Planet Case

At office luncheons and gatherings, there is little that an admission counselor enjoys more than a raucous round of "you should have met this applicant..." or "you wouldn't have believed this parent..." The longer you work in admission, the more stories you have to share. And apparently we are not alone, as students swap college tour debacles and guidance counselors recall parent/child conflicts, as highlighted in The Chronicle of Higher Education article, "Bribery Attempts, the Unbearable Pushiness of Parents, and Other Admission Tales."

While out walking my dog recently, I met a neighbor who teaches at our Law School and she was fascinated when I told her where I worked. "What is the craziest story you've read in an application?" I asked her if she wanted to hear the craziest essay I've read or the craziest set of circumstances imparted in an application and she practically squealed with excitement, "Both!" I told her that among the thousands I've read, many essays and situations were remarkable in the moment but faded with time, while others are still unbelievably vivid.

The most distressing essay I recall is one which described a cat being run over and killed by a car - all told from the cat's perspective. There were three significant problems with this writing sample. First, I have a background in counseling and it is well documented that an interest in animal suffering is an early indicator of mental illness. Second, I share my home with two cats. Third and most importantly, what was this student trying to impart to us with such an essay? Our application states "The essay should demonstrate your best possible work and offer insight into you as a person." What type of judgment does such an essay demonstrate? Any "insight" this essay offered was not any I wanted to have. What can you do to avoid the "over the top" writing sample?

Lest you think me a hardened and heartless admission counselor, I have to tell you that I contacted this student's guidance counselor to see if he/she could shed some light on the situation. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The counselor was already concerned about this student and supported my denial of admission.

What about those circumstances I mentioned? Under that topic I have too many to mention just one - real life dramas that are more Morgan Spurlock than TLC. Situations where I had to call the guidance counselor to be certain that the application wasn't some big hoax. Like the time I read about a student who lost a sibling at a young age and whose parents decided to raise their surviving child as if the sibling never existed. Apparently all went well until this applicant was a sophomore in high school and another family member felt that the student should be made aware of this deceased sibling. At which point the student understood that the dim memories were not dreams but actual recollections. The relationship between the parents and student spontaneously combusted as the student felt that everything they had lived had been a lie. A tragedy overall and devastating academically, as the student began a challenging junior year of AP courses and SATs.

We've also had the application that was a big hoax - where the applicant had never attended the reported high school and where the teachers and guidance counselors (though real people) did not write the letters of recommendation included. That application prompted dialogue with the Common Application to alert the folks there and share the knowledge with other colleges where this applicant had sent the fictional credentials. How did we catch that one? There were some inconsistencies and the letters of rec were all very similar in tone and style - every statement was superlative to the extreme - this applicant was the "best in my career" for all four people? Doubtful.

So what's the up side? We admission counselors whisper and giggle like kids when we have a famous (or infamous) student or parent on campus. We swap instant messages and emails late in the night when we're at home reading apps. Here is the text from an email I wrote this year:

Subject: How you know that you've gone over the edge?

When you actually type “Eureka!” in an application review because you are SO excited to read a unique, funny, insightful writing sample from a PPSP (that's Pre Professional Scholars Program) applicant.

The topic? The applicant’s proclivity for canker sores.

I wouldn’t kid you.

My boss gave me the heads up about the ISS flyover in the skies of Cleveland. So, on Wednesday night at about 10:00 pm, I went outside to look. After a false alarm (just an airplane), I saw a bright, steadily moving "star" appear in the predicted region of the sky and travel in an arch until it disappeared again. I had a dinky pair of binoculars, but they didn't help much.

Future sightings can be found at the following NASA link http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/. You can select your country and your city for a list of sightings.

A few years ago, I saw the ISS and docked shuttle with a set of high powered binoculars. I was amazed that I could recognize the fuzzy shapes of the station and shuttle. So, if you try any future sightings, bring along the best binoculars you have. Otherwise, the naked eye works well enough.

With the naked eye, you'll see something like this...

Today marks 1 year after the July 7 bombings where suicide bombers killed 52 people.

BBC News: Nation remembers 7 July victims

For me, it is the second time for me being in a city during a terrorist attack. I worked in the London office along Gresham Street, about 15 min walk from Liverpool Station. The first time was in Jersey City during 9/11.

In Memoriam...

Joe Biden steps in it, big time (video here) while schmoozing an Indian:

"In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."

Joe had better hope that nobody tries to assassinate him, because dollars to donuts (smirk) the surgeon who patches him up will be an Indian-American.

Thanks to Boortz.

The Harford County school system plans to open what will apparently be the nation's first magnet program focused on homeland security, preparing high school students for careers in disaster response, high-level computer science and law enforcement.

Why not? My high school had courses in pig raising too.
(Apologies to The National FFA Organization)

Thanks to Claire Files.

I'm pretty teed over a tax I won't be paying, given that I'm not a smoker and no longer live in Cuyahoga Co. (partly over shenanegans like this, and the commissioners attempts to shut down Dick Walters' gun shows). This actually has a better chance of passing than their last attempt (a sales tax), as in general, those who will benefit from it will not be the ones paying it; it's a transfer tax from the poor to the rich, supported by "the working man's friend", the Democratic Party. How's that for irony?

It might be argued that since "we" already tax smokers to fund professional sports facilities, it's "only fair" to tax them for the arts. But it was also wrong to tax smokers for the stadiums. If it was any more right, it was only because the percentage of sports fans who smoke is probably higher than the percentage of arts patrons who smoke, given that arts appreciation requires a certain degree of intelligence and smoking is a stupid thing to do; as a class they were largely paying for their own amusement rather than making somebody else pay for it.

Then there's the economic development angle. Remember the "28000 Gateway jobs" (i.e., 500 restaurant jobs circulated 56 times as restaurants closed)? It seems to me that the economic benefits of the tax are equally specious. Arts tourism is not that big. And the tax will depress the economic development that would naturally occur from smokers spending the money that is going instead to tax....development for something that somebody actually wants.

My biggest problem with this is that I might be forced to become a beneficiary of it. Not so much as an arts consumer; most arts organizations in town get at least some money from trayf sources (Ohio Arts Council if nothing else), and it's too much work to research that for me to be a purist. But as a composer, I could see Composers Guild going after the money (not when I'm an officer!), filling out long grant applications detailing the sex and ethnicity of each of our members (if we let some rap "artists" in, do we get the swag?). It's even possible that our private funders would expect us to go to the city before asking money from them, which would give us no choice in the matter. At that point, I think I would have to quit submitting scores, which would probably destroy the meager excuse for a career that I have now.

What to make of this? A bunch of big papers propose a gubernatorial debate. Blackwell proposes that the Call and Post (Black paper) be added. Strickland, not wanting to alienate part of his base, agrees. The papers, not wanting to support a competing product, refuse. Thus, no debate. Blackwell brings up an unacceptable proposal, so he gets out of a debate he doesn't want (because he might say something substantive, and you either love or hate Blackwell, which means he could only lose the uncommitted) and makes the papers (which have not been his friend) look like racists.

He's slick. I despise him, but I must give credit where it's due.

Employers boosted payrolls by 121,000 in June! This is higher than last month's reported numbers. How can anyone say that our economy is bad when the unemployment rate is at 4.6% (about as low as it can go), we are creating new jobs every month, and every other economic indicator indicates a growing and stable economy? What does it take for an economy to be "strong" in the eyes of a liberal? I know the answer! When a democrat is in office to take credit for it. Sorry libs... your cover is being blown... our economy is awesome and you can't pretend it isn't anymore.

UPDATE: Here is the Tangled Bank I am hosting.

I will be hosting the Tangled Bank on July 5th. Submit items by email.

As I have said before, I grew up being very religious and actively involved in church and Christian youth activities. I enjoy meeting old and close friends and relatives, many of whom I have known since my early childhood. Growing up, they all had known me as a practicing Christian, even more so than your regular Sunday churchgoer since I was an ordained lay preacher and regularly conducted services that many of them had listened to as members of the congregation.

Most of my relatives and childhood friends are still religious. When I encounter them now, many have heard on the grapevine of my apostasy and start up a conversation about faith, sometimes out of curiosity as to why I renounced my own belief, at other times to try and bring me back into the fold.

