And They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Blogs

The term "avatar" is pretty mainstream nowadays, what with a blockbuster movie by that name out in the theaters. I first remember it as it related to Second Life, a virtual world in which you could buy things, fall in love, and host meetings. Avatars, a sort of digital alter ego, allowed people to be what they wanted to be in the real world, in a virtual world.

Sounds kind of nerdy and perhaps even a little phony. But I wonder if we all have created avatars just the same, even if we aren't trolling around in Second Life. After all, very few of our Twitter updates and Facebook statuses are truly revealing; more often than not, they are part of a carefully crafted branding strategy intended to demonstrate our clever, cultured, and/or popular we are.

Looking in the mirror, I'd have to say "guilty as charged," as well. Even when I am trying to be vulnerable and transparent in sharing something personal, I am usually pretty mindful of controlling how I am read. To be sure, discretion is a necessity in the online world, but I have to admit that oftentimes it is not discretion but inauthenticity that I am demonstrating in my writing.

For those of us who are Christians and who keep blogs or otherwise engage others in social media, I wonder what those who do not share our life perspective or faith upbringing think of us when they read our words; and, on a not unrelated note, what is it that we want them to think of us? Do we come off as educated, insightful, or daring? Relievingly normal or stereotypically pushy? Do we have it all together or are our lives incongruous with what we purport to believe?

If Jesus blogged, I imagine he'd be as He was in the flesh: always on display, ever focused on His life mission, irresistibly engaging, often with a word of distress for the comfortable and a word a comfort for the distressed. He'd be comfortable with who He was, and yet able to let in his inner circle in moments of great pressure. And, whether you were attracted or repelled by Him, you'd never doubt that you were seeing Him authentically and not through a carefully constructed avatar.

Will they know we are Christians by our blogs? Maybe not, and maybe that's OK. There's nothing inherently wrong with being flippant and coy, biting and mocking, and with using social media to do so in a more public forum. And there's nothing wrong with keeping private details private, whether for the sake of discretion or any other reason.

But if you are a believer and you blog, by all means I encourage you as I encourage myself, towards more authenticity. We who follow Jesus are by no means perfect, and many of us bear many scars, both from the world and from our own mistakes. And yet, the good news is not that Christians are better people, less pock-marked and more desirable as a result; but rather that God somehow loves us through our blemishes, and even more incredibly, uses us through (and not just in spite of) those blemishes to love others. If we are in fact deeply fascinating living testimonies of such a great God, who wants to put forth a man-made, poorly-conceived avatar instead?

Responding to Fatherly Discipline

Our kids' extra needs impose additional parenting challenges on Amy and me, particularly in the realm of instruction and discipline. Jada's communicative delays muddy our ability to guide her when she is in the wrong, to explain to her why we said what we said, and to understand where she is coming from when she has misbehaved. Aaron's oppositional issues mean that every time we need to correct him - and, for a three-year-old, isn't that something that happens about two dozen times a day? - we brace ourselves for the full force of his defiance and rage. To say the least, it is a frustrating and tiring experience; our kids are no more or less bad than others, but their responses to our correction and punishment make parenting extra challenging.

It occurs to me that we often frustrate our Heavenly Father in the same ways. It can seem at times that we do not speak the same language, or at least are misfiring when it comes to the hearing and heeding. And our defiance may not approximate a toddler's in outward appearance, it is borne of the same mistrusting, me-first sentiment. No one likes to be disciplined, but everyone needs it; easier to understand when we are on the correcting side, easier to forget when we are the ones in need of the correcting. In other words, if there is a silver lining in discipline challenges being a daily occurrence in the Huang household, it is that I have many reminders throughout the day of what disobedience and obstinance looks like, that I might check myself to see if I am being the same way.

Lazy Linking, Third in an Occasional Series

Lazy linking, the third offering in an occasional series when I come across things I like and have an opinion on but want to write only one line in response instead of a whole post.

* The "inconvenient truth" about global warming is that you actually have to do painful things to reduce carbon emissions, rather than just look cool saying you're for the environment. So it's one thing to say you're "green," but are you willing to give up your pet dog or tell your congressman to increase gas taxes?

* Unconvential Christmas gifts for any budget: from old sports stadiums to your very own Internet site aggregator page.

* Forget the many "best of 2009" or even "best of the decade" lists; the Onion tops them all with a hilarious "top 10 stories of the past 4.5 billion years."

* How's this for creative use of social media: my high school classmate pointed me to his version of the Christmas story a la Facebook, while Home Alone is retold via 22 Twitter accounts.

* Everyone loved A Christmas Story this past weekend, but I have to ask: what's more dated - the fact that parents let kids shoot BB guns or the "Fa Ra Ra Ra" scene?

The Christmas Story: It's Complicated

Even the most secular among us is often not offended by Christmas-themed references to the baby Jesus. After all, it's just a little baby. And, as Easter has become sanitized to encompass generic messages of hope and redemption, so has the little baby in the manger come to represent innocence and wonder.

And yet. The earliest readers of the Bible, while they may have gotten the warm fuzzies when they got to the baby Jesus stories, would invariably also have had to pause at a few of the details of the accounts. Consider that the gospel of Matthew, written to Jews, starts with a genealogy, which is not unusual; but it is a genealogy that includes women, which is highly unusual. And consider that each of the women included in the genealogy brought a little, shall we say, flavor into Jesus' lineage:

* Tamar dressed up as a prostitute and tricked Judah into sleeping with her;

* Rahab was a harlot and a non-Jew;

* Ruth was a non-Jew;

* Bathsheba was the woman King David slept with, and then, after finding out he had gotten her pregnant, he killed her husband to cover up his indiscretion.

