselves to cut it.<br /><br />Some recent stories:<br /><br />Ellie went in after Stephen's nap to find that he had gotten out his old white diapers and spread them all across the floor of his bedroom. Ellie, shocked at the mess, asked him what he'd been doing. "It's snow, Mom," he said.<br /><br />We were eating dinner the other night. Conversation was lagging a bit. Suddenly, Stephen pipes up, "Mom, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" We're not sure where he got that, but it was hilarious to be asked that by a two-year-old. We concluded that, no, we probably weren't thinking what he was thinking.<br /><br />I was in the bathroom today getting ready. Stephen marches in and points at the shower. "What's that, Dadda?" he asks. "Um, that's the shower, buddy." I reply. He says, matter-of-factly, "That's where it rains." True, Stephen, true.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-87173774417784402352012-02-03T18:18:00.000-08:002012-02-03T19:29:27.584-08:00Ode to underground London [Bryan]Sorry about the lack of posting lately -- still trying to navigate my new identity.<br /><br />Anyway, a mesmerizing video below of the London Tube. For some reason, I love to watch people in transit. It is always interesting to think about who they are and where they are going. Also, there is some great footage of a guy in a bow tie.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/33794697?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" width="400"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/33794697">Oyster Hunt</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user9018108">Garreth Carter</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-55214369723191161052011-12-20T18:44:00.000-08:002011-12-20T18:46:58.948-08:00Year in review [Bryan and Ellie]A number of exciting things have happened to 8-year-old Nora in 2011. In the spring, both her grandparents were able to come to Ohio for her baptism. The baptism was a very sweet experience, and we were so grateful to have family there to share it with us. In the summer, Nora swam in our favorite lake and took tennis lessons. In fall, she started her gifted class (“Fun--like preschool!”(?)), continued piano, and kicked her first two goals in soccer. These goals were a long time in coming, so her father can be excused for jumping up and down and screaming like a maniac. Finally, Nora moved down to the new basement in a room all her own. She is in heaven.<br /><br />Andrew is eagerly awaiting his 6th birthday this month. His big news is that he started Kindergarten, which he loves. He’s also taking pre-piano music class this year. Andrew lost his first tooth in Utah at his Warnick Grandparents’ home this summer. Our Tooth Fairy still found him, so she won’t be fired, despite her sometimes flighty and forgetful ways. His drawings of semi trucks, buses, airplanes, and Jeeps decorate our fridge and the fridges of his teachers and grandparents. Andrew is the resident rule-enforcer in our home, much to his sister’s chagrin. Not much is missed by his penetrating, petty-criminal-bustin’ gaze.<br /><br />Stephen, at two, shifts rapidly between unbearably cute and just unbearable. On the cute side, we have his claims of having a beard (we think he means his upper lip), his love of hugs, his somersault attempts, his obsession with writing his name, and his big brown eyes and blond curls. On the unbearable side we have the typical toddler whining and tantrums in addition to the messiest eating we have ever experienced. (He is not done until he has pulverized every cubic inch of his food, and has eaten. . .any?) Stephen provides the comic relief in our family. The past few weeks, he’s taken to answering every question, “Yes, sir!”<br /><br />Ellie and Nora joined a Mother-Daughter Book Club this year, and have had a great time reading and discussing some childhood classics together. In March, Ellie tagged along with Bryan to England for a conference at Oxford. (Thanks to the Merkley grandparents for making this childless trip possible!) Going to England has been a lifelong dream for Ellie, and she loved every minute--even the one where she mistook white wine for water (low lighting!), took a big swig, and just about spit it across the table onto Bryan’s distinguished British colleagues. She’s still running, albeit a little more slowly to keep pace with her favorite pregnant running buddy (sister Anna).<br /><br />Bryan was consumed early this year with finishing the basement. He put up the drywall, sanded, hung the doors, put up the wood trim, and painted. He is pleased with how it all turned out and can often be found in the basement admiring his craftsmanship. Meanwhile, he gave professional presentations in St. Louis and Oxford, organized a conference in Dayton, spearheaded a major curriculum change in his college, published two papers, and finalized a publisher for his second book. He has recently become fascinated with wood-grilling. His peaceful and quiet life was abruptly interrupted last week by a new church assignment...bishop (a lay leader of a local LDS congregation). Time will tell if he survives to see next Christmas.