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Christian Schneider

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Author: Christian (page 48 of 81)

BS System Takes Hold in Madison Schools

September 17, 2007 / / 1 Comment

If you think things like \”reading\” and \”writing\” are a little too stressful for your young kids, then Madison may have the answer for you.  Apparently a new method called the \”security, survival and self-esteem\” system of child meditation has taken hold in Madison-area schools.

Channel 15 reports (video included):

Jinendra Kothari has been teaching meditation for the past 35 years.  During his classes he would overhear teachers talking about the problems they faced in the classroom.

He set out to design a new type of meditation specifically for kids.  After years of research he developed a system that addresses the issues that all children face: security, survival and self-esteem.

\”A lot of these exercises are designed to bring symmetry to their body,\” said Jinendra. \”Most people see 3S as a simple exercise, but it is not, it is much more beyond it. That\’s why I call it beyond Yoga.\”

The 3S-Smart Learning System was created to help kids control their emotions, while increasing their overall physical and mental fitness.

After all, it is all about your child and how they feel about themselves.  So when they finally move on to middle school, they will feel good about their inability to read, write, or deal with criticism.

Actually, studies show that there are benefits to physical activity and motion programs in classrooms, as described in this paper by WPRI\’s Sammis White.  However, those activities deal more with movement and activity, and less with how to channel the spirit of the Dalai Lama.

The Loneliness of a Citadel Cheerleader

September 17, 2007 / / 0 Comments

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My buddy Gooch (you may remember him from the Packer game last year) came up with a couple tickets for the Wisconsin/Citadel football game at Camp Randall this Saturday. Since he lives in South Carolina and has relatives that went to The Citadel, the tickets were in their section. In fact, they were front row – almost field level.

Sitting with the Citadel fans was actually fairly interesting. Seeing as how their school is a tiny, state-sponsored military school of 2,000 students, they were in awe of the spectacle of Camp Randall (and of the existence of cheese curds).

The most interesting aspect of the game, however, was the Citadel cheerleaders, who were about 15 feet in front of us.

You may recall the fact that The Citadel used to be for male cadets only, until that policy was challenged in 1994 by Shannon Faulkner. The federal government threatened to withhold funds from the school unless it complied with the order to go co-ed. In 1996, four more female cadets enrolled, with two eventually dropping out. The numbers have climbed slowly since then.

At the game, I asked some of The Citadel\’s fans when they went co-ed. \”1996. Because of the f***ing federal government,\” one guy sneered. It became clear at that point that the new policy remains wildly unpopular, especially among alumni.

Before they went co-ed, I was told, The Citadel used to hire out cheerleaders from other local small colleges for their games. It was clear that now, their cheerleaders came from within the ranks of their cadets. These women were… and there\’s really no way to massage this… awfully plain-looking. Their cheerleading couldn\’t compel a dog to sniff itself.

Naturally, they were heckled by the crowd – only more so by the Citadel fans themselves, who resent their very presence at the college. After halftime, they took their sweat pants off – which compelled one fan behind me to start a \”put them back on!\” chant.

Things got even worse by comparison after the Badger cheerleaders put on a little show for our section. The Citadel fans were delighted with seeing \”real\” cheerleaders. But at that point, I put my foot down. I pointed out that the Wisconsin cheerleaders are bred genetically to be cheerleaders, while the Citadel cheerleaders are cadets – who at some point, will be fighting for our country. In a few years, the Badger cheerleaders will be pouring shots on the rocks in a bar, while the Citadel cheerleaders will be shooting at Iraquis in Anbar.

So sure, they may not be that great – but they\’re not supposed to be. They\’re supposed to be learning how to defend our country, not their football team\’s goal line. Asking those women to be cheerleaders would be like asking them to play offensive line – it just doesn\’t fit.

So here you have these poor young women who aren\’t welcome by their own fans, in a 90,000 seat stadium, where their team was undoubtedly a sacrificial lamb (they actually kept it uncomfortably close for most of the game). They deserve more praise than anyone out there on that field.

[…]

And on a related note, it really is hard to root against a military team. They obviously have no chance against teams like the Badgers, as they have strict height and weight requirements for service (somehow, The Air Force has been the exception). Those are the types of games you\’d like to win by a point – running it up against a military academy seems to be a little unsettling. Even more so, you don\’t want to see a cadet get hurt badly, as it could affect his service.

At one point, a Badger landed a late hit on a Citadel Bulldog. I figured it was bad form to cheap shot the military – best to leave that up to Moveon.org.

A Scintillating Sports Weekend

September 17, 2007 / / 0 Comments

After being on my deathbed for two days (I completely slept through Friday), I needed a good sports weekend. Fortunately, Wisconsin fans got wins from the Badgers, Packers, and a couple from the Brewers (but special thanks to the pathetic St. Louis Cardinals, who have now become the Larry Craig of the National League).

