Huang Family Newsletter, August 2009

Family update - everyone continues to recover from the car accident from last month. My mom and dad are both making progress, and my sister and brother-in-law are working through their own medical and logistical issues and helping take care of my parents' present and future needs. We four had a successful visit to San Jose - I was able to see everyone and help bear some of the load, Amy got studying in, and many family friends chipped in watching our kids and bringing us food.

Kids - Jada saw her new school for the first time and likes it; we're moving her over in September and Aaron in January. Both continue a full schedule of school and various speech and behavioral appointments, and seem to increasingly want to fill their scant free time watching Thomas the Train. They did well on our San Jose trip, enjoying the plane rides and seeing new sights.

Adults - Amy gutted through a very difficult pathophysiology class and got an A; she's now gearing up for her fall clinical time at a local prison. Lee's powering through multiple clients at work and helping his church ease in a new senior pastor. Home renovations continue as planned, and soon they will be done, and the focus will shift to figuring out furniture and decor.

Tourism Improvement Districts

Much of the urban parts of our nation are familiar with special services districts such as Business Improvement Districts. Lines are drawn, taxes are assessed to commercial property owners within those lines, and all of the newly generated revenues goes towards efforts to enhance the district: clean and safe initiatives, place-defining banners, joint marketing campaigns, and the like. It's an effective way to create and fund distinct commercial areas, and an increasingly popular form of efficient taxation, the thought being that my taxpayer dollars aren't going into some large pot to be divided up to death across the entire jurisdiction.

I was recently talking to downtown, waterfront, and convention representatives from a big city about a new wrinkle to this revenue generating mechanism: Tourism Improvement Districts (TID). With convention bureau marketing budgets sagging on account of lower hotel tax revenues, which are often a major revenue source for such activities, cities are setting up assessment districts which allow hotels to tack on an extra percentage point or two to your hotel room, the proceeds of which can be spent to market the region as a destination of choice for conventions and business events.

San Francisco passed its TID late last year. Cleverly, assessments are only on "tourist" stays, as stays by permanent residents and by airline crews are exempt; nothing like only taxing non-voters! Keep an eye out from a policy perspective to see if other cities follow suit - Vegas is among those contemplating a similar set-up - and keep an eye out on your hotel bill to see if "Tourism Improvement District Assessment" shows up there in the near future.

Together We Can Save the World

Tom Friedman is spot-on in his column this week when he says the solvers of today's biggest problems all need to work together:

"We’re trying to deal with a whole array of integrated problems — climate change, energy, biodiversity loss, poverty alleviation and the need to grow enough food to feed the planet — separately. The poverty fighters resent the climate-change folks; climate folks hold summits without reference to biodiversity; the food advocates resist the biodiversity protectors. They all need to go on safari together."

Easier said than done. But still worth doing. At least, let's let go of going on our individual crusades for the sake of our own glory, which then impedes us from partnering with groups we've decided to label as the enemy to make us feel better about ourselves. Given today's complex and inter-connected world, that sort of prideful short-sightedness does more harm than good. For the sake of our children and their children, let's do right, even and especially when it means making for strange bedfellows, rather than look good by saying we're right and everyone else is wrong, all the while blowing our chance to actually make a difference.

Clunk

Sorry to mix metaphors, but Cash for Clunkers is a bit of a lemon in my book. Here's how Jeffrey Miron "Cash for Clunkers Is a Clunker.":

Under the terms of the program, any used car that is traded in must be scrapped, and key parts like the engine and drive train destroyed. Thus the program pays people to junk cars that still have economic value. A good friend, for example, is planning to trade in a car that is in good working order. Before the program, he had planned to use the car for another couple of years. How can it make any sense for policy to encourage the destruction of working cars?

Answer: it doesn't make sense, fiscally or environmentally. And by the way, not surprisingly, car donation places have taken a big hit. Someone else's trash can still be someone else's treasure.

To offer a parallel example, there's an old rug in my daughter's room that we're going to toss when we move her up to her new bedroom. In my wife's mind, it's unsalvageable, but I insist on schlepping it down the street to the secondhand store. Hey, just because we have no use for it doesn't mean someone else doesn't. I get a tax deduction, the secondhand store makes some revenue, and some lucky duck gets a nice used rug at a bargain basement price.

But if the government had a "Cash for Carpets" program because it decided old carpets were less energy efficient and we needed to support the sagging carpetmaking industry, I'd fill out reams of paperwork to get a cash bonus for turning my old carpet in to be incinerated, and both the secondhand story and the previously lucky duck are, well, out of luck. Then the government would pat itself on the back about how much money they gave away and how many new carpets got bought, not realizing that's our money they're giving away and that every month new carpets get bought irrespective of any federal government program. And never mind that such a treatment that destroys old carpets and encourages the production of new carpets is antithetical to the environmentalist's mantra of "reduce, reuse, recycle."

But hey, "Cash for Carpets" has a nice ring to it.

With Onions or On The Onion

Obesity is a hot topic issue with many implications for policy, race, class, and the list goes on. It's something I should blog about more than I do, which is currently almost never.

But if you want insightful commentary, go to Megan McArdle's blog, where she's posted a lot of late about obesity and health care reform; or talk to Philly's own Ivan Juzang of MEE Productions, which has done some really good work in the African-American community around health education.

As for me and as for today, I offer to you for your consideration a sandwich from KFC in which the bread has been replaced by (wait for it) chicken: "New KFC 'Double Down' Dumps the Bun." Yes, that's right, cheese, bacon, and sauce are now safely tucked in between two breaded patties.

