religious people are happier..?

david campbell wrote 'American Grace. How Religion Divides and Unites Us'

it is a fascinating and sweeeping look at american religion since the 1950's. the books makes its points based on copious data collected through from surveys of americans.

the book has been mentioned in prominent national news publications (wall street journal, new york times, washington post to name a few.)

on times and seasons there was a two-part interview of campbell placed in print here and here. while i had read in the new york times a halting treatment of one idea coming out of the book (that religious people are happier), i was further intrigued to find one of the co-authors of the book was mormon and that there were a few mormon fact gems to be found within its pages.


returning to the book as a whole though, i will present to you a few of the recent reviews of the book and then a passage from the book itself.

from the washington post (by Michelle Boorstein):

Even as a religion reporter, I was surprised by some of the findings in this hefty new book about American religion by political scientists Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell.

Among them: Secularism is increasing most rapidly among the less educated (the opposite of what happened in the 1960s and ’70s); the growth of evangelicalism ended nearly two decades ago; and evangelicals diverge most from the rest of the country in their opposition to premarital sex, not in their views on abortion or same-sex relationships.

…American Grace is still perhaps the most sweeping look yet at contemporary American religion. It lays out the broad trends of the past 50 years, assesses their sociological causes and then does a bit of fortune-telling….[American Grace] is packed with fun facts: The intensity of one’s religious belief is more predictive of one’s politics than religious denomination; about 60 percent of people who switched religious identities didn’t do so because of marriage; 89 percent of Americans believe heaven is not just reserved for people of their own faith. The book also brings to life complex issues such as how politics play out in a synagogue in suburban Chicago and in a megachurch in Minneapolis.”

from the wall street journal (by Wilfred Mcclay):

Perhaps the best and most interesting chapter in this respect is "Religion and Good Neighborliness," which convincingly argues that, contrary to the stock depiction in popular culture, religious Americans make better neighbors by almost every index. They are more generous, with both their time and money; more civically active, in community organizations and political reform; more trusting; more trustworthy; and even measurably happier. The only exception to this list of positive traits: religious people tend to be less tolerant of views that clash with their own. These results hold even when the authors control for such factors as gender, education, income, race, region and age.

and finally, points about religious people's happiness from the book itself (by David Campbell and Robert Putnam)

• As with good neighborliness, the correlation between religiosity and life satisfaction is powerful and robust. It remains strong even when we hold constant the same long list of other factors that might have made the correlation spurious. Other thing being equal, the difference in happiness between a nonchurchgoer and a weekly churchgoer is slightly larger than the difference between someone who earns $10,000 a year and his demographic twin who earns $100,000 a year.

• As with good neighborliness, religious people are more satisfied with their lives mostly because they build religious social networks, thus reinforcing a strong sense of religious identity. A person who attends church regularly but has no close friend there is actually unhappier than her demographic twin who doesn't attend church at all.
  

• As with good neighborliness, religious friends remain very important, even when we compare people with equal numbers of friends overall, and in that sense religious friendship seems supercharged. Moreover, as with good neighborliness, the effects of religious social networks do not depend on maintaining a religiously homogeneous social environment; on the contrary, people whose closes friends are all from the same religion are, other things being equal, less happy than those who friends are diverse.

what think ye? do these ideas fit with your worldview? do they fall short? are they repugnant? life-affirming? do you figure these 'facts' are just a conspiracy of the religious right to recruit new republicans? i haven't read the book in its entirety, but i purchased it from amazon and plan on delving in..:)

holiday reading...

my reading, at times, comes in binges. and the reading decisions i make are often random and unsystematic...

this month has been a binge, beginning with reading a book during our new york trip to glorious pre-christmas days with no work and no school--reading with michael for hours at a time.

without further ado, the four books i read this month.

'freedom' jonathan franzen. 'freedom' is a sprawling, epic of a novel. it took franzen 9 years to write the book after his last blockbuster, nyt bestselling 'the corrections' spurned the oprah book club and went on to sell millions of copies. ironically, i read the book because my mother in law brought it by and set it on our counter and said i could read it if i wanted. i started without knowing a thing about franzen or the novel itself and was hooked. i wasn't hooked in the mystery, suspense variety but in a 'wow, this is unique' way.

franzen writes in a very frank, at times ironic and always poignant way regarding surburan life. his characters are compelling, rich and interesting. the story is at times heart-wrenching and at times repelling.

