bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • In which I react and reflect.

    Mark this morning:  "I need a bumper sticker that says, 'He is my president, even if I dislike his policies."

    A bit wordy for a bumper sticker, and lacking in obscenities.

    This campaign season, despite its grueling length and constant barrage of invective, has had a few things going for it.  

    For one thing, it was easy for me to make my voting decision — there was no question about it; I preferred Sen. McCain's policies to Sen. Obama's.    The nice thing about that is that it allowed me to ignore a lot of the railing about experience and age and international popularity and Sarah Palin, because — as I wrote before — policy is more important to me than any of those things.

    For another thing, I didn't feel conflicted about voting for the good policies of a bad or unqualified man, because I sincerely believed — still do — that Sen. McCain is a good man, an intelligent man, an honorable one, one who speaks his mind, who really does have a record of bipartisan efforts — that's something that's important to me — a man who has earned the nation's respect.   

    This is rather a new sensation for me, voting-wise.  

    Even better, I could really feel good about voting for Sen. McCain within the Republican party.  The biggest plus:  I like people who don't demonize the "other side."   Also I liked the pushback against some factions within the Republican party. I would rather call myself an independent, and yet I have taken my seat uneasily in the Republican party, ever since I came to believe that human rights have to trump everything else, and that the worst violation of human rights must trump the lesser ones.   So I'm glad to see a strong performance within the Republican party from someone I agree with on issues besides the biggest one.  I hope  Sen. McCain's bid signals a move toward the center, one that still defends the human rights of the smallest of us. 

    At the same time, knowing that Sen. Obama was making a good showing and likely to win, I felt a certain consolation.  I believe he's a good man too.  You know I think he's wrong about lots of stuff, including crucially important stuff.   But I do believe he's a good man, with good intentions.  And I believe he's got a good chance of being an excellent head of state, even though he's not the head of government I wanted.  I truly wish him well in that endeavor; head of state is an important role, and I am looking forward to his performance in it.

    He's got time to prove me wrong, but he does not have to.  I hope he has trouble pushing through his policies, but I also hope he does not screw up royally.  The man still hasn't done anything yet — that's the bald fact.  He has a chance, and I intend to wait and see what he does with it.  

    In the last few weeks my inbox has filled up with prayer requests and novenas, mostly that the election results would serve the cause of life.  You know, what's happened is not necessarily a setback.  It could be one of those things that appears to be a setback but turns out much better than we can know.  What's the drill?  Keep praying.  Turn the intentions to something else, something hidden away but no less real and no less possible.

    Hope for change, eh?

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  • This one goes out to Kim in Iowa for one reason.

    It goes out to everybody else just 'cause it's awesome.  

    John Williams is the man, although every time I hear one of his major themes I can't remember which movie it came from.  Or whether it was actually the Olympics.

    (h/t Megan McArdle)

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    6 comments on This one goes out to Kim in Iowa for one reason.

  • Election blogging.

    I like Margaret's take on the election very much.

    I hope that whichever presidential candidate wins, we as a nation can be at peace with it. 


    I pray that hearts will heal and that, above all, the “reform” that’s been promised on

    both sides of the campaign might begin…with us.


    No kidding.  I'm exhausted by the rancor of the past sixteen years.  Aren't you?

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  • “No. I hate it. I get shin splints and my knees hurt.”

    Part 1:

    "Come on, hon.  When was the last time you tried running on the treadmill?"

    "Uh, I guess it was that time last year when we went to the gym but the pool was closed."

    "And how much did you weigh that time last year?"

    "Let's see, it was end of August or beginning of September, so… one-fifty, maybe."

    "And you're how much less than that now?"  

    "Forty, no, thirty-nine pounds.  But I still don't see –"

    "Thirty-nine pounds?  Don't you think that might make a little bit of difference?"

    "I like swimming.  I don't like running."

    "Why don't you give it a try and see if it feels any better now?"

    Part 2:

    The TV at one end of the row of treadmills was playing live political speeches.  The TV at the other end was playing Kathie Lee. 