This happened again recently and during the discussion, the question was posed to me as to what, as an atheist, I could offer someone whose lot in life was wretched and hopeless. She said that at least religion could promise that person a better life in heaven, something that they could look forward to, and thus make life on Earth, however harsh, at least bearable.

It made me recall an Andy Capp cartoon where he and his wife Flo are stopped by a perspiring man carrying a heavy suitcase who asks them how far it is to the railway station. Flo replies that it is just a short distance away. The man perks up considerably and goes off. Andy then asks her why she said that since the station is a good way away. Flo replies, "The poor man looked so tired that I thought it would cheer him up."

This is probably the main appeal of religion, that it provides hope (even if false) that enables people to face life. Religion provides a strong emotional appeal, providing people with something to look forward to so that they can face the present, however harsh, with a greater degree of equanimity.

It is this feature of religion that Karl Marx described as the "opium of the people." What Marx was objecting to was that such an attitude had the effect of preventing people from protesting the injustice of their situation and seeking to change it. As he said in his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (February 1844):

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.

Marx was accurate with his metaphor of opium for religion. It not only takes away pain, it also dulls the will to action. Perhaps religion persists because it is a form of addiction, removing us from the realm of reality just as effectively as heroin or cocaine, and is just as hard to relinquish. What the promise of heaven does is to ease the pressure on us to improve life on Earth. It is the ultimate cop-out.

But if we do not have religion, we are forced to take action. In the Andy Capp cartoon context, that translates into not lying to the person as Flo did in order to help that person feel good in the short run, but to either help him carry his suitcase so that his journey would be easier or to add wheels to the suitcase so that his journey is made easier.

The emotional appeal of religion is strong. It is appealing to think that there is some sense of cosmic justice where good is rewarded and evil punished. It is nice to think that in the afterlife, those who suffered unjustly will be rewarded and that there is a heavenly war trial where all those who have been responsible for willful and major human suffering would face their ultimate comeuppance. I think that it is this emotional appeal that keeps people faithful to religion.

Just yesterday, the news media reported that Ken Lay, the disgraced Enron head, had died of a heart attack just prior to his sentencing. Many people, appalled at the high life he led while swindling thousands of people of their life savings, were hoping to see him brought down from his life of luxury and spend his last days in jail. Some people expressed disappointment at the news of his death, that he had escaped the hardship of jail but expressed hope that he would pay in the afterlife. This is a common enough reaction and presumably gives those feeling aggrieved some consolation.

But atheists know that no such cosmic justice exists. The fate that evil people ultimately face is the same as the fate that anyone else faces, and that is death. Paradoxically, this need not be depressing but actually can serve as a call to action. If this is the one life that we have, it becomes clearer that our obligation to ourselves and to others is to make sure that it is the best it can be, so that everyone had a chance at a decent life.

If we seek justice, then it has to be done by us right here on Earth. That buck cannot be passed. That is the message that atheists have to offer to people. It may not have a soothing effect but is more likely to lead to concrete action.

POST SCRIPT: Minor Milestone

In checking the statistics for this blog, it appears that on June 30, 2006, the one million hit mark since its inception on January 26, 2005 was reached. Thank you very much to all those who visit, read, and comment. It has been a pleasure to write and, I hope, to provoke thought and discussions.

So, did anyone notice that I have not slipped back into anything approaching my old daily posting rhythm, since my return from Switzerland? I have been trying to build some new and healthier habits, which require spending less time with a laptop, and my posting frequency has suffered as a result. I may never return to daily postings, though -- thanks to Jim Eastman at Wine and Politics for posting a link to this entry at MarketingProfs.com about why blog post frequency is no big deal anymore. I find the reasons advanced in the entry for posting only when I have something important to say to my target audiences very persuasive!

It is now being reported that the missle fired by the North Koreans was aimed at Hawaii. It is time for action. China and Russia don’t want to join us in our strong demands… I guarantee it’s because they have some kind of financial stake in North Korea just like they did with Iraq. It is time we gather all the countries we can and give an ultimatum to North Korea. These “talks” are not working only because they are not backed by threats. It is time we stop trying to sweet talk a madman. It won’t work.

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For the Case community, I will be posting announcements and my office hours on my blog.

See the Engineering Reading Room web site for updates as they occur. You may also subscribe to a RSS feed that contains only information related to the Engineering Reading Room.

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Engineering Librarian Office Hours (Nord Hall 510) - Week of July 3rd

• July 3 (Monday): Holiday
  
• July 4 (Tuesday): Holiday
  
• July 5 (Wednesday): None Scheduled
  
• July 6 (Thursday): 1pm-4pm
  
• July 7 (Friday): None Scheduled

* Hours subject to change so watch web site or RSS feed .
* Appointments available for other times, see web site for contact information.

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Engineering Reading Room (Nord Hall 508)

• Open 24x7
  
• Includes computer for searching library resources
  
• Cuurent journal issues for your viewing pleasure
  
• Comfortable furniture available on 5th floor of Nord Hall

So, I'm back from vacation and have managed to catch up on all of my email.

There's been some more interesting discussions happening about bring "Web 2.0" concepts into the "Enterprise" (previously blogged about in my entry Bringing "Web 2.0" Concepts to the "Enterprise").

Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School, has an excellent post Raising the Least Common Denominator:

And one of the main themes of this blog is that this kind of productive collaboration should be easier within Intranets than across the Internet. Enterprise 2.0, in other words, should be at least as powerful as Web 2.0. The informal and formal leaders of a company have an arsenal of tools at their disposal to shape both the processes of collaboration and their outcomes. If the digital collaboration platform turns into a shouting match or a random collection of junk they really have no one to blame but themselves.

If we're indicative of many "Enterprises," the biggest problem is the notion of "collaboration." Most people relate collaboration to email, Word documents, and meetings. So, when thinking of ways to improve "collaboration," the natural thought is to just try and create email++, Word++, and meetings++. This is how you end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on Web 1.0-style, monolithic collaboration "suites" like Oracle Collaboration Suite instead of turning to disruptive technologies that the Internet has already shown scale to the thousands and facilitate collaboration instead of just wrapping things up in complicated workflows and humdrum, clunky interfaces.

There's a reason Wikipedia doesn't run on Microsoft Dynamics or Oracle Collaboration Suite.

To get Enterprises to move to "Enterprise 2.0" is a huge shift in thinking. It's not email++; it is something entirely different. It's not monolithic software suites that enhance collaboration; rather, it is systems like wiki farms and iTunes that enhance collaboration. Systems that get better and better the more people use them — emergent systems that enable the Read/Write web.

JP Rangaswami has a good follow-up post to Andrew McAfee's piece in Does Social Software help Enterprises Dumb Down? where he describes "enterprise immune systems." I just thought the term was great in describing the avoidance of "Web 2.0" style collaboration tools in many enterprises.

The battle to bring "Web 2.0" style, emergent Read/Write properties, user-centric tools/systems to the enterprise isn't just evangelizing their properties. What is needed is a cultural shift to stop thinking about collaboration in terms of email++ and meeting++.

Free, Legal, and Ignored

June was a busy month. We contacted a number of media outlets and have secured a couple of features. We were featured in The Free Times in Cleveland and the Toledo Free Press. We were also put into the Case Daily a couple of times. We have been told we will be interviewed by the Plain Dealer and WTAM 1100. We have also been partially sponsored by Spin Cycle Shop in Lakewood, OH as well as Case Western Reserve University. We are continuing to train hard for our trek.

We would like to thank everyone who is and has been visiting our website. Please tell anyone you know to visit our website just to check it out. We would like to see more donations to the UNHCR which is recording the donations generated through out site. Remember that this project is not a success without your help.

Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, has some interesting things to say on the importance of details in establishing credibility of any knowledge system. In his Reply to a Christian he points out how central it is to religious beliefs that one avoids any kinds of details that might lead to refutation, something that I have also been writing about for some time. His essay is worth quoting at length.

