bearing blog

I'll have to remember this one. Or maybe not.

Neal at Literal-Minded parses "need to pee like a racehorse" and in the process mentions a way he likes to tease his kids:

Of course, if need to pee like a racehorse is ambiguous in this way, so is need to pee really bad. I have fun attaching the really bad down low instead of up high, producing dialogues like this:

Doug or Adam: I need to pee really bad!
Neal: OK, go pee really bad!

Now that I think about it, I suppose that’s not such a good thing to tell little boys.

Nope.

Quit harshing my mellow, man.

Kathy Sierra writes a fascinating post:  "Angry/negative people can be bad for your brain." 

The three reasons are:

1. Mirror neurons: 

   It's what these neurons do that's amazing--they activate in the same way when you're watching someone else do something as they do when you're doing it yourself! This mirroring process/capability is thought to be behind our ability to empathize, but you can imagine the role these neurons have played in keeping us alive as a species. We learn from watching others. We learn from imitating (mirroring) others. The potential problem, though, is that these neurons go happily about their business of imitating others without our conscious intention.

   Think about that...

2. Emotional contagion:

   "...social scientific research has largely confirmed the thesis that affect, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour can indeed spread through populations as if they were somehow infectious. Simple exposure sometimes appears to be a sufficient condition for social transmission to occur. This is the social contagion thesis; that sociocultural phenomena can spread through, and leap between, populations more like outbreaks of measels or chicken pox than through a process of rational choice."

3. The nature of happy people:

   The idea [of skeptics] seems to be that "happy people" implies those who are oblivious to the realities of life, in a fantasy of their own creation, and without the ability to think critically. The science, however, suggests just the opposite.

   Neuroscience has made a long, intense study of the brain's fear system--one of the oldest, most primitive parts of our brain. Anger and negativity usually stem from the anxiety and/or fear response in the brain, and one thing we know for sure--when the brain thinks its about to be eaten or smashed by a giant boulder, there's no time to stop and think! In many ways, fear/anger and the ability to think rationally and logically are almost mutually exclusive.

Kathy's conclusion is "Be around the change you want to see in the world."  It's a good reminder, too, that we do a disservice to the people around us when we coddle, feed, and broadcast our own negative attitudes.

Disclaimer: I'm a little "biased."

Towards the First Amendment, that is.

But with a single comment like this, any politician destroys nearly all good will and respect I might have for him.

Now that's foodblogging.

A recipe for self-medication at Dooce.

Bilingual signage.

I stopped in Sears today, sans kiddos, to get a couple of pairs of maternity pants.  It's been a while since I shopped there; the place has a new look; and one new thing I noticed was that all the signs for the different departments had a Spanish subtitle in smaller print.  For example:

JUNIORS

        jovenes

and

WOMENS

tallas especiales

and

MISSES

ropa para damas

The first thing I thought when I saw those signs was:  "Thank goodness.  Now I know what those categories actually mean."

Harsh truths about Catholicism.

From holyoffice's livejournal:

I, a card-carrying Catholic (in fact, I got my Popery ID card renewed just yesterday; you can do it at Triple A), would like to step in and offer some "red meat" for both sides to chew on.

The problem, as I see it, is that there are a lot of misconceptions about the Catholic Church - but many of these misconceptions are actually held by Catholics themselves. So, in the interest of furthering a sense of understanding with my separated brethren, here are some honest-to-goodness, take-the-log-from-my-eye truths about Mama Church. But I will also do my part to correct some mistaken impressions about the church.


CLAIM: Catholic belief is unscriptural.

This is true. During every Mass, there are two readings from the Old Testament and two from the New Testament, including (always) a Psalm and a reading from one of the Gospels. But this is all for show. In fact, Catholics are forbidden from reading the Bible. The only Catholic who is allowed to own a Bible is the pope, and he won't tell the rest of us what it says.

There's lots more.  h/t Orthonormal Basis, who has a spiffy new blog header of which I very much approve.

The pause that refreshes.

It's Friday night.  What wild good times are rolling around the bearing household?

The kids are watching a movie.

Mark is building a bench for the mudroom.

I am sitting on the futon blogging and enjoying a rare treat:  Mark brought me home a can of Coke from the vending machine at work.

He also brought home two 12-packs of Guinness, full of widgety goodness, which he won in an office bet.   Technically that is a rarer treat.  I already had one of those.  (One bottle.  Not one 12-pack.)

So, not bad for a Friday night.

Holy crow's ears, Batman.

Heh.

h/t Jimmy Akin. 

An honest and raw look at the difficulties of natural family planning.

In the comments on this post at Amy Welborn's.   

The whole discussion is excellent.  Comments from people whose experience was great, from those whose experience was not so great and so they quit, from those whose experience was not so great but they didn't quit, from priests and seminarians, from people with medical difficulties, from NFP instructors.

We've experienced NFP mostly positively, with a few very trying times during my brief periods of lactational amenorrhea.   All our pregnancies were planned, but then, we tend to practice NFP pretty conservatively, and Mark tends to be more conservative than I do about defining the edges of the fertile time (which, anecdotally from talking to people, seems to be less stressful on a marriage than when it's the wife who wants to be more conservative). 

One thing I can say unreservedly is that, although it has at times been very challenging, I don't think we've ever been through a time when contraception has looked like a better option.   I can think of a few times when TOTAL ABSTINENCE has looked like a better option. 

Classroom simulation.

"Mrs. Anonymous Teacherperson," religion teacher in a Catholic high school, describes a creative classroom simulation to drive home the importance of the "which gospels are canonical" question.