Stan Taylor

This just makes my head hurt.

We certainly view our pets as much like kids as anybody, but when it comes to pet health care, my country upbringing reveals itself. Lately, we’ve been grappling with the high cost of veterinary care. We like our current vet a lot, but we feel like he prescribes optional services without informing us that they aren’t absolutely necessary. Today, I found an article on Slate about this very subject:

It’s just that if we’re coming to the point that we think of our pet’s health in the same way we do our own, I wish the vets I see would treat my pets more the way our doctors treat us. For example, over the years the pediatrician has heard a mild heart murmur when she has examined my daughter. But since my daughter is obviously in excellent health, the pediatrician has reassured me it’s nothing to worry about. But when the veterinarian detected a mild heart murmur in one of my cats, she immediately recommended I make an appointment with the veterinary cardiologist. What would happen to the cat if I didn’t do that? I asked. She had to acknowledge: probably nothing, but the echocardiogram only cost $300, and since my cat was a member of my family, surely I would want to do everything.

Back at the first of November I received the following email from someone who is in somewhat of a position of authority with the youth and parents of my community:

Subject: Fwd: Request of CAUTION
You may already know about this, but I just learned about a kids movie coming out in December starring Nicole Kidman. I believe it’s called The Golden Compass, and while it will be a watered down version, it is based on a series of children’s books about killing God (it is anti-Narnia).
Please follow this link, and then pass it on. From what I understand, the hope is to get a lot of kids to see the movie – which won’t seem too bad – and then get the parents to buy the books for their kids for Christmas. The quotes from the author sum it all up.
http://snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

This email really rubbed me the wrong way, so I sent this response:

We (Katie, Hannah and I) have read and enjoyed the entire trilogy.
Yes, Pullman is an atheist, and yes, the books in this trilogy contain ‘anti-religious themes,’ but I think the concern is way overblown. In typical fashion, Christian fearmongers are implying that this book and movie are part of some nefarious plot to undermine Christianity. Give me a break!
Hannah read the trilogy maybe two years ago, when she was 11. After she finished, we discussed with her the ‘anti-religious themes’ in the trilogy. She didn’t see any of it. Frankly, the theological implications were WAY over her head and frankly, probably over most people’s heads. Hell, I have a Ph.D. in literature and I didn’t think much about it until Katie brought up the topic.
In fact, you could argue that people SHOULD read the book and see the movie as a stimulus for important discussions. A reviewer that was quoted on the snopes page you linked to wrote: “[Pullman’s] fundamental objection is to ideological tyranny…”
Lord knows (so to speak) that the Christian church is constantly in danger of committing ideological tyranny and has frequently gone far across that line. Discussion and awareness of the topic is one way to ensure we don’t get near it ourselves.
You are in a position of authority. People listen to your recommendations. In the future, please don’t pass on such concerns based on hearsay.

It was the tone of this email that really got me: the explicit mention of well-known (apparently former) scientologist Nicole Kidman, the suggestion of conspiracy.
Well, apparently author Brandon Sanderson, who writes science fiction for young adults, received a similar email. He addressed his concerns about such censorship in a blog post. I’m glad to see that he brought many of the same points that I thought of–but of course, he expressed them much more eloquently than I.
I also agree with Brandon Sanderson on another point that he makes: if your faith is so weak that it can be influenced by a work of fiction, then you’ve got bigger problems than the work of fiction itself.

Don’t use black rice in your home-made turkey and rice soup unless you want it to have a less-than-appetizing purplish-black color. Even the pieces of turkey and the carrots are stained. That’s good eatin’!

Economist Kevin A. Hassett offers an only slightly tongue-in-cheek economic analysis of halloween.
For instance:

The first law of economics [is] that lump-sum transfers are more economically efficient than in-kind transfers. If you are going to give a gift to somebody, you should just give them the money. They will be a better judge of the best way to spend it.
…
At Halloween, each house on a typical American block picks out one type of candy, and they give that exact same candy willy-nilly to everyone who shows up at the door. It’s an economic nightmare.

If you can’t change the Halloween gift-giving habits of your typical American family, he also offers a workaround:

Many schools prohibit children from taking Halloween candy onto the premises. That is exactly the wrong policy. Schools should encourage all children to bring their entire haul to school, and allow them a lengthy period to trade candies among themselves. That way, the Take 5s and the 100 Grand bars will find their way to individuals who cherish them.

I love it. I can’t wait for his Valentine’s Day analysis.

I try to keep up with basic US economics, and I am very concerned that the US (and thus much of the world) is going to face a severe recession in the next few years. There are many causes, but the primary one is the international monetary house of cards that has allowed Americans to maintain our current lifestyle.
We Americans buy lots of imported goods from the likes of China and oil from the likes of Saudi Arabia. In turn, these countries buy bonds to finance our federal deficit spending. The federal government then devalues the dollar in order to make imported goods cheaper and to keep the whole process going.
But as the value of the dollar falls, so does the value of foreigners’ investment in US federal bonds. These supplier countries begin taking such measures as buying less American debt, pricing their goods in other and more stable currencies. It’s a balancing act for them: on the one hand, they want to limit their losses on dollars; on the other hand, they need to continue to enable Americans to buy their goods.
It’s not a cycle that’s infinitely sustainable. At some point, it all comes crashing down. The question is only when and how quickly.
UPDATE: Even the CEO of Wells Fargo bank said recently: “We have not seen a nationwide decline in housing like this since the Great Depression.”

My pastor emailed me his sermon so that I could publish it on the church web site, and here are the targeted ads that Gmail displayed along side the email:

I am not going to click on that ad even to satisfy my curiosity.

Via Ugly Food.

…for every time I’ve helped someone sort out domain registration and web site hosting issues (explaining how name servers work, how to get the domain registrar to change name servers, etc.), I’d have, well, at least $20. What a pain for a non-geek to manage. (I just did it again, if you couldn’t figure that out)