     I parked myself right in the middle and faced a brick wall — no, not a metaphorical one, a real one, with a sign taped in the middle that read "Attention members:  Please do not unplug treadmills to plug in fans."

    1 kilometer.  Twenty-six minutes and thirty-three seconds.

    But you know what?  My knees don't hurt, and I don't have any shin splints.

    Maybe it's not that bad.

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    3 comments on “No. I hate it. I get shin splints and my knees hurt.”

  • Projection.

    Ann Althouse links to this with the line, "Sex on TV is getting teenagers pregnant."  (Time-saving public service announcement:  The comments there already contain the obligatory jokes about not falling off, especially with the new flat-screen models.)

    …[T]he new research is the first to show an association between TV watching and 
    pregnancy among teens….

    Among the 718 youths who reported being sexually active during the study, the likelihood of getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant increased steadily with the amount of sexual content they watched on TV, the researchers found. 

    About 25 percent of those who watched the most were involved in a pregnancy, compared with about 12 percent of those who watched the least. 

    The researchers took into account other factors such as having only one parent, wanting to have a baby and engaging in other risky behaviors.

    Predictably, some people think the study shows we need more abstinence education and other people think the study shows we need more contraception education or contraception-plus-delay-of-sex education.  


    …"We have a highly sexualized culture that glamorizes sex," said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association. "We really need to encourage schools to make abstinence-centered programs a priority."…


    …"This finding underscores the importance of evidence-based sex education that helps young people delay sex and use prevention when they become sexually active," said James Wagoner of Advocates for Youth. 

    Would it be naive and oversimplifying to suggest that the study "underscores the importance" of restricting children and teens from watching a lot of sex on TV?  I'm just sayin'.  

    I found it interesting that the WaPo quoted the researchers as recommending that parents "spend more time monitoring what their children watch and discussing what they see."  Isn't it remarkable that there is that assumption there that the parents are completely passive in allowing the children to watch whatever they want?  An assumption that children should decide what they should watch, and parents' role is only being aware of the children's choices ("monitoring")  and reacting to them ("discussing")?   

    No suggestion whatsoever that parents should, or can, influence what their children watch.  Not even (ha!  maybe especially not even) merely by modeling appropriate TV consumption.  

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    1 comment on Projection.

  • Slacking off in the Japanese corporate world.

    The tone of the article is critical,  and Instapundit (h/t)  foreshadows ominously, but this sounds like a healthy trend to me.

     Hidekazu Nishikido, a 24-year-old agent at a staffing company, recently got promoted to help manage a small group of employees. The new job means a higher salary and a better title.
    But he isn't happy about it. Now he often works past 10 p.m., leaving him less time with his girlfriend. So Mr. Nishikido flatly told his bosses at R-live Inc. he isn't interested in further promotions.


    "My job is important, but it's not what makes me tick," Mr. Nishikido says….

    Miya Matsumoto, manager of the laid-back Mr. Nishikido, says she's tried everything — from screening success-themed films like "The Devil Wears Prada" to throwing after-work drinking parties — to push her subordinates to be more ambitious. But her team members rarely show interest in bigger responsibilities, she says…. 

    Managers are aghast.  How will they ever convince the lowly salarymen to work all night long whenever the company demands it?

    The 31-year-old Ms. Matsumoto says she threw herself into her job, often staying overnight in the office to get work done. "Don't you want to get ahead? Don't you want to get rich and drive a nice car?" she prodded Mr. Nishikido recently.

    But Mr. Nishikido says he finds Ms. Matsumoto's enthusiasm off-putting. He says he was especially turned off when he learned she had left her sick baby at home with her husband to come to the office (Ms. Matsumoto says work emergencies sometimes must come first.)

    "That's definitely not the life I want," Mr. Nishikido says. "No way."

    Yeesh, can you blame him?

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  • This is awesome.

    From the BBC:

    When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.


    Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated".

    So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket.


    Picture of the sign at the link.  

