I do not understand teenagers who fail to rebel

My wife tells me that a former student, now in college, is engaged to get married. I raise my eyebrows, surprised at the early age in which she has decided to tie the knot.

My wife explains that her former student is from a very devout family and takes religion quite seriously, and these people tend to marry early.

Right there she has lost me, because I cannot understand how a young person becomes as devout about their religion as their parents, because I cannot understand why all teenagers and young adults don’t rebel against their parents.

Especially in matters like religion, where time constraints and heavy-handed rules are arbitrarily imposed upon a person.

Time constraints and arbitrary rules? These seem like two of the best reasons for a teenager to rebel, and while many do, it’s not all, and I just don’t get it.

I am not a religious person. I am a reluctant atheist who would love to find some faith but cannot. But that doesn't mean I cannot understand why someone would embrace religion.

You've had a couple kids and suddenly decide to take religion more seriously for the sake of your children?

I get it. I wouldn't do it, but I get it.

You've lived a life of debauchery and hope that strict adherence to religion might save you?

I get it. It’s not for me, but I understand.

You’re getting older and are worried about your potential afterlife, so you decide to convince God that you are deserving a place in Heaven by attending church regularly and becoming more devout?

I get again. Again, I wouldn't do it, but I at least understand the motivation.

There are many reasons to find faith. Maybe I will find one someday.

But for a sixteen year old boy or a twenty year old girl to fall in lock-step with their parents on such conservative ideals as religion?

I don’t get it.

I know this a blind spot for me. I realize that I have a streak of nonconformity that has dominated much of my life. I know that many, many people embrace their parent’s religious beliefs with enthusiasm and sincerity, but I can not imagine spending my teenage years embracing any of my parents conservative ideals, and more important, I did not know a single person from that time in my life who did.

Everyone who I knew as a teenager was a rebel to one degree or another.

We all thought our parents were squares.

I just don’t get it. There is too much opportunity and appeal in making choices fr yourself and striking out on one’s own for me to ever understand why one’s parents beliefs would ever become your own.

At least at first.

My wife attempted to claim that she did not rebel against her parents when she was young, but less than a minute later, after I had fired off an lengthy list of acts of rebellion from her youth, even she admitted that she was probably not in lock-step with her parents as she had once imagined.

I love this about her.

In fact, it’s one of the things I love the most about her.

CNN reads the Internet in poorly constructed segments

Watching CNN this morning while on the elliptical, the anchor announced that census data has revealed the most segregated cities in America. The fifth most segregated city is Cleveland, followed by Detroit and Chicago.

“Want to know if you live in one of the two most segregated cities in America. Stay tuned. The rest of the list is coming at the top of the hour.”

A second later, the station went to commercial.

Who does CNN think we are?

Do the producers really believe that a teaser like this will keep its viewers watching?

Annoyed with the attempt to keep me watching through commercials for detergents and cereal with their unsophisticated ploy, I switched over to ESPN. As I listened to analysts discuss their predictions for this year’s American League, I opened a browser on my iPhone and had the same list that CNN was reporting on moments ago.

The top two segregated cities in America: New York and Milwaukee.

It probably took about ten seconds to have the names of the cities, and this is while working out on an elliptical using a 3G connection.

And still annoyed at CNN for their teaser nonsense, I refused to flip back to the channel when ESPN went to commercial. Instead, I went to AMC to read the sound-effect subtitles on the John Wayne western El Dorado.

Western sound-effect subtitles are often hilarious.

Is this what CNN considers news? Anchors who read the Internet to its viewers?

No, it’s worse.

It’s anchors who read the Internet to its viewers in annoying chunks.

When subtitles are more compelling than the news, you know that the network is doing something terribly wrong.

Swallowing the apology

The request for an apology is a clear indication of a person’s likelihood to be eaten first in a zombie apocalypse. That is, if the zombies can stomach the sense of entitlement and degree of self-importance.

Creative and frugal

My wife bought practically free toddler’s shirts off the clearance rack and used the fabric, which was cheaper than purchasing something at a fabric store, to make these hats for her friend’s kids.

She’s really bursting at the creativity seams lately.    

