The West Coast has the Bad Girls

Posted on 07. Oct, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, books, quotes

Quote of the Day from the NY Times Magazine interview with Mario Vargas Llosa:

Llosa: There are a lot of bad girls in America too.

Interviewer: No. that’s just wrong. We don’t have bad girls here.

Llosa: You have been secluded in Manhattan all your life, but go to California, and you will see bad girls.

Startling Statistics III: Drunk Driving Deaths

Posted on 22. Sep, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, startling statistics

According to this week’s Time Magazine, 42% of traffic deaths in California involve at least one vehicle operator with a blood-alcohol content of .08% or more. Utah has the lowest rate, at 24%, and Hawaii has the highest, 52%.

To fight drunk driving, state courts may require that prior DUI offenders install devices that prevent impaired drivers from starting their cars.

Sounds like a great idea to me – do it now!

Startling Statistics II: Muir High School in Pasadena

Posted on 21. Sep, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, education, startling statistics

It’s incredible that less than a mile away from a high school with scores that rank it as one of the top in the state, there lies a school that’s on the brink of being taken over by the state due to its poor performance.
Yesterday’s Pasadena Star News reported in “Muir’s Mustang Spirit Lost” that a consultant who studied John Muir High School in Pasadena found the following sorry statistics:

• Muir’s daily attendance hovers between 60 percent and 70 percent.
• Student proficiency rates in math, English and science are below 25 percent.
• In this year’s state-mandated standardized testing, 75 percent of Muir’s ninth-graders scored below proficiency in English. By the 11th grade, that number climbed to 84 percent.
• Ninety-four percent of ninth-graders tested below proficient in Algebra I, while 100 percent of 10th- and 11th-graders tested below proficient in that subject.

Of course, many reasons are cited for this sad state of affairs. Large class sizes, poor ground maintenance, lack of district support, mistrust of the district, and open enrollment were all on the list. I’d also add student and parent apathy: how else could you account for attendance between 60 to 70 percent? It’s hard to teach kids that don’t come to school.

Bless the new superintendent, Edwin Diaz, who hopes the school will become a model for secondary school reform. I hope he’s right. But it’s going to take a lot more than money and small school reorganizations to fix this mess.

Pot ‘o Gold in Angeles Forest

Posted on 16. Sep, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, local news, travel

Although I live in the heart of suburbia, my city includes the southern edge of the thousand square mile Angeles National Forest. The forest’s windy roads are beloved by daredevil motorcyclists, and its vast remoteness is favored as a place to dump bodies and grow pot. Is it no wonder that local children are warned never to drive north of our city? Despite its sheer awesomeness and beauty, I regard Angeles National Forest the way Tahitians regard the center of their islands, as a place where evil spirits may dwell.

Yesterday’s Pasadena Star News reported that there was yet another pot bust up in the mountains. This one brought in about $18 million worth of plants. If they’re not already doing so, hopefully the authorities are using the Google Maps satellite feature to find pot farms, just as people are using it to find Steve Fossett’s plane.

Here’s my favorite snippet from the article:

Outdoor grow farms are run mostly by Mexican drug cartels who recruit laborers at the Mexican border and throughout California to run the camps, said an officer who would only identify himself as “Gunny.”

The laborers hike in and receive food drops. They remain in place all summer, “Gunny” said.

Jameson said that many of the laborers receive what they consider to be huge paychecks to do the growing. Those who are caught often don’t speak English or know anything about the area they are in.

“We arrested one man up in the Fresno area,” said Jameson. “He thought that he was in Arizona.”

He was actually in the state of Confusion.

Yesterday’s multicultural day

Posted on 09. Sep, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, education, music, my life, politics

Now that school’s started, our calendar is filling up! It’ll get even busier once my son’s arm has recovered enough to play club soccer again.

Yesterday was not only busy, but it was very multicultural. The first phone call of the day was from a parent who will be translating the high school PTA newsletters into Korean this year. We’ll publish our first issue soon.

Later in the morning, I took my daughter to an orientation session for the STARS tutoring program in Pasadena. It’s run through the Lake Avenue Foundation, and is supported by our church. My daughter’s going to tutor there one evening a week, and will probably tutor younger kids who are either Latino or African-American.

In the early afternoon, my husband and I attended the funeral of Donald Long Chu in Rosemead. (see obituary) His son, Newton, lived across the street from us when we lived in Pasadena. We’ll always remember Mr. Chu’s big smile, and how he loved carrying the American flag as he led the tricycle/bicycle parade at our neighborhood block parties. Before he retired, he was a film editor, and in fact was the first Chinese-American film editor in Hollywood. His son Nathan read a very touching letter from the Motion Picture Editors’ Guild praising Mr. Chu’s skill and dedication. One of the most memorable parts of the ceremony was learning that the box that contained his ashes was made from a tree that he’d planted in his yard many years ago.

After the service, we rushed to downtown Los Angeles to attend a Stanford alumni conference about Immigration. There were great speakers, including Xavier Becerra, Zoe Lofgren, Alan Acosta, Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, Hazel markus and Al Camarillo. I especially enjoyed my breakout session with Monica McDermott. My biggest takeaway from the event was that the immigration debate is often colored more by negative images of immigrants, and could benefit from a more balanced view. That’d be tough, however, as most illegal immigrants would be loathe to publicize their status.

Finally, as we were leaving the Wilshire Grand Hotel where the conference was held, we passed the venerable Prairie View A&M University Marching Storm band. We felt like we were in the presence of celebrities, since they were featured on the front page of the NY Times yesterday, hailed as having an incredibly entertaining, disciplined, and high quality band. I’d even taken the time yesterday morning to watch the online video about them. We asked some of the band members if they knew about the story, but they didn’t. It turns out they were in town to play North Carolina A&T in the Angel City Classic at the Coliseum. My husband and I are both former high school trumpeters, and we love the direction today’s innovative bands are going.

