This Freakonomics podcast is a must-listen for helicopter parents everywhere. Don't have time to listen? Let me summarize: you're a lot less influential on your childrens' long term success than you think.
Economists Talk Parenting
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Amendment One Advocate Taking on Tillis for Republican Senatorial Nomination
There's an interesting article at Atlantic.com about the Rev. Mark Harris' run for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat currently held by Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan. Rev. Harris was instrumental in getting Amendment One passed and is looking to use the same grassroots organization he used in that fight to boost his Senate run:
Now Harris is attempting to unseat Hagan in the Senate, vying to win the Republican nomination with assistance from his band of grassroots allies. He announced his Senate candidacy this month, and has the potential to give state Senate House Speaker Thom Tillis a serious challenge in the Republican primary.
Harris has sent early signals that he'll build his Senate campaign infrastructure out of that same grassroots organization that fought against gay marriage. He has already brought on Republican activist Mary Frances Forrester, who spearheaded the Amendment One campaign, and Rachel Lee Brady, who worked for the pro-Amendment One group Vote Marriage NC. That could be helpful in injecting cash into the relatively unknown first-time candidate's campaign and could help propel Harris to the Republican nomination…
The article goes to point out why the state-wide fight for Hagan's seat might not be as easy as the Amendment One results would seem to indicate:
Amendment One was on the ballot during last year's May primary, when there were no competitive statewide contests, not the general election when the presidential campaign and a heated gubernatorial race boosted turnout. As is typical of primary elections, the electorate was much older and much more conservative than in a typical general election, but the excitement around Amendment One exacerbated those differences. Over three-quarters of voters in the primary election were over the age of 50, according to Lake Research Partners, a Democratic polling organization that worked with same-sex marriage proponents during the primary. That electorate was "enormously" helpful in getting Amendment One passed, pollster Celinda Lake said, and could be a boon to Harris in getting through the Republican primary.
The Democrats are going to be in a dogfight to retain control of the Senate so you can expect to see lots of national money injected into this campaign since Sen. Hagan's seat is seen as one of the most closely contested in the country. Things are gonna get interesting around here in the very near future.
Playing Small Balls
According to a piece in The Week there’s a correlation between the amount of time a man spends with his kids and the size of his boys:
“Researchers found that the smaller the men’s family jewels, the more likely their wives were to report that they were involved parents–spending a lot of time feeding, diapering, and playing with their toddlers…
Men with smaller testicles may compensate by taking more care with the fewer children they do have (compared to big balled men)….
But study author James Rilling, an anthropologist at Emory University, tells cbsnews.com, ‘It could also be that when men become more involved as caregivers, their testes shrink.”
I’d argue that marriage contributes significantly to shrinkage as well.
We’re Fortunate
Love this quote:
“We all know, deep down, that most of what we have is a product of good fortune. No matter how hard we work, we did not earn our functioning brains or the families into which we were born. We live in cities others created for us, organized by a government and protected by a military shaped by our predecessors. Yet we still point to our accomplishments and proudly proclaim, “I did this!” The well-off salve their consciences by assuring themselves that it is hard work and merit that brought them success, which also leads them to conclude that it is a lack of merit that keeps others from succeeding.” – Rabbi David Wolpe in the LA Times
I Want to Fly Like an Eagle
Someone strapped a camera to an eagle and captured some amazing footage:
If the Health Care System in the US is so Great…
Traffic and the Proposed Country Club Walmart
As reported in local news outlets a Walmart grocery store that is being proposed for a site near the intersection of Meadowlark Drive and Country Club Road is concerning to folks in that neck of the woods and understandably so. That area already experiences some significant traffic issues in the morning and afternoons due to the presence of Meadowlark Elementary and Middle schools and the fact that Meadowlark serves as a major conduit for people traveling to US-421 from Robinhood Road and points north.
Yes the concerns about traffic from additional development are valid, but if you look at the city/county planning staff's report and recommendation to the planning board you'll see that the proposed development reduces the traffic impact versus what could happen with current zoning. From the staff report:
Existing Zoning: HB-S
71,650/1,000 x 42.94 (Shopping Center Trip Rate) = 3,077 Trips per day
Proposed Zoning: HB-S for Parcel C:
41,179/1,000 x 42.94 (Shopping Center Trip Rate) = 1,768 Trips per Day. Note: this trip estimate does not include the two out parcels D&E which would require Final Development Plan approval.
As you can see the trip rate is substantially reduced over what a developer could do without a rezoning if they so desired, and even if the two outparcels are developed they will have to get approval and the additional traffic they might generate could be considered at that time.
If you look at the plan you'll also see that the developers are going to provide a connection to the adjacent Brookberry Park Apartments which should help reduce trips on Country Club made from the apartments to the store.
Finally, there are already plans for improving the roads near the intersection which should help alleviate some of the congestion at the intersection. While volume is certainly an issue the expanded turn lanes will help move traffic through the intersection more quickly and reduce the backups that occur during peak traffic.