While on the subject of hats, I’d also like to add that anyone (I’m thinking of a certain video podcast host who will remain nameless) who wears a knit cap on an 85 degree Los Angeles day (or in any other warm weather clime) is a fool more obsessed with image and trendiness than functionality and reasonability.

Fashion that defies all logic is only worn by sheep.

In fact, if you are wearing a knit cap on any warm day, you resemble a sheep, both literally and figuratively.     

Designed to ruin my day

The Coca Cola machine at Goodwin College has eight rows of Coke, six rows of Sprite, eight rows of Powerade, eight rows of orange juice and no Diet Coke. 

What the hell?

ESPN fail: A simple design decision gone awry

Last night’s NBA freshman-sophomore scrimmage was filled with playground-style dunks, fast break offense and sparse defense.  

Bounce pass alley-oops, off-the-glass jams and other plays you’d never see in a competitive basketball game. 

Yet it was this image that that ESPN chose as the splash card for their video highlights of the game:

Wizard’s point guard John Wall doing who-knows-what, trailed by a skeptical referee.

It’s the little things that make me crazy.

 

Here’s the actual video in case you were interested in watching and noting the disparity between this image and the actual video footage. 

An ineffectual glare and an aimless finger point

As I drove down the street adjacent to my own yesterday afternoon, a car pulled out of a side street into the path of my car, forcing me into the oncoming lane. I bounced off a snow bank on the opposite side of the road before restoring control and returning to the right side of the road. Despite the dented fender and moment of sheer terror afforded to me by the careless driver in the other car, the most frustrating part of this entire episode was the the tinted windows on the white Jetta that nearly hit me.

As I passed the car, which had screeched to a halt on the right side of the road, I was unable to make eye contact with the driver. The tinting on the windows was so dark that I could not see inside the car.

I have a mean-ass glare and am quite skilled at pointing an angry finger, but I need to be able to see my target in order to be effective. Instead, I found myself glaring and pointing at the spot where I hoped the driver’s eyes were located, but the whole situation was considerably less satisfying than it should have been.

Stupid tinting.

I think the whole process of making your car look cool in any regard is kind of silly, since it’s only a car, but could we at least reserve accouterments like window tinting to those who know how to drive without nearly killing people like me?

King Phillip was the best we could do?

My wife attended King Phillip Middle school as a child. There are two other schools in the United States that take their name from King Phillip. I continue to be astounded by the use of his name for any school.

King Philip Middle School was named after King Philip, which is the English mispronunciation-bastardization of the Wampanoag tribal chief Metacomet, who led a war against the Puritans from 1675-1676. Proportionate to the colonial and Native American populations at the time, it was one of the bloodiest and costliest wars in the history of North America. More than half of New England's ninety towns were assaulted by Native American warriors, and one-tenth of all Puritans were killed.

Yet for some reason, three schools in America have named themselves in honor of this Native American chief and have used the English version of his name rather than the guy’s actual name while doing so.

This seems stupid enough, but even more so considering there is little historical record in relation to King Philip. He led a Native American tribe, fought Puritan expansion, and died at the hands of another Native American while hiding out in the swamps of Rhode Island.

I guess he could have been a great man, but who knows?

Maybe he was lousy leader. Maybe he was a jerk.

After all, he only ascended to the role of chief after his brother died. It wasn’t like anyone elected the guy to office. The Wampanoag chose their leaders just like the English chose kings.

He also failed to handle the conflict diplomatically and was outmaneuvered by several other Native American tribes which forged alliances with the English in order to undermine Wampanoag power in the region.

Weren’t there more verifiably worthy Native Americans to consider when naming a middle school? Or at least Native Americans with actual Native American names?

And if you are going to use a guy you know little about, why not at least use his actual name instead of some foreign-tongue ruination?

The other two schools using King Phillip's name are in Massachusetts. It is a school district comprised of a middle and a high school which both bear King Philip’s name (as does the district itself).

This is the district’s logo, which may or may not be an accurate representation of the seventeenth century Native American chief.

I’m guessing not.