Christians regularly assert that the Bible predicts future historical events. For instance, Deuteronomy 28:64 says, "The Lord will scatter you among the nations from one end of the earth to the other." Jesus says, in Luke 19:43-44, "The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you." We are meant to believe that these utterances predict the subsequent history of the Jews with such uncanny specificity so as to admit of only a supernatural explanation. It is on the basis of such reasoning that 44 percent of the American population now believes that Jesus will return to earth to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next fifty years.

But just imagine how breathtakingly specific a work of prophecy could be if it were actually the product of omniscience. If the Bible were such a book, it would make specific, falsifiable predictions about human events. You would expect it to contain a passage like, "In the latter half of the twentieth century, humankind will develop a globally linked system of computers-the principles of which I set forth in Leviticus-and this system shall be called the Internet." The Bible contains nothing remotely like this. In fact, it does not contain a single sentence that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century.

Take a moment to imagine how good a book could be if it were written by the Creator of the universe. Such a book could contain a chapter on mathematics that, after two thousand years of continuous use, would still be the richest source of mathematical insight the earth has ever seen. Instead, the Bible contains some very obvious mathematical errors. In two places, for instance, the Good Book gives the ratio of a circumference of a circle to its diameter as simply 3 (1 Kings 7: 23-26 and 2 Chronicles 4: 2-5). We now refer to this constant relation with the Greek letter pi. While the decimal expansion of pi runs to infinity-3.1415926535 . . .-we can calculate it to any degree of accuracy we like. Centuries before the oldest books of the Bible were written, both the Egyptians and Babylonians approximated p to a few decimal places. And yet the Bible-whether inerrant or divinely inspired-offers us an approximation that is terrible even by the standards of the ancient world. Needless to say, many religious people have found ingenious ways of rationalizing this. And yet, these rationalizations cannot conceal the obvious deficiency of the Bible as a source of mathematical insight. It is absolutely true to say that, if Archimedes had written a chapter of the Bible, the text would bear much greater evidence of the author's "omniscience."


Why doesn't the Bible say anything about electricity, about DNA, or about the actual age and size of the universe? What about a cure for cancer? Millions of people are dying horribly from cancer at this very moment, many of them children. When we fully understand the biology of cancer, this understanding will surely be reducible to a few pages of text. Why aren't these pages, or anything remotely like them, found in the Bible? The Bible is a very big book. There was room for God to instruct us on how to keep slaves and sacrifice a wide variety of animals. Please appreciate how this looks to one who stands outside the Christian faith. It is genuinely amazing how ordinary a book can be and still be thought the product of omniscience. (my italics throughout)

All these are good questions. But as cogently as Harris argues, I do not expect him to convince the believer. This is because, as professor of religion Deepak Sarma pointed out during the panel discussion on the tsunami, all religions contain an MWC ("mysterious ways clause") that can be invoked as a last resort to say that the actions of God are inscrutable and that we simply have to accept the fact that a good explanation exists, though we may not know it. As long as believers are willing to invoke the MWC, there is nothing that can shake their beliefs.

Scientists can and do also hold on to theories in the face of counter evidence. They too often consider unsolved problems to be solvable but yet unknown. The difference is that for them, they do not accept this as the final word. They keep chipping away at the unexplained, generating new evidence as they go. For scientists, there is always a tipping point at which the weight of new evidence is such that it shifts the balance sufficiently that the entire scientific community rejects the old theory. That is why scientific theories keep evolving.

In the case of religion, though, there is no such collective tipping point. There are too many political and economic interests vested in religion for any religious leader (say the Pope) to say something like: "You know, after thinking about it, I've realized that this idea of god does not really make any sense. Maybe we should try to understand how the world works without invoking god."

Religious and political leaders have too much vested interest in maintaining religion, whatever their private views might be. So it is up to individuals to decide for themselves how much counter-evidence they can encounter and still maintain their faith. But we are mistaken in thinking that evidence and reason and logic are the decisive factors in how such decisions are made.

Next: The important role that emotion plays

POST SCRIPT: Keeping people locked up forever without trial

Once again, we have to look for comedy programs to tell us the truth. Stephen Colbert looks at the outrageous scandal that is Guantanamo and the fraudulent arguments that are used to keep people there indefinitely without access to basic legal and human rights.

The Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog shared news that the National Science Foundation of China will provide 3.4 billion yuan (US $425 million) in funding for basic science, and that the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) celebrated the opening of its Beijing office.

This is an excerpt from a very interesting new book, called the Motherhood Manifesto. The particular excerpt can be found here:

"It's Not Just Mothers"
by John de Graaf, National Coordinator of Take Back Your Time

Though working mothers may be the most pressed for time and in need of relief, America’s time poverty crisis affects nearly everyone. American work hours have been climbing slowly, but steadily since the mid-1970s and today, the average American works nine weeks—350 hours—more each year than the average Western European.

Increased working hours threaten our quality of life in many ways: Americans increasingly recognize the impacts of time poverty on their lives. According to a November 28, 2005, Fortune magazine study, even corporate CEOs now want more time outside work (84 percent), even if it means making less money (55 percent). The same article pointed out that many European countries are actually more productive per worker hour than the U.S. is. And a recent report of the World Economic Forum found that several of the world’s most competitive economies are in Scandinavia, where shorter work hours and generous paid leave policies are taken for granted.

Europeans enjoy multiple legal protections of their right to time, including four weeks of paid vacation after a year on the job, paid sick leave, limits on the length of their work weeks, generous paid family leave benefits (which also apply to fathers), and increasingly, the right to choose part-time work, while retaining the same hourly pay, healthcare, opportunities for promotions and other, pro-rated, benefits.

A new campaign, TAKE BACK YOUR TIME, has called for a “Time to Care” legislative agenda for the United States, including paid family leave, paid sick leave, three weeks of paid vacation, limits on compulsory overtime and policies making it easier to choose part-time work with healthcare and other benefits."

So you wanna know how the ol' Seafarer's been meistering, eh?

So basically you all know I've been in summer school the past three weeks, right? Well, if anyone knows how to be a gold-star student, it's me. And I know what to do to get those gold stars, you see. You wanna know my secret? Ok, listen close, rapscallions. You gotta sit down on the first day of class next to some guy you don't know who looks like he might be pretty good with music theory, you see. Then, you gotta put on your serious go-getting-those-A's type of face as you very deliberately switch your phone to vibrate. This shows people that you are serious for some mind expansion. Just as everybody else (the competition) has taken their seats, coolly pull out your textbook and gently set it on your music stand with the air of already knowing everything it contains; you're just taking this course for shits and giggles, basically. But you're humble. Always open to learning something new. Then, ever so swiftly (the timing is crucial in this), steal a glance just through your peripheral vision at the guy next to you to check and see if he noticed the pair of silky black dominatrix underwear lying so candidly atop of your unnecessary text. Keeping all of this in one swift, continuous motion, make the brief eye-contact, roll your eyes to the other side of the room searchingly while scooping up the panties and depositing them back into your bookbag, returning with a pen, head cocked to one side, ready for action. Squint your eyes as you gaze stoicly into the blazing sunset that is the tradition of western music, raise your writing hand ever so slightly from the music stand, gently suspended in air by the zepphyrs of inspiration......

Well, now that you all know the secret of my success, I expect everyone to go out and be fruitful. Fruitful like the sun-gilded vineyards so aptly symbolic of my academic success. Now go, go and glean, my children! Glean all you can!

Smokers are a real engine of economic development. There are all those hospitals to be built, doctors to be paid, cleaners to get the stench out. They even save the federal government money, by dying before they collect their share of Social Security. And Cuyahoga County needs all the economic development it can get.

Therefore I propose that the county commissioners place the following proposal on the ballot: that all admissions to artistic events be taxed at $1.00 per admission. Yes, even the free ones, because why should those Bohemian bums get something for nothing? The proceeds will go to providing free cigarettes of their chosen brand for all smokers who will register as addicts. After all, it's not their fault they were molested by Joe Camel in their impressionable youth. They are victims of nicotine, who just can't help themselves. They are generally poor. And folks who can afford theater and concert tickets (and who are generally not smokers, except for the occasional cigar) have plenty of dough with which to help the less fortunate, and their insatiable desire for Art will cause them to pay regardless of means. And if they do quit Art for more socially acceptable pastimes such as Reality TV, so much the better.