I keep waiting for someone to tell me this is an article from satire magazine The Onion, but it appears this is for real. Lord have mercy on our arteries! Would someone in Nebraska or Rhode Island (the first two test markets) chime in and let me know what sort of sensation this is causing?

Inflation Beats Cash for Clunkers

A nice post by the Green Grok on the outcome of the "Cash for Clunkers" program. I think the estimate is a bit simplistic, as it simply assumes the same amount of miles driven, just by more fuel-efficient cars rather than the old "clunkers," without accounting for the fact that new cars will almost certainly be driven more, and those new cars consumed energy in their manufacture. (Hat tip to the Discovering Urbanism blog for these and other insights.)

But the article is a winner in my book because it compares "Cash for Clunkers" with the less bureaucratically gangly goal of making sure all our tires are properly inflated. This little behavioral "nudge," if we all did it regularly, would lead to 6 times more gas saved and 11 times more CO2 emissions cut! Apparently, inflation is good.

Krugman and Samuelson on High Speed Rail

Apparently, Robert Samuelson doesn't like high-speed rail (HSR), and Paul Krugman thinks Samuelson is wrong. Leaving aside Krugman's unwarranted use of words like "dense" and "stupid," my own opinion is somewhere in between:

* Krugman is right in that HSR proposals aren't saying we should link up the whole country, just the heavily populated metros to each other, so Samuelson's stats about America's overall population density aren't the right ones to use.

* But Samuelson is right to say HSR is easier to do in Europe and Japan because these are relatively small countries, unlike the vastness of America. (It's one of the reasons the Brits in the British American Project organization I'm part of are so much more well-connected with each other than us Americans; if you were to pick just Americans living in the Northeast Corridor, we'd be just as connected.)

I've voiced my skepticism about HSR in a previous post so won't rehash too much here. Outside the Northeast Corridor, maybe it makes sense if you're a businessperson and you're doing a lot of downtown-to-downtown travel, or maybe you're a business or leisure traveler thinking that a 1-hour plane ride isn't as convenient as a 6-hour train ride. Apart from those two populations, I just don't see enough volume to make HSR possible without massive subsidies way above what Amtrak is currently getting. But I'll admit I don't know the whole story here and it could turn out that I'm the one who's "dense" and "stupid."

PS Ed Glaeser is skeptical, too.

Living the High Life

Yesterday was a great day to play hooky from work and sit outside and watch a baseball game on a beautiful August day. Well, it wasn't really hooky, since I had asked for the day off several months ago when I saw that the Phils would be playing the Mets in the brand-new Citi Field in the middle of a weekday: a perfect recipe for one of my patented getaways. And, as noted, the weather cooperated supremely, as did the Phils, who won 6-2. A blow-by-blow account of my 14-hour break from the norm:

6a - Everyone else still asleep for the time being. I duck out, walk briskly to the subway station, and three stops later am at 30th Street Station en route to boarding my Bolt Bus. It's liberating to be out the door without having to push two kids in a stroller; the day hasn't gotten humid yet, to boot.

6:30a - Bolt Bus pulls out and I sink into my back issues of Economist surveys that I've allowed to pile up. I'll get through 6 1/2 of these extra inserts over the course of the day.

8:30a - No stifling traffic means we're pretty much right on schedule. I hoof it to the northernmost point of the highly acclaimed High Line Park. Even though I have a few critical quibbles - a lot of the views are of the tops of buildings (i.e. HVAC units, graffiti), and even the straight shots into the water aren't the best of views - it's clear why it's gotten such rave reviews. Nice greenery, nice urban furniture, nice plaza areas. Being that high up but out in the open is nicely calming, even though it's not that much quieter than being at street level. Definitely this'll be a nice amenity when it's fully built out.

9:30a - L across town to Union Square, 4 up to 86th Street. Thanks to the efficiency of the New York City subway system, I arrive at my next stop, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum ten minutes before it opens. I wander over to a nearby realtor and laugh at the prices I see - and this is all down from two years ago. How does anyone survive financially in Manhattan?

10a - I knew I needed to head for Citi Field by 12ish and so wondered if I would have enough time to hit both Cooper-Hewitt and the nearby Guggenheim Museum. With both charging very high admission prices ($15 and $18, respectively), it wasn't like I was going to blitz through them. And yet Cooper-Hewitt was disappointingly small, so I had plenty of time to hit Guggenheim. And when I got there, half the museum was off limits for a huge new installation, so they discounted tickets to $10 and gave out free audio tours. So not only did I get to see both, but had time to pick up a calzone before heading out to Queens.

12p - 4 to Grand Central, 7 to Queens. Nice that as soon as you head out of the station, you're right there at Citi Field's well-done "front door," an homage to Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, completely with a nice Jackie Robinson display inside the cavernous atrium. As I took the escalator up to the main concourse, I thought to myself, "Am I in a ballpark or a museum?" The other initial impression I had of Citi Field is that there are too many huge advertisements in the outfield; you mean that in a city of iconic skyscrapers, you can't give me a signature view from home plate?

1p - Game on. My friend meets me at our nose-bleed seats, which are safely in the shade and not at all far from the action. Just as many Phillies paraphernalia as Mets stuff in my section; hey, it's a weekday, the Mets are in the tank, the Phils are in first, Cliff Lee's on the mound . . . it's to be expected that Phillies Nation would be out in full force.

4p - Game over. We head out and hop into the hottest subway car known to man. I lose five pounds on the 30-minute ride back to Manhattan.

5p - My friend's bus is earlier than mine, so we part at Penn Station as he is forced to hoof it to the pick-up spot. I take a more leisurely pace, making my way to a Burger King to buy an iced tea big enough to swim in to slake my thirst.

