Road Sign Math

I like to travel. But what does one do on long trips to keep oneself awake? I listen to Dire Straits--loud. I also count things. There is always the license plate game. You know, find as many states' license plates as possible. Well, I ran across this Road Sign Math site today. Incredible. The sign at left is the one that evidently started it all. Some guy with a head for numbers and not a lot to do on a trip. The web site lists road signs by state, and country.

My favorite is this one. I had to think about this one for a while. And after seeing the "solution", I had to look up the math. I'm embarrassed, I was a math major in college!



Here is one from Alaska, which is a huge state but has few roads.

Some of these solutions are quite elegant, and novel. I like it!

What College Graduates Owe America

HT to Armed Liberal concerning Teddy Roosevelt's description of the duties of college educated people. (Unfortunately, TR did not use inclusive language, so I would assume his words would wash right over some people today.)

In The Atlantic in 1894, Teddy Roosevelt - wealthy Harvard man - wrote this:

What College Graduates Owe America

August 1894

It is proper to demand more from the man with exceptional advantages than from the man without them. A heavy moral obligation rests upon the man of means and upon the man of education to do their full duty by their country. On no class does this obligation rest more heavily than upon the men with a collegiate education, the men who are graduates of our universities. Their education gives them no right to feel the least superiority over any of their fellow-citizens; but it certainly ought to make them feel that they should stand foremost in the honorable effort to serve the whole public by doing their duty as Americans in the body politic …

To the great body of men who have had exceptional advantages in the way of educational facilities we have a right, then, to look for good service to the state. The service may be rendered in many different ways. In a reasonable number of cases, the man may himself rise to high political position. That men actually do so rise is shown by the number of graduates of Harvard, Yale, and our other universities who are now taking a prominent part in public life. These cases must necessarily, however, form but a small part of the whole. The enormous majority of our educated men have to make their own living, and are obliged to take up careers in which they must work heart and soul to succeed. Nevertheless, the man of business and the man of science, the doctor of divinity and the doctor of law, the architect, the engineer, and the writer, all alike owe a positive duty to the community, the neglect of which they cannot excuse on any plea of their private affairs. They are bound to follow understandingly the course of public events; they are bound to try to estimate and form judgment upon public men; and they are bound to act intelligently and effectively in support of the principles which they deem to be right and for the best interests of the country …

For educated men of weak fibre, there lies a real danger in that species of literary work which appeals to their cultivated senses because of its scholarly and pleasant tone, but which enjoins as the proper attitude to assume in public life one of mere criticism and negation; which teaches the adoption toward public men and public affairs of that sneering tone which so surely denotes a mean and small mind. If a man does not have belief and enthusiasm, the chances are small indeed that he will ever do a man's work in the world …

Again, there is a certain tendency in college life … to make educated men shrink from contact with the rough people who do the world's work, and associate only with one another and with those who think as they do. This is a most dangerous tendency. It is very agreeable to deceive one's self into the belief that one is performing the whole duty of man by sitting at home in ease, doing nothing wrong, and confining one's participation in politics to conversations and meetings with men who have had the same training and look at things in the same way. It is always a temptation to do this, because those who do nothing else often speak as if in some way they deserved credit for their attitude, and as if they stood above their brethren who plough the rough fields …

This is a snare round which it behooves every young man to walk carefully. Let him beware of associating only with the people of his own caste and of his own little ways of political thought. Let him learn that he must deal with the mass of men; that he must go out and stand shoulder to shoulder with his friends of every rank, and face to face with his foes of every rank, and must bear himself well in the hurly-burly. He must not be frightened by the many unpleasant features of the contest, and he must not expect to have it all his own way, or to accomplish too much. He will meet with checks and make many mistakes; but if he perseveres, he will achieve a measure of success and will do a measure of good such as is never possible to the refined, cultivated, intellectual men who shrink aside from the actual fray …

[Above ellipses in the orginal - A.L.]

