Ooh, I like this guy! Dr. Ross Greene

I'll just print his front page blurb:

Be a part of the solution.
Lives in the Balance is the non-profit organization founded by child psychologist Dr. Ross Greene, author of The Explosive Child and Lost at School, and originator of the Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) approach. This website contains a ton of information – streaming video, an extensive Listening Library, and a boatload of additional resources -- to help you learn about and implement the research-based CPS model and provide you with the support you need. Just CLICK HERE to get started.

And if you’re ready to help Lives in the Balance educate others about the true factors contributing to kids’ behavioral challenges...about why time-outs, detentions, suspensions, expulsions, restraints, and locked-door seclusion often make things worse (and about what to do instead)...this website has lots for you, too. Want to get involved? CLICK HERE to find out how.

Understanding and helping a behaviorally challenging child is a tough journey. No need to go it alone...we're all in this together.

I put in the Amazon links to his books. By the way, here's what I think is the most hard hitting video on his introductory page: Check Your Lenses.

And I should run you over to see his Hot Topics section.

This quote is from a different section, but, anyway:

When does the child exhibit challenging behavior? The CPS [Collaborative Problem Solving] model has an answer to that, too: He exhibits challenging behavior when the demands being placed upon him exceed the skills he has to respond adaptively. Would the child prefer to respond adaptively? Of course! Is the child choosing to respond maladaptively? Now why would he choose to do that? If he had the skills to respond adaptively, he would.

Hey! Look! The Tibetan Book of the Dead!

Right here!

Or, maybe it'd behoove me [you've never seen me in hooves] to do this:

Nicely put.

Sanford Ikeda explains the proper uses of micro- and macroeconomics. The first commenters said something that roused a thought:

But in the overall “Macro” economic world, the drag of the Welfare State and the Warfare State has led to the economic problems we have today. There are just too many non-producers. Too many wars,too many Welfare Recipients,too many Social Security recipients,too many people on Food Stamps,Unemployment Compensation etc.,etc. plus much,much too many government employees and retired government employees,who may be deemed necessary for a “civilized society,” but in the end produce no real wealth.

My thought is that somebody ought to mention that a huge part of the American economy pays for government employees whose job it is to actively destroy wealth. The only way that could work for us is if we followed the WWII model and destroyed all other industrialized nations. I think that's what our Keynesians and Neocons actually have in mind (though, perhaps, hiding in the back). Our commenter, Libertarian Jerry, goes on to say:

Its a classic example of the imbalance between the Economic Class that creates the wealth and the Political Class that lives off of that created wealth. Add to this “Macro” economic problem the “Too big to fail” mentality of the plutocracy that use government connections to try and thwart the rules of economics,then you have the sorry mess of the American Economy.

I'm going to have to buy a WSJ today. I see the Swiss are buying Euros to keep their Francs cheap. Hey! Speaking of 'nicely put', here's Larkin Rose doing what he does best:

On an individual basis, most people understand and accept that threatening people and using violence is justified only when used defensively. It's not okay to use force to steal someone's stuff. It is okay to use force to stop someone from stealing your stuff. It's not okay to violently assault someone. It is okay to use violence to stop someone from assaulting you. Yes, there can be occasional gray areas, but the general idea of the non-aggression principle is pretty simple. So no, killing innocent people, because the regime they live under does bad things, is not okay. It's not okay if you're a middle eastern terrorist, or if you're a U.S. soldier. On the other hand, using violence to try to stop aggressors is justified, whether the aggressors are private or "government." (In most cases, trying to forcibly resist thugs who imagine themselves to be representing "authority" tends to be very hazardous and counter-productive, but that doesn't mean it isn't morally justified.)

The parenthetical point is important to mention. I don't know any anarcho-capitalists who advise starting a war with the police, nor looting any non-violent business. We preach education and negotiation, not aggression. The problem of violence will never be solved by warmongering. I'm sorry if I haven't made it clear that I've made about a 170° turnaround since I started spewing my guts all over this page back in '03. I sincerely doubted then that the government would go about seeking justice for 9-11 efficaciously, but I agreed that they should try. Now I think that Clarence Darrow (of Scopes Trial fame) had the right of it, when he published his book Resist Not Evil a hundred years before.

