Punishment vs. Discipline vs. Natural Consequences: Which Best Trains Children? Punishment vs. Discipline vs. Natural Consequences: Which Best Trains Children? Punishment vs. The benefits of growing up with an older sibling that you respect continues after she flies the coop, and can even ripen with age — especially if you're fortunate enough to parent alongside her. My older sister is 2.5 years wiser than me. A practice we borrowed from them is incorporating the word "consequence" into our disciplinary lexicon when warning our children, following through on a warning, and debriefing them after the storm. These and other terms can work, but many are juvenile, playing at a kid's level rather than pulling him or her upward. Three Kinds of Consequences We like consequence for its three distinct connotations. 1. In the Christian framework from which my wife and I parent, it's important we teach our kids that the consequence of everyone's wrongdoing is that all deserve punishment from a holy and just God (Romans 3:23, 6:23). 2.
How the Paleolithic Diet Got Trendy The first day I put my family on a Paleolithic diet, I made my kids fried eggs and sausage for breakfast. If they were still hungry, I told them, they could help themselves to more sausage, but they were not allowed to grab a slice of bread, or toast an English muffin, or pour themselves a bowl of cereal. This represented a reversal of the usual strictures, and they were happy to oblige. It was like some weird, unexpected holiday—Passover in July. The Paleolithic diet—“paleo,” for those in the know—represents a new, very old form of eating, one confined to the sorts of food available in pre-agricultural days. There are, of course, lots of ways to resist progress. The result is a small library of what might be called paleo literature—how-to books that are mostly how-to-undo books. Three days into my family’s experiment in Stone Age eating, my sons were still happily gorging themselves on sausage and grass-fed steak. Paleo practitioners are well aware of this fact.
Rewriting History In Minnesota The Dakota uprising of 1862 is one of the major events in Minnesota’s history. It began with a series of spree killings by young Dakotas and grew into a slaughter that extended up and down the Minnesota River. Hundreds of white men, women and children were massacred by the Dakota, who descended on their homes without warning and slaughtered the whites without mercy. Minnesotans organized a militia to resist the Indian attacks, and President Lincoln sent a detachment of Union soldiers who finally assisted in putting down the rebellion. At the end of the war, Union soldiers held over 1,000 Dakota prisoners. Based on his review, Lincoln commuted the sentences of all but 38 of the Indians. On December 26, 1862, the 38 convicted murderers and rapists were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota, the largest such execution in American history. Scott and I wrote an article about this episode in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1998, and I wrote about it on Power Line four years later.
Can You Die From a Broken Heart? - Issue 15: Turbulence Ruth and Harold “Doc” Knapke met in elementary school. They exchanged letters during the war, when Doc was stationed in Germany. After he returned their romance began in earnest. “No relationship was ever perfect, but theirs was one of the better relationships I ever observed,” says their daughter Margaret Knapke, 61, a somatic therapist. For years, Knapke says, she and her siblings watched their father’s health crumble. Then Ruth developed a rare infection. Knapke sees her parents’ same-day deaths as a conscious decision—two hearts shutting off together. Deadly grief is not about stress alone, scientists say. The Knapkes’ story may be special, but it’s not unique. Death by heartbreak is a literary staple; even Shakespeare wrote of “deadly grief.” Studies from around the world have confirmed that people have an increased risk of dying in the weeks and months after their spouses pass away. The explanation for the gender difference may be simple logistics.
Tinnitus and Chronic Pain Share a Common Brain Dysfunction Long after damage has occurred to a person’s hearing, some people still experience persistent tinnitus—the perception of a buzzing, ringing, or hissing sound—that can’t be accounted for by actual sounds. Remarkably, this phenomenon is very similar to bouts of chronic pain that persist after an injury has healed—and sometimes without the precursor of an injury. In a normally functioning brain, neural structures such as the nucleus accumbens, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the anterior cingulate cortex act as “gatekeepers” to control noise, pain, and emotional signals and keep them from getting dysfunctional. Strikingly, says Rauschecker, the brains of people who suffer from tinnitus have similar, measurable neural activity to those who suffer from chronic pain. “In tinnitus, the sound comes from the structures like the auditory cortex. Even more intriguing is the fact that those who suffer tinnitus or chronic pain also often suffer from depression or anxiety, says Rauschecker.
What Was Democracy? Democracy was once a comforting fiction. Has it become an uninhabitable one? Works Progress Administration poster from the 1930s The Logic of Discipline Global Capitalism and the Architecture of Government. Ill Fares the Land By Tony Judt. The Society of Equals By Pierre Rosanvallon. The Crisis of the European Union A Response. The Confidence Trap A History of Democracy in Crisis From World War I to the Present. If information technology turns out to have world-historical significance, it is not because of its economic promise, still less because it may facilitate the toppling of dictators. Democracy, as we know it in the modern world, is based on a peculiar compromise. This is not what democracy once looked like. The American founders were adamant that it could not be otherwise. The challenge posed by information technology lies not in the possibility that we might adopt more direct forms of democracy but in the disquieting recognition that we no longer dream of ruling ourselves.
When the FBI Went After 'Mad' Magazine In a memo dated November 30, 1957, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation identified as “A. Jones” raised an issue of critical importance: "Several complaints to the Bureau have been made concerning the 'Mad' comic book [sic], which at one time presented the horror of war to readers." Attached to the document were pages taken from a recent issue of Mad that featured a tongue-in-cheek game about draft dodging. Players who earned such status were advised to write to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and request a membership card certifying themselves as a “full-fledged draft dodger.” At least three readers, the agent reported, did exactly that. Mad, of course, was the wildly popular satirical magazine that was reaching upwards of a million readers every other month. The memo got several facts incorrect: Mad had switched from a comic book to a magazine format in 1955, and it was Gaines’ E.C. Less than a week later, the Feds entered the hallowed hallways patrolled by Alfred E. Poor A.
The Mystery of Go, the Ancient Game That Computers Still Can’t Win | Enterprise TOKYO, JAPAN — Rémi Coulom is sitting in a rolling desk chair, hunched over a battered Macbook laptop, hoping it will do something no machine has ever done. That may take another ten years or so, but the long push starts here, at Japan’s University of Electro-Communications. The venue is far from glamorous — a dingy conference room with faux-wood paneling and garish fluorescent lights — but there’s still a buzz about the place. Spectators are gathered in front of an old projector screen in the corner, and a ragged camera crew is preparing to broadcast the tournament via online TV, complete with live analysis from two professional commentators. Coulom is wearing the same turtleneck sweater and delicate rimless glasses he wore at last year’s competition, and he’s seated next to his latest opponent, an ex-pat named Simon Viennot who’s like a younger version of himself — French, shy, and self-effacing. They aren’t looking at each other. The challenge is daunting. And so it does.
9 Facts About Rocky Mountain National Park Rocky Mountain National Park was officially dedicated on September 4, 1915, making it America's tenth and highest elevation national park. With a quarter of the land located above the tree line, the alpine wilderness of the Rockies draws 3 million visitors a year. Here are a few facts about the Colorado wonder. Enos Mills is considered the “Father of Rocky Mountain National Park.” The 30 mile-long Continental Divide Scenic Trail is one of the park's biggest draws. In 1917, the Denver Post documented the story of Agnes Lowe, a college student who was going to live in the park’s forests as a “modern Eve” for one week. Tom Casey of Taliesin Architects and the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture designed Beaver Meadows Visitor Center, which is the park's headquarters as well as a National Historic Landmark. Esther and Elizabeth Burnell first visited the park’s Estes Park area in 1916.