here is an example early on in the book of the way he skewers yet nails the suburban experience as he gives examples of the concerns early on in walter and patty's neighborhood, "Was it true that the glaze of old Fiestaware contained dangerous amounts of lead? How elaborate did a kitchen water filter actually need to be? Did your 240 sometimes not go into overdrive when you pushed the overdrive button? Was it better to offer panhandlers food, or nothing? Was it possible to raise unprecendently confident, happy, brilliant kids while working full-time? Could coffee beans be ground the night before you used them, or did this have to be done in the morning? Had anybody in the history of St. Paul ever had a positive experience with a roofer? What about a good Volvo mechanic? Did your 240 have that problem with the sticky parking-brake cable? And that enigmatically labeled dashboard switch that made such a satisfying Swedish click but seemed not to be to anything: what WAS that?"

in the end, the book was compelling. it laid out the lives of its main characters in a way that required me to re-examine my own life and the reasons behind the major decisions i've made.

the politics in the novel were intriguing and eye-opening for me. it was interesting to read the character's take on contemporary politics as the book was based in 2004. the politics and opinions of the characters were intriguing and forced me to think about several topics in new ways.


'pathfinder' orson scott card. some of orson's recent novels have seemed preachy and political, but this book was a return to form for him. the story and characters were classic orson. smart, snarky, compelling, unique, inventive, intriguing and fun. it is the story of a young boy with the ability to see the paths of people after they have passed through an area. he teams up with a youth from his village who can slow time. together they wend their way upriver and grapple with increasingly perilous dangers and intrigues. it was a page-turner and i read 2 and 3 hours longer than i should have on several evenings to finish the book.

don't be a hater stephen. try it.



'fablehaven--grip of the shadow plague' brandon mull. this is book three in the series and i am reading it outloud to michael. the girls sit in occasionally, but are often not engaged because of the vocabulary and story. michael loves it. the story is based on two siblings, kendra and seth, who's grandparents are the caretakers of a perserve for magical creatures. they are collectively battling the 'society of the evening star' to prevent destruction of good in the world. this book in particular was compelling for the re-introduction of several very interesting characters with whom we'd interacted with in previous novels. the children in the book are increasingly given greater roles to play in the plot because of their innate qualities and those qualities and gifts bestowed upon them by the magical creature with whom they interact. great story. great ethics. great topics to discuss with my growing son...


'the promise' jonathan alter. yes, thank to peter for recommending this book. the title would seem to portend propaganda and fawning on the annointed one, but it is a great read. the insider status allowed alter gives an intimate picture of the power players in the obama white house. if just for a look at the work of the president it is worth the read--regardless of your politics. i loved reading about obama's handling of the transition and the financial crisis. i remember distinctly listening to POTUS on XM in yosemite when mccain 'suspended' is campaign to confront the financial crisis. the insider details of this moment in the campain that sunk mccain's chances were one example of the delightful details in the this book.

the other great thing about reading this book, was that i did the bulk of my reading during our trip to new york and can you think of a city who would be more approving of a white male reading about obama on the subway..? aren't i such the hipster?

obama and president monson...

a nice image of our church leaders reaching out in civility to democratic president..:)

you can read the lds newsroom statement here

and obama's official statement regarding the meeting here...

an interesting juxtaposition of articles...

from the ny times.
i appreciate the editors' unwillingness to ravage the man's views...no matter how hard you know they wanted to...

from the ws journal.
and all this from a lebanese-born american and john's hopkins professor...

from the economist.
it would be a shame to lose the most significant concession in this round of health care negotiations--the willingness of insurers to accept all applicants despite pre-existing health conditions...

what to reform...

peter and stephen,

please respond to this statment, "The economic argument against the public option is simple. Yes, it may reduce monetary outlays, but it will do so by forcing providers to accept prices lower than what they would in a competitive market. The public option can do this because it will be subsidized by taxpayer money. Thus, the public option will crowd out other insurers and achieve monopoly pricing power. Once monopoly pricing power is achieved, then you will see a decline in both quality and supply of health services. The key is the lack of supply. At the monopoly price, the number of people willing to provide heath services will be suboptimal. This is why you have to wait six months for a CAT scan in England. Effectively, supply is rationed. And yes, "costs" will be lowered, but only if you just count cash outlays. If you count the implicit cost of the having to wait too long for health care services or receiving lower quality care, then it's not such a bargain. No free lunches I'm afraid.

This is textbook economics as to what happens with monopoly pricing. Don't need to be an ideologue at all to believe this."




peter, after criticizing my post on the article from the wsj you asked about paying physicians a salary. here is a great answer.

a few salient paragraphs from an author who is pro 'public-option',

"Is the wonk consensus solidifying that the health care system would benefit if doctors were paid on salary?

I hope not, and I hope this doesn't happen on a large scale. Not because I'm a doctor looking out for doctors' interests, but because it's bad policy. As any MBA or business executive will tell you, when it comes to personnel management, you get the behavior you incentivize. For most physicians, the behavior that is promoted by the fee-for-service system is patient contacts, and this mode of compensation is important in maintaining physician productivity.

