I saw this in the Café at my dorm, and it reminded me so much of Dan Quayle that I just had to take the picture. Enjoy.
Dan Quayle Wuz Here
I saw this in the Café at my dorm, and it reminded me so much of Dan Quayle that I just had to take the picture. Enjoy.
What's In a Name?
This journal entry has two parts. Address each part in your response. After reading Freakonomics chapter 6 (“Perfect Parenting, Part II; or: Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?), answer the following:
1. According to the authors, does a child’s name matter when it comes to the child’s potential for economic success? What do their analyses reveal? What are their conclusions? State them precisely.
2. Considering your own first name (if you wish, you need not mention it in the blog post), do you agree with their findings? Does your experience validate their conclusions?
1. A child's name is a good statistical indicator of a child's future success because different types of people (rich people, poor people, educated people, and otherwise) have very different tastes in names. Also, since names often come to be associated with certain types of people, they are often used to put people in the categories associated with their names. For this reason it can be hard for someone with a black-sounding name to get a job regardless of his actual race, and a guy named Mohammad might be more likely to be "randomly" searched than most other people, even if he's not even Muslim.
2. Sure. My name didn't appear in any of his lists, but I have always been able to tell quite a bit about people I've met based on each one's reaction to my name - and, conversely, many people I've met have been able to (correctly) type me as a believer based on my name's moderately obscure Biblical origin. Actually, whether or not a person recognizes the name "Josiah" is a fairly good litmus test for how well that person knows the Bible: my namesake's story is obscure enough that most nonchristians have never heard of it but significant enough that most real believers have.
I also laughed out loud when I got to the part about the list of names common among children with highly-educated parents being "heavy on the Hebrew".
1. According to the authors, does a child’s name matter when it comes to the child’s potential for economic success? What do their analyses reveal? What are their conclusions? State them precisely.
2. Considering your own first name (if you wish, you need not mention it in the blog post), do you agree with their findings? Does your experience validate their conclusions?
1. A child's name is a good statistical indicator of a child's future success because different types of people (rich people, poor people, educated people, and otherwise) have very different tastes in names. Also, since names often come to be associated with certain types of people, they are often used to put people in the categories associated with their names. For this reason it can be hard for someone with a black-sounding name to get a job regardless of his actual race, and a guy named Mohammad might be more likely to be "randomly" searched than most other people, even if he's not even Muslim.
2. Sure. My name didn't appear in any of his lists, but I have always been able to tell quite a bit about people I've met based on each one's reaction to my name - and, conversely, many people I've met have been able to (correctly) type me as a believer based on my name's moderately obscure Biblical origin. Actually, whether or not a person recognizes the name "Josiah" is a fairly good litmus test for how well that person knows the Bible: my namesake's story is obscure enough that most nonchristians have never heard of it but significant enough that most real believers have.
I also laughed out loud when I got to the part about the list of names common among children with highly-educated parents being "heavy on the Hebrew".
Election
I'm sure you've all heard and seen the rather amusing comments from all sides regarding Tuesday's results: the irrational exuberance from the left, the hysteric outrage from the right.
Surprising though it may seem, the truth is this: no fundamental change has taken place. American politics is a colossal pendulum: one party, having taken power, loses little time in using that power to make a fool of itself and, in short order, watch the opposition seize power and make the same mistakes. Look at the election in 1992 - and then its shocking reversal in 1994, look at 2004 and then at 2006: in both cases it took only two years for the American electorate to completely change its collective mind.
Speaking of the 1992 election, what did Bill Clinton and the then-democratic congress memorably accomplish? For all their hype about "It's the economy, stupid" and universal health care (funny how things so consistently repeat themselves) did they really accomplish anything - to either end? No. They just made fool of themselves until Gingrich unseated them in 1994.
The way I see it, there are two ways the next few years can go, two different likely scenarios. In the first, Barack Obama and the leftists currently in congress will prove us on the right to be correct: they will stumble and fumble with all their grandiose promises, they will attempt to bring about redistribution of wealth, they will double taxes, and they will do all the other things some conservatives so ominously predict. They will, in other words, make absolute fools of themselves. In this case, they will be badly beaten in 2010 and, barring some devilish reincarnation of Ross Perot (and assuming we don't run another Bob Dole) a Republican will unseat Barack in 2012. In the second, he proves us all wrong: he unites the country, leads reasonably, and finds solutions to the "failed policies of the past eight years" that a great majority of Americans will find agreeable. In this scenario, we don't win the next two elections, but we effectively win this one - still ending up with a good president and effective congress. In either case, we're fine in the long run. At this point, then, we should give Barack Hussein Obama a chance to prove himself either way. Stop threatening to move to Canada and stop, for a moment, saying the entire country is "going to hell in a handbasket" as one friend of mine so pessimistically put it - and give him a fair chance to either lead well or destroy his own party. Use this time to refine our message and rethink our arguments on the major issues so that our candidates are as effective as possible in the upcoming elections. Get Bobby Jindal's name out there as an up-and-coming leader. Recognize, above all, that public opinion is just about the most transient thing in the world and that, before long, the pendulum may be moving fast the other way.
