This week's edition of The Economist has the Blanchard Roundtable featuring a Economic Focus column by Olivier Blanchard:
There are responses to the column by
Olivier Blanchard is the IMF’s chief economist, but I encourage everyone to read at least our own University of Oregon professor Mark Thoma's column.
2. Me, pre-baby and pre-wedding. Comments about how cold it was that morning are not welcome but won't be censored. Egads.
3. Henry watching a plane take off while at the airport for his first trip by plane.
Shopping guide info:
Henry has signed two-word sentences before but never has his understanding been so palpably real. We were in the kitchen. Henry was playing with his new Mickey faux cell phone. When he wasn't paying close attention, I slipped the phone out of his grasp and put it in my pocket. Next thing we know, Henry signs "more" followed immediately with the sign for "phone." Yes, we owe our child's linguistic development to a $5 piece of mass-marketed plastic.
I'm just happy she's going to be part of the crew. It is funny how much fuss was made about how little foreign relations experience she had during the fight for the nomination and now she gets the job that defines her role as "the President's chief foreign affairs advisor," but I guess that is how things work out. Go, Hillary, go!
“Liberals are mainly in the parasitic professions, like lawyers, bureaucrats and consulting. Conservatives tend to be engineers, scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs, professions which create wealth.”
- Bruce Goldensteinberg
Income Tax Increase for Wealthy Seems Likely
Wow. I'm listening to NPR while feeding Monsieur Henry a breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese, cereal, and applesauce, and I have just heard that outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney (in a wheelchair because he somehow hurt himself lifting boxes) and incoming Vice President Joe Biden are getting into the cars to head off to the inaugural ceremony. And now outgoing President George W. Bush and incoming President Barack Obama are doing the same. What a huge relief today brings.
In 2007, Oregon became the first state to pass a law requiring companies with more than twenty-five employees to provide “non-bathroom” lactation rooms. (A national media campaign asks, reasonably enough, if you wouldn’t make your kid a sandwich in a public rest room, why would you expect a woman to bottle her baby’s milk in one?)
For the most part, you are hitting the standard babyhood milestones within range of your peers. Neither far ahead or far behind, with the exception of your weight, which is still woefully low for someone with fifteen months on the planet. We are doing our best to entice you to eat, providing you with a plethora of calorie-rich foods. The fact that you have shown a preference for broccoli over pie stumps us. We are confident that with age will come the appreciation for pie that your pops and I share. Pie is good, son.
Little idiosyncratic elements of your personality are coming to light. For instance, your pops has noticed that you have a tendency to close drawers and cabinets when you are done playing in them. Undoubtedly you get this from me. You're welcome. You seem to enjoy poking your head into the bushes that line the sidewalk next to the church up the street. You'll do this several times very slowly as we pass by them on the way home from the park, bending ever so slightly at the waist to get just a touch closer to the tiny leaves. You have a new fondness for wearing your hats pulled low over both eyes or completely covering one eye. The latter approach makes me think of you as a little European, which is fitting given my habit of calling you Monsieur Henry. You dance with abandon. Upon hearing music, you tilt your head toward the sound, find your groove, and start bobbing. When we were at the mall for some mall walking, it was hilarious to watch you pass the stores because each time we passed a store playing different music, you would stop, tilt, and bob. Awesome. 
Last night you were all sorts of trouble getting to sleep. I felt at least two teeth coming in so I can only imagine the high level of life suckitude you were experiencing. Teething is hard on everyone. Even though you'd been up since your dad left in the morning to hit the slopes for some skiing and you'd only had one short nap during the day, bedtime came and went and you were too jazzed to sleep. We have not been successful cry-it-out method-using parents. There is something about the crying-it-out part that gets to me. We brought you into our bed because we're still quite comfortable with the co-sleeping arrangement we've had since you were born and instead of nursing yourself into a deep slumber you took the change of venue to mean that bedtime was no longer a requirement. First, there was climbing on your parents. Over pops, caught on the way over the side of the bed and returned to the middle, then over me. Repeat. When this grew tiresome and we let your feet connect with the floor you headed over to the alarm clock. Next thing we know, you've turned on the radio, increased the volume, and were dancing to some African beat. Up, down, up, down. I had to grab the camera because I couldn't not capture that moment on film. (Heads up, the "couldn't not" is a double negative. Cool, eh?)
When the novelty of the alarm clock wore off and you were physically exhausted from the marathon dancing session, you climbed back onto the bed and tumbled over us to my nightstand. On this you found a full bottle of beer. Reaching said beer became your one objective. I won't say you kicked, scratched, and clawed your way to the beer but you certainly made an all-out, balls to the walls attempt to get your mitts on the sparkling beacon of beer. How you know about hops already, I will feign some surprise, but you do. And we're okay with you knowing about beer. We're just not okay with you drinking beer. At least not until you're speaking in full sentences. Although I realize you are almost to the point of stringing together words when signing so "More beer, please," can't be that far off.