Elise M. Boulding

Sounds like somebody worth studying.

Good

Woman who recorded cops acquitted of felony eavesdropping charges

Study links bad parenting to binge drinking

http://www.demos.co.uk/press_releases/parentingbingedrinking I got that from Stef who got it from the Daily Mail who got it from Demos. The Demos article is the best. It actually defines the parenting styles discussed. Stef just gave the link and the Daily Mail's summary of the summary isn't informative enough. It might even be a little misleading. I think it is, without this:

Tough love or authoritative parents: Parents falling into this category tend to expect that their children will conform to household rules and boundaries but that these will be set and negotiated within a context that encourages autonomy in the children’s decision-making. Such parents have high standards but support their children warmly in adhering to them; in their enforcement of rules such parents are assertive without being aggressive.

Nicely said, Mr. Greg

August 2, 2011
Mises Daily

Why Capitalism Is Worth Defending
by Anthony Gregory on August 2, 2011

[LewRockwell.com, July 29, 2011]

As Obama demonizes the wealthy and pitches a dozen plans to restructure the economy, opponents of this program need a reminder of what exactly we're fighting for. We are resisting bureaucracy, central planning, and encroachments on our freedom and communities. But this does not get to the heart of the matter. We are not only an opposition movement, countering the president and his partisans' agenda. More fundamentally, we stand in defense of the greatest engine of material prosperity in human history, the fount of civilization, peace, and modernity: capitalism.

Many regard "capitalism" as a dirty word, and it is tarnished most of all by its supposed guardians. Wall Street giants fancy themselves capitalists even as they live off the taxpayer and thrive on the state's gifts of privilege, inflation, and barriers to entry. In the military-industrial complex, they champion capitalism by name as they produce devices of murder for the state. In the Republican Party and every conservative institution, they talk it up while making such vast exceptions to the principle as to swallow it whole. When many think of capitalism, they think of the corporatist status quo, leading even some who favor economic freedom to abandon the term.

But we should not abandon it. For one thing, most opponents of capitalism do not merely oppose Goldman Sachs or Halliburton or even McDonald's. Rather, they oppose free enterprise as a matter of principle. They object to employers' liberty to hire and fire whom they want, at whatever wage is mutually arranged. They protest the right of entrepreneurs to enter the market without restriction. They disapprove businesses designing infrastructure; providing energy, food, water and other necessary commodities; and running transportation without government meddling. They lament the rich getting richer, even through purely peaceful means. They oppose the freedom to engage in short selling, insider trading, hostile takeovers, and corporate mergers without the central state's blessing. They begrudge the worker who dissents from the labor establishment. It is exactly the anarchy of the free market they despise, not the consolidated state–big business nexus they most want to smash. For every liberal who hates monopoly capitalism for anything approaching the right reasons, there are ten who deplore the capitalism part of it more than the monopoly.

I only stopped quoting out of copyright concerns. The next paragraph is harder hitting. Ah, hell...:

It is simply a fact that capitalism, even hampered by the state, has dragged most of the world out of the pitiful poverty that characterized all of human existence for millennia. It was industrialization that saved the common worker from the constant tedium of primitive agriculture. It was the commodification of labor that doomed slavery, serfdom, and feudalism. Capitalism is the liberator of women and the benefactor of all children who enjoy time for study and play rather than endure uninterrupted toil on the farm. Capitalism is the great mediator between tribes and nations, which first put aside their weapons and hatreds in the prospect of benefiting from mutual exchange.

Perhaps you're not getting his point:

The socialists of all stripes argue that real socialism has never been tried, and some say we market radicals are stuck with no better a response than to say that real capitalism has never been tried, either. However, unlike "real socialism," which Mises demonstrated was impossible on a large scale, capitalism simply exists wherever it is left unmolested. It is the part of the market that is free.