Note to self: get tickets to next year’s Angel City Classic. Unless there’s soccer, of course.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Posted on 08. Sep, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, religion, startling statistics

Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom thinks there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in someone else’s computer simulation. I’m not sure how he comes up with his 20 percent figure, but it’s a nice round number that’s not too big to be crazy but not too small to be dismissed. According to the recent NY Times article Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch,

Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.

That sounds like Orson Scott Card’s book Pastwatch, where future humans attempt to change the course of human history by interfering with Columbus’ discovery of America. (see my past blog post about this book)

If our descendants do have this computing capability, I’m sure they’d use it. After all, our generation clearly enjoys SimCity, The Sims and Second Life. (Watch out for Second Life though: see this WSJ article about the married guy who married another woman on Second Life.)
Perhaps Madeleine L’Engle and Albert Einstein had it right. In her obituary in today’s LA Times, she’s quoted as follows:

“I had to have something that made sense, and I wasn’t finding anything that made sense in the logical places,” she told National Public Radio in 1998. “And then I just came across a phrase of Einstein’s, which completely excited me. He said, ‘Anyone who is not lost in rapturous awe at the power and glory of the mind behind the universe is as good as a burned-out candle.’ And I thought, ‘Oh! There’s my theologian.’ “

Einstein as theologian? Why not?

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Wealth is relative

Posted on 05. Sep, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, international, life lessons, startling statistics

When I was young, my parents always chose to live in towns with great school districts. That sometimes meant that we lived in one of the smallest houses in a wealthy town. When we lived in , we even lived on the town’s last unpaved street. Thankfully, my parents taught me to appreciate what I had, and not to be jealous of others. That came in handy when my classmates would go to Hilton Head for spring break and I’d go to the local library.

I think that most people judge how wealthy they are by what others around them have. The New York Times ran an article recently titled In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich* that featured stories of people who have amassed millions of dollars but keep working hard because they don’t feel they have enough.

Mr. Kremen estimated his net worth at $10 million. That puts him firmly in the top half of 1 percent among Americans, according to wealth data from the Federal Reserve, but barely in the top echelons in affluent towns like Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton. So he logs 60- to 80-hour workweeks because, he said, he does not think he has nearly enough money to ease up.

“You’re nobody here at $10 million,” Mr. Kremen said earnestly over a glass of pinot noir at an upscale wine bar here.

I didn’t think the people in the story were whiny. They just have a skewed perspective on finances because they come into daily contact with some of our country’s wealthiest people. I’ve read other stories that have advised people to move to a place where they’ll be in the middle of the economic ladder, so they’ll be more satisfied with what they have.

Of course, we all know in our hearts that we shouldn’t judge ourselves or others by how much money they have. We should be grateful for what we have, and be sure to share our blessings.

But if you ever feel depressed about your net worth, check out Global Rich List. You may be surprised at how wealthy you are compared to the rest of the world.

* If you can’t access the article, you might be able to do so at Congoo.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Aesop in the City

Posted on 31. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in articles

I love The New Yorker. I’ve recently re-discovered it, and I appreciate the writing as much as the cartoons.

I especially liked this month’s “Aesop in the City” feature by Yoni Brenner. It adapts Aesop’s fables to modern-day New York. Here’s an example:

The Mouse and the Donald

Ambling through Central Park one day, a mouse happens upon Donald Trump, trapped in a hunter’s net. The mouse asks the Donald if he can be of any assistance. “How could you help me?” scoffs the Donald. “I am Donald Trump and you are just a lowly mouse.”

Several years later, the Donald calls the mouse into his office. “Your division underperformed again, Johnson,” says the Donald. “Someone’s gonna have to take the fall.” “But, Donald!” cries the mouse. “Don’t you remember why you hired me? How I nibbled through that net and saved you from the hunters?” The Donald thinks for a moment, then replies, “I don’t remember it that way.”

Moral: Success is fleeting, so keep a paper trail.

I think this would be a great high school writing assignment!

Brainstorm to help people who forget their cloth grocery bags

Posted on 22. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, environment, my life

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve forgotten to bring my cloth grocery bags to the supermarket. If I’m lucky, they’re in the car and I can run out and get them. But there are many times when I completely forget to bring them. This would be a problem in San Francisco, which recently passed a law outlawing plastic checkout bags.

I clearly need to get my act together. But for those times that I don’t, here’s my proposed solution:

Grocery stores should rent out cloth bags. If they charge $1.99 to purchase a cloth bag, they could charge $3.00 to rent one out. Then, when you return it, you get a $3.00 credit. So you wouldn’t get the $.05 that some stores give you when you bring your own bag, but you’d have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve helped the environment.

I’d probably wind up using this service quite a bit.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Retouching turns kids into dolls

Posted on 13. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in art, articles, feminism, my life, parenting

The photography studio that takes our school’s class pictures has an option to pay a few extra dollars to have a photo “retouched.” I’ve paid it a few times, figuring that if a stray hair or a blemish is removed, the picture will look much better.

I never imagined that a photo studio would retouch a kid’s photo as much as Pageant Photo Retouching does. You can email a photo to their website, and they’ll do everything from remove drool to add “doll eyes.” Some of the results are downright scary, and the girls (and all the examples they show are girls) wind up looking like porcelain dolls. Here’s one example:

I suppose that if your daughter is in pageants, this must be par for the course. I actually prefer the first picture in this example: although the color is flat, the girl has a more genuine smile.