There's a fifth woman in the lineage, of course. Mary was found to be with child even though she and Joseph weren't married yet. It took two angelic visits, one to Mary and one to Joseph, to convince the couple to soldier on, in spite of what must have been a growing amount of whispering and finger-pointing within their community.

To be sure, the gospel accounts tell of plenty of admirers of the baby Jesus - the shepherds, the wise men, Anna and Simeon. But it also speaks of an enraged and threatened king, Herod, who reacted to letting the baby Jesus slip out of his grasp by killing all the little boys two and under in the greater Bethlehem area.

This is quite a scandalous story, when you bring it all together. And, whether for a more ancient readership or for viewers from today, the ultimate complication to the innocence of the baby Jesus account is what that baby represents. If Easter means that mankind is so corrupt that drastic action must be taken: the Son of God must die to make it right. And Christmas is the bookend to that action: mankind is so corrupt that the Son of God must be born into this world to make it right.

I recall a recent debate by noted Sam Harris, an atheist, and Andrew Sullivan, a Catholic. I ended up appreciating Harris' words more than Sullivan's, because it appeared that Harris had read his Bible more thoroughly. Over and over again, Harris pointed out just how jarring and presumptuous were the claims of the Bible, and Sullivan often tried to soften those claims. But Harris is right: if you really read your Bible, you don't emerge with many saccharine, feel-good thoughts. Instead, you are left to consider the possibility that you are in need of a Savior, birthed not of a man-made narrative but one far more complicated and messy than that of our own lives, and far more dramatic and gripping than what any Hollywood director could conceive.

This Christmas, deep and meaningful religious consideration may be far from your mind. It's a four-day weekend, the kids are running around with glee because of all of the toys, and we can take a little breath after zooming around for so long. And, "holiday cheer," however artificial, at least causes everyone to be pleasant and cordial. But I encourage you to take a moment to consider the "Christ" in Christmas, to contemplate the baby born on the run to two young'uns, laid into a horse trough because there was no room at the local inn. However complicated the real Christmas story, it is a story worth considering this morning.

The Racial and Spatial Elements of Abortion

I am wading into a controversial topic without much information to work with, obviously a dangerous combination. However, I did want to present this link to a pro-life organization's recent newsletter: "Calling Out the Abortion Goliath." Again, people have different opinions, morally and politically, about whether abortion should be legal in the US. I am not here to argue a position from those perspectives. Why I like this newsletter article is that it reminds us of the racial and spatial element of the abortion industry:

* "Presently, America’s pregnancy help centers are set up in predominantly white, suburban, and small-town communities. This reflects the demographics of our current movement. But long ago, Planned Parenthood explicitly identified its profit centers: 'young women, low-income women, and women of color' (Planned Parenthood Plan of Action, 1997). Studies show that 62.5% of Planned Parenthood facilities are located in cities where Blacks represent a higher percentage of the population compared to the overall population of the state."

* "Black women, who represent 12% of the female population, suffer 36% of all abortions . . . The abortion industry kills as many Black people every four days as the Klan killed in 150 years. Since 1973, legal abortion has killed more Blacks than AIDS, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and violent crime combined."

* "'We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.' - a 1922 quote from Margaret Sanger, Founder, American Birth Control League (renamed Planned Parenthood in 1942)."

Oftentimes, the abortion debate pits one group, who views the act as a woman's choice to do what she wants to do with her body, with another group, who views the act as murder. Let's remember that there are other facets to this topic, which intersect with how we sort ourselves racially and spatially in this country.

Holiday Par-tay

Many inches of snow could not deter our small group Bible study members from making the trek to our house for good fun, kid craft time, and a children's book exchange. It helped that the other three families live one block, six blocks, and seven blocks away. There is no way this gathering happens if we live in the suburbs; yet another reason why cities are conducive to Christian community and social fun.

But enough of the pro-urban commentary. We had a lot of fun! The parents were all relieved to be relieved of their kids, after a day in which lots of snow made for stir-crazy kids. We reveled in recipe secrets, war stories about parenting, and the general pleasure of conversing with other like-minded adults. The kids enjoyed more juice and dessert than they're used to getting, a riot of toys and games, and the ability to stay up later than usual.

Kudos to everyone for their contribution of activity ideas, books for the book exchange, and delicious entrees. And a special pat on the back to Amy for cooking a perfect turkey, cleaning the house, and orchestrating the overall layout of the house. Good times all around.

Our Modern Roman Colosseums

It is easy for us to tsk-tsk the ancient Romans for their carnal lust for "fight to the death" matches at the Colosseum. Some in modern times make a connection to boxing or ultimate fighting, and scold those who enjoy watching those sports. But I am starting to think long and hard about whether I am no longer comfortable supporting a professional sport that is far more currently popular and potentially just as damaging to its participants: football.

