if you want smart kids...

keep a lot of books around:

Click here to see the original article.

Whether rich or poor, residents of the United States or China, illiterate or college graduates, parents who have books in the home increase the level of education their children will attain, according to a 20-year study led by Mariah Evans, University of Nevada, Reno associate professor of sociology and resource economics.

For years, educators have thought the strongest predictor of attaining high levels of education was having parents who were highly educated. But, strikingly, this massive study showed that the difference between being raised in a bookless home compared to being raised in a home with a 500-book library has as great an effect on the level of education a child will attain as having parents who are barely literate (3 years of education) compared to having parents who have a university education (15 or 16 years of education). Both factors, having a 500-book library or having university-educated parents, propel a child 3.2 years further in education, on average.

Being a sociologist, Evans was particularly interested to find that children of lesser-educated parents benefit the most from having books in the home. She has been looking for ways to help Nevada’s rural communities, in terms of economic development and education.

“What kinds of investments should we be making to help these kids get ahead?” she asked. “The results of this study indicate that getting some books into their homes is an inexpensive way that we can help these children succeed.”

Evans said, “Even a little bit goes a long way,” in terms of the number of books in a home. Having as few as 20 books in the home still has a significant impact on propelling a child to a higher level of education, and the more books you add, the greater the benefit.

“You get a lot of ‘bang for your book’,” she said. “It’s quite a good return-on-investment in a time of scarce resources.”

In some countries, such as China, having 500 or more books in the home propels children 6.6 years further in their education. In the United States, the effect is less, 2.4 years, than the 3.2-year average advantage experienced across all 27 countries in the study. But, Evans points out that 2.4 years is still a significant advantage in terms of educational attainment.

For example, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, Americans who have some college or an associate’s degree, but not a bachelor’s degree, earn an average of $7,213 more annually than those with just a high school education. Those who attain a bachelor’s degree earn $21,185 more each year, on average, than those with just high school diplomas.

The study by Evans and her colleagues at Nevada, UCLA and Australian National University is one of the largest and most comprehensive studies ever conducted on what influences the level of education a child will attain.

The researchers were struck by the strong effect having books in the home had on children’s educational attainment even above and beyond such factors as education level of the parents, the country’s GDP, the father’s occupation or the political system of the country.

Having books in the home is twice as important as the father’s education level, and more important than whether a child was reared in China or the United States. Surprisingly, the difference in educational attainment for children born in the United States and children born in China was just 2 years, less than two-thirds the effect that having 500 or more books in the home had on children (3.2 years).

The study, “Family scholarly culture and educational success: Books and schooling in 27 nations,” was published in the journal, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility (online at www.sciencedirect.com).

hearts

Driving back from my work picnic today, I heard this story on NPR about Homeboys Industries. It is a group out in LA working to help get gang members working, because if you have a job, you have hope. And hope makes people leave gangs.

They just ran out of money.

Check out their website by clicking here. Consider donating a few bucks to them too.

Click here to listen to the story.

book review: The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the Era of Personalized Medicine

By Thomas Goetz

Boingboing.net featured this book the day it came out and it seemed so interesting that I went right out an ordered it. I know, the year of making do, what was I thinking?

Summary of the Book
The book looks at technology, and reasons that with doctors too busy to take care of you, you need to start taking control of your health. You have become the informed consumer. But what’s a girl to do? Go to medical school? The idea is to make medical decisions more systematic, make information more accessible and understandable, allow technology to help us rather than confuse us, and give people the tools to make changes to people’s lifestyles easier.

For example, if you wanted to quit smoking, then you would have two options, systematically speaking: cold turkey or nicotine replacement. If you chose cold turkey, then you would need to examine the effectiveness of this method. Once you learned that it is not effective then you might change your choice. Then you would need to choose the type of nicotine replacement therapy.

Mr. Goetz provides the reader an updated drug label which shows: who is to take the drug, why you are taking it, who should not take it, the type of testing needed by someone taking the drug, and other considerations. Below that he gives the patient the findings of the study that lead to the FDA approving the drug, and historical information about the drug. The label he has it clearly too big for a drug bottle, but is still a great idea.

