Thanks mom for heads up on this one.

I must find one of these.

Would you not love to do this yourself? My only question...What the heck is it?

The World and its prognostications

I love trends, watching how complex social and cultural factors interact to make some new craze. I loved Malcom's Gladwell's Tipping Point and although I am usually a bit behind (I have never even seen a 'Twitter box') I like to try and keep up on things.
That said, this months edition of Foreign Policy has a segment titled "The Long Legs of the Crash, 13 Unexpected Consequences of the Crash," and I would like to share them. Some of them are quite insightful.
1. Your government will get smarter- more people will apply for stable government jobs, increasing the potential of the bueraucracy
2. and more corrupt...
3. Grey skies are going to clear up
4. The internet is about to get a lot more $@^&ing annoying- newspapers are looking for much needed ad revenue to stay alive. expect a lot more flashing pop ups and flabby stomachs that come out of nowhere on your screen
5. Glory days for evangelicals- bad times always mean a boon in church attendence
6. Your kids will be savers-
7. Skirts will get longer-there is correlation between bad economic times and more moderate dress
8. Your military just got bigger- militaries offer stable salaries and benefits for younger people
9. State schools will be cool- loans and endowments are shrinking big time
10. Boomers will refuse to leave the building- a whole lot of baby boomers who planned to retire simply can't now. Many have lost literally 3/4ths of their entire pensions/IRA/401(k) you get it
11. The world is no longer flat- and fewer people will care
12. Great Depression lit will be chic
13. (I am skipping the last one, its boring)

UN strikes...again

High Five! To get political on everyone, this is how seriously we should take the UN! I am so glad that they hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday for a conference on anti-racism! Oh brother. The president accused Israel of having a "racist government" and committing genocide. Ahmadinejad's speech at a controversial U.N. anti-racism conference in Switzerland was also interrupted by protesters in brightly colored wigs. The U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N. called Ahmadinejad's remarks "vile" and "hateful." I am still looking for the video of the men in brightly colored wigs...

Big Day

Today is a very big day for me. I have been asked by my wife to be a "community resource" for her fourth grade classroom and come share my experiences working with homelessness. It is a big topic for anyone, let alone little fourth grade minds— but for me that's not necessarily what I am nervous about.

In fifth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Denlinger, was married halfway through the school yera and became Mrs. Murrow. For a fifth grader this is weird. How does a name just change during the middle of a school year! Was she the same teacher? She sure didn't feel like it, we didn't even know what to call her. Well one day, Mr. Murrow, her new husband came in. He was a cop, and was wearing his uniform with his gun and billy clug hanging over his left hip. He had a short crew cut and a clean face with a very curved nose. I remember this so well, almost 13 years later, and that is what makes me nervous about today! Mr. Murrow coming in was a big deal for us kids, it made us feel betrayed that Mrs. Denlinger would have another man in her life and we were all very jealous of him.

I wonder if that is me today, Mr. Murrow, coming to make all of the boys angry and the girls nervous. It is strange how vividly I remember this, and I feel so old now that Mr. Murrow is me. That's a little scary, but I am looking forward to talking to all Beckah's kids. It is times like this that I wish I was a famous athlete or musician so that they would like me more, but that is silly and prideful.

Wedding

We got a wedding invitation in the mail today, which made me feel really good . it seems like many of my friends have been attending weddings and I have not. The return address was from Ft. Worth Texas and I wasn’t sure who that could be. Opening it, I saw that it was my uncle, my 47 year old uncle who has never been married. I was ecstatic. I never thought this day would come.

I will be curious to see how my perspective has changed on weddings and the ceremony now that I have gone through it myself and have experienced the joys of it for almost a year now.

Congratulations Wayne and Leslie. I am really excited to bring my wife and celebrate with you

And we wonder why?

This video and the article that follow were both on CNN's main page today. It is rather ironic no? Well actually, no it isn't. There is a great deal of common sense to it. It seems to me that morality and common sense often run together.


Out-of-wedlock births hit record high
Nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers, according to data released last month by the National Center for Health Statistics. The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births, of 4.3 million total births, marked a more than 25 percent jump from five years before.

Statistics such as these, which include for the second year in a row a bump in teen pregnancies, after a 14-year decline, leave Sarah Brown concerned. She worries about the children born to unwed parents -- about the disadvantages they often face, including increased likelihood of poverty and greater high school dropout rates. See the number of out-of-wedlock births by race and age »

"I wish people spent as much time planning when to get pregnant, with whom, under what circumstances as they do planning their next vacation," said Brown, the CEO and founding director of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "The stigma [of out-of-wedlock births] has eroded, and these numbers made me feel perhaps it's disappeared altogether."