If any of the above seems unjust to you, tell me: how is this any different in principle from the commissioners plan to tax ciggies to support the arts Hezbollah?

how depressing it must be being britney

Ah! Vacation. The balm that soothes the average worker's soul. Lazy days to do with as you please. Oh the joy! Here's how we've spent ours.

Friday-June 23rd.
Freedom!! No more teachers. No more books...err well you get the idea. Tonight we went to a Luau. We had a great time. Ate good food. Chatted with good friends. Drank good adult libations.

Sunday -June 25th
We took the boys to their first Professional Baseball game. I forgot the camera! Darn. They looked so cute in their little Indians shirts. They got free baseball gloves at the gate. Way too big for their little hands but they will grow- or so I've been told! We had Fantastic seats right next to the Reds bull pen. The boys did really well. They sat and watched (the people mostly). We even made it on the jumbo-tron!! We let them play in the kids land for a while before we left. What a mad house! Big kids pushing the boys out of cars they were 1/2 in. And the dirt. Boy did we Purell after that! Yuck!
All in all a fun event- the hardest part was getting the kids from the car to the stadium. That's a long walk for a toddler who wants to walk himself, near busy streets, and pick up all the trash he sees and give it to mom!

Monday- June 26th
Today we went over to a friend's house after our speech therapy session. My friend Angie has 3 children and one is the same age as the boys. Oh my! Having 2 older siblings has made him a talker. I was impressed with his vocabulary. Mean while my children spoke no words at all in his presence. We played for a while with toys we don’t have at our house. Dale learned how to roar like a dinosaur. It’s the cutest little- no aggressiveness to it all all. We ate lunch and then headed to the Outdoor Y. We’ve never been there before but they have a nice sized toddler wading pool and a new splash park that was opening that day. The boys loved the pool. It took them a little while to warm up to the idea but after a few rounds of “Ring around the Rosie” all was good.
We didn’t get our usual nap, which had me worried but it turned out ok because when they did nap- I got time to clean the house and take a nap myself! Naps rule!

Tuesday- June 27th
Well it rained today but we did manage to find time to squeeze in a trip to the park with our friends Pebbles and Bam-Bam, who are also twins. My kids love the slide. Can’t get them off of it. Pebbles is into some dangerous climbing. She’s too little to be that high off the ground and teaching my Chip how to do it too.
We had a nice visit from Elin, our Help Me Grow Lady. And we played outside until bath time.

Let me pause for a moment and discuss bath time. Bath time has now turned into the Shamu and Friends splash show at Sea World. Dale likes to stand up and drop to this bottom- just like the end of Ring Around the Rosie. Recently he has taken to belly flopping like a Pro Wrestler. He does this every evening- water or not.

Wednesday June 28th
Happy Anniversary to us! Dear Hubby and I have been married 9 years today. Wow! 9 years. Who knew time could pass so quickly?

Today is my last day home with the boys by myself. Daddy starts vacation tomorrow. After a rocky start to our morning (the boys were B-A-D! Ugh! Destructive to the max), we went to the zoo with Aunt Jenny, Sandy, and Grandma and some of Aunt Jenny’s friends from work. It was a nice day. We had fun. With grandma there I was able to let the boys out of the stroller to run around a little. They were pooped by the time we left at 2:30. They didn’t wake up from their nap until 6!

3 + hours Bonus Time for Mommy. 5 loads of laundry done- 4 more to go.

We tried to go to Daddy’s softball game with a picnic but half way there the sky opened up and fell. There was lightening too so we went home and had a carpet picnic instead.

Thursday June 29th
We got up early and went to the zoo again-this time with Daddy. We went to areas that we rarely go to because it helps to have a second set of eyes and hands around. We got to go to the Touch Exhibit where we touched sting rays and nurse sharks. Chip ran around and loved it. I’ve got a ton of funny pictures of him making faces with his hands in the water. Dale had a thoughtful/fearful expression on his face as he tried to touch the rays. We also rode the tram. Chip LOVED it! He giggles and waves and smiled the whole way in the 3 mph moving bus. Ah, the job of the simple things!

One of the things I miss the most about my pre-children life is going to the movies. Dear hubby and I would go to the movies almost every weekend prior to the birth of our kids. Now that means getting a babysitter or a strategic planning of events- something akin to the storming of Normandy Beach just to catch the latest summer blockbuster. Well not any more. We took the kids to the drive in! That’s right! The drive in movie theater! Granted it didn’t quit go as I planned but it worked out. I was hoping they’d fall asleep in the car before we got there but they did eventually fall asleep before the movie started (around 9:30). I think this is something we will try again. By the way we saw Superman Returns. It was ok but not nearly as good as Spiderman or X-men or even Batman Begins.

Friday June 30th
When the day dawned we decided to let the boys have some down time. We hung around the house and played outside. We got them back on their nap schedule. When they woke up we went to the Outdoor Y to go swimming. It was a nice sunny day so there were a lot more people there then compared to earlier in the week. Dale loves the pool. He’s such a little fish. He jumped. He splashed. He ran around. He played with water toys. What about Chip you ask? He clung to my legs and wanted up most of the time. He's been my shadow the last few days. Cries when I leave the room. Wants to sit on my lap whenever I sit down. He's going to have a hard time going back to day care.

Saturday July 1st.
We decided we all needed some down time today. Dear Hubby worked on putting our kitchen back together from the painting we did last month. I did more laundry and cleaning. The boys played and took a big nap. We had a cook out in the back yard with our new patio furniture.

Sunday July 2nd
Despite the threat of rain, we decided to take the kids for their first visit to Lake Erie at Mentor Headlands beach. It’s a great beach with tons of sand and dunes, miles of parking, and clean water. The lake really looked like the ocean today with the choppy water and waves crashing. The water was dark and the sky was windy. It was so windy in fact that the sand was blowing so hard it felt like shards of glass. Needless to say we didn’t go down to the water’s edge. Instead we set up in the sand between two dunes out of the way of the wind. The boys LOVED the sand. They got right into digging and running in it. Chip was burying his car and digging it up. Dale liked to pick up all the bigger rocks and throw them around. I was worried they might not like the feel of the sand on their feet. Obviously it was a wasted worry. We watched some guy parasailing on the sand. That’s right-on the sand. He had a sail and he let it drag him across the sand from one end of the beach to another. Before we left I took Chip down to the water’s edge to see how warm the water was. (Not bad but still not the Bahamas. Official water temp is 70). He stood on the shore and held my hand as the water crashed over his feet. He laughed and giggled. He is such a child after my own heart. I could spend the entire day standing on the shore playing in the water. It always makes me happy.
We took off right before lunch and it started to storm on our way home.

Monday July 3rd
We took the boys to Geauga Lake today. Their first trip to an amusement park. The first ride that we rode was the choo-choo train. Chip was in 7th heaven from the moment we got in line. Dale looked apprehensive the whole time. I rode with Chip and Daddy rode with Dale. I got a ton of pictures of them. As I was getting off the ride I got yelled at by a 16 year kid for taking pictures. Well excuse me for wanting to document a first in my children’s lives. This is the second time this week I’ve gotten yelled at by a 16 year old. The other day we got yelled out for feeding the kids on the pool deck. We had to pack up and move with two screaming kids toddling behind us because they didn’t understand why were gave them food and then took it away.

I realized when we were at Geauga Lake that by the time the boys are old enough to ride the good rides at the park, we’ll be in our 40’s and won’t have the stamina to get thrown around like that all day.

Tuesday July 4th- Independence Day
Happy 4th of July! 230 years of the American way. That’s quite a milestone.

I woke up feeling sort of depressed. My time off is coming to an end. I’ve had such fun. Why is our culture set up to work so hard? Why can’t we have summers off like we did in school? It’s too bad we couldn’t just go to work for a few hours each day and leave when we finished our work. I bet people would be a lot more productive. I know I wouldn’t waste as much time wishing I was somewhere else if I knew as soon as I finished X, Y, and Z; I could go. So far this vacation I’ve seen 4 movies, watched my soap every day, read Angels and Demons, and got to cook out nearly every day. All good things in my book!