A technological help he profiled was the Nike+. This little fob tracks your speed, in concert with our ipod, while you run. Then you synch it with your computer and it tells you how far you ran, and compares it to your other runs. Fun. I got one from Erica, but have had technical difficulties using it with my Vibram Fivefingers, and need to figure out what to do about that. Needless to say, seeing the data motivates me to run more.

One of the problems with reading the book is similar to the problem many medical students encounter: they start thinking that they have the diseases they are studying. I kept thinking my blood pressure was going up or that I was getting diabetes. Great motivator that book.

Finally, he explains genetic testing, why you might consider getting it, and how it works. I will not be doing any genetic testing in the near term.

Tidbits of Info from the Book
One super interesting point made in the book is that acetaminophen is the most common case of liver failure in the US. 50 percent of cases of liver failure are due to acetaminophen, which is also used in Vicoden and Percocet. The medical establishment now believes that this toxicity is not caused by taking too much of the drug but from a genetic problem which causes as many as 1/3 of all people taking acetaminophen to have raised blood levels of alanine transferease.

Criticisms of the Book
There are a few problems with his book, or rather with his examples. First, because he is using the examples to explain high-level ideas, he may not have done the research necessary to check out his high level understanding of the medical facts (a problem all of us face...). One example he uses is of the recent study that came out showing that Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) might be causing heart attacks in women. I have subsequently read that it might have been the type of HRT studied (the kind that uses horses urine to create the therapy) which caused the problems, not the therapy itself. A second example, is Weight Watchers. He holds it up as a successful example of a weight loss program. That it is not. Of all weight loss programs, it has the highest success rate, but most people who do Weight Watchers are going to remain heavy.

Finally, the book is really far ranging, from decision trees to Alzheimer’s to genetics. I suppose the point is we all need to know more about these conditions, but I will wait to learn more on a ‘need to know basis.’

And I remain a little annoyed that Mr. Goetz did not have a spare minute to respond to my email. If you want to read the book, I'll send it to you for free.

this morning's coffee

brent's hobby is coffee. I lucked out there.

weekend

Here it is, the end of a lovely weekend. We spent time with friends, checked out the doener kabob spot in Leesburg, VA, went for a run, had brunch on our deck, and planted our little container garden. Oh and cleaned the house.

Pictures of Ryan, Pam, and Mark can be found by clicking this sentence.

betty white and muffins

of note: be in love with your life

We read part of Writing Down to the Bones in writing class this week. It is a very well known book about writing. Towards the end the author, Natalie Goldberg gives her favorite advice from Jack Kerouac. The last one kept me thinking all week:

Be in love with you life.

I have been in love with my life before; I know how that love feels. I am not in love with my life now. And of course we are working towards this goal, law school debt standing in the way primarily. But I really like the sentiment.

Later in the week around 2 am when I was finishing this new novel crying(!) I found another similar nugget:

"Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at...something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance."

I just loved One Day, by David Nicholls. It is due to be published June 15, 2010. (Katerina it is already out in London.)

The story follows a boy and a girl from the first day they meet forward. But only on one day a year: June 15th. We are left to piece together what happened in between the days.

This quote really sums up what I am trying to do in this life.

I have a very close friend who has mentioned before that being content with your life is something to aspire to. I appreciate her advice, but I do not believe it. I do not want to me content with an unfulfilled life. I want to live large, experience all life has to offer, and love well.

our newest plan

Airstream from DocuCinema on Vimeo.

book review: I.O.U., Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay

By John Lanchester

Don’t understand the financial meltdown? Can't tell a derivative from a nominative? Want to understand securitization but don’t know where to begin? Looking for an easy to understand explanation of the meaning of life? Ok, well this book can do the first three. Look to another book to figure out the meaning of life.

Mr. Lanchester typically writes novels, but found, while researching the financial meltdown for his next novel that what the world really needed was a primer on what had happened in the financial melt down. So he wrote it.

The book contains all kinds of interesting tidbits: How long do you think a million seconds is? How about a billion? Ready for the answer: a million seconds is less than 12 days; a billion seconds is almost 32 YEARS. That’s right. Remember that every time you try to understand the differences in magnitude between a billion and a million.