5:45p - The Bolt Bus home boards and departs on schedule. More Economists await.

7:30p - We pull into 30th Street Station. Nice; bus driver made great time on the Jersey Turnpike, so it looks like I'll be able to see my kdis before they doze off after all.

7:45p - 13 hours and 45 minutes later, my getaway ends abruptly, to the sounds of Aaron howling in bed for a toy car he has dropped, and Jada announcing she has successfully pooped in the potty once again. (Never mind she's done this for months; it's still cause for proclamation in these parts.) I am reminded why I had so looked forward to this date, and start thinking about when my next one is.

Good Grief

There have been more than a few tears in the last month or so, on account of my family's car accident. Looking back, I'm realizing that the trigger has been not so much directly by thinking of the losses my family members have suffered, but rather someone's thoughtful response in our time of grief. I don't think it is just that such empathy has been touching, although it has been; I think, more importantly, that someone coming alongside our family and hurting with us gives me a sense of permission to take in all the hurt instead of holding back.

So I have a growing appreciation for all who have helped me give myself that permission to hurt and cry. For it is not something we easily do in this day and age, not when we are tempted to otherwise gloss over or shake off or outright avoid any discomfort. But it is good to cry; I can think of at least three good reasons:

1. It affirms the depth of pain that someone is bearing. To allow yourself to feel the depth of hurt over someone else's hurt is to validate the depth of that person's hurt. If we do not cry, it may not be because our lives are not surrounded by and filled with anything cry-worthy; it may instead be because we have shut out the pain or discounted its significance. And if so, our lives are not fuller or wholer for it, but in fact the contrary.

2. It affirms the fragility of our humanity. Strength and self-sufficiency are highly esteemed in this society, and so we are tempted to do whatever it takes to cover up our innate weakness and dependency. It can be a tiring effort, since it requires constant vigilance and, in some cases, smoke and mirrors. How much of a relief it is to acknowledge who we really are, which is vulnerable and needy and, well, human.

3. It should stoke our longing for the other side of glory. The further and longer we are from home, and the more we know of the goodness of home, the more homesick we feel. And so, in an otherwise straight line towards making this side of glory as comfortable and homey as we can, we are periodically reminded that this is in fact not our permanent residence, but that rather we are having prepared for us an unthinkably glorious place where we are finally rid of sin and shame.

Pain avoidance is big business these days. When we want to drown our sorrows, we have access to countless avenues. Some are healthy and some not so healthy. But all are meant to take us further away from feeling the pain in our lives. When we suffer real loss, and someone comes alongside us and grieves with us, we are offered an alternative path, a path that I submit to you is richer and fuller and righter.

The pain of tragedy is real enough to make us hastily scurry toward a life that protects itself from future pain. We expend much energy in this direction, and even if we are unsuccessful we aspire to that end. Except that that is not life at all. And that is not where I understand my God to be, or where He wants me to be.

Some worldviews explain away suffering by motivating us to overcome it by brute force, others by comforting us that it will be rectified in a future life, and still others by condemning us in that it is brought upon us for past sins. But only one worldview grabs hold of suffering by having as its central tenet a God who became flesh and suffered and was glorified, not that we might not suffer, but that we might too suffer and be glorified.

I present to you a Savior who did not vanquish evil in rugged triumph, or go down to defeat with guns blazing, but who voluntarily, impelled by His life mission to do His Father's will, succumbed to a criminal's death on His way to glory, and who continues to redeem our sorrowful paths in similar ways. And so we can grieve, and know Him who grieves with us, who will one day take away all grief, and in the meantime make good out of our grief.

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, But This Playground Was

You can't change neighborhoods like mine in a day. But you can still make a huge difference in that short of a time. Thanks to my good friends at The Enterprise Center and to massive efforts from both sponsoring corporations, public officials, and community residents, there's a nearby playground where one didn't exist before: "Community Builds Playground at 47th & Sansom in One Day!"

KaBoom! is a non-profit that provides the framework for these sorts of engagements. And, after months of planning, fundraising, and volunteer coordination, the one-day activity culminated in the completion of a brand-new playground.

We still have a lot of work to do around here. But a safe and clean place for the youngsters to play in is a pretty good thing to add whenever you can. I can't wait to bring my kids to it.

Football Predictions Guaranteed or Your Money Back

Coming off last year's successful prediction that the Steelers would win the Super Bowl (OK, ignore all the other unsuccessful predictions I made), here's my take on the 2009-2010 season. In other news, the Raiders have become the first team ever to be mathematically eliminated from the playoff hunt before the season began.

NFC: N - 2 Packers, S - 4 Saints, E - 3 Cowboys, W 1 Seahawks, WC - 5 Eagles, 6 Bears

AFC: N - 3 Steelers, S - 4 Colts, E - 2 Pats, W - 1 Chargers, WC - 5 Ravens, 6 Jags

WC: Cowboys, Eagles, Steelers, Ravens
Div: Cowboys, Eagles, Ravens, Pats
SB: Cowboys over Pats

Food with Thought

I just wanted to give a plug to a Leadership Inc. classmate of mine who was featured in this week's Keystone Edge magazine: "Philadelphia Non-Profit Leader's Approach Nourishes Region." Basic social need (hunger) meets rigorous attention to logistics and metrics (Quality-Adjusted Statistical Pounds? Love it!). We are all better in this region as a result of my friend Bill Clark's work at Philabundance. Kudos!