It's not that hard and I am not a liar (nor am I suffering from cognitive dissonance)

A report on the possibility that “parental happiness is a psychological defense—a fiction we imagine to make all the hard stuff acceptable” opens with the following paragraph:

Raising children is hard, and any parent who says differently is lying. Parenting is emotionally and intellectually draining, and it often requires professional sacrifice and serious financial hardship. Kids are needy and demanding from the moment of their birth to . . . well, forever.

I can’t tell you how much this annoys me.

Beginning with the moment that Elysha became pregnant, scores of parents have seemed hell bent on telling us how difficult and dreadful parenting would be. They inundated us in the stories of sleepless nights and terrible toddlers and rampaging teenagers, as if doing so somehow unburdened them of their own parenting woes.

Clara is now two years old, and so far these prognostication have proven to be unfounded, as has the first paragraph of the Association for Psychological Science’s report, which calls me a liar for stating otherwise.

“Raising children is hard,” the report claims.

This is not how I would characterize my experience as a father thus far. And it is not how I would have characterized the ten years I spent as the step-father to a girl ages 6-17. I have endured hardships throughout my life.  Honest-to-goodness calamities and years of seemingly unending misery.

Nothing about my daughter has compared.

“Parenting is emotionally and intellectually draining,” the report claims.

While parenting can be emotionally and intellectually demanding at times, it has hardly been draining. It is not close to draining. It is not in the same universe as draining.

“…it often requires professional sacrifice and serious financial hardship,” the report claims.

I have experienced serious financial hardship. I grew up in the teeth of financial hardship. I wore hand-me-down canvas sneaker for entire winters and was hungry for much of my childhood. Having to manage our household budget on less money than we are accustomed can be exceptionally difficult at times, but I am not living in my car (as I once did) or sharing a room off the kitchen with a goat in the home of a family of Born Again Christians (as I also did).

And “professional sacrifice?”

I’ve continue to teach at what I consider a equally high level of skill.  Actually, I think that having a daughter has made me a better teacher. I have a greater understanding of a parent’s point of view, and I think this has allowed me to forge more meaningful relationships with the parents of my students.

I’ve also written four novels, continued to run a small business and launched a career as a storyteller in the time that my wife first became pregnant.

Some may say that my wife has made a professional sacrifice by staying home with our daughter for her first eighteen months, but I think my wife would say otherwise. She has returned to work in a position that makes her extremely happy and is positioning herself to assume an even more appealing position once we’re done having babies and they are all off to preschool.

Having a child will ultimately assist my wife in transforming her career into something new and exciting, and when she returns to work full time, she will be happier than she has ever been.

“Kids are needy and demanding from the moment of their birth to . . . well, forever,” the report claims.

This is simply not how I would characterize my daughter. In fact, in the last thirty minutes that I have spent writing this post, Clara has been playing with blocks in the other room. I have wiped her snotty nose twice, helped her open the bag of blocks, and only been distracted in order to watch her build towers.

Sometimes I can’t resist. She’s too damn cute.

See where she was sitting?

Clara brings me so much joy that to characterize her as needy or demanding would be absurd. For every diaper that needs changing or every nose that needs wiping are more than enough moments of happiness and fun to tip the scales well in my favor.

The researchers might say that I am suffering from “cognitive dissonance”—the psychological mechanism we all use to justify our choices and beliefs and preserve our self-esteem.

I would say that not all parents are alike. Not all kids are alike.

Perhaps the fact that my wife and I are both teachers with more than 25 years of combined experience in educating children has made a difference.

Maybe our relative lack of materialism has allowed us to deal with the financial constraints better than some.

Perhaps the presence of exceptional friends and family has made child-rearing much easier by providing us with a wealth of experience and knowledge from which to draw.

Maybe my previous parenting experience has played an important role.

Maybe the strength of our marriage had helped us to work together better than some.

Maybe Clara is simply an easy, happy, compliant child and we are damn lucky.

Regardless of what factors have played a role, parenting for us has not been hard, and my reaction to this piece would have been considerably less visceral had the author, Wray Herbert, left out the line implying that to state otherwise makes me a liar.

Perhaps Herbert is engaging in his own brand of cognitive dissonance, blind to the reality that not all parents and children fall into the neat and organized categories that he would like.