Another factoid: in 2008 the Royal Bank of Scotland was THE LARGEST COMPANY IN THE WORLD (by asset size). Really? A bank. I find this interesting because a bank does not make anything, instead it moves money around efficiently. (I am reminded of Lloyd Dobbler in Say Anything...)

Another factoid: The Credit Default Swap was invented by J.P. Morgan to fund the clean-up from the Exxon Valdez. This was the only credit default swap J.P. Morgan completed.

A final factoid: As we most know the US credit scoring system is run by FICO. 60 percent of American’s credit score is between 650 and 799. The median score is 723 (half of households fall below and half above this number.)

Mr. Lanchester also makes the somewhat lacking argument that the fall of the Berlin Wall lead to the economic decline in the West because we were no longer competing against anyone. Therefore there was no incentive for the continued increase in living standards for workers. Something did change after the fall of the wall, I am just not sure that his theory holds up because it does not take into consideration other countries with whom we are competing such as China or the whole of the African continent.

The author also explores the varying attitudes toward household debt throughout the world. For example, the French have much lower household debt than do Anglo-Saxon economies. During the credit crunch, British households owed 160 percent of their average income. French households by comparison owed only 60 percent of their average household income.

As a follow-up book I want to read Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider’s Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance, by Richard Bitner.

art: return to sender

Brent sent me a review of a book that looked super interesting, but it reminded me of a piece of artwork from Artomatic in 2008, when I participated.

Refused: Return to Sender by Tracy Lee tells the story of receiving all of her family pictures in the mail from her alcoholic parents. They disowned her over the mail.

The photo above explains the piece. Below it is an overview of the piece.

You had to take time to look at the art, and read the description in order to understand the magnitude of what you were seeing. It had such an effect on me.

That's what I love about art: it can make you think about things for along time to come.

movie review: the horse boy

I just finished this movie that I had heard quite a bit about: The Horse Boy. It was featured on that new podcast I am in love with: To The Best of Our Knowledge. The story chronicles one family’s struggle to come to terms with their four year old son’s autism. After realizing that their son has a unique connection with all animals and horses they decided to seek out healers who are horse people. We follow the family as they take the boy to see shamans in Mongolia and southern Siberia.

The touching movie really showed the difficulties this family is dealing with. They clearly make the movie on a shoestring budget, but the vistas are beautiful, as is the family.

Of note in the film were a few things. 1. The dad LOVES AC/DC. In fact I don’t think I saw him in the movie without an AC/DC t-shirt on the whole time. 2. I was a bit shocked at the family’s home. They live in Texas on a farm with horses. The mom is a professor. They are clearly pretty poor, or at least have a disregard for their home. Perhaps I am too obsessed with having a comfortable and clean home, but I don't think I would have been comfortable showing the world my home if it looked like theirs.

The music in the movie was great too...no AC/DC was played...just FYI.

This movie only reinforced my interest in going to Mongolia...it just looked so much like eastern Montana, that I might try to get Brent to go there first.

I would highly recommend this movie.

betty white and SNL

can't wait.

montreal tips

A friend asked for travel tips from Montreal, so I thought I would post something here too. We had a great time in there the only problem with the trip was the two days of rain. Touché. Claudia and I kept remarking that it was just crazy that they all speak French. How silly are we?

Take the public transportation there; it is super easy to get around and their busses are just wonderful. We got the three day pass for $17 and were able to hop on and off easily.

Shopping Tips:
Unicorn
http://www.boutiqueunicorn.com/Claudia got the most perfect bag made in Montreal at this store. It seemed like it was designed for her…and at a great price.

Couleurs
http://www.couleurs.qc.ca/menua.html
We bought new silverware at this shop. We had been in the market for quite some time. The owner spent time chatting with us and giving us tips. The rainy and cold day we stopped in on became warmer after a good chat!

There is a lot of good food to be had in Montreal:

Olive et Gourmando
www.oliveetgourmando.com
We ate breakfast here everyday. The pastries were just wonderful as was the coffee.

