The Empty Soda Can

When we moved back to Lafayette, almost 5½ years ago, I looked out our bedroom window and saw a traffic light. I don’t know exactly why, but that traffic light was very comforting to me. I suppose it stood as a constant, my connection to the world. Even though it was off in the distance, it stood as a reminder that even in the midst of the cornfields, we were not in the middle of nowhere; we were on the edge of somewhere. I looked out at it, almost every night, as it changed from green to amber to red and back. It was my traffic light, and I loved it. Since that time, a lot has changed, around here. One of the streets that intersects at that light has been widened and combined with another street, necessitating a new and larger-sounding name. The other street has undergone significant construction, including a four-lane bridge over the railroad tracks where we used to have to wait for trains to pass. A factory has gone up on the corner of the two; a warehouse sits next to it; a th...

Tonight, while Anna and I were watching a show, our six-year-old daughter, Leah, came downstairs, obviously slightly distressed. Anna asked her what was up; Leah responded that she had to go to the bathroom—a rather cryptic statement, since there is a perfectly good bathroom, perhaps ten steps from her room, which she uses all the time. Still, we told her that that was fine and encouraged her to use the downstairs bathroom and get back to bed. For whatever reason, Leah then proceeded to enter the kitchen—which, for those who have never been in our kitchen, does indeed feature running water, but does not particularly qualify as a bathroom. We asked her why she was going in there, but she didn’t answer, which of course led us to ask her again. This continued for about thirty seconds. When she finally came back out of the kitchen, Leah again looked slightly confused. And again, we told her to go to the bathroom and head to bead. Her response: to walk right back into the kitchen...

When I was a sophomore in high school, there was a guy in my English class named Jeff Little. Jeff Little often wore flannel shirts and was thus dubbed “Flannelman” by the class clown, Chris Ziegler (whom, I now realize, I hero-worshipped for his ability to make everyone laugh). One day, during our study of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , we were discussing things that men and women just naturally do differently. Our teacher, Ms. Furia, asked us each to look at our fingernails. In general, the boys all held up our hands, palms facing us, our fingers bent halfway into a fist. The girls, on the other hand, held their hands with palms out and fingers extended. As Ms. Furia explained the difference, I happened to notice Jeff Little suddenly drop his hands to his side and glance around embarrassedly. Chris Ziegler obviously caught it, too, and deadpanned loudly enough for all to hear, “Flannelman seems a mite confused.” Of course, this was met with raucous laughter an...

An online friend recently alerted me to an article in Psychology Today entitled “ Colorblind Ideology is a Form of Racism .” I looked it over, and the author, Monnica Williams, Ph.D., makes a fairly intelligent-sounding case for her proposition. Unfortunately, at further glance the article boils down to an exercise in circular logic. As I commented on the original Facebook share: [B]asically, the author’s argument is that we shouldn’t work toward a colorblind society because we don’t live in a colorblind society. By that argument, we shouldn’t work for world peace because we don’t live in a peaceful world; we shouldn’t work to feed the hungry because we don’t live in a world without hunger; we shouldn’t work to educate the masses because we don’t live in a world without uneducated people. In short, if we have a goal, we must abandon it immediately because we live in a world where that goal has not yet been achieved. How does that make even the slightest amount of sense? Not su...

Today’s question comes from a high-school friend of mine, Erin Solej. She asks: “Jeff, I remember you commenting on the necessity of the electoral college, but I want to understand it better because I don't see how my vote counts with this system. Of course, I will vote, but can you please post your thoughts on this.” This is seriously a great question, Erin. I hear about this all the time—people don’t understand the Electoral College, and since people tend to fear what they don’t understand, a lot of them want to do away with it. On this point, though, I must respectfully disagree. Knowledge brings familiarity, and frankly, the Electoral College isn’t nearly as bad as some of the more outspoken among us make it out to be. So Erin, thank you so much for your question. Per your request, here are my thoughts: Back when our nation was still in diapers and the Constitution was still being written, there arose a big controversy between the states regarding representation. Some s...

So yesterday, as I walked through Walmart, I heard a guy yelling at a crying child, in the toy department. As there didn’t seem to be any physical harm occurring, I kept going, but heard part of the conversation, as best as I can recollect: Man: “Shut up!” (child keeps crying) Man: “Shut up, [name]!” (child keeps crying) Man: “SHUT UP AND STOP CRYING!” (child gets louder) Man, slightly calmer: “Look, please shut up and listen to me.” (child softens, but keeps crying) Man: “Will you listen to me? Stop crying, and listen to me?” (child stops crying) Man: “Look, we’re here to get a toy for [other child]. [Other child] is getting a toy because she did what she was told. You did not do what you were told, right?” (child whimpers) Man: “When Mommy told [other child] to go sit in the corner, she did. That’s why she’s getting a toy.” Um… parenting FAIL?

I’ve been using AppleScript for years now, but I’ve never had the opportunity to become really good at it. I can do a few simple things, but once I get beyond that, I pretty much have to turn to the web. So it was, this morning: my office has two large windows in it, so the ambient light varies quite a bit from day to day and hour to hour. I finally decided that I’m sick and tired of adjusting the brightness on three different displays—not to mention hoping that they’re all exactly the same—on a regular basis. So as usual, I turned to the web. After a few less useful hits, I finally came to an old blog post called “ Change Monitor Brightness Using AppleScript .” It was exactly what I needed, with three exceptions: Since it’s four years old, it hasn’t been updated for Mountain Lion. It isn’t designed to change multiple displays concurrently. It doesn’t include the ability to specify the brightness level, on the fly. Having solved all three of these problems, I post my resu...