Consider the emergency department, for example. If I have a patient volume of 100 patients per day, this is for basic purposes a static demand that has to be met. As it is, if I staff this ER with a group of motivated and efficient docs seeing 2.5 patients per hour, I need to provide 40 physician hours of staffing daily, or about 15,000 hours annually, equivalent to about 10 FTEs (Full-Time Equivalents). Predictably, when you drop the direct correlation between how much work you do and how much you get paid, there is a decrement in productivity. This amount may vary but might easily be 10% or more; this is often defended by physicians who claim that by going slower they are providing better care, which is actually a fair point. The consequence, however, is that I will need to hire another physician to staff my department, and, writ large, there will need to be 10% more ED physicians nationwide to keep up with demand. If those docs don't materialize, then the ERs will back up and waiting times and boarding will increase.

The same phenomenon will apply to, say, a Family Practitioner seeing patients in the office. Currently, the patients are scheduled in 10 minute blocks with little down time, just to keep the practice profitable. If the doc goes on salary and can see fewer patients for the same income, why would he not? It would be great for patients, too. Wouldn't it be nice to sit down and talk with your doctor without those time constraints? But again, the demand for these services won't go away just because the docs are working slower, and the consequence is that more PCPs will be needed to serve the same population, or that access to primary care services will erode.

Now maybe if these salaries were skewed to favor cognitive services, there'd be lots of proceduralists and specialists who no longer wanted to work so hard and do all those unnecessary procedures from the article, "



lastly, some thoughts on whether there is a 'crisis' from a recent thread at the economist about health care reform (see comments below the article),

"Now, the US spends 18% of GDP on healthcare (compared to ~11% for EU) and this will go up to 25% within 12-20 years (varied estimates), if left unabated, this IS THE REAL problem and can be addressed through a variety of very pragmatic things, beginning with “hanging all the lawyers,” NOT that malpractice awards or even insurance is a large direct contributory to healthcare cost, but “fear of lawsuits” causes “defensive medicine” which means multiple MRI/CAT scans when an x-ray and observation is really only warranted; use of outrageously expensive oncology therapeutics and end of life technologies which are minimally palliative, at best, I could list 20 things, but “physicians” will simply “go along” with patients and families instead of being frank and face potential suits once terminal patients die.

Of course cost controls, specifically, unabated price increases, is part of the mix, but as a previous poster correctly stated, US unlimited prices subsidize the world; e.g. US Pharmaceutical consumption is ~32-35% of developed world but accounts for >65% global profit for all transnational companies.

Other than the % of GDP, the “Healthcare Crisis” is PR “BS;” when one closely examines the perpetual 47 million without coverage; a few key points come up:
1)>80% of “illegal aliens” are included (10 of the “12 million, US “official number” in reality 22-25M illegal’s in US; 2) 5-10 Million “US Born” children of illegal aliens; 3) “college-age” students covered via University Health Services (minimal need for catastrophic care); 4) Under 30 “Healthy adults” who are transient in employment; Conclusion >15M are long term without coverage and a significant portion of these can either afford subsidized coverage or low-income “free” coverage (Medicaid).

For 250M American Citizens, the current healthcare coverage is fine though the costs must be better controlled.
Obama is seeking to establish the “Golden Goose” of Government “Administered” (READ: “dependant” upon politicians) Entitlements and 90% of American Citizens are satisfied with what already they have albeit lowering cost is a good objective."


what do you think? there is a lot of liberal hand waving, but the most vociferous articles i've read are high on emotion and thin on substance...

don't mess this up barack...

this powerful opinion piece points out the flaws in obama's thinking about health care.

listening to NPR lately on any health-care related topic is like hearing supposedly smart and genuine people make increasingly outlandish claims.

that we can spend less, put government in charge of monetary allocation and cover more people and receive higher quality of care is possible...please. think about what you just said.

government had its chance to allocate money and dictate health care in the medicare program, and it will be insolvent in 2017. let's not given them all the reins and expect them not to lead the stagecoach right off a cliff.

this particular opinion piece takes an interesting bent. it points out that the doomsday sentiments coming from the obama camp about the sorry state of health care are generally untrue. it then goes on to show that the 'solutions' he proposes to the 'problems' he has created will make matters worse.

obama's take on health care is worrisome at best...

judge jay bybee...

below is a letter i sent to my representatives (diane fienstein, barbara boxer and jerry lewis) and eric holder (attorney general of the united states).

here is a website in defense and support of judge jay bybee. (under 'speak out' is a link to your representative's contact info.)


here is a website where you can find out who your representative is (if you don't already know...)

ms boxer,

i am very concerned with the agenda to attack jay bybee for political points. my name is paul frandsen from redlands, ca.