M:burger
http://restomontreal.ca/restaurants/index.php?section=viewresto&resto_id=2303&lang=enWalking out of a luxury department store a nice man and his daughter offered to help us figure out where we were going. He directed us to the new and hip M:burger. Great food and a great wait staff made our evening.

Great Tapas here:
http://www.tazaflores.com/Don’t let the lame website turn you off: Taza Flores was recommended to us by our hotel the first night. They told us no buses went there, but they lied. The tapas were tasty and hit the spot our first night.

Good Indian here:
http://www.bombaypalacenyc.com/Default.aspxThe last night of the trip we went to Indian at Bombay Palace. The food was spicy and filling. We could have done with only two entrees for the three of us.

Claudia and I hit the he contemporary art museum on our first day. They were between big shows, but had some thought provoking works up when we were there. http://www.macm.org/en/index.html

Finally, we went for a lovely bike ride along the river and over to the island where the World’s Fair was held. Renting the bike is a great option.

Enjoy.

Saint Louis Abbey

Driving along after Grammy had her heart attack on my way to a much needed massage, I turned to my left and there was this amazing parabolic arched chapel: Priory Chapel of Saint Louis Abbey in Creve Coeur, Missouri. It was designed by Gyo Obata. Brent and I went back this weekend to take some pictures. The funny thing was, that this time, you could not see the chapel because it was spring and all of the trees had leaves. I might never have seen it but for...

See more pictures by clicking this sentence.

book review: Born To Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

By Christopher McDougall

I am such a book evangelist. I go into it with the same verve: “You have to read this book. It is so amazing.” And away I go, telling the person in front of me how great this book I just read is. Ugh. So annoying.

But I am at it again. I just read Born to Run. Brent and I both read it. And loved it. Brent was a runner in college, for exercise sake. I have never been too good at running, but a few years ago I had this dream about running, where it was fun again, like when I was a kid. I jumped over things and ran under logs. It made me long to run again.

About six weeks ago I started running. Slowly. One Mile. I am up to 2 miles at a go. I run until I don’t feel good, then walk. I started running because every “weight loss” book/story of success I have seen, the person has begun running.

But the book was an after thought. And what an inspiration it is. The book just makes you want to get out there and do it...barefoot. Who needs Nike? Since the advent of the running shoe in the 1970’s running injuries have steadily increased. “Shoes block pain, not impact. Pain teaches us to run comfortably. From the moment you start going barefoot, you will change the way you run.”

Did you know the foot comprises one quarter of all bones in the body and more than 200,000 nerve endings? Over 2 million years has lead to a very well designed foot for running. Putting a shoe between your foot and the ground, means those nerve endings are deadened. We don’t need shoes; we need to get off the couch. Because we are wearing shoes, our feet muscles have atrophied. The book makes the argument that our evolutionary advantage was our ability to run, unlike other species near to ours.

“Heavier people are more likely to die from at least ten different kinds of cancer.” Who knew the exact numbers?

“When cancerous tumors are removed by surgery, they are 300 percent more likely to grow back in patients with a ‘traditional Western diet’ than they are in patients who eat lots of fruits and veggies, according to a 2007 report by The Journal of the American Medical Association.” To read the actual study, click this sentence.

I have started using my Vibram FiveFingers to run, and it is so much more fun. I am really enjoying feeling the ground, standing up straighter, and breathing better. It is really amazing.

The book talks about racing, and ultra-racing, and touching moments, and high drama. It makes you want to run. So run right out and get the book!

my brother's new shop

My brother, John, has spent months putting together his new website Idaho Fly. Click here to go to the site. I am super proud of all of his hard work. I really hope lots of people will go to his site and buy lots of flies. He is located in Boise, Idaho. The website has all kinds of fly fishing goodies, and he is happy to give lessons in fly fishing as well.

copying v. stealing

I read a blog called decor8. It has lots of fun decorating idea, and I really like the pictures. I am not sure how I found it, but I did. A few weeks ago the author of the blog asked her "community of readers" about having their ideas copied by the internets.