Position Opening - Children, Youth, and Family Director @ Woodland Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia PA

Woodland seeks a new Director of Children, Youth, and Family (CYF) Ministries. This position is currently constituted as a 6-12 month volunteer internship for 15 hours per week, with the possibility of renewal upon successful completion and positive reviews. For more information, to obtain a full position description, or to submit a resume and cover letter, please contact Lee Huang at jobs@woodlandpres.net.

***

Job Title: Director of Children, Youth, and Family (CYF) Ministries

Hours per Week: 15

Start Date: Negotiable




Position Overview:

Woodland Presbyterian Church is a multi-ethnic, multi-generational church located in an urban setting at the intersection of campuses and community. We are a PC-USA congregation that was first formed in the 1860’s. Our Sunday morning worship service typically draws 100-150 worshippers, including 15-30 children. We believe that children, youth, and families are all important members of the family of God, and therefore their spiritual growth is an integral part of the overall health of the church and its mission to the neighborhood around us.

The Director of Children, Youth, and Family (CYF) Ministries works in collaboration with other staff, Session, and volunteers from the congregation towards that end. This position is currently constituted as a 6-12 month volunteer internship, with the possibility of renewal upon successful completion and positive reviews.



Responsibilities/Duties:

Leadership

• Connect the work of CYF to Woodland’s larger work, and communicate that work to congregants and to other stakeholders

• Serve as a public face, point person, and final decision-maker for all aspects of CYF

• Represent CYF and its agenda via any interfaces with internal (worship, building and property, outreach, education) and external (partners, community, Presbytery) entities [note: as time is limited, it is not intended that undue meeting attendance would be required, and in fact we discourage getting bogged down in this way]



Recruit, Train, and Disciple Members of the Congregation into CYF Ministry

• Encourage those with a heart for children and family ministries to get involved

• Recruit and support volunteer leaders, and support them in recruiting and supporting other volunteers

• Direct the training of volunteers in teaching and in working with children

• Explore and supervise youth ministry initiatives



Ministry

• Supervise volunteers in the following programmatic activities and age groups:

 Sunday School for infants (0 to18 months) and toddlers (18 months to 4 years) during the sermon portion of Sunday morning worship

 A variety of activities for children (4 years to 12 years) and teens (13 years to 18 years)

 One-week Vacation Bible School summer camp

 Other offerings as mutually determined with staff and Session (examples: Christmas pageant, service opportunities, missions trips)

• Establish relationships with parents and be sensitive to their needs and concerns

• Become an active member of Woodland and participate in Worship service periodically as a member of the ministry staff, for purposes of promoting and forwarding the ministry of CYF

• Explore potential new youth ministry initiatives

• Commit to pray regularly for CYF leaders and volunteers, children, and families


Administration

• Attend weekly staff meetings

• File a quarterly report of past and future activities to Session

• Develop and enforce policies relating to all aspects of CYF ministries. For example, ensuring that the appropriate back ground checks are carried out on all volunteers working with children

• Work with volunteer leaders to together accomplish the following:

 Develop protocols for greeting new families, following up on absences, etc.

 Develop registration procedures for Sunday School, etc.

 Develop and monitor CYF portion of the church’s budget

 Publish seasonal and monthly calendars with details of CYF events, activities, and personnel

 Create a brochure or information sheet outlining Woodland’s various CYF ministries to be given to parents and visitors with children

• Design and implement special programs throughout the year to foster community and spiritual growth



Oversight and Support:

The Director of CYF Ministries will report to the Head of Staff and will attend weekly Staff Meetings.

The Session will ensure that the following support mechanisms are in place so that Employee is in the best position possible to serve in a way that is fulfilling to her and productive for the church:

a) inclusion in a staff team in which everyone's position description is known to one another so that staff members can better support and collaborate with one another,

b) 1-2 deacons assigned to pray for and support Employee in her work and to help advocate for the work of CYF in the broader work of the church,

c) 6-month check-in sessions with the Personnel Team for purposes of receiving encouragement and advice as well as together clarifying the position description going forward.



Compensation:

Consideration will be given to funding and enabling various professional development avenues, such as books and conferences. Upon completion of internship, salary and vacation options are negotiable.



To apply:

Please submit cover letter and resume to Lee Huang, Personnel Team at lee.huang@woodlandpres.net (email), fax (215 386-1725), or mail (42nd and Pine Streets, Philadelphia PA 19104). We will try to answer all inquiries and will contact you if we would like to set up an interview.

Wise Pastors Point Us to a Better Source of Stability

In an increasingly chaotic world, man longs for some stability: predictability in structure and order and relationships. We churched folks are no different: in fact, because we can cloak our comfort zones in religious overtones, we may be more prone to creating and defending our cocoons. Too bad, too, as it was once said that church is the only institution that exists for its non-members.

Which is why I greatly appreciated the wisdom of our two pastors this past Sunday. Our senior pastor is retiring after many decades of service around the world. When we install a new interim pastor next month en route to hopefully calling a more permanent senior pastor in the next 12 to 18 months, we will have gone through six such turnovers this decade.

This may be par for the course for a generation and a neighborhood that is used to constant change: job hopping is the norm for twentysomethings, and our university community lends itself to people popping in and out as they here today and gone tomorrow after studies or dissertations or fellowships. But it can be terribly upsetting for some of us oldsters, who've been through enough tumult in our church leadership and are longing for some continuity. Why, last month, after another young family chose to leave the church for another church closer to where they live, one congregant literally grabbed me by the shirt and pleaded with me to not leave, either.

