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How to Help Your Kids Build $25,000 Stock Portfolios

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 15:10:37 -0400

Publisher - Get Rich Slowly
First shared by - ScottS
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Mary and her husband set out to build a stock portfolio worth $25,000 as a college graduation present for each of their children. That's a lofty goal. How did they do it? In her entry to the GRS video contest, Mary explained:

Here's how Mary describes her method in a post at her site, Frugal to Rich:

When our children were born and people wanted to get a gift for the baby, we asked family and friends to give us the gift of money that we would invest for them. We felt this was a much wiser choice than some new toy that would soon be worn out or in which they would lose interest.

We set up a very low cost stock index mutual fund (such as VFINX), along with a general stock mutual fund for each child and started investing.

When the children were old enough to start working, we wanted to really encourage their frugal living and investing, so we made them an offer they could not refuse: For every dollar they contributed to their savings, we would match it so they would double the amount of money they had to invest!

When Mary's kids graduated from college (debt-free!), she and her husband transferred portfolio ownership.

I think this is a fantastic idea. It's a great way to teach children about frugality, investing, priorities, and more. Do you know anyone who's done this with their children? What other effective ways have you seen to teach kids about saving and investing?

---
Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

children investing mary stock kids children investing mary stock mutual fund

Displaying and reading the execution plans for a SQL statement

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 07:15:25 -0400

Publisher - Inside the Oracle Optimizer
First shared by - robdiana
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Shared by robdiana
If you use Oracle and your query is a bit slow, read this. Please read this. Your DBA's will love you for it.

Generating and displaying the execution plan of a SQL statement is a common task for most DBAs, SQL developers, and preformance experts as it provides them information on the performance characteristics of a SQL statement. An execution plan shows the detailed steps necessary to execute a SQL statement. These steps are expressed as a set of database operators that consumes and produces rows. The order of the operators and their implentation is decided by the query optimizer using a combination of query transformations and physical optimization techniques.

While the display is commonly shown in a tabular format, the plan is in fact tree-shaped. For example, consider the following query based on the SH schema (Sales History):


select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
from sales s, products p
where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
group by prod_category;

The tabular representation of this query's plan is:


------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

While the tree-shaped representation of the plan is:


   GROUP BY
      |
     JOIN
 _____|_______
 |            |
ACCESS     ACCESS
(PRODUCTS) (SALES)

When you read a plan tree you should start from the bottom up. In the above example begin by looking at the access operators (or the leaves of the tree). In this case the access operators are implemented using full table scans. The rows produced by these tables scans will be consumed by the join operator. Here the join operator is a hash-join (other alternatives include nested-loop or sort-merge join). Finally the group-by operator implemented here using hash (alternative would be sort) consumes rows produced by the join-opertor.

The execution plan generated for a SQL statement is just one of the many alternative execution plans considered by the query optimizer. The query optimizer selects the execution plan with the lowest cost. Cost is a proxy for performance, the lower is the cost the better is the performance. The cost model used by the query optimizer accounts for the IO, CPU, and network usage in the query.

There are two different methods you can use to look at the execution plan of a SQL statement:

EXPLAIN PLAN command - This displays an execution plan for a SQL statement without actually executing the statement.

V$SQL_PLAN - A dictionary view introduced in Oracle 9i that shows the execution plan for a SQL statement that has been compiled into a cursor in the cursor cache.

Under certain conditions the plan shown when using EXPLAIN PLAN can be different from the plan shown using V$SQL_PLAN. For example, when the SQL statement contains bind variables the plan shown from using EXPLAIN PLAN ignores the bind variable values while the plan shown in V$SQL_PLAN takes the bind variable values into account in the plan generation process.

Displaying an execution plan has been made easier after the introduction of the dbms_xplan package in Oracle 9i and by the enhancements made to it in subsequent releases. This packages provides several PL/SQL procedures to display the plan from different sources:

EXPLAIN PLAN command

V$SQL_PLAN

Automatic Workload Repository (AWR)

SQL Tuning Set (STS)

SQL Plan Baseline (SPM)

The following examples illustrate how to generate and display an execution plan for our original SQL statement using the different functions provided in the dbms_xplan package.

Example 1 Uses the EXPLAIN PLAN command and the dbms_xplan.display function.


SQL> EXPLAIN PLAN FOR
 2   select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
 3   from sales s, products p
 4   where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
 5   group by prod_category;

Explained.


SQL> select plan_table_output
 2    from table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'basic'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

The arguments are for dbms_xplan.display are:

plan table name (default 'PLAN_TABLE'),

statement_id (default null),

format (default 'TYPICAL')

More details can be found in $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/dbmsxpln.sql.

Example 2 Generating and displaying the execution plan for the last SQL statement executed in a session:


SQL> select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
 2   from sales s, products p
 3   where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
 4   group by prod_category;

no rows selected


SQL> select plan_table_output
 2    from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'basic'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

The arguments used by dbms_xplay.dispay_cursor are:

SQL ID (default null, null means the last SQL statement executed in this session),

child number (default 0),

format (default 'TYPICAL')

The details are in $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/dbmsxpln.sql.

Example 3 Displaying the execution plan for any other statement requires the SQL ID to be provided, either directly or indirectly:

Directly:


SQL> select plan_table_output from
 2   table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fnrtqw9c233tt',null,'basic'));

Indirectly:


SQL> select plan_table_output
 2   from v$sql s,
 3   table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(s.sql_id,
 4                                  s.child_number, 'basic')) t
 5   where s.sql_text like 'select PROD_CATEGORY%';

Example 4 - Displaying an execution plan corresponding to a SQL Plan Baseline. SQL Plan Baselines have been introduced in Oracle 11g to support the SQL Plan Management feature (SPM). In order to illustrate such a case we need to create a SQL Plan Baseline first.


SQL> alter session set optimizer_capture_sql_plan_baselines=true;

Session altered.