The post was titled "DIY is not Duplicate It Yourself." You can click this sentence to read the original post. I posted a comment about her post because I disagree. I don't believe that ideas can be copyrighted. I just believe that if I see an idea and I can replicate it, well then more power to me. Fire up. Get going.

In my comment I linked to this video by Nina Paley. She wrote the movie I mentioned a few months ago, Sita Sings the Blues.



What are your thoughts?

montréal pictures

Wonderful week in Montréal with Claudia. Brent joined us on Saturday. We rode bikes, walked all over in the rain, and shopping! See more pictures by clicking this sentence.

book review: white noise

book by Don DeLillo
review by Brent Lattin (he's fine with me re-posting this...and he is a really good writer...so...)

Don DeLillo is one of those authors whose name I kept seeing but didn't know much about. But I'd seen my favorite author, David Foster Wallace, compared to him so I was intrigued. From reading the book jacket of White Noise (I found the version that was the 1985 entry on the Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) it was clear that Foster Wallace must have been influenced by this book.

The book is about a professor of "Hitler studies" at a small college. Not much happens in the book, except in a few powerful bursts. The main one is the "Airborne Toxic Event" which consists of a black cloud of highly toxic gas released after a railroad car accident. The end of the book has a somewhat gruesome scene too that I won't spoil. The book it very funny, very biting, sometimes scary, sometimes sad. I enjoyed it immensely and it makes me wish I knew how to write like this. How does one fill 310 pages with, for the most part, small nonevents (a trip to the grocery store, say) and nothing but internal monologue and conversations. Moreover, how does one do that in a way that is gripping and keeps the reader interested? Where do you learn to write a novel that says something about life as it's lived today without anything much happening to otherwise uninteresting people? I don't know but DeLillo does. And for a book written in 1985 its seems very prescient to me. His observations about modern culture may have seemed exaggerated then but have only become truer since. But the best way to convince someone to read the book (or not to) is with the following passage which I loved. If it speaks to you then so will the book, I think. It occurs as the protagonist professor is getting attended to at a shelter during the Airborne Toxic Event:


"That's quite an armband you've got there. What does SIMUVAC mean? Sounds important."

"Short for simulated evacuation. A new state program they’re still battling over funds for."

"But this evacuation isn't simulated. It's real."

"We know that. But we thought we could use it as a model."

"A form of practice? Are you saying you saw a chance to use the real event in order to rehearse the simulation?"

"We took it right into the streets."

"How is it going?" I said.

"The insertion curve isn't as smooth as we would like. There's a probability excess. Plus which we don't have our victims laid out where we'd want them if this was an actual simulation. In other words we’re forced to take our victims as we find them. We didn't get a jump on computer traffic. Suddenly it just spilled out, three-dimensionally, all over the landscape. You have to make allowances for the fact that everything we see tonight is real. There's a lot of polishing we still have to do. But that's what this exercise is all about."

movie note: the other man

Nicole and Megan were visiting this weekend. We used netflix's watch it now option to pick a movie. I am barred from picking movies. I have been barred for quite some time now. I always pick sad or bad movies.

The Other Man was no exception. I thought it was a spy thriller...No is just a sad movie. The story is based on a short story by Bernard Schlink, the German author who wrote The Reader. The cinematography was absolutely amazing as were the performances by Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, and Antonio Banderas. Worth a watch if you are ever in the mood for a very well done depressing flick.

book blurb: 29 Gifts, How a Month of Giving can Change your Life.

by Cami Walker

Sometimes life just keep throwing you curve balls, and really you have to figure out how to get out of the way. In 29 Gifts, Cami Walker dodges and weaves, as we learn about her mounting debts, her Muscular Dystrophy diagnosis, her former and sometimes ongoing addiction to drugs, in her book chronicling how she got back into the game of life by giving. We spend only 29 days with Cami, but learn about her family and loving husband. We learn about the frustrations of illness. And finally we learn that through giving we can receive love, friendship, and health. We all know that paying it forward makes the world go forward into better places. Read about how Cami puts this philosophy into practice with great results.

