"I know it will be called blasphemy by some, but I believe that pi is wrong."That's the opening line of a watershed essay written in 2001 by mathematician Bob Palais of the University of Utah. In "Pi is Wrong!" Palais argued that, for thousands of years, humans have been focusing their attention and adulation on the wrong mathematical constant. Two times pi, not pi itself, is the truly sacred number of the circle, Palais contended. We should be celebrating and symbolizing the value that is equal to approximately 6.28 — the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius — and not to the 3.14'ish ratio of its circumference to its diameter (a largely irrelevant property in geometry).

Labels: Science

The completely artificial and faux-pious construct of "biblical" patriarchy continues to wreak havoc on Christian families and is embittering and handicapping a generation of precious young women. We will be reaping the consequences of this humiliation far into the sunset, and apparently we will acknowledge it only when it's too late.

Labels: Patriarchy

Labels: Good Stuff, Theater of the Absurd

This was the very first time CJ got to hold her little one, 24 hours after delivery.

Labels: Babies, Books, Grandparenting, Homemaking, Homeschooling, Political Observation, Sundays, TV, Vacations

Labels: Books, Food, Political Observation, TV

Ava, just moments old, being wheeled out of the delivery room on her way to the NICU

CJ was under general anesthesia, so just minutes after she woke, Tony shows her the video of the birth

Ava's first evening

24 hours after birth, Ava finally gets to be held by her mommy

First day of being dressed in real clothes, a reward for reaching the 1500 gram milestone

Granny gets to hold Ava

First, the two mommies who didn't know they'd be delivering cousins ten days apart!

Tummy views, 30 and 40 weeks

This was pretty much the position for the whole labor

You'd think we were watching a movie, huh?

Minutes after Donovan's birth, but he wasn't named until several hours later

Welcome, little one!

Janet weighs the little guy

Okay, something about this picture reminds me of the Scarecrow, The  Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion! The uncles were not present for the birth but were admitted minutes afterward to greet the newest male in the family.

Six Slaughter kids!

Labels: Babies, Grandkids

Labels: Science

Labels: Homeschooling

Over the past few weeks, America’s colleges have sent another class of graduates off into the world. These graduates possess something of inestimable value. Nearly every sensible middle-aged person would give away all their money to be able to go back to age 22 and begin adulthood anew. 

But, especially this year, one is conscious of the many ways in which this year’s graduating class has been ill served by their elders. They enter a bad job market, the hangover from decades of excessive borrowing. They inherit a ruinous federal debt.

More important, their lives have been perversely structured. This year’s graduates are members of the most supervised generation in American history. Through their childhoods and teenage years, they have been monitored, tutored, coached and honed to an unprecedented degree.

Yet upon graduation they will enter a world that is unprecedentedly wide open and unstructured. Most of them will not quickly get married, buy a home and have kids, as previous generations did. Instead, they will confront amazingly diverse job markets, social landscapes and lifestyle niches. Most will spend a decade wandering from job to job and clique to clique, searching for a role.

No one would design a system of extreme supervision to prepare people for a decade of extreme openness. But this is exactly what has emerged in modern America. College students are raised in an environment that demands one set of navigational skills, and they are then cast out into a different environment requiring a different set of skills, which they have to figure out on their own.

Worst of all, they are sent off into this world with the whole baby-boomer theology ringing in their ears. If you sample some of the commencement addresses being broadcast on C-Span these days, you see that many graduates are told to: Follow your passion, chart your own course, march to the beat of your own drummer, follow your dreams and findyourself. This is the litany of expressive individualism, which is still the dominant note in American culture.

But, of course, this mantra misleads on nearly every front.

College grads are often sent out into the world amid rapturous talk of limitless possibilities. But this talk is of no help to the central business of adulthood, finding serious things to tie yourself down to. The successful young adult is beginning to make sacred commitments — to a spouse, a community and calling — yet mostly hears about freedom and autonomy.

Today’s graduates are also told to find their passion and then pursue their dreams. The implication is that they should find themselves first and then go off and live their quest. But, of course, very few people at age 22 or 24 can take an inward journey and come out having discovered a developed self.

Most successful young people don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life. A relative suffers from Alzheimer’s and a young woman feels called to help cure that disease. A young man works under a miserable boss and must develop management skills so his department can function. Another young woman finds herself confronted by an opportunity she never thought of in a job category she never imagined. This wasn’t in her plans, but this is where she can make her contribution.

Most people don’t form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling.

The graduates are also told to pursue happiness and joy. But, of course, when you read a biography of someone you admire, it’s rarely the things that made them happy that compel your admiration. It’s the things they did to court unhappiness — the things they did that were arduous and miserable, which sometimes cost them friends and aroused hatred. It’s excellence, not happiness, that we admire most.

Finally, graduates are told to be independent-minded and to express their inner spirit. But, of course, doing your job well often means suppressing yourself. As Atul Gawande mentioned during his countercultural address last week at Harvard Medical School, being a good doctor often means being part of a team, following the rules of an institution, going down a regimented checklist.

Today’s grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the center of a life. But, of course, as they age, they’ll discover that the tasks of a life are at the center. Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.

Labels: Social Observation