Anyway, today we hung around the house again. It was raining when we got up and looked like it wanted to rain more. When the boys took their nap- I went and did some shopping for me. I need to get out and do some more. I still need to replace my oversized clothes from when I lost all the weight.

There is one nice thing about where we live- they do a major fireworks display every year about 1 mile from our house. For the last 6 years we’ve just watched the display in our backyard. It’s great. No fighting people to get a good spot on the lawn. No walking miles to your car and waiting forever to move 10 feet once in the car. Yep, definitely will miss that when we move.

Well vacation is over. I’ve got to go get ready to go to work tomorrow. Sigh. Only 354 days until my next summer vacation.

Summer is “high season” for visiting college campuses. Here at Case we offer seniors (and transfers) the opportunity to interview with an admission counselor during visits.

Over the last several weeks I have conducted a good number of interviews. Some students have been prepared, some not and still others that were overly prepared. Here are some observations and thoughts from the admission counselor’s chair…First, I must tell you what I tell everyone I sit down with in the interview room. I think the term “interview” is misleading. This isn’t a job interview. I don’t have a list of questions that I will ask and we don’t make our admission decisions based solely on your answers. Instead of an interview, I see this as a chance for a conversation—a conversation about the student. Their experiences, their challenges, their dreams.

• Be prepared—know what you want to talk about. Have in mind how you want to highlight your activities in and out of the classroom. Let’s talk about things that are deeper than “I took AP Chemistry last year and am taking Honors English next year.” Tell me why you wanted to take AP Chem, tell me about a cool conversation you had in an English course, tell me why you wanted to take Spanish.
• Don’t be OVERLY prepared—don’t have rehearsed statements that you throw at me, but don’t answer the question asked. Remember my earlier point about this being a conversation. Let’s chat. This isn’t the campaign trail with the need for a stump speech.
• Remember that we receive over 7000 applications each year. It’s all black ink on white paper. Sometimes this is all we have as we consider a student’s application, but a twenty minute conversation can add so much color and paint a truer picture of your experiences. An example might be that on the application you list football as an activity, but in our conversation we talk about how football has impacted your growth process because of…….
• Actually tell me something—a pet peeve is when someone throws out that they are an Eagle Scout and expects me to automatically think that he is “a true leader” just because one is an Eagle Scout. That isn’t going to happen. If you are an Eagle Scout tell me about the impact that scouting has had on you. Tell me about what you did with the troop. Tell me about your Eagle Scout project and how that impacted you. The same goes with something like community service—telling me you have done a 100 hours of service is all well and good. Telling me about why you became involved in service and what you learned from the experience is what is important.

Finally, think of this as your chance to get things “on the record.” We can talk about something important to you that might not show up in your application, on your list of activities or in your college essay.

Sometimes great writers reveal truths that are hidden. At other times they reveal truths that are squarely in front of our eyes but which we do not see because we have not asked the right question. Mark Twain's story The War Prayer fits into the latter category.

The idea of the intercessory prayer, where one asks for a favor or blessing for oneself or for a designated group of people, is such a familiar staple of religious life that its basis is unquestioned. But Twain points out what should have been obvious if we had only thought it through. The key section about the nature of such prayers is revealed when he writes:

For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.

God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time.

Twain accurately points out that often such prayers always carry with them a dark underside. Prayers that ask for victory in war always carry with them the wish that god will destroy the other side. The losing side in a war must necessarily suffer death and destruction but prayers never explicitly ask god to do this. That would be too crass. But Twain says that whether we put those sentiments into words or not, that appeal is always present.

Twain carries this argument even further and says that even appeals for seemingly benign help for one person (such as rain for his crops) may prove to be a curse for someone else.

Twain's point seems to be that any prayer that seeks special benefits for any one group is also a request to deny that same benefit to those who do not belong to that group. When people pray asking god's help to help find a cure for cancer, aren't they implicitly also asking him/her to not find a cure for AIDS or Alzheimers or any other of the countless diseases that afflict living things?

And what about the phrase "God bless America" that is now such a staple of political life that politicians routinely end their speeches with it? Fourth of July speeches are full of such appeals. What exactly is being asked for here? That god look out for the interests of Americans and withhold blessings from the people of other countries? What would justify such a request? Do such people really believe that God prefers Americans to other people? What kind of God would check the nationality of people before responding to prayers?

All such intercessory prayers are premised on an authoritarian/subservient model, with god as a kind of despot who has limited rewards at his/her disposal, and whose favors have to be curried by making special appeals, in the manner of kindergarteners with their teacher. Since most religious people also believe in a god who omnipotent and has the capacity to answer any intercessory prayer, and even knows the prayers before they are prayed, it does not make sense to ask for limited rewards benefiting a restricted subset of people. But this obvious contradiction is not perceived. It requires an astute observer like Twain to point it out.

Perhaps the only intercessory prayer that can be justified is the one I saw on a bumper sticker that said "God bless everyone. No exceptions."

It is noteworthy that Mark Twain knew that he was asking for trouble with this story, writing it as he did during a major war, when strong and unthinking appeals to patriotism are used to brush aside any opposition, just as was done in during the preparations for the attack on Iraq.

Twain wrote The War Prayer during the Spanish-American War. It was submitted for publication, but on March 22, 1905, Harper's Bazaar rejected it as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine." Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Dan Beard, to whom he had read the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth." Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Mark Twain could not publish "The War Prayer" elsewhere and it remained unpublished until 1923.

Mark Twain seems to have had a healthy skepticism towards religion that was not shared by his family and those who were charged with executing his estate.

In later years, Twain's family suppressed some of his work which was especially irreverent toward conventional religion, notably Letters from the Earth, which was not published until 1962. The anti-religious The Mysterious Stranger was published in 1916, although there is some scholarly debate as to whether Twain actually wrote the most familiar version of this story.

Given that Mark Twain had achieved iconic status in his own lifetime and was so well-known and liked, his own apprehensions about whether this story could be published is indicative of how powerful a hold this combination of religion and patriotism has on people. Challenge those twin pillars of dogma and you become an outcast fast.

POST SCRIPT: Hunting endangered animals

Did you know that there is a hunting group that actually seeks as trophies endangered animals? And that one of its members was nominated last year to fill the position of acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?

The organization in question is the Safari Club International (SCI), described as "an extreme trophy hunting organization that advocates the killing of rare species around the world." A press release put out by the Humane Society of the US says:

The Arizona-based SCI has made a name for itself as one of the most extreme and elite trophy hunting organizations, representing some 40,000 wealthy trophy collectors, fostering and promoting competitive trophy hunting of exotic animals on five continents. SCI members shoot prescribed lists of animals to win so-called Grand Slam and Inner Circle titles. There's the Africa Big Five (leopard, elephant, lion, rhino, and buffalo), the North American Twenty Nine (all species of bear, bison, sheep, moose, caribou, and deer), Big Cats of the World, Antlered Game of the Americas, and many other contests.

To complete all 29 award categories, a hunter must kill a minimum of 322 separate species and sub-species—enough to populate a large zoo. This is an extremely expensive and lengthy task, and many SCI members take the quick and easy route to see their names in the record books. They shoot captive animals in canned hunts, both in the United States and overseas, and some engage in other unethical conduct like shooting animals over bait, from vehicles, with spotlights, or on the periphery of national parks.

What is the matter with these people? How can anyone be so competitive that they will actually increase the risk of extinction of rare animals just for the sake of getting a trophy?

Now for a Tangled Bank hosted by an Engineering Librarian...

General science, biology, and medicine are not my typical subject areas as I usually highlight resources in engineering and electronic resources available from my library. I occasionally branch off into medicine and biology as I support faculty and students conducting research in biomedical engineering.

Good science is important for everyone, and I hope this Tangled Bank promotes further discussion and thoughts, as we explore the science in spacecraft, illness, global warming, butterflies, locust, Star Wars, sex, love, and many other topics.

Outfit a spacecraft with a huge but incredibly lightweight mirror, and it can travel indefinitely, without fuel, at speeds that eventually exceed those of conventional rocket-powered craft. Joe Kissell presents Solar Sails - The next big thing in space travel posted at Interesting Thing of the Day.

