I don’t often find myself smiling while reading about the killing in Iraq and Afghanistan but I did today when I ran across a short article in Wired, Shrinks Help Drone Pilots Cope With Robo-Violence. Like many people, I was concerned that fighting a war via remote controlled vehicles would turn the killing into a […]
Casualties of War
For several years, my son planned to join the Army. As a father, I had mixed emotions: pride that he wanted to volunteer for a very tough job and fear that he would be killed… or worse. He and I had several discussions about the dangers; largely fruitless because teenagers believe they are immortal and […]
Use Honey Instead of Cough Syrup
Staying up all night with a coughing child sucks. No two ways about it. And trying to get a kid to swallow some awful tasting cough medicine can be almost as bad. Honey A Better Option For Childhood Cough Than Over The Counter Medications, reported over at Science Daily gives hope. The study [by a […]
Why I Don’t Worry About Instant Messaging
I don’t worry about kids these days becoming so involved with social networks (Facebook, MySpace, etc.) and instant messaging (AIM, text messages, etc.) that they become isolated from real human contact. Why not? XKCD says it perfectly: Long distance relationships are hard. IM can turn a friend down the street into a long distance relationship. […]
An Attitude of Gratitude
I sat down to write about something mundane and got distracted reading the NPR This I Believe stories. Mary Chapin Carpenter just got out of the hospital after suffering a pulmonary embolism. Now, recuperating, she is climbing The Learning Curve of Gratitude. I found her article shortly after the shock of reading a friend’s name […]
For Whom Do We Mourn?
Tragedy struck on Monday when 33 people died at Virginia Tech. Flags fly at half mast as we grope through feelings of hurt, anger, helplessness, and grief. President Bush was so moved that he offered personal condolences, It’s impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to […]
It’s Time for Universal Health Care
The most recent issue of Yes! magazine has a series of articles on universal health care, a subject that has been hotly debated for quite awhile here in the US. One article, Has Canada Got the Cure?, neatly summarizes what we are losing by sticking with our privately funded health care system. From the introduction: […]
U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world
Do you care passionately about the situation in Iraq or Afganistan or Darfur? Are you up in arms about the AIDS epidemic in Africa? Does the Palestinian crisis infuriate you? Did you know that a newborn African-American is nearly twice as likely to die within his first 24 hours than a white baby? According to […]
Tennis Elbow
I had been having persistent pain in my left elbow for three months now, so I figured it was time to see An Expert. I trundled off to Expert #1 who prescribed anti-inflamatory drugs and alternating cold and heat. Merrily, I trundled back home and did as I was told. The pain persisted. A phone […]
Open Minds
Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, has an interesting editorial in the Washington Post titled Going Nuclear. He begins, In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust…. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs […]
National TBIS Key Exchange Program
This is really important and the last day of the program. See the web site for complete details. National TBIS Key Exchange Program
Children are no safer in SUVs than cars
I have always been bothered by the notion that driving an SUV makes sense because it is safer. That sounds like an obfuscated way of saying, “My kid’s safety is more important than your kid’s safety so I’ll get a bigger car than you have.” The old arms race with the USSR worked so well […]
‘Ear bud’ headphones can cause hearing loss, experts warn
My name is Art and I’m a worried father. The Associated Press is reporting on studies which indicate that iPods and other portable music players are often used in ways which damage hearing. I am particularly disturbed to learn that the ear bud headphones are significantly worse than other kinds of headphones. Naturally, my son […]
Enneagrams
My friend Alyce (I hope she doesn’t mind if I call her that, since we have never met, but we have talked on the phone so much and exchanged so much email, that I think of her as as friend almost as much as I think of her as a client) wrote something interesting on […]
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beerholder
It may be old news but it is new news to me. The "beer goggle effect" has been quantified by academics in Scotland, as reported by BBC News back in August 2002: They found that men and women who have drunk a moderate amount of alcohol find the faces of the opposite sex 25% more […]
Doctors challenge baby feeding myths
A large sense of skepticism rises in me whenever people start to tell me how babies and children “should” be raised. I figure that we humans have been around for a long time and most of us got reared to adulthood without parenting books, classes or guidelines created by medical or governmental committees I am […]
Donate Blood
For years and years, I regularly donated blood to the American Red Cross. It was easy, didn’t hurt, and helped other people. Unlike donating money, giving blood did not even deprive me of anything. As a matter of fact, after each donation I treated myself to a good steak dinner. (No, I don’t want to […]
Touching Hearts in Unexpected Ways
Thank you, Joseph, for opening my eyes today. He wrote, “The most obvious function of the get-well messages was to help the patient feel better. But it does more than that. It helps the doctors and hospital staff feel good about what they are doing.” This put me in an introspective mood. All too often […]
Video About the ManKind Project
The ManKind Project, South Africa, has produced a ten minute video that is well worth watching if you are a man or know a man who wants to lead a life of integrity. My favorite sound bite from the video describes the process as a “course in emotional literacy.” More information about this is available […]
Good news for dark chocolate-lovers?
Reuters reports, in Good news for dark chocolate-lovers? on a study published by the American Heart Association showing that eating flavonoid-laden dark chocolate can lower blood pressure by amounts that are both statistically and clinically significant. This is not only a statistically significant effect, but it’s also a clinically meaningful decline,” Blumberg said. “This is […]