    Here in the Twin Cities, we have substantial communities of Hmong and Somali as well as a large and growing number of Spanish speakers, and it isn't uncommon to see signs written in one or two or even all of these languages as well as English — not many road signs or other government signs that I know of, except in St. Paul where signs in Hmong are surprisingly common, but local businesses hoping to attract everybody will put them up, and you will sometimes see them in medical clinic waiting rooms.  I know some people are bothered by the very idea of such things, but I like to read them, practicing my rudimentary Spanish skills and trying to find the linguistic patterns in the other languages.   

    (And then there's the sort of thing that shows up in Desperate's tonier-than-mine neighborhood.)

    Not counting the last one, I wonder how well these signs are translated.

    The mistranslated-Welsh-sign meme seems to be a recurring one in Britain.   Perhaps Welsh government rules that signs must be bilingual (which is a very different thing from signs that local businesses put up freely) have an air of ridiculousness to them? 

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  • Paradigm shift.

    "So how was your swim?" Mark asked me as we escorted the kids through the darkening parking lot at the Y.

    "Excellent.  I felt really fast and powerful today.  Just cruising through the water.  Then at the end one of my legs started to hurt, in the back, so I cut it a little short.  But really I was just cutting out my cool-down, so I got the whole main part of the workout in."

    I added as I got in the car, "Though I'm pretty worn out.  I was feeling so good, I pushed myself pretty hard." Then I laughed.

    "What's so funny?"

    "Basically, I went, 'This feels fun, nice and easy.  I need to work harder so it doesn't feel good anymore.'"

    "Hey!  Now you're getting the idea."

    "Huh.  I guess I am."

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  • Of course, one of them has misplaced the hat this morning, and strife ensued.

    I refer to the costumes, of course.  I know which hat is missing (that's what photographic evidence will do), but I'm not telling.

    So, I'm feeling lots better today.  Apparently I must have been exuding some serious vibe of desperation, because (a) Mark has completely gotten out of my way and didn't object when I announced I wasn't going to do laundry or schoolwork for a couple of days while I enacted my plan, and (b) Hannah expressed great relief at my okayness while we were having coffee yesterday.

    You know the parenting tip where they tell you to keep most of the toys and stuff hidden away in the attic, and some of it out, and rotate it every once in a while, pulling out "new" old stuff from the attic and putting away the stuff your family is tired of?  I subscribe to that tip, although I'm not very organized about it.  It's been a while since we rotated stuff.  

    Well, what I am doing this week is a variation on the act of rotating.  I call it Put Away All The Stuff And Leave It Away For A Few Days Before Getting Anything Out Again.  Also known as Re-Acquaint The Kids With The Joys Of The Back Yard.

    The weather is cooperating with me; it's really nice outside.  

    Anyway,  there's just an accretion of extra, unnecessary stuff everywhere — it's not just the kids' stuff, it's us too.  Yesterday I pulled all the cookbooks I never use off my kitchen shelf and boxed them up and put them in the attic.   

    I put Mark on notice.  "Please –" he said, "please, if you do this to my stuff, just put it in a box and don't mix it with the kids' stuff and label it so I can find it again, okay?"  I said okay.

    Today:  three bathrooms and a closet.

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    2 comments on Of course, one of them has misplaced the hat this morning, and strife ensued.

  • From the mailbox.

    Friend and commenter Christy pointed me to this piece by William Saletan at Slate.com regarding prenatal genetic testing, itself a response to articles in the WSJ (more anecdotal, the story of one family, and boy is it ripe for discussion about family dynamics) and the WaPo (more general discussion of pros and cons).

    Saletan:


    It's pretty rich to see pro-lifers wring their hands about this information while, at the same time, they campaign for ultrasound laws. As Emily Bazelon has pointed out, you can't be for information when it discourages abortions but against information when it leads to abortions—not if your real purpose is, as pro-lifers insist, simply to inform women. And my libertarian hackles go up when paternalists fret that genetic tests might cause undue "anxiety" in "emotionally vulnerable" couples. If you're going to let people raise their own kids, you'd better trust them to think for themselves.


