Recent pics [Bryan]

In February, Stephen celebrated his first birthday.

Nora pretending to be the dreaded "sock monster."

Obligatory cute bath-time picture.

For our 12th anniversary, Ellie and I ditched the kids (thanks Anna and Spencer) and spent a weekend in Cincinnati. Here are Remus and Romulus nursing at the she-wolf. Not sure what this statue has to do with Cincinnati, but there you are.

Here we are in the Cincinnati conservatory.

And here are Picasso and I in the art museum. (Bravo to Cincinnati for having so much cool free stuff to do.)

Lunch at Eden Park.

At the Newport Aquarium. Ellie was a bit wimpy at the shark petting exhibit.

Stephen doing is favorite thing -- ripping papers.

Nora celebrated her 7th birthday and is growing up way too fast.

The weather allowed us to return to Hocking Hills.

At Old Man's Cave.

I just got back from a trip to San Francisco for a conference. Here is an awkward self-portrait of me boating around San Francisco Bay.

I toured Alcatraz prison. Fascinating. Well worth the $26.

Here is the sign at the prison library. Apparently, the prisoners were way into German idealism. Schpoenhauer I can understand, but Kant and Hegel? Really? I'm a little embarrassed to think Al Capone might have got more out of Hegel than I did.

The Broadway. Between cell block B and C in Alcatraz. If those walls could talk, I bet they could tell some stories.

Prisoners spent 23 hours a day in small, 7 foot by 9 foot cells. The isolation cells were particularly haunting, as were the bullet holes in the walls and floors.

What makes a sport good? [Bryan]

I've been trying to figure out if there is an objective way to determine what makes one sport superior to another sport. Here are the criteria I've come up with. Call it my philosophy of sports.

1. The game should be played continually, with few stops in the action. Futbol (or "soccer" to you Norte Americanos) and hockey score well here, basketball moderately well, and football and baseball not well at well.

2. The game should focus on human skill and athleticism, not who can buy the best equipment. So, competitive swimming, which seems very dependent on suits and pools, scores low here. Golf too. NASCAR is beyond poor. Anything with steroid problems is bad.

3. You should be able to play pick-up versions of the sport the replicate the real thing. That is to say, the sport should be simple and uncluttered with equipment, refereeing, or other infrastructure. Futbol and basketball score well here, baseball moderately well, and football and hockey quite poorly.

4. Related to 3, officiating should be unintrusive and relatively objective. I'm not sure about the objectivity part since all sports have subjective refereeing. But in futbol and hockey you rarely see the officials. In football the officiating is moderately intrusive, while basketball (fouls) and baseball (balls v. strikes) score poorly, with referees being a huge part of the game.

5. You should not be able to gain advantage in the sport by getting caught officially breaking the rules. This really bugs me, and it is basketball's great bugaboo. Nothing bothers me more than when someone gets beat off the dribble and then intentionally fouls to stop the layup. Weak, weak, weak. Sports should never allow this. Basketball should make fouls much more costly. In no other sport is breaking the rules so rewarded.

6. Competitive elements of the sport need to be manifest within the official rules. This is hockey's big bugaboo. Half of the competitive spirit is manifest outside of the game itself -- in fighting. In a good sport, this doesn't happen and that spirit is expressed within the game itself.

7. The game should create moments of real beauty. This is a subjective call, but nothing is more beautiful than basketball, manifesting beauty in power, speed, and style. Hockey is too fast for the human eye, so it is the loser. Baseball and football have moments, but they are rare. Granted, your mileage may vary here.

8. Players should be asked to do everything the sport involves. The more player specialization, the worse the sport; if you play a sport, you should really play it all. Basketball scores very well here, futbol moderately well (goalies), while baseball (particularly with the DH) and football score miserably. I can't underscore how bad football fails this test, with offensive, defensive, and special team specialist, each further subdivided by positions that do vastly different things.

So, in the end, futbol is the great winner here, followed by basketball, hockey, and baseball. Football is the great loser. This is odd since I really like to watch football. What am I missing?

Ellie's Easter Talk

A few years ago I had a conversation with a sister that stuck with me. She talked about how difficult the winter was for her. Winter's dark dreariness sent her into a depression each year which it was hard to emerge from. I can sympathize with this. I don't know whether it's seeing the bright sun more often or not having to wear four layers of clothing when I go running in the mornings, but my body and my spirit both just feel lighter when spring comes, as if a burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I'd like to talk today about the return of spring, particularly the event of Easter, and about the lifting of burdens.

The scriptures contain imagery of burdens borne and lifted. In Psalm 55:22 we are urged to "Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee." In Matthew 11:30 we find the familiar invitation of the Savior: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Both these scriptures are to be understood metaphorically--no actual burdens are being carried. The weight we're contemplating is spiritual rather than physical. But both scriptures are very physical in their imagery. The phrase "cast your burden upon the Lord" brings to mind an image of "casting" or throwing a heavy sack that the Lord will catch and carry for us. The idea of being granted rest after strenuous labor might remind us of times when we were "heavy laden" with an exhausting physical task.

I think it's no mistake that the relief being offered here, though spiritual, is spoken of in physical terms. Burdens of body and burdens of spirit affect each other. Physical burdens can afflict our spirits and spiritual burdens can cripple our bodies, since our bodies and spirits together make up our souls.

If these two scriptures begin with the worry of burdens, they end with assurance of divine aid--having our burdens lifted. David promises in his Psalm that if we do throw our burdens to the Lord, that "he will sustain thee." In Matthew, Jesus promises us rest for our souls and a lighter burden.

There have been two moments in my life when I have felt a keen sense of relief as a burden was lifted from my shoulders.

The first occurred when I was about fifteen years old. My dad took my brother and sister and I on a backpacking trip to Zion National Park in Southern Utah. I'm no natural athlete and the physical demands of the hike were a shock to my system. The summer sun in Zion's beat down hard and by the late afternoon I was sweaty and dirty and my whole body ached from carrying the bulky backpack. When my dad finally declared that we had reached camp, my siblings and I were ecstatic. I had never felt such relief as when I sat down and removed the straps of my pack. My shoulders still ached for a few minutes, but my body was overjoyed to be carrying only my own weight again. With that burden lifted from my shoulders, I felt like skipping around our camp, and since I was fifteen, I probably did.

Christ understood how physical burdens can weaken our souls. He spent much of his ministry healing wounded bodies. One man whose physical burden was lifted by Jesus was Bartimaeus. His story is found in Mark 10: 46-52:

". . .And as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a great multitude, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar. . .was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!'

"And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more. . .

"And Jesus stopped and said, 'Call him.'

"And they called the blind man, saying. . ., 'Take heart; rise, he is calling you.'

"And throwing off his mantle he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said unto him, 'What do you want me to do for you?'

"And the blind man said to Him, 'Master, let me receive my sight.'

"And Jesus said to him, 'Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.'

"And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the way."

