“It’s becoming conventional wisdom that the U.S. does not have as much [economic] mobility as most other advanced countries,” said Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t think you’ll find too many people who will argue with that.” — Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs – NYTimes.com I’ll argue with it . . . the fact that people are not doing something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a hard thing to do. Maybe people aren’t trying to do it. Maybe people don’t want to do it. From Daniel Kahneman‘s Thinking, Fast and Slow: A large-scale study of the impact of higher education . . . revealed striking evidence of the lifelong effects of the goals that young people set for themselves. The relevant data were drawn from questionnaires collected in 1995-1997 from approximately 12,000 people who had started their higher education in elite schools in… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Family
Brown Vetoes SB 185
Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a controversial, affirmative action-like bill Saturday that would have allowed public colleges and universities in California to consider demographic factors in admissions processes. — Brown vetoes affirmative action-like SB 185 – The Daily Californian Like! I hate to sound selfish but whatever “demographic factors” they were planning to consider, I’m 110 percent sure they’d serve to penalize my kid, nieces, nephews, grandkids — everyone in my family now and forever — and for what? Racial inequities of the past that they had nothing to do with? Not interested in taking the hit for that, sorry. We’re good people. We stopped inviting the slaveholders to the family reunions because they’ve all been dead for about 100 years . . . Read more →
My Family’s Guide to Failure
At a recent family gathering, someone whom I won’t name here recommended to my son, a high school senior, that he start looking for a community college to attend for a couple of years before transferring to a four-year school. “That’s a good idea,” I said. “Do you have any more good ideas? Maybe he should punch himself in the face really hard.” One of the things I love about my boy is that when he does something, he puts his heart into it. He takes on the risk of failure. The safe approach — and historically the preferred method in my family — is to do things indifferently, fail, then announce that you weren’t really trying and that you could have succeeded if you’d wanted to.” We have family members who — despite, to my knowledge, having never done or said an intelligent thing in their lives — never… Read more →
Twitter: 2010-12-11
RT @eddiepepitone: Folks remember: just because we are powerless doesn't mean we can't ruin our health and the lives of those close to us. # Read more →
Happy Veterans Day
My dad was a Naval Academy grad who served in World War II. My brother retired after 20+ years in the Air Force. Our family is not piggybacking on others when it comes to service to America. So why do I not get the day off? Read more →
We All Keep Going
It just seems so amazing and wonderful and, well, a miracle, but I guess it’s just ordinary life, how we all keep going, isn’t it? — Joyce Carol Oates, We Were the Mulvaneys Read more →
Etiquette Tip of the Day
It’s considered poor form to borrow someone’s car and then bring it back with an empty gas tank, even if you’re members of the same family. It’s like borrowing a pen and giving it back with no ink . . . Read more →
Here Come the Brides
We went to a wedding over the weekend, although it won’t be recognized as such by the state of California because both people involved were women. One of the women is Asian, the other Mexican. Both are in their late 20s, both pretty, and they seem to be very happy together. The reception was held at The Reef restaurant, affording a beautiful view of Long Beach harbor and the downtown lights beyond. The bride wore white. The other bride also wore white. We couldn’t find a “bride and bride” wedding card at the Hallmark store. We asked an employee about it, an older woman. “You want what?” she said. “A bride and bride card. All the wedding cards are bride and groom, a man holding a woman’s hand. What we want is a bride and bride card.” “We don’t have anything like that,” she said. “You should get some.”… Read more →
Dad Is Not Nuts
As part of a family discussion, my mom names the three members of our extended family whom she considers to be nuts. My sister adds two more people to the list, including my dad. “No, Dad is not nuts,” my mom says, “although he gets along well with the nuts.” My dad says to me, “That’s the best compliment I’ve ever had from this family.” “That you’re not nuts?” I ask. “That’s right.” Read more →
Shamans: Another Reason I Prefer to Just Stay Home