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-55421316249421491522011-12-12T19:13:00.000-08:002011-12-13T07:12:36.686-08:00It's the end of the world (as we know it) [Bryan]Most of the time, as you know, email is mundane and trivial. I received an email last week, however, that will change my life forever. Wednesday morning I returned from my morning jog to find a message with the subject line "appointment with President Welling?" My heart sank. It not only sank, it went crashing to the floor, shattering into a thousand tiny pieces. Ellie heard me exclaim, "Oh no!" We both knew exactly what it meant.<br /><br />You won't fully understand this if you aren't Mormon. Some background may help: The first thing to know about my church is that <span style="font-style: italic;">major</span> responsibility is placed on the local, lay leader of the congregation, a person that we call a bishop. The bishop is responsible for looking out for the physical and emotional well-being of the members of his congregation (hundreds of people) for five to six years. It is a major time commitment, almost a second job, a substantial lifestyle change. The second thing to know about the church is that if you, as a member, are asked to serve in a specific capacity, even a bishop, you do it. These are "callings." Accepting callings is a part of who we are.<br /><br />You probably realize that the email was about me serving as bishop to our local congregation. I accepted the calling. Right now, I feel a strange mixture of happiness, sadness, and anxiety. Happiness, because it will be an honor to serve others (and God) in such a deep and meaningful way. I do want to be of real use in the world, and there is no better way than through something like this. Sadness, because I realize that some of the projects that are important to me must now be relinquished, some maybe forever, some temporarily. Blogging will slow, some books will remain unwritten. Anxiety, because of deep-seated fear of being unable to do, or do well, all that will be asked of me. Sometimes I feel like I have more questions than answers, more weaknesses than strengths, more folly than wisdom. I haven't slept well since Wednesday.<br /><br />On Sunday, I was sustained by my congregation and officially "set apart" in the calling. Something happened during that meeting that was particularly meaningful to me. After I was sustained, I was asked to come and sit behind the pulpit. I slowly walked up and took a seat in front of the congregation. I looked out over the congregation, and saw many smiling and supportive faces (and a few surprised faces). I felt a bit numb. At that moment, though, I heard the organ playing what is perhaps the hymn that is most sacred to me, "As Now We Take the Sacrament." The personal significance of this hymn is a small fact about me that no one really knows, I suspect, but God. As soon as I heard that playing, I pretty much lost it, emotionally. Part of the hymn goes, "As now we praise thy name with song, / the blessings of this day / will linger in our thankful hearts,/ and silently we pray / for courage to accept thy will, / to listen and obey./ We love thee, Lord; our hearts are full. / We’ll walk thy chosen way."<br /><br />Hearing that hymn, in that moment, was like God saying, "Bryan, I am here. Have courage." I can think of only a few precious moments in my life where it felt like God was specifically mindful of me and was speaking to me personally. That was one of them.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-69855885405585711582011-12-09T12:37:00.001-08:002011-12-09T12:37:52.342-08:00Is the world getting worse? [Bryan]I often hear that things are getting worse and that "the world" is sliding into moral decay. I don't really believe that is true. The world from 1900-1974 (the year I was born), with the mass slaughter in two world wars, genocide on an unprecedented scale, brutal apartheid racism in the United States, and so forth, seems like a place that had no where to go but up, morally speaking. I collected a bunch of graphs that try to explain why I believe that things are actually not getting worse with respect to morality. Of course, it is possible that certain things might be worse. I'm talking about the big picture here.<br /><br />Let's start with violent crime rates, which seem to be consistently dropping over the past 30 years.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/Violent_crime_rates_1973-2005.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 413px; height: 297px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/Violent_crime_rates_1973-2005.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Below are the categories of violent crime broken down more precisely. Everything, from murder, to assault, to rape, is down since the 1980s.<br /><br /><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Violent_Crime_Rates_in_the_United_States.svg/350px-Violent_Crime_Rates_in_the_United_States.svg.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 350px; height: 317px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Violent_Crime_Rates_in_the_United_States.svg/350px-Violent_Crime_Rates_in_the_United_States.svg.