I shouldn’t be too critical. I’m sure many of us wish we could retouch our driver’s license pictures.

Check out Salon.com for another take on this in “Airbrushing the Baby.”

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Is diabetes inevitable if you’re poor?

Posted on 10. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, food, health, my life

Why bother taking responsibility for what you eat? Between recent studies showing that having fat friends makes you more likely to be overweight, and the recent Pasadena Star News article “Diabetes ‘epidemic’ in L.A.“, one could assume that you don’t have much control over your own weight. The latter article says,

Health professionals said while some ethnic groups seem more prone to the disease genetically, lack of access to healthy food and health care in low-income areas are also to blame.

“It’s cheaper to fill up on chips and a soft drink than it is to buy healthy food,” Fielding said. Peters added that fresh fruits and vegetables are not readily accessible in many low-income areas.

“(Lower income residents) can’t afford it and it’s not available,” she said. “You’ve got to make (nutritious food) easier to get.”

Doctors said perceptions about food and physical activity need to change to head off the problem.

That last sentence is the clincher. I made a point of shopping at a supermarket in Altadena today, and had no problem finding inexpensive fresh fruit. Of course, I made a conscious decision to bypass the pan dulce and ice cream, but that was my choice. If you shop wisely, it won’t kill the pocketbook, and in the long run, you’ll spend less on medical expenses.

Men’sHealth has a great article on its website called Shop Once, Eat for a Week: 10 simple-to-make meals that fight fat, build muscle, and save you time — all for less than 50 bucks. As the title suggests, it details menus that would keep a fit man satisfied for a week for under $50. That may be more than some people can afford, but there are probably a few ways to reduce that cost, such as substituting for chicken for the shrimp.

A recent study showed that toddlers are more likely say food tastes better if it comes in a McDonald’s wrapper. For example, if you give them carrots that aren’t wrapped up, they’ll likely reject them, but if they’re in a McDonald’s wrapper they’ll crave them. Maybe that’s what our school cafeterias need to do – serve healthy food with McDonald’s wrappers!

I could eat the same thing every day and be happy, as long as it involves fresh fruit. And it doesn’t need to have a McDonald’s wrapper!

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS. 

Keep the kids happy while keeping traditions alive

Posted on 08. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, books, cool websites, parenting

Many of today’s kids are experts at video games and text messaging, but if you get them off the couch and onto an empty field, they’re lost. They often don’t know the rules to such classic games as Kick the Can or Capture the Flag, and it’s been so long since the adults played them that we often don’t remember the rules!

The new book “Orange Mama Laid” (get it?) has come to rescue our little couch potatoes and ensure that these traditional games and others like them survive.

“The Orange Mama Laid” is a straightforward guide to the games that have kept generations of kids outdoors until the dinner bell rang and again until bedtime, and to the games that have kept them occupied on long winter days and car rides. With this book as a refresher, you’ll be able to lure the kids away from their TV’s and computers, break the ice with the newest ones and/or keep the kids active and entertained in any situation that allows for a little fun. Some of the games and activities included are the motions to Itsy Bitsy Spider and I’m a Little Teapot; the rules to Capture the Flag, SPUD, Sardines, Spotlight Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard and Kick the Can; the rules for Old Maid, Hearts, Spit, Spoons, and I Doubt It; how to fold a paper football and a cootie-catchie; riddles, knock-knock jokes and even a whole list of your favorite farewell rhynes (“Let’s scat, alley cat!”).

If my kids were younger, I’d definitely get this. (Disclaimer: the author is a daughter of a friend.)

One of our favorite car games when I was a kid involved thinking of peoples’ names starting with certain letters. There are so many more foreign and surprising names now, however, that this game quickly dissolves into arguments in our car. (“Do you really know someone named Flower?”)

The Wall St. Journal had a great article yesterday, Goodbye, George and John, about how the “Anglo core” of baby names is disappearing. Don’t miss the fascinating Baby Name Wizard on iVillage to see how popular individual baby names have been each decade!

Is that flipped-out boss mean or merely self-centered?

Posted on 06. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, tv, work

After watching “Flipping Out,” our stunned silence was broken by my daughter, who said, “Well, at least he isn’t mean.” Perhaps, but…

She was referring to Jeff Lewis, the self-professed obsessive-compulsive star of this new Bravo reality series. Jeff is a “house flipper”: he buys downtrodden houses, fixes them up, and sells them for a pretty profit. He needs things to be perfect, whether it be in his life or in the houses he sells. Slate.com has a great review of the show, and quotes Jeff’s lunch drink request to his assistant,

Jeff: I want to change my drink order.

Jenni: What would you like?

Jeff: Ideally, 70 percent lemonade, 20 percent punch, 10 percent Sprite. If they don’t have fruit punch, do like 85 percent lemonade, and 15 percent Sprite.

Brant: All right.

Jeff: If they don’t have lemonade, do 85 percent punch and 15 percent Sprite… or 7UP.

It’s a perfect example of what my daughter was saying. He’s not necessarily mean, but he is self-absorbed and a bit crazy. He freely admits that he’s found a profession that celebrates his OCD, but is that a good thing?

He may not be mean (though it could be argued that he is), but I wouldn’t want him as a boss. I’d prefer a boss who cares about my welfare, not just his own.

Want to learn more about raging bosses? Then check out my old professor Bob Sutton’s Work Matters blog.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.Â

He who shall not be named: Los Angeles parents should read this

Posted on 02. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, local news, parenting, things that bug me

I was going to write a long post about this story today, but I think the protagonist is doing what he does partly for publicity. So, I don’t want this post to have keywords, etc. that will inform him that he has that publicity.