This is a subject I've blogged about twice before: "Football Lust" and "Are You Ready for Some (Life After) Football." You undoubtedly know about the Malcolm Gladwell article earlier this year about the barbaric nature of the NFL, and whether being a fan is all that different morally than supporting dogfighting. Locally, Eagles studs Brian Westbrook and DeSean Jackson have suffered concussions. But this recent Sports Illustrated article about a former NFL'er takes the case: "Former NFL Star Dave Pear is Sorry He Ever Played Football. Here is a money quote:

"Though he chalks up his physical ailments to snap after snap of punishment, he pinpoints the biggest problems back to 1979 and '80, his final two NFL seasons. While playing for Oakland, Pear suffered a herniated disc in his neck that never improved. Despite the unbearable agony, he says the Raiders urged him to keep playing. Be a man! Be tough! 'Those last two years in Oakland were very, very difficult times,' he says. 'I was in pain 24 hours per day, and my employers failed to acknowledge my injury. Sure, I won a Super Bowl ring. But was it worth giving up my health for a piece of jewelry? No way. Those diamonds have lost their luster.'"

Obviously, NFL players are handsomely compensated for taking on these risks. On a positive note, the men in the trenches, who open up holes for star running backs (or close those holes down) and who keep star quarterbacks from getting drilled (or do the drilling) may not have the fame but their salaries often equal or even exceed those of the name players. So my soul is not troubled from an economic standpoint: the NFL may want to reform the way it sets up player compensation structures so that medical benefits are a bigger portion to account for the after-effects of such a brutal sport, but otherwise these are contractual arrangements that players, teams, and the league enter into freely, and they are priced in a way to reflect the danger and briefness of the profession.

But the notion that the players I love watching on any given Sunday will, two decades later, rue their profession altogether, suffer through debilitating pain, and have their quality and quantity of life severely diminished leaves me troubled. For I am beginning to see an uncomfortable connection between my rooting and the practice of bloodthirsty ancient Romans. Reveling in a defensive player "blowing up" a ballcarrier with a huge hit is not much different than clamoring to the emperor for a thumbs-down on a gladiator facing the tip of a sword: the only difference is that our modern participant will simply die more slowly, but will still eventually die, and in a gruesome and painful manner.

I Love That Cheap Means Green: the Holiday Edition

To say I came from a frugal family is an understatement. Not wanting to waste good water, my dad would make us collect shower water into a bucket as the water was warming up, which we could then use to flush our toilets. He re-used floss, and cut open toothpaste tubes to scrape out a week's worth of toothpaste. He even caused me great embarrassment once when I was a teenager: I had decided that my collection of rap albums with explicit lyrics no longer reconciled with my newfound Christian faith, so I tossed all my cassettes out, only to have my dad fish them out and scold me that he could cover over the tab and tape over them. (Apparently, wasting usable cassettes was a worse sin to him than listening to songs that liberally used the F-word and the B-word.)

Fast-forward to the present, and I proudly carry on the Huang tradition of frugality. Only, apparently now, such cheapness can be labeled as "green" and seen as commendable rather than deviant. What I do to save a buck, others laud as a way to save the planet. Works for me, especially since another thing my parents imbued me with was a love for the environment, courtesy of our subscription to National Geographic and our annual family hiking trips to national parks.

Tis the season, then, to disclose some of my favorite holiday-themed cheap tricks that I can be proud of instead of ashamed of, to the extent that they are now spun as eco-friendly. (Admittedly, some of these tactics are still shameful, perhaps not for the planet but for people's interpretation of the unwritten rules of the holiday season.)

* Used books make great holiday gifts. Hey, if you actually want to read the thing and not just use it as decoration, it doesn't matter what condition the physical thing is in, right?

* Used greeting cards make great gift labels. I actually learned this from my wife's side of the family: the half of the greeting card that hasn't been written on is just the right amount of space to write your own greeting and affix it to a gift you are giving to someone, without needing either a gift tag or a greeting card.

* Post your family holiday photo on your blog. It beats getting physical prints developed, shoved into envelopes, and sent off to the four corners of the world.

With all the money you save, consider making a donation to an organization like Heifer International. For example, for just $20, a flock of 10 to 50 chicks, each of which will eventually lay around 200 eggs a year, would make a lovely gift for a family in need in the developing world. Or, if you want to splurge, for $30, that same family can get a package of bees, a hive, and training in how to supplement the family income with some beekeeping on the side. After all, if you really want the holiday season to be about gift-giving, this seems like a far more impactful way to use your dollars.

Here's An Eco-Friendly Greeting Card from the Huang Family to Your Family - Happy Holidays and Happy New Year

Amy, Lee, Jada, and Aaron want to say: happy holidays from our house to your house.

Kids and Holiday and Class and Stress

It's been a tough week in the Huang household. I've been crunched on account of a flurry of end-of-year work. Amy's been crunched on account of holiday-related preparations. The kids have subconsciously picked up on all of the stress, and have amped up their own anxieties: Jada has been inconsolably weepy in the evenings, Aaron has been more oppositional than usual, and both of them together leave us feeling like we are watching an episode of Nanny 911, only the misbehaving children are ours and there is neither TV camera to capture their deeds nor all-knowing nanny to tell us what we're doing wrong.

Their troubles are made all the more jarring by the onslaught of holiday updates from friends and family members whose children are right in line with how children of our socio-economic status ought to be. They are pretty and well-dressed, hitting academic and social milestones way ahead of schedule. They are described as delighting in their siblings, happy and sociable, a joy to watch grow up. If there is even a peep of complaint from the parents, it is over the hecticness of having to shuttle the little ones between soccer practice, piano, and dance rehearsal.