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Trends in domestic violence are particularly tricky, since what gets reported is always fluctuating. Below is a graph, though, indicating that domestic violence has dropped over the past decade.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.project.org/images/graphs/Households-with-Personel-Crimes.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 469px; height: 287px;" src="http://www.project.org/images/graphs/Households-with-Personel-Crimes.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Below is a chart attempting to capture the presence of armed conflict in the world. The trend seems to be down over the past 20 years meaning the world is, on the whole, a more peaceful place. This is hard for us to conceive, because we ourselves have been engaged in minor conflicts since 2002. Overall, though, the trend is down.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hwgwefe4cZc/TtMNipD192I/AAAAAAAABQM/G3UIsJQkuBw/s1600/war2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hwgwefe4cZc/TtMNipD192I/AAAAAAAABQM/G3UIsJQkuBw/s400/war2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679898443833014114" border="0" /></a>Abortion rates seem to have slowly declined since 1980.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.moralityindex.com/abortion.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 373px; height: 259px;" src="http://www.moralityindex.com/abortion.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Divorce seems to be declining fairly significantly since it reached its peak in 1980s. (There are many reasons for this, of course, not all good.)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://familyinequality.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/divorce-trend.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 378px; height: 272px;" src="http://familyinequality.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/divorce-trend.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-67428205231419520072011-12-09T12:31:00.000-08:002011-12-09T12:36:59.112-08:00And well deserved [Bryan]The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly last week to allow indefinite detentions of people <span style="font-style:italic;">suspected</span> of terrorism, even if they are found in the U.S. This means that if the government merely thinks you are a terrorists, it can lock you away forever. You get no chance to defend yourself, no trial or due process. Unbelievable. Anyway, Jon Stewart gives this vote the nervous ridicule it deserves. <br /><br /><div style="background-color:#000000;width:520px;"><div style="padding:4px;"><embed src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:403790" width="512" height="288" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" base="." flashVars=""></embed></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-81643453434913801252011-11-28T17:10:00.001-08:002011-11-28T17:28:52.942-08:00A truck I built [Andrew][<span style="font-style: italic;">Below is Andrew's (age 5) first blog post -- BW</span>]<br /><br />I made a Lego car and I also wanted you to see it. I would like you to see it on the computer. It has taillights that look realistic and also it looks like a real truck.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Z_fIYH241g/TtQ1NKX-RuI/AAAAAAAABQY/0s2pbfvj31E/s1600/November-2011%2B032.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Z_fIYH241g/TtQ1NKX-RuI/AAAAAAAABQY/0s2pbfvj31E/s400/November-2011%2B032.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680223530260514530" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-64272293474628901482011-11-13T20:28:00.000-08:002011-11-15T17:50:55.451-08:00Nostalgia de la luz [Bryan]I saw an amazing movie last weekend, <span style="font-style: italic;">Nostalgia for the Light</span>, a film by <span class="st">Patricio Guzmán. It is a heartfelt documentary, more of a reflective essay, really, than an informational film. It deals with the seemingly different activities occurring in Chile's </span><span class="st">Atacama desert. On the one hand, you have astronomers taking advantage of the dry conditions to observe the ancient light coming from distant galaxies; on the other hand, you have mothers of the political prisoners who were killed during the reign of dictator Augusto Pinochet, looking for the thousands of bodies that were dumped in the same desert some 35 years ago. The film attempts to make the connection between these activities, namely, that they are both exploring the past in a way that situates our identities in the present.<br /><br />Some of the stories the film tells are simply amazing: A woman describing the moment when she realized that a foot that had been unearthed was her brother's foot, and that he was never coming back. A young mother, my age, describing how the authorities had many years ago forced her grandparents to choose between revealing the location of her parents or losing her -- forced to choose, in effect, between the life of their child and the life of their granddaughter.