Garfield Minus Garfield is a website dedicated to:removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.Pretty funny stuff. Check it out here.
Following up on the last post, here is another WSJ editorial, "Why Safe Kids Are Becoming Fat Kids" by Philip Howard. He complains about the constant reigning in of child's play in the name of safety (but, in reality, of legal liability). For instance, Broward County, FL has outlawed running at recess. What is recess without running?!Risk is important in child development. Allowing children to test their limits in unstructured play, according to the American Association of Pediatrics, "develop[s] their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength." Scrapes and bruises are how children learn their limits, and the need to take personal responsibility.On a related note, NPR had a wild story about a camp in California meant to counter just this impulse in parents. Here's a description of the story:
Software engineer Gever Tulley felt that his friends who were parents were overprotective of their children. So he started the Tinkering School, a summer camp that encourages kids to play with fire, throw spears and take risks.Apparently, parents have to sign a release of liability form that says they understand their child could be seriously injured or die while at this camp. I have to admit -- I'd be skeptical about sending my child there. Give it a listen.
Does the wearing of shoes with heels cause schizophrenia? That was the contention made in 2004 by a Swedish physician in Medical Hypotheses, a scientific journal that specializes in out-of-the-box thinking. "Heeled footwear," the physician observed, "began to be used more than 1,000 years ago, and led to the occurrence of the first cases of schizophrenia." As heeled shoes sprinted across the world, he said, so did the incidence of the disease. He called for epidemiological studies to check his hypothesis.
It is possible that some epidemiologist somewhere is crunching heeled-shoe data and preparing a paper on the subject. And if such a paper appears, the media will treat it with sober regard -- assuming that it confirms the doctor's wild idea. A Nexis survey of newspaper headlines from the past week finds epidemiological studies playing a role in all sorts of claims: that sleep apnea increases the risk of early death; that thunderstorms provoke asthma attacks; that cellphones might cause cancer; that flu shots may not help the elderly; that consuming fruit drinks increases the risk of diabetes in women. Some of these reports may turn out to be important but most will amount to a kind of scientific noise, adding to our uneasy sense that, in the modern world, danger lurks on every side.
In "Hyping Health Risks," Geoffrey Kabat, an epidemiologist himself, shows how activists, regulators and scientists distort or magnify minuscule environmental risks. He duly notes the accomplishments of epidemiology, such as uncovering the risks of tobacco smoking and the dangers of exposure to vinyl chloride and asbestos. And he acknowledges that industry has attempted to manipulate science. But he is concerned about a less reported problem: "The highly charged climate surrounding environmental health risks can create powerful pressure for scientists to conform and to fall into line with a particular position."
Chalk another one to the postmodernists. There's no such thing as naked facts. If you have a chance to read Kabat's book, let me know what you think.
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), son of the one-time presidential contender, said Obama’s victory overwhelmed him.“I cried all night. I’m going to be crying for the next four years,” he said. “What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history. ... The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.” [italics added]
Wow. Someone has their sights set far too low. For previous thoughts on political religion, see posts here and here.
[HT: Ross Douthot, CFI]
To question an opponent’s good faith is not to engage in debate but to put an end to debate. The only honorable recourse to such a charge is a violent one, which is why accusations of lying or cowardice were once thought automatically to require a challenge by the man so impugned to mortal combat with his accuser...
There is a reason why that will never happen, alas. It is because the culture of authenticity which has succeeded the honor culture in this country and which believes that, much more shameful than a mere lie, is insincerity and a refusal publicly to air what one really believes. Or feels to use the common and telling idiom of the day. Paradoxically, the result of this cult of sincerity is that hardly anyone ever does say what he really believes — unless there is a calculation that the scandal of it will fall more on one’s opponent than upon oneself.