Regardless of how we define it, in terms of feeding the masses and sustaining society, I will take flawed capitalism over flawed socialism any day. I will take state capitalism, crony capitalism, or corporate capitalism over state socialism, democratic socialism, or national socialism.

Hm. Meant to put this on the other blog.

Had another interesting dream - probably about a month and a half ago, actually.

I walked up to this big house - kind of my "dream house" (as opposed to merely a house in this dream): fachwerk, stucco - and went in the door. My father and elder relatives were in the basement, gutting it, presumably in preparation for renovation. I could see most of the basement from the landing inside the door. I was above them. Then I went down the rather treacherous stairway, which went straight ahead from the landing. It was very solid concrete, but the steps were rounded off as if they were very old and worn. They'd had risers and runners over the top of them, but the men had removed them. There was a landing about six or eight feet down where the steps turned left, but there was a ladder there which I took the rest of the way down. The wall, floor and stairs were a dingy grayish-bluish-green.

I walked over to my dad and grandpa (his dad) to find out what was going on. Grandpa seemed to be directing everyone and he seemed pretty cheerful. (Not his normal demeanor.) Uncles and cousins and others I didn't know were moving objects around and carrying tools, but I really couldn't tell what everybody was doing. There were a bunch of guys doing something in an alcove to the right. Grandpa didn't give any directions to me, but he seemed pretty pleased that I was there.

I went over to see if I could help Dad, who was all business, when suddenly he took off for the stairs. He ran up the stairs as fast as it was possible to go, pulling off and throwing his clothes willy nilly. I followed as quickly as I felt was safe, collecting his clothes as I went. Dad got to the top of the steps and sat on a toilet in a bathroom there that I hadn't noticed before. I tried to hand him his clothes, but he didn't take them.

There's more, but I'm out of time for now.

Hey, it's August! All right?

The Europeans are all on vacation... I'm thinkin', "Hey! Me too!"

No, not really. I kinda wanted to leave that post about Dan on top for a while. I was on vacation last week, but I used the time catching up on my reading - two Jung books and a fantasy novel - and yard work. Started to clean the house, but then we went up to the Lake.

I towed the girls across the bay and back. They were on inner tubes. I was swimming. Took me an hour. Sunburned the crap out of my head. (Go ahead - take the opening.)

I am poorer now, by one friend

Dan Leroy died this morning.

I don't have all the facts yet. I'll find out more after work.

He was the best story-teller I've known.

Gotta check out this film and this guy's links later

I do.

Link.

Running stuff.

Edit (much later - time for bed, in fact): I watched it, favorited it on Youtube and posted the link on Facebook. [Wait. Will that embed it here? Oh, no it won't. Good. You know, on the old preview page, you could click the links to see if they worked.]

For two and a half minutes of this video, you get to watch all these young, good-lookin' people. Then there's big, fat, old Al. I dragged that lard-a** for 31 miles over some of the gawd-awfulest [two l's? ...Naw.] hills known to man. It won't surprise you that each circuit took me a half-hour longer to complete than it's predecessor. The first took 1:52. [Error Alert!! That was what the gal linked in the post below did. I was there at 1:58.] You're welcome to do the addition after that. It comes out pretty close.

I only face-planted once (landed in sand, so no big), tripped on a few roots (but caught myself) and had my feet slip out from under me in the big ditch-y thing coming down the final slope before finishing. That fall didn't hurt... but getting up again did.

Going down hills like that? Every bit as tough as going up them. I mean, unless you're actually suicidal.

Ran the Afton 50K Trail Run today.

OMG, that was a b****! Road running is inadequate preparation for trail running. I may say more later about it, but I'm still effin' shot from it.

They've got the preliminary results here. I'm at the bottom of the second page.

I prefer to think that I was 98th out of the 169 who entered, rather than the 99 who finished.

Oh, actually I was 96th out of 97 finishers.

Awesome description of the race here.