<br /><br />It was the images, though, the stunning visuals, that really struck me: The pictures of a simple Chilean house representing the sleepy Santiago world before the dark political turmoil of the 1970s. The fading pictures of some of the prisoners, before they were prisoners, full of hope and naive confidence that they could change the world, now dead. The footage of bodies, partially mummified by the dry desert conditions, being unearthed from their mass graves, with expressions of horror still frozen in their faces. </span><span class="st"><br /><br />A sad, beautiful, haunting, and thoughtful film. Highly recommended.<br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="st"> </span><br /></div><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ok7f4MLL-Hk" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-57747568061078469562011-11-13T18:49:00.000-08:002011-11-13T21:05:14.992-08:00Soccer stars [Bryan]My experience having kids in youth soccer has been mixed. They've always been among the younger children on their teams, and play is usually dominated by one or two older boys, leaving our kids to be more like spectators than participants. Plus, I've found it is hard to instill in my kids a competitive thirst. Away from the playing field, we usually tell them to share, to play nice, to not push, etc. Expecting them to then be hyper-aggressive in sports seems almost unjustified, no matter how much I scream "ATTACK!" maniacally from the sidelines. Thus, until this season, neither Nora nor Andrew had even come close to taking a shot on goal, let alone actually scoring a goal. They have both played multiple seasons.<br /><br />This year, though, was a qualified success. First, there is Andrew. Andrew loves to play goalie. He gets so excited when he sees the ball approach that he starts to jump up and down in the goalie box. Some of the other parents called him the "dancing goalie" for this very reason. Andrew, being somewhat timid on the field, had not really shown his skills all year, even in practice. The next-to-last game of the season, Andrew was goalie and picked up the ball around the goal. The coach told him to wait for a minute and then to carefully throw the ball to a teammate off to the side. Andrew, apparently not hearing his coach, instead decided, with a wonderful, even mischievous grin on his face, to open up a can of drop-kick-from-hell on the other team. He grabbed the ball, tossed it in the air, and kicked it as hard as he could. The ball took off, well past the midfield line, like a shrieking comet, soaring and flying, over the heads of teammates and opponents alike. The coach's mouth dropped open. Then, grinning, he said, "Well, that's okay, too."<br /><br />Second is a Nora story. Nora is actually a very skilled player. She controls the ball well, and can kick with determination and strength -- that is, when she is mentally in the game. It is easy for her to defer to the bigger stronger boys on the team and, over the season, she seemed to become more and more timid. But then it happened. Nora was playing forward. She happened to find herself in the middle of the field. The ball was deflected in her direction and the other team's goalie was way out of position. Nora gave the ball a little kick, redirecting it toward the goal, knocking it gently into the net. GOOOAAAAALLLLLL! I was speechless and just stood up with my hands in the air. Nora looked back at me with a look that asked, "Did I just do that?" I was so happy for her. I made a big deal of it. She was somewhat embarrassed by my excited praise, afterwords saying that she didn't want to score anymore because she didn't like all the attention. Something changed, though, from then on out. Having tasted the thrill of scoring, of excelling, of sticking it to her opponent in a fierce battle of will, she would not be stopped. Her game really blossomed after that and she scored a goal in her next game, which was her last game, as well. This was after 3 years of not even taking a shot!<br /><br />So, like I said, a qualified success. Perhaps even more than that.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ypFCbt2fSz8/TsCJ_4TprAI/AAAAAAAABQA/7HURAZtE6x0/s1600/Norasoccer.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 291px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ypFCbt2fSz8/TsCJ_4TprAI/AAAAAAAABQA/7HURAZtE6x0/s400/Norasoccer.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674687261026397186" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wFWpcKuLr9g/TsCJ_ta54TI/AAAAAAAABP0/tlXYbU4WCkQ/s1600/Andrewsoccer.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 291px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wFWpcKuLr9g/TsCJ_ta54TI/AAAAAAAABP0/tlXYbU4WCkQ/s400/Andrewsoccer.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674687258104029490" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-84023989465239047122011-11-08T09:06:00.000-08:002011-11-09T15:26:27.369-08:00On the urge to occupy [Bryan]I'm not a huge fan of the "protest-left," so I have mixed feelings about the Occupy Wall Street people. I think their energies could be much better employed actually engaging in partisan politics, like the Tea Partiers did when they took over the agenda of a major political party.