July 4, 2009
Happy Fourth!
Happy Independence Day. In honor of the holiday, I’m posting a link to an excellent page at the National Archives, where you can reread and see visuals of America’s founding documents. If you ever get a chance to visit D.C. — or live here and have never been — the National Archives is worth a visit. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is quite literally the record-keeper for the nation, preserving all of our country’s valuable documents and materials.
Tool around NARA’s website and be amazed at some of the content available right there, for free. (Well, paid for with tax dollars.) The work of reporters, historians, and many others would be difficult to nearly impossible without NARA, so as you salute your country, also salute the archivists who help tell its story to the world.
Declaration of Independence
July 3, 2009
Science Friday: Bionic Arm Tests
Pretty amazing advancements in prosthetic limbs. If you can’t view the video below, watch it here.
Support Science Friday.
July 1, 2009
BlogAffinity: Kindergarten Cop
Patrick Boyle, editor of Youth Today, is a new, humorous voice on fatherhood issues at the Huffington Post. “Kindergarten Cop,” which debuted an inaugural post today, is about the joys of breaking the law in front of your kids. (Yes, you read that correctly.)
In today’s column, he writes:
Even though we’re parents, we sometimes walk when the sign says “Don’t.” We split the cable wire to hook up a second TV for free. We take the kids out of school a day early so we can hit the road for Spring break. We yell at the ref.
Most of all, we speed. Surveys consistently show that about three-quarters of U.S. drivers admit to regularly exceeding the posted limits.
But while we adults have this quiet compact that says a little disobedience is fine as long as you don’t piss me off, I can’t figure out how to explain that to a kindergartener who recently won so many good behavior coupons in class that she got to eat lunch with the teacher.
“This blog is about regular guys trying to be good dads,” Boyle says in an email, “about struggling, about being dumbfounded by our kids, about laughing, and about the occasional and noteworthy success.” He notes, correctly, that parenting writing “tends to be dominated by moms” — no offense to his wife and other mothers out there, of course — or by a “touchy-feely” tone.
So bookmark the main page (scroll down to see all posts), read often, subscribe, follow Patrick on twitter, and leave comments. Most of all, fathers, enjoy and embrace your lawlessness — there’s at least one guy out there who has your back.
June 30, 2009
Health Care: Commonwealth Fund Report on Three Reform Scenarios
A June report, “Fork In The Road: Alternative Paths To A High Performance U.S. Health 
System,” authored by Cathy Schoen, Karen Davis, Stuart Guterman, and Kristof Stremikis of the Commonwealth Fund, analyzes three health care reform options specifically dealing with the “public-plan” option for people under age 65.
The authors sum up their findings in the abstract:
“The approaches include: 1) a public health plan paying providers at Medicare rates, offered alongside private plans in a national health insurance exchange; 2) a public plan paying providers at rates set midway between Medicare and private plan rates, offered alongside private plans in an insurance exchange; and 3) no public plan, with only private plans offered to employers and individuals through an insurance exchange. All three approaches, if combined with Medicare payment and system reform, would produce substantial savings over time, but option 1 would yield the most—$3.0 trillion in cumulative health system savings over 2010 to 2020, compared with $2.0 trillion (option 2) and $1.2 trillion (option 3).”
(Tip of the Hat, Philanthropy News Digest.)
NOW: “Homes for the Homeless”
NOW on PBS covers a Miami advocate trying to put responsible homeless people into the scores of empty, foreclosed-upon South Florida homes. It’s illegal squatting, but Max Rameau, head of Take Back the Land, says the “housing liberation movement” is civil disobedience.