-
Watching "Dr Who" as an American...or seeing yourself from the outside
One fun thing about Dr. Who is you get to hear American-jokes, like this one:
The Doctor: ....I just walked into the highest security office in the United States, parked a big blue box on the rug. You think you can just shoot me?
River stepping out of the TARDIS: They're Americans!But one more serious thing I've noticed--and it's subtle--is that ( Read more... ) -
_Positive Discipline_ by Jane Nelson
The book is 30 years old, and you can tell. All the examples use surnames ("Mrs. Smith had the following problem with her son..." and not "Jane had the following problem with her son ( Read more... ) -
Nurture Shock, the final review.
Chapter 8: Can Self-Control be Taught?
This chapter exemplifies my problem with the book. It reads all-in-all like the typical "Breakthrough in field X" you so often see in the popular press, but when you look deeper, it's not so clear it's any sort of breakthrough.
( Read more... ) -
NurtureShock, a continuing review
[question #1, right off the bat--why can't I spell "Nurture"?]
( IQ tests for kindergardeners, siblings, and teen rebellion ) -
NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children,part 1: praise,sleep,race,liars
This book give you (the reader) supposedly shocking insights into the nature of children. Indeed, so far it's interesting, though "shocking" wouldn't be my term. It's based on research, but I don't have the same solid confidence in that research that I do in the research for "What's Going on In There". I suspect it's been dumbed down for a wider ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
There was recently a shooting death (by police) near my house. The first shot fired in ~20 years. A crowd was gathered because of a bar fight, some kid (non-drinking according to friends, high blood alcohol according to police) was asked to move his car out of the fire lane, and an officer ended up on the hood of his car and fired a couple shots ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
A friend of mine wrote down her day with her baby in a lot of detail, and it was interesting. So I decided to write down yesterday morning in way too much detail. (Don't worry, it won't become a habit.)
( and really, I mean way too much ) -
(Untitled)
Here's our 2008 Christmas letter (finished on the 10th day of Christmas and mostly mailed on the 11th day of Christmas). It was formatted better on paper.
( Our xmas letter, as a LJ entry ) -
Blaze
John and I went to Blaze last night, a huge outdoor display of pumpkins. Some were actual squash, some were faux pumpkins ("we call them faux pumpkins, or artificial pumpkins, but never fake pumpkins"). There were all the usual jack o' lantern styles you might expect, and then some other stuff, like the "Thriller" (complete with music) graveyard ( Read more... ) -
How much is $700 billion?
* It's a little more than 1/4 of the federal budget, so it will cost you a little over 1/4 your total tax bill ( Read more... )