Explore some of the research findings that suggest that there is an epigenetic basis to the development of lupus, an autoimmune disease that affects nearly 200 million Americans. Trevor Covert at Epigenetics News shares The Epigenetics of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE).

Jeremy Bruno at The Voltage Gate took a closer look at a recent Oprah show that discussed global warming by looking at a few inaccuracies and the shows reliance on propaganda rather than facts.

GrrlScientist presents Another Origin of Species posted at Living the Scientific Life. This essay describes an elegant Nature paper that investigates the role of homoploid hybridization in creating a new species of butterfly. (Homoploid hybridization is when the parent species and their hybrid offspring all have the same number of chromosomes).

The Different River presents Would You Donate Your Virginity to Science. The New England Journal of Medicine just published a paper by a group of researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle studying whether condom use affected the probability of infection with Human Papillomavirus Infection (HPV). The Different River explores the ethics of how the study was conducted as female college virgins were located to record their first sexual experiences.

Rachel Ann presents Locust, Star Wars and Crashing Cars posted at Willow Tree. Explore how Star Wars was used to research the ability of locust to avoid collisions, and how the resulting research can be used to make automobiles safer.

Hsien-Hsien Lei wrote Imprinted Genes Altered in IVF Embryos at Genetics and Health. Scientists reported that mice embryos resulting from in vitro fertilization could have genetic abnormalities due to different culture media and concentrations of oxygen.

Love is one of the most confusing and wonderful parts of life. There is perhaps no subject about which so many stories, songs, and poems have been written. Paul at Paul's Tips presents Scientific proof that we all need love.

Learn how nurse plants help other plants become established in the restoration of degraded ecosystems and what this tells us about ecological communities. Shared by Jane Shevtsov at Perceiving Wholes.

Christopher Birkbeck explores how small man is in this universe at See You at Enceladus.

David Wheat at Science in Action asks "Why is Urine Yellow?".

A tale of scientific discovery - some cases of obesity are likely caused by a virus. Monado presents Obesity is a virus? posted at Science Notes.

Time for a little archaeology with Martin Rundkvist at Salto sobrius. He reports from a recent conference on Roman Period war booty sacrifices in Denmark and Germany.

The Evil Monkey at Neurotopia (version 2.0) suggested two uniques items, so I decided to offer both. First look at "pseudoscientific nonsense" with Of Sweet Potatoes, Social Cognition, and Spiritual Hullabaloo. Next, Evil Monkey explores how PDE-5 Inhibitor Sildenafil Improves Cognition, or Viagra's Good for the Big Head Too.

Ruth Schaffer at The Biotech Weblog shared information on an oral supplement to counteract Celiac Disease. Celiac Disease (CD) is an autoimmune digestive disorder characterized by an immunologically toxic reaction to the ingestion of gluten which can be found in wheat, rye, and barley.

Jacob Tennessen wrote about a foray into the field with a bat ecologist at the Salamander Candy.

David Ng shares a short commentary on the perception of scientists in the photography and film world at The World's Fair.

Carel Brest van Kempen at Rigor Vitae wonders why a recent announcement of the discovery of a color-changing snake by WWF is news when it was first documented in the mid-90's.

Nick Anthis, as someone who regularly performs NMR experiments, he knows that NMR generally involves long hours in a dark basement. If he could instead perform his experiments while also enjoying a day out at the park, it would make the field infinitely more attractive for others. At The Scientific Activist, Anthis highlights a recent study that proves that this may be possible…or does it?

Cathy Davies at the Lab Cat looks at water chemistry and hydrogen bonding. The graphics are great. Davies also puts out a call for chemistry bloggers, specifically food chemists, by introducing people to food chemistry in her post.

Dan Rhoads at Migrations revisits a 2003 essay by Daniel Yankelovich, called Winning Greater Influence for Science, which calls for a greater role for scientists as political advocates, not merely specialized advisors, in the interest of bridging the divide between science and the public in politics.

At the Fight Aging! blog, a post draws a parallel between the current growth in biotechnology and that of computer hobbyists beginning in the 1970's.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula shows us what we can learn from octupus brains.

At Thoughts from Kansas, Josh Rosenau shares the excitement of meteorites found in rural Kansas, and the related festival with its invasion by creationists.

Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock writes about a recent study on the molecular mechanism underlying circadian rhythms in mammals. In addition, A Blog Around the Clock has a guest blogger in Kevin Messenger that is writing about his herpetological field research in remote areas of China.

Jake Young presents Can women generate oocytes late into life? posted at Pure Pedantry.

I found two articles to follow up my previous post on Google's shortcomings. The first is a sixth grader&aposs essay on why Google is great, and the second is a listing of webservices marketshares with commentary comparing Google to MSN.

I found some really sweet Facebook userscripts at facebookWithBenefits. The best are post2faceBook which adds a quick post feature and inYOfaceBook which magnifies user picture thumbnails on mouse over.

Mugshot for Windows still leaves a lot ot be desired. It ignores the users browser prefrence (probably to maintain the login session between the tray icon and the browser) and it only supports iTunes and YME. Digging into the source it looks like it uses two different sets of classes to abstract them.

I made some new mugshot and loudmouth packages for dapper as jdub's mugshot packages are now out of date and the dapper loudmout packages crash on the mugshot out of date notification.

The Gnome desktop has made steady progress lately but sometimes the developers seem so focused on visible changes that they forget about their backend stated goals. For instance they want to migrate from popt to GOption but the patch for gnome-terminal has been sitting for three months now.

They have already recognized patch rot as a barrier to participation. Patch rot means that patches are lees likely to cleanly apply and is also frustrating to patch writers. What they really need is a Patch Marshall to make sure that submitted patches either get accepted or denied in a reasonable amount of time.

Here's my wife, for comparison, in the little patch of Silver King field corn. Even the replants are almost knee high. It's one of the few bright spots...that, and baby summer squash. But the garden is under water again.

Today, being independence day in the US, will see a huge outpouring of patriotic fervor, with parades and bands and flag waving. Coming at a time when the mood of the country is being whipped up to mobilize and support yet another attack on another country (this time Iran) I thought it might be appropriate to read one of Mark Twain's lesser known works.

I came across it during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I was surprised by the fact that I had never even heard of it before, even though I have read quite a lot of Twain's work and about Twain himself. Tomorrow I will look at what Twain is trying to say in this piece and the background to it. For today, I'll let this remarkable piece of writing speak for itself.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams – visions of a stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! – then home from the war, bronzed heros, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation – "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory.

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting.

With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal," Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside – which the startled minister did – and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said

"I come from the Throne – bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd and grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import – that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause)

"Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

POST SCRIPT: Strange statues

Take a look at this collection of strange statues from all over the world.

According to a recent article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (June 7, 2006), humanity in the next 3 years will produce more data than in did in the past 1,000 years. Concerns of future data format and degradation are of great concern to many institutions, such as the Council on Library and Information Resources, the National Archives, IBM, and the Library of Congress. See full article for further discussion.

(Full Article VIA: George Mason University's History News Network)

My implements came at around 1:30 yeaterday.

The man who delivered them had helpful hints about maintaining the gearbox on the brush hog, and how and why an 8N drives a tiller (fast 1st gear and no live PTO make for a skimmy job). But the basic stuff seemed just too stupid to ask about, and there's no "Tractors for dummies" book out there. I hitched up the brush hog ... not all the way, because Rusty was out and both PTO shafts were still in her trunk. But I could see I was missing a few things; for one, the implement was only hitched at 2 points. So when she returned, I went to Tractor Supply and got some lynch pins, 2 PTO shaft pins, a bar for the top of the hitch, and a drawbar so I can tow my wagon. After dinner I put it all together...and it wouldn't raise. I finally figured out that the PTO had to be engaged for the hydraulics to work. The problem with that was that I didn't have control figured out and would either take the implement too high or would ground it, either of which would cause the PTO pin to shear and the shaft to dance around like a cobra ready to strike from the inertia of the brush hog blade (a steel bar with steel bars loosely pinned at either end, to club to death anything that gets in its way, sort of a weed whacker on steroids). Having used up my supply of PTO pins, I'm out of business until after the holiday.