SQL> select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
 2   from sales s, products p
 3   where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
 4   group by prod_category;

no rows selected

If the above statement has been executed more than once, a SQL Plan Baseline will be created for it and you can verified this using the follows query:


SQL> select SQL_HANDLE, PLAN_NAME, ACCEPTED
 2   from dba_sql_plan_baselines
 3   where sql_text like 'select prod_category%';

SQL_HANDLE                     PLAN_NAME                      ACC
------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---
SYS_SQL_1899bb9331ed7772       SYS_SQL_PLAN_31ed7772f2c7a4c2  YES

The execution plan for the SQL Plan Baseline created above can be displayed either directly or indirectly:

Directly

select t.* from
table(dbms_xplan.display_sql_plan_baseline('SYS_SQL_1899bb9331ed7772',
                                           format => 'basic')) t

Indirectly

select t.*
    from (select distinct sql_handle
          from dba_sql_plan_baselines
          where sql_text like 'select prod_category%') pb,
         table(dbms_xplan.display_sql_plan_baseline(pb.sql_handle,
                                                    null,'basic')) t;

The output of either of these two statements is:


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL handle: SYS_SQL_1899bb9331ed7772
SQL text: select prod_category, avg(amount_sold) from sales s, products p
          where p.prod_id = s.prod_id group by prod_category
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plan name: SYS_SQL_PLAN_31ed7772f2c7a4c2
Enabled: YES     Fixed: NO      Accepted: YES     Origin: AUTO-CAPTURE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plan hash value: 4073170114

---------------------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation                 Name               
---------------------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT                             
   1   HASH GROUP BY                               
   2    HASH JOIN                                  
   3     VIEW                   index$_join$_002   
   4      HASH JOIN                                
   5       INDEX FAST FULL SCAN PRODUCTS_PK        
   6       INDEX FAST FULL SCAN PRODUCTS_PROD_CAT_IX
   7     PARTITION RANGE ALL                       
   8      TABLE ACCESS FULL     SALES              
---------------------------------------------------------

Formatting

The format argument is highly customizable and allows you to see as little (high-level) or as much (low-level) details as you need / want in the plan output. The high-level options are:

Basic
The plan includes the operation, options, and the object name (table, index, MV, etc)
Typical
It includes the information shown in BASIC plus additional optimizer-related internal information such as cost, size, cardinality, etc. These information are shown for every operation in the plan and represents what the optimizer thinks is the operation cost, the number of rows produced, etc. It also shows the predicates evaluation by the operation. There are two types of predicates: ACCESS and FILTER. The ACCESS predicates for an index are used to fetch the relevant blocks because they apply to the search columns. The FILTER predicates are evaluated after the blocks have been fetched.
All
It includes the information shown in TYPICAL plus the lists of expressions (columns) produced by every operation, the hint alias and query block names where the operation belongs. The last two pieces of information can be used as arguments to add hints to the statement.

The low-level options allow the inclusion or exclusion of find details, such as predicates and cost.
For example,

select plan_table_output
from table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'basic +predicate +cost'));

-------------------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name      Cost (%CPU)
-------------------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT                    17  (18)
   1   HASH GROUP BY                      17  (18)
*  2    HASH JOIN                         15   (7)
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS      9   (0)
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL               5   (0)
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES         5   (0)
-------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
2 - access("P"."PROD_ID"="S"."PROD_ID")

select plan_table_output from
table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'typical -cost -bytes'));

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name      Rows  Time      Pstart Pstop
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT                    4  00:00:01             
   1   HASH GROUP BY                      4  00:00:01             
*  2    HASH JOIN                       960  00:00:01             
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS   766  00:00:01             
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL            960  00:00:01      1     16
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES      960  00:00:01      1     16
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
2 - access("P"."PROD_ID"="S"."PROD_ID")

Note Section

In addition to the plan, the package displays notes in the NOTE section, such as that dynamic sampling was used during query optimization or that star transformation was applied to the query.
For example, if the table SALES did not have statistics then the optimizer will use dynamic sampling and the plan display will report it as follows (see '+note' detail in the query):

select plan_table_output
from table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'basic +note'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

Note
-----
- dynamic sampling used for this statement

Bind peeking

The query optimizer takes into account the values of bind variable values when generation an execution plan. It does what is generally called bind peeking. See the first post in this blog about the concept of bind peeking and its impact on the plans and the performance of SQL statements.
As stated earlier the plan shown in V$SQL_PLAN takes into account the values of bind variables while the one shown from using EXPLAIN PLAN does not. Starting with 10gR2, the dbms_xplan package allows the display of the bind variable values used to generate a particular cursor/plan. This is done by adding '+peeked_binds' to the format argument when using display_cursor().
This is illustrated with the following example:


variable pcat varchar2(50)
exec :pcat := 'Women'

select PROD_CATEGORY, avg(amount_sold)
from sales s, products p
where p.PROD_ID = s.PROD_ID
and prod_category != :pcat
group by PROD_CATEGORY;

select plan_table_output
from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'basic +PEEKED_BINDS'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------

1 - :PCAT (VARCHAR2(30), CSID=2): 'Women'

plan sql table prod id plan table prod select statement access hash display sales products join dbms execution operation query xplan group name category null shown example basic cost bind cursor optimizer partition information range output rows used baseline default values displaying format oracle index predicates handle variable text baselines level session produced tree operators different package typical details sql plan table access dbms xplan plan table execution plan prod category xplan display sql statement hash join select prod table dbms partition range hash group select statement select plan operation name explain plan plan baseline null basic amount sold category avg avg amount query optimizer table output sys sql sql handle display cursor plan shown plan baselines display plan table null variable values bind variable sql text plan name null null peeked binds xplan package table outputfrom outputfrom table dynamic sampling prod category% rows produced bind peeking pcat varchar2 sql 1899bb9331ed7772 dba sql scan products handle plan predicate information information identified information shown level options display sql index fast format argument fromtable dbms sql example tree shaped execution plans default null products pwhere plan takes plan command access operators bind variables format default default typical join operator statement executed cursor null dbmsxpln sql admin dbmsxpln oracle home home rdbms rdbms admin child number dbms xplan display select plan table table dbms xplan sql plan baseline avg amount sold select prod category plan table output plan table null sql plan baselines xplan display cursor display plan table xplan display plan bind variable values select prod category% outputfrom table dbms plan table outputfrom dbms xplan package table null basic table outputfrom table predicate information identified sql handle plan handle plan name fromtable dbms xplan oracle home rdbms format default typical sql plan takes explain plan command home rdbms admin rdbms admin dbmsxpln cursor null null display cursor null sql statement executed null null basic

shorter, cuter, more honest people

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:10:30 -0400

Publisher - Feministe
First shared by - Mariela
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you do not have a right to child free spaces.