Bartimaeus was both eager and full of faith. He would not be dissuaded from his goal of being healed, pursuing Jesus despite the discouraging remarks of those around him. We can only imagine the burden his blindness caused in his life. We know that he was begging along the roadside. Surely his blindness contributed to his inability to work for a living. Imagine what it meant to him to have Jesus give him his sight. It must have turned his life around. Jesus lovingly lifted the burden of Bartimaeus's blindness and opened the door to a new life for him.

During his ministry Jesus healed the blind, the deaf, the crippled, the leprous, and even brought people back from the dead. What pains he did not heal directly, he came to comprehend in the Garden of Gethsemane. As it says in Alma 7: 11-12, "And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities."

The second time I felt relief from a great burden came shortly after my daughter Nora was born. For some reason, at that time I began remembering a wrong I had done my sister in the past. It happened when we were both children, and I didn't know if she even still remembered it, but I began dwelling on it and experiencing terrible feelings of guilt. I soon realized that even though it had happened long ago, if I wanted to move forward with my life, I needed to resolve my feelings of guilt. It was really the first time I ever thought of applying the Atonement to myself. I had never felt this kind of suffering for sin. I knew I had to repent; I had to talk to my sister and I had to plead that she and my Heavenly Father would forgive me.

After a week of misery and a pep talk from Bryan, I called my sister. Nervously, I told her what I remembered, gave her my heartfelt apology, and waited for her response. She remembered what had happened, but gave me gracious and immediate forgiveness. When I hung up with her and got down on my knees to ask the Lord's forgiveness, the relief I felt was one of the sweetest feelings I had felt in my life. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the gift of the Atonement, for knowing that I did not have to dwell in misery and shame over things I had done in the past. I felt such hope and such love. My burden was lifted and I could move forward with my life.

Christ's Atonement lifts our spiritual burdens. In one of my favorite stories of Jesus, a woman is brought before Jesus by an angry mob, and accused of adultery. Continuing in John 8, it says,

"They said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very
act. . . .

"But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. . .

"And when they heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one. . .

"And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. He said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

"She said, No man, Lord.

"And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."

Jesus's forgiveness here is so simple and so clear. As Bible scholar Frances Taylor Gench notes, not only has He both acknowledged and forgiven the woman's guilt, while possibly saving her life, he has brought the accusing crowd to recognize their own sinful state, and perhaps repent themselves. They arrived as a mob, but left, to their credit, one by one, each pondering his own sin. We can only imagine the woman's feeling of gratitude and relief. Surely, after having such a terrible burden of sin and fear lifted from her shoulders, she went forth and sinned no more.

In this Easter time, it seems fitting to remember that Christ spent his life and ultimately his death lifting the burdens, physical and spiritual, from other's shoulders. From the woman taken in adultery, he lifted the burdens of public humiliation and sin. From the blind man, he lifted the burden of a lifetime of struggling in darkness. I have felt his forgiveness change my life.

During this fateful week we now celebrate as Easter, He took on his fragile mortal frame every burden of grief or sickness or suffering man has ever had call to bear. In Gethsemane, during his arrest and scourging, and on the cross, He suffered mental and physical anguish, the weight of which broke his body and nearly broke his spirit, but He bore it all, and completed His task on the cross, out of love for His Father and love for us.

That He fulfilled his mission and rose, glorified, that Sunday morning from the tomb, is a joy we can all share in and call sweet. Through His suffering in the Garden, and then through His glorious resurrection, we too have the hope of a new day. Through His grace and our repentance, we can have our burdens lifted. Whether the darkness that surrounds us is the dreariness of February, the loneliness of loss, or the hopelessness of sin, if we will let him, our Savior can take our hand and leads us into the light.

What will happen this year? [Bryan]

Here are some of my favorite changes that will immediately be in place thanks to the new health care reform (Kevin Drum has a more comprehensive list). Starting this year:

• Small businesses that choose to offer coverage will begin to receive tax credits of up to 35% of premiums to help make employee coverage more affordable.

• Children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied health insurance coverage.

• Insurance companies will be banned from dropping people from coverage when they get sick, and they will be banned from implementing lifetime caps on coverage. Annual limits on coverage will be banned for certain plans.

• Adults who are uninsured because of pre-existing conditions will have access to affordable insurance through a temporarily subsidized high-risk pool (this is to help until the exchanges and subsidies get up and running, I think).

• The bill increases funding for community health centers, so they can treat nearly double the number of patients over the next five years.

• The bill creates a new, independent appeals process that ensures consumers in new private plans have access to an effective process to appeal decisions made by their insurer.

• New private plans will be required to provide free preventive care: no co-payments and no deductibles for preventive services. And beginning January 1, 2011, Medicare will do the same.

• The bill starts to close the Medicare Part D 'donut hole' by providing a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the gap in prescription drug coverage. And beginning in 2011, the bill institutes a 50% discount on prescription drugs in the 'donut hole.'
  

Forgiving Love [Bryan]

"Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know that they are not good, who feel themselves in need of a divine mercy, who live in a dimension deeper and higher than that of moral idealism, feel themselves as well as their fellow men convicted of sin by a holy God and know that the difference between the good man and the bad man are insignificant in his sight....When life is lived in this dimension the chasms which divide men are bridged not directly, not by resolving the conflicts on the historical levels, but by the sense of an ultimate unity in, and common dependence upon, the realm of transcendence."

Reinhold Niebuhr, "Love as Forgiveness"

Nine! [Ellie]

I just ran 9 miles! Nine miles! For my running friends this is no big deal, but for me it's very big. It's the farthest I've ever run in my life.

Until now my plans for running a half-marathon on May 1st have felt a little like a pipe dream. But now I've run nine miles and I feel great.* The endorphins are terrific. I have always had very strict mental limits on what I thought I could accomplish physically. I would never have believed I could do this in high school. Hooray for allowing yourself to grow and change, and hooray for 9 miles!

*Not to be taken entirely literally. I'm a little sore and I have blisters and Anna and I had to stop to walk for about 1 minute when we had twin stitches in our sides.

A certain blindness [Bryan]

Not far from Yellowstone National Park sits the small town of Chester, Idaho. On the outskirts of Chester once lived a relative of mine, now deceased, an elderly great uncle. When I was a teenager, we visited this uncle before our backpacking trips to the Grand Tetons or Wind Rivers. He was a widower, a kind and gentle man, retired from the Forest Service, living alone in a perpetually unfinished house. The house was surrounded by enormous uncultivated fields, full of weeds, dust, sagebrush, and swirling wind. Every morning, this uncle would go out with a weedwacker and wage a Sisyphean struggle against the quarter mile of weeds lining his driveway down to the main highway. It was hard, difficult labor, and I failed to see what the point was – the weeds, after all, weren’t causing any obvious harm, and they grew back as quickly as he could cut them down. A wasted effort, I thought. A sad way to end one's life.

I have since learned, however, that life is a continual struggle to overcome our blindness to the inner significance of other human lives. As William James writes, "Each is bound to feel intensely the importance of his own duties and the significance of the situations that call these forth. But this feeling is in each of us a vital secret, for sympathy with which we vainly look to others. The others are too much absorbed in their own vital secrets to take an interest in ours. Hence the stupidity and injustice of our opinions, so far as they deal with the significance of alien lives."