Long story short, if this was a rezoning from residential to commercial and the lots along that stretch of road were primarily single family residential then the case would be much more problematic. As it is the land has been zoned for this type of use for a while – in other words the horse is already out of the barn so there's no reason to close the door – and the proposed development is actually an improvement over what could be done as-is. In fact, if the city council goes against the planning board's recommendation the developer has said he might just reconfigure his plans to fit the current zoning:
A representative for engineering firm Genesis North Carolina and developer Columbia Development of Columbia, S.C., said the proposal is a modification of the plan approved for the site in 1998. He said that if “push came to shove” and the city council didn’t approve the proposal, the developer could move forward with the original plan, which calls for more parking spaces and square footage for the building than the new proposal.
But he said the old plan has some flaws, while the new proposal offers tree protection, stormwater provisions and connectivity.
If the city didn't want to see the area developing as it is then they never should have zoned it for this use. Given that the city did zone it this way then the next step is making sure that projects fit and don't have a negative net impact on the surrounding community. Given their choices here it's hard to see how they can be justified to turn it down wholesale. They can certainly negotiate for changes to the plan, much like it looks like the staff already negotiated to get the connections to the apartment community included, but in the end they will likely need to approve the project or risk a less attractive option being developed in the future.
Last thought: if you changed the name of the petitioner from Walmart to Trader Joe's do you think people would be this hot and bothered?
21?!
Unbelievably, at least for me, Celeste's and my oldest son turns 21 today. As in 2-1 and able to legally drink in any state in the union. How the heck did we get here this fast?
Normally I'd say he's a great kid, but these days that would be wrong because he's a great young man and not a great kid. He's beginning to make his way in the world by going to school, holding down a job and generally being a productive member of society. He's already encountered some bumps in the road and I'm encouraged by how he's dealt with them without losing what really makes him special: his caring for those around him and his incredible sense of humor even on a bad day. Honestly I couldn't be prouder of him and I can't wait to see what the next 21 years bring. The future is very bright for this kid, er, young man.
Happy birthday Michael!
Erin, Michael, Justin
The Bikeshed Effect
Over at the Atlantic Wire they ask the question, "Why do we care about things that don't really matter?" Here's one reason:
The Bikeshed Effect, more formally known as Parkinson's Law of Triviality derived from the humor book Parkinson's Law, is "the principle that the amount of discussion is inversely proportional to the complexity of the topic," as explained in Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project. The most classic and titular example is that people care more about the color of a bike shed than the decision to build a nuclear plant because they know about colors and don't know about nuclear power.
As they go on to point out the effect influences what we talk about and thus what generates "discussion" in our modern world:
Since everyone needs to say something — especially on the Internet — these mundane things get talked about often and with vigor. Meanwhile, the more complex questions — like "How Will Yahoo Increase CPM's Given Current Trends in Digital Advertising?" — get much less attention because most people can't comment with any intelligence, as The Guardian's Oliver Burkman explained in his column "Why trivia is so important" back in 2010. "Each wants to demonstrate, to the boss or to themselves, that they are taking part, paying attention, making a difference, 'adding value,'" he wrote. "But with complex subjects about which they're ignorant, they can't: they risk humiliation."
The dumbest topics — the tilt of an exclamation point, for example — therefore, get the most attention. A related phenomenon happens a lot in the work-life balance debate, which relies a lot on personal anecdotes to talk about an important societal question. Without much knowledge or data on women in the workforce, writers and thinkers revert to their personal experiences to fuel the debate. Since these people are women and have worked and have also had children, they can speak to the issue with some intelligence. That leaves harder questions, like how most women can improve working while raising families, on the sidelines.
People have always been trivial, ill-informed bloviators but now thanks to the online extensions of our society the effect is amplified. Rather than only being exposed only to the nimrods in your circle of friends, family, coworkers and neighbors your exposed to the hundreds of millions of nimrods you can find online. What a truly depressing thought.
Fighting the Flab Google Style
Google took an analytical approach to promoting better eating habits at its offices and some of the common-sense approaches they came up with would work in your office or home too:
Employees were eating too much of the free candy and that, the firm surmised, might hinder efforts to keep workers healthy and happy.
What if the company kept the chocolates hidden in opaque containers but prominently displayed dried figs, pistachios and other healthful snacks in glass jars? The results: In the New York office alone, employees consumed 3.1 million fewer calories from M&Ms over seven weeks. That’s a decrease of nine vending machine-size packages of M&Ms for each of the office’s 2,000 employees…
For Google, it’s more than just the candy that employees consume. In another case, the company tried to get workers to drink more water. So it stashed bottled water on eye-level shelves and behind clear glass. It then put sugary sodas on the bottom shelves of refrigerators and behind frosted glass. After several weeks, water consumption increased 47 percent while the calories consumed by drinking sugary beverages fell 7 percent…
But even the plates at the food bars have been Google-ized. To get people to eat smaller portions, the staff experimented with plate sizes, providing a big one and a small one. Nearly one-third of employees chose the smaller plates and didn’t go back for more servings. When Google posted the result in cafeteria signs, the overall use of small plates increased a further 50 percent.
Quite frankly in our house the best solution is to just not buy any of the stuff that's bad for you because not one of us has an ounce of willpower when it comes to food.
Befuddled 