there is this weird thing in western culture, especially n american culture, where people/adults seem to believe that they have a right to discriminate against children.
recently, i was hanging out at a bar, when a friend called and invited me to come hang out for a few drinks and chill time as the sun came up. cool. then, i heard a bit of whispers in the background and the question posed to me: is aza with you?
ummmwhat? why? does that matter?

my daughter, aza, is a person. a three year old person. a funny, cute, bad-ass, curly haired person who loves to dance and draw, wearing short skirts, watching pink videos, and talking on the phone. frankly, she is probably cooler than you are. she is definitely cooler than i am. but even if she wasnt you dont have the right to discriminate against her based on her age. or her race. or her gender. or her nationality, etc.

sometimes she is loud. but frankly, she is normally one of the quieter people in a room full of inebriated souls. and since she is a person, and not a thing, it is not my job as her mother to control' her. love her? yes. model how to be respectful to fellow human beings and other sentient creatures? yes. teach her self respect, self love? definitely yes.

im not a feminist ( yeah, i said itshrug). but i dont understand people who claim to be feminist on one hand, and on the other hand think that children should be designated to certain public and private spaces, not mixing in normal' public areas, such as restaurants, stores, airplanes, etc. cause in us culture, when you create little reservations for children, you are really creating little reservations for mothers. it is the mother who will be sent away to take care of the child. and how is that supporting all women and girls?

ive even heard people claim that mamas, like me, just dont want to face up to the fact that they are parents and still want to live as if they are unattached. ummmnope. i know im a mama. i love being one. i simply dont believe that my mamahood means that i must be shunted away from the rest of society. nor do i believe it is beneficial to my daughter if she is not allowed to interact and explore the world as it is.

you know in a lot of cultures, like the one i live in now, the lines between adult spaces and child spaces are much more porous. it is assumed that kids will be around. that people of all ages will be. because of this kids learn early on what is expected of them in various social situations. they dont expect that every space they enter will be made to cater to their age group. and they learn to negotiate boundaries with various people.

but dont get me wrong. kids will be kids. at times that means tears, loud noises, knocking things over, etc. and when that happens the worst things to do is start sending out negative energy, glaring at the mama and child, yelling, sour faces, etc. much more helpful is to take a deep breath, send warm energy toward the mama and kid, give a sympathetic smile, and maybe even start talking with the kid to distract her from whatever has her upset at the moment. a lot of times, a little bit of attention from an outsider will change the mood quickly. doing so in a way that does not overstep the mama's boundaries and voila! you are the hero of the moment. and everyone is happier and less stressed. see, really, its that easy.

anyways, i dont live in n america, so for the most part i only have to deal with these anti child attitudes when i am around expats. most folks here when they see you walk in with a kid, smile. and say hi. when they see she is in a bad mood, they make weird faces at her, and ask me if there is anything that she needs that they can get me. we're not talking nuclear physics here, we are talking basic human compassion for another human being.

this topic was on my mind, and i thought that maybe some feminists could use a refresher course, a reminder, that kids are people. shorter, cuter, more honest people.

ah aza just woke up so i need to go. but if you are interested in more ways to support mamas and kids, especially in activist circles, please check out dont leave your friends behind. vikki and china are doing amazing work editing and compiling ways to remind us how to support parents and kids in this world.

dont kids child talking mama dont kids child mama talking spaces person little reservations cooler than discriminate against shorter cuter

Mormon Images Available for Use

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:15:47 -0400

Publisher - Newsroom Blog
First shared by - JesseStay
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Looking for images to help illustrate stories about Mormons or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? The following images may be used by bloggers,news media or anyone needing images that describe the Church.