And so it was. As I became better acquainted with this uncle, I learned that his wife had designed the original plan of that house. I learned that he and his wife had been very close. I learned that he was intent on finishing the house to her every specification, even though she had died many years earlier. The daily struggle against the weeds, I came to suspect, was an act of affirming the relationship with his beloved. It was a heroic refusal to let her memory die.

Hence, the stupidity and injustice of my opinion. Every person has an inner secret, I think, a "vital" secret, a secret that gives each life its driving energy. It is a great adventure to uncover and understand, however dimly, the eagerness that drives the lives of those who surround us. Even prisons and sickrooms have their own revelations. Our job is to to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing.

The time has come - Updated [Bryan]

Tonight the House of Representatives will be voting on the Senate's version of the health care reform bill and its related amendments. This is a big deal to me. A really big deal. Readers of this blog know that health care has been something I've long been concerned about. We have a health care system in which up to 45,000 people die each year because they lack insurance. Meanwhile, current health care spending is growing rapidly and will bankrupt the country within a few decades. These are problems we need to address; if we can't, our country is indeed broken.

If you haven't been following this debate closely, here is a quick run down of what the current bill looks like.

The conservative side of me is happy for the substantial cost control. The current bill is projected by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office to cut the deficit by $130 billion in the first decade, and $1.2 trillion in the second, although many health care experts believe it may actually be much more than this. This is the most ambitious attempt to slow medical spending ever undertaken. Harvard health economist David Cutler recently argued, "What is on the table is the most significant action on medical spending ever proposed in the United States. Should we really walk away from that?" (Cutler's important article can be found here). The conservative in me also likes harnessing the free market through the new health insurance "exchanges." These exchanges will help consumers and small businesses navigate the health insurance market and make insurers compete, in a more clear and transparent way, for their business. Markets can be cool things.

The more liberal part of me is happy about several things. The bill helps 32 million people get health insurance, mostly buy giving them "vouchers" to help them purchase insurance (more precisely, tax subsidies based on income). People with preexisting conditions will be able to buy insurance at a reasonable cost, and insurance companies won't be able to rescind your coverage once they have given it to you. The bill finally closes the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit's notorious "doughnut hole" thus making medicine more affordable for grandma and grandpa. It will invest in new funding for community health centers to serve up to 20 million patients by 2015. It will increase the number of primary care providers in underserved communities, with new funding for the National Health Service Corps. This will fund scholarships and loan repayment to entice more doctors into primary care medicine.

The final bill has been endorsed by a wide variety of groups like the American Medical Association, the American Association of Retired Persons, the American Nurses Association, the American Association of Pediatrics, the Catholic Health Association, the American Hospital Association, the National Council of Churches, the Consortium of Jesuit Bioethics Programs, the American Heart Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, the American Diabetes Association, the American Cancer Society, and many, many others.

Of course, there is some medicine to take, also, and it is not all fun and games. Expensive insurance plans will be taxed at a higher rate within the decade (which will probably affect me), and everyone will now have to buy insurance or face a fine (Mitt Romney called this a "personal responsibility" provision in his Massachusetts bill, which is very similar to the current bill). There will also be a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for families making more than $250,000 per year (which would definitely not affect me). Nobody likes these things, but they are necessary to pay for the bill and to allow for the insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions.

So, this is a good bill, even a great one. We need it for moral reasons. We need it for our fiscal health and to reduce the deficit. We need it so that business can be more competitive internationally. If this bill passes tonight it will be the most important piece of legislation that has passed in my lifetime. It is time to do the right thing and pass the bill.

UPDATE: Well, they did it! History has been made.

Rumblings in today's paper [Bryan]

There was much of interest on the internet today. You may have heard, for example, my fellow religionist Glen Beck ranting crazily about churches that talk about social justice. "I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church web site," Beck told his television audience. "If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

Now, Beck rarely know what he is talking about with respect to any subject, and this is no exception. Turns out even we Mormons talk about social justice every now and then:

Kent P. Jackson, associate dean of religion at Brigham Young University, said in an interview: “My own experience as a believing Latter-day Saint over the course of 60 years is that I have seen social justice in practice in every L.D.S. congregation I’ve been in. People endeavor with all of our frailties and shortcomings to love one another and to lift up other people. So if that’s Beck’s definition of social justice, he and I are definitely not on the same team.”

Philip Barlow, the Arrington Professor of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University, said: “One way to read the Book of Mormon is that it’s a vast tract on social justice. It’s ubiquitous in the Book of Mormon to have the prophetic figures, much like in the Hebrew Bible, calling out those who are insensitive to injustices. A lot of Latter-day Saints would think that Beck was asking them to leave their own church.”

On a different topic, I should admit that I often disagree with conservative columnist David Brooks, particularly about health care. But he seems to have a grasp of who President Obama actually is, and who he is not. He writes:

Readers of this column know that I’ve been critical on health care and other matters. Obama is four clicks to my left on most issues....But he is still the most realistic and reasonable major player in Washington.

Liberals are wrong to call him weak and indecisive. He’s just not always pursuing their aims. Conservatives are wrong to call him a big-government liberal. That’s just not a fair reading of his agenda.

Take health care. He has pushed a program that expands coverage, creates exchanges and moderately tinkers with the status quo — too moderately to restrain costs. To call this an orthodox liberal plan is an absurdity. It more closely resembles the center-left deals cut by Tom Daschle and Bob Dole, or Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney....

Take education. Obama has taken on a Democratic constituency, the teachers’ unions, with a courage not seen since George W. Bush took on the anti-immigration forces in his own party. In a remarkable speech on March 1, he went straight at the guardians of the status quo by calling for the removal of failing teachers in failing schools. Obama has been the most determined education reformer in the modern presidency.

Take foreign policy. To the consternation of many on the left, Obama has continued about 80 percent of the policies of the second Bush term. Obama conducted a long review of the Afghan policy and was genuinely moved by the evidence. He has emerged as a liberal hawk, pursuing victory in Iraq and adopting an Afghan surge that has already utterly transformed the momentum in that war. The Taliban is now in retreat and its leaders are being assassinated or captured at a steady rate....

In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country. We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality, fundamentally misunderstanding the man in the Oval Office.

Very few people on either the right or left seem to understand the sort of president we've got. Bravo to Brooks for cutting through the crap.

What makes a sport good? [Bryan]

I've been trying to figure out if there is an objective way to determine what makes one sport superior to another sport. Here are the criteria I've come up with. Call it my philosophy of sports.

1. The game should be played continually, with few stops in the action. Futbol (or "soccer" to you Norte Americanos) and hockey score well here, basketball moderately well, and football and baseball not well at well.

2. The game should focus on human skill and athleticism, not who can buy the best equipment. So, competitive swimming, which seems very dependent on suits and pools, scores low here. Golf too. Anything with steroid problems is bad.

3. You should be able to play pick-up versions of the sport the replicate the real thing. That is to say, the sport should be simple and uncluttered with equipment, refereeing, or other infrastructure. Futbol and basketball score well here, baseball moderately well, and football and hockey quite poorly.