You are tall enough to reach the door handle but, thankfully, unable to actually open the front door. I have already spoken to your pops about getting a secondary latch higher up so that you cannot disappear at a moment when we are being particularly inattentive parents. Also, during one of our walks with Beauty the wonder dog you signaled a need for a blue bag, the kind we have attached to Beaut's leash for poo disposal, and you took the clean bag, knelt down close to a patch of leaves, and began delicately pushing the bag against the ground in what was a clear and accurate mimic of how we pick up the dog's poo. We are all too ready to hand that chore to you so we are most excited about this developing skill. You are no longer scared of stepping into the elevator. You willingly hold our hands when you initiate the action and begrudgingly hold our hands when we initiate it. Along with walking home from the park, you have trekked all the way up to the store with me. You stopped several times along the way to check out the leaves that had fallen on the ground and the moss growing on the stone wall bordering a neighbor's yard. We are working to teach you your body parts. We've been talking about your twig and berries - pardon the euphemism - for a while now but you're also learning about your ears, nose, eyeballs, feet, and knees. There are, of course, many more parts to go but I figure this is a pretty good start.
You have the most gentle of souls, bean. Every day that you share with us is a gift that we are forever thankful for. We love you.
Yesterday Monsieur Henry and I got to escape the confines of the condo to visit Miss Josie and Amber for lunch. Amber was the most gracious host preparing a tasty quiche and homemade mac and cheese. Mmmm...nothing beats cheese and noodles, my friends. Josie was kind enough to share with Henry, who made himself right at home and spent a great deal of our time there playing in Josie's room with all of her toys. We left shortly after opening belated Christmas gifts. Henry is now sporting some ultra cool monkey slippers. Of course there were pics..
When we were done there, we started walking. Mall walking, that is. It's where you go to a mall and walk in it. 
I like to mall walk. Especially when my ma takes me to See's for a treat. But man, these dogs are tired. Or barking. Or however that saying goes. So we stopped to take a rest and watch the other walkers in the mall.
I even got to ride on an escalator with my balloon. Balloons are cool. I got one when my mom bought me a pair of new shoes for later when my feet grow a bit bigger. They are green. And have stripes.
Sometimes I crawl when my legs get tired. Mall crawling is almost as much fun as mall walking.
Eventually, we had to leave so I could get home in time for my nap.
By Ari Brouillette"Please allow me to share with you how "The Secret" changed my life and in a very real and substantive way allowed me to overcome a severe crisis in my personal life. It is well known that the premise of "The Secret" is the science of attracting the things in life that you desire and need and in removing from your life those things that you don't want. Before finding this book, I knew nothing of these principles, the process of positive visualization, and had actually engaged in reckless behaviors to the point of endangering my own life and wellbeing.Click here to see the review in all its Amazon.com glory.
At age 36, I found myself in a medium security prison serving 3-5 years for destruction of government property and public intoxication. This was stiff punishment for drunkenly defecating in a mailbox but as the judge pointed out, this was my third conviction for the exact same crime. I obviously had an alcohol problem and a deep and intense disrespect for the postal system, but even more importantly I was ignoring the very fabric of our metaphysical reality and inviting destructive influences into my life.
My fourth day in prison was the first day that I was allowed in general population and while in the recreation yard I was approached by a prisoner named Marcus who calmly informed me that as a new prisoner I had been purchased by him for three packs of Winston cigarettes and 8 ounces of Pruno (prison wine). Marcus elaborated further that I could expect to be [...] raped by him on a daily basis and that I had pretty eyes.
Needless to say, I was deeply shocked that my life had sunk to this level. Although I've never been homophobic I was discovering that I was very rape phobic and dismayed by my overall personal street value of roughly $15. I returned to my cell and sat very quietly, searching myself for answers on how I could improve my life and distance myself from harmful outside influences. At that point, in what I consider to be a miraculous moment, my cell mate Jim Norton informed me that he knew about the Marcus situation and that he had something that could solve my problems. He handed me a copy of "The Secret". Normally I wouldn't have turned to a self help book to resolve such a severe and immediate threat but I literally didn't have any other available alternatives. I immediately opened the book and began to read.
The first few chapters deal with the essence of something called the "Law of Attraction" in which a primal universal force is available to us and can be harnessed for the betterment of our lives. The theoretical nature of the first few chapters wasn't exactly putting me at peace. In fact, I had never meditated and had great difficulty with closing out the chaotic noises of the prison and visualizing the positive changes that I so dearly needed. It was when I reached Chapter 6 "The Secret to Relationships" that I realized how this book could help me distance myself from Marcus and his negative intentions. Starting with chapter six there was a cavity carved into the book and in that cavity was a prison shiv. This particular shiv was a toothbrush with a handle that had been repeatedly melted and ground into a razor sharp point.
The next day in the exercise yard I carried "The Secret" with me and when Marcus approached me I opened the book and stabbed him in the neck. The next eight weeks in solitary confinement provided ample time to practice positive visualization and the 16 hours per day of absolute darkness actually made visualization about the only thing that I actually could do. I'm not sure that everybody's life will be changed in such a dramatic way by this book but I'm very thankful to have found it and will continue to recommend it heartily."