While affirming this sort of sentiment in his sermon, our senior pastor was also mindful to bring us back to the true purpose of the church, which is mission. "Mission" can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but the point of it, whatever its manifestation, is that it is outward in orientation. We churched folks huddling up together and enjoying each other's company is not the end, but rather a happy byproduct of and means to a greater end, which is the extension of God's merciful hand and glorious name to the neighbors around us and to the ends of the earth. And our senior pastor was doing right by us in pushing us to be pointed in that direction.

And, with apologies to our senior pastor, who probably put a lot of time and effort into his sermon preparation, our family life pastor did something probably equally important and impactful, except he probably did it off the cuff. (I say "probably" because I assume but don't know for sure that it wasn't planned.) We had just gotten through our announcements and our corporate prayer, during which it was announced that our senior pastor was stepping down and that our direction of children, youth, and family ministries was also stepping down; not news to many, since letters had been sent out earlier in the week, but one of the first if not the first official announcements from the pulpit to that effect.

Wisely intuiting that our congregation might be, either consciously or sub-consciously, reeling from this double headline of major transition, our family life pastor seized the moment, before giving thanks for our offering, to address the congregation during this point of vulnerability and anxiety. He thoughtfully reminded us that while it is natural to fear transition, it also represents an opportunity to remember that while people come and go, God is still here. Appropriately, he quoted Hebrews 13:8 - "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" - I say "appropriately" because that verse comes at the end of a series of exhortations to an embattled people, to keep on practicing brotherly love and being hospitable and pursuing sexual purity and saying no to materialism and, yes, even remembering what instruction was given to us by our leaders. In other words, a people sent out by God, and now facing strife and uncertainty, can continue doing what it has been called to do, because of the constancy of the One in whose name we go.

And so, lest I contradict the very point I am trying to make, I want to close by saying that I appreciate my pastors for their ability to discern what we needed to hear and to speak accordingly, with authority and sensitivity and persuasion. And, ultimately, I appreciate that they are called and emboldened by a God who continues to work, in our church and in gatherings around the world, no matter how much tumult and turnover there is, and in spite of our not-quite-faithful responses to it. Jesus Christ is indeed the same yesterday and today and forever; the bodies and titles and programming and themes may change over time, but His presence and our purpose remain the same.

Thoughts on Michael Vick

I've avoided commenting on the Philadelphia Eagles' signing of Michael Vick last week, since it's been covered so extensively that I'm not sure I have any new ground to cover. But a friend of mine asked me for my take, so at the risk of rehashing what someone else has said far more eloquently than I and of opening myself up to a torrent of criticism or rebuttal, here are six angles to this story I don't agree with.

* What he did was so heinous that he doesn't deserve a second chance. Have we so given up on people who have committed crimes that we want their punishment to last far longer than what justice has determined they merit? Here's a guy who did hard time, lost all his material possessions, and had his reputation completely obliterated. I'm not asking for your sympathy for this; he deserved all this. But he's paid his debt, and now it's time for him to move on, live in the lessons he's learned, and earn a living. Hey, it's easy to sort the world into good people and bad people, to call ourselves the good people, and then tell the bad people they have to suffer forever. More complicated but more honest to say that we're all the same, and some of us sometimes do bad things that merit societal punishment, after which we should be encouraged to get on with our lives and do something positive, not be shunned and branded forever.

* Young people look up to NFLers; what sort of message does this send? It sends the message that no matter how good you are at what you do, no matter how rich and famous you get, if you commit a crime, you will suffer the penalty, and it will be steep. And it sends the message that if you have messed up and ended up in the gutter with nothing to your name, sometimes there's still a chance at redemption. And it sends the message that in this world, there are good people like Tony Dungy and Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb, none of them perfect, but all of them willing to put their arm around a vilified outcast, stand up for him and stand next to him, and help him make right what he had made wrong.

* The Eagles are being disingenuous when they say this is about second chances; this is about winning football games and making money. I haven't read enough to know all of what the Eagles are saying, but it doesn't appear that they're saying they're doing this solely out of charity; they want to win a Super Bowl and they think Vick will help them do that. Why do we need to pit an organization's desire to excel with the opportunity it can have to help a fellow member, as if you can only do one or the other, and if you say you're doing one you are automatically not able to do the other? In this very city, one of Mayor Nutter's first moves in office was to courageously offer a tax credit for any local employer that hired an ex-con. We have a lot of those around here, you know, and among the many needs in their lives is gainful employment to provide them with dignity and purpose and money. And Mayor Nutter basically said, "Getting these men and women a job is of public policy value to our citizenry." But if I'm an employer thinking about taking him up on this tax break (and, sadly, not very many have), I'm not saying, "Lemme do an act of charity and hire this person, even though he or she isn't really going to help my business." Rather, they're saying, "I'm going to hire this person because I have a position to fill in running my business that this person can fill, and the tax break helps me do it." In other words, we should look for and celebrate ways we can help others and ourselves at the same time. The Eagles are looking for the Vick signing to be just that; and somehow the fact that this is good for them makes it somehow less noble or less pure?

* This is a bad football move in that Donovan McNabb will now be looking over his shoulder all the time. McNabb was the one who first put the idea in management's head. He considers himself Vick's friend and big brother. He also considers himself the leader of the Eagles, and with Brian Dawkins' departure, he unquestionably is. So whatever he says, goes; as he has embraced Vick, so have his teammates, and if McNabb fails as the starter, his team fails as well. That's the responsibility McNabb wants, and that's what he deserves, as the face and the heart of this football team.