4. Related to 3, officiating should be unintrusive and relatively objective. I'm not sure about the objectivity part since all sports have subjective refereeing. But in futbol and hockey you rarely see the officials. In football the officiating is moderately intrusive, while basketball (fouls) and baseball (balls v. strikes) score poorly, with referees being a huge part of the game.

5. You should not be able to gain advantage in the sport by getting caught officially breaking the rules. This really bugs me, and it is basketball's great bugaboo. Nothing bothers me more than when someone gets beat off the dribble and then intentionally fouls to stop the layup. Weak, weak, weak. Sports should never allow this. Basketball should make fouls much more costly. In no other sport is breaking the rules so rewarded.

6. Competitive elements of the sport need to be manifest within the official rules. This is hockey's big bugaboo. Half of the competitive spirit is manifest outside of the game itself -- in fighting. In a good sport, this doesn't happen and that spirit is expressed within the game itself.

7. The game should create moments of real beauty. This is a subjective call, but nothing is more beautiful than basketball, manifesting beauty in power, speed, and style. Hockey is too fast for the human eye, so it is the loser. Baseball and football have moments, but they are rare. Granted, your mileage may vary here.

8. Players should be asked to do everything the sport involves. The more player specialization, the worse the sport; if you play a sport, you should really play it all. Basketball scores very well here, futbol moderately well (goalies), while baseball (particularly with the DH) and football score miserably. I can't underscore how bad football fails this test, with offensive, defensive, and special team specialist, each further subdivided by positions that do vastly different things.

So, in the end, futbol is the great winner here, followed by basketball, hockey, and baseball. Football is the great loser. This is odd since I really like to watch football. What am I missing?

Mashed potato update [Bryan]

Yes, indeed, the technique I described in this post makes for some very flavorful mashed potatoes. It was an unqualified success -- best mashed potatoes ever! So, no boiling the potatoes from now on and draining the water for me. Here is the recipe I've modified from Cooks County TV:

Garlic Mashed Potatoes (Bryan's variation)

4 lbs. potatoes
1.5 sticks butter
8 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp. sugar
1.5 cups half-and-half
1.25 cups water
sea salt
freshly ground pepper

1. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a pot. Add garlic and sugar and cook for 4 minutes.

2. Add to pot peeled potatoes, 1.25 cups of half-and-half, 1.25 cups water, 1 tsp. salt. Boil and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

3. Do not drain. Add remaining butter and half-and-half, whip with mixer until liquid is absorbed.

4. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Not good at all [Bryan]

Not good news coming out of global temperature data:

"January, according to satellite (data), was the hottest January we've ever seen," said Nicholls of Monash University's School of Geography and Environmental Science in Melbourne.

"Last November was the hottest November we've ever seen, November-January as a whole is the hottest November-January the world has seen," he said of the satellite data record since 1979.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in December that 2000-2009 was the hottest decade since records began in 1850, and that 2009 would likely be the fifth warmest year on record. WMO data show that eight out of the 10 hottest years on record have all been since 2000.

Perfect Mashed Potato Quest Continues [Bryan]

My unrelenting quest for the perfect mashed potatoes continues. I was watching Cooks County TV on PBS today and it rocked my mashed potato world. Apparently, one should not boil the potatoes in water and then drain off the water. You lose flavor that way. They suggested cooking the garlic in sugar and butter (making a caramelized garlic). Then, in the same pot, you add the potatoes and just the right amount of water and half-and-half. When the potatoes are soft, you then add large amounts of butter and more half-and-half and simply mash the potatoes with that and the liquid that remains. No draining.

So, the keys seem to be a lot of butter and cream (already knew that), but also caramelized garlic and the no-drain method. They also said a lot of garlic (12 cloves!) is necessary to overcome the regular blandness of potatoes.

I'm going to try it and keep you posted.

Where I come from [Bryan]

It has been dawning on me that we will probably spend the rest of our lives in Columbus. This has never really been the plan. Five years ago, I could have told you nothing about Columbus. It was not that I had a bad impression of Ohio, it was more that I had no impression of Ohio. I had never imagined that living in Ohio, or raising a family in Ohio, would have been even a remote possibility. When I took the job at The Ohio State University, I always imagined in the back of my mind that we might move elsewhere. Again, it is not that we haven't liked Ohio -- we have -- it is just that we haven't really thought of ourselves as Ohioans.

That is all starting to change. My tenure review is going well so far. Tenure, of course, will provide permanent job security in Ohio if it materializes. In addition, I am becoming convinced that there won't be many new faculty positions in other places. For various reasons, few seem to care about my field anymore, so I doubt more attractive possibilities will be available in the future.

Thinking of myself as an Ohioan is major shift in identity. I have always enjoyed telling people that I am from Sat Lake City, Utah. People usually seem interested. Sometimes they get a curious look in their eyes ("Is this guy Mormon," I can hear them wondering); sometimes they regale me with tales of their recent vacation to Utah; sometimes they say they've never met anyone from Utah. To be from Utah is to be (slightly) foreign and exotic, in both good ways and bad ways. Moreover, I have a visceral connection to the looming Wasatch mountains and tree-lined neighborhood I grew up in, a fact that becomes more apparent each time I visit.

At the same time, when I go "back home" I recognize changes in the city and landscape. Some of these changes are good, some are bad, but they all scream that the place is not mine anymore. I also recognize problems that I simply didn't see before, for example, the unholy and offensive mixtures of religion and capitalism that dot Utah's ubiquitous advertising spaces.

On this side of the country, my children know little besides Ohio. They were born here, and are connected to this place, just as I was connected to the mountain valleys of Utah. When Nora went back to Utah a few years ago, she wanted to know where all the trees were. They are true Midwesterners. In addition, it is getting awkward to say, "I live in Ohio right now, but I'm originally from Utah." It seems a slight, almost a personal offense, to the good people of Ohio and the opportunities the state has offered me. As I watch the mist coming off the Scioto river in the early morning, see the beautiful rolling green hills, peppered with old red barns, and watch the people chant excitedly "O-H-I-O," I begin to sense a connection to this place. But what does it mean for me to claim this place as my place? Is it the same me, just located in a different place, or is it a fundamentally different me? Is place radically or just incidentally tied to who we are?

I guess, in the end, I am starting to say goodbye to my identification as a Utahan. It will always be a part of me, to be sure, but a part that exists in the past, in memory, rather than in current and future possibility.

Exciting budget blogging [Bryan]

I think I will blog about something exciting tonight...like the federal budget.

Now, a case could be made that Obama could do more about long-term deficits. Just to be clear, though, Obama's proposed budget does not increase the medium or long-term budget deficit. His budget would actually reduce deficits by $1.25 trillion over 10 years, compared to what they would be by continuing current policies. Under his budget, spending is scheduled to fall a bit from 24.7 percent of GDP in 2009 to 23.7 percent in 2020. Obama probably pushed the limits of what is politically possible at this point. Notice that the President's deficit (red line) is lower than current deficit projections. Alas, I doubt he will get any credit for this.