Henry is a trooper when it comes to all of this medical crap. Today we headed back to Doernbecher's for Henry's second bone marrow test. (The picture at the right shows the type of needle used for the procedure. Egads.) The doc is looking for signs of smoldering leukemia, also called preleukemia. I will have to remember never to allow them to schedule testing of this nature in the middle of the day again. Poor Henry was starving and dehydrated from not being able to eat or drink for several hours before the procedure. Not having anything in his stomach made it nearly impossible to get him to take a nap before we headed to the hospital. Luckily, Henry can still sleep in the car so he had a little rest before we got there. When the IV therapy folks showed up, Henry was poked in the arm but he didn't cry until the lady started fishing around for the vein with the needle inside his arm. Ouch. (I hate it when they do this.) On a side note, our doctor is really great. If you ever find yourself in need of a good pediatric hematologist/oncologist, ask for Dr. Kurre.
From the NY Times. Too good not to share.LONDON — The advertisement on the bus was fairly mild, just a passage from the Bible and the address of a Christian Web site. But when Ariane Sherine, a comedy writer, looked on the Web site in June, she was startled to learn that she and her nonbelieving friends were headed straight to hell, to “spend all eternity in torment.”
That’s a bit extreme, she thought, as well as hard to prove. “If I wanted to run a bus ad saying ‘Beware — there is a giant lion from London Zoo on the loose!’ or ‘The “bits” in orange juice aren’t orange but plastic — don’t drink them or you’ll die!’ I think I might be asked to show my working and back up my claims,” Ms. Sherine wrote in a commentary on the Web site of The Guardian.
And then she thought, how about putting some atheist messages on the bus, as a corrective to the religious ones?
And so were planted the seeds of the Atheist Bus Campaign, an effort to disseminate a godless message to the greater public. When the organizers announced the effort in October, they said they hoped to raise a modest $8,000 or so.
But something seized people’s imagination. Supported by the scientist and author Richard Dawkins, the philosopher A. C. Grayling and the British Humanist Association, among others, the campaign raised nearly $150,000 in four days. Now it has more than $200,000, and last Wednesday it unveiled its advertisements on 800 buses across Britain.
“There’s probably no God,” the advertisements say. “Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
Spotting one of the buses on display at a news conference in Kensington, passers-by were struck by the unusual message.
Not always positively. “I think it’s dreadful,” said Sandra Lafaire, 76, a tourist from Los Angeles, who said she believed in God and still enjoyed her life, thank you very much. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I don’t like it in my face.”
But Sarah Hall, 28, a visitor from Australia, said she was happy to see such a robust example of freedom of speech. “Whatever floats your boat,” she said.
Inspired by the London campaign, the American Humanist Association started running bus advertisements in Washington in November, with a more muted message. “Why believe in a god?” the ads read, over a picture of a man in a Santa suit. “Just be good for goodness’ sake.”
Although Australian atheists were refused permission to place advertisements on buses saying, “Atheism: Sleep in on Sunday mornings,” the British effort has been striking in the lack of outrage it has generated. The Methodist Church, for instance, said it welcomed the campaign as a way to get people to talk about God.
Although Queen Elizabeth is the head of the Church of England, Britain is a deeply secular country with a dwindling number of regular churchgoers, and with politicians who seem to go out of their way to play down their religious beliefs.
In 2003, when an interviewer asked Tony Blair, then the prime minister, about religion, his spokesman, Alastair Campbell, interjected, snapping, “We don’t do God.” After leaving office, Mr. Blair became a Roman Catholic.
More recently, Nick Clegg, a member of Parliament and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, announced that he was an atheist. (He later downgraded himself to agnostic.)
David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, alluded to a popular radio station when he joked that his religious belief was like “the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes.”
Still, since Sept. 11, 2001, religion has played an ever more important role in public discussions, said Mr. Dawkins, the best-selling author of “The God Delusion,” with the government increasingly seeking religious viewpoints and Anglican bishops still having the automatic right to sit in the House of Lords.
“Across Britain, we are used to being bombarded by religious interests,” he said, “not just Christians, but other religions as well, who seem to think that they have got a God-given right to propagandize.”
Next week, the Atheist Bus Campaign plans to place 1,000 advertisements in the subway system, featuring enthusiastic quotations from Emily Dickinson, Albert Einstein, Douglas Adams and Katharine Hepburn.
An interesting element of the bus slogan is the word “probably,” which would seem to be more suited to an Agnostic Bus Campaign than to an atheist one. Mr. Dawkins, for one, argued that the word should not be there at all.
But the element of doubt was necessary to meet British advertising guidelines, said Tim Bleakley, managing director for sales and marketing at CBS Outdoor in London, which handles advertising for the bus system.
For religious people, advertisements saying there is no God “would have been misleading,” Mr. Bleakley said.
“So as not to fall foul of the code, you have to acknowledge that there is a gray area,” he said.
He said that potential ads were rejected all the time. “We wouldn’t, for example, run an ad for an action movie where the gun was pointing toward the commuter,” he said.
But Mr. Bleakley said he had no problem with the atheist bus ads. “We do have religious organizations that promote themselves,” he said. “If somebody doesn’t believe in religion, why wouldn’t we carry an ad that promotes the opposite view? To coin a phrase, it’s not for us to play God.”