In contrast, the complaining you might hear if you were privy to the private conversations of me and Amy is of the hecticness of having to shuttle our little ones between the battery of special instructors they see, or of having to stay on top of related administrative and insurance paperwork. Our children may be pretty and well-dressed, to, but they are behind on many academic and social milestones. They may be warming significantly to each other as siblings, but we worry over the very real possibilities that they will face major future dysfunction if they continue along the paths they are now on.

If you know us and our kids, you may assuringly protest and counter that our children are delightful, and we shouldn't be so gloomy about them or hard on ourselves. But this is in fact not edifying to us, however well-meaning your sentiment might be, because it undercuts our opinion that our children have very real issues and brands us as being over-reacting and unnecessarily complaining.

In contrast, one of those most supportive interactions I have had over the past couple of years was a chance encounter with a colleague of mine who I know through work, who responded to my brief update on how my kids were doing with a knowing look, and who then proceeded to summarize for me some extra help he had had to secure for one of his own kids. In other words, instead of suggesting to me that everything was going to be alright, he appreciated firsthand how hard it is to fight with and for your kids, and so affirmed the weariness and worry that he detected in my description of how my family was doing.

Now, it is fair for you to call me on the notion that I am making a comparison between my kids and our family situation, and that of what I read in holiday updates from my upper-class friends and family members. I have blogged a lot, especially recently, about the intersection of class and parenting, and I hope those posts have not come across as one who has this all figured out or is above making class distinctions, but rather as one who struggles to not want to give into a socio-economic "keeping up with the Joneses."

Am I embarrassed of my kids because they are not up to par, intellectually and behaviorally, for the class level I aspire to? I probably am. With notable exceptions, like the affirming conversation I described above, people who run in the same socio-economic circles as I are not faced with the kinds of issues Amy and I are faced with in our parenting of Jada and Aaron. And so piled on top of the challenges we work through with our kids, I have piled on my own sense that I am alone among my social circle in dealing with such issues. And, because I am susceptible to class distinctions, I feel exposed and vulnerable as a result.

Don't get me wrong: I love my children. If I didn't, it would hurt less that they struggle so, and it would matter less that they are at higher odds for future trouble. I am rightfully and typically proud of them, delighting in their uniquenesses and genuinely fond of spending time with them. I wouldn't trade them for anything, and will fight with everything I have for them; and I realize that even their dysfunctions are part of who they are and part of what make them precious. But I must confess, even at the risk of coming across as petty and selfish, that this all would be easier if I didn't care so much about my social standing.

They say that being a parent stretches you in ways that can sap you or strengthen you. If you need to work on being more patient, raising kids is certainly a worthy test; or if your marriage has fissures in it, adding kids can be a platform for either mending them or widening them. One way this is true for me, in terms of exposing an area in which I need to improve, is that, as I noted earlier this week, kids are a vivid way for us shallow people to express and concern ourselves with where we are in the societal pecking order.

This, for me, is a somewhat surprising area of stretch, and a personal weakness I need to overcome. Will I go about doing right by my kids, however straining and stressful it is, receiving encouragement and rejuvenation where I can, and not using them as part of how I keep score of my own accomplishments and strivings? Or will I allow myself, however sub-consciously, to make some mental calculation about how what my kids are like slots me into a certain strata of socio-economic class, overly proud if they do me proud and unnecessarily ashamed if they don't measure up in the world? Perhaps, because I know I am ambitious, it shouldn't surprise me that I struggle with this; but I guess I am surprised because I didn't think I would be this vain and insecure, to worry in this way.

As always, the work continues, to be a better husband and parent and person. Thanks for reading this far, and for allowing me this musing, which is certainly not the typical tenor for end-of-year summaries of family life, but which is where I am at this time. Lord, help me and help my children, I pray.

Fixed Versus Variable Costs

I took an early shine to accounting, completing two years in high school and even competing in and winning contests through the Future Business Leaders of America. I continued on at Wharton and earned a concentration in accounting as part of my degree. And yet, for all of the foundation and credentialing, I haven't really used my accounting side directly in my professional life.

But I am glad for all of the studying and all of the classes, for they have embedded in me some principles that find usefulness in new and surprising ways. Take, for example, the simple concept of fixed versus variable costs. If you sell soda, syrup is a variable cost: the more soda you sell, the more syrup you need. The rental payments on your syrup dispenser, on the other hand, are largely a fixed cost: you owe the same every month, regardless of whether you sell 1 cup or 1 million cups.

Basic enough. And yet it turns out that we struggle to understand whether something should be a fixed cost or a variable cost. I look at the whole "economy versus the environment" issue partly through this lens. Car "consumption" currently has a high fixed cost, low variable cost structure: cars are pretty expensive, but once we own them, there is a sense that it is marginally cheap to actually use them.

In fact, from an environmental standpoint, this is not quite right. In an environmental sense, our perception of the upfront cost is too high, and our perception of the ongoing cost is too low. If we adjusted ourselves, our car "consumption" would be more environmentally optimal.

In fact, this is the premise behind car-share programs such as Zipcar and PhillyCarShare. Instead of owning a car (or having to shell out for a second car), you merely pay for the hours you actually need it. This makes financial sense for a whole range of urban dwellers, from young'uns who want to do without a car altogether to families who only need that second or third car on occasion (and, at that, for an hour or two at a time, where a normal rental car isn't worth it).