I loved the quote about "the proper attitude to assume in public life one of mere criticism and negation; which teaches the adoption toward public men and public affairs of that sneering tone which so surely denotes a mean and small mind."

I was also challenged by it. How much do I criticize, and how much do I do to help society become better? How many of my comments about the issues of the day are "sneering", as if I am morally superior to my colleagues and fellow citizens.

A good word from the former president. And a nice find from someone with whom I probably disagree politically, but here find some common ground.

Ode to a Brother

A magnificent farewell to his brother, Marcel, is written by Charles Krauthammer in today's Washington Post. A very moving tribute to a wonderful older brother.

On this cloudy morning in Southern California, a rarity, I have been thinking about the impermanence of things. Almost two years ago, my mom bravely passed away. One year ago, I resigned from my ten year tenure as pastor at a local church. Four months ago, my dad suddenly and surprisingly passed away. I had the common human illusion that some things would last forever.

A funny picture of my mom.

And now I am seeing it in my kids as they grow up. In their younger days, when I stayed home with them, I was everything to them. I fed them, changed their diapers, washed them, walked them, played with them. I loved them, and they adored me. And now my son is on the verge of getting his driver's license, and his independence grows by the hour. (Of course, he still needs rides from the parents, so we are still good for something.) His social world revolves around friends from school. He is often home just long enough to get what he needs, and then he is off to friends' houses. Or they are over here, playing XBox and listening to loud music.

Of course, I went through a similar phase with my parents, as we all do, I suppose. On one summer trip back to Minnesota to visit my dad (post divorce, mandatory visit, gblah, blah, blah) I had just gotten my drivers license. On the last day I was there, I asked to borrow my dad's car, and I drove from Columbia Heights to Saint Anthony to visit my friends. I stayed away all day, and most of the evening. I got back to my dad's house very late. He was already in bed.

The next morning, he drove me, in silence, to the airport. We didn't talk all that much anyway, but this silence was more pronounced than most. Years later, my dad's wife, Susan, told me how hurt my dad had been that I had been out all night with my friends, instead of staying with him.

I now realize what my dad may have been feeling. However, he never communicated that to me, and I never actually knew what the silences were about. I read them as anger, dislike, disapproval, rejection, all those great emotions cooked up in a young, insecure teenage boy's heart. Instead of, "Son, I really would like to spend some time with you tonight, so come home early", I got silence. And since four months ago, that silence is forever.

In the past few years, my brother and I have become closer than ever. We went through a long phase as kids when he was just the younger brother, trying to tag along with me. I resented it at the time. In high school, we went separate ways. I went to college, he worked on cars. I fell in love with ideas, he fell in love with anything that had wheels. I wanted to be respectable, he wanted to have a good time. I had a religious awakening, and spiritual conversion, while Dave remained his old self.

Slowly, over the years, our paths have converged. We both got married and had kids. My son is the only male child on our side of the family, and Dave has all daughters. So naturally, Mark is well loved by his uncle! Our values have grown together as well. Dave is now a family man, a respected fire captain, and a church-goer. When we visit his home, we often will go to church with Dave and Karen and the girls.

Uncle Dave and Mark work on the 1963 Falcon at Hoser's Garage in Danville.

And we have worked together more, which is the primal language of males. We worked for a glorious week in MN with our dad tearing down the old yellow fishing cabin we called home during our childhood summers. When we bought our first house, Dave came down several times to help me do some projects. I have helped him on his garage. And now he is rebuilding a 1963 Falcon for Mark, while Mark and I drive 400 miles just to watch. Still, we are together, and we enjoy the company.

I have loved those days. And I like this time. But I see the handwriting on the wall, these times will not last. If the last two years are any indication, things will continue to change. I am not liking where those changes will lead, but am helpless to resist. So I do my best to seize the day, enjoy the moment, and let the future be what it will. And I will work on being grateful for the time(s) that have been gifted to me.