Two types of people, times two [Bryan]

There are two types of people when it comes to vacation. First, there are those people who view vacations as a time for relaxation. These are people who like to go to resort destinations and spend a lot of time frolicking on beaches. These are people who like the idea of a cruise, where they float around in a boat for awhile, overeat, and sleep in. They also like to go to theme parks, where the goal is to "have fun." The idea behind the vacation, for these folks, is to take a break from real life and recharge the proverbial batteries. In the other camp are those who see vacations are opportunities for self improvement. These are people who travel for self-discovery or for individual learning. Such people tend to travel at a rather frantic pace, with a travel agenda filled with historical and cultural sites, especially museums. Natural wonders are also high on the list. They prefer not to be wined and dined, as in a cruise, but to figure out meals and travel arrangements on their own. Figuring out a different city, after all, is part of the challenge and attraction. They often come home from travel exhausted, but with a different view of themselves and of the world.

Either type of travel works well, although it may not work so well if traveling companions have different styles of travel. Although, sometimes, people with different approaches can help each other overcome the weaknesses of the other's approach. I am more in the second camp, while Ellie seems to be fine with either type of travel. We make pretty good traveling companions. She is always good at helping me to slow done.

This distinction roughly holds for reading habits as well. There are people who view reading as a form of entertainment. They see reading as a chance to check out, or escape, the world in which they find themselves. A book is a good book if they get engrossed in it, and if they lose track of time as they read it (a "page turner" is high praise). Such people largely focus on fiction, particularly modern novels, where it is relatively easy to get into a story. In the other camp are those who see reading as an act of self improvement. Reading is more a form of learning than entertainment. Such people prefer non-fiction, and often struggle through big books because it will be "good for them" to read those books. Often, such books are left unfinished. Fiction, when it is read, is usually in the form of "classic" literature. Books are judged by how much information they give or how they change the individual reader.

Again, I'm probably in the latter camp. When I read a novel just for fun, I get a bit restless. With so much to learn about the world, with some many interesting true stories out there, why spend time in a world of imagination?

Winter storm warning [Bryan]

A big winter storm hit this weekend. We got pelted with about 13 inches of snow. Good times for the kids, though.

The Old Order Changeth [Bryan]

Ellie and I have been reading the Harry Potter books to Nora and Andrew. They absolutely love them, particularly Nora who begs to read more chapters every night. Given this excitement, we decided to let them stay up last night to watch the first Harry Potter movie, which was being shown on ABC. Nora and Andrew, who rarely see non-animated movies, were transfixed.

Anyway, here is the interesting thing. Andrew and Nora have been raised in a world of DVDs and PBS. The idea of commercial television is largely foreign to them. Thus, when a commercial break would interrupt the movie, they did not take kindly to the intrusion. Andrew simply could not understand why we couldn't just skip over the commercials and go back to the movie. We had to repeatedly assure him that the movie would return in a few minutes.

It struck me that my kids are already living in a different media world than the one I was raised in. The world is changing.

Announcing Stephen's First Word [Bryan]

I always knew that "firsts" were a big thing for parents: first teeth, first word, first steps, and so forth. What they didn't tell me was how subjective it sometimes is to actually determine a first. For example, what actually constitutes a first step? A vaguely forward movement ending in a heap of falling baby? A step forward where balance is achieved? Actual forward movement? Consistent forward movement? The first word is an even tougher call. What counts as a "word"? A noise that sounds vaguely like an English word that is used repeatedly? A non-English sound that is used under similar contexts?

In my wisdom, have determined that a first word (a) must be a noise remotely resembling an English word, (b) must be used repeatedly and not just once or twice, and (c) must be used in a context that signifies some understanding of what that word means. Unless a baby's sound meets these three standards, it does not qualify as a first word.

Now, using these completely objective criteria, I am pleased to announce that Stephen has now said his first word. That word is -- wait for it -- Daddy! Actually, it is "Da-duh," which more or less resembles the English word. He uses it consistently, and in a context in which I am usually present. Now, of course, Ellie will claim that my application of these criteria have been distorted by my selfish desire to have Stephen's first utterances be directed at me, his dear father. But she is definitely wrong about this. This was a completely impartial, objective, scientific judgment.

Startin' 'em young [Ellie]

Stephen's turning one next week, and we can hardly believe it. Our families have been asking what to get him, and the only thing we can think of that he consistently likes to play with are books. Board books, novels, printed dissertations. Anything with covers and pages. He likes to chew the covers and turn the pages. All our board book bindings are gnawed. His favorite right now, and what Bryan took with him to entertain Stephen at the grocery store today? A little bright green hardcover copy of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

We like to develop their literary tastes (pun intended) early in this family.

Taxes are done [Bryan]

I finished our taxes today. I like to get them done, and done relatively early. I was pleasantly surprised at our tax return, which might facilitate some much-needed home improvement projects. Anyone know how to tile a floor?

Anyway, that $800 stimulus tax credit is kinda nice. People keep telling me that the powers-that-be in Washington are licking their lips to raise taxes. I haven't seen it yet. If anything, taxes were way down for us this year.

...and me [Bryan]

In response to Ellie's question below, I should say that I have been watching "reality shows" all my life -- the NBA, NFL, NCAA, etc. You get more drama, backstabbing, childishness, and sniping in those shows than anything you find in The Bachelor or Survivor. Who can forget Adrian Dantley feuding with Frank Layton? Who can forget Ron Artest charging the fans during infamous Pistons and Pacers "Malice and the Palace"? Who can forget Karl Malone's strange contract negotiations or his constant disappearance every year during the playoffs? Who can forget Jim McMahon mooning reporters before the 1985 Superbowl? Who can forget Denis Rodman and Madonna? Who can forget Bobby Knight heaving a chair in anger across the court? Talk about train wrecks and people not knowing what will make them happy!

At the same time, you get all the skill and passion that is put into a reality show such as So You Think You can Dance. So, sports combines the best of both types of reality shows. You get the unfathomable treachery and backstabbing of the Survivor-like shows, and the drama and skills of the dance shows. Perfect combination, I say.

Now, who is playing/feuding tonight?

Reality TV and Me [Ellie]

It’s a little known fact that early in our marriage Bryan and I were “Survivor” junkies. We watched together religiously every week, discussing and predicting, dissing and praising. We wondered why people would ever choose to put themselves through such physically and emotionally grueling trials. Surely the mere chance of winning the prize money couldn’t seem worth the vast scale of public humiliation? Slightly embarrassed about our low-brow obsession, we kept it to ourselves. We didn’t think any of our noble friends shared our passion. We were in the reality show closet. Our initial passion spent itself in a few seasons. We quit watching,and now we look back on those days with disdain.

For years, we thought ourselves beyond such childish pursuits. We looked down our noses at each new season of “Survivor” and at each new reality show clamoring for our attention. We were annoyed by the burgeoning field of shows, each seeming more seamy than the last. The whole idea of “The Bachelor,” for instance, evoked my special feminist ire, and not only because it reminded me too much of my own mental calisthenics over polygamy. I did find one show that I felt justified in watching during that time. Feel free to guffaw, but I loved (then and now) “Dancing with the Stars.” The “Stars” part may be a misnomer, but I liked watching it. Dance was a big part of my life growing up, and I loved having visual access to dance studios and performances again.