	Jesus Christ — Jesus Christ is central to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which bears His name. Every prayer in the home and every sermon in a chapel closes in the name of Jesus Christ. The emblems of the sacrament (communion) that are taken weekly in worship services are symbols of His Atonement.
	Mormon Family — The concept of a united family that lives and progresses forever is at the core of Latter-day Saint doctrine. Within families led by a father and a mother, children develop virtues such as love, trust, loyalty, cooperation and service.
	Temple Square — Temple Square is one of Utah's most visited attractions, drawing millions of visitors a year. Temple Square consists of the Salt Lake Temple, the Tabernacle (home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir), the Assembly Hall and two visitors' centers.
	The Book of Mormon — Since it was first published in English in 1830, the Book of Mormon has been fully translated into 72 languages, and printed copies have totaled over 140 million. It has been described as the "keystone" of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From the beginning, Church members have accepted it as scripture.
	Mormon Volunteer Charity — The objective of the welfare program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to care for the needy while teaching principles that will allow needy persons to become self-reliant and retain their self-respect.
	Mormon Temple Marriage — Members of the Church believe that marriages performed in temples are "sealed," or blessed to last for eternity. The concept that the family unit can continue beyond the grave as a conscious, loving entity, with the marriage partnership and parent-child relationships intact, is a core belief of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
	Mormon General Conference — Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worldwide gather twice yearly for what they call "general conference." This is in addition to their weekly worship services each Sunday.
	Mormon Helping Hands — Mormon Helping Hands volunteers have been major contributors in relief efforts to help people whose lives have been devastated by natural disasters. Dressed in their trademark yellow T-shirts, the volunteers can be found giving needed service in countries throughout the world.
	Thomas S. Monson — President Thomas S. Monson has served as the 16th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 3 February 2008.
	Thomas S. Monson — Frances Monson, wife of President Thomas S. Monson, waves to congregation at the end of a general conference session.
	Mormon Leaders — The Church is led by 15 apostles. The most senior apostle is the president of the Church, and he selects two other apostles as counselors. These three function as the First Presidency, which is the highest governing body of the Church.
	Mormon Leaders Quorum of the Twelve — The Church is led by 15 apostles. The most senior apostle is the president of the Church, and he selects two other apostles as counselors. These three function as the First Presidency, which is the highest governing body of the Church. Twelve others form the Quorum of the Twelve — the second-highest governing body of the Church.
	Mormon Missionaries — The Church's missionary program is one of its most recognized characteristics. Mormon missionaries can be seen on the streets of hundreds of major cities in the world as well as in thousands of smaller communities.
	Christus — The North Visitors' Center on Temple Square has an 11-foot replica of Thorvaldsen's Christus on display.
	Joseph Smith — The church that Joseph Smith established in 1830 is today a global faith of close to 14 million members, and Joseph Smith himself is regarded by Latter-day Saints as the pre-eminent prophet of modern times.
	Mormon Missionaries — The Church's missionary program is one of its most recognized characteristics. Mormon missionaries can be seen on the streets of hundreds of major cities in the world as well as in thousands of smaller communities.
	Mormon Missionaries — The Church's missionary program is one of its most recognized characteristics. Mormon missionaries can be seen on the streets of hundreds of major cities in the world as well as in thousands of smaller communities.
	Mormon Baptism — Baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints requires full immersion in water by a person who holds the priesthood authority to baptize. It is the means by which people join the Church. Those who are baptized into the Church are cleansed of their previous sins and placed under covenant to live the principles of the gospel.
	Mormon Helping Hands — Mormon Helping Hands volunteers have been major contributors in relief efforts to help people whose lives have been devastated by natural disasters. Dressed in their trademark yellow T-shirts, the volunteers can be found giving needed service in countries throughout the world.
	Mormon Tabernacle Choir — The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, one of the oldest and largest choirs in the world, has performed before U.S. presidents, sold millions of records, won scores of awards and enthralled audiences in dozens of countries.
	Mormon Aid — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides relief and development projects for humanitarian purposes in countries all over the world. Projects operate without regard to the nationality or religion of the recipients.
	Mormon Temple — Temples are considered houses of God, places of holiness and peace separate from the preoccupations of the world. They provide a place where Church members make formal promises and commitments to God. They are also the place where the highest sacraments of the faith occur — the marriage of couples and the "sealing" of families for eternity.
	Mormon Temple — Temples are considered houses of God, places of holiness and peace separate from the preoccupations of the world. They provide a place where Church members make formal promises and commitments to God. They are also the place where the highest sacraments of the faith occur — the marriage of couples and the "sealing" of families for eternity.
	Mormon Family — The concept of a united family that lives and progresses forever is at the core of Latter-day Saint doctrine. Within families led by a father and a mother, children develop virtues such as love, trust, loyalty, cooperation and service.
	Mormon Missionaries — The Church's missionary program is one of its most recognized characteristics. Mormon missionaries can be seen on the streets of hundreds of major cities in the world as well as in thousands of smaller communities.
	The Book of Mormon — Since it was first published in English in 1830, the Book of Mormon has been fully translated into 72 languages, and printed copies have totaled nearly 120 million. It has been described as the "keystone" of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From the beginning, Church members have accepted it as scripture.
	Mormon Missionaries — The Church's missionary program is one of its most recognized characteristics. Mormon missionaries can be seen on the streets of hundreds of major cities in the world as well as in thousands of smaller communities.

mormon church latter day christ mormon church latter christ jesus saints world missionaries members temple major program missionary president highest hundreds smaller family communities thousands cities streets recognized monson characteristics apostles helping service square families lives images tabernacle book volunteers countries hands marriage first thomas latter day jesus christ day saints mormon missionaries missionary program recognized characteristics characteristics mormon major cities smaller communities church members mormon helping temple square helping hands highest governing tabernacle choir governing body joseph smith general conference mormon temple mormon tabernacle saint doctrine giving needed day saint church mormon needed service senior apostle mormon leaders president thomas first presidency united family peace separate god places formal promises highest sacraments eternity mormon considered houses 151 temples found giving mormon family worship services communities mormon progresses forever natural disasters first published 151 since fully translated printed copies beginning church mother children loyalty cooperation develop virtues virtues such love trust trust loyalty families led scripture mormon relief efforts whose lives children develop disasters dressed major contributors hands volunteers 151 members within families doctrine within 151 mormon trademark yellow characteristics mormon missionaries recognized characteristics mormon mormon helping hands mormon tabernacle choir highest governing body natural disasters dressed helping hands volunteers giving needed service smaller communities mormon 151 mormon helping found giving needed beginning church members mother children develop doctrine within families saint doctrine within children develop virtues develop virtues such trust loyalty cooperation love trust loyalty day saint doctrine

Ryan Reynolds Recites the Green Lantern Oath For an Adorable Child [Video]

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:50:33 -0400

Publisher - ComicsAlliance.com
First shared by - BrandonMendelson
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Filed under: DC, Video

And now, your "awwwwww!" moment of Comic-Con: During the Green Lantern movie panel at Comic-Con last Saturday, a young man named Connor stood up to ask what it felt like for "GL" star Ryan Reynolds to say the famous Green Lantern Oath, and Reynolds ... Read more

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green lantern reynolds video comic green lantern comic con lantern oath ryan reynolds green lantern oath

14 Famous Man Rooms

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:10:31 -0400

Publisher - The Art of Manliness
First shared by - phillip
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In reading about the lives of history's great men, one thing I've noticed is that many of them had a place they could go to be alone with their thoughts. Some of these men had a study where they would retreat to think, read, and write. Others had a garage or workshop where they would tinker and experiment. But what all these rooms had in common was their sheer manliness. They were man spaces, places a man could call his own.

