What-What?! Week of January 19th

Something Silly:  My Little Pony Movies on Netflix

Netflix just recently added a bunch of My Little Pony movies from the mid-2000's (scroll down to M).  It's from generation three era, so it's basically all cutesy ponies and little girl stuff.  If you don't have kids, I wouldn't recommend it whatsoever, but my children enjoy the films, especially the song and dance numbers.

As an MLP geek, I did want to point out The Runaway Rainbow, which follows the story of Rarity becoming the princess of Unicornia, is actually pretty accurate prehistory to the current My Little Pony TV series.  If you just pretend that this film is historical, and all the current ponies are named after these historical figures, it makes a lot more sense.

Something Serious: Closing the Word Gap Between Rich and Poor

Recently, NPR ran an article discussing the "word gap" between the rich and poor.  Research estimates that, by the age of three, poor children hear about 30 million fewer words than children from more affluent families.

The article quotes the