Fast forward to two years ago. Bryan was teaching every Monday night, and it was my laundry night. I faithfully watched “Dancing with the Stars.” Bryan still wasn’t home by the time “The Bachelor” started, immediately after “Stars” on the same channel. I still had laundry to fold. Gradually, out of boredom and mild curiosity, I started watching and quickly found myself hooked.

Maybe it’s that I have an addictive personality. Maybe it’s that I find it impossible to turn away from a train wreck. I’m not sure what it is, but I find these reality shows fascinating. The closest I can come to pinpointing their appeal for me is to state the obvious--that their contestants are NOTHING like me. No one would want to watch my life on TV, and I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t either. I sometimes become bored writing in my own journal. I try to make sensible, logical choices. I am routine-oriented. I try to avoid all drama in my relationships. This would make for a very bad show. No, these Bachelor and Bachelorette and Survivor contestants are compelling to watch because they are train wrecks. Just as my son Andrew can’t get enough of the car crash clips Bryan brings up for him on You Tube, I can’t get over watching these people crash their lives. There’s a reason these people are still single; they seem to have not a clue of how to make themselves happy. I honestly have no idea why they behave as they do, so hearing them explain it in their earnest, just-between-you-and-me, commentaries seems to me like an opportunity to learn the ways of an alien species.

I’ve always found dysfunction fascinating. Before reality shows, I think it must've shown itself in my craving for tragic literature. The sadder the ending, the better I liked the story. I can only guess that it’s because I’ve always been cocooned in the stability of my own life—both when I lived with my parents, and now. I have to wonder if I would find these reality shows so scintillating if my own life had been more turbulent. I certainly know the opposite is true—if the contestants were more like me, I would never watch them.

Anybody else have a reality show confession?

Rock Band [Bryan]

An interesting critique of Rock Band and Guitar Hero from the music critic of the New Republic. Interesting because, well, who among us has not been fascinated by pretending to a rock star in these games for a few moments?

Granted, I think the author needs to relax a bit. But two criticisms that are raised seem about right to me. First:

What’s troubling about Guitar Hero and Rock Band is not the presence of competition in the context of music, but the terms of that competition: the values--or more accurately, the non-values--the games promote. The games measure performance almost entirely by two standards: speed and flash (accomplished by use of a whammy bar on the play guitars). The more notes you hit on the games’ buttons and the more rapidly you hit them, the higher your score, the richer you get, and the more girls who thrust their gargantuan digital breasts your way. The imaginative power of the notes or the chords underneath them matter little; what counts most is the notes’ quantity and speed. The music best suited to these games--the outrageously stupid big-hair arena metal that Spinal Tap first parodied twenty-five years ago--is and always has been blandly hyperactive and formulaic. It is music as grotesque as the games’ porny electronic girls in the indiscriminate robot frenzy they are programmed, like Rock Band players, to enact.

Second, is the author's brutal but accurate take down of so-called Classic Rock, the most overrated genre of music since twelve-tone serialism.

For another thing--and this is the main failing of music games, and it is a significant one--they have the insidious effect of glorifying classic rock, a music with an already bloated reputation that is founded on its very bloatedness. In the games’ absorption with technical prowess, speed, flash, grandiose show, and fakery, they not only affirm the enduring allure of classic rock to kids and young adults, especially males; they also advance its tyranny. People like me who have kids of video-game-playing age no doubt get many things wrong about these games, and chief among the errors of our age group, I think, is inflated generational pride in the 1970s-style arena rock that Guitar Hero and Rock Band promote to our descendants--kids who might otherwise, and perhaps more appropriately, use their after-school hours to nurture interests in music of their own. The games reassure us that our aftercomers are our heirs.

Excavation [Ellie]

Subject: The recovery of the missing identity of a Caucasian female of child-bearing age, hair light brown, eyes hazel, height 5’2”, weight unlisted.

On my Christmas list this year were: a food processor, a dressy jacket, a blender, a CD of the opera Carmen, and a storage ottoman that was to act as a more attractive toy box. Mostly mommy gifts. What I opened on Christmas morning from Bryan? A laptop. A tiny, zippy purple one. And with the laptop a gift certificate to Caribou Coffee and four hours of free time to write.

Surprised hardly covers what I felt. I was barely aware of the tears that slipped down my cheeks as I contemplated why on earth he’d bought me something so extravagant—so beyond our typical gift-giving protocols. Because we buy gifts in hope, I knew the laptop reflected how he saw me, or more accurately, how he would like me to be; how I was when we met.

We’ve been talking a lot about who I am or should be or once was lately. With our last child (according to the current plan) turning one next month, my days as a full-time stay-at-home mom are winding down. I never thought it would seem so brief. We’ve been teasing the kids that Mommy is trying (again) to decide what she wants to be when she grows up.

It seems that the question now facing me is, do I return to who I was before children, as if this period of my life were just a blip in a smooth forward trajectory, or do I begin from scratch to create a new Ellie? Not that three decades of memories and baggage make it easy to start from scratch. Do I resume life as a middle-aged middle school teacher? Do I again take up the role of English major? Or is there something other and never-before-considered that will make me truly happy? (Is the search for one-true-job as quixotic a pursuit as seeking one-true-love?) Do I even want to pursue a career, or do I just want a job that will bring in a little extra income to support my real vocation of mother? In the same position I was in at the end of high school, I feel less certain of the answers now than I did then. I think, in general, that feeling less certainty—about everything—is the change these past sixteen years have wrought on my life.

I know that Bryan would like this zippy purple laptop to perform an excavation. He would like it to dig out the overachieving, intense, virginal English major he fell in love with. There are parts of her I too would love to recover. I’d like to recover her vocabulary, for instance. During my parents’ last visit I had to be reminded that adults don’t refer to it as “going potty.” Yet there are many parts of her I am happy to have left behind. I’m happy to say that her door-slamming tantrums and utter self-centeredness are largely a thing of the past. Still, I’m stuck looking back while trying to foretell what will bring me happiness in the future when all I really want to do most days is survive the present.

Would anyone like to tell me what I should do with this purple laptop and the rest of my life ahead of me?

Ayn Rand and Me [Bryan]

A few years ago, I read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I thought it was a great story at the time, captivating and inspiring. I enjoyed every minute of reading it. To be sure, Rand captures a grain of truth in that book: you need to have the courage to be true to your ideals.

I eventually came to conclude, though, that Rand is both seriously confused and morally corrupt. Her world-view is based on a delusion, namely, that people are to be seen purely as individuals. People succeed alone, and since they do not owe anybody anything, they can rightfully claim as theirs everything that comes their way. No thought of "giving back" to the community need trouble their great minds. Successful people create their own success; they stand alone, as gods among sheep. This is taken to the logical extreme in The Fountainhead as the hero, Howard Roark, rapes the heroine, and we are all supposed to cheer this on as the actions of a great man.

