I Speak of Dreams

Whazzup

Since Wednesday I've been at the Pebble Beach Equestrian Classic I,  with Able, in my role as Toter of the Checkbook.  She's been having good rounds -- I think I am going to write a long post on What Hunt Seat Competition is All About.

We stay at the Beachcomber Inn -- I recommend it if you are coming to the Monterey Peninsula.  The only deal is that there's no wireless -- you have to use dialup.  I don't anymore unless I have to, so I walk 5 minutes over to Asilomar.   The Phoebe Cook Social Hall has wireless.  Because I went to Blogher '05, I missed our annual picnic at Asilomar State Beach.

Saturday I went to Blogher '05.  I had the greatest time, and will be wrapping up in following posts.

Forget the Mercury

One of the things I love about the modern era is the ease catching new ideas. Ed Brayton has introduced me to a particularly dotty one: "erototoxins".    Erototoxin even has a Wikipedia entry.

Here is the hallucinatory testimony from Judith Reisman.

The "Outer Limits" theme song must be playing....

An Answer to The Road to Whatever

Elliott Currie's The Road to Whatever  has a chapter, " "There's No Help Out There": The World of Therapeutic Darwinism" in which he commented on the negative, punitive approach to teen drug treatment:

Indeed, the degree to which an emphasis on punishment dominated the inner culture of many "helping" programs bordered on the bizarre. Every institution that deals with troubled people, to be sure, requires some way of maintaining discipline, and achieving a blaance between discipline and support is never easy.  But the discipline meeted out in many of the gaencies encountered by these teenagers was often explicitly designed to demean and humiliate them. (p. 161)

I was curious about alternatives to 12-step programs for teens in drug- and alcohol recovery.

I found Dr. Robert Schwebel's Seven Challenges program, which looks like it meets many of  Currie's criteria for effectiveness.

Minnesota Model and Under-Twenty Drug Users

Reading Elliott Currie's The Road to Whatever made me wonder, is 12-step (the "Minnesota Model" of treatment) really appropriate for teens?

The 12-step model has its critics, but is widely assumed in popular culture to be "the only effective treatment".  It's not, it is just the best-known and its assumptions about human nature are deeply ingrained in the treatment industry.

The Road to Whatever

Why are "therapeutic schools" a booming --if questionable--business?  Elliot Currie has an answer --  the changes in middle class culture since the 1960s.

He says the answer has four parts:

The Best Private Schools In The Bay Area

Because I've written on private schools, I get hits looking for the "best private schools" in the Bay Area.

That question is not answerable.   Why?  Because ranking schools -- good, better, best -- overlooks the fundamental feature of independent schools.  Each one is different.  The correct question is, which school is the best fit for your child?

It is hard to see, in this age where California public schools are ranked by Academic Performance Index (API) scores.  Homes change value -- sometimes by tens of thousands of dollars -- based on those scores.

If the public schools are ranked, goes the thought, why shouldn't the private schools be ranked also?

 

See Old California

California  Views was established in 1970 and is located in historic Monterey, on the California Central Coast, this unique photo archive is the most comprehensive historical photo collection of the Monterey Bay area.

Mr. Pat Hathaway, Photo Archivist
California Views Historical Photo Collection
469 Pacific Street, Monterey
California 93940-2702

Cannery Row
Monterey Bay

Go look around the lost world.

Go Read This

Kevin G. Barkes has written a very moving requiem on the death of James Montgomery Doohan, most famed for his portrayal of  Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott,  the chief engineer of the USS Enterprise.

Until the arrival of Bill Gates, Scotty was the first expression of the belief that the nerds could probably run things better, but were disinclined to deal with such mundane challenges.

Keeping Kids Safe

That Girl has been ruminating on maintaining her peace of mind in contemporary culture.

At the risk of sounding dismissive, I will venture to say that -- very generally speaking -- the horrific things that happen today to kids aren't all that different than the horrific things that have always been happening. But because we react so strongly to it, the horrifying stuff gets the highest play. Over the past five years the media has seemed to teach us us that kids are kidnapped all the time. They aren't. It's rare. And the majority of kidnappings are actually done by non-custodial parents. Not that the genuine kidnappings are any less horrific, but they aren't as prevalent as the almighty media would have us believe.

Nanny-Blog-Gate

Patrick Nielson Hayden says of l'affaire Helaine Olen

That's what's interesting about this story: the values implicit in Olen's decision to write this essay and the Times' decision to publish it. It's increasingly clear that the people who control our national media are as unreflective an elite as the Bourbon royal court. Helaine Olen doesn't just enjoy massive privileges; she enjoys the privilege of never, ever having to think about her privileges.