pelosi's prevaricating is important. she and the democrats have been feigning moral outrage over enhanced interrogation techniques and it comes now to light that she new about it definitely by 2003 and possibly by September, 2002. it is important because it points to the idea that during this extraordinary time in america, both sides of the aisle were sufficiently perplexed by the unprecedented terrorist threat in america that they were willing to move outside of the time-honored box.

if pelosi knew and allowed torture to happen for the broader good at the time she should be ashamed of the now partisan witch hunt she leads to punish bush officials whom she came to loathe over the years. leave jay bybee alone if you're not willing to step down yourself.

please leave jay bybee alone. he is an honorable man who wrote an opinion that many in the highest offices agreed with. the treatment of him by elected officials is abhorrent.

thank you,

paul frandsen

the pelosi predicament...

pelosi's prevaricating is important. she and the democrats have been feigning moral outrage over enhanced interrogation techniques and it comes now to light that she new about it definitely by 2003 and possibly by September, 2002. it is important because it points to the idea that during this extraordinary time in america, both sides of the aisle were sufficiently perplexed by the unprecedented terrorist threat in america that they were willing to move outside of the time-honored box.

if pelosi knew and allowed torture to happen for the broader good at the time she should be ashamed of the now partisan witch hunt she leads to punish bush officials whom she came to loathe over the years. leave jay bybee alone if you're not willing to step down yourself.

i'm not commenting here on whether water boarding should have been used. i'm saying that if you want to play the 'blame and impeach' game then you've got to be sure you weren't complicit or you will get bitten.

if you don't belive pelosi is lying, enjoy this written sketch on her most recent press conference and watch that same conference here: (the video is 25 minutes long. skip to minute 21 when she stops talking about health care and tries to leave. it would have been better for her if she had left rather than return to the podium and talk herself into a knot so thick even a fat-cat tort lawyer would have a hard time untying it...)



some very salient commentary on the issue can be found here. from his opinion piece, "On the morality of waterboarding and other "torture," Pelosi and other senior and expert members of Congress represented their colleagues, and indeed the entire American people, in rendering the reasonable person verdict. What did they do? They gave tacit approval. In fact, according to Goss, they offered encouragement. Given the circumstances, they clearly deemed the interrogations warranted.

Moreover, the circle of approval was wider than that. As Slate's Jacob Weisberg points out, those favoring harsh interrogation at the time included Alan Dershowitz, Mark Bowden and Newsweek's Jonathan Alter. In November 2001, Alter suggested we consider "transferring some suspects to our less squeamish allies" (i.e., those that torture). And, as Weisberg notes, these were just the liberals.

So what happened? The reason Pelosi raised no objection to waterboarding at the time, the reason the American people (who by 2004 knew what was going on) strongly reelected the man who ordered these interrogations, is not because she and the rest of the American people suffered a years-long moral psychosis from which they have just now awoken. It is because at that time they were aware of the existing conditions -- our blindness to al-Qaeda's plans, the urgency of the threat, the magnitude of the suffering that might be caused by a second 9/11, the likelihood that the interrogation would extract intelligence that President Obama's own director of national intelligence now tells us was indeed "high-value information" -- and concluded that on balance it was a reasonable response to a terrible threat.

And they were right.

You can believe that Pelosi and the American public underwent a radical transformation from moral normality to complicity with war criminality back to normality. Or you can believe that their personalities and moral compasses have remained steady throughout the years, but changes in circumstances (threat, knowledge, imminence) alter the moral calculus attached to any interrogation technique.

You don't need a psychiatrist to tell you which of these theories is utterly fantastical.

legalization? seems to make sense...

here the economist lays out its case for legalization of all drugs--not just marijuana.

much of what is said makes sense. i've been on board for years...

what say you? the big downside is the potential for increased use.

but think of the billions saved on a seeming pointless game of 'catch the bad drug dealer' that kills good policemen and destroys inner city neighborhoods. and these drug lords of the inner cities' supply of money and power would dry up very quickly as regulated 'drug stores' would sell a cleaner, cheaper product.

am i out in left field here?

convince me otherwise.

Outfitted for Obama...

Now, I'm still not telling for whom I voted... but I will be supporting our new President in his best efforts and add my hope to his for positive, substantial change as he begins his time in office.

And today our kids are showing support, too. With these super-cool Obama shirts from Uncle Stephen.


Thanks to Stevie who was thoughtful enough to plaster his political obsession on our children for Christmas. It was so sweet of you.


And thanks to Barak Obama for infusing the nation with hope for change and new beginnings. You deserve high expectations and our best support.

(Just keep home prices low for another six months, will ya??)

The Effects of Election Night...

Ever since election night, Michael has been drawing these...


It's an electoral college map, dontchaknow?? And the results are pretty accurate.

Yup. Funny kid.

Obama: President-Elect...