But, if you’re a parent in Southern California, you should click on the link above.

How does it relate to yesterday’s post? In a weird way, the scene with Ben Stiller and Attila the Hun reminded me of this. What is it in this evil man’s past that makes him want to do this? How can he justify it?

I understand why our laws can’t stop him, though I wish they could. In the old days, vigilante justice would take care of this. That’s not an option for a civilized society, however, so it’s time for parents to beware and hold their children close.

Note: I’d been planning on blogging about this since I read the NYTimes article last week, but I’d like to thank UltraJam for her excellent post on this topic.

POSTSCRIPT: On August 3rd, a judge barred this man “from being within 30 feet of any minor in the Golden State – making it nearly impossible for him to continue living in California.” Source: Pasadena Star News.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS. 

Yesterday, in a world 3.9 miles away, two men were killed

Posted on 28. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, education, local news, religion

When my son and I showed up at Harambee Ministries yesterday to take Rudy Carrasco and his young friend Ernie to lunch, it looked like another beautiful summer day on the pretty, tree-lined streets of Northwest Pasadena. Lively Gospel music played on the office radio, and several teens waited outside to help the receptionist make copies or run errands.

As we pulled away from his house to go to Tonny’s Restaurant (which I highly recommend!), Rudy pointed to the house across the street and down a few. Ten hours earlier, two men had been shot and killed in front of that house.

According to Google Maps, I live just 3.9 miles away from there. But from where I sit, it might as well be a world away. Perhaps JPL, which lies in between, should focus on bridging these two worlds instead of exploring more distant planets. If there were a shooting like this in La Canada Flintridge, everything wouldn’t look so calm 10 hours later. There’d still be reporters, community members and police gathering at the scene of the crime.

Often crimes in this part of town are so commonplace that they barely get a mention in the newspapers. This one seems to have tipped the boat, however: it was actually on the front page of both the Pasadena Star News and the LA Times today. In After drop, gang violence flares up in Pasadena, the LA Times reports that

Pasadena won much praise for reducing gang violence over the last 14 years, a concerted effort that started after the high-profile killing of three teenage boys leaving a Halloween night party in 1993.

The crackdown resulted in a major drop in crime — particularly among young people and gangs. The city, which in the 1980s recorded more than 30 homicides a year, by 2002 recorded just three, according to FBI records. But then, homicides started rising.

Over the past 18 months, there were 18 homicides in Pasadena.

The violence has sparked a series of community forums, a new crackdown by Pasadena police and some political soul-searching.

Hopefully some of these forums, crackdowns and soul-searchings will work, because the situation appears to be worsening. Ultimately, I believe responsibility lies with the families that allow their children to participate in violent activities (or don’t monitor if they are) and, of course, with the individuals themselves. Yes, this is a poor area, but there are far poorer people in the world who don’t resort to violence. Of course, it’s tough to change families and individuals overnight, if at all.

Pasadena’s fortunate to have Harambee Ministries. Its elementary school, after-school tutoring, day camp and other support programs have made lasting differences in the lives of many young people and their families.

It’s incumbent upon the rest of us to support programs such as theirs to the extent we can.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

California’s population expected to grow 67% by 2050

Posted on 27. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, education, environment

The NY Times recently reported that California’s population is expected to grow from the current 36 million to 60 million by 2050. Wow. Sounds good for my property values, but where will my kids live? Maybe we’ll all live in our current house! Including grandchildren!!

To put this population explosion in perspective, for every 100 cars on the road now, there’d likely be 167 in 2050, unless we get more serious about public transportation. For every 100 kids in the schools now, there’d be about 167 in 43 years. And for every 100 gallons of water we consume now, we’d need about 167 gallons in the future. It’s hard to imagine where that will materialize from, considering the drought we’re in now.

I read a bumper sticker the other day that said “Pave the Earth now. Get it over with.” Sounds like we’re headed towards that reality.

They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ‘em
Don’t it always seem to go,
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

- Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi”

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

What happens when organized religion diminishes faith

Posted on 26. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, religion

I’ve read two thought-provoking articles in the last week by Christians decrying the effect that the shenanigans of church officials, church members, and leadership bodies have had on their faith.

In last Saturday’s LA Times article , William Lobdell lays his soul on the line and talks about how, as a Catholic, he was eager to write articles about religion so that he could provide a counterpoint to what he thought was an anti-religion media bias. Unfortunately, the closer he got to his subject, the more he started questioning his own faith. Although he covered positive stories, he also covered negative stories, including the Catholic priest scandals. His own priest warned him to not be discouraged by a “relatively few bad clerics.”

But then I began going over the documents. And interviewing the victims, scores of them. I discovered that the term “sexual abuse” is a euphemism. Most of these children were raped and sodomized by someone they and their family believed was Christ’s representative on Earth. That’s not something an 8-year-old’s mind can process; it forever warps a person’s sexuality and spirituality.

Many of these victims were molested by priests with a history of abusing children. But the bishops routinely sent these clerics to another parish, and bullied or conned the victims and their families into silence. The police were almost never called. In at least a few instances, bishops encouraged molesting priests to flee the country to escape prosecution.

I couldn’t get the victims’ stories or the bishops’ lies — many of them right there on their own stationery — out of my head. I had been in journalism more than two decades and had dealt with murders, rapes, other violent crimes and tragedies. But this was different — the children were so innocent, their parents so faithful, the priests so sick and bishops so corrupt.

The lifeline Father Vincent had tried to give me began to slip from my hands.