What happens over time, according to my friends at PhillyCarShare, is that members' driving behavior changes. At first, they reserve cars in ways that mirror their current driving patterns: I need a car, I borrow a PhillyCarShare car, I return it. Over time, they realize that this form of car "consumption" is relatively "high variable cost" in nature, and they begin to bundle their trips, or figure out how to do without a car altogether, since now there is a relatively high marginal cost for the next use.

And this is how it should be, since gas is artificially cheap as it relates to the environmental, geopolitical, and infrastructural costs each extra trip adds to the system, and since each trip also adds to pollution, congestion, and other social costs. When we own our cars, it is relatively frictionless to impose these costs on others; when we have to pay as we drive, we make better decisions.

You can apply this logic to pay-as-you-drive car insurance as well; and jurisdictions are experimenting with the technological, logistical, and political ramifications of swapping the current gas tax with a "vehicle miles traveled" tax. All of this is good to explore, in my opinion. And all of this requires a fundamental understanding of the difference between a fixed and variable cost. Which makes me glad for all those hours of studying accounting. Who knew?

Class is in Session

Modern-day Americans can be forgiven for chuckling amusingly or righteously tsk-tsking at past practices such as sacrificing children in the fire or upholding rigid class differences. We are a far more progressive and open society, we pride ourselves in saying, and know better than to think that we can appease the gods by offering up our kids or that we should regiment ourselves from others higher or lower than us.

And yet. As a parent of a soon-to-be kindergartener, I cannot help but have such seemingly archaic impulses bubble up in my heart. I may not lay my children on the altar of some strange god, but I am tempted to sacrifice them in a different, more modern way, either subjecting them to a battery of activities that define them and us as high-achieving or weakening them through the neglect of one who is too tired and too cheap to secure the right activities that they may flourish. Perhaps I am being overly dramatic, but to both pile on to kids who are just kids, or to withhold resources that can help them be all they can be, seems the same as sacrificing them, even if the outcome comes more slowly.

Class pressures are even more insidious. In the suburbs, we can segregate and define ourselves by where we live, since zoning and other regulations narrowly define who does and does not live in a particularly neighborhood. Here in a city as socio-economically diverse as Philadelphia, we have to work a little harder to distinguish ourselves, because saying you're from West Philadelphia could mean your house is worth $800,000 or twenty times less. Instead, we tend to define ourselves but what school we send our kids to, those with means choosing name-brand private schools with the rest being stuck with the lousy neighborhood school.

In this regard, we have dodged a bullet, since our neighborhood K-8 school where our kids will go is highly esteemed. But it's not hard to imagine the angst of wondering about motivations behind sending kids to one school versus another, since many I know are in the midst of such choices. Not to necessarily condemn parents for sending their kids to good schools, obviously. It's because the decision has so many noble aspects behind it - wanting the best for our kids, wanting to spare nothing in educating them, wanting them to have a conducive learning environment - that the less noble aspects - making our kids or success or upper class status an idol, trying to keep our kids and our reputations from intersecting with "those people" (whoever "those people" happen to be in your part of the world) - creep in and leave us wondering why it is we are stressing so much about our decisions.

Or perhaps it is just me that is guilty of caring too much about how I appear to the outside world, that I would sacrifice my kids on the altar of high achievement, use them as pawns in my effort to strategically position myself with one group or away from another, or care more about my own ambitions and interests than to use my finite physical and psychic resources to help them fulfill their ambitions and discover and interests. If you are like me in this regard, then we can take solace that we are not alone; but we also must contend with the fact that practices that once amused or repelled us are not far from the very practices we are tempted to partake in, or have already partook in.

Family Update

Just wanted to seek prayers on my family's behalf. My dad has his final surgery later this week: he has set up extra help for my mom while he recuperates, so hopefully care of her during and after his procedure will go well, and that he will be back to 100% soon afterward. As for my mom, I'd really like for her to regain her voice: she sustained some injuries there during the crash, but it is still possible her volume can increase. Right now she is at a loud whisper, and hopefully there will be even more progress over time. Thanks for your prayers and thoughts as they adjust to being home and get themselves stronger.

Fearless Predictions for 2010

Here's a recap of my nine fearless predictions for 2009, as posted in November 2008:

1. At least three major media companies are going to go belly-up.

This was too easy: Reader's Digest, Philadelphia Newspapers, Star Tribune, Sun-Times Media Group, Source Interlink Companies, and R.H. Donnelley all filed for bankruptcy, and did I miss any?

2. Barack Obama will experience an unforeseen, 9/11-like event, and will have his "deer in the headlights" moment just like W did (remember "My Pet Goat"?), but like W he will find his voice soon after, and unlike W, he will inspire us to some action that decades from now we will be glad we were forced to take.

No unforeseen event, although certainly more than the usual amount of first-year tumult. To his credit, President Obama has maintained a calm, reasoned demeanor; some may want him to be more fiery, but I think this bodes well for his ability to move towards rational policies and responses.

3. The Dow Jones will be at 13,000 by the end of the year.

Who knew it would crater to half that level by March? From that vantage point, 10,000+ is more than acceptable.

4. South Asians will dominate the small and big screens.

I didn't watch hardly any TV and caught zero movies, but I heard Slumdog Millionaire got some buzz, Bollywood put out another gajillion films, and was there anything on TV that could remote approximate this prediction coming true?