The First Red Card

My friend, Bob Ramsey, has discovered his first gray hair.

On Wednesday, my son received his first red card in a soccer match between South Pasadena and Monrovia. I arrived at the game too late, and he had already been ejected. As I asked some of the spectators what happened, they all shrugged. The referee indicated that Mark and the opposing player were swinging, or about to swing, at each other. No one saw the swing, and Mark swears he did not swing at the other player.

There are seven "sending-off" offences in soccer.

1) Guilty is serious foul play
2) Guilty of violent conduct
3) Spits at an opponent, or any other person
4) denies the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal scoring opportunity by deliberately handling the ball
5) denies an obvious goal scoring opportunity to an opponent moving towards the players goal by an offence punishable by a free kick or a penalty kick
6) uses offensive or insulting or abusive language and/or gestures
7) receives a second caution in the same match

Well, it was pretty clear to me that Mark was not guilty of 3-7. I suppose in the referee's opinion, there was serious foul play, or violent conduct. Since no one saw any violent conduct, a caution (yellow) may have been warranted, if the referee saw things perhaps escalating to that. But one cannot judge what might have happened, only what did happen. According to all I spoke to, nothing worthy of a red card was done, by either Mark or the other player.

My son, of course, is heartbroken. He prides himself on being a good, solid, fair player. He has only gotten two yellow cards in ten years of playing soccer, and he won the sportsmanship award last year for his gentlemanly play. This feels to him like being arrested for a crime he did not commit.

To make matters worse, by CIF rules, he must sit out the next game (today), against La Canada, the best team in the league. And with Mark being the team's best defender, he will be missed. He feels he has let his team down. His teammates are so notorious for getting yellow and red cards, that I told him that perhaps now he will really fit into the team. Though I hope he continues NOT to fit into a team like that!

Sometimes, we will be unfairly punished, I suppose. We can learn from our mistakes, but cannot allow them to hinder us in our pursuits. So goes the fatherly advice. Perhaps I should take some of my own advice.

Is Text Messaging Making Our Kids Illiterate?

It sure seems that way! Every semester, the quality of my students' papers goes down, and I lay some blame on AIM and text-messaging. Here is what a Windows XP newsletter editor said about this:

Kids take to new technology like flies to honey. Among many older folks, it's conventional wisdom that if you've been flummoxed by your computer, video recorder or other high tech gadget, the quickest and cheapest way to solve the problem is to call in a twelve year old to fix it. Lots of kids today grow up with a keyboard in one hand and a joystick in the other.

There are plenty of benefits to introducing kids to tech devices early. Using the devices becomes second nature to them, so the learning curve is less steep. Playing video games helps to develop hand-eye coordination. They learn multi-tasking skills from juggling several computer programs at once. Surfing the Web can expose them to a vast array of knowledge that wasn't available to those of us who grew up without the availability of commercial Internet services, even in some of our best libraries. And kids can have a rich social life and meet a much more diverse group of people to which they might never be exposed in their own hometowns. They can also stay in touch with family members and friends, both local and those who live at a distance, much more easily.

Unfortunately, there are potential harmful effects, in addition to the positive ones. Many parents worry that violent video games may desensitize children to violent behavior in real life, and that the Web will lead them to pornography or hate groups as well as information for completing their schoolwork. The people your kids meet online can be good influences - or they could be pedophiles posing as other children to lure unsuspecting youngsters into their traps.

Some experts fear that even in the innocuous communications with people they know, kids may be exposing themselves to hidden ill effects. For example, one type of communication that's very popular with teenagers is real-time chat. This includes Web-based chat, use of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) programs, Instant Messaging services such as those offered by MSN, AOL and Yahoo, as well as SMS messaging via cell phones.

In order to type their messages more quickly, kids often use a type of phonetic shorthand instead of grammatically correct, properly spelled sentences. For example: "R U going 2?" is much faster and easier to type than "Are you going, too?" This becomes an especially attractive option when using a small keyboard like those on cell phones.

