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Archive for Behavior

Paying to Play in High School

Andy Spero | July 22, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

That’s the title of the front-page article in the sports section of today’s paper edition of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.1

As it turns, the article is about budget shortfalls and participation fees, but when we saw the title, we thought it was about something much more disturbing and quite unethical.

While we like to quip that there is no better place to see the Fallen Nature of Man than Catholic school sports, that’s not quite true. We realize it is a bit of an overstatement when referencing the boorish, immature… Read the rest

Leave Shirley Sherrod Alone.

Andy Spero | July 21, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

We have deep sympathy for Shirley Sherrod, and the Kafkaesque predicament in which she finds herself.

The former regional USDA official was forced to resign from the Department of Agriculture for seemingly racist comments that were clearly taken out-of-context and very much contradict the point of her anecdote.

The story she related was a confessional of her journey–of how she grew to treat fairly someone of a different race–of how she overcame her prejudices. In addition, she was describing events that happened in 1986, which is nearly one… Read the rest

Information? Knowledge? and Wisdom?

Andy Spero | July 18, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Which One (or more) Is (are) Missing?

Peggy Noonan has an excellent column in this weekend’s edition of The Wall Street Journal: Youth Has Outlived Its Usefulness.

In it, she laments the lack of wise old men (and women) in positions of power or near those in powerful positions.

That’s something that we have written about by asking “where have the grownups gone?” (See the first second and third fourth results; we forgot to consider this post now appears at the top of the search results.) In those posts we lamented the

… Read the rest

Bureaucracy and Its Handmaiden: Voicemail

Andy Spero | July 11, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

State Government, Inertia, and Your Tax Dollars

A friend of ours has spent much of his adult life interacting with state government appointees, bureaucrats, and a few good men and women in their employ and association. He tries to help those in need with state resources, when possible.

On Friday, he mentioned that due to a fiscal-year-end financial crisis/dispute, he made twenty calls to various state employees during the holiday-shortened four-day work week.

None of his calls were answered, nor did he get a response from any of the messages… Read the rest

WWJP (Where Would Jesus Park?)

Andy Spero | July 11, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Impasto painting of St. Alphonsus Parish, Wexford, PABack on March 29, we wrote At the Right Place, which detailed many of the parking violations we saw at a Lenten Penance service at our Parish, St. Alphonsus, in Wexford, PA. Included in the violations were numerous cars parked in clearly marked fire lanes, three cars surrounding and violating the same fire hydrant–it’s at the end of a narrow grassy island and there was a car on each side–and other cars parked where they shouldn’t have been–in parts of the narrow driveways that are clearly not parking… Read the rest

Why It’s Difficult to Break Bad Habits

Andy Spero | May 26, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Or, why it’s hard to learn to do it the right way

Coaching softball for girls (eight-and-under) has been an illuminating experience for a number of reasons. We’re writing about one of those today.

Baseball and softball, and sports like tennis, are very much skills-based. Right from the start, those skills require a degree of precision and coordination that is missing in something like beginner’s soccer or cross-country.

In soccer, beginners can run around the field and kick the ball–not necessarily well but it is doable and enjoyable until the… Read the rest

This is So Cool!

Andy Spero | April 21, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Our Dissertation is on-line in Korea

We rarely “Google” our name, but today we did so out of curiosity.

We had thought it had been forgotten; so, we were surprised to find that a scanned version of our doctoral dissertation is available on-line at the library at Pai Chai University in Korea and at Google Docs, too.

We’ve never heard of Pai Chai, but attribute that more to our sheltered existence than anything else. (If we had to guess, we suspect “Pai Chai” means “peaceful tea,” but then we’ve… Read the rest

Unintended Adolescent Consequences

Andy Spero | March 31, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Mark Steyn has an excellent “Happy Warrior” column in the April 5th edition of National Review although we can’t find it on-line.

It is entitled, “Adolescent Thinking.”

In the column, he criticizes Obamacare, which permits 26-year-olds to remain dependents on their parents’ health insurance. (So, companies will either be “forced” to subsidize employees who have “children” in all but three years of the twenties, or alternatively, those companies will raise premiums on family policies because employee families will likely remain larger for longer periods of time.)

We wonder if… Read the rest

At the Right Place

Andy Spero | March 29, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Tonight we were on our Church’s campus and observed the following summary traffic offenses.

  1. Multiple drivers traveling the wrong way on a one-way ramp;
  2. Multiple cars parked in a clearly-marked fire lanes; and
  3. Several cars parked directly beside a fire hydrant. (The way it is situated, it is possible for three cars to violate the same hydrant, and that’s how many took the opportunity for the minute we drove past.)

What was the cause of the mass civil disobedience? Why, an overcrowded, Lenten penance service with six… Read the rest

Childhood Obesity and Poverty

Andy Spero | February 12, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Earlier in the week, it was announced that First Lady, Michelle Obama, plans to fight childhood obesity. See, for example, First Lady Girds to Fight Fat.

It seems like a worthy cause, but we’re not sure what she can do from the White House. If she isn’t home with the over-weight kids, nagging them to go outside and play or practice their sports or walk the dog(s) or ride their bikes or not to eat too much junk food or not drink too much soda, then we doubt that… Read the rest

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