There was, however, one sporting event that eclipsed all others in terms of human drama: it was my daughter\’s first-ever soccer game in her 3-and 4-year old league. In fact, it was better attended than any of the WNBA championship series games to date.

I was prepared for this, as I had been videotaping the opposing team for weeks, Belichick-style. My daughter had never played in any kind of organized sporting event, so I had no idea how she would react. She didn\’t start, and didn\’t really seem all that interested in watching the game before going in. Naturally, this being a West Madison kid soccer league, you have a lot of kids named things like \”Jericho\” and \”Sapphire.\” Most of the kids in the game were unaware that the game was actually going on. Or who their birth parents are.

When finally called upon, my daughter was too shy to go in the game. The ref said I could run next to her if I wanted, so I did – although I know I ran the risk of looking like one of these total a-hole parents that directs their children from within a foot at all times. But finally, she forgot about me, and just ran around kicking the ball. She even scored a goal that was waved off because of some technicality about being too close to the goal or something. Since it\’s a city league, I think it is only fair that the Mayor\’s office hear about this injustice.

Sometime in the middle of the game, her two-year old brother practiced his own brand of hooliganism by running out on the field. He was standing still, which usually means one thing – he was filling his diapers. But when I thought about it, that\’s the same thing Derrick Turnbow does every time he runs out on the field, and he gets paid a lot of money. Maybe there\’s a future for my boy, after all.

Near the end of the game, one kid just wandered off the field, leaving my daughter\’s team a player short. She pulled a Scottie Pippen and refused to go back in the game, citing the deliciousness of her watermelon as the prime reason.

All in all, I couldn\’t be more proud of her. I showed her a YouTube video of Mia Hamm, and she said she wants to be as good as she is. I figure a few more weeks of intense training should do the trick – as long as she gives up the watermelon.

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"Who\’s Making Paper Over There?"

September 17, 2007 / / 0 Comments

There\’s an old Simpsons episode where Homer meets controversial director John Waters. Around the dinner table, Marge gently tries to tell Homer that Waters is gay. She says \”um, Homey, I think he enjoys the company of men.\” Homer then enthusiastically whoops out \”WHO DOESN\’T?\”

Men getting married worry about what it\’s going to be like to not be able to date different women for the rest of their lives. But honestly, the thing I\’ve missed most is the time I got to spend with my guy friends. All the gross jokes and insults you throw around casually – trust me, those don\’t really work on your wife. Then again, if you never really dated multiple women before you got married, you don\’t really have anything to miss. For you, long gone are days like the one in college where you begged one of your ugly platonic girl friends to make out with you, just so you could see what it was like – and got turned down. (Don\’t worry, there\’s at least a three percent chance that never happened to me.)

Anyway, I was in the car for a long ride with some guy friends last week, and it all came back to me. Long car rides are the birthplace of some of the best guy conversations. Naturally, the silence was eventually broken by some giggling and the rolling down of the window. You can figure out what the need for fresh air means. This act led to the following exchange:

\”Damn man, are we in Kaukauna?\”

(Editor\’s note – Kaukauna, Wisconsin has a number of paper mills, which makes it smell like the inside of Gilbert Brown\’s colon after a hard boiled egg eating competition.)

Laughing: \”Hey man, are you making paper in your ass?\”

More laughing: \”I hope they\’re making toilet paper in your colon, because you\’re going to need to wipe after that one.\”

And on and on it went. Pure comedy gold. That\’s what I miss.

And on a somewhat-related note:

Is there a more thankless job than working for the Kaukauna Chamber of Commerce? Exactly what is their motto to attract people to live there?

\”Kaukauna: After a Year, You Don\’t Even Notice!\”

\”Kaukauna: You Smell Good By Comparison!\”

\”Kaukauna: You\’ll Be Drunk on the Way Back From the Packer Game, So Then Might Be a Good Time to Visit!\”

Denied!

September 13, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Just got back into town, checked my e-mail, and found that the Journal Sentinel had denied my application to be a community columnist. Oh well, it was a long shot anyway. Good luck to whoever did get the gig (I think there are like 30 of them).

Do You Like Money?

September 11, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Caution: Only read this post if you like money. And lots of it.

I think we can all agree that the best part of a root beer float occurs when the ice cream melts and mixes with the root beer. When they\’re separate, they are just ice cream and root beer. But when they mix, you get a magical tasting concoction that doesn\’t occur elsewhere in nature.

I\’m telling you – if someone were able to figure out a way to bottle the ice cream/root beer mix and sell it, I\’d buy it by the case. It would be a lot easier than having to find an ice cream stand on the run, then waiting for the chemical transformation to take place. It would be a license to print money.