The headline should read: 99-year old Japanese poet finally gets off her ass

I know there are people who will hear about the 99-year old Japanese woman whose self-published book of poetry has become a bestseller and think that this is a heartwarming and inspiring story.

I guess that when you sell 1.5 million copies of any book (and particularly poetry), it would warm any heart.

But I can’t help but see this as a tragic waste. The woman did not begin writing until she was 92 years old, and while “better late than never” certainly seems to apply here, imagine what she might have been capable of had she begun writing earlier.

I’m not surprised that one of the messages in her poems is "Don't try too hard."

No kidding.

And please don’t try to tell me that she required 96 years of life in order to gain the experience and wisdom needed to write her poetry. The argument that a writer needs a certain degree of life experience before he or she can write successfully may have some truth to it (though I doubt it), but 92 years seems like a long enough time for anyone to begin writing.

Incidentally, my boss told me when I was 34 that I could not publish a book before the age of 40, citing that time-worn experience argument.

Something Missing was published when I was 37.

I often say that the only reason I wrote the book was for spite.

Just because women choose not to contribute to the assemblage of all human knowledge does not make the medium any less egalitarian

The Daily Beats asks: How egalitarian is this? According to a recently published study, only about 13 percent of those who edit or write articles for Wikipedia are women—the average Wikipedia contributor is a male in his mid-20s.

Actually, Daily Beast, Wikipedia is entirely egalitarian.

Anyone is allowed to write or edit for the online encyclopedia. Even I have edited articles in the past. Simply because the predominant contributors of Wikipedia are twenty-something men does not make it any less egalitarian than watching the National Football League or reading Maxim magazine.

Some things just appeal more to men than to women.

And while it might be slightly more palatable to ignore football and Maxim and less so when it comes to the world’s largest and most utilized storehouse of human knowledge, the fact remains that women have simply failed to show an interest in it.

And not because of a lack of equality.

The Daily Beast goes on to mention:

Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia, has declared it her goal to raise that number to 25 percent by 2015. The move to include more women isn't about feminism or equality, she says, but an effort to make the encyclopedia as good as it can be.”

I was pleased to hear that Gardner’s goal to increase female participation in Wikipedia has nothing to do with a feminist agenda since no woman is being denied the opportunity to participate in the online encyclopedia. Since the encyclopedia's business is conducted entirely online, the sex of a Wikipedia editor does not play a role in a woman’s willingness to participate.

Women are not being asked to walk into a boys’ club and demand to be heard. They simply need to login and press keys on a computer.

This is not a failure of opportunity. This is a lack of interest or desire.

And honestly, are we surprised? I have known a hell of a lot of twenty-something men who would be excited to spend hours in front of a computer screen, writing and fact checking articles about wombats and the Crimean War.

I cannot think of a single woman who would be willing to do the same.

Like it or not, nerds and geeks of this particular ilk are predominately male.

Still, Gardner’s goals are noble. A more balanced view of the world’s information would be good.

But if women have demonstrated a disinterest in the writing and editing of Wikipedia during its first ten years of existence, I am intrigued as to what Gardner has planned in order to change this.

Does she plan on tapping into the vast hordes of female geeks out there, just waiting for the opportunity to sit in front of their computers for hours at a time, fact-checking articles on ancient Babylonia and the reproductive cycle of the horseshoe crab?

If so, I hold out little hope for the future female participation in this noble endeavor.

No silly exercises from this life coach

As a life coach, I’ve only had three clients (and only one paying client), so my experience in the field is admittedly limited, but exercises like this strike me as more style than substance. From the Mommy Beta blog:

Take a few minutes and fill out The Wheel of Life (below). The eight sections of the wheel represent balance. Rank your level of satisfaction with each area of life by placing a number from 1 to 10 in each (10 being very satisfied and 1 being not so satisfied). It's way to see where you're most satisfied and where you could focus your attention on a little more.

Are you kidding me? A Wheel of Life?

This is the kind of activity that I was required to do in high school during Peer Education when class discussion sucked. A time-wasting filler for those awkwardly silent days.

Your life may not be balanced, but if so, you should damn well know which areas need more attention and which areas do not, particularly if balance is being determined based upon your own personal preferences (which, by the way, seems like a rather stupid way to evaluate balance in the first place).