I need to order an operators manual for the 8N ($15-$20 online). Given how many were sold to Southerners converting from mules, it should tell me everything I need to know.

University: The Humanist Neighborhood

When Moses Cleaveland founded the city of Cleveland in 1796, he established what would later become downtown, naturally the hotspot of present-day Cleveland. A year after Moses, another surveyor set up shop and home in the Cleveland area and established what would become Cleveland’s second downtown, University Circle.

In 1797 Nathaniel Doan built a log hotel and tavern in a woodland four miles east from the city of Cleveland. Many of Cleveland’s wealthy families moved on to Euclid Avenue in the area and the street earned the name Millionaire’s Row. For decades the neighborhoods from downtown to “Doan’s Corners” thrived. Then, in the late-1800’s families began to move out of the city, to the suburbs now known as Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights to escape the growing population of middle class neighbors.

Some of these families demolished their mansions rather than let them be used by the middle class, but there were other families who donated their homes and thousands of dollars to the city upon leaving it. One of those millionaires, Jeptha H. Wade, donated 75 acres of his old estate to the city of Cleveland for a public park and an art gallery. Amasa Stone donated $500,000 and 43 acres of land for Western Reserve University to move from rural Hudson, Ohio. In 1885 the Case School of Applied Sciences relocated to Doan's Corners from downtown Cleveland. Later on in 1967 these two schools combined into Case Western Reserve University and grew exponentially. As the middle class moved in, a streetcar line was built to serve Euclid Avenue. The circular trolley turnaround at East 107th Street became known as the University Circle stop. As more cultural institutions moved into the area, the University neighborhood was given its distinctive name.

There are four sections of the University neighborhood: University Circle, Little Italy, the historical residential area and the modern residential area. In 1957 the University neighborhood’s largest institutions formed a federation to work on behalf of the best interests of University Circle. This group, University Circle Inc., avidly promotes the Circle’s institutions and manages housing and real estate. University Circle Inc. also collects statistics about the Circle. Currently, more than 75 not-for-profit institutions are in the University neighborhood and half of them are concentrated in University Circle. Little Italy is a concentration of fine ethnic eateries and shops along Mayfield Road and Murry Hill, adjacent to Euclid Avenue. Little Italy is mostly southeast of the RTA Red Line. The historical residential area is north of University Circle and includes Magnolia, Rockefeller Park, Wade Park and Bellflower communities. The modern residential area in southern University is often neglected for not being closer to Euclid Avenue, yet in this area you will find the Cleveland NAACP chapter and the Uqbah Mosque Foundation. The borders of the University neighborhood are Wade Park Avenue to the north, Quincy Avenue and Mount Overlook Avenue to the south, East 105th Street to the west, and Woodland Avenue to the east.
According to University Circle, Inc. more than 30,000 people work in the University neighborhood, making it second only to downtown as an employment center. More than 13,000 students attend CWRU, The Cleveland Institute of Music, The Cleveland Institute of Art, and the Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine. And including patients who come to our important medical facilities, 2.5 million people visit the Circle annually. Besides the students, there live only about 9,500 people. Unfortunately, like most of Northeast Ohio, University is facing an economic downfall as every year more people move away or invest someplace else. In the neighborhood there are 400 vacant properties and 2700 residents living in poverty.

University Circle Incorporated and other community development organizations such as Little Italy 2000 Redevelopment Association are working to improve the economy of University. Charter One Bank recently committed $150 million for economic and community development in the University Circle area via housing loans, grants, and small business loans. It is collaborating with University Circle Inc. and other foundations in this effort.

University is, like most of Cleveland, a remarkable yet unappreciated place that will only grow when people recognize its potential, and better yet, its existence. If University’s communication were to focus on reaching Greater Cleveland citizens, the neighborhood will grow. Case Western Reserve’s The Observer sums up University’s problem in this way: “On one hand Cleveland has a cultural gem and on the other hand it has what seems to be an underused and poorly organized stretch of land.” University will always flaunt Cleveland aesthetics, no matter the era, no matter the regression.

The U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) turns 40 tomorrow, the day we celebrate our independence. This was stated by Jimmy Carter, who write in the opinion column for today's Washington Post issue.

Now I am sure some conservatives would like to see this piece of legislation abolished for the sake of national security, but the uninterrupted flow of information is integral to the survival of democracy. These days, governments are slowly re-classifying documents that were made open to the public several years ago, or even a decade ago. New policies have been issued to prevent many important documents and official actions from being seen by the public.

As stated by Carter -- war, civil rights violations, energy costs, campaign finance and lobbyist scandals -- dictate the need for citizens to have the right to access public documents.

Using the war on terror as an excuse to keep documents hidden from the public is unexcusable. Terrorist attacks have occurred throughout the years, why the urgency to keep everything secret now? Is it really protecting national security or keeping those "politicians" in power forever?

Washington Post - We Need Fewer Secrets

In one of the classic Peanuts cartoons, Linus says that when he grows up he wants to become a great doctor and rid the world of illness. His sister Lucy tells him he can't because he doesn't care enough about humanity. An indignant Linus responds, "I love humanity! It's people I can't stand!"

I remembered that cartoon as I was writing the recent series of posts about the difficulties with believing that the mind/soul is a non-material entity that can exist independently of the material body and brain. I wrote about how Descartes struggled with how to understand the actual working of the model.

The thought struck me that it is often easy for us to accept the big picture as long as we ignore the details. For example, if you ask people whether they believe in a god who is all-powerful and can and will respond to people's prayers, most people will unhesitatingly answer yes. If you ask them whether there is a heaven, they will say yes. If you ask them whether they believe in the existence of an immortal soul, they will say yes. If you ask them if they have free will, they will say yes.

None of these things are really that hard to believe in, as long as you stay solely with the big picture. The problem comes when you try and work out the details. It is when you ask questions like: If God exists, where is he located? How does he act in the world? Why is it that his actions seem to be indistinguishable from random chance or the workings of natural law? Where is heaven? What happens there? What is the relationship of the soul to the brain? How does the soul influence the brain?

Such questions are very difficult to answer and despite the fact that religions have been around for thousands of years, no convincing answers have yet been provided. The religious believer is invariably reduced to saying that such things are impossible for mere mortals to comprehend and that they have to take it on faith that there are answers that will be revealed to people only after they are dead. So believers in religion are essentially told: Believe in the big picture and don't ask questions or expect answers about the details.

As a methodological attitude, this is what makes it hard for religion to be compatible with a scientific approach. Science, like religion, also deals with big questions: How did the universe get created? What is it made of? How did it become the way it is now? Science seeks answers to those questions and in the process creates universal laws and theories such as the conservation of energy or the theory of evolution.

As with religion, it is easy to believe in big picture ideas, even bizarre ones. Multiple and parallel universes? Going backwards and forwards in time? Access to unlimited energy from the quantum fluctuations in the vacuum? All these ideas have their appeal and are believed in by people.

But there the similarity with religion ends. Such broad beliefs do not become part of science if they remain purely at that level of generality. Scientific answers to the big questions and the universal laws themselves are found by looking at the details, at how these things manifest themselves in specific concrete situations which can be studied under controlled conditions. There is no question that is in principle seen to be beyond the scope of investigation or beyond human understanding. Any scientist who proposed a grand scheme and failed to articulate how it would play out in specific concrete isolated situations would not be taken seriously.

If one looks at the history of science, it is the accumulation of answers to questions of detail that have determined which theories of science should be retained and which should be overthrown. The transition from the Ptolemaic geocentric model of the solar system to the Copernican heliocentric system did not occur because the latter model was seen as being clearly better. Conceptually, it is just as easy to believe in a geocentric model as it is in a heliocentric model. The change happened because over time, the detailed working out of the consequences of each model in specific instances (such as the motions of specific planets) seemed to be more compatible with the Copernican model than the Ptolemaic one.

This attention to detail characterizes academic discourse in general. I recall one historian saying that this is why they try to locate original documents, however boring and mundane they might seem. For a historian, a book of receipts and invoices from a store that was in existence three hundred years ago may allow her to piece together and corroborate a more reliable account of life in those times than (say) a book written during that time that seeks to describe life then. This is because books are written with a broad purpose in mind and this can distort its contents. But people doing their daily book-keeping in a store are simply recording actual events for their own use, not with an eye to history. Hence there is less chance of unconscious bias.