It wasn’t just the Catholic church. He was discouraged to hear about Mormon communities that treated former church members as outcasts, and of some of our nation’s most powerful pastors who benefitted from the Trinity Broadcasting Network’s prosperity gospel which encouraged people to give money which wound up materially benefitting TBN.

Eventually he asked to be removed from the religion beat.

My soul, for lack of a better term, had lost faith long ago — probably around the time I stopped going to church. My brain, which had been in denial, had finally caught up.

Clearly, I saw now that belief in God, no matter how grounded, requires at some point a leap of faith. Either you have the gift of faith or you don’t. It’s not a choice. It can’t be willed into existence. And there’s no faking it if you’re honest about the state of your soul.

He’s right: belief of God does require a leap of faith. I tried “proving” God exists when I was in high school and college, and took philosophy and religion classes to help me in my search. I ultimately decided I couldn’t prove that God exists, but I couldn’t prove He doesn’t exist either. And all along, I believed in God. Perhaps it is a gift? It is, I guess, as it gives me more purpose and hope.

The other article I read was in Christianity Today, Sorrow But No Regrets: My life in the troubled, redemptive church. Christine Scheller talks about the path her faith has taken after seeing scandals and abnormalities in so many of the churches she’s attended.

I can look at this journey and see a trail of folly. Or I can look back with tenderness and see churches and pastors that taught me all I know about loving Jesus and being loved by him. I choose tenderness because Jesus Christ exists on earth within his sin-damaged band of followers. This is the realization that breaks us—there is no better church.

In the end, she still has her faith. I admire William Lobdell for his raw honesty, and hope that in the end, he finds his faith again too.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Does the direction of a man’s hair whorl indicate his sexual preference?

Posted on 25. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, health, politics, religion, startling statistics

Why does some hair swirl clockwise, and some counterclockwise? It’s not determined by whether you’re north or south of the Equator, so is it random or is there another reason?

In “The Science of Gaydar” in New York Magazine, reporter David France talks to scientists who are trying to determine whether, if sexual orientation is biological, then perhaps the traits that we associate with it are also. As it turns out, they’ve found that gay men are three times more likely (23% vs. 8%) to have a counterclockwise hair whorl (as seen on the left, below) than men in the general population.

Here are more findings:

A string of other studies, most of them conducted quietly and with small budgets, has offered up a number of other biological indicators. According to this research, for instance, gay men, like straight women, have an increased density of fingerprint ridges on the thumb and the pinkie of the left hand; and overall their arms, legs, and hands are smaller relative to stature (among whites but not blacks). There are technical differences in the way most men and most women hear, except among lesbians, whose ears function more like men’s. And there are gender-based cognitive differences in which gay men appear more like women. One involves mentally rotating a 3-D object, something males tend to do better than females—except gay men score more like straight women and lesbians function more like straight men. In navigational tasks and verbal-fluency tests, gay men and lesbians tend to have sex-atypical scores.

Also:

At first read, their findings seem like a string of unlinked, esoteric observations. Statistically, for instance, gay men and lesbians have about a 50 percent greater chance of being left-handed or ambidextrous than straight men or women. The relative lengths of our fingers offer another hint: The index fingers of most straight men are shorter than their ring fingers, while for most women they are closer in length, or even reversed in ratio. But some researchers have noted that gay men are likely to have finger-length ratios more in line with those of straight women, and a study of self-described “butch” lesbians showed significantly masculinized ratios. The same goes for the way we hear, the way we process spatial reasoning, and even the ring of our voices. One study, involving tape-recordings of gay and straight men, found that 75 percent of gay men sounded gay to a general audience. It’s unclear what the listeners responded to, whether there is a recognized gay “accent” or vocal quality. And there is no hint as to whether this idiosyncrasy is owed to biology or cultural influences—only that it’s unmistakable.

Haven’t you ever met someone and decided immediately that you think they’re gay? If we’re able to tell so quickly, is it biology or culture that makes gives the person the traits that make us think that? If it’s biology, then it would indicate that being gay is predetermined.

Which, of course, brings about loads of other questions. My philosophy is to love people for who they are, and leave judgment to God. But frankly, I personally have a tough time believing that God wouldn’t love what he’s created. (Yow! I guess Tammy Faye Baker Messner and I did have something in common!!)

What will happen if parents are able to determine if their child is gay when it’s still in the womb? I’d bet that many would abort. Approximately 88% of women in California who are told they’re having a baby with Down Syndrome choose to abort their child. I don’t think 88% would choose to abort a gay son, but I bet it’d be a pretty high percentage. The irony would be that women who would be most displeased (conservatives) would be the least likely to abort a child.

“Can we all just get along?” I love that quote. It’s so naive, yet so optimistic.

I bet there are lots of people who will be looking at hair whorls and finger lengths now!

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Simpsons in French on YouTube

Posted on 24. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, my life, parenting, tv, videos

Loyal readers know that I not only speak French, but I can do a pretty credible Marge Simpson imitation. So it was no wonder that upon discovering that there are French episodes of “The Simpsons” on YouTube, I started babbling like Marge in French.

My poor son. He experienced a level of fear and embarassment I’d never seen before. I stopped immediately.

Here’s a link to one of the episodes, (Let’s give him a gift). You can find more by seeing other related videos.