If you can’t tell which areas of your life leave you the least satisfied without the use of this wheel, we need to discuss basic cognitive functioning and self awareness.

Or perhaps I should just hit you over the head with a wheel.

What should one expect from the Wheel of Life expect?

“Why look! I rated myself rather low in the areas of Romance and Personal Growth. I had no idea that my levels of satisfaction were disproportionately lower in these areas in comparison to the rest. Perhaps I should join Match.com and start taking pottery classes. Thanks, Wheel of Life!”

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

As a life coach, how is this Wheel of Life supposed to be helpful? If my client rates his satisfaction at a 10 in the Health section of the pie but is grossly overweight and has high blood pressure, am I supposed to be pleased?

If my client has no plan for retirement but is happy with his Money section because he wants to live in the moment, should I pat him on the back and send him on his way?

And could someone please tell me what the hell Physical Environment means and how I expected to achieve balance in this regard? I have a foot of snow on my front yard and cannot play golf for at least two months, so my physical environment sucks right now.

But what am I supposed to do about it?

Plan a trip to Florida?

Take a hair dryer to some of the snow banks around the eighteenth green?

More importantly, I didn’t need a Wheel of Life to tell me that my Physical Environment sucks, if this is what Physical Environment even means. I can just use a window, which requires considerably less effort and time and doesn’t make me feel like such a dumb ass for using.

I know. I might be a little rough around the edges, but admit it:

You want me as your life coach.

You hurt my feelings. I’m taking my toys and going home.

UCONN booster Robert Burton's sent a scathing letter to school athletic director Jeff Hathaway indicating that he was upset that Hathaway did not follow his advice in the hiring of Paul Pasqualoni as head football coach earlier this month. The chief executive officer of Greenwich, Conn.-based Burton Capital Management wants the school to return $3 million in donations and remove his family name from its football complex because he says he was shut out of discussions about the selection of a new football coach.

The letter is a priceless piece of pontificating petulance, and I am only surprised that someone as wealthy as Burton would not seek the counsel of a public relations professional before sending it.

I’ve excerpted a few of my favorite paragraphs for your reading pleasure, along with some commentary of my own.

“When I called you on Monday, January I made two things very clear to you, as the largest donor in the UConn football program. I told you that I wanted to be involved in the hiring process for the new coach. I also gave you my insight about who would be a good fit for the head coaching position as well as who would not. For someone who has given over $7,000,000 to the football program/university, I do not feel as though these requests were asking for too much. Your lack of response on either of these requests tells me that you do not respect my point of view or value my opinion.”

This paragraph, the first in the letter, is the most curious to me. If Burton already offered Hathaway his “insight about who would be a good fit for the head coaching position,” wasn’t he afforded his requested input?

What else did he want? A seat on the interview committee?

I am fed up with you as a manager because you did not let the hiring process take place in an open manner. You and your committee of three talked to some coaches and made a critical decision about who you were going to hire without input from knowledgeable people who care about the program. I believe that you are not qualified to be a Division 1 AD and l would have fired you a long time ago. You do not have the skills to manage and cultivate new donors or the ability to work with coaches. It is our intent to let the correct people know that you did not listen to your number one football donor and you led a flawed process in the search for UConn's football coach.

“…you’re number one football donor”.

Burton sounds pretty proud of that. Doesn’t he?

He also reminds me of a third grader, threatening to spread a mean rumor across the playground. Simply substitute “correct people” with “popular kids” and you have yourself a playground bullying situation.

What you don't know about me, other than being a college football player/captain and NFL draft pick, is that I know more football coaches than the majority of Athletic Directors in America. I was a GA in Graduate School and worked on my in Tennessee and Alabama, was also a scout for the Minnesota Vikings while in grad school. I am fully qualified to assess coaches and their ability to match up with the university's needs, and have done so for football programs from Vanderbilt to New Haven, as well as several schools in the Ohio Valley Conference and Big Ten.

This is my favorite paragraph. Who knew that Robert Burton was more knowledgeable about the hiring of football coaches than the majority of Athletic Directors in America?

Robert Burton. That’s who.

