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AWOL: absent without links

May 19th, 2005 · 2 Comments

The list of reasons for my absence is long: I had a headache for three days and Elisabeth’s had a fever for three days too (not the same three days); the server was down one night; we helped with a neighborhood picnic and spruce-up on the weekend; Ted and I transferred my presentation to the PowerBook; the kids have decided to wake up earlier.

Speaking of kids, here’s a list of links to compensate for my AWOL days.

  • Andrea and her husband write in Not a cure, but what should be normal a response to the question Is the hormonal takeover inevitable?
  • The F-words: John Maeda meet Jeff Sandquist
  • Renee Blodgett commented on Things we survived. What will our children say?
  • Via Rebecca Blood: New mommy wars and Do Parents Matter?

    The U.S. Department of Education recently undertook a monumental project called the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which tracks the progress of more than 20,000 American schoolchildren from kindergarten through the fifth grade. Aside from gathering each child’s test scores and the standard demographic information, the ECLS also asks the children’s parents a wide range of questions about the families’ habits and activities. The result is an extraordinarily rich set of data that, when given a rigorous economic analysis, tells some compelling stories about parenting technique

    Not sure I agree with these statistics. All that seems to matter is whether the parents have money and speak English. Also the statistic that parents should be 30 or older when the child is born is one that doesn’t make sense to me either, unless it is an economic indicator.

  • The Ungraduation Store is not open for business. But it will have many franchises.
  • Brian Bailey’s list of 10 Things Everyone Thinks They Can Do is correct, in #2: write a book. I once heard Thomas Wolfe in an interview say that everyone can write a first novel, since they are usually autobiographical, drawing on the author’s life. It is the second book that reveals whether or not someone is truly a writer. I believe everyone can write a book: everyone has a story to share.
  • Start the Disney theme song on tiny planets…My friend Katherine’s best friend since age 4 is working with Chris Lydon at Open Source Radio.
  • Lisa Williams, who appears on Pilot #1 of Open Source Radio, a friend and at-home-mom, shared some excellent ideas including A Movable BloggerCon and thoughts on blog policies. I hope to comment more on these latter links later.
  • Denise Howell whom I’ll see here and here this summmer, described what it’s like to spend a morning with a toddler, and also the ways blogging and babies interrelate through the day…such as Dave Winer’s Dixie podcast lulling her child to sleep. Make sure I have diapers, wipes, sippy cup of water, more Cheerios, purse, wallet, keys, iPod, Tyler’s insurance card, growth chart, and the six pages of questions the new GI doc needed us to answer.
  • Go to Costa Rica through Kirsten’s eyes: it’s beautiful.
  • Tags: blog

    2 responses so far ↓

    • 1 Bob V // May 19, 2005 at 3:47 pm

      >Not sure I agree with these statistics.

      I’m sorry about getting technical on your wording here, but that’s a silly sentence! You can disagree with the manner the statistics were collected. For instance, you can argue that the samples they collected were not representative of kids in general. You can disagree with the way the statistics are reported in the article (since most articles tend to report statistics as if they automatically lead to some larger point the author feels strongly about.) However, you can no more disagree with a statistic itself than you can disagree with a number.

      In the case of the article by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, they actually do a pretty good job of explaining how one shouldn’t jump to conclusions too quickly about the correlations found in the data. For instance, they explain how having more books in a home will not automatically lead to more successful children. More books is an indicator of other things that do in fact matter.

      Again, sorry about being picky. I did know what you meant, but I couldn’t help myself. Forgive me.

    • 2 Julie // May 20, 2005 at 6:52 am

      Hi Bob,

      Okay, thanks for the correction. Can I disagree with the conclusions one might draw from reading the article with its statistics? I’m not excited about the implication that what I do as a parent doesn’t matter, or rather it was what I did before becoming a parent that is a better predictor. It makes me feel everything is already predetermined – why try? I’ve got the authors’ book on hold at the library, so whenever it arrives I will read more of what these two have to say…should be interesting…

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