Having not yet visited Christo’s The Gates installation in Central Park, I can’t say whether the Somerville Gates really compare. But, the creator of the latter does.
Monthly Archives: February 2005
Social Security Calculator
Hot off the Daily Kos : a Social Security calculator put out by the Senate Democrats (who seemed to have picked up some cojones at a yard sale or something recently). Obviously use it with a grain of salt; heck, read the fine print
with a grain of salt. I do like the Dems’ branding of the reduction in
SS contribution as the “privatization tax,” which isn’t quite accurate
but gets the point of course. Now, I’m sympathetic to the argument that
if the government can use my money more efficiently than it does now,
go right on ahead — if the government puts less money in my SS account
but, by putting it into a more efficient vehicle, I get the same amount
back, good on them.
I would also note that the calculator does not address the question of
where all the money is going to come from under the current plan. Even
if Bush is hyping the crisis, at some point there will be an imbalance
of income/outflow, and that has to be addressed somehow. I’d suggest starting with Bush’s tax cuts.
My new baby
The roads were finally clear enough today for me to give my new Bianchi “Castro Valley” road/commuter bike a spin. This thing flies compared
with my Raleigh mountain bike (especially after I added studded snow
tires to that monster). I bought this baby at Belmont Wheelworks. where
John Kerry bought his road bike last year. (Hey John, didn’t you have some campaigning to do???) I can’t wait to hit the Minuteman when the weather clears up some more
um, what was I just doing?
Ironically, I was in the midst of writing a strategic planning document when an email from my weekly Circuits email arrived from the New York Times, alerting to a must-read article about, well, keeping yourself focused on work and not getting distracted. So of course I put down the document and read it!
Recently I stumbled upon Marc Prensky’s concept of the Digital Immigrant.
I finally understood the power of generation gaps when I caught myself
frowning on some of the behaviors that mark “Digital Natives,”
especially extreme multi-tasking. After all, I was raised to believe
that when you do your homework, the TV, radio, and everything else
distracting are off. As a consequence, perhaps I am especially vulnerable to distraction now that I operate in an the infinitely-networked world.
When kids are listening to music and IM’ing their friends while
writing term papers, are they also learning the meta-skill of
concentration under distraction? Is the pedagogical question of this
century not how to prevent ADD but rather cope with it — all of us?
And why the hell am I writing this right now?