So I'm still not telling who I voted for. But I do want to document the presidential election.

Newscasters keep saying that everyone will remember where they were when it was announced that Barak Obama had won the state of California, assuring him the electoral votes needed to win the presidency of the United States of America.

So just for posterity... this is how it went down for us...


Paul was working, and watched it in the halls between seeing patients. You know. We texted back and forth about it during the night.

I decided that it would be "educational" television-watching experience for my children, and had it on before and after dinner.

Michael really got into it. He's been declaring his own decisions over the matter during the past month. At first, he sided with his "Mormon for Obama " dad. Then he was influenced by his "If-I-could-vote-I'd-vote-McCain" Uncle Lafe. He would boo and cheer different speeches as heard them on the radio in the car. So I was anticipating his excitement about the night.

And I was not disappointed. Those of you who know Michael can imagine... I mean--it was a RACE!! It had numbers. It had states and maps. It had teams. He tracked the progress along with the commentators, cheering and hollering all along the way. However, his alliegence was unclear in the beginning. That day he announced: "I'm voting for both of them. That way I'll be able to vote for the winner." We told him you can only vote for one person, one time. He decided that he'd hold out on his actual vote until that night.

But he kept busy tracking the states and votes. He even staged his own soccer competition, where one side of the room was McCain, and the other was Obama. Each candidate got goals kicked into their goals according to the votes/states won.

After settling Ella and putting Abby and Bekah to bed, I decided to keep Michael up with me. Once it appeared to be a landslide victory, he provided most of my entertainment. I did mention earlier that I would be attacking Mt. Washmore during the election night coverage... and I did.

So when Mr. Obama was announced as the clear winner of the presidential election, I was folding laundry laughing with Michael as we watched the crowds in Grant Park in Chicago go wild.

I then settled Michael to bed, and came back to continue folding.

Now, as I said... I'm not going to say who I voted for. But I will say that I wasn't entirely pleased with either choice. What does our nation really need? And what would either candidate actually deliver if given the chance to be president. I guess these questions come up with each election. I remember having reservations about my vote in elections past. But I had serious issues this time... and was a serious flip-flopper to the very end.

But I will never forget hearing Barak Obama give his victory speech in Grant Park. It was an emotional experience for me. There in my living room, sitting in the midst of piles clean laundry, I also sat on the edge of a historically defining moment. And I felt it.


Not only did I feel the significance of our country's election of the first non-white president... I felt the significance of an infusion of hope.

I know, I know. That's been the strategy of his campaign and the theme of his expert orations. That's what it is all designed to do. But somewhere in the midst of the story of 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper and the proclamations of "yes we can" that reminded me of a Southern Baptist sermon, I started feeling real hope. Like real change is possible... not just in policy about economics and war and health care. But change in the human spirit of America--"Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other." Perhaps I've been a little caught up in the divisions of our country with all the focus on prop 8 in California, but this truly spoke to me.

He declared that "this is your victory." Then, speaking with the collective "we," he shared his vision of what the nation must do together, "block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand." And somewhere in his speech, I really felt like a part of his vision. I felt inspired and hopeful.

"This is our moment. This is our time."

I don't know how he's done it. He turned a large majority of the country blue last night. He has had some of the most republican people I know (uh... my husband...) listening to, supporting, and even championing him. And last night, he made me think that he might even make a great president.

So instead of being skeptical, I'm going to be hopeful. He deserves my faith and prayers. And my prayer is that he will do all in his power to be sure that God may continue to bless America.

election day...

election day is nearing. amy and i already voted by mail. she won't tell whom she voted for...

if you are still wavering on your decision, then you may appreciate recent words from my old friend the economist.

and lest you dismiss the endorsement as coming from some left wing rag (like the new york times), then please see their very balanced endorsement record here...

for those of you that never follow my links...here is a beautiful encapsulation from the article that approaches my own feelings about the why voting for obama is important, but risky..."For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead."

The Obama t-shirt...

You might wonder what you would look like in the much-discussed Obama t-shirt...

Go Stephen!!

All this time we've been wondering what Stephen has REALLY been doing up there in the NYC.