* I'm a dog lover, and what Michael Vick did was reprehensible. I'll close with this one. I know there are some true blue dog lovers out there, for whom cruelty to dogs is painful to even fathom. I have no words that can soothe that wound. What I can say is that even though people are sometimes harder to love than dogs, they deserve some semblance of similar sympathy. And, in this very city, 188 people have been murdered since January 1, an average of about 300 a year for the entire decade. In this country, about 1500 children die as a result of abuse or neglect each year. In the world, there are estimated to be 246 million child slaves and bonded child laborers. Where is the outrage for that loss of human life and dignity? If we cannot bear to think about dogs being tortured and in some cases killed, why do we go about our daily lives undisturbed by the fact that humans are being degraded, abused, and gunned down? My point here is not that it is wrong when we hurt for dogs being hurt, but that it is wrong when we don't hurt for humans being hurt.

I don't begrudge those who refuse to cut Michael Vick slack, or who have sold their season tickets, or who have written strongly worded letters to Eagles management. It's a free country, and everyone is entitled to their opinion. This is mine.

A Big Urban Migration

According to a report from the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), the world's population will hit 7 billion in 2011. All but 3 percent of the growth over the next 40 years is going to take place in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

And, of the world's current 1.2 billion youth, nearly 90 percent live in the developing world. One of the report's co-authors notes, "During the next few decades, these young people will most likely continue the current trend of moving from rural areas to cities in search of education and training opportunities, gainful employment, and adequate health care."

Will they find such resources? Time will tell. For now, remember how important it will be for urban settings around the world to address issues of economic growth, race and class tensions, and the provision of basic public services.

The Problem of the Suburbs

A nice run of posts over at the Freakonomics blog on the future of suburbia in an age of not-cheap energy. I've found myself especially mulling over the link to 20 finalists for a suburban re-do contest. It has occurred to me that in order to know which solution is best, one must decide what the problem is.

So what is the problem of the suburbs? Some not-so-organized thoughts:

Trend 1 - America will become more populous, more aged, and more diverse. We're already seeing this, and we're seeing it happen in the 'burbs as well.

Trend 2 - A lot of what the suburbs are built on is unsustainable. The geographic distribution of the subprime meltdown is just a harbinger of things to come. Water-intensive golf courses in the middle of deserts, and land uses predicated on subsidized highways and free parking, are going to become prohibitively expensive to initiate and maintain.

Trend 3 - People are still going to want to sort and to have their space. High-density living isn't for everyone, so despite the fact that it will become more economically logical over time, some will opt out, and are free to do so. On a related note, many will continue to choose their residential community to sort themselves and their school-age kids with others like them and not with others not like them.

Trend 4 - Manufacturing will go sideways more than it will go either up or down. On the one hand, we may regain some currently offshored activity, as the cost advantage of developing countries narrows on account of higher wages and pollution caps. On the other hand, who everyone loses to (and, paradoxically, as a result, gains from) is machines, as the relentless pace of innovation and automation drives down the cost of manufacturing as well as the labor component of it. I'm not sure which force will be greater, so right now I'm calling it a push.

Trend 5 - The new quintessential middle-class job sector will be in health care. See Trend 1 above. If 80 is the new 40, no matter how much medicine advances, 80-year-olds have more health care needs than 40-year-olds. The longer we live and the richer we get, the more of a proportion of our income we are willing to spend on increasing the quality and quantity of our health. So that's where the job growth will be, enough so that there will be healthy hospital growth outside of high-density urban settings. See Trend 6 below.

Trend 6 - Cities are still where all the good stuff is going to be. The knowledge economy demands agglomerations of smart people, so all the good jobs will be there. Density is also needed for important people-attracting things like universities, teaching hospitals, research centers, cultural institutions, entertainment venues, and public services.

Trend 7 - Supermarkets will be the "suburban transit villages" many New Urbanists had envisioned. Many suburbanites will still balk at living in mixed-use communities, but will clamor for human contact and for accomplishing multiple functions in one place. So you're going to see a consolidation of supermarket space, and a swallowing up of other uses under those roofs, like banking, coffee shops, and community center sorts of classes.

Trend 8 - Greenfields will be, well, greened. The suburbs may not get much denser, but neither will there be demand for new development that further sprawls them out. So the low-hanging greenfield space that used to get converted into housing will now be used to help clusters of jurisdictions to generate energy at a more localized level. Insert your renewable energy flavor of the month here; I have no idea which is going to win out, but whatever it is, you're going to see pockets of it disbursed within far-flung suburbs.

Trend 9 - Greenfields will be, well, greened (Part 2). As food becomes dearer, and transporting it even dearer, producing it locally will go mainstream, no longer just the purview of the enlightened or the crunchy, but a reasonable choice for the coldly rational shopper. Cottage industries will form around experts who know what crops work in what places and how to get them grown in the newly available greyfields abandoned by what used to be malls and strip centers.

Trend 10 - Regional rail is going to get super-sized. Remember how future travel was envisioned in Minority Report? (See photo above.) You're going to see Mini-sized cars that can drive on regular roads and whose axles are standardized so as to fit on conveyer belts that transport you from suburban nodes to urban hubs (and, perhaps, from one metro region to another). Or you can hop into an empty pod instead of bringing your own. With bike and car share waiting for you on both ends.

Hmmm . . . I started by thinking I would get at what is the problem of the suburbs, and have ended up with a mish-mash of problems, trends, and solutions. Well, think of this as a rambly conversation starter. Please join in on the fun.

Make Church a Jargon-Free Zone

Depending on your networks and interests, you are likely to have several layers of jargon you’re comfortable with using. Maybe you subscribe to a trade journal for software developers, or regularly attend conferences for health care professionals, or work for a large company that seems to have its own “language.” At any rate, what might be indiscernible to the rest of the world is second nature to you, whether it is acronyms (ASCII, EHR, ISO 9000) or terminology (capitation, server virtualization, quality assurance).