Below we give you a look inside the man rooms of 14 famous men from history. Within these rooms they formulated ideas that would change the world, wrote books that remain classics, and revitalized the dynamic manliness that drove their success. While we all can't have a Carnegie-esque study, perhaps you'll find inspiration from these manly spaces to spruce up your own room or simply the push to find a place where you can get away from it all and in tune with your manliness.

Ernest Hemingway's Writing Studio

The room where Papa wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls and Death in the Afternoon. Ernest Hemingway lived in this house in Key West, Florida for more than 10 years. Needing a place where he could drink a glass of scotch, smoke a cigar, and write about men being men, Hemingway turned the old carriage house on the property into his personal writing studio. The main features in the room are the Cuban cigar-maker's chair and his Royal typewriter. Throughout the room, Hemingway placed mementos he collected from his manly adventures in Africa and Cuba.

Theodore Roosevelt's Trophy Room

After Theodore Roosevelt's Dakota cattle business failed, he came back East to New York and built a home in Oyster Bay, NY. He called his estate Sagamore Hill, and he lived there until he died (with a stint in the White House, of course). It was where Roosevelt would go to relax, romp in the woods, and revitalize his man spirit. The crowning manly jewel of the house was TR's trophy room where he kept his collection of wild game he had hunted in Africa and throughout the American West. The room has a high ceiling and is filled with rich, dark Philippine camagon woodwork. A perfect place for the manliest president to read a book about adventure in the grasslands or to entertain guests and dignitaries.

Frederick Douglass' Office

Frederick Douglass was a true self-made man. He escaped from slavery and through hard work and self-education, became a writer, publisher, speaker and fierce abolitionist. With the money he made from writing and speaking, Douglass bought a 14 bedroom house in Washington, D.C. that he called Cedar Hill. His office was lined with over 1,000 books on a wide variety of subjects, and his walls were adorned with portraits of people he admired like Susan B. Anthony and Wendell Phillips. Douglas would spend up to five hours a day reading and writing in his manly study. At his sturdy wooden desk he penned many of his inspiring speeches and his famous autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.

Thomas Jefferson's Study

The author of the Declaration of Independence also was a master architect. Jefferson designed the home that crowned his beautiful Monticello estate. Jefferson's man space was his study where he'd read about, write about, and ponder liberty and other profound principles in solitude. The busts of great men served as muses for Jefferson. One of the unique aspects of Jefferson's man space is how it's connected to his bedroom. He placed his bed in an alcove in the wall between his study and room. That way Jefferson could roll right out of bed and start working or if he needed to take a power nap after hours of manly meditation and study, he could lie down for a respite.

Mark Twain's Writing Hut

Mark Twain would often summer with his sister who lived in Elmira, New York. Needing a place where he could get some work done, Twain built himself a writing hut on his sister's property. Free from distractions and inspired by the setting, Twain could write in peace and quiet. In this sanctuary of manliness, Twain wrote some of his most widely read and manly works: Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

I love how Twain described his man space in an 1874 letter to William Dean Howells:

It is the loveliest study you ever sawoctagonal with a peaked roof, each face filled with a spacious windowperched in complete isolation on the top of an elevation that commands leagues of valley and city and retreating ranges of distant blue hills. It is a cozy nest and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three or four chairs, and when the storms sweep down the remote valley and the lightning flashes behind the hills beyond and the rain beats upon the roof over my headimagine the luxury of it.

Henry David Thoreau's Cabin

Tired of the distractions of modern living, Henry David Thoreau went to the woods to live a deliberate and simple life. He borrowed some land near a pond called Walden from friend Ralph Waldo Emerson and built himself a simple 10x5 shack. The inside was furnished with a bed, a table, a desk, and three chairs. That's it. Total cost to build his man shack? $28.12. It was in this small hut in the woods that Thoreau would get the inspiration he needed to write his most famous work of Transcendental Philosophy, Walden, Or Life in the Woods. Thoreau's rustic man-hut has inspired men for generations to tear out into the woods, build a shack with their own bare man hands, and start sucking the marrow out of life.

Thomas Edison's Library

Many people argue that Thomas Edison's greatest contribution to science and technology was his Invention Factory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. This series of brick buildings was the first industrial research and development laboratory and is the model for today's corporate and government R&D labs. Nestled in the complex was Edison's personal library. The focal point of the room is the roll top desk that Edison likely used to design cool stuff like the phonograph or Kinetoscope. Edison knew how to hustle and would often work for 24 hours (or more!) straight. He'd take catnaps in a cot that he set up in his library to recharge himself for more work.

John Muir's Study

When John Muir wasn't wandering through Yosemite and pondering the awe-inspiring power of nature, he lived with his wife in a 14-room mansion in Martinez, California that had been built in 1883 by his father-in-law. The Muirs occupied that home from 1890 until John's death in 1914. This was the most fruitful time of Muir's career, and much of his productivity took place within the walls of his study, which he called his scribble den. Seated at his simple wooden desk, Muir laid much of the foundation for the modern conservation movement, penning hundreds of passionate magazine and newspaper articles and writing books on the importance of preserving nature, mulling over how to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley from being dammed, pushing for the creation of National Parks and a Park Service, and taking care of work for his job as the first president of the Sierra Club.

Winston Churchill's Art Studio

In addition to being a first-class statesman, Winston Churchill was a talented artist as well. The man loved to paint. He loved it so much that he built himself an art studio in his estate's garden. When he felt the Black Dog of depression tailing him, he would retreat to his studio and keep the darkness away by putting brush to canvas.

Mark Twain's Billiards Room

Mark Twain is so manly that two of his man rooms made the list. This billiards room took up the entire top floor of his three-story Hartford, CT house where he lived from 1871-1891. The room was off limits to Twain's wife and kids and reserved for Twain and his male guests to shoot pool, smoke cigars, and imbibe spirits. Twain also used the room as a man retreat, a place to write and hide from the domestic chaos on the other floors of the house. Twain explained the reason this special man space was needed in his home:

There ought to be a room in this house to swear in. It's dangerous to have to repress an emotion like thatUnder certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

The Wright Brothers' Bicycle Shop

The garage or workshop is a favorite place for men to retreat to, drink a beer, and tinker on their car. The Wright brothers spent hours together in their bike shop fixing bikes and creating the first successful flying machine. Their shop actually changed locations several times, but what stayed the same was the industrial utility of the room and the solitude it offered them to ponder how to get man into the air.