<br /><br />However, there is no denying that the OWS folks have brought attention to a real problem. You don't have to be a militant egalitarian to acknowledge that a country is sick when it has such vast and growing income disparities as we have now. The top 1% has done really, really well over the past 30 years, much better than other income groups. This has led to an enormous amount of political power given to a small group of people (almost an oligarchy).<br /><br />Meanwhile, conservatives' unrelenting goal seems to be to preserve and extend lower tax rates for these favored few -- notwithstanding our big deficits, crumbling roads and bridges, and a decimated public service sector. Mitt Romney's economic plan, to name just one example, would include a <span style="font-style: italic;">$6.6 trillion tax cut</span> that would primarily benefit wealthy individuals and corporations (<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/07/313068/romneys-tax-plan-cost-6-6-trillion/">source</a>), thus making the all of these trends even worse. Personally, I don't have anything against people who have made a lot of money, at least when it is made through their hard work and initiative rather than through social privilege and bailouts. I wouldn't mind making more money myself. Asking people who have done very, very well over the past 30 years to pay a moderately higher tax rate seems both fair and pragmatic. You don't have to "hate the rich" to see this is good policy. Conservatives who are concerned with social stability should recognize this as much as anybody.<br /><br />Anyway, below I've prepared a fun array of charts (fun for me anyway) to illustrate what is happening and why.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vn12_AXxUN8/Trlmn4FSTqI/AAAAAAAABPc/MSGDW8V3c6k/s1600/110811krugman3-blog480.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 236px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vn12_AXxUN8/Trlmn4FSTqI/AAAAAAAABPc/MSGDW8V3c6k/s400/110811krugman3-blog480.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672678040905338530" border="0" /></a><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg="">The above chart tells the story told in terms of the growth of average income. The income of the top 1% (the red bar) has grown much more than the average family income (the blue bar) since 1979. </http:><br /></div><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""></http:></div><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""><br /></http:><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jmaXlEzUpp0/TrllnoL6YvI/AAAAAAAABO4/Ga5NVetVaLk/s1600/5616734195_83bf2aba1b_z.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 172px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jmaXlEzUpp0/TrllnoL6YvI/AAAAAAAABO4/Ga5NVetVaLk/s400/5616734195_83bf2aba1b_z.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672676937126535922" border="0" /></a>Above is roughly the same information broken down by income group.</http:> The income of the the top 1% (the red line) has grown by an astonishing 281%, much more than other groups.<br /></div><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""></http:></div><div style="text-align: left;"><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""></http:><br /><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""></http:></div><div style="text-align: center;"><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ic7quF_L5UU/TrllnIt8nKI/AAAAAAAABOo/k0H-oPgbijE/s1600/inequality.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 288px; height: 322px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ic7quF_L5UU/TrllnIt8nKI/AAAAAAAABOo/k0H-oPgbijE/s400/inequality.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672676928679353506" border="0" /></a>Here is story told in dollar amounts. Again, massive growth for a few, while everyone else is flat.</http:><br /><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""></http:></div><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""><br /></http:><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c-4tUrE9wPo/TrllnEchDzI/AAAAAAAABOc/2zkwD_IvjVQ/s1600/images.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 283px; height: 178px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c-4tUrE9wPo/TrllnEchDzI/AAAAAAAABOc/2zkwD_IvjVQ/s400/images.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672676927532502834" border="0" /></a>The story by income share. Key point: The growth in income of the top 1% has come at the expense of other groups. A rising tide is not lifting all boats. </http:><br /></div><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""></http:></div><http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""><br /></http:><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_ncRMrzoe20/TrllnwYd6UI/AAAAAAAABPA/ZOf9GLjZIhk/s1600/bush_400.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 329px; height: 391px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_ncRMrzoe20/TrllnwYd6UI/AAAAAAAABPA/ZOf9GLjZIhk/s400/bush_400.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672676939326679362" border="0" /></a>Here is one reason why this has happened: Tax rates for the wealthiest have plummeted lately, even as they make much more money.