But is this making kids illiterate? Educators, parents and others are divided on that question. Some folks argue that language is always evolving, and newer and more efficient spellings are a good thing. After all, a glance at a page of Olde English will show you that we don't use the same spellings now that our ancestors used. Other, more pessimistic folks say IM isn't so much making kids illiterate as reflecting the growing illiteracy of younger generations.

Some researchers have concluded that teens are able to slip easily between the abbreviations and conventional spelling, but some teachers say they're seeing the messaging lexicon show up in kids' school work. Does Shakespeare lose something in translation to "2 b R not 2 b"?

Some experts say the problem is not the lingo itself, but the fact that kids are unable to differentiate between when it is and isn't appropriate. Like slang and other informal language, what's okay for chatting with peers is not acceptable when writing an essay - or applying for a job.

What do you think? Is the growing use of "Internet jargon" a problem, or is it just a fad that kids will outgrow as they get older? And if it is causing kids to be less literate, what can be done about it? Should parents prohibit their children from using IM and SMS? That was the solution of the father in this article.

In a BBC article from 2000, it stated that text messaging in Britain had gone from 600,000 in June 1999, to 500,000,000 in June 2000. I can only assume that this exponential increase has continued.

Now, I am all for writing concisely. But "c u l8tr" does not quite do it for me.

It strikes me that while some real conversation takes place on AIM and other text messaging programs, a great majority of it is junk.

"hi"

"back atcha"

"what r u doing?"

"nuthin"

"y not?"

"cuz"

"i c"

"do u?"

"yup"

Still, there is a plus side to this. First, kids are willing to commuicate, at least with one another. Any parent of teens or pre-teens knows the reversion to monosyllabic conversation they go through. Perhaps text messaging shows they really do want to communicate, though at a less than Shakespearean level. This may show the God-given instinct to connect with a community, however "virtual" the community is.

It also shows, perhaps, that there is relative safety in text messaging. There is not the threat of direct communication. It is a risky thing to communicate with another person, as they might misunderstand, or take offence. But there is safety behind a monitor and a keyboard.

I continue to work hard at encouraging my students to see that there are appropriate ways to communicate in the right context. Text messaging is fine for an internet chat room, but not for an academic paper. The gushiness of a love letter to the novia is great, but not appropriate for a job application.

Still, at the end of the day, I would rather see a text message on my phone from my daughter that says, "hi dad. how r u?" than hear the sound of silence.

Golden Sunshine

Here is one of our dogs, Golden Sunshine, "Sunny" for short. Looking forward, pleadingly, to dinner, I think. Sunny has much in common with the great Chewbacca, always thinking with his stomach. He likes digging in the yard, chasing squirrels, and chewing on rocks.

Standing in Line

Today, I stood in line at a local store of a large national retail chain. I have gotten in the habit of paying off the credit card we use there each month, because for the life of me, I cannot keep the due date straight in my head. In spite of post-its. In spite of my software's helpful pop-up warnings that "you have bills that are due within the next five days." I actually need a pop-up to say, "Hey stupid, pay it NOW!!!" But I digress.

At the head of the line was a very pushy woman, demanding that the Customer Service person accept a return.

Pushy Customer (PC): I wanna return these items.

Customer Service Representative (CSR): Do you have a receipt?

PC: No. But I bought them with my store credit card.

CSR: Do you have your store credit card.

PC: No. But I have some ID.

[CSR enters said ID into the computer.)

CSR: I cannot find you in the system. Is the address correct on your ID?

PC: No, I moved.

CSR: What is your correct address?

PC: Why do you want that?

CSR: So I can look up your credit card in the system.

PC: [Gives allegedly updated information.]

CSR: Here it is. What would you like to return?

PC: These. (Opens plastic bag from a grocery store to display some opened packages of underwear.)