Charles Darwin's Study

Located in rural Kent, England, Charles Darwin's Down House is where the famous scientist lived and worked for over 40 years. Inside the home, Darwin had a private study where he would write in solitude. Darwin was a morning person and felt he did his best work between the hours of 8 AM and 9:30 AM. It was in this room that Darwin wrote his landmark work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Darwin lined his shelves not only with books but also with animal specimens he found while taking walks in the afternoons. I'm totally digging that spiral cane and bowler hat placed on the chair in the first picture.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Drafting Studio

Frank Lloyd Wright lived at his Oak Park, IL residence from 1889 until 1909. During these first two decades of his career, Wright developed his architectural practice and style, brainstorming ideas and drafting plans within the handsome home studio he designed himself. Under the octagonal hanging lights, Wright and his associates developed the Prairie style of architecture and designed 125 structures. The magnificent studio is certainly a worthy workplace for such a revered architect; a fellow architect said it offered inspiration everywhere.

Andrew Carnegie's Study

Steele magnate Andrew Carnegie used some of his vast millions to build a 64-room mansion located on 5th Ave near Central Park in New York City. Among its 64 rooms were Carnegie's private library and study where he would spend his mornings either alone or with his personal secretary. He used his library to receive applicants seeking a piece of his philanthropic treasure chest and his study to determine which ones would get funds. The rooms were decked out in typical Gilded Age furnishings- dark hand-carved wood, plush furniture, and decorative ceilings. Along the walls of both rooms were stenciled Carnegie's favorite inspirational sayings like The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. It's pretty amazing what sort of man room you can build when you're the richest guy in the world.

John Muir's Study

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[video] In Focus: In The Know: Should We Be Shaming Obese Children More?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:45:16 -0400

Publisher - The Onion
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Our panelists discuss whether taunting and insults would be an effective strategy to help America's obese children lose weight.

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All Your Boobs Belong To Us: Some Thoughts About Consent While Female

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:30:30 -0400

Publisher - Tiger Beatdown
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I once had occasion to date a woman who had very strong boundaries regarding acceptable affection. (I won't get into the reasons, because they were hers, and totally valid.) Now, as I am a fanatic for consent, this turned out to not be that big an issue for me; in fact, it was a healthy reminder of the way things should ALWAYS be. That is, I had to ask her when I wanted to try something new. I made sure that I got enthusiastic assent before I stretched a previously-established boundary. And yeah, sometimes it was frustrating, but it was often sexy as hell. (It helped that there were no boundaries on kissing, and she was a past master of the art.) And in a weird way, by needing to seek and receive consent constantly, we achieved an intimacy I've seldom felt in other relationships.

I despair sometimes that we were able to achieve this mutuality of respect and consent only because we were both women. Because lately, except for Thomas Macauly Millar, it's getting pretty hard out there.

Take, for example, your latest court-sanctioned reaffirmation that a woman's body belongs to everyone but herself:

A jury on Thursday rejected a young woman's claim that the producers of a Girls Gone Wild video damaged her reputation by showing her tank top being pulled down by another person in a Laclede's Landing bar.

A St. Louis Circuit Court jury deliberated 90 minutes before ruling against the woman, 26, on the third day of the trial. Lawyers on both sides argued the key issue was consent, with her side saying she absolutely refused to give it and the defense claiming she silently approved by taking part in the party.

The woman, identified in court files as Jane Doe, was 20 when she went to the former Rum Jungle bar in May 2004 and was filmed by a Girls Gone Wild video photographer. Now married, the mother of two girls and living in the St. Charles area, Doe sued in 2008 after a friend of her husband's reported that she was in one of the videos.

I am stunned that this company can get away with this, Doe said after the verdict. Justice has not been served. I just don't understand. I gave no consent.

But Patrick O'Brien, the jury foreman, told a reporter later that an 11-member majority decided that Doe had in effect consented by being in the bar and dancing for the photographer. In a trial such as this one, agreement by nine of 12 jurors is enough for a verdict.

Through her actions, she gave implied consent, O'Brien said. She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing.

Ah, yes, implied consent. Because she happened to be at a bar where a film crew for the somehow-not-yet-criminally sleazy Girls Gone Wild franchise was taping, and she didn't turn on her heels and leave like a proper paragon of virtue would have no doubt ruffling her crinolines as she did so. Certainly the fact that she could be heard saying no, on film, isn't a defense.

Because NO is never a defense. It's merely a prerequisite to making a defense. See, she still needed to not be in the video, even though she would surely have been sued had she taken some of the several deliciously violent courses that spring to my mind when contemplating my reaction to a GGW camera crew. And certainly, she should have prevented somebody else from pulling down her top. What was she doing wearing a top that could be pulled down? In a bar? Where there is alcohol and men?

She should have known better, right? She should have known that this might have happened, and if it did, and there happened to be a camera crew handy, she'd have no right to stop them from exploiting her image to make tons of money and show her naked breasts to complete strangers. Without her consent.

Just her implied consent.

When one is confronted by cases such as thisor the Larry Rivers Art/Child Porn/Images of a Minor Made Without Her Consent that Sady and Amanda discussed last weekone wearily wonders if there is any way to be publicly female without giving implied consent to have something done to your body. I mean, seriously: just how far does this go? Had GGW showed up to, oh, say, Le Bernardin, and some trashed suit was spending his bailout money on adult entertainers, and somehow a primly dressed female patron walked into the shot and had her dress ripped offis that implied consent? Does a $180 prix fixe somehow mitigate the implications of consent in the way that a $3 PBR doesn't? Because to be honest, what is the difference? Why should it matter if you dance or you don't, if your skirt is shorter than your belt or brushes your ankles? How in the hell can clothing or location or body movements override a direct refusal to consent?