I discovered these when I read in New York Magazine that

In adorable news, the actors who dub the voices of Homer and Marge Simpson for French television have found love. Phillipe Peythieu (who also dubs Danny DeVito) and Veronique Augereau (France’s Courtney Cox) met while auditioning for the show in 1989 and were married in 2001. Check out this clip from the 1998 episode “Mayored to the Mob”, in which their blossoming romance is clearly audible.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Bloggers hide behind the Invisibility Cloak

Posted on 23. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, politics

Anyone who’s read the Harry Potter books is familiar with the Invisibility Cloak, which allows the wearer(s) to roam about without being seen. It’s useful when they’re in danger, or when they need to uncover a crucial secret.

Some bloggers treat the internet as an Invisibility Cloak, and don’t identify themselves to readers. If you’re in Iran, and want to stay hidden to government spies, I can understand this. But it’s hard to justify here in the United States. In most cases, no one will do you harm if you identify yourself. In fact, if you don’t identify yourself, you’re not accountable for what you say, and it’s tempting for some to be extra nasty or say things they can’t back up with facts.

The Los Angeles Times reports in Bloggers take aim at city governments — and hit home that bloggers are becoming a headache for some city governments.

These muckraking bloggers say they have stepped in to fill the government watchdog vacuum. Some are anonymous, others are scurrilous and, on occasion, possibly libelous. And to local politicians, most are a royal pain in the tuchis.

Bloggers in the San Gabriel Valley have raised the alarm about a possible budget crisis in Sierra Madre; ones in the Inland Empire have written about the high costs of trimming city trees in Claremont and allegations that killers are getting away with murder in Pomona.

Bloggers in the San Gabriel Valley have raised the alarm about a possible budget crisis in Sierra Madre; ones in the Inland Empire have written about the high costs of trimming city trees in Claremont and allegations that killers are getting away with murder in Pomona.”We realize in today’s electronic environment, it’s a fact of life,” said Grand Terrace City Manager Thomas Schwab. “The thing that’s the most disturbing is they can put things on the blog that have no basis in fact, and you really can’t refute it.”

It may only be a matter of time before bloggers start to have a major influence in local politics and policymaking.

“It’s inexpensive, and my guess is there are a lot of people who find it fun,” said Matthew Spitzer, former USC Law School dean.

“There have always been citizens who love to go to city council meetings and see what’s going on. Putting it on a blog makes it a lot easier and it increases accessibility to 24/7.”

I’m all for the free flow of accurate information. If something’s amiss in government, I think it’s great to blog about it. But play fair and back it up with facts, and don’t be afraid to show your face. In the end, it will make your cause that much more legitimate.

If I were a government official faced with bloggers, I’d fight fire with fire and write my own blog.

Hopefully the side of truth will prevail!

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Longing for the mud

Posted on 23. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, education

Here’s my new French phrase for the day: “nostalgie de la boue.” It means “longing for the mud,” as in when someone longs for something below where they really should be. Thomas Chatterton Williams uses it in his Washington Post article “Black Culture Beyond Hip-Hop.” He says that nostalgie de la boue exacts a heavy price among America’s Black youth.

The historian Paul Fussell notes that for most Americans, it is difficult to “class sink.” Try to imagine the Chinese American son of oncologists — living in, say, a New York suburb such as Westchester, attending private school — who feels subconsciously compelled to model his life, even if only superficially, on that of a Chinese mafioso dealing heroin on the Lower East Side. The cultural pressure for a middle-class Chinese American to walk, talk and act like a lower-class thug from Chinatown is nil. The same can be said of Jews, or of any other ethnic group.

But in black America the folly is so commonplace it fails to attract serious attention. Like neurotics obsessed with amputating their own healthy limbs, middle-class blacks concerned with “keeping it real” are engaging in gratuitously self-destructive and violently masochistic behavior.

Thankfully, there’s not much nostalgie de la boue in our community. Unless, of course, you count the “mud bowl” at the high school church camp…

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Rewinding the Catholic sex-abuse scandal tape

Posted on 16. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, religion

Cardinal Roger Mahoney apologized yesterday for the pain that the Catholic church’s sex-abuse scandal has caused.

Cardinal Mahony said he had sought to reach a settlement after hearing harrowing testimony from abuse victims.

“I said to them, your life I wish were a like a VHS tape, where we could put that in, press rewind, delete these years of misery and difficulty, and start over when you were young and just before this happened,” he said.

I think he should apologize for letting the VHS tape stay in the machine so long. He may have been out of the room while it was playing, but he knew he could stop it. Perhaps that’s why the church settled instead of letting this go to trial today.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Let’s all YAWN

Posted on 15. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, inspirational people, non-profits

Here’s my favorite new acronym: YAWN. In “The Rich Are Duller: New Class of ‘Yawns’ Spurns Yachts, Wears Dockers in Bid to Be Normal,” the Wall St. Journal reports that,

Yawns are “young and wealthy but normal.” They are men and women in their 30s and 40s who have become multimillionaires and billionaires during the wealth boom of the past decade. Yet rather than spending their money on yachts, boats and jets, yawns live modestly and spend most of their money on philanthropy. In stark contrast to the outsized titans of the Gilded Age and the slicked-back Gordon Gekkos of the 1980s, yawns are notable for their extraordinary dullness.

They are the anti-Paris Hiltons, the demure Donald Trumps. And they are disproving the time-honored stereotype of the nouveaux riches as culturally insecure social climbers who blow their money on excess. If the symbols of the yuppie were Armani suits and BMWs, the symbols of the yawn are Dockers and microcredit.

I’m sure Yawns make some people yawn compared to tracking the excesses of newly-minted billionaires, but it sounds like these people actually are more balanced and more likely to spread their wealth to others in need. Sometimes no news is good news.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

When I grow up, I want to be like either Grandpa or Zelda Kaplan

Posted on 14. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, inspirational people, my life

I visited my 93-year-old grandfather and my 83-year-old stepgrandmother at their house in the Poconos this week. Yes, they live in their own house, without assistance, drive a minivan, cook for themselves, etc. etc. They even mow their own grass with a non-electric mower and my grandfather shovels the snow in the winter. My grandfather is pictured at right. I hope I got whatever genes might help me to be so active at that age.