5. Despite Obama's best efforts, Afghanistan will destabilize - and it will not be pretty.

Kudos to President Obama for staying on top of this foreign policy issue in the midst of many heated domestic topics. It still ain't pretty in Afghanistan, but I can't say this prediction came true, and that's a good thing.

6. Kim Jong Il will die, North Korea will open, and South Korea will impress the world by being ready to bear the massive burden of helping its beleaguered neighbor.

Who's to say the first of these three predictions hasn't already come true? I still hope for the second and third.

7. Obesity in America will reach epidemic proportions, as a huge spike in deaths dominates and ultimately shipwrecks discussions about national health care reform.

I'll take an "incomplete" on this prediction; it's only a matter of time, right?

8. We will not be talking about Sarah Palin by the end of the year.

Um, between the autobiography, Levi, and the Newsweek cover, I'd have to say this was equal parts "wishful thinking" and "bad prediction."

9. One or more of the big Chinese car makers - BYD, Chery, Donfeng, and/or SAIC - will be household names in the US.

Nah. Why make the Big Three fight on equal terms for American consumers when you can prop them up with dubious regulations and lots of government dough?

Once again, wildly and laughably off. Which only emboldens me to make more stupid predictions, of course. So here go mine for 2010 (remember, these are predictions, not requests):

1. Roomba will go mainstream, and vacuum cleaner sales will plummet in response.

2. Los Angeles is going to experience "the big one," and while it won't be Katrina II, neither Sacramento nor Washington will be ready to respond.

3. Florida will experience massive flooding, not at homes near the coast but at homes in the middle of the state that are built on top of high water table locations.

4. We're going to see the first prototype of a laptop the size of a deck of cards, which projects its screen onto a wall and a virtual keyboard and mouse onto a table surface. No one will be ready for this.

5. Time will show that the stimulus, cap and trade, and health care reform concepts that were initiated in 2009 were, while not perfect, largely positive; President Obama creates a huge halo effect in the November midterms, and Republicans actually lose ground.

6. Mike Huckabee will be getting more 2012 buzz than Sarah Palin.

7. Losing some luster: Google (Wave falls flat, some scandal involving either Brin or Page), Apple (Jobs health failing, consumers skittish), Twitter (an unfair connection to some really grisly crime broadcast in real time by an evil tweeter). Gaining some luster: Microsoft (a major acquisition that actually works out), Facebook (a major improvement in the user experience), and YouTube (ditto).

8. After a long run of crime dramas, reality TV, and bad nighttime soaps, we are treated to a line-up of sitcoms on one night by one network station rivaling the Cosby/Ties/Cheers/Night Court Thursday nights of mid-80's NBC.

9. Politically and stock market wise, I'm bullish on Mexico, Brazil, and South Africa, and bearish on Russia, Egypt, and Thailand.

Lazy Linking, Second in an Occasional Series

Lazy linking, the second offering in an occasional series when I come across things I like and have an opinion on but want to write only one line in response instead of a whole post. In case you're wondering, these are the kinds of things I find enjoyable to read on a weekend. In other news, I am looking for a life.

* Hat tip to Jared Diamond - yes, Jared Diamond - for recognizing the good things big business has done and can do for the environment, and for encouraging a more inclusive discussion on how to not pit profits against the planet.

* What is it that makes some nations richer and some poorer? 230+ years after Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations," I don't think we know. Tim Harford admits he doesn't, and he's a lot smarter than most.

* Not sure what to make of Megan McArdle pointing out that 44 percent of Americans would vote for Bush today over Obama; she thinks it means Obama is slipping, I think it's related to the fact that Sarah Palin's autobiography has been #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for its first three weeks.

* Porn may be alluring, but Chart Porn is even more seductive to me. Check out the eye candy on December 10 (climate change debate), November 17 (distribution of income tax payers), and October 26 (everything you wanted to know about the Federal Reserve, on one page).

* Speaking of visually appealing charts, who knew sentence diagrams could be beautiful? Stefanie Posavec literally deconstructs Jack Kerouac's "On the Road."

* I have thoroughly enjoyed the "What Should I Eat" flowcharts on "Eating the Road." Latest entry: "Freezer Aisle." Other entries: fast food, chain restaurant, and breakfast cereals.

* I know you've been asking yourself this question all month long: what should I get my favorite economist? Stephen Landsburg suggests you buy him or her the American Economics Association's 2010-2011 calendar, featuring 18 economists from recent history.

* Phoenix may have approved of taxing itself to pay for light rail, but its car-oriented residents don't appear to understand how to peacefully co-exist with light rail users: 51 accidents in 12 months so far.

* I don't have a smart phone, but I have to assume that the launch of City-Go-Round is a very, very good thing: real-time info + enhancing the transit experience + open data access = lots of unanticipated good is going to come of this.

* The silver lining in bubbles bursting (see: Silicon Valley, 2000; Wall Street, 2008) is it reminds us of the importance of diversification. So says Ed Glaeser, and I believe him.

Not Interested

So I am the very last person to chime in on the crumbling facade that is Tiger Woods. And all I have to report is that I don't care. And, when I say that, it really means, "I don't care." Not, "leave the man alone and let him have his privacy." Not, "look at how righteous I am that I am not giving in to the salaciousness or the schadenfreude." Not, "I have my own problems, no time to worry about someone else's." No, it's for none of those reasons. I simply don't care.