Linebrink Helps Nail Down Playoff Spot. For Cubs.

September 5, 2007 / / 0 Comments

I know this blog has degenerated into me bitching about the Brewers, but it has been for good reason. This quote in today\’s paper from recently-acquired reliever Scott Linebrink set me off:

As so often happens for the Brewers, no matter what the score is in the early going, the final innings were adventuresome. Houston scored two unearned runs in the seventh off reliever Scott Linebrink, who heard his share of boos when Yost opted not to pull him with the bases and one down.

\”There\’s not a lot of teams I\’ve been on in a division race, where you\’re in control of the game and don\’t give up the lead and you still get booed,\” Linebrink said.

So for Linebrink (who my friend Jay has dubbed \”LineDrive\”), loading the bases with one out and giving up two runs is known as \”being in control.\” Hey – he didn\’t give up the three-run lead, right?

Here\’s a memo to this jackass: fully one-quarter of the Brewers\’ losses this year have been because of the bullpen – which his acquisition was supposed to help. Instead, he\’s exacerbated their bullpen problems. In fact, I think there\’s some question as to whether Linebrink knows if he\’s playing for the right team – I heard he was found in the Astros\’ locker room tapping his foot. After blowing 15 games where they were ahead by more than three runs, you\’d think he\’d understand fan frustration.

Linebrink\’s 2006 salary is listed as $1,365,000. So I\’ll strike a deal with Mr. Sensitive: He can pay $100 so he and his kids can come to my work to boo me, and I\’ll take the $1.3 million. In fact, I\’d be willing to go in to a game and walk the bases full for only $500,000. Think of the savings to the Brewers.

The fact that the Padres were so willing to part with this moron in the midst of their own playoff run says a lot. When teams in first place are unloading middle relief (which other teams are always trying to acquire around the trade deadline), an alarm should go off.

And if he\’s sensitive to booing, he should try being Derrick Turnbow for a day. I would boo Turnbow before he comes in the game, while he\’s in the game, when he leaves the game, when he leaves the stadium to walk out to his car, and while he\’s mowing his lawn at home. If I saw him ordering dinner on a date at a restaurant, I\’d walk up and boo him. \”You ordered the salmon? Boo! Boooooooo!\”

Fatally Delicious

September 5, 2007 / / 0 Comments

This is historically bad news for my household:

First, it hit the workers. From Milwaukee to Missouri and California, the fake butter flavor they mixed for use in microwave popcorn poisoned their lungs. Now, in the first case of its kind, a doctor has found a possible link between serious lung disease and consumers of microwave popcorn.

\”I was as surprised as I could be,\” said Cecile Rose, the chief occupational and environmental medicine physician at National Jewish Medical and Research Center, one of the nation\’s most prestigious lung disease hospitals. Rose has seen many cases of factory workers\’ lungs destroyed by a chemical called diacetyl, responsible for giving microwave popcorn its buttery flavor, but never in a consumer of the popcorn. Until she started seeing a 53-year-old Colorado man whose favorite snack was microwave popcorn.

I probably down two or three bags of this stuff per week while watching sports. All this time I thought it was going to be the Brewers that finally killed me – instead, it\’s going to be what I\’ve been eating while watching them. Now I\’m going to have to eat more of my wife\’s all-natural hippie popcorn.

Do Longer Doctor Hours Affect Patient Care?

September 5, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Concerned that their doctors-in-training were working too many marathon shifts, many states have limited the number of hours their residents can work.  The thinking was that long shifts often affected patient care, leading residents to make mistakes in their treatments.

A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association actually shows no correlation between hours worked and the quality of care given to  Medicaid patients.  They conclude that \”implementation of duty hours limitations was not associated with any significant change in risk-adjusted mortality among Medicare patients.\”

Cigarette Taxes Up, Revenue Down

September 5, 2007 / / 6 Comments

The State Policy Network Blog points out the unintended effect of New Jersey\’s newly increased cigarette tax – it actually reduces revenue to the state.  SPN points to an Asbury Park Press column by Gregg Edwards, which says:

To support the Fiscal Year 2007 state budget, Gov. Corzine successfully proposed increasing the cigarette tax by 17.5 cents, from $2.40 to 2.575 per pack. It was the fourth tax increase in a six-year period and it made New Jersey\’s tax the highest state tax in the nation.

Here was the result: In FY 2006, the cigarette tax raised more than $787 million. In FY 2007 – after it was hiked by almost 7 percent – the tax raised only $764 million, or $23 million less than the previous year.