To my readers:
Cami has this great paragraph on pg. 18 about the stories you tell yourself in you head. She is talking to a friend who is really down:

“I think you need to stop telling this story. A wise mentor once told me to be mindful of the stories I tell over and over because they are indicative of the thought patterns and beliefs that limit me.”

This book was really great fun, and I think a wonderful gift. I am going to send it along this week. :)

new favorite podcast: To The Best of our Knowledge

The podcast, To The Best of our Knowledge is produced by Wisconsin Public Radio and distributed by PRI. I recently started listening to it in St. Louis while visiting Grammy.

The podcasts cover a broad range of topics, from the language of prairie dogs to the art of a great walk. I guess I would describe it as somewhat like This American Life, but calmer...

If you have Itunes, you can subscribe to the podcast there. Otherwise, click here to listen.

Summary from their website:
What is TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE all about?
TTBOOK began as an audio magazine of ideas - two hours of smart, entertaining radio for people with curious minds. It's sort of journalistic (because some of us are, or used to be, journalists), but it's never about the President's speech to the U.N., weapons inspections in Iraq, or yesterday's stock market disaster. It's the kind of show that would spend an hour on the future of capitalism, or on the roots of Islamic fundamentalism. It might also spend an hour on hair. Or salt. Or pirates, road trips, psychic phenomena, house cleaning, animal intelligence, high energy physics, or how to say you're sorry. (You'll find all those shows in our archives.) It's the kind of show where someone might mention Charlotte Bronte or Anthony Trollope in one segment, U2 or They Might Be Giants in another.

Could you be more specific?
Sure. TTBOOK produces two hours of radio every week. Each hour has a theme. We mentioned some above, but the best way to get a sense of the scope of the show is to browse our recent show listings. While we do air commentaries and performance pieces and occasional reporter pieces, the majority of the program is interviews. We have a host -- Jim Fleming -- who does some of the interviews and who anchors the show, shepherding guests and other interviewers in and out of radio space. The two other interviewers on the show are Steve Paulson and Anne Strainchamps. Why do we have multiple interviewers? We don't really know -- we just like it. We think it's more interesting than having one host who asks all the questions.

What's up with the themes? Why do you have themes, anyway?
Because it lets us produce the show as a radio salon. Inviting a diverse group of people with really different backgrounds to approach one subject can (in our dreams) create a kind of depth and richness that seems beautiful to us. Our goal is to leave you at the end of each hour with a few thoughts or impressions to mull over. The way a poem can kind of reverberate, leaving you to connect the images and find your own meaning ˆ that's how the theme format works, when we get it right. We got a call from a listener once, who said something we still bring up in staff meetings from time to time: "I don't need more information; what I need is some wisdom." The idea behind the theme format is to allow a subject to develop some depth, while at the same time not boring the pants off those of us with really short attention spans.

book review: in praise of slow

in praise of slow
by Carl Honré

I bought this book years ago in the airport; an impulse buy. It has been to Germany, across the US, and sat on our bookshelves for years. Until a few weeks ago when we were purging books. We have too many. So it was either read it quickly or give it away!

Funny right, read the book about going slow fast or get rid of it?

The book makes the argument that we all need to slow down, not just with respect to food, which is the context where most people have heard of the slow movement. I think this is a great idea. I found myself nodding along, as I skimmed the book, because I did not want to spend too much time reading the book.

A few points points of interest from the book:

1. Don’t speed. You really won’t get there faster. If you do want to speed, think about someone you love getting run over by someone speeding and talking on their phone. Then don’t speed, or talk on the phone. (As an aside, I read the other day that only 2.5% of the human population are supertaskers, ie people who can do more than one thing at once. You are not in the 2.5%. Remember that.)
2. Meditation is really good for you. I am going to get a few books on meditation to get started.
3. Bra, Italy is the home of the slow food movement. We will be vacationing there soon!
4. The Super Slow exercise section was really interesting too. If you do weight training reps very slowly your body gets more out of the exercises. Read more here.

Good book. On to the next.

ada lou

my favorite picture from having ada, montana, and erin over yesterday. Click here to see more pictures from yesterday.

400th Blog Post

Wow. Can you believe it readers? Thanks!