Discussion Friday

Two wonderful discussions for you to follow:

1.

Dan and Ron are engaged in a great discussion that started with whether the biblical stories are literal or metaphorical, and turned into a talk about the literal/metaphorical interpretation of the constitution that may allow the president to justify some intrusions that wouldn't otherwise be justifiable.

The conversation happens in the comments section of their two blogs, in the comments attached to almost unrelated posts. So happy hunting to anyone interested in observing or participating.

A note to you Dan and Ron: It's really hard to follow the conversation. Perhaps you can consolidate your thread to one place? It's worth following.

The Discussion starts here: link
and continues here: link

2.

Non-Prophet has a series of email exchanges between Ted Haggard of New Life Church and the gentleman filing a lawsuit against the Air Force Academy alleging the unconstitutional imposition of christianity on cadets at the Academy, Mikey Weinstein.

Link

Infringing Copyrights in Support of My Nerd Quotient

This was an amazing gift that Heather gave me, featuring the tagline from that Dyson vacuum commercial. I always get a kick out the simplicity of that line, spoken with a British accent of course. Heather made the t-shirt herself, with a custom Luke Flowers design.

When half-spent was the night...

Merry Christmas to everybody. And Happy Holidays too.

Heather and I have been thinking lately about the Santa Claus thing. Is it really ethical to directly lie to your kids about the existence of such a character? Why would a parent do such a thing? Is there anything to be gained in it?

My conclusion is that there is little harm and significant value and here's my argument:

What's the point of Santa?
Santa is just part of the magical atmosphere of the holiday. It can go too far, and I think it's important not to overdo Santa into a cultish obsession, but I think it's valuable for kids to have some fantasy around the holiday. An introduction to such enormous absurdity (flying reindeer?) is good for imagination and ultimately, I think, a good weird sense of humor, which is a thing of beauty.

But why cause the trauma of a lie revealed?
I'm not really worried about traumatizing the kids. In fact, any trauma caused will be limited. Any adult who claims to suffer an unhealed wound caused by the realization that Santa Claus is not real needs to snap out of it. Plus, little kids are not really in touch with reality anyway. They may believe that Santa Claus is real, but that belief is only a small part of the fantasy world of childhood. Pete also believes that the trains living on the island of Sodor can talk. Who knows what other beliefs, physical laws, and relationships govern his world? No parent tears their hair over having to admit to their kids that animals or trains can't really talk, so why should we worry about Santa, who is really a bit player in the world of kids. The fantasy is the beautiful part of childhood, and the disillusionment is the beautiful part of growing up.

What do you think?

The Giving Tree

When I was a little kid, this was one of my favorite books. During a nostalgic period in college that marked the beginning of the end of my childhood, I bought a copy of it, and now Pete has taken to it. I picked it up a few weeks ago to read to him, and I was impressed by the tear-jerking sadness of it. I think that's part of what I liked about it as a kid. Good catharsis.

Last night, from the back seat of the car, Pete "read" the entire book to himself. He loves to tell the story of books to himself, but he's self-conscious about it and will stop if he knows someone's listening. Who knew fear of public speaking started so early?

So, Heather and I were in the front seat, trying not to giggle, as Pete went through the book. An example:

...
Then, that boy said to tree, "I need boat, sail away from my home"
(page turn)
Then, tree said, "I no have boat, I only have leaves"
Then, that boy take those leaves from that tree.
(page turn)
That boy said to tree, "I need boat, sail away from my home"
Then that boy cut down tree trunk, make boat and sail away.
(page turn)
Then, that tree was so lonely.
(page turn)
That boy come back!
(page turn)
That tree say, "I am good stump"
...

It was a beautiful, hilarious, very touching melodrama in the back seat.

By the way, if you haven't noticed, I've surrendered to sentimentality on this blog. I struggled, early on, with not wanting to get too sappy about the kids because while it's intense and meaningful to experience, it can be torturous to listen to. Not many people enjoy listening to cute-blinded parents describe over and over again their fascination with that face their kid makes while he poops.