L. Neil Smith:

What would a real libertarian tell those who've counted on Social Security and Medicare being there when they get old? What I've always told them: it's a hard, cruel world, but when you've allowed yourself to be conned out of your life's savings, your more intelligent, less gullible neighbors—not to mention your own grandchildren—have no obligation of any kind to make you whole again. Not out of their own pockets. Not through the sticky-fingered middleman of government bailouts.

The Libertarian Enterprise.

El Neil also makes this interesting historical point, about the three just wars America has fought, in his online book Down With Power:

America had no choice about the Mexican War, which was declared by Mexico against the United States because it had annexed Texas—the independence of which politicians in Mexico insanely refused to recognize despite their defeat by Sam Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto and the utter humiliation of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Mexico deserved what she got, her whimperings to the contrary, notwithstanding.

James Pyrich has a post on why Wikileaks is "meh."

Link

Wikileaks may help some people shake off the shrouds of indoctrination, which is great for them… but real change does not start there.

Real change starts when you make changes to your actions in your personal life. Going to therapy, getting good relationships, working to know yourself, acting with courage, being honest with yourself, acting in ways that evoke self-pride… these are the things that matter.

And, as he says (my paraphrase), much harder than opining about matters three degrees removed from your own, real life. This is the real call-to-action.

Sita Sings the Blues is a great movie

by Nina Paley. Watch it here.

It's the story of Rama's wife Sita and the difficulties of their marriage. Nina Paley, if you weren't aware of her, is otherwise famous for Copying is not Theft.

There are four levels of animation in the movie, which are used as themes for different story lines ...and such. The levels run from crude to incredibly stunning.

I spoke too soon.

Some hellacious tornadoes hit the midwest Sunday. Joplin was just destroyed. I like that town. We go through there at least once a year on the way to Mom's. My co-worker's in-laws live real close to there, too.

I hate to say it, but it was hard to take it seriously until tonight when I jogged through some of the damage from the one that went through North Minneapolis. A lot of big trees were down - thrown every which way. I had to climb over several. I guess it kind of hit me Monday morning, too, when I had to detour around a big tree that was down across the street on my normal route to work. A tall house lost its shingles. I don't know if the damage is worse than that or not, they had a big tarp over it.

I was running in the park along the river, skirting the edge of the residential area, so I didn't see anything but downed trees. Lots and lots of them. I also noticed the Mississippi is way up tonight. It was high before. Now it's higher. More flooding headed downriver.

We were at my younger daughter's dance recital during the storm. They announced that the tornado sirens were going off and that a tornado had touched down in Fridley, but they told us that the auditorium was the storm shelter at the school, so they'd just go ahead and put on their show. When we came out, it was clear and sunny. You couldn't tell anything had happened.

Oh, S**t! The World Ended in a Horrible Cataclysm Today!!

And I missed it!

I meant to ask my brother-in-law about that, but I forgot. It's for the best, I suppose. It'd be pretty hard to bring that up without coming off as gratuitously insulting.

Well, I did 24 miles today.

It took me four hours and forty-nine minutes, but I got it done. I consider that not too bad for a training run. Keep in mind that I'm training for a 50K. It kinda sucks that I'll have to throw away Grandma's Marathon as a training run, but it looks like I may be able to do that in around five hours, so it's not a complete loss. Who knows? Maybe there's something about that course that'll bring out a little more from me.

My sister's coming through town today. We're meeting them for dinner at Old Country Buffet in Roseville. They live in Germany, but they have a house in Superior that I've never seen. And they're headed back to Germany next Saturday, so I don't guess I'll get to see it any time soon.

Have I mentioned that they're missionaries for the Assemblies of God?

Well, I the word is that the sweats I'm wearing right now aren't going to cut it for dinner, even at OCB, so I've gotta go change.

Welp, I did 7:38.6 in the TC 1 Mile last night.

Legs had no problem, but my lungs didn't want to go any faster. I'm not at all sure now why I didn't kick harder at the end. Once again, I left some juice on the table. [Mixed metaphor, really, but it kinda works.]

Spring is here (finally)!

I have proof!

Notice the feet!