I reject this sort of individualism. Everybody who is successful stands on the shoulders of others. Whatever success I have had in life is largely attributable to my parents, my wife, my schools, my teachers, my friends, my doctors, and so forth. I depend on others to grow my food, to build the roads I use to travel to work, and to develop the research the drives society. I have also been lucky in many ways. I have been relatively healthy, born into many opportunities. To deny this is, frankly, to lie. I simply must affirm that my success is not mine alone. And, because I have been given much, I too must give.

My belief in this area connects strongly to the Mormonism I was raised in. Indeed, Rand echoes Korihor, one of the great villains of the Book of Mormon, who claims that "every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime." Since you owe nothing, you can do anything. You can "go Galt" and turn your back. There is nothing here about putting the needs of others before your own. There is nothing of humility, or of gentleness, or of selfless service. As an article recently put it, "Ayn Rand's defining characteristic was hatred — for government, other people, and the very concept of human kindness."

So, what was it about me that so enjoyed this book? Is there a part of me that wants to be so independent? To break the bonds of society? To see others with contempt?

Substantive Year [Bryan]

Andrew Sullivan has an interesting post today assessing Obama's first year. Go read it. I think he is largely right, although I would quibble with some of the details. It has been a fairly impressive first year, especially considering the unbelievably difficult context he inherited and the unprecedented obstructionism from the opposition party. I remain optimistic about him, although I have been stunned at the (unjustified) vitriol that has been hurled his way.

A Better Proposal? [Bryan]

If we don't like the current health care legislation, the question is, What would be better? Nearly everyone, as far as I can tell, agrees that insurance companies should not be able to block people who have preexisting conditions from buying insurance. People often lose insurance through no fault of their own. If such people then get sick, they are doomed to bankruptcy or even death. This is a big problem. So, what to do? Let's imagine a system.

First, let's say we simply pass a law saying the insurance companies are required to accept people regardless of any preexisting conditions. This solves the problem. And, suddenly, you've also created a sweet deal for people. They can wait until they get sick and then buy insurance! Yippee! If this were to happen, though, insurance rates would skyrocket since only sick people would be getting insurance. Money would be going out to the sick people, but none would be coming in from the healthy people. It would be like letting people buy car insurance after they got into crashes. So, what to do?

Well, the answer is a law which says that everyone needs to buy insurance -- no free riders! This mandates that healthy people buy into the insurance market. With this, the pool of insurance buyers expands, and, with healthy people putting money into the system but not (yet) taking it out, insurance costs are reduced for everyone. Yippee! But wait, not everyone can afford to buy insurance. People shouldn't be forced to buy something they can't afford. So, what to do?

The answer is to help people buy insurance. First, you give them something of a "voucher" (subsidy) that they can use to help purchase insurance. The subsidy exists on a sliding scale, so that, as your income increases and you are more able to buy your own insurance, the amount you receive decreases. Second, you create an "exchange" that will allow people without insurance, and small businesses, to comparison shop for insurance in an easy and efficient way. In the exchange, people can compare costs, benefits, and consumer feedback, all in one place. This increases competition and reduces health care costs.

Suppose, then, that we want to help people with preexisting conditions to get covered. We have imagined a proposal that would seem to work: (1) insurance companies are banned from denying affordable coverage to customers based on preexisting conditions, (2) individuals must buy insurance to increase the insurance pool and guarantee that healthy people are paying in, and (3) government provides help for people to then buy insurance with subsidies and an exchange.

Wouldn't it be great if we had this proposal instead of the crappy legislation that Obama and the Democrats have proposed? Oh wait, I guess that is the plan. Maybe it is not so bad, after all.

Notice that if we do something that everyone thinks we should do (help people with preexisting conditions get coverage), and if we want to preserve a system of private health insurance, then it seems we have little choice but to accept something like the proposal made by Obama and the Democrats. Of course, we could also solve this problem by a single-payer system (like Canada and France), where the government takes over health care costs as a public service. There is much to be said for that, but this option may be too disruptive, and it is politically impossible anyway. So, again, if we want to preserve private health insurance, and if we want preexisting conditions covered, we don't really have much of a choice. This is what has to be done.

If somebody wants to send me a different, workable proposal, I'm all ears!

Loving Without Complete Understanding [Bryan]

One of my favorite movies is A River Runs Through It, based on an excellent short story of the same name by Norman MacLean. The story deals with the beauty of fly-fishing, which is one reason I enjoy it. The other reason is that it talks about the difficulty in helping those that are struggling. Throughout the film, various families try, and fail, to help their struggling and wayward members. The film ends with a tragic death of a son, heavily involved with alcohol and gambling, who had refused all assistance. As the movie concludes, the father (a pastor) is gives the following sermon to his congregation:

Each one of us here today will, at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question. "We are willing to help, Lord but what, if anything, is needed?"

It is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us...

I want to be of use to the humanity. I really do. I would be my brother's keeper, I would learn the healer's art, and so forth, as it says in the hymn. I have found, however, that this is not so easy. Tragically, more often than not, we simply don't know how to help those around us. Most tragically, those who often elude our assistance are those we are closest to. We often think we are helping, but really aren't. More often than we would care to admit, we just make things worse.

People are often "weirded out" at our attempts at helping them. Our offers to help send different messages to different people. Some will love being helped, others will take it as a message that we think they are incompetent and weak; some people will really want our aid, others will find it degrading; some people will trust us as we lend a hand, others will be suspicious of our motives. The fact is, such people are not always wrong in taking things in a negative way (our motives, for example, are often impure).

An example: Yesterday, it snowed about six inches in Columbus. We have an older neighbor, a very nice man, that lives across the street. He lives alone and has had some heart trouble recently. After shoveling my driveway, I thought for a moment about shoveling his driveway. I went back and forth in my mind about it. "Would it make him uncomfortable if I shoveled his driveway?" I asked myself. I decided to do it, hoping that he would like being helped. The minute I started shoveling, however, I heard a snow blower start up in his garage. I looked over and it was my neighbor. I heard him call out, "Thank you," in a way that I interpreted as, "Thanks, I can handle this, now go away." I wasn't sure what to do. We chatted for minute, and I left leaving his driveway partly shoveled, feeling like he wanted to take over. Here is the thing: I am not sure I read interpreted this situation right at all. Maybe he was grateful and wanted to come help, and then was saddened when I left. Maybe he was getting ready to plow his driveway at that point anyway and was just surprised to see me there. Maybe I made him uncomfortable and he hurried out to try to stop me. I just don't know.

The only thing we can do, I suppose is follow the advice of Norman MacLean, speaking through his pastor father. "And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us, but we can still love them. We can love completely, without complete understanding."

Nora's Winter Dance Recital [Bryan]

Nora had her winter dance recital last week. Here is some very poor quality footage. Nora is the third one from the left in the back row as the dance begins.

Our year in review

Our big news of 2009 was the birth of child number three, Stephen Ray Warnick, born February 10th. He weighed a chunky 9 lbs., 2 oz. and arrived via emergency C-section. He has been a delightful baby, with an infectious laugh and easy smile. He took a while to learn to crawl properly; at first he was content to drag himself along on the ground like an old sack. It seems each of our boys inherited some part of them that leaks but shouldn’t. Andrew had chronic ear infections, now Stephen has a blocked tear duct. It requires minor surgery which will happen this month.