This is also why anthropologists and archaeologists focus so much on collecting raw data that to the rest of us seems like it has little value. The work of the people who painstakingly analyzed the layers of pollen and vegetation and bones deep in the soil of Easter Island enabled them to arrive at a more reliable and comprehensive accounting of how that community collapsed than the accounts of travelers to that island. (I will write about the fascinating story of Easter Island in a future posting.)

So while seeking the answers to big questions is the ultimate goal, in science and in most other areas of knowledge we arrive at those answers as a secondary consequence of finding answers to small, detailed questions. In religion, however, we are simply told by authorities the answers to the big questions and told not to expect answers to the detailed ones.

POST SCRIPT: The Mind and the Brain

I wrote recently (here and here) about the relationship of the mind to the brain and how the neuroscience community views this question. In a recent article, Paul Bloom, professor of Psychology at Yale talks about brain studies using fMRI and confirms my belief that the brain is all there is. He says:

But we know, scientifically, that the physical activity of the brain is the source of our mental processes. It's one of the first things the professor says in any intro psych course: The mind is what the brain does, and so every mental event, from falling in love to worrying about your taxes, is going to show up as a brain event. In fact, if anyone were to find an aspect of thought that did not correspond to a brain event, it would be the discovery of the century, as it would be the first ever proof of hardcore Cartesian dualism.

(Thanks to MachinesLikeUS.com.)

TOXNET (TOXicology Data NETwork) is a cluster of databases covering toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health and related areas. It is managed by the Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program (TEHIP) in the Division of Specialized Information Services (SIS) of the National Library of Medicine (NLM). TOXNET provides free access to and easy searching of the following databases:

• HSDB (Hazardous Substances Data Bank)
• IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System)
• ITER (International Toxicity Estimates for Risk)
• CCRIS (Chemical Carcinogenesis Research Information System)
• GENE-TOX (Genetic Toxicology)
• Tox Town
• Household Products Database
• Haz-Map
• TOXMAP
• LactMed (Drugs and Lactation)
• TOXLINE
• DART/ETIC (Development and Reproductive Toxicology/Environmental Teratology Information Center)
• Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)
• ChemIDplus

See the Factsheet for TOXNET: Toxicology Data Network for detailed descriptions.

NASA's Constellation Program is getting to work on the new spacecraft that will return humans to the moon and blaze a trail to Mars and beyond. Using various Flash animations, Quicktime movies, images, and PDF Fact Sheets learn about this exciting undertaking. View work by assignment, such as the role of Glenn Research Center.

Glenn will manage the work on the CEV's service module, which will provide maneuvering with its propulsion system, generate power using solar arrays, and keep the vehicle cool with heat rejection radiators. Glenn is also the lead for the upper stage of the Crew Launch Vehicle.

(VIA: The Scout Report, June 23, 2006)

This guy's entry won't let me comment, so I'll leave it here.

Cleveland takes time to appreciate. I also lived in the walled garden of University Circle / cleveland heights for 7 years, and did not know Cleveland-proper until I moved to the west side (4 years ago), and then even more after I started looking to buy a home in the city. We basically spent a year driving through neighborhoods, seeing who was out and about and trying to get a feel for them. As friends bought homes in some of these neighborhoods, we explored more. There is so much more to this town than University Circle / Cleveland heights.

Neighborhoods that are worth walking through include Ohio City (beyond the west-side market even), Tremont, E 185. All of them have stuff going on. Detroit-Shoreway is a little rougher around the edges, but has several hidden gems including W Clinton, W 58, and W 61. If you want to live somewhere quieter, there are great streets in West park and in the Northeast Shores (N Collinwood, north of Lakeshore) area. Where else can you get a home on the lake for so cheap? You're right about Strongsville and other suburban sprawl, but the inner ring burbs like Lakewood and Cleveland heights (once you get away from Coventry) are actually great towns with a lot going on beyond just the bars.

Every city has its high and low points. I think that you might have a different view from someone who went to Carnegie Mellon for 5 years.

If you should happen to take a full time position in Cleveland after graduating, do yourself a favor and live on the west side for a year. Then, if you like rec-league sports, Clevelandplays is a good way to discover lots of parks and neighborhood bars. These 2 things would change your perspective.

Oh, and Go Browns!

Societal expectations of mothers have evolved dramatically since the 1930s. Remember the old chestnut that women should be "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen"? Gone the way of the dodo bird, right? If it were, the Ohio state legislature would not have had any reason to pass a law last year, stating that "a mother is entitled to breast-feed her baby in any location of a place of public accomodation wherein the mother is otherwise permitted." That's why a group of mothers and babies held a nurse-in yesterday at Crocker Park in Westlake. I attended to support their rights to breastfeed in public. The event is covered on page B1 of the July 2 Plain Dealer (which is now available online).

This right has been frequently challenged in recent years. Lots of people still think that mothers with nursing babies should stay home, or go home to feed their babies. Breastpumps, bottles, and artificial baby milk make it possible for anyone to feed a baby, and once that is possible, there's more room to argue that a mother should conform to notions of modesty that have been applied to all women equally in our society. This view privileges the sexual appeal of breasts to men, and argues that mothers should not appear in public when they are using their breasts to feed their babies. It's expressed by comments such as this one, responding to news coverage of a Milwalkee nurse-in:

"Honestly think somethings are done better in a private place and why on earth would anyone want to breast feed in a dressing room, working in retail I can agree with the employees most malls set up family restrooms for this purpose. You take away from business."

Obviously, this is not a view with which I agree. Restrooms are noplace where anyone should be eating. Family restrooms in malls are great places to change diapers, but they do not have a comfortable spot to sit down and nurse.

There's a lot of work still to be done before our society broadly accepts that a breastfeeding mother's place is anywhere...

Here are some other comments on a different news article in Wisconsin which reflect the point of view that breastfeeding in public should not be a right:

"Don't they make pumps anymore? Get real."

"you go into a mall to go shopping not to go see a woman with her boob hanging out trying to feed her child, plus I wouldn't want my child to see that, and ask questions when its not time for him to know that kind of stuff yet."

Comments like this explain why so few babies are breastfed -- if moms are expected to do extra work in order to be completely modest, and children are expected to be protected from the truth about how babies are fed, it's no surprise that only 25 percent of 6-month-olds in Cuyahoga County, are breastfed, even though the US Department of Health and Human Services has set a target rate for 6-month-olds of 50 percent. That means that most babies in our county are exposed to the risks of not breastfeeding.

But why not use a bottle when a baby needs to be fed away from home?

Well, for one thing, using a bottle when your baby is brand-new can sabotage your breastfeeding relationship for the long term. Older babies who are accustomed to breastfeeding will not always take a bottle -- my daughter did until she turned 5 months old, but after that, she went on a bottle strike. I'm not the only one who had a baby who wouldn't take a bottle, either.

For another thing, putting formula in a bottle means accepting the increased health risks that go along with substituting an artificially manufactured substance for the human-produced and human-specific milk that mothers' bodies naturally make. And using formula to feed a breastfed baby can reduce a mother's milk supply, creating a vicious circle when even more formula is used, less milk is produced, and eventually, a mother's milk supply disappears.

And finally, pumping breastmilk to put it in a bottle takes work. Figure at least 15 minutes to pump enough for one feeding. Mothers who skip a feeding at the breast and offer a bottle instead will still have milk in their breasts, and if their babies don't nurse to drink that milk, the mothers are at higher risk of developing plugged ducts and breast infections known as mastitis. Pumping is a useful process when a mother and her baby must be separated, but it's not a good solution when mother and baby are out in public together.

Don't ask moms to do all that work just so you can avoid the inconvenience of looking away if you see more than you are comfortable with. Of course, moms should be offered somewhere private and clean to nurse if they are out and about when their babies get hungry, and they want privacy... but moms who are comfortable with nursing in public should not be made to feel shameful for doing what nature intended. The next time you are out in public, and you see a mom nursing her baby, smile and say "thank you for giving your baby a healthy start in life!"