Even so, I don’t plan on living in such a cold, remote place at 93. Instead, perhaps I’ll be like Zelda Kaplan. This 91-year-old New Yorker travels the world campaigning against marital violence, and designs her own outfits from native fabrics she collects along the way.

I may not ever be the party animal she is (she reputedly stays out until 4 am at NY’s hottest nightspots), but I sure hope to have as much energy and zest for life. In my case, I hope I’m still learning new programming languages at that age.

Keep on going, Grandpa & Zelda!

The picture at right is from this month’s Real Simple magazine, p. 202. You can learn more about Zelda at her personal website and from this article.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

The rich get richer

Posted on 11. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, politics, startling statistics, things that bug me, work

When I started at Disney in 1990, I made about 1/225th of the $11.25 million that Michael Eisner did. I know I wasn’t qualified to do the job that he did, but I seriously doubt he was 225x better than me. Forbes has a great web page that evaluates how much executives are paid relative to their company’s performance. This is quite useful, but I think that even the executives at the most successful companies don’t deserve the money they receive, and if they love their jobs they could be motivated with far less money.

Apparently I’m not alone.

Although college graduates still earn more than those who haven’t graduated from college, a recent NY Times editorial “Economic Life After College” draws upon the work of MIT economists Frank Levy and Peter Temin:

The bad news, though, is that a college degree does not ensure a bigger share of the economic pie for many graduates. In recent decades, Mr. Levy and Mr. Temin show, only college-educated women have seen their compensation grow in line with economywide gains in productivity. The earnings of male college graduates have failed to keep pace with productivity gains.

How can this be?

They argue that the real reason inequality is worsening is the lack of strong policies and institutions that broadly distribute economic gains. In the past, for example, a more progressive income tax and unions fostered equality. Affirmative action has also helped and probably accounts, in part, for the pay growth of college-educated women. But such institutions have been eroding and new ones have not yet emerged. At the same time, corporate norms that restrained excessive executive pay have also eroded, making the income gap even greater.

Mr. Levy and Mr. Temin conclude that only a reorientation of government policy can restore general prosperity. That’s a challenge to the nation’s leaders and today’s graduates. America needs them to build the new institutions for a global economy.

Besides government policy, I’ve thought of it in terms of a monopoly. Once you’re at the top, you can close the door behind you, be buddies with the board of directors, and get them to give you lots of money. Or, at minimum, fool them into thinking only someone as amazingly smart as you can do the job.

I’m not a Communist, a Socialist, or a Marxist. I’m a Christian, and I think it’s appalling that such a small percentage of people brings home such a large percentage of the wealth. The Times also reports that,

In 2005, the latest year with available data, the top 1 percent of Americans – whose average annual income was $1.1 million – took in 21.8 percent of the nation’s income, their largest share since 1929.

Hmm. 1929. Why does that year sound so familiar?

Then again, all of this is relative. Most Americans, no matter what their income level, would look quite wealthy to most of the world’s population.

The kids are alright: blame it on Mr. Rogers?

Posted on 05. Jul, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, inspirational people, parenting, religion, tv

Jeffrey Zaslow wrote a very provocative article in today’s Wall St. Journal: “Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled.” He asks whether today’s youth feel entitled because they’ve always been told they’re so special.

Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were “special” just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself.

Now Mr. Rogers, like Dr. Spock before him, has been targeted for re-evaluation. And he’s not the only one. As educators and researchers struggle to define the new parameters of parenting, circa 2007, some are revisiting the language of child ego-boosting. What are the downsides of telling kids they’re special? Is it a mistake to have children call us by our first names? When we focus all conversations on our children’s lives, are we denying them the insights found when adults talk about adult things?

This is about the fourth “Gen-X/Y bashing” article I’ve read in the last month. Some writers take it as a given that Gen-X young adults and Gen-Y youth are narcissistic and whiny, and then try to determine why this is.

I take issue with the initial premise: I think that today’s Gen-X and Gen-Y folks are just fine, and in many cases are less obsessed with money and its trappings than the baby boomers that came before them. Maybe it’s just the kids I know, but in our town, kids use Mr., Ms. or Mrs. to address adults, and they don’t expect good grades for no work. They volunteer way more than kids did when I was young, and in addition to that, they work very hard on their schoolwork and extracurricular activities. Sure, there are many exceptions, but overall, they’re a good lot.

As far as this baby boomer (barely!) is concerned, the generations after us are special. We’re all special in God’s eyes, no matter what our abilities, avocation or appearance. Mr. Rogers understood that.

NOTE: If you’re not a paid subscriber to the online Wall St. Journal, you can access it and many other paid subscription websites for free via Congoo. I got this tip from PC World.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Girls and their gadgets

Posted on 28. Jun, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, technical, tv

Boys and their toys, girls and their gadgets. The NYTimes recently reported in To Appeal to Women, Too, Gadgets Go Beyond Cute and Pink that manufacturers are learning that making products appealing to women doesn’t just mean changing the color. They need to consider changing the size, the shape, and even how the product functions. For example,

Energizer, the battery maker, went so far as to create a charger for each sex. The Dock & Go, at $33, is aimed at men. Black and gray with shiny trim, the two pods hold up to four batteries each (AA or AAA). A light glows red when it is charging, yellow when it is charged.

