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Monthly Archives: March 2014

Two Good Reads, an Invitation & a Request

30 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 3 Comments

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"Composing a Further Life", "Composing a Life", "Stoner", John Williams, Mary Katherine Bateson

Usually I don’t post much on this website about books I’m reading, saving any comments or reviews for the end of the year listing of Books Most Enjoyed by MillersTime Readers.

But I have just finished two books, one fiction and one nonfiction, that I particularly enjoyed, each for different reasons, and thus didn’t want to wait until December to write about them.

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The Best Article on Parenting Ever

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, Family and Friends

≈ 2 Comments

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The Atlantic Magazine, The New Yorker

No.

I’m not referring to either of the recent Atlantic Monthly articles that seem to have opposite conclusions: Hanna Rosen’s Hey! Parents, Leave Those Kids Alone or Alfie Kohn’s The Over-Protected Kid.

I’m referring to a short New Yorker article entitled New Parenting Study Released with this opening paragraph:

A recent study has shown that if American parents read one more long-form think piece about parenting they will go fucking ape shit.

 Read it through yourself, being sure to get to the last couple of paragraphs.

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The Shoe Changes Foot

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop

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2014 Senate Seats, FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver, Paul Krugman

(or is it “The Shoe Changes Feet” ?)

On Monday, Nate Silver, formerly the data guru at the NY Times and now master of his own fate at his new website FiveThirtyEight.com, posted the following:

 Senate Forecast: GOP Is Slight Favorite in Race for Senate Control

Numerous news reports, inside and outside the Beltway prognosticators, various columnists, politicians, and even bloggers have been saying something similar for the last several months.

But when Nate Silver, the guy who in the last Presidential race called every state’s result exactly right ahead of the vote, suddenly attention was paid.

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One Play, Two Movies and…

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 4 Comments

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"Child's Pose", "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", "The Grand Budapest Hotel", "Water by the Spoonful", Berlin Film Festival prizes, The Studio Theatre

One play, two films, and a heads up about a play that is coming to NY:

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Unknown Knowns?

21 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 4 Comments

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"The Fog of War", "The Unknown Known", documentary films, Donald Rumsfeld, Errol Morris, Robert McNamara

Rumsfield.107386_gal

Oscar winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris (The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line) has made a documentary focusing on Donald Rumsfeld’s life in government, largely, though not exclusively, on his role as Secretary of Defense in the George W. Bush administration.

(Morris’ The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, won an Academy Award as Best Documentary in 2003. I did not see it, but by many accounts it was an insightful, powerful film in which Morris was able to draw out McNamara about his role in the Vietnam War. One reviewer, Fred Kaplan, The Lies of The Fog of War, praised Morris for his ability to capture McNamara’s introspection, However, Kaplan also writes about the many “instances of McNamara’s mendacity” in that documentary.)

Along with Ellen and several friends, last night we saw a pre-release of Morris’ new film, The Unknown Known. If you plan to see this documentary, soon to be released nationwide, stop reading now as there are spoilers in what follows.

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Contest Deadline Extended

21 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

≈ 4 Comments

2007. WS.photoWith a bit of reluctance (not wanting to reward slackers, procrastinators, and laggards), I am, nevertheless, extending the deadline for submissions to the 2014 MillersTime Baseball Contests.

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“How like a winter hath my absence been from thee…”

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

≈ 9 Comments

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"Winter in Fenway", baseball, Boston Red Sox, DGA Productions, Fenway, Shakespeare, Sonnet 97, Spring, Vimeo, Winter

In Shakespeare’s 97th Sonnet, the narrator writes about his separation from his lover: “How like a winter hath my absence been/From thee…”

For some of us, this winter has been a particularly difficult absence from our love.

I speak, of course, of baseball.

But now we are closing in on Opening Day.

Check out the DGV Productions Winter in Fenway below for 2:59 seconds of merging winter, baseball, and Shakespeare.

It’s lovely.

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What a Weekend

17 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 5 Comments

So much to appreciate and to celebrate:

* One daughter, after three months of training and along with some friends, completed her first 1/2 marathon, cheered on by her husband, her three children, and her mother.