That is, unless this guy proves to just be a moderately bad president. That would cause the real problems.
Surprising though it may seem, the truth is this: no fundamental change has taken place. American politics is a colossal pendulum: one party, having taken power, loses little time in using that power to make a fool of itself and, in short order, watch the opposition seize power and make the same mistakes. Look at the election in 1992 - and then its shocking reversal in 1994, look at 2004 and then at 2006: in both cases it took only two years for the American electorate to completely change its collective mind.
Speaking of the 1992 election, what did Bill Clinton and the then-democratic congress memorably accomplish? For all their hype about "It's the economy, stupid" and universal health care (funny how things so consistently repeat themselves) did they really accomplish anything - to either end? No. They just made fool of themselves until Gingrich unseated them in 1994.
The way I see it, there are two ways the next few years can go, two different likely scenarios. In the first, Barack Obama and the leftists currently in congress will prove us on the right to be correct: they will stumble and fumble with all their grandiose promises, they will attempt to bring about redistribution of wealth, they will double taxes, and they will do all the other things some conservatives so ominously predict. They will, in other words, make absolute fools of themselves. In this case, they will be badly beaten in 2010 and, barring some devilish reincarnation of Ross Perot (and assuming we don't run another Bob Dole) a Republican will unseat Barack in 2012. In the second, he proves us all wrong: he unites the country, leads reasonably, and finds solutions to the "failed policies of the past eight years" that a great majority of Americans will find agreeable. In this scenario, we don't win the next two elections, but we effectively win this one - still ending up with a good president and effective congress. In either case, we're fine in the long run. At this point, then, we should give Barack Hussein Obama a chance to prove himself either way. Stop threatening to move to Canada and stop, for a moment, saying the entire country is "going to hell in a handbasket" as one friend of mine so pessimistically put it - and give him a fair chance to either lead well or destroy his own party. Use this time to refine our message and rethink our arguments on the major issues so that our candidates are as effective as possible in the upcoming elections. Get Bobby Jindal's name out there as an up-and-coming leader. Recognize, above all, that public opinion is just about the most transient thing in the world and that, before long, the pendulum may be moving fast the other way.
That is, unless this guy proves to just be a moderately bad president. That would cause the real problems.
In-Class 11.04.08
Fuentes claims that the suspension from school is leading to increased criminal tendencies among already-troubled children. She does along with Victor Hugo's claim that "the galleys make the galley slave," asserting that children who are suspended - especially for relatively harmless things - are traumatized to the point where they actually become bad kids.
Zero tolerance policies are causing the increase in suspensions, according to Fuentes: because they suspend students for increasingly trivial offenses, they suspend very many students.
Zero tolerance policies are causing the increase in suspensions, according to Fuentes: because they suspend students for increasingly trivial offenses, they suspend very many students.
My dad found this and sent the link to Drudge
This is Obama in 2001. This could be our next president.
This is Obama in 2001. This could be our next president.
Banana Bread
This has nothing to do with this class or anything, but I figured at least some of you would like this admissions essay I wrote for the University of Chicago. Not that I can really take credit for it (you'll see what I mean when you get to the end)
Banana Bread
It was my friend’s birthday yesterday. Since I love to cook, I decided to make her banana bread. The bananas I had harvested from my banana tree the week before were ripe; some had even begun to turn brown. So I took some of the ripest ones and began to mash them up with the butter and sugar, and a few hours later I took two wonderfully aromatic loaves out of the oven.
Unable to appreciate a lovely pastry as just that, I began to ponder the ultimate origin of this banana bread of mine (if it even was mine), the actual amount of time I had invested in it, and the real size of my own personal role in its production. I had grown the bananas myself. Or, at least, I had watered and cared for the tree that had produced them for the preceding three years. I could say, of course, that I had been working on the banana bread for those three years. When I thought about it more, however, my estimation of my own importance, at least to the growing of the bananas, quickly waned. For one thing, almost anyone can grow bananas in Texas. Banana trees often grow here with no human effort. None of the Texas gardeners with lush banana groves could grow the trees in Canada nor on the moon nor in a desert nor on those patches of Amazon land that slash-and-burn agriculture have left bare; the trees cannot survive without ample sunlight, air, water, and potassium-rich soil. They need little more than those, and the portion they received from me is relatively small. I came to the conclusion that God, who makes the sun, atmosphere, and soil chemicals work together to push the plants out of the ground, had produced those splendid fruits which I so arrogantly ventured to call my own. I had admittedly had a role, but it had neither been vital to the plant’s development nor any greater than anyone else’s could have been. Nor had I made any of the other ingredients myself. I did not persuade the cow to give its milk, I did not beg the hen for its egg, and I did not put the metal out of which the metalworkers had forged my pots and pans into the mines. None of the raw materials and equipment I needed to make the banana bread was really mine. I had to borrow even the requisite knowledge and expertise from the author of The Bread Book by reading the recipe, a task that in itself would have been impossible for me had my kindergarten teacher not taught me to read.
