Thought of the Day 01.12.10

Yesterday on the show, we discussed the problem of screaming children on a plane, where the obvious solutions of either making the other passengers endure or kicking the kids off are both undesirable. But what if this dilemma is really due to a lack of imagination by the airlines? Consider some possibilities:

An airline which only serves people over the age of 18, or 12 for that matter. Does anyone doubt this option would sell, and probably at a premium?

An airline which deliberately caters to families travelling with children, a sort of playplace in the skies. They could sell more seats (since kids are both smaller and weigh less) and provide a big play area in the middle of the plane, making the flight better for everyone.

Or an airline which simply has distinct child and no-child rows similar to the old smoking and non-smoking areas. Having these rows at the front might even alleviate some of the pre-boarding issues airlines deal with.

The widespread affordability of air travel has made the current problem possible. Perhaps a little creative thinking will both solve it and make a profit in the process.

Thought of the Day 01.11.10

Our language has been so ravaged by deconstructing postmodernists that we might be said to suffer from chronic terminology obsession syndrome. People aren’t short, they’re vertically challenged. People aren’t handicapped, they’re differently-abled. And people don’t commit sexual sin, they simply have alternative lifestyles. Yet despite all the effort to reframe our thinking through Orwellian language abuse, one rather unacceptable term seems to have gone unnoticed.

When a person is still alive but with negligible brain function, we say she is a “vegetable.” Perhaps we try to sound slightly more erudite by saying she is “in a persistent vegetative state,” but that’s just the same word with a doily wrapped around it. There are all sorts of terms that could be used for such a person. Non-cognitive. Mentally inactive. Even brain dead strikes me as fairly innocuous.

People are made in the image of God with all the dignities this entails. No matter how much function they have lost, comparing them to produce seems pretty obviously unacceptable.

Thought of the Day 01.08.10

A few weeks ago, I was making our year-end donations, but I was doing it online. Just as I was about to complete the transaction, I realized I was missing a tremendous opportunity. So I paused and went to get Spencer and Ethan. When I brought them into the room, I told them where we were giving, why it’s important to help the poor, and even how much so they would understand the importance of this value to us.

Then we took a few moments to pray for the people who needed help, which turned the rather abstract event of clicking on a web icon into a ceremony of sorts. Spencer even declared he’d like to give some of his own money to help the poor people as well, which naturally warmed this father’s heart greatly.

It was one of those moments that easily could have just passed without squeezing the maximum benefit from it. It’s just one more reminder to me how proactive I need to be at including my children in the things I want them to learn are right and how visible they need my right deeds to be. A good example unobserved is no example at all.

Thought of the Day 01.07.10

On my very first day back from vacation, I decided to de-ice the office freezer, in part because I needed to put something in there. My preferred tool for this job was a large screwdriver, temporarily conscripted into service as an ice pick. I had de-iced freezers this way many times in the past. So what could possibly go wrong?

Well, the little plume of escaping gas after one over-exuberant poke was my answer. Turns out, that’s the refrigerant. (Luckily, it's not Freon.) So yes, in one fell stroke, I felled the refrigerator. And, having admitted my foolishness to my coworkers, I now fully expect to be regularly lampooned by them. In fact, if I don’t at least occasionally find a screwdriver on my desk when I arrive at work, I’ll be disappointed.

You see, beyond mere humor value, such ridicule conveys a very important message. First, it reminds me that I make mistakes, which is good for humility. But second, and more importantly, it declares that my friends love me even with my hilarious flaws. Whereas the laughter of enemies wounds, the laughter of friends heals.

Thought of the Day 01.06.10

As a mathematical snob, I’ve often repeated the old insult that the lottery is a tax on people who can’t do math. That part is true. But lottery players don’t always believe wildly improbable things will happen. After all, they drive, and this despite the much greater odds of dying in a car crash than of winning the lottery.

So why do people believe the probable in driving but the improbable in jackpots? I think the answer is simple: it’s what they imagine. Though people fleetingly imagine car crashes, they primarily imagine and enjoy the experience of driving places safely. But with lottery tickets, they imagine winning, and they imagine it vividly over and over, even at the moment they are wasting their money. This instead of picturing the real things they could buy with the money saved on unpurchased tickets.

So people drive because they picture success and they buy lottery tickets because they picture success. Apparently, imagination is more persuasive than math for significant numbers (sorry) of people.