<br /></div><br /></div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vw7do8Wwmbg/TrlloWBe6jI/AAAAAAAABPM/fWPbQo_xcFA/s1600/ctjtaxdodge.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 243px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vw7do8Wwmbg/TrlloWBe6jI/AAAAAAAABPM/fWPbQo_xcFA/s400/ctjtaxdodge.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672676949430823474" border="0" /></a>Meanwhile, many corporations still pay no taxes. It is true that America on paper taxes corporation at a fairly high rate compared to other countries (perhaps too high). However, the loopholes and subsidies allow many corporations to pay a tiny fraction of their assigned tax rate. <http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""><br /></http:><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MmLBAnWdLUE/Trqur4QcUOI/AAAAAAAABPo/gGlAhJHhFKQ/s1600/unionincome.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 286px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MmLBAnWdLUE/Trqur4QcUOI/AAAAAAAABPo/gGlAhJHhFKQ/s400/unionincome.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673038749485519074" border="0" /></a>Another reason for the stagnation of the middle class has to do with the declining influence of unions. Again, you don't have to think unions are perfect (I sure don't) to recognize that they have played an important role in making sure that everyone benefits from economic growth. <http: com="" maqfc6bjgf4="" trlholvwjxi="" aaaaaaaaboq="" zyqlneocjv0="" s1600="" jpg=""><br /></http:>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-11090820133348226802011-11-07T18:35:00.000-08:002011-11-07T19:15:41.176-08:00October Pictures [Bryan]<p><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t0Ic0h1ElPo/Trib9h8r7EI/AAAAAAAABOE/JfOQAZ9dnPs/s1600/DSCN1083.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t0Ic0h1ElPo/Trib9h8r7EI/AAAAAAAABOE/JfOQAZ9dnPs/s400/DSCN1083.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672455212060372034" border="0" /></a>Nora was a "batterina" this year.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a-PxAIsAD2k/Tria9EcXe6I/AAAAAAAABNc/9FZq5hsynYE/s1600/DSCN1059.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a-PxAIsAD2k/Tria9EcXe6I/AAAAAAAABNc/9FZq5hsynYE/s400/DSCN1059.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672454104628558754" border="0" /></a>Stephen, a dragon, practicing his roar.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XYrj298EClI/Tria83cS6LI/AAAAAAAABNU/Y3l3GVc_ZBU/s1600/DSCN1058.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XYrj298EClI/Tria83cS6LI/AAAAAAAABNU/Y3l3GVc_ZBU/s400/DSCN1058.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672454101138598066" border="0" /></a>Andrew, a race car driver<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AjLFd_2zdk8/TriZVsxu5CI/AAAAAAAABNI/dqWSjaxqbpE/s1600/DSCN1041.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AjLFd_2zdk8/TriZVsxu5CI/AAAAAAAABNI/dqWSjaxqbpE/s400/DSCN1041.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672452328749196322" border="0" /></a>We went to the Corn Maize at Darby Creek to pick out our pumpkins and partake of the quaint autumn festivities.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uPBMCyryiDQ/TriZVYaRwjI/AAAAAAAABM8/xIJCuiC2vmM/s1600/638.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 180px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uPBMCyryiDQ/TriZVYaRwjI/AAAAAAAABM8/xIJCuiC2vmM/s400/638.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672452323282108978" border="0" /></a>Stephen, as ghoul.<br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eU_UrnSbw7A/TriXl4-fuJI/AAAAAAAABMw/4cOi83uCUmg/s1600/DSCN1060.JPG"><br /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fNEp2YvsIZk/Tria9WWFA8I/AAAAAAAABNs/NkMLJr7m0cs/s1600/DSCN1069.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fNEp2YvsIZk/Tria9WWFA8I/AAAAAAAABNs/NkMLJr7m0cs/s400/DSCN1069.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672454109434020802" border="0" /></a>Our Halloween party.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--dA70aM9Ok4/TriXlG-QaYI/AAAAAAAABMY/rFQiKw3PxsU/s1600/DSCN1068.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--dA70aM9Ok4/TriXlG-QaYI/AAAAAAAABMY/rFQiKw3PxsU/s400/DSCN1068.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672450394455828866" border="0" /></a>15 hyper kids. Good times.<br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-80NlUSy83DY/TriXkzzr2nI/AAAAAAAABMM/-2kZUUs4EsM/s1600/DSCN1049.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-80NlUSy83DY/TriXkzzr2nI/AAAAAAAABMM/-2kZUUs4EsM/s400/DSCN1049.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672450389311216242" border="0" /></a>Ah yes, and some good eating. I made up some roasted pumpkin salad with goat cheese, arugula and mint. Also, some pork loin with burnt brown sugar, thyme, and orange confit.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-66082404790771598172011-11-01T10:11:00.000-07:002011-11-01T10:20:03.444-07:00You know nothing of my work [Bryan]Someone posted my favorite scene from Woody Allen's masterpiece, Annie Hall, so I had to re-post it here. In this moment, a blowhard professor is pontificating about media theorist Marshall McLuhan and gets nailed as Allen pulls in McLuhan himself to set the record straight. Just so you know, I live in fear of just this: big shot mind scoldingly saying, "You know nothing of my work...How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing."<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"></div><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9wWUc8BZgWE" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe><div style="text-align: center;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-6248472151737078872011-10-31T12:23:00.000-07:002011-10-31T12:29:10.630-07:00Bow tie guy costume [Bryan]Apparently, there is now a bow-tie guy Halloween costume. <a href="http://www.partycity.com/product/adult+bow+tie+guy+costume.do?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=ProductSearch&utm_campaign=GoogleMerchant&extcmp=GoogleMerchant">You can buy it for $40 through Party City</a>. I am outraged. I am not a costume, I am a person.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IY6z3PboJUI/Tq72ucZoywI/AAAAAAAABMA/z5o68PB7ILw/s1600/31EVE9nj5CL-1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IY6z3PboJUI/Tq72ucZoywI/AAAAAAAABMA/z5o68PB7ILw/s400/31EVE9nj5CL-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669740258664172290" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-42052397414400018442011-10-19T18:46:00.000-07:002011-10-31T12:21:02.279-07:00This is how bad things are [Bryan]According to independent analyses, President Obama's job plan would create up to 1.9 [million] jobs and grow the economy by 2% (see <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63069.html">here</a>). It is endorsed by a broad majority of economists (see <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-09-09/obama-jobs-plan-economists/50336434/1">here</a>) and many business leaders (see <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-american-small-business-chamber-of-commerce-calls-for-passage-of-the-american-jobs-act-of-2011-131534603.html">here</a>). It would help rebuild our crumbling roads and other infrastructure. It is really, really important. It is also a moderate, bipartisan, centrist bill, with mostly old Republican ideas (see <a href="http://www.commerce.gov/blog/2011/10/13/american-jobs-act-full-bipartisan-ideas">here</a>). Every major provision is overwhelmingly popular, even among staunch Republican voters (see <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_10/disconnect_grows_between_gop_v032878.php">here</a>). According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Obama's bill would increase revenue and actually cut the deficit by $3 billion over ten years (<a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/186307-cbo-obama-jobs-bill-reduces-budget-deficit">source</a>). In sum, it cuts the deficit while at the same time giving the economy a real boost.<br /><br />So, what is happening with the bill? The good news is that it has majority support in the Senate. Unfortunately, the bill was just filibustered by a unified Republican minority and their conservative allies, seemingly bent on either destroying Obama or preserving slightly lower tax rates for millionaires. They blocked it procedurally, in other words, and won't even let it come up for discussion. Unbelievable.<br /><br />Democracy simply cannot survive if every bill can be stopped by 40 senators who are so intent on ensuring that a president doesn't see any success that they undercut their own ideas. Nowhere in the Constitution does it demand, or allow for, a super-majority requirement to pass legislation. But this is what things have come to. This is not good news for our country. Not good at all.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-38431708666322610572011-10-19T18:45:00.001-07:002011-10-19T18:45:52.699-07:00Total cuteness [Bryan]A quick note from the world of fatherhood. Nothing is cuter than a two-year-old trying to dance the Macarena. That is all.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20457507.post-70435794004736730012011-10-16T18:59:00.000-07:002011-10-21T08:35:31.652-07:00Are Christians Christian? [Bryan]A dialogue dedicated to Rev. Jeffers.<br /><br />Christian friend (CF): Hey Bryan. Quick question: Are Mormon's Christian. I don't think they are.<br /><br />Me: I suppose the answer depends on what you mean by "Christian."<br /><br />CF: Isn't it obvious. It is a simple question. Just answer it.<br /><br />Me: No, it's not obvious. People mean different things by "Christian." Sometimes, a Christian is someone who attempts to live the teachings, and imitate the example, of the Jesus described in the New Testament. In contrast to this "moral" understanding of Christian, the term is also used to refer to a belief or set of beliefs. The answer to your question is different depending on what you mean by "Christian."<br /><br />CF: Well, I think you are a decent guy. You may be a Christian in what you call the moral sense. I don't want to judge that. But that is not what I'm asking about.