Yes, there are so many nuances one could be interested in and blog about, like celebrities and privacy, infidelity, or race. Yes, there are so many juicy elements to this story that one can get lost in, giggle over, or be snarky about. And yes, there are very significant moral lessons that one can derive from this very public incident. But I just can't seem to muster any interest in the topic. If someone's talking about it, my ears are not perked. If a headline or link catches my eye, I have no desire to find out more. I haven't even felt any urge to turn over some of the angles of the story, to see if there is some nugget to consider; and this is someone who will blog about the most mundane of things.

Now, let's talk about something really interesting, like carbon taxes or economic development or urban agriculture.

Musing About Huang Kids

I keep two blogs regularly: this one, Musings of an Urban Christian, and another, more family-related one, called Huang Kid Khronicles. Now that my mom is home from the hospital, and is about to get set up on the computer, I'm going to try to post more stuff - musings, photos, and videos - on Huang Kids. Which may mean, since this month has been absolutely bonkers in terms of busyness, that I might post less musings here at Urban Christian. So feel free to check us out over at Huang Kids - if you like me, you'll like my kids even more! (Btw, if you're reading this from your Facebook account, sorry I can't figure out a way for my Facebook page to suck in both Urban Christian and Huang Kids; it only seems to allow one blog to get automatically posted here.)

It Takes a Village of Eyes to Keep Watch Over the Kids

After morning service, many of my fellow congregants stick around in our fellowship hall for snacks and conversation. One table is reserved for the little ones, and it quickly becomes a riot of animal crackers, juice, and wriggly bodies. I do all I can at the end of the morning service to hold Aaron and Jada back until they can be excused to the fellowship hall, so much do they enjoy this snack time.

Yesterday, I quickly got Aaron and Jada set up with food and beverage. Two other kids were jawing at each other from across the table, employing an escalation of clever name-calling to make fun of each other. I asked them both to stop, and when they reluctantly did, I then asked them to apologize to each other. One apologized in a very fake way, while the other refused. They looked at me with a bemused look, thinking I had no leverage over them because I wasn't their parent.

I smiled back. I looked at one of the kids and said, "You know, I know your mother, and if you don't apologize, I will tell your mother about every single one of the names you just used." I then looked at the other child and said, "I know your mother, too, and if you don't apologize, I will tell your mother about every single one of the names you just used."

Not surprisingly, apologies followed. We parents may have our hands full with our kids, but we do stick together. If it takes a village to raise a child, part of the villageness is many more eyes than just my own keeping watch over my kids. I would expect the other parents to do the same thing I did if it was Aaron or Jada acting up. And I know that they will.

Speaking Truth

You may have heard of people who feel rich, old, or powerful enough that they can speak their mind without caring about what people think. Sometimes, it's just an improper license to be mean; and sometimes, it's a refreshing honesty that everyone and every organization would do well to make sure they have access to.

As a Christian, I believe that speaking hard truths is important. To pull punches is to leave important things unsaid. And to speak hard truths in an insensitive way can be even more hurtful than keeping your mouth shut.

So how to thread the needle between these two undesirable outcomes? As always, my role model is Jesus. If you read the gospels with an open mind, you'll be surprised how many times He says things that seem pretty harsh. He certainly made a lot of enemies with His words. But He was also gentle and caring enough to be beloved by children, sinners, and outcasts alike.

I think being Jesus-like in speaking truth boils down to three things. First, Jesus' self-worth was firmly anchored in His relationship with the Father; it's what allowed Him to say and do unpopular things without factoring in what effect they would have on people's opinion of Him. Second, Jesus knew His mission as having been sent by the Father; and speaking truth was a non-negotiable, even if it meant riling up some and losing others. Third, Jesus' behaviors were captive to an overall value system, which was about humbling those who were improperly exalted and exalting those who were improperly humbled, and which was ultimately about correcting, healing, and restoring people towards right relationship with the Father.

An anchored self-worth, a mission understood, and a value system to frame it all. Easier said than done, but for me it provides a framework to speak truth in a way that is correct, neither lacking courage to say what needs to be said nor saying it in a manner that tears down rather than building up.

What's Not As Important

It is natural, when reading the Bible, to equate what is said with what is important. If the Bible talks a lot about God's concern for the poor, or what we do about money, or that we have Him and only Him as our God, we take that high frequency of coverage to mean these are core issues to the believer. What can be harder to divine from a scan of the Bible, but I believe is no less important, is what is not talked about a lot, and therefore what must not be nearly as essential.

There are millions of churches in almost every nation in the world, and we all have access to what the earliest church, in first century Jerusalem, looked like. So while there is obviously room for a wide range of expressions and doctrinal interpretations, given the diversity of experiences and agendas represented by congregations around the globe, it is instructive not only to consider what is covered in the New Testament but what is not covered.

Deliciously, although somewhat tragically as it relates to the unity of the Church, many of today's most divisive and controversial topics are not touched on much in the New Testament. Two come to mind immediately. First, many choose their congregation based on its worship style; but instructions concerning worship style are largely absent from the New Testament. Second, a major dividing point between Protestants and Catholics is the Catholic Church's veneration of Mary, mother of God; and yet, as noted in a recent Desiring God post, Mary isn't mentioned at all in the New Testament after the first chapter of the book of Acts.