All we can say is that, Stephen... you have our vote!

obama's to lose...

this may come as a shock for some, but as of now my vote belongs to barack obama.

this change has come over many months...and culminated in listening to his audiobook, 'audacity of hope' and watching john mccain in recent weeks.

specific reasons?

obama has thrown himself into the primary campaign and the forging of his policy positions with gusto. he has an over-arching vision for america. he is able to articulate that view to americans and the world in a palatable--even inspiring way. this ability is very important. the president of the united states has the biggest bully pulpit in the world. the ability to sway others is invaluable.

in comparison, john mccain has run a reactionary campaign. he was broke 8 months or so in the run-up to the republican primary. it's as if he was too lazy to work at it. he beat romney by partnering with a slick and bigotted huckabee and with reactionary digs. mccain has yet to come up with an overarching vision for america--aside from 'let's win in iraq'.

this 'vision' of his is most disturbing to me. mccain feels that vietnam could have been won if we would have tweaked our strategy and stuck it out. he said in a primary debate that he wants to stay in iraq 'so our boys can say they've won'. who the hell cares if our boys can 'say they won'. 'our boys' should be there only if necessary and saving face is not a reason to risk american lives.

mccain's other downsides include his temper and age. his reactionary tactics as a candidate--coupled with his temper and desire to stay in iraq until we've 'won' is a frankly scary combination.

this isn't to say that obama is all roses. his recent equating of russia's actions in georgia to america's actions in iraq was asinine and naive. his protectionist stances are worrisome for economic revival. while i am in favor of health care coverage for all--i worry he will err too far on the side of big government and a single party payor.

that being said, obama is correct on guantanamo, a loose time-table for iraq, enhanced diplomacy abroad, aiding the middle class in making a 'living wage' in the face of huge spikes in CEO and wealthy class largesse over the last 10 years, health care coverage for all, strong on civil, women's and privacy rights among others.

there are those who argue that obama is too soft on terrorism and in this time of crisis we need a strong man at the helm. this war on terrorism is subtle and nuanced. we need an intelligent man at the helm--not a strong bellicose man.

all this being said. obama's negatives lie close to the surface for me. if he flys poor colors in the debates and a romney/mccain ticket come together with a likely mccain death in his first term..? who knows...

as of now. my vote belongs to barack hussein obama.

america in the doldrums...

paying even minimal attention to current events in america could lead to a sense of fear, foreboding and angst. america is certainly facing troubles with the decline of the dollar, soaring oil/gas prices, rising unemployment, stagnation of middle america's wages, expensive health care, bank failures, rising home foreclosures, inflation concerns, rising violence in afghanistan and the list goes on...

a beautiful encapsulation of these sentiments with an optimistic look to the future is found here. also fun, is reading the 300+ comments accompanying the article...

from obama's protectionism to mccain recalcitrant iraq stance, the candidates are not making the choice easy. my thoughts on obama are changing in response to reading his book however. i will elaborate further in a later post when i finish (and if i get ambitious--with a nod to the fairness doctrine--after reading mccain's latest book.)

a tale of two novels...

the birth of our new girl brought moments where watching her lent themselves to reading simultaneously. the books shown below are books two and three of a personal trilogy i read that started with a book about which i have previously spoken.

'kite runner' is a heartwrenching, riveting, fascinating and redemptive story. at its core it is a touching coming of age tale replete with mistakes, triumphs and sadness. the story of this boy becoming a man is powerful. perhaps equally as powerful is the portrayal of modern afghanistan. i appreciated this tale spun by an afghani that reminded me of the truly important battle still raging in afghanistan. many of the scenes in the book take place in peshawar, pakistan that made front page headlines today. these tales of fiction dovetail nicely with a certain audacious candidate traversing the european continent with tales of hope. while the book was too pat at times, i laughed, cried and was at peace with myself while reading this book.



'into thin air' is equally as riveting as 'kite runner', but for different reasons. i have taught wilderness medicine courses about HAPE and HACE for years. last year i hiked mount whitney, and my first year in medical school i helped host conrad anker as a speaker for a wilderness medicine convention. mountaineering never stirred my soul before whitney, but my past experiences have given me glimpses into this stark world. however, nothing i'd seen or heard (despite my familiarity with david breashears IMAX film and conrad anker) prepared me for this tale spun by jon krakauer. it is a harrowing, exhilarating tale of the origins of mount everest mountaineering and krakauer's personal experience in climbing mount everest with a group who met with tragedy on the mountain. he gives breathtaking descriptions of the beauty and death that is a way of life at the highest point on earth.

both are must-reads. and maybe i'm years behind in getting to these particular novels, but better late than never...

sweet irony...

it would be dishonest of me to say that i haven't watched obama's flipping and flopping with some glee...the hoity toity toots coming from the horns of his camp were nauseating to say the least.

but beyond these shameful and spiteful feelings of mine...his maneuvers have endeared him to me as a pragmatist. probably he has not done enough yet to convince me to support him...but i am a little less worried about a presidency of his. and if mccain doesn't pull his head out of his occasional illogical ideological rants then i may find myself in search of a candidate...

so while it is concerning that obama has suckled from liberal largess and ideological drivel for his entire adult political career...there may be hope for him yet.

under-population..?