    Saletan's pretty flip here about the nature of the criticism, which includes  advocates for the disabled, bioethicists, and academics who are reasonably concerned about the rates of false positives/false negatives.  As for the anti-information thing, I rather expected that to be a strawman, but he writers of the WaPo article did find  a pro-life advocate whom they quoted as being against information if that information happens to lead to abortion.   I suppose it wasn't very hard.  Sloppy thinking is everywhere.


    Accurate information is never a bad thing, though people act in all different ways in response to information.  So few ask, though, what is the cost of this information, and how accurate is the information?  And what's the cost of going without the information?  If the rate of false positives is quite high, are we only paying for mental distress?  And how will the insurance industry behave with the info?  Tough call.  

    Eugenics is nasty stuff.  And, of course, if you take my position, the unborn are already people and not just genetic material, and so destroying them goes beyond eugenics; instead, it's in round-up-the-defectives-and-put-them-out-of-our-their-misery territory.  

    (I understand, philosophically speaking, how so many can hold a position that the unborn are not people.  It's not like that kind of "us people"-vs.-"them other beings"  mentality has never happened before in human history.  We've got lots of experience with it, even in the modern age (It's scientific!) It does blow my mind sometimes, and has especially during my pregnancies, how so many take it for granted that the "we're all people" position is reserved for nutcases.  I mean, really — is it that crazy to conclude that the unborn are people?  Or is it, as I suspect, just dangerous to take that proposition to its logical consequences?)

    (Science will never tell us who ought to be treated as a person.  It didn't tell us in prehistory, it didn't tell us in 1492, it didn't tell us in 1864, and it doesn't tell us now.)

    As I wrote back to Christy, 

    There are other parallels.  It reminds me a little of the genetic tests
    for the BRCA gene, and women choosing, based on positive results, to
    undergo prophylactic mastectomies before any sign of cancer.  Expensive,
    disfiguring, major, possibly unnecessary surgery, and I don't know if it
    is covered by insurance or not typically.  What if the ratio of
    (positive BRCA test)/(actual cancer cases in people with positive BRCA
    test) was quite high?  Would we have a reasonable discussion about
    whether it was worth the anxiety and the cost in unnecessary surgeries
    even to know the difference?


    She replied to point out the possibility of testing being "pushed as 'routine' and expected" even when the patient cannot or will not act on the
    resulting information.  Of course, even when a patient cannot or will not act on the information, other interested parties — like health insurers — might.  


    I don't know about the rest of my readers, but our employer-provided health coverage begins covering new babies when they're born.  How about individual plans?  What happens when that unborn baby — not YET covered — is known to have a condition before birth?

    Anyway, the biggest problem with the information produced by genetic testing is that it appears to be — like so many kinds of medical information — an incomplete predictor of the future.  This wouldn't be so bad except that people, including many who should know better, will react to its predictions as if they were accurate and complete.  We wish there were a crystal ball; it's human nature, no?   

    That there exists a recourse which appears to make problems in this crystal ball Just Go Away is a separate problem.  Human nature again.

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    1 comment on From the mailbox.

  • Thanks, Mrs. Darwin.

    Hat tip DarwinCatholic.  OK, I'm feeling better already.

    Persons working in the medical field or education, take note.

    Mrs. Darwin adds,  "These are by the same guy who made Baby Got Back — Gilbert and Sullivan style, but Darwin won't let me post that one."

    Because I wear the pants on this blog, I present:

    Baby Got Back – Gilbert and Sullivan Style

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    1 comment on Thanks, Mrs. Darwin.

  • Scorched earth.

    I picked up all the books off the boys' bedroom floor, pulled the few remaining ones out of the bookcase, boxed them up, and hid them in the attic.  Then I threw away all the trash on the floor.  

    I was going to do the same thing for loose toys, but it turns out that they do not really have many toys up in their room.  Good for them.  I stuck the few odds and ends I did find in the chest of drawers they are supposed to keep treasures in.  

    This is not a punishment.  I will retrieve some for them to read tonight, whichever ones they want, three or four per kid. We'll refill the bookcase slowly.

    The room is bare.  Picking it up tomorrow should be easy, a refresher course for all of us.

    Back to basics.

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