The second device, the $20 Easy Charger, is aimed at women, who usually end up managing the household’s batteries. This charger is flat, round and sold with interchangeable faceplates in silver, black and eggshell that help it blend in with kitchen appliances. Large light-emitting-diode readouts spell out what the countertop charger is doing at every phase of the charging cycle. Focus-group testing indicated that men were turned off by the Easy Charger, especially in how its readouts appeared to tell them what they thought they already knew, said Mandy Iswarienko, the brand manger for rechargeable products.

“We found that how people use chargers is very different,” she said. “For her, she wants it to be instantly understandable.”

Hmm. Sounds to me like men would be crazy to spend $13 more for a charger that’s tougher to read. Then again, I’m a woman, so they want me to like the cheaper one.

I wish Sony would re-design my DVD remote control. (see picture) (Actually, it’s an AV System remote, but I don’t like the surround sound so I just use it for DVD’s.) All the buttons look the same, and the text is so small I can barely read it, especially in the dark. Hopefully companies will design for women with declining eyesight too!

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

20 tips for better Google searching

Posted on 26. Jun, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, cool websites, technical

You gotta love a site called Dumb Little Man just for the name alone! Actually, Dumb Little Man isn’t so dumb: he recently had a fantastic blog post with 20 Tips for More Efficient Google Searches. Here are a few that I didn’t know, but I suggest you visit his blog to make sure you know the rest.

• Similar terms. Use the “~” symbol to return similar terms. [~dumb little man -dumb] will get you pages that contain “funny little man” and “stupid little man” but not “dumb little man”.
• Numrange. This little-known feature searches for a range of numbers. For example, ["best books 2002..2007] will return lists of best books for each of the years from 2002 to 2007 (note the two periods between the two numbers).
• Site-specific. Use the “site:” operator to search only within a certain website. [site:dumblittleman.com leo] will search for the term “leo” only within this blog.

Google has a concise that has many of these tips in one place. Now to remember all of this!

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.

Babes in the Woods: Why girls are so susceptible to MySpace’s dangers

Posted on 26. Jun, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, parenting

I just added the best article I’ve seen yet to this blog’s MySpace Parents Guide page.

In the Atlantic Monthly article “Babes in the Woods: Anybody could be tracking your children online. Even me.”, Caitlin Flanagan shows how easy it is for her to find what should be private details about a local girl’s life at a time when she is most vulnerable. She also talks about Club Penguin, the social networking website that’s becoming popular among elementary kids.

With the Internet, children are marching out into the world every second of every day. They’re sitting in their bedrooms—wearing their retainers, topped up with multivitamins, radiating the good care and safekeeping that is their lot in life in America at the beginning of the new century—and they’re posting photographs of themselves, typing private sentiments, unthinkingly laying down a trail of bread crumbs leading straight to their dance recitals and Six Flags trips and Justin Timberlake concerts, places where anyone with an interest in retainer-wearing 13-year-olds is free to follow them. All that remains to be seen is whether anyone will follow them, and herein lies a terrifying uncertainty, which neither skeptics nor doomsayers can deny: The Internet has opened a portal into what used to be the inviolable space of the home, through which anything, harmful or harmless, can pass. It won’t be closing anytime soon—or ever—and all that parents can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

One of her best points is that parents often don’t realize how much danger their kids are in because the kids don’t share what bad things they see. They (probably rightfully) figure that if their parents knew all that went on, they’d cut off their internet privileges.

As part of the first episode of his show, Hansen convened a panel of tweens and teens, among them children of some of his colleagues at NBC, and asked how many of them had been “approached online by someone in a sexual way that made you feel uncomfortable.” Almost all the kids raised their hands. Then he asked how many had told their parents. Not a hand went up. And when he asked why they hadn’t told their parents, all the kids in the room said they didn’t tell because they didn’t want their parents to take away their Internet connections.

Suddenly, it all made sense to me: Teenagers don’t tell their parents that someone nasty got through to them for the same reason I didn’t tell my parents that kids were dropping acid at a party—because they wouldn’t let me go to those parties anymore. That’s the horrible, inescapable fact of coming of age: The moment you choose the world over your parents, you’ve chosen to make your own decisions about what’s safe and what’s not, with only your own wits to protect you.

It’s a great article, and I strongly suggest you read it. Even if you’re not a parent, it’s a well-written commentary on contemporary teen culture.

Does money really buy votes?

Posted on 25. Jun, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, cool websites, politics, startling statistics, things that bug me

Why else would special interest groups give money to politicians unless they hoped they’d reward them by voting a certain way? Maplight.org shows the connection between the sources of money that members of the California Legislature and the U.S. Congress received and how they voted on specific issues.

David Pogue NYTimes wrote about it in a recent NY Times Circuits column:

Another mind-blowing example: from the home page, click “California.” Click “Legislators,” then click “Fabian Nunez.” The resulting page shows you how much this guy has collected from each special-interest group — $2.2 million so far — and there, in black-and-white type, how often he voted their way.

Construction unions: 94 percent of the time. Casinos: 95 percent of the time. Law firms: 78 percent of the time. Seems as though if you’re an industry lobbyist, giving this fellow money is a pretty good investment.

I’m sure the PACs and corporations would argue that they give to politicians who will be likely to vote their way anyway. Giving them money helps ensure that they win, and will be in office to vote. However, I think that’s optimistic, and that money does sway votes. Personally, I wish that special interest groups couldn’t give money to candidates or officeholders.

Now to get doctors to stop accepting free samples from pharmeceutical companies.

Below is a screenshot from the data about our former assemblywoman, Carol Liu:

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via email or RSS.