recently, an attending at the county hospital suggested a book to me. i read parts of the book and found it to be interesting, but with a definite agenda. his central premise is that while muslim countries have not embraced a birth-control and secularist life-model, they continue to have far more children than the rest of the developed world and will soon take over europe on the basis of sheer numbers. funny then, to find the new york times magazine recently speaking on the same subject. they give steyn his due in the article, but certainly place a pro-secularistic spin on the issue by the end of the 10 page article. the times magazine shows in stark fashion that europeans are headed for precipitous declines in their state populations not many years from now...

meanwhile, there is much animosity in the hotly contested culture wars of the united states. at the heart of the mormon culture is the idea of a divinely mandated injunction to have children. while at rachel's wedding over the weekend, jonathan's dad mentioned this 'scriptural injunction' in passing at the wedding rehearsal/dinner.

certainly, with recent events in our house the subject of fertility has been at the forefront of our thoughts..:) certainly as birth control has become more socially acceptable in the mormon culture (ie. not a damnable offense...) it would seem that US mormon families have trended smaller. i don't have hard numbers to back this up, but certainly amongst our friends of a similar age this seems to hold true. regardless, mormons sit well above the national average in terms of the average US birthrate (2.1)and show no signs of slowing to that level anytime soon.

so with that introduction, i give you some sage words from the ny times magazine. i give you these words since many of you don't like to follow my links:) you don't have to read the words (obviously), but i will spice up the journey with some recent photos of our bundles of joy...interspersed with random asides.

In the 1990s, European demographers began noticing a downward trend in population across the Continent and behind it a sharply falling birthrate. Non-number-crunchers largely ignored the information until a 2002 study by Italian, German and Spanish social scientists focused the data...The figure of 2.1 is widely considered to be the “replacement rate” — the average number of births per woman that will maintain a country’s current population level...For the first time on record, birthrates in southern and Eastern Europe had dropped below 1.3...At that rate, a country’s population would be cut in half in 45 years, creating a falling-off-a-cliff effect from which it would be nearly impossible to recover. Kohler and his colleagues invented an ominous new term for the phenomenon: “lowest-low fertility.”

this 'lowest-low' fertility is an fascinating idea. it may certainly bode for massive worldwide population shifts in the not-to-distant future...


bekah seems unconcerned here as she crawls from the ikea igloo...

...Around the time that President Kennedy went to Germany and gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, Europe represented 12.5 percent of the world’s population. Today it is 7.2 percent, and if current trends continue, by 2050 only 5 percent of the world will be European.

speaking of fertility...



social conservatives tie the low birthrate to secularism. After arguing for decades that the West had divorced itself from God and church and embraced a self-interested and ultimately self-destructive lifestyle, abetted above all by modern birth control, they feel statistically vindicated...In Germany, where the births-to-deaths ratio now results in an annual population loss of roughly 100,000...

has the 'scriptural injunction' been ignored by the secular european hordes and thus bodes their downfall? or have they smartly stemmed an unsustainable world population that will allow them to better manage their local resources..?


one thing michael knows is that ella enjoyed her first car-ride.

The Canadian conservative Mark Steyn, author of the 2006 best seller “America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It,” has warned his fellow North Americansegarding their European allies, “These countries are going out of business,” and that while at the end of the 21st century there may “still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands,” these will “merely be designations for real estate.”

is this alarmist?


the girls enjoyed using the bells on their new trikes to alarm those in their way to watch out...

According to a paper by Jonathan Grant and Stijn Hoorens of the Rand Europe research group: “Demographers and economists foresee that 30 million Europeans of working age will ‘disappear’ by 2050. At the same time, retirement will be lasting decades as the number of people in their 80s and 90s increases dramatically.” The crisis, they argue, will come from a “triple whammy of increasing demand on the welfare state and health-care systems, with a decline in tax contributions from an ever-smaller work force.” That is to say, there won’t be enough workers to pay for the pensions of all those long-living retirees.

certainly a problem with the current health-care systems in europe...is this the model we want to adopt here in the US?


sounds like this problem would have been a great one to be addressed by the guy who signed this sweet shirt...thanks dad:)

When European women age 18 to 34 were asked in another study to state their ideal number of children, 16.6 percent of those in Germany and 12.6 percent in Austria answered “none.” (In Italy, by comparison, this figure was 3.8 percent.) The main reason seems to be a basic change in attitudes on the part of some women as to their “natural” role. According to Nikolai Botev, population and development adviser at the United Nations Population Fund, many observers have been surprised to find that in recent years “childlessness emerges as an ideal lifestyle.”

this idea of childlessness is certainly a viable option as never before in history...and gaining popularity in certain circles...


we certainly aren't pushing for abby to rely solely on some prince charming...but it sure is a fun photo.

“If we look at very recent data for developed countries, we see that Italy has two records that are maybe world records,” he said. “One, young people in Italy stay with their parents longer than maybe anywhere else. No. 2 is the percentage of children born after the parents turn 40. These factors are related, because if you have a late start, you tend not to have a second child, and especially not a third.”

italy sounds like a nice place to live...


these three would rather just read about italy right now.