The answer is, of course, that it doesn't. Not really. And not in the good way that you might think I'm going, what with the feminism and all. I mean just the opposite: it doesn't make a difference. Cover your body completely, or go out naked into the streets; inhabiting a female body seems to be the exception to the old saw that possession is nine-tenths of the law.

Coincidentally, the divine (!) Echidne is rerunning some of her most thoughtful columns this week, and this one couldn't be better timed:

Yesterday my visiting alien from outer space came to me all excited (you can see it from the quivering antennae). It had learned the concept of property, both public and private, and it had decided to apply it to women's bodies and sexuality. Its conclusion was that women and their sexuality are private property, belonging to husbands, fathers and sons, in much of the world, including most Muslim countries, and that women in the Western democracies are public property, belonging to everybody.

Nononono! I said. You have it all wrong. Women do own their bodies and sexuality in most countries of this world. They can decide what to wear and who to have sex with. They can decide if they will be pregnant and so on.

My alien friend wasn't convinced. It asked me what would happen if I went out shirtless and braless, for example. Wouldn't I get arrested, unless my name was not Echidne but Ed? And can a woman choose whether she uses contraception or not, in all countries? Can she use it if her husband doesn't want her to? Can she breastfeed her baby in public?

It then asked me about pornography. Why is the majority of porn about women's bodies? Why is most of it aimed for men's consumption. Who owns the right to view the generic female body?

Sometimes I really hate this alien. I had to explain about the sexual difference between men and women, how men get turned on by the very sight of the female body and how that means that women must cover those bits of their bodies which mostly inflame men's desires. Otherwise the men can't control themselves. Men are so much more visual than women, and the society reflects that, by regulating the amount of female nudity allowed in the public sphere. We can't have naked breasts slip out suddenly on television, in the middle of a football game, say.

Breasts.. mused the alien. They are for nurturing the young humans, right? But what about pornography, then? If men are more visual than women and easily inflamed, shouldn't porn be illegal or severely regulated? It sounds to me as if women are not in control of the female body, even in the West. Someone else, is. Someone else determines when that body can turn up naked in your visual fields.

Which takes me back to me and my lady friend. She set very firm boundaries with me, and in a way I'm forever grateful that she did, because it gave me a very practical class in the fictitiousness of implied consent. I couldn't assume consent for anything. What's shocking is that such a situation seemed unusual. That such a situation isn't normal, and commonplace. Or that such a situation even today is still better understood by two womeneven one who took as roundabout a path to womanhood as I did.

Because as women we knew what implied consent sounds like.

It sounds like No.

consent women body female men consent women female implied public bodies alien defense girls naked implied consent female body visual than than women property belonging naked breasts camera crew wild video visual than women

Crovitz on the First Amendment, Parenting & The Technology of Decency

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:06:55 -0400

Publisher - Technology Liberation Front
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The always-excellent Wall Street Journal Information Age columnist L. Gordon Crovitz has another editorial worth reading today, which builds on the Second Circuit's recent decision to reverse FCC content regulation for broadcasting. In The Technology of Decency, Crovitz explains parents don't need the FCC to protect their children. Technology makes it easier to block seven or any number of dirty words, he notes. Taking the FCC out of regulating indecency might just lead to more decency by refocusing responsibility where it belongs: on broadcasters and parents.

That's a point I've hammered on her in the past and in all my work on parental empowerment solutions, including my book, Parental Controls and Online Child Protection: A Survey of Tools and Methods. Indeed, there has never been a time in our nation's history when parents have had more tools and methods at their disposal to help them decide what is acceptable in their homes and in the lives of their children. And, luckily, poll after poll shows that parents are stepping up to the plate and taking on that responsibility (contrary to what some policymakers in Washington imply).

Moreover, legally speaking, Crovitz shows why the old rationales for regulating broadcasting differently no longer work. No medium is likely ever to be as pervasive as broadcasting once was, he notes. He goes on to note that:

Broadcasting is no longer the pervasive, dominant medium. And unlike the Web, televisions now have tools for parents to block programs based on their suitability for kids. And the appeal court's history of technology undermines the legal foundation for allowing broadcast censorship, including the justification that broadcast outlets are scarce. There are now more television stations than newspapers.

Indeed, that's a point I have stressed in my work, especially my Catholic University CommLaw Conspectus law review article, Why Regulate Broadcasting: Toward a Consistent First Amendment Standard for the Information Age. I also produced this video on America's First Amendment Twilight Zone to better explain why the old notions of scarcity and pervasiveness no longer work as rationales for asymmetrical regulation of speech. Anyway, make sure to read Crovitz's excellent essay.

parents crovitz broadcasting technology work parents crovitz broadcasting work technology first amendment longer work information age

A Chomskyan Considers Pragmatics

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:50:26 -0400

Publisher - Babel's Dawn
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Physically speaking, the rainbow is a continuum of photons sorted by frequency, but perceptually it is a display of sharply distinguishable colors. Moral of the lesson: nature presents a continuum, but we perceive in categories.

Last week's post introduced W. Tecumseh Fitch's new text, The Evolution of Language, as a book that every reader of this blog needs to own or at least have nearby, but one which seems blind to its own assumptions. This week I want to discuss why, despite my disagreement with its underlying assumptions, I still believe it is a must-have reference. Briefly, like the honest scientist he is, Fitch lays out the facts, so even if you disagree with the conclusions, it is still extremely useful.

I'm taking my own sharp disagreement with Fitch's approach as an example. On this blog language is not seen as a tool that evolved for thinkingalthough it can be used that wayinstead it is a system that enables the joint perception of topics. If I were writing a book (which, come to think of it, I am) I would structure it to tell, first, how our lineage became willing to share perceptions through the use of words, then, how that sharing ability took shape through the use of sentences, and then how the lineage adapted to the niche it found itself in by going beyond perceptions. Fitch's book is organized to tell a completely different storyhow we evolved I-language, an abstraction I do not believe exists in any useful sense. Even so, I find Fitch's book a handy reference, one I expect to turn to in checking things both for this blog and for my own book. It is also interesting enough as a source for regular dipping into. Yeah yeah, he goes on too long about the evolution of forms of animal communication when the more relevant matter (from my perspective) is the evolution of perception, but honest readers have to grant writers their point of view.