The reason for all of this alphabet soup and all of this strange vocabulary is that people in these fields have essentially created a sort of shorthand for themselves. The assumption is that everyone knows what these terms mean, using the terms rather than explaining oneself over and over again is more efficient, and outsiders for whom these strange words and phrases make no sense don’t really need to know what they’re talking about anyway.

Makes sense so far, right? So why is there so much jargon in the church? I did not grow up in the church, and so even though I have now lived more life as a believer than not, I think I am still sensitive to the perspective of the outsider who, upon arriving at a new church, may be made to feel as an outsider who isn’t meant to understand what everyone else is talking about.

I’m not even talking about our common habit of talking to our fellow congregants instead of making extra effort to say hi to a newcomer and introduce him or her to others nearby, although the absence of that sort of welcoming and inclusive vibe certainly leaves an impression on guests. No, even if we’re really good at that sort of thing before, during, and after our worship services, I wonder if the actual words and phrases we use create a feeling of exclusion rather than inclusion.

For example, I can still remember way back when that the first time I heard the acronym, “VBS,” I thought they were referring to a sexually transmitted disease. Religious terms that most of us take for granted, like “Holy Spirit” and “salvation” and “sacraments,” beg to be elaborated on rather than used in a way as if to say, “We all know what we’re talking about when we say that . . . don’t you?”

Again, I’m not talking about the non-verbal cues we give off to newcomers, although those are just as if not equally important – how many times have we huddled up with long time friends after a service has ended, literally shielding ourselves away from some poor newcomer who pretty easily gets the hint that there’s no more room left in that circle. I’m also not talking about dumbing down or altogether ignoring spiritual truths – there is room for intellect and for theology in our churches and in the hearts and minds of today’s seeker.

All I’m saying is, walk into a room of Java programmers or pharmaceutical representatives or Six Sigma gearheads or even baseball stat junkies. Notice how it feels to be physically in the same room but not understand a word you are hearing, to realize you don’t really belong. Now think about the extent to which a newcomer to your church, upon hearing the acronyms and terms and special names you casually throw around in your worship service, feels the same way.

I assume we would all say that we want our congregations to be welcoming and that we want to honor people who take the bold step of checking us out. But the way we use jargon, it is as if what we really want out of our church involvement is to socialize with our own, create a comfortable setting in which we and we alone know what we're talking about, and not really have to bother explaining to or including outsiders. And if that's the case, shame on us.

Vanity Fare

It's hard enough to be a teenage girl without the mixed messages we give them about what counts as beauty. One minute we're scolding celebs for being unhealthily thin, and the next, we're scolding them for letting themselves go. The latest development in this arena appears to be the airbrushing of Kelly Clarkson on the cover of Self Magazine. Self Magazine editor Lucy Danziger's very lame explanation included this gem:

When I ran the marathon five years ago, I was so proud of myself for completing it in under five hours and not walking a single step. But my hips looked big in some of the photos (I was heavier then), so when I wanted to put one of them on the editor's letter in SELF, I asked the art department to shave off a little. I am confident in my body, proud of what it can accomplish, but it just didn't look the way I wanted in every picture.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome one of the key purveyors of content and images for our generation! With messages and messengers like this, we have a lot to overcome when it comes to shedding our own vanity and helping our own children to accept their physical selves. On the other hand, kudos to Kelly Clarkson for not buying into what everyone else seems to want her to buy into, and for exercising because it makes her feel good and keeps her healthy and not because it forces her into somebody else's body mold.

Racial Differences

A useful element of racial differences, courtesy of the Freakonomics blog's interview of 23 and Me founder Anne Wojcicki:

A lot of the difficulty in talking about race has been a lack of agreement on what “race” means. In the past, the idea of pure races also included an ordering of certain races as inherently superior to others. We reject this idea absolutely. However, that doesn’t mean that there are no genetic differences between populations of different ancestral origin. A few of our features use the genome-wide data of reference populations from around the world to trace the origin of pieces of an individual’s genome. Some customers have complex patterns depending on where their ancestors originated. These reference populations aren’t “races”; they’re representative samples of peoples who have lived in a single place for a very long time and have thus accumulated different sets of genetic variants over time.

Brown v. Board of Education stated that "separate" was inherently unequal; but "different" does not have to be. Of course, "different" can be used to subjugate, insult, or denigrate one type over another; but it can also be used to identify risk factors, target treatments, and provide a more customized quality of care.

Now, "representative samples of peoples who have lived in a single place for a very long time and have thus accumulated different sets of genetic variants over time" is a very long descriptor, and, unfortunately, "race" is a very loaded one. But hopefully, we can figure out ways to accept and even celebrate our "differentnesses" - think of the salad bowl and not the melting pot.

Family Update

I'll keep the details sparse to respect my family's request for privacy, but I did want to report out on a few things related to my recent trip to San Jose to them:

* My parents are both in good spirits. Both are making progress each day, and we are looking ahead to having them both home eventually, albeit with some adjustments that will need to be made, some temporary and some permanent, to accommodate them.

* My sister has been outstanding in her coordination and thoroughness regarding care, insurance issues, and other logistics. I pray peace and endurance and healing for her as well.

* Many thanks to all who helped us. I should've known that when you ask the Taiwanese community for food, you get it in abundance. And we also received child care in abundance, which came in handy given how busy I was shuttling between hospitals and tending to various responsibilities.