<br /><br />Me: You are too kind. I'm not sure I'm even particularly Christian even in this moral sense. The New Testament makes some incredible demands: losing yourself completely, selling all that you have and giving it to the poor, renouncing the world, loving you enemies, turning the other cheek, and so forth. I'm not sure I've done any of this to any great extent. I live a relatively wealthy, comfortable, self-centered life, a life squarely in the world. Am I Christian in a moral sense? Probably not. The best that can be said is that, on good days, I'm trying to be.<br /><br />CF: Well, whatever, I'm mostly talking about Christianity as a particular set of beliefs.<br /><br />Me: But doesn't "Christian" just mean somebody who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ? If so, then Mormons are Christians.<br /><br />CF: It is not just that. "Christianity" refers to an interconnected set of beliefs about Jesus and his relationship to God. For the Christian, for example, God is completely transcendent, creator of all that is, and Jesus, his Son, is one in substance with God the Father.<br /><br />Me: Why are those beliefs central to being Christian? None of that is taught clearly in the New Testament. Isn't this all just peripheral stuff?<br /><br />CF: No. These beliefs are central to what it means for Jesus to be divine. Since Mormons deny the traditional Trinity, they are really saying that Jesus is not connected in the right way to the transcendent God. Jesus cannot be divine, under Mormon beliefs, because he is not really one with God. The Mormon beliefs about God are closer to, say, Zeus and Greek polytheism, than they are to the traditional God of Christianity. These beliefs about God are problematic, to say the least.<br /><br />Me: That last statement about Zeus is unfair, but I suppose I can see what you mean. It is true that Mormons reject transcendence. For Mormons, God is squarely in the universe, not standing apart from it. It is also true that Mormons reject your version of creation and your version of the Trinity. We believe God and Jesus are one, but not in a metaphysical sense. They are one in a social sense of sharing the same characteristics and of being on the same team, so to speak. I suppose, then, if we use your technical definition of Christianity, then it is true the Mormons are not "Christians." But I, for one, wouldn't really want to be part of that club. For example, I really like the idea that the Trinity is social rather than metaphysical, that bonds between beings are achievements created through acts of love rather than existing as engrained features of some unchanging ontological reality. But, again, why should we accept this technical understanding of the term "Christian"? That definition seems contestable. <br /><br />CF: Because, over time, this is what "Christian" has come to mean. It would be like someone who didn't believe the Mormon story of the Restoration, but who still liked the Book of Mormon, trying to be called a "true Mormon." Your Book of Mormon is interconnected to beliefs about your Restoration, which is interconnected with your labels. Beliefs are important and they are interconnected. You can't just start making up definitions for people who just believe a piece here and there. <br /><br />Me: My problem, I suppose, is not what you mean when you say "Mormons aren't Christians." Rather, it is what other people hear when you say it. When Mormons hear this, they either hear it as a moral insult (Mormons are not good people), or they hear it as denying that they believe in the Jesus of the New Testament, which to them is so obviously false that they can't even comprehend why you would say such a thing. Moreover, it is misleading to outsiders since most of them are not theologians. They hear "not Christians" and they think "don't believe in Jesus." This is particularly interesting because folk-Christian belief, that is, the belief of everyday churchgoers, is actually often closer to Mormonism than it is to your technical Christianity. Large swaths of Christians, under this definition, are not really "Christian" either. They don't get the theological details right.<br /><br />CF: That is a good point, I guess. If we restrict the term "Christian" to exacting technical beliefs about theology, then even many Christians are not Christians. Perhaps they themselves, though, do not have to have these right beliefs. Perhaps it is enough if they belong to institutions, their churches, that profess to have these right beliefs. <br /><br />Me: Don't you see, though, how lifeless your definition of Christian then becomes? A Christian is now someone "belonging to an institutions that accepts the proper technical theological beliefs about God and Jesus." <br /><br />CF: Hmmmm, that does some lifeless. Perhaps we should just give up this labeling game altogether?<br /><br />Me: Perhaps. I think, however, the idea of a "Christian" might still do some work, but you have to go back to the moral sense. A Christian is not really something somebody is. The requirements are simply too demanding, too life altering. It is something somebody tries to be. Are Mormons Christians, then? Some are, perhaps, but most are not. Are Christians Christians? Some are, maybe, but most are not. Being Christians is a direction, not a status; it is a aspiration, not a label; it is a path, not a destination.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2