Annie 1_2.1901398_10151976937357036_1211910377_n

* One daughter left Miami after two and a half years and arrived in Kansas City to join her fiance and to complete the final ten weeks of her job with the Knight Foundation, before celebrating her June 21, 2014 wedding.

Ebit.noname

* Soon to retire from her 42 years working in the public interest world, Ellen — wife, mother, grandmother — is profiled in Chronicle of Philanthropy, witnesses one daughter’s first 1/2 marathon run, spends extended time with her three grandchildren, and squeezes in time to find a possible dress for her other daughter’s wedding.

RedSox angels. MG_6556

*And I, Richard — husband, father and GrandPapa- – and partner in the establishment and operation of a school for troubled kids and their families for 32 years, spent the weekend in New Orleans. There, along with four other founders of The Family Foundation, Inc. and The Frost School, I participated in planning for the Foundation’s expanded mission for its final ten years, and successfully found a bit of time for the delights of New Orleans.

FF.photo

Definitely a weekend to remember.

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The Importance of Grandparents

16 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends, Go Sox

≈ 7 Comments

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Boston Red Sox, Grandchildren, Grandparenting, Grandparents

 

RedSox angels. MG_6556

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A Fantasy, Partially Fulfilled

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 4 Comments

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"Elsa & Fred", "The Immigrants", "The Mountain", "Words and Pictures", Miami International Film Festival

Four Films in 26 Hours

Miami Film Festival.photo For some time now I’ve wanted to attend one of the premier film festivals (Sundance, Tellerude, Toronto, etc.) and immerse myself in five or six days of nonstop film watching.

I got a taste of that this past weekend when I was in Florida, taking in a few Sox spring training games and visiting my soon departing Miami daughter.

A couple of months ago said daughter sent me the program for the March 2014 Miami International Film Festival, and without much planning or investigating, I quickly chose four films that sounded of interest and got tickets.

How was it?

I loved it.

I saw one film Friday night at 7 PM and three the next day, at 1:15, 3:30, and 7 PM.

The films were all very different, but all four were enjoyable and entertaining. None will win awards, I suspect, but there is something I continue to enjoy about not knowing before hand much about what I’ll see.

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Something We Know, and Now We Know Why

10 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest

≈ 3 Comments

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Brain Development, Helping Adolescents Negotiate Troubles, Regulating Impulses & Emotions, Teenage Brains, Teenage Suidcide

People often say adolescence is a time of turmoil, and for some, tho not all by any means, it certainly is.

When a group of us were working at a school for troubled kids, a mentor, Laurence Frost, use to remind us that perhaps the best we could do for some of the adolescents was to provide them with structure and a ‘floor’ upon which they could steady themselves until the natural maturation processes took over.

Now there is research to explain what he knew from his work and from his experiences at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital with children and adolescents.

Two articles today bring this to my mind. On the front page of the Washington Post is an article, On the Reservation, Childhoods Lost, about the high rate of suicides for Native Americans. In the Boston Globe, there is an article, Teens’ Brains Make Them More Vulnerable to Suicide, including the following paragraphs:

Researchers have long known that the basic problem with the teenage brain is the “asymmetric” or unbalanced way the brain develops, said Dr. Timothy Wilens, a child psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital specializing in adolescents, addictions, and attention deficit disorder.

The hippocampus and amygdala, which Wilens calls the “sex, drugs, and rock and’n’ roll,” part of the brain, feels and stores emotions and is associated with impulses. It matures well ahead of the section of the brain that regulates those emotions and impulses, the prefrontal cortex.

Throughout the teenage years and up until about age 25, this executive section of the brain, also responsible for planning and decision, lags behind, Wilens says.

Until the front part of the brain catches up, if kids get sad, “they really experience sadness un-tethered.” He adds. “It’s why first love really does break the heart.”

The developmental gap between these two parts of the brain working together does not just pertain to suicide, but it is probably also related to other behavioral and emotional issues for some adolescents.

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