In a way, I am a bit like the pots, pans, and dishes in which I made my banana bread. Into my mind God has placed all the experiences, all the skills, all the gifts and talents and abilities that make my works and products what they are, just as into my possession he has placed the fruit, the sugar, the butter, and the oven that make the banana bread what it is. Admittedly, I have a role in the production process, but it appears to be small, and God can use a different person just as easily as I could use a different bowl or pan – with little extra effort whatsoever.
I know of people who take the view that each person is the sum of his or her experiences, upbringing, and hereditary background. Someone like that would likely compare me to my banana bread, my life experiences to the ingredients, my society or environment to the pans and bowls, and God or nature or some other cosmic force to the cook. It’s a very sunny, comfortable view and it would be pleasant to think of myself as analogous to the works of my hands of which I am most proud. My view, however, is somewhat less exciting. I think that the products of our physical and intellectual labor, not we ourselves, are the true sums of everything we’ve felt and seen and read and heard, and that we are not the products but the vessels and utensils, the mixing bowls and spoons and baking pans.
My busy kitchen is full of such cooking tools. Each of the myriad dishes, appliances, and tools is entirely unique, designed to perform its own task – the blender to blend, the whisk to beat, the mixing bowls to hold things to be mixed, and so on. So, too, is each individual person created for a purpose as a tool that contributes to his or her creator’s goal. Also, some things are more useful for their intended purpose than others: my old teapot is misshapen and rusted from its years of heavy use, my nice new frying pan with copper wires in the base to distribute the heat is perfect for what it does and quite enjoyable to use, and my twin shiny, new, state-of-the-art cookie sheets that are too big to fit in my oven are utterly useless to me. Some people are like my frying pan, excelling in what they do, and others are like my rusty teapot that adds a strange taste to everything that comes out. Still others simply won’t fit into the figurative oven, refusing outright to fulfill their purpose and frustrating the projects their creator has planned for them. Each person’s works, then, are shadows of platonic ideals distorted by their own faults and imperfections. Even my wonderful frying pan is not entirely flawless, nor is any person perfect, entirely capable of rendering a finished product exactly as the Great Chef intends. Our unique strengths and weaknesses as people leave impressions on the products of our lives – and, in my opinion, the smaller and less conspicuous my impression is, the better.
That said, I can’t plausibly take much credit for this essay. It is a divinely arranged combination of my life experiences and the ideas that have entered my mind through others, from the books I’ve read, from my parents, and from a variety of other sources, and all of that polluted and deformed by my innate personal characteristics. Anything good or desirable about the preceding page and a half is so because God is such an amazing cook; anything bad or repulsive about it is a result of my own inadequacy as a vessel for God’s project. I hope my influence has been as small, benign, and insignificant as possible. On a related note, Catherine loved the banana bread.
CRJ 2 - ethos
The authors of Freakonomics establish their credibility by patronizing their readers. As they say, "experts will use their expertise to serve their own interests," they indeed use their knowledge of incentives and the ways people respond to them to keep the reader reading. Having observed that most people crave what is perceived as illicit knowledge, especially about controversial subjects, the authors promise to deliver exactly that - "the hidden side of everything." They sympathize with their readers, that the readers may simpathize with them; in so doing, they become not merely intellectuals in the readers' eyes, but teachers - tour guides through the realm of the unknown. Their diction, too, helps this image: their style is conversational but smart. Asking numerous rhetorical questions of the reader and avoiding technical jargon while explaining relatively profound ideas, they mimick the language and style of a good teacher.
As for whether I'm inclined to accept the author's credibility based on their credentials, the answer is no. Even highly intelligent, educated, respected people are frequently wrong, and uneducated people of scant reputation often produce profound insight. I really think, therefore, that a good idea should stand on its own merits, not those of its proponents.
As for whether I'm inclined to accept the author's credibility based on their credentials, the answer is no. Even highly intelligent, educated, respected people are frequently wrong, and uneducated people of scant reputation often produce profound insight. I really think, therefore, that a good idea should stand on its own merits, not those of its proponents.
Howdy
My name is Josiah Stevenson, and I'm a freshman petroleum engineering major at Texas A&M. I'm a devout Christian, and I'm starting a Bible study group in my dorm. I play guitar, mandolin and violin, but I'm almost entirely self-taught, and if you heard me play, you would be able to tell.
I also happen to be rather excited about John McCain's presidential campaign. He's ahead in all the polls for the first time yet (when i wrote this, at least)! Where's Obama's easy victory? I thought we Republicans were supposed to get slaughtered this election, right? The same overconfidence that cost Hillary her party's nomination my well cost her rival the general election. How ironic.
Oh, hey: what's the difference between Barak Obama and Sarah Palin?
give up?
One's a young, good-looking piece of eye candy, and the other kills her own food.
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