I think the University of Connecticut should inscribe this paragraph on the side of their newest athletic facility, so that everyone can know about Burton’s former football heroics and his extensive experience in the NFL as both a draftee an a scout. Perhaps that would make this football mastermind happy.

As soon as you find a new donor, I want you to return the $3 million I gave you for the Burton Family Football Complex, as well as the additional funds I gave Randy and the football department for pictures and other art and the new audio system in the weight room. We plan to donate these funds to another university that supports our objectives and goals. After we get our money back, you can take our name off the Complex.

This is the most disgusting paragraph in the entire letter. It’s the paragraph that lets the reader know that charitable donations made by Robert Burton are never charitable and are never made without substantial strings attached.

Lastly, don't underestimate me or what I have outlined and requested in this document. I have already secured legal counsel from several law firms. If you are looking for a fight, then you have selected the right family. You have hurt and embarrassed the Burton family for the last time. We want our money and respect back.

This paragraph, the last in the letter, is the most baffling.

First, Burton marked his letter Personal and Confidential, but even I know that any letter sent to a state university is subject to the Freedom of Information Act, which is how the letter eventually leaked to the press. So if he has already secured legal counsel as he claims, how would any decent attorney allow such an inflammatory and reputation-destroying letter to be sent in the first place?

And the last sentence is the best. It’s priceless, really. Those seven words capture the essence of Burton and his understanding of this situation perfectly.

“We want our money and respect back.”

Have two more incongruous idea ever been pushed together into the same sentence?

We would like you to return our charitable donation to the University and simultaneously earn back the respect of the community to which the money was going to serve?

The letter itself is a guarantee that any respect that Burton still had is forever gone, and his demand for the cash is simply icing on the cake.

The mindless hum of mindless agreement

On a recent episode of Oprah (forcefully viewed from a waiting room), I heard Gavin de Becker, author of THE GIFT OF FEAR, say: “Men fear that women will laugh at them. Women fear that men will kill them.”

The predominantly female audience nodded in approval, humming their lilting agreement, suddenly beset by this brilliant bit of insight and profundity.

Had I been in the audience, I would have risen from my seat and shouted, “Really? Are you kidding me? Are we going to allow such enormous and ridiculous generalizations to go uncontested?”

Even in the waiting room, I nearly did.

How about this:

More than 80% of all murder victims in the United States are men.

Am I really expected to believe, based upon these statistics, that women universally fear that men will kill them even though they make up less than 20% of all murder victims?

And that men, even though they make up more than 80% of victims, are more concerned with laughter than death?

How about this:

The audience was almost entirely made up of women. How the hell do they  purport know what men fear? Having been a man for my entire life, I can assure you that we have much greater fears than girls laughing at us.

More importantly, as one-dimensional as we may sometimes seem, I can assure you that we don’t all share the same fears. To assert so is blind stupidity.

How about this:

As far as I can tell, every man I know, myself included, goes through life being laughed at constantly, by both women and men. And most of us have learned to deal with it.

In the practical joke world, men are the primary targets. In fact, I cannot remember a time in my life when a woman was the butt of a serious practical joke. But I watch men actively seek out ways to embarrass and ridicule their friends on a daily basis, myself included.

Imagine a dance floor at a wedding:

Who is more likely to be dancing like a fool, unconcerned about the ridiculousness of his or her appearance?

With more than 300 weddings under my belt, I can tell you that I have never seen a woman act like an idiot on the dance floor, attempting some bizarre and unorthodox dance move, but I have seen hundreds of men, both drunk and sober, do the most ridiculous things with their bodies while everyone else is laughing at them.

There are three examples of this male-centered behavior in my wedding video alone.

Am I really expected to assume that men fear the laughter of women?

How about this:

Can we all agree to keep our generalization radars turned on?

Can we all agree to refute ridiculous attempts to generalize whenever they arise?

There’s nothing worse than that audible hum of agreement from an audience of head bobbing morons who would rather be herded like sheep to some ridiculous conclusion rather than stopping and thinking for themselves.