I do not mean to conclude that worship style is unimportant, that Mary does not merit some honored status in the Christian faith, or that it is wrong to have strong feelings about any of these subjects. I am just pointing out that the New Testament is noticeably light on its coverage of these two topics. What is clearly stated in the New Testament, let us as a Church get our act together on; and what is given far less coverage, shame on us if we let it enrage, distract, or divide us.

Continuing Education

One of the perks of living and working in University City is being able to leech off of the many resources of the University of Pennsylvania. The campus itself is an amenity my children and I enjoy many times a month. The Penn community supports a depth and breadth of retail options we otherwise would not have access to. The university is responsible in part for the elementary school we'll send our kids to, and even gave us $15,000 when we bought our house, as part of a mortgage incentive program in the late 1990's designed to encourage Penn-affiliated people to live near campus. (My wife worked for the hospital at the time.)

Of course, Penn's greatest resource is intellectual. And in the past two days, I have capitalized, attending three separate events that happened to intersect with my work portfolio as well as my personal interests. There was a fireside chat about the future of cities, of which one of my bosses was a panelist. There was a symposium on public health, which included a session on urban food networks, a topic I'm exploring in a current assignment. And then I went with one of my bosses to a talk by Economy.com's Mark Zandi on the importance of universities in long-term national economic growth.

In all three cases, getting in and out was a cinch, I didn't have to pay a dime, and I even got some free food to boot at the last event. If you know me, you know that intellectual stimulation, convenience, and free are three very important things to me. In that regard, have I told you lately how much University City suits me? Thanks to Penn and to the many community members who pulled off these three and other such events; you'll see me stopping by again and again to partake.

Philly's Up

1950, when Philadelphia's population hit 2 million for the first time, making it third only to New York and Chicago, also marked a time of great infrastructure investment in the nation. Philadelphians, thinking that their population would only trend up, braced themselves to manage a city of 2.5+ million.

Fifty years later, instead of going up 500,000, it went down 500,000. Manufacturing got mechanized/suburbanized/offshored, the Interstate Highway system helped suburbanize America, and cities got caught in a vicious cycle of job loss, middle class flight, and blight.

Thankfully for cities like Philadelphia, the last decade has largely brought about the end of the transition from industrial economy to knowledge economy. Downtowns have enjoyed a renaissance as places of employment and residence. Energy and environmental considerations have made far-flung suburbs less viable, while dense, transit-rich urban centers have become more compelling.

We may not get to 2.5 million or even back to 2 million, but it has been good to see we are losing population less fast this decade. And it was heartening to read yesterday that we actually probably posted a gain from 2007 to 2008, according to revised Census estimates: +93,000, putting us back over 1.5 million.

While I want to give pats on the back all around to Philadelphia for this piece of very good news, I would be remiss if I did not also at this time offer a recommendation to ensure that there will be more of these gains in future years. If you look at all the cities that are growing, you'll see it's less about retaining existing residents - vibrant cities lose as well as gain - and more about replacing them with new residents, most notably immigrants. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, the Bay Area are all destinations of choice for immigrants.

Philadelphia is not in that top tier; but if it gets there, we might just have enough bodies to use all the infrastructure, physical and institutional, that we already in place. If you look at those top tier immigrant destinations, you'll also notice that they're all doing pretty well, too; draw your own conclusion as to cause and effect, but to me it's clear that being very welcoming to people who are making life choices about where they want to live and work will almost certainly lead to a more vibrant economy, job creation, and business formation.

Hitler's Other Scapegoated Group

I made a quick detour on my way home from a meeting downtown earlier this week to walk through a fascinating exhibit at the William Way Center. Entitled "Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals: 1933 - 1945," the exhibit tells the story of how male homosexuality was criminalized under Hitler. Hitler blamed the homosexuals for Germany's population decline; never mind that Germany had just lost 2 million men in the prime of their lives in World War I. He also accused gays of being subversive to the Aryan nation because of their propensity to form their own sub-groups; these accusations were grounds for arrest, abuse, and punishment via concentration camps. I guess you could call gays Hitler's other scapegoated group.

It never fails to astound me that these and other atrocities existed so recently in human history. I wonder what injustices we will be telling our grandkids that we allowed to take place in the earliest years of this century. Though the material was shocking, it was important for me to see; and it is important for us to be aware of the great evil we are capable of, so that we can be mindful to defeat it in our own lives and in our generation.

Huang Family Newsletter, November 2009

Adults - Amy passed her boards, is finishing up her semester-long clinical rotation in the Philadelphia prisons, and will have just one more class next semester before she is done with school. Lee was appointed secretary of the non-profit board he sits on, and work is ramping up a bit, with interesting studies on such topics as urban farming, green space, and government outsourcing.

Kids - Jada got to attend two birthday parties, one at Little Gym and one at Bounce U. Aaron has earned the nickname "Googly Bear" from Amy. Aaron and Jada are starting to enjoy playing together, although they still fight over who gets to ride the tricycle and who gets to turn off the TV. We also took Christmas portraits as a family, celebrated Thanksgiving at Amy's parents', and took in the holiday shows in downtown Philly.

Update on Lee's parents - Mom is finally home after four months in hospitals. Dad has been on his "A" game, toggling between supervising Mom's care and staying on top of home renovations; he has a follow-up surgery next month, during which the extra care help they've hired for Mom will ramp up considerably. Thanks for your prayers and thoughts, and please no bombardment of visits, calls, or messages to them just yet, as they ease their way into life at home and figure out how to manage their various care needs.