Childrearing Strategies

Buck pointed me to a story in The Register about an IT guy who found a rude post on his daughter's FB account complaining about the chores she had to do, so he put a video of himself shooting her laptop on YouTube. Funny: when I read the story, I was sort of poised to be amused -- I'm generally all for children being respectful and well-behaved, hierarchy, all that sort of thing, and the over-the-top gunplay just sounded like a goofy way of denying the kid access to a computer. After watching the video, I wanted to break the father's kneecaps.

We're running into sort of the opposite problem here: Sally just got detention for organizing a protest of a recent change to her school's uniform policy that disrupted class. She's apologized to the teacher whose class she disrupted, I apologized as well, and I gave her a firm talking to about respecting the teachers and the administration and all that sort of thing; if she wants to protest school policies to do it on paper and outside of class time. But I really need to keep a firm lid on myself for actually being kind of pleased with the rabble-rousing; I don't want to encourage her to be obnoxious and disruptive, but I do like her spontaneously organizing political action.

On the radio

I had a far away doctor's appointment today and on the way home Catholic Answers was on the radio, and I pretended that I was Catholic and felt connected to the radio host, and kind of tuned in to how I might feel if these were my moral dilemmas. The host had a vaguely intellectual Torah-study bent that was easy to listen to. One question was "Is it a sin for a man and a woman to live together if they are not married, and not having a sexual relationship?" Answer: yes, the sin of scandal, of setting a bad example. (Although how great is the Rev Lovejoysian phrase the SIN of scandal?) Follow-up: Is it a sin for two men or two women to live together, platonically? Answer: possibly. It depends on the context. If everyone assumes it's platonic, like in a college dorm, then it is not sinful. But in Greenwich Village, it would be a sin. (No, really, they said that.)

Another question was "My mother has cancer and I'm the only Catholic left in the family and she's being seduced by New Agers whose slant is Angels Bearing Messages. What should I do to bring them back into the fold?" I mean, this guy is genuinely tormented, and I'd feel uneasy were my mother being courted by fruity types while very sick, too. I could very much relate to parts of the conversation. And not other parts.

You Can Have Sex without Children

It's true, you know. You can. Both in the sense of not producing children and in the sense of not including children.

Here is an interesting post by Kotsko on contraception and Catholicism.

Here is an article which, in its body, seems concerned with scholarly trappings (citing others, examining and mounting arguments, etc) but which nevertheless has a title which is, at the least, unpromising. (Nevertheless the POV evinced by the title seems to go at least somewhat against Adam's main contention.)

Guest Post - Shearer

From Shearer:

It is a common belief that people choosing technical fields have a tendency towards autism. However if this paper is to be believed humanities majors have their own problems. From the abstract:

... Students aspiring to technical majors (science/mathematics/engineering) were more likely than other students to report a sibling with an autism spectrum disorder (p = 0.037). Conversely, students interested in the humanities were more likely to report a family member with major depressive disorder (p = 8.8×10−4), bipolar disorder (p = 0.027), or substance abuse problems (p = 1.9×10−6) ...

So let's hear more about how humanties types are suicidal drug abusers and less about how technical types are socially inept jerks.

Heebie's take:

These guys make the best hot sauce I've had, their chipotle hot sauce. It's very vinegar-y and pepper-y, so it may not be a universal favorite. They also make a habañero hot sauce, which we've bought but haven't yet opened.

Unfortunately, their website is not done - the hot sauces aren't even in the photograph of products - and I can't find any place online to direct you to buy some. So I couldn't justify a stand-alone post.

Words With Friends

I hung around a lot of student bus drivers in college (my alma mater has a largely student-run transit service, you see), and as a result I occasionally deploy a bit of CB slang to the befuddlement of an interlocutor. Most recently, it was, "What's your twenty?"

I also passed through a brief, albeit insufferable, phase years ago where I attempted to revive various bits of jazz slang. (I know. I know. I'm not proud. I'm sorry.)

What chatter do you dig, birdbrain?

Beating the Spread: Santorum!

What delightful news to wake up to:

Rick Santorum is the projected winner in the Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri Republican contests, a surprising revival for a candidate whose campaign has flagged since winning Iowa in January.

Not that these results have any real impact on the race, especially in Missouri (the state so nice, they nominate twice!), but it's been lovely to watch the other team borrow the circular-firing-squad maneuver for a few weeks.

Go Bayside!

Idle thoughts

Do hackers spy on websites with crappy security, like where I sign up to play IM soccer, and monitor the passwords for incorrect answers? Because the incorrect answer is possibly the person's password at Bank of America or their google account. Also the correct answer could be, too.

Crime rates, Incarceration, and Ideology

Mike at Rotten in Denmark is always a smartypants.

[Excerpt from a New Yorker article on incarceration rates] demonstrate how weak democracy is for solving complex problems. The vast majority of the population doesn't know very much about crime, policing, prisons or what is likely to produce a favorable ratio between the three. So we fall back on ideology.

Right-wing people want harsh sentencing and strong enforcement not because these have been shown to systematically reduce crime, but because they are a component of their ideology. This is the solution they propose regardless of the problem.

Similarly, left-wing people want more social programs, poverty reduction and equality promotion not because these are empirically effective, but because they are goods in themselves. These will be the first three suggestions for government intervention regardless of the subject matter.

Like all complex social phenomena, the effective intervention turns out to be more complicated and-sigh-as always, morally problematic.

It's true; regardless of the problem, I want poverty reduction and stronger public programs. Calling this a "cure" to the most proximate ill is only valid in some long game sense. He ends by quoting part of the article calling for revolution of our prison system.

I've written this out and have to go to class soon, but part of me wishes I'd picked this or this post instead as a topic.

Guest Post - Nick S.

From Nick:
I'd be curious what the unfoggedtariat makes of this. The thesis seems superficially plausible to me, but still feels unconvincing to me without corroborating evidence.

"My guess is that most intellectuals underestimate just how dysfunctional most firms are. Firms often have big obvious misallocations of resources, where lots of folks in the firm know about the problems and workable solutions. The main issue is that many highest status folks in the firm resist such changes, as they correctly see that their status will be lowered if they embrace such solutions." ...

"All three of these functions seem to be achieved at a low cost by hiring good-looking kids from our most prestigious schools. These are the cheapest folks you can buy with our most prestigious affiliations, they are smart enough to judge where reason lies, and they have few prior affiliations to taint them with bias. They can not only "borrow your watch to tell you the time," but can also cow you into submission in accepting that time."

From Heebie:
In the past year, I saw turf battles up close in a way that made me gain new appreciation for why consultants might be valuable. Before I'd really thought it was a bullshit profession. Although I don't think good-looking recent graduates would have been able to help much.

For Shearer

Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism. Indisputably, we have located the elusive g.

Stupor Bowel

It's difficult even to begin to consider rooting for teams with such wildly bumptious names as "Giants" and "Patriots." Nonetheless, I do harbor sympathy for Eli Manning. Perpetually in the shadow of his older brother. Unable to escape the nagging question: sure, you made it to the big game this year; but what if Peyton had been playing this season?

And so, it is with lukewarm emotion that I set about making chili for tonight's event. The housemate has pre-treated chicken wings with baking powder and salt, a concoction which serves to dry out the skin, thus producing cripsy chicken wings from the oven rather than the deep fryer. (I'm skeptical, but I won't be eating them anyway, so whatever.)

I suppose the canonical lukewarm response is to express interest in the commercials, but even the spoiler Ferris Bueller-Honda ad disappointed. It could have been so much better, guys.

So it goes. If you need me, I'll be muttering quietly to myself a solitary refrain: actually, I rather like football.