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Some of the sales decline was due to smokers giving up an expensive habit, but that can\’t explain its magnitude. Many smokers don\’t buy cigarettes from New Jersey retailers. Instead, some purchase cigarettes in the states that border New Jersey, all of which have lower cigarette prices. While New Jersey\’s sales are plummeting, Delaware\’s are increasing. And it\’s certainly not the case that more Delaware residents are becoming smokers. Also, some smokers make purchases via the Internet. Others even buy in the black market, which owes its very existence to New Jersey\’s steep tax.

So higher taxes means less revenue to the state – and while some of the reduction can be attributed to people quitting smoking, much of it likely means people are getting their cigarettes from other sources.  In fact, recent research suggests that higher cigarette taxes don\’t, in fact, dissuade low-income smokers from quitting.

Of course, Governor Doyle\’s proposed per-pack cigarette tax increase of $1.25 far exceeds the new 17.5 cent tax in New Jersey.  So it will take a lot more people quitting or purchasing their cigarettes from out of state or online to offset the tax increase.  However, this effect supports Deb Jordahl\’s WPRI Commentary from last week, which demonstrates the paradox of state government relying on a new tax that is intended to keep people from a behavior that is needed to keep collecting the tax.

"Here and Now" This Week

September 1, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Tonight\’s \”Here and Now\” commentary goes out to all the U.S. Americans:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj3nyJ-MOh8]

There\’s even a little acting. I smell Emmy….

I also need to clarify a point made on the original broadcast. The introduction to my commentary mentioned that I wanted to see the program \”cut.\” That\’s not really the case – I\’m merely lobbying for more parental involvement in the program. Either way, I can imagine the Wisconsin Public Television e-mail server is kindly accepting hate mail as we speak.

As Flannery O\’Connor said, \”you have to push as hard as the age that pushes against you.\”

Get Your "Here and Now" On

August 31, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Tonight\’s the night. Pour a glass of wine, light some candles, get the love oils out, and settle down with the one you love to watch \”Here and Now\” on public television together. I will be providing some moderately considered commentary at roughly the 24 minute mark.

For those in markets where it\’s not on until Sunday, you can catch it online here. I\’ll try to post my part on the site here after it\’s on.

This may be the week that I finally get thrown off the air forever. So you may want to watch carefully.

Things I\’d Rather be Doing

August 29, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Rumor has it that there is some sort of \”baseball contest\” being performed at Wrigley Field tonight. I, for one, would rather watch \”Chocolate Rain\” on a three hour loop than watch any more Brewer games this year:

Quiz Time

August 28, 2007 / / 0 Comments

By now, you may have heard about the Meng brothers, Chinese miners who had to go to extraordinary lengths to stay alive while trapped in a mine:

Trapped miners ate coal, drank urine

BEIJING – The Meng brothers felt pretty good about their chances of making it out of the collapsed coal mine, until the sound of digging from outside stopped. With no food or water, they were forced to eat coal and drink their own urine from discarded bottles. When they were too exhausted to try to dig themselves out, they slept huddled together in the cold and dark. Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou finally clawed their way to the surface after nearly six days underground — a rare tale of survival in China\’s coal mines, the world\’s deadliest, where an average of 13 workers are killed every day.

Now a question for Brewer fans – would you rather watch the Brewers play the Cubs for the upcoming three game series, or would you rather be trapped in a mine, forced to eat coal and drink your own urine? Take plenty of time to think about it.

POST GAME 1 UPDATE: It\’s urine in a landslide.

Xtreme Bean Counting

August 28, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Have you been looking to join the high-pressure world of counting things? Are you interested in the fast-moving job of reading pieces of paper and entering numbers on those papers into a computer?

According to this promotional video, you may be just enough of a thrill-seeker to work at… the Wisconsin Department of Revenue! Get ready for the nonstop action of poring over tax forms and entering that data into a computer.  Sense of adventure (and willingness to take short lunch breaks) required.

In the video, intended to get people fired up about the bean-counting over at DOR, it mentions that the agency is reponsible for \”providing property tax relief for the taxpayers of Wisconsin.\” Actually, the Legislature does that via changes in the law – DOR just cuts the checks.  In fact, there\’d be a little more \”property tax relief\” available had DOR not spent money on this ridiculous video.   DOR taking credit for property tax relief shows they\’re trying to fool prospective employees into thinking that all the calls they get from taxpayers are going to be friendly calls thanking them for all the wonderful tax relief they provide.

Oh, and did I mention that the DOR workforce is diverse?  They only point it out three times in the video.  As if some guy sitting at home in his underwear watching \”The View\” is going to turn down a job offer because DOR doesn\’t employ enough Eskimos.

Of course, DOR is a vital department to the well-being of the state.  The more truant taxpayers they can track down, the less you will have to pay.  But it\’s not exactly like they\’re picking from a pool of recruits whose only options are to either join the Navy SEALS or enter data from tax forms into a computer.

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