Social stupidity cannot be covered up by the violin

Amy Chua’s new book describes what she calls “Chinese parenting.” Her methods include:

• No sleepovers
• No play dates
• No television, video games or arts and crafts
• Hours of closely monitored instrumental music practice
• Threats to burn stuffed animals if a piece of music isn’t played perfectly
• Required revisions of homemade birthday cards
• Hours of academic study every day without exception

As you might imagine, the book (and her methods) have been criticized by many, and while my gut told me that her parenting style couldn’t be good, I wasn’t able to put my finger on why I felt this way.

Then I read David Brooks’ piece in the Times.

In critiquing the parenting described in Chua’s book, Brooks writes:

“Practicing a piece of music for four hours requires focused attention, but it is nowhere near as cognitively demanding as a sleepover with 14-year-old girls. Managing status rivalries, negotiating group dynamics, understanding social norms, navigating the distinction between self and group — these and other social tests impose cognitive demands that blow away any intense tutoring session or a class at Yale.”

Brilliant. And so true.

What would you prefer for your child?

Average academic performance and mediocre musical ability along with strong social skills, a core group of friends, and the ability to function effectively in a group?

Or…

Exceptionally high academic performance and instrumental musical mastery accompanied by little or no experience with interacting with others outside the family?

I’m not saying Chua’s children will turn out to be social misfits, but it is reasonable to assume that their chances of becoming misfits is greater than those who interact with other children on a regular basis.

In my life, academics has always been easy. I graduated from high school and four different colleges in the top 10% of my class or better each time, and I did so in each case while working at least one full-time job (high school included).

Wow. That fact never occurred to me before until just now.

But it has always been the social realm that I have found the most difficult to decipher.

• I am rarely the most effective member in a group and usually prefer working alone or with one other person.
• I have difficulty with small talk.
• Unlike my wife, it is a challenge for me to walk into a room of strangers and emerge with three new friends.
• I do not remember names well.
• I often lack a filter in terms of the things I say.
• Earlier this year, colleagues who were leading a new initiative for our school were worried the most about me and my potential resistance to their new system, because in opposition, I can be quite difficult.
• I tend to generate a love or hate reaction from many people, and when you hate me, you really hate me.
• I am overly direct and unnecessarily honest.
• I flaunt social mores.
• My wife receives phone calls from angry family members who I have offended but who would prefer to avoid my wrath.
• I was told that I was “physically intimidating” this year while debating the merits of a decision with someone.
• I am rarely dressed for the occasion.
• I judge intelligence unfairly and by using rather arbitrary means.
• I created a Friendship Application.
• The eye roll-to-eye blink ratio that I engender in others is not good.

I could go on.

I think David Brooks is right. The social realm, with its limitless variables and unending string of unexpected personal interactions, is infinitely more difficult to negotiate than a piece of music or a chemistry textbook.

To deny children experience in this realm strikes me as short sighted and foolish.

I also find it interesting that Chua is a professor and an author, professions to which I was drawn as well.

While there are many reasons why I (and presumably Chua) decided to become teachers and writers, perhaps part of the reason is that both careers provide us with a great deal of autonomy and do not require us to work in groups.

Writing is a solitary business, and while teaching provides me with an endless string of student-teacher interactions, these are structured interactions that take place in a clearly defined teacher-student relationship. I have the power, and there are fewer unknowns than the interactions at a dinner party or similar social gathering.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that Chua underscores the importance of social interactions since her choice of professions seems to underscore it as well.

I just wonder if people roll their eyes at her as often as they do at me.

A day late, a couple of marbles short

This is Rush Limbaugh’s Tucson, Arizona billboard, taken down at 9:30 AM on Monday morning. 

Similar to Sarah Palin’s attempt to expunge her much maligned gun sight website (much maligned long before the shooting), the removal of this billboard would seem to imply that Limbaugh changed his mind about the wisdom of bullet holes on a billboard in light of the tragedy this past weekend. 

Too bad it takes a gun-toting psychopath to convince these two bastions of conservative ideals that the use of firearm imagery in order to promote their brand is not advisable, even if neither led to the attack.

A call to arms

In preparing for this week’s dreadful bridal show, I stumbled upon this New York Times article about the recent trends in bride and bridesmaid wedding preparations.