...50 percent of Italian women work, compared with between 75 percent and 80 percent of women in Scandinavian countries. Despite its veneer of modernity, Italian society prefers women to stay at home after they become mothers, and the government reinforces this. There is little state-financed child care, especially for new mothers, and most newlyweds still find homes close to one or both sets of parents, the assumption being that the extended family will help raise the children. But this no longer works as it once did. “As couples tend to delay childbearing,” Aassve says, “the age gap between generations is widening, and in many cases grandparents, who would be the ones relied upon for child care, themselves become the ones in need of care.”

is the ideal answer state-financed child care? extended family care? parental care?


our kiddos are certainly grateful for their grandparents...

In Scandinavia, thanks in part to state support, the more children a family has, the wealthier it is likely to be, whereas in southern Europe having children is a financial sinkhole, which drags a family toward poverty. Such an analysis flies in the face of social conservatives, who argue that simply encouraging people to have more babies will raise the population and add fuel to the economic engine.

it's an interesting (false?) dichotomy here. it seems an artificial measure since this particular state subsidizes it's larger families where other countries don't...


michael here, subsidizing the star wars franchise.

“The world record for lowest-low fertility right now is South Korea, at 1.1, Japan is just about as low. What we are seeing in Asia is a phenomenon of the 2000s, rather than the 1990s...Western Europe, then, is not the isolated case that some make it out to be. It is simply the first region of the world to record extremely low birthrates.

will much of the world's population 'drop off a cliff'?


michael dropped off those glasses after finishing the new toy story ride at disneyland...

The old conservative argument — that a traditional, working husband and stay-at-home wife family structure produces a healthy, growing population — doesn’t apply, either in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world today. Indeed, the societies most wedded to maintaining that traditional family structure seem to be those with the lowest birthrates. The antidote, in Western Europe, has been the welfare-state model, in which the state provides comprehensive support to couples that want to have children. But the U.S. runs counter to this. Some commentators explain its healthy birthrate in terms of the relatively conservative and religiously oriented nature of American society, which both encourages larger families. It’s also true that mores have evolved in the U.S. to the point where not only is it socially acceptable for fathers to be active participants in raising children, but it’s also often socially unacceptable for them to do otherwise.

the opening sentence in this paragraph is again contradictory as he goes on to admit that many in the US do live this way...not all (and i'm not saying all should), but it is still a viable and common option.


michael found a car that vied for the lead in this race...

So there would seem to be two models for achieving higher fertility: the neosocialist Scandinavian system and the laissez-faire American one. Aassve put it to me this way: “You might say that in order to promote fertility, your society needs to be generous or flexible. The U.S. isn’t very generous, but it is flexible. Italy is not generous in terms of social services and it’s not flexible. There is also a social stigma in countries like Italy, where it is seen as less socially accepted for women with children to work. In the U.S., that is very accepted.”


bekah is perhaps not worried about acceptance here...

For there are those who argue that low birthrate in itself is not a problem at all. Paul Ehrlich, the Stanford scientist who warned us about the “population bomb” in the 1960s, is more certain than ever that the human race is catastrophically straining the planet. “It’s insane to consider low birthrate as a crisis,” he told me. “Basically every person I know in my section of the National Academy of Sciences thinks it’s wonderful that rich countries are starting to shrink their populations to sustainable levels. We have to do that because we’re wrecking our life-support systems.”

funny that the guy who contributed in a big way to much of the over-population hysteria is stubbornly hanging on to his beloved theory...or perhaps that same hysteria brought on eurasia's current state--on the brink of falling off a large populatory cliff of contraction. who's hysterical now..?


california adventure was certainly over-populated on this holiday season visit.

I put this to Carl Haub of the Population Reference Bureau, who monitors global fertility on a daily basis from his perch in Washington. Is it possible that these are basically “good problems,” that Europeans, having trimmed their birthrates, are actually on the right path? That all they have to do is adjust their economies, find creative ways to shrink their cities, get more young and old people into jobs, so that they can keep their pension and health-care systems functioning?

what do you think?


bekah finally decided to just crawl under a table and hide...

Haub wasn’t buying it. “Maybe tinkering with the retirement age and making other economic adjustments is good,” he said. “But you can’t go on forever with a total fertility rate of 1.2. If you compare the size of the 0-to-4 and 29-to-34 age groups in Spain and Italy right now, you see the younger is almost half the size of the older. You can’t keep going with a completely upside-down age distribution, with the pyramid standing on its point. You can’t have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home.”

good point.


thanks for reading. a few new pictures for you. and your thoughts? are these concepts new to you? interesting? or a non-issue...