little delinquents

So I am a fan of conceptual and causal diagrams.  Hopefully this one will be a bit easier to read than the last one.  It is for a paper about initial life trajectories of children, delinquency, social structure/agency, and the difference that religious institutions would make.  I am sure that description totally sold the paper... anyway, who doesn't like a few good structure/agency arguments here and there!?

'T's are different points in time.

thoughts on ought

In Dostoevsky's book, Crime and Punishment, the main character undertakes an experiment of living that takes him down a very dark road.  Apart from the darkness of the path he choose to go down, I think it is interesting because he decides to turn his thoughts and ideas about life into a life he actually lives.  Dostoevsky says, "In place of dialectics life had arrived..."  Life is often an imposing force that does not allow us to merely think about it passively, but forces decisions and actions out of us.  


This is also usually the hard part.  It is one thing to think and talk about life, what it means to live life, and how it should be done.  It is a completely different thing, however, when that life theorized about in conversations arrives.  Do we tend to act in accordance with the things we talk about doing - do what we say should be done?  Or do we merely continue to have impassioned conversations about universal moral maxims and platitudes that are then kept at a safe distance from our day to day life?

I find this to be a real struggle.  I can see clearly why the Reformation idea of 'vocation' and of serving one's neighbor is first based in a life of repentance.  With so many failings in life - both in terms of doing and not doing - it can be easy to be paralyzed with the weight of failure.  We deeply need something, indeed, Someone to pull us out of the catch-22 of life's imposition.  The challenge is to be aware of needs so deeply that they are no longer merely an idea for conversation, but a desired reaction to forgiveness' removal of failure's millstone and the recurrence of life's imposition.

life and paths

Here is a short passage from Tolstoy that I have been thinking about lately...

"If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side! If it is not the right way, then show me another way; but if I stagger and lose the way, you must help me, you must keep me on the true path, just as I am ready to support you.  Do not mislead me, do not be glad that I have got lost, do not shout out joyfully: 'Look at him! He said he was going home, but there he is crawling into a bog!'  No, do not gloat, but give me your help and support."

Growing Season

From Photostream

Your growing season seems longer than most - an attribute I hope to export.

remodel!

When we bought the condo we already knew that we wanted to make some changes where the kitchen is because it felt so closed off from the rest of the house.  Recently when the wife's parents came out for a visit we also tore out a bit of the wall and made it into a shelf - opening up the kitchen a bit.  Here are some before and after pics for your enjoyment....

From A Step Beyond

From A Step Beyond

here we are putting some finishing touches on it. so jolly...

From A Step Beyond

and finished!

From A Step Beyond

From A Step Beyond

Distinction

How is it that we are able to tell the difference between things, and how are there such stark differences in what people recognize?  This is one of the topics that we were talking about today in the undergrad class that I work with and I thought some of it was pretty interesting.  Back in like the 80's this French dude, Pierre Bourdieu, did some research on culture and how people think about it, and what makes people like different things (think: micro-brew beer vs. bud light).

He would ask things like 'what is a photo beautiful' with answer choices like: sunset, bark of a tree, and a woman  breastfeeding (i know, that one seems totally random).  Turns out that there are strong social class differences in people's answers.  Lower class people like sunset photos (easily appealing, colorful, easy to 'understand'), middle class people like the woman breast feeding (ahhh, not sure here - value family?), and rich people like picture of tree bark (drawn to abstract stuff, appreciate subtle art themes more).  Now, these were strong differences and not just like some upper class people here and what not.  Weird.

The idea is that we all live in certain social circles that then impact what we understand, recognize, like, appreciate and so on.  Why are something things familiar to us while other things we don't 'get?'  Only certain people recognize different wines, let alone even like it (or can afford it even more).  But it can be more than just physical things like art and food/drinks.  Religion is like this (type of music one likes in church, theologically liberal or conservative, and so on), and pop culture (movies, music, who dates who), politics...

Here is the part from class that I thought was interesting (if you stuck with me this long).  Two things.  First, Baylor has more upper class students and some will recognize this and others think what they see here is pretty common.  This thinking that upper-middle class-ness is normal or not actually as upper class as it is is conditioned by community and context in just the same way.  No, it is not normal for everyone to be wearing Sperry Topsiders with their niki running shorts - but you see it enough you will start to think that this is not related to money.  No, normally there are not this many Mercedes on a college campus.  They have a lot of money, but it is relativized so that they don't think of it as a lot, but as 'normal.'

The second thing is volunteering.  Baylor really pushes this.  It is even to the point that some of their scholarships require students to do things in the community here a few times per week.  It would be interesting to see what difference (if any) this makes for constructing a certain view of volunteering as something that 'normal' people do.  I hope it does make that difference.  On the flip side, it reinforces distinctions here.  The students 'go out' into the community to help them.  The school is separated as different and reinforced as such.  They are not a part of the community, but they are the big brother that steps in to beat off the bullies when the brother is able to show up when needed.  the 'we' goes to help the 'them.'  Not making 'our' community better, but helping 'their' community.  Makes me think, how do we understand volunteering?  How should we?

strain!

So today I have a presentation on general strain theories of crime.  Just for 'fun' I thought I would share the causal model that I drew up for it for all of you closet sociologists and criminologists.  I know you are out there... somewhere. Not sure if it is 'clickable' or not, but if it is you want to see it a bit larger. Cheers.

An attempt at shorter blogs - I think I failed

Some randomness about life lately
-I'm currently watching Raising Hope, a new show that comes on after Glee that surprisingly my Mom told me to watch, but is really quite appalling to watch as a Pediatrician (but does make me laugh)

- Good week - margaritas 2 nights in a row ;) (last night we had a 2nd year residency dinner at a Mexican place as we all had the night off in preparation for a "resident as teachers" session today, and then as part of the session we all had dinner at one of the attendings house tonight...and don't worry, margaritas weren't what made it a good week, more just time off hanging out with friends.

-Went to San Francisco 2 weekends ago for the American Academy of Pediatrics conference. Interesting experience, very enlightening about politics of such a big organization, great to see the neat things people are doing in peds all around the country and enjoyed seeing San Franscisco with one of my medical school friends (quite a bit different experience than the last time I was there on a mission trip during high school).

-Went to a little bit of the Gold Humanism Honor Society conference here in Dallas next weekend. Awesome conference and very inspiring as the overall idea of the Society is to create compassionate caring doctors who put patients first and encourage humanities/creative arts within medicine. So many people doing amazing things in medical school and residency education!

-Loving the weather here in Dallas. The kind of weather I wish all summer was like, although I miss leaves changing color. Evenings and mornings are still a little crisp though, so still feels a little fallish despite temps in the 80's most days

Enough randomness for now.

ehhh

I like an interesting mix of clothes.  I am a huge fan of the worn-out T-shirt, cargo or just cut-off shorts, and chacos/sanuks/keen/flip flops.  It is always a good time for these.

then, on the other hand,  i am also a big fan of bow-ties, suits, 3-piece suits (yep, they get their own category), and of course vests.  this last one can be a bit unfortunate, especially in light of the TV show, Glee.  especially after the zinger this week: "You wear more vests than the cast of Blossom." 

I taught the undergrad class solo this past week and wore the vest.  thought i should look a little more professional, as that is the style there (maybe requirement, too - not sure).  I think I may have associated myself with Will on Glee now and got some somewhat muted smiles from some in the class.

ehhhh.