Category: opinions

  • 6 week checkup and Toren now has superhuman powers!

    Toren was supposed to have a 2 month checkup, but we’ll be in Utah at that point, so our pediatrician had us come in 2 weeks early to do his 2 month checkup.  Everything looks good.  Size-wise, Toren has grown enough to become a perfectly average baby (hooray!). Length – 22.5 inches (somewhere between 50th…

  • What we’ve learned having a child – v1

    Debi and I have a background that provided us with a lot of information about pregnancy and childbirth, so we thought we were at least somewhat knowledgeable about having children (yeah, not really).  I teach a class on the Sociology of Human Sexuality (using this text: Understanding Human Sexuality), so I knew the basic outlines…

  • What would life be like if alternative medicine ran the hospitals?

    (Props to Mike N. for sending this!)

  • breathing earth

    A student found this site and showed it to me the other day: http://www.breathingearth.net/ Spend a few minutes perusing it.  Disturbing.

  • letter to the editor of the St. Petersburg Times

    I caught this story a couple of days ago about a wealthy chiropractor trying to change Florida legislation on childhood vaccines.  I was so annoyed by it that I wrote a letter to the editor of the St. Petersburg Times. They called yesterday to let me know they were going to publish it. Found it…

  • Today’s Sunday School lesson is on “open-mindedness”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI

  • scientific illiteracy

    I’ve had this post sitting around for a while as a draft and finally have a few minutes to develop it into a full post.  So, here goes… Periodically you hear about how scientifically illiterate Americans are.  A recent Harris Poll found the following: Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the…

  • insurance discounts

    Not sure if anyone will be interested in this, but I occasionally talk about this issue in my classes and finally found a document to illustrate my point. Our health care system in the US makes little to no sense, in large part due to health insurance companies.  From what I understand, health insurance companies…

  • good soup, but oh so much…

    A friend gave us a gift card to Carrabba’s Italian Grill a little while back.  We used it on November 10th (it took me almost a month to remember to get the picture off my phone).  We had never been to Carrabba’s, so we were excited to try it out.  But, we’re also cheap.  So,…

  • It was just a matter of time…

    …before a Wal-Mart Employee was trampled to death in the mad rush of consumerism on Black Friday.  When shopping deals are based on a first-come, first-served basis, you can only expect people to trample each other.  The structure of the situation facilitates misbehavior.  It could be solved with a lottery system. This doesn’t absolve the…