I didn't want to be that guy, but without that, I've got nothing. The kids are what it's all about for me right now. Not a lot else gets me really excited. I'll surely have sarcasm and wit from time to time, but it would be too artificial to keep out the sappiness. So there you go.

Painting

Yesterday, Heather left Pete on the toilet to do his business (He sometimes does better with a little privacy. Who doesn't?) When she came back to check on him a couple of minutes later, her eyeshadow was spread all over the floor and Pete's lower body. His response: "I was painting my legs and penis!"

NERDS for 6 points!

So, I have a geek confession to make. Heather and I have had a scrabble fixation lately. We've played about a dozen games over the last month-and-a-half. It's fun because we're pretty evenly matched (although Heather has the lead in the series), and it feels better than sitting in front of the TV watching something neither of us has any interest in.

I think it started when I watched Word Wars.

Scrabble in itself is not necessarily a nerd's obsession, no matter what the pictures, hobbies (Siamese Cats?), and professions (numismatist?) of the experts might lead one to believe (Check out Marlon Hill's Occupation and Hobbies).

No, my nerdity does not spring only from the playing of scrabble.

It goes much further than that:

I've entered our scores into an excel spreadsheet and graphed them. See, here's a graph of our average scores:



There, I've said it.

(Our scores are trending up quite nicely, don't you think? I'll resist the urge to add a trendline)

Crunch Time

So, my brother in law is taking an independent-study course at college, and last week, he had to do 21 papers for the course. Of course, these papers were due every week throughout the duration of the course, but he let them all build up until the end, and then he had to crank them all out over a weekend.

The course is entitled "time management"

Ironic, huh.

Who teaches a "time management" course that way? Your students are presumably already struggling with the concept, but you give them 21 papers to do whenever they want? What do you expect?

Thanksgiving Roadtrip

We took a road trip to South Dakota last week to visit Heather's grandparents. The picture above is this huge structure in Nebraska that looks like a pedestrian bridge on steroids. It's one of many random vague monuments in Nebraska, and they're all named some permutation of the following: the pioneer western museum, the western heritage center, the prairie museum, the western prairie pioneer heritage museum.

A few notes:

1. South Dakotans can tell what kind of tractor a family owns by the sound the kids use when playing. John Deere goes putputputput and International goes rrrrrrrrrr.

2. The only pictures that Heather's grandparents have up is all of their grandchildren and great grandchildren, and both popes. (old and new).

3. Heather's grandfather Hub has some serious zen. The other day, Betty was worried because he'd been out at his field, where he was going to hunt some pheasant, for all afternoon, and it was getting dark. Turns out he'd decided to spend the afternoon laying down in the field. He swears that he didn't fall asleep, and I believe him. Also, he measures the seasons by the angle of the sun beams shining through the south-facing window on their living room. During the winter, it almost reaches the opposite wall. In the summer, it doesn't come in the window at all.

4. One farmer in way-rural Nebraska had a billboard sized sign in his field that read "Outlaw Sodomy". I was a bit puzzled. I wonder why he was so specific. And who's the target audience? All of us non-nebraskan interstate travellers? Or the farm on the other side of the road?

Pete is:

Learning about tense:
"Me try go potty, but me do ... no ... umm ... me don't did it!"

Speaking british english, thanks to Thomas the Tank Engine:
"Must get off bed"
"Me eat bit sandwich"

Learning the many uses of precise language:
"My mommy play trains" - This was in response to me saying that I couldn't play trains with him last night because I had to do some cleaning. It was said quietly, almost to himself, and had a guilt-trip tone of "Mom plays trains with me during the day, even when she's busy..."

"My tummy almost hurt" - This was in response to our explaning to Pete that he shouldn't lie about pain. After having been sick and realizing that he gets whatever he wants when he's sick, he occassionally tries to get out of things by claiming that things hurt (his tummy, his feet, his legs).

One of the great joys of life:

Trying to start a campfire in the morning using only the embers from last night.