For followers of this blog the book has three big virtues. First, Fitch is respectful of the school of thought voiced in this blog. Even when I disagreed with this book, I never felt pushed away. Part of that tone comes it being a book, not a blog, but plenty of books have their polemical side.

Second, as one of the co-authors of the famous paper that distinguished between a broad and narrow faculty of language Fitch is quite willing to look at how evidence sort abilities between those two faculties. Thus, he looks at perception data in the book and concludes that it goes into the broad faculty.

An example of this reporting on perception is in the book's treatment of categorical perception, the perception of two things as being the same even when they are measurably different. Fitch discusses categorical perception twice, both times in reference to phonology. Categorical perception is fundamental to speech because, for speech to work, we must not get confused by the difference between a word as spoken by one person versus another. The simplest example of categorical perception I know (and one not cited by Fitch) is the color spectrum. The major colors on the spectrum don't shift continuously. There are sudden breaks between them. That's categorical perception: we do not see a slight change along a continuum, but a switch to a new category.

Fitch tells the story of the discovery of phonological perceptual categories: In 1957 Alvin Lieberman and colleagues reported an experiment in which people heard a continuous spectrum of sounds shifting slowly from ba to pa. But the listeners did not hear a continuous series of slightly different sounds. They heard a string of bas that suddenly switched to pas. The experimenters then jumped to the conclusion that they had found a special, humans-only adaptation to speech. However, further experimentation eventually demonstrated that animals too hear sounds, including speech sounds, categorically rather than continuously. Fitch concludes, "Categorical perception, like many other aspects of the human capacity for language, was already present long before humans evolved language." [p. 99] And later he adds, "our use of the speech production apparatus has adjusted to fit pre-existing constraints of the mammalian auditory system. If any co-evolutionary 'tuning' has occurred, speech production has adapted to the auditory system rather than vice-versa." [326] So here Fitch is actually agreeing with anti-Chomskyans like Terrence Deacon and Morten Christiansen.

A third virtue I appreciated was that Fitch lets his readers know of rival perspectives. For this blog, especially important is a chapter on language that includes a detailed discussion of its components, "following the traditional topics of phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics." [93] Notice anything interesting about that list? The standard Chomskyan one does not include pragmatics, the study of language's use in a social context. Of course, it would have been shocking to see pragmatics excluded. James Hurford gave a talk in Poland last year that included a slide with the heading, "Most syntactically interesting phenomena are pragmatically motivated" (see: The Word-Sentence Continuum). And the pragmatic work of Lev Vygotsky, Giorgio Marchetti, Dan Sperber, Michael Tomasello and many others is too important to ignore (even though the first two names did not make it into Fitch's bibliography and the contributions of the other two are grossly incomplete). Yet I see plenty of nativist material that does overlook this material.

Interestingly, Fitch bridges the sections on semantics (summary of that section: we have no idea how meaning works or even exactly what it is) and pragmatics with a couple of sub-sections on how children learn the meaning of words. This is a telling bridge because, as described by Fitch, the learning of word meanings is entirely pragmatic. Does language meaning ever become dependent on something else? Fitch does not seem to wonder.

Learning a word's meaning depends entirely on social interactions: a child hears a speaker say, "Rabbit;" the child sees the rabbit and in the future says "rabbit" whenever it wants to mention such an animal. Sounds easy, but how does the child know what rabbit refers to? Why does the child learn the word? And how does it know that the word is useful when it sees a different rabbit?

Fitch addresses all of these questions. For the first one, he points out that the philosopher Willard Quine asked the same question and noted that if members of a strange tribe pointed to a rabbit and said gavagai the word could mean lots of things besides rabbit. Confusions do occur but mostly we have no problem discerning the topic Most of Quine's imaginable alternatives do not become problems in real life. Why not? This blog's answer is shortwe perceive figures as wholes, so when we share perceptions, we share what we perceive. Fitch says that too, though he takes longer at it and comes at it from a psychological tradition that does not focus on perception. My favorite circumlocution is "the child is already equipped with a language-independent visual object-recognition system." [127] Yep, that's perception alright.

Why does the child learn the word? Fitch discusses that too, using the appalling German word Mitteilungsbedrfnis which he translates as "a drive or need to share thoughts and feelings." I prefer Judy Kegl's (now Judy Shepard-Kegl) term "hunger for language." (see: 4 Instincts Lead the Way) Either way, it amounts to this: the child learns the word because it wants to learn it. And at the conclusion of his brief contemplation of language hunger Fitch says, "Although the basic drive to share information is not unique to our species, I suggest that it is so hypertrophied in humans as to deserve careful consideration as a potential cognitive adaptation 'for' language." [140] In short, he is willing to at least put something as pragmatic as language hunger on the short list of candidates for inclusion in the narrow language faculty, where once it seemed only syntactical recursion resided.

How do children know to use the same word the next time they see a rabbit? Fitch falls a little short in his discussion of this issue. He recognizes a problem but seems to take object classes as part of the natural order. He is content to say, "Markman and Hutchinson proposed that such findings reflect a taxonomic assumptiongiven a label, children will apply it to other objects of the same type, overriding a prepotent bias to classify things along thematic lines." [128] But types are not out there; we perceive things as being of the same type, and sometimes we perceive things differently from their scientific taxonomye.g., calling whales big fish, or meteors stars. A good theory of perception gets you well away in this matter, but none of the gestalt psychologists are in Fitch's bibliography.

There is, however, quite enough in this book to get readers point in the right direction if their gut says pragmatics matters more (or is more interesting) than syntax or semantics pointed in that direction. So I'm content to recommend it even to Chomsky-skeptics both as an reference work and an instructive place for regular browsing.

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Gather Round And Listen, Children

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:05:31 -0400

Publisher - GraphJam: Music and Pop Culture in Charts and Graphs. Let us explain them.
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MrFoulFrog

It was a golden age of lulz and trolls. Ms. Fix-It

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