My dad was telling me about a recent trip he took to the wilds of Ecuador. From the airport, it was a three-hour truck ride, followed by two hours in a motorized canoe to get to the lodge he was staying at. “That doesn’t sound good,” I said. “What if you have a medical emergency?” “There’s a shaman at the village,” he said. “And what the shamans do is they take peyote or whatever the local hallucinogen is, they hallucinate about a drug, then they go into the forest, come back with the drug and give it to you.” “Are they board certified?” “No. And the other thing they do is they blow smoke on you.” “I hate that. What kind of smoke is it?” “I think the guy has a pack of Marlboros. But if you have a heart attack or something, that’s all you’re gonna get.” Read more →
Dogs Are Smarter Than Cats
My dad is of the opinion that cats are “smarter” than dogs. Not coincidentally, he and my mom own a couple of cats, one of which was sitting next to his chair at Thanksgiving dinner. Dad decided to share some turkey with the cat. He stood up with a piece of turkey, showed it to the cat, than walked out to the kitchen and dropped it in the cat’s food dish. When he returned to his chair, the cat was still sitting there. Never moved. “That is one stupid cat,” I said. “Well, he’s three-quarters blind,” my dad said, although he didn’t say how he could possibly know that. “If my dog was here, he would have jumped up and eaten your whole dinner the second you left the room.” Read more →
Thanksgiving Memories
My dad’s holding a bottle of wine as he says, “Who wants straws?” “Are you asking me,” I say, “if I want to drink wine through a straw?” As it turns out, what he actually said was “Who wants Shiraz?” Read more →
Give Blood Play Hockey Charity Tournament
My son’s team won the tournament, my wife gave blood, and I bought 3 snickerdoodle cookies for $5 at the charity booth and ate them. All in all, a triumphant day for the whole family . . . Read more →
The Best Place to Live
Norway tops U.N. quality-of-life list; U.S. is 13th, while Niger finishes last — Associated Press, Oct. 5, 2009 Well, here we go again . . . As I’ve said before, my brother and his family used to live in Norway. He says when the sun is shining, it’s the most beautiful place in the world. The other 335 days of the year, it’s not so great . . . Read more →
Good Seats
We had good seats at the USC game today — Section 13, Row 1, right next to the field. Now you might say, like my son did, that they would have been better on the 50-yard-line, but there are a couple of good things about those seats. One is that they’re right next to the tunnel where the players come on and off the field, as do the song girls, the band and Traveler, so you get to interact with people — talk to the girls, high-five the guy on the horse, etc. The other good thing is that the Trojans scored 6 out of 8 touchdowns in the west end zone right in front of us. That’s my wife, me and a kid who looks a lot like my son except that he’s smiling. If you’re wondering about all the empty seats, the photo was taken near the end… Read more →
The Death of Ivan Ilych
It occurred to him that what had seemed perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending. There was nothing to defend. “But if that is so,” he said to himself, “and I am leaving this life with the consciousness that I have lost all that was given me and… Read more →
Twitter: 2009-07-29
Judgmental people suck # My 16yo son's visiting cousins in Australia. He tells his mom to stop calling every day. “People will think I’m a baby.” # Read more →
My Son Turned 16 Abroad
I called my son to wish him a Happy 16th Birthday. His birthday is actually tomorrow but he’s in Australia visiting his cousins for a couple of weeks and in Australia, it’s tomorrow already. When I called, he was at a train station with his cousin Lizzie — well, I’ve always called her Lizzie but she’s 19 now and may prefer Liz. They were waiting for the train to go to Bondi Beach for the day. Happy birthday kid. Miss you . . . Read more →
A Different Person
Our son’s flying to Australia for a couple weeks to visit his cousins . . . I’m talking to people at LAX in a fake Australian accent. My Australian accent is not all that tight except on words with a long “a” sound, which I replace with a long “i” sound, e.g., “mate” becomes “mite.” “Sorry, mite,” I say, as I roll a suitcase over a gentleman’s foot. “Did you just say what I thought you said?” my son asks. “When you travel,” I explain, “you can be a whole different person.” We take the bags over to the baggage scanner. I know we don’t have to wait for them but since “wait” has a long “a” sound, I ask the woman, “Do I ‘ave to white?” “No,” she says. “Jus’ drope i’ oaf then?” I ask. “Yes,” she says. Read more →
International Cuisine
We’re dropping our 15-year-old son off at LAX. He’s flying to Australia for a couple weeks to visit his cousins. He’s explaining his theory of international cuisine, which is that there’s not going to be any Mexican food in Australia because there are no Mexicans in Australia. On the other hand, they probably have New Zealand food that those of us in the States have never heard about. “That’s why it’s important to travel,” I say, “so you can learn about things like that. Or you could just stay home and watch the Travel Channel.” Read more →