It was good to see everyone but good to return home to Philadelphia. Despite how tiring and sad it was, this first trip back was a successful and meaningful one, as well. I'm sure we'll be back many times over the next couple of years. Thanks to all for your concern, your support, and your prayers.

The Difference between Urban Philly and Suburban San Jose

Just got back from a week in San Jose tending to family issues related to my parents' car accident. Lots more to say but this ain't the forum for it. This post is far more mundane, just random musings under the heading of "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore, are we":

* The car wash in my neighborhood is $2.95, and for another 75 cents, you get about 5 minutes of vacuum to clean out your interior. Here, even with a $4-off coupon, I still shelled out 16 bucks.

* Granted that with my parents being in different hospitals, there are unique circumstances. Still, I drove more in 5 days in town, in terms of number of trips and legs, than I had in the last 60 days combined in Philly.

* I was in a rush to run a quick errand at the local supermarket and so, without thinking, stopped in the middle of the entrance to fumble with my sunglasses and backpack. As I was stuffing my sunglasses behind my back and into my backpack, I basically clocked a guy in the head as he was trying to dart past me. Before I could even say anything, he said sorry to me. In Philly, fists might have flown; instead, I'm getting instant apologies for being in the way of my lazy elbow. (I swear, every time I'm out there I have one of these kinds of encounters. Two times ago, it was a DVD rental that turned out to be the wrong disc, which necessitated us turning our car around and me getting riled up to make my case to the cashier. Only five words in, he meekly apologized and said he's get the right disc right away. And I had prepared many more than five words to say to him, and had to put them in my back pocket and accept that I was going to get what I wanted without a fuss.)

* One morning, I took the kids to the park with another friend of mine and his kids, who all live in urban Oakland. As we headed into the meat of the park, we saw a couple walking their dogs, and my friend said to his kids, "It's OK, they're friendly, 'cause we're in the suburbs now." City kids know it's best to be wary at first when it comes to the canines.

* This isn't an urban/suburban thing but still worth noting. I had set a time to meet with friends at a local park. I appended a PS noting that there was no rain site, so if it was raining, there would be no meet-up. Two of my friends teased me by saying "it doesn't rain in the summertime around here, silly."

Nothing to Offer Except Shameful Sin

In a country in which being a Christian is often made synonymous with wondering if your president was actually born in Hawaii, I submit to you two unlikely categories of people that ought to be dazzled by Jesus - if only us Jesus followers would correctly portray Him in our lives: people who like to buck the establishment and people who have committed societally shameful sins. This facet of the Savior comes alive in the story of Simon and the scandalous woman (Luke 7), as recently blogged about over at Desiring God.

If you don't know the story, a respected religious leader invites Jesus over to dinner. The undercurrent is likely that this man, Simon, is skeptical if not downright dismissive of the man from Nazareth; he doesn't even offer him the customary foot-washing for guests. And yet he knows the Nazarene is highly regarded among the people; perhaps Simon will win some points within the religious community for playing host.

Somehow, a woman whose reputation precedes her makes her way to Jesus, perfume jar in hand. Crying, she brazenly lets her tears fall on Jesus' feet, then washes those same feet with her tears, her perfume, and her hair. Forget inappropriate: this is bordering on erotic. Simon is probably instinctively offended, but perhaps a little smug: here is inconclusive proof that the man from Nazareth who is the flavor of the moment is nothing but an irreverent, uneducated, and unsophisticated hack.

Jesus proceeds to tell him a story about two people whose debts are cancelled. The one with the larger debt is more grateful, and in the same way, the woman loves much because she has been forgiven much; but, ominously, Jesus continues, he who has been forgiven little, loves little. Then he tells the woman, in front of Simon and all of his guests, that she is forgiven, that her faith has saved her, and that she can go in peace.

As Jon Bloom, the author of the blog post at Desiring God, puts it, the woman had nothing to offer Jesus but her shameful sin. Simon, on the other hand, did everything right in the eyes of the world, from the standpoint of religion and respectability. And yet, in his own home, he hears Jesus honor the scandalous woman instead. That day, the upstanding religious leader is taught a lesson, his indignation condemned; while the outcasted sinner woman is honored, her inappropriate behavior approved of.

What about us? Do we understand that we have been forgiven much? Do we invite Jesus into our figurative homes by washing His feet with our shameful sin? Or do we stand off to the side with our arms crossed, confident in our upstanding reputation and disdainful of others whose sins are more public and scandalous? Here in Philadelphia, and in communities around the world, we can find many Simons and many scandalous women. Which am I? Having been forgiven much, will I love much?

And, do I communicate to others that my Savior is like this? For the Simons and the scandalous women in my city need to know Him.

Pee Freely

What if I told you there is a simple thing you can in the morning to save time, save the environment, and save money? Over at the Freakonomics blog, there's a link to a story about a Brazilian environmental group is running an ad campaign to encourage people to (wait for it) pee in the shower. My wife might be reading this, so I won't tell you whether I have started to heed the call; after all, I wouldn't want to (sorry, can't resist) piss her off.

What Am I Working On

Here's my quarterly update on new things I've been working on at work since the last update on May 1 (you can read past posts for my ground rules on these quarterly updates):

* Writing a city's strategic plan for increasing the availability and utilization of minorities, women, and disabled persons in contract and employment opportunities

* Evaluating the overall benefit and cost over the past decade of a jurisdiction's marquee economic development incentive program

* Producing a report template to be used by that jurisdiction in determine whether or not to recommend individual applicants for that incentive program

* Providing third-party review and update of pro forma financial statements for a proposed entertainment development

* Generating briefing reports with customized maps for individual commercial corridors based on our previous three-study of retail in Philadelphia