• Brides providing Botox to their bridesmaids.
• Women asking their friends to get breast enhancement surgery prior to the wedding.
• Microdermabrasion parties.
• Teeth whitening.
• Professional spray-on tans.
• Wrinkle filler injections.
• Chemical peels.
• Liposuction.

All this for brides and bridesmaids alike.

What the hell is going on?

From the article, one bride said:

As you get older, everyone is more conscientious about their skin and appearance.

Really? I was under the impression that the older you become, the greater your degree of self worth. The less you care about peer pressure. The more perspective you have in terms of what is truly important in life.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not attempting to portray every woman in this light. Not even most women. However, the article clearly states that these ridiculous, superficial, and shallow treatments are on the rise.

It needs to stop.

Consider this:

For fifty years, the most popular doll in the world has been Barbie, a doll whose proportions are universally acknowledged to be physically impossible. According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, Barbie would lack the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate. And the history behind this doll is disgusting.

In 1965 Slumber Party Barbie came with a book entitled How to Lose Weight which advised: "Don't eat."

In July 1992 Mattel released Teen Talk Barbie, which spoke a number of phrases including "Will we ever have enough clothes?" and “Math is tough.”

This doll is a statuesque representation of anorexia and breast enlargement, yet it is found in nearly every little girl’s hands. Year after year, this doll remains the most popular girl’s toy, regardless of the body image issues and eating disorders that plague girls and young women at ever increasing rates.

Where are the boycotts of this toy in favor of a doll that portrays a more positive and realistic body image?

Remember Madonna’s song "Material Girl?" Hugely popular with women in the 1980’s and still requested at weddings today, yet this song paints women in a superficial, materialistic light.

Yet they dance on.

In an update to this song, today’s women are blessed with "Gold Digger," another #1 hit in 2006. Brides still ask me to play this song at weddings, regardless of the materialistic, objectifying implications of the lyrics.

And how about Good Charlotte’s song "Girls and Boys," with its chorus declaring that “Girls don’t like boys. Girls like cars and money.”

Another song that portrays women in a terrible light, yet where is the outrage? The protest?

Instead, the song was used on Nickelodeon as a promotion for Slime Time Live.

And now pole dancing has become the newest form of aerobic activity in gyms across America. Touted for its aerobic, strength, and flexibility training, this activity, once relegated to the confines of strip clubs, is now touted as fun, energizing, and an excellent form of exercise.

Some may say that women are “taking pole dancing back” and “owning it,” but frankly, some things aren’t worth owning. I argued this point with friend recently, pointing out that this activity sends a terrible message to little girls, who will inevitably discover what mommy is doing.

I was told that they would not.

Not only was I right, but it turns out that not too long ago, you could purchase a pole dancing kit for your little girl.

This nonsense needs to stop.

Too much is worse than too little

A few admittedly questionable comments on sleep: Is it wrong for me to lose a little respect for my daughter every time she sleeps more than twelve hours in a given night? I feel like she’s sleeping away some of the best times in her life. _____________________________________________

Ever since a friend expressed concern over the frequency with which I dream about the apocalypse, I have been keeping track of the number of nights that I spend struggling to stay alive in my dreams.

In 12 of 14 nights thus far, I have had a dream in which my life was in grave peril.

Is this really abnormal? Perhaps my friend is conveniently forgetting the more nightmarish of his dreams.  _____________________________________________

When you complain that your child won’t sleep through the night while simultaneously expressing a desire to sleep for 10-12 hours every night for the rest of your life, your problem with sleep might be worse than your child’s.

A bunch wasn’t enough?

Here’s my biggest complaint about The Brady Bunch: The show ran for five seasons. The writers had six kids, two parents, a housekeeper, a dog and a butcher to work with, not to mention a host of special guest stars ranging from Joe Namath to Desi Arnaz, Jr. to Vincent Price.

And yet they still needed to add stupid cousin Oliver to the mix in order to have enough material.

Weak sauce.

Probably needed a second opinion

Elysha and I ate at a restaurant in Massachusetts today that had a fourteen page menu. 

To assist us with the dissection and dissemination of this tome, the menu began with a table of contents, entitled the Menu Navigator.

It would appear that someone was taking themselves rather seriously when designing this menu.