CSR: OK, let me scan these. (Scans them.) I'm sorry, ma'am, we do not seem to carry this brand.

PC: But I bought them here!!!

CSR: But ma'am, you live in (a town some 45 miles from here.)

PC: I was just passing through that day.

CSR: Do you have a receipt?

PC: No!! Look it up!

CSR: I did, ma'am. And there is nothing on the receipt on the computer that shows this brand being purchased here.

PC: Well, the computer must be wrong!

CSR: Ma'am, if you had the original receipt, or even a gift receipt, I might be able to help you.

PC: Well, the salesperson didn't give me the original receipt.

Being an intuitive guy, I begin to see where this is going, and that even though the due date for my credit card payment is still a few days off, at this rate, I may not make it.

So I begin to think to myself, "What are my options?"

One, go pay my credit card bill at another cash register in the store. Two, I could leave and come back later. Three, I should really shop at a store that has customers THAT HAVE A CLUE!!!! Four, I could give this woman the $8.75 she is owed and call it a charitable donation. Charity not to her, but to the small crowd formed behind us. All the while, I admire that the CSR is unbelievably patient, kind, and generous to this obnoxious PC. Not at all like the cartoon below.

I am a wimp, and I hate lines. I choose option one.

The Funny Court

A NYT article on humor in the Supreme Court, entitled "So, Guy Walks Up to the Bar, and Scalia Says..." (HT Rich Kirkpatrick)

I think Rich is right, humor is important, even in the very serious issues of life. I deeply distrust anyone who does not nor cannot laugh, especially at themselves. I also distrust anyone who only laughs at others, but not at themselves. Irony and sarcasm are sometimes very funny, but I think these are "low" forms of humor. That is, there is a "superior" attitude when seeing irony or using sarcasm. These forms of humor are tinged with judgment, rather than grace. Genuine humor always seems to me to contain a good dose of grace.

Campus Visit

Yesterday, my wife and I took "the boy" for a campus visit to UC San Diego. He is a junior in high school, so these will become more frequent, and intentional. Over the years, we have toured many college campuses in our travels: Berkeley, Harvard, Minnesota, Azusa Pacific, Davis, Santa Cruz, UCLA, Cal Tech, San Jose State, just to name a few. But these have always been "for fun", not with the intention of discerning whether Mark would attend there.

UC San Diego is a beautiful campus. It was a gorgeous day, sunny, and a bit cool. After Monday's rain and wind, it was a welcome break. (Poor SoCals get a day of rain and they suffer immensely. I know, break out the small violins.) Our tour guide was Craig, who did a fine job showing us around the campus. UCSD is set up on the Oxford model, with now six colleges. Students take all their classes within their college, and each college has a different emphasis: public service, international relations, math and science research, etc.

As we were waiting in the student union food court for the tour to begin, we saw one of Mark's good friends, Kevin, and his family walk in. What a great surprise, so we took the tour together.

It made me think of my own choosing of colleges. I knew I should/would go to college, but never really thought of it. My mom was no help in this, as she had never been to college. So I was left on my own, and, well, I was pretty lazy about the whole thing. My cousin, Jeff, was applying to UC Davis (Go Aggies!), so I went with him for a campus visit. I liked what I saw, and applied there, as well as to Berkeley and Santa Barbara, I think. (Back in the day, you applied to the UC system, and picked three campuses as your first choices.) Anyway, I wound up at Davis, but Jeff went to Santa Barbara. Left to my own devices, I may never have gone to Davis.

As we toured UCSD, I began to wish I was 18 again, or at least that I could go back to college. Things have definitely changed. The amount of entertainment on campuses, especially UCSD, is astounding. It is almost as if the entertainment (concerts, etc) is the draw, and the scholarship is secondary. Which it probably is for many students.

We were suitably impressed, but also know that there are many other colleges to visit. Some smaller, some private, some public, some in state, some out of state. Let the college application process begin!