Andrew, soon to be four, has grown up a lot this year. He is our boy of strong passions, for better and worse. While there are still tantrums, they are balanced out by his love of cuddling and earnest apologies. He took a Sporties for Shorties class this year, a program at the city rec center, where he enjoyed trying out many different sports. Hockey was a favorite; we’re not sure we want to pursue that. Andrew will probably also turn out to be much smarter than his parents, as he has taken to letters and numbers like a fish to water. He really enjoys (as does Ellie) his three mornings of preschool each week.

Nora, age six, is busy (sometimes too busy) with different classes and programs. She played soccer this year, and continued ballet and piano lessons. Her true love is art, and she can often be found at the table perfecting a drawing or writing a story. Nora also has amused/troubled her parents with the appearance of what we called the “snaggle teeth.” Her two baby front teeth did not fall out properly but became wedged in place, sticking out of her mouth at a 45 degree angle. After many tears, dental inspections, and a somewhat embarrassing family photo (included for your viewing pleasure) the miserable snaggle teeth finally were removed.

Ellie’s life this year has been marked by lots of little changes that have added up to a major life shift--the birth of Stephen; release from her busy church job; the arrival of her sister and brother-in-law, Anna and Spencer Bardsley, in Columbus. It’s been especially wonderful to have Anna and Spencer and their toddler Grace become a daily part of our lives. Ellie does a lot of chauffeuring. She spends too much time in the car, and would welcome music recommendations—all of which must be pre-approved by Andrew and Nora. In church she teaches the seven-year-olds. She’s still running and hopes to run a half-marathon with Anna in May 2010. A lunch group with good friends every Friday keeps her sane.

Bryan continues on much as before, but with more gray hair. He has started writing a book dealing with ethics in school settings. He applied early for tenure this year, and the results so far, including the always exciting department faculty vote, have been positive. Hopefully, next spring Bryan will be an officially tenured Associate Professor at Ohio State. In church, Bryan is serving on the Stake High Council, which, for you non-Mormons, sounds much more ecclesiastically impressive than it actually is. He is working closely with a local Spanish-speaking congregation, and has been desperately trying to recall his very rusty language skills. To keep his sanity, Bryan continues regular sessions of pick-up basketball.

Our main family trip this year consisted of a jaunt back to Utah to visit our families, which included excursions to Moab, Arches, and Dinosaur Land. We also made shorter trips to Cincinnati and beautiful Ithaca, NY (during which we think we developed swine flu). Surprisingly, we survived an impulsive camping trip with a four-month-old down in the lovely Hocking Hills region of Ohio.We feel such gratitude for the many ways we have been blessed this year. Hope everyone has a happy new year!

Should We Support Health Care Reform? [Bryan]

A good friend recently asked why I support health care reform. Why endorse this massive, complex overhaul? What is there to like about it, if anything?

First, let's review the current context. Up to 45,000 people die each year because they don't have health insurance. The U.S. health care system is by far the most expensive in any industrialized nation, and our health outcomes tend to be worse than other industrialized nations. Although we are certainly good at treating certain things, like cancer, we generally get much less bang for our health care bucks. There are also problems with health insurance. Right now, if you have a preexisting condition and don't have insurance, you are headed for financial and medical disaster. Insurance companies also practice shady tactics, like rescission, which involves denying you coverage after you've made a claim on the pretext that they have found some small, unrelated thing in your health history (like some acne treatment) that you did not previously report. Finally, there are problems of runaway costs. If left unchecked, growing health care costs will bankrupt Medicare and the nation within only a few decades.

All of this is unacceptable. Completely and utterly unacceptable. And this bill is the last, best chance we have to do anything real. Now, will the current health care reform bills completely solve these problems? Probably not, particularly with the watered-down reforms that are now being proposed to win over shortsighted, egotistical senators. But here are five reasons why we should still support health reform:

1. New health insurance rules. Health insurance companies will no longer be able to deny people coverage for preexisting conditions or practice rescission. But, you might ask, won't the insurance companies then go bankrupt? How will they afford this? Won't they go out of business? This brings us to number 2.

2. The new individual mandate. Everyone will be required to purchase health insurance. This will increase the insurance pool and give insurance companies thousands of new customers. The mandate will lower costs for everyone and allow the insurance companies to play nice with things like preexisting conditions. But, you might ask, how will people be able to afford health insurance? Isn't it really expensive? This brings us to number 3.

3. New subsidies. Subsidies will be given to poor and middle class families based on a sliding scale. Even the more modest versions of health care reform would help around 29 million people to purchase insurance. This is a huge deal, and it is what we should morally do as a civilized nation. But still, you might ask, will a subsidy really be enough to buy good health insurance? This brings us to number 4.

4. New health insurance exchanges. The exchanges are one of the best ideas of health care reform. Right now, insurance can only operate within states. This limits competition, meaning that most consumers don't have much selection and that insurance companies have little incentive to cut costs. The solution is to let companies sell insurance in an amazon.com sort of way -- a big, national marketplace for people to price shop for their medical insurance. The pools of potential customers will be enormous and insurance companies, seeing this potential, will bid aggressively for the new business, thus reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Alas, the current exchanges in the legislation are smaller, open only to small numbers of people, and won't be open until 2014. Sen. Ron Wyden and (Republican!) Susan Collins are currently pushing an amendment that will open these exchanges to more people. I hope they succeed!

5. New Medicare reform and cost control. Even though Medicare is the most efficient medical coverage system we have, more so even than private insurers, almost everyone agrees that Medicare is not as efficient as it could be. The health care legislation will cut out Medicare Advantage, which basically funnels money to private companies to do what the government could easily do itself. It will also establish a Medicare Advisory Council, a panel composed of doctors and medical providers, which will provide guidelines for Medicare cost-control. In short, doctors will be making recommendations about cost saving and efficiency, not politicians. There is also good stuff about preventing medical errors, about increasing research into what kinds of care actually work, and about formulating programs to reward doctors who work together and provide less expensive care. It may be that this is the largest cost control measure the Congress has ever passed (as I've said before, the CBO projects it will cut billions from the deficit, even with the new spending on subsidies).

So, there you have it. If anything approaching this framework passes, I will be happy. As Ezra Klein writes:

The achievement of this bill is $900 billion to help people purchase health-care coverage, a new market that begins to equalize the conditions of the unemployed and the employed, and a regulatory structure in which this country can build, for the first time, a universal health-care system. Thousands and thousands of lives will be saved by this bill. Bankruptcies will be averted. Rescission letters won't be sent. Parents won't have to fret because they can't take their child, or themselves, to the emergency room. This bill will, without doubt, do more good than any single piece of legislation passed during my (admittedly brief) lifetime. If it passes, the party that fought for it for decades deserves to feel a sense of accomplishment.

For more on subsidies, read this report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
For more information on the exchanges, see Ezra Klein's piece here.

For more on Wyden and Collins's important amendment, see here.
For more about the waste of Medicare Advantage, see here.

For more about the Medicare Advisory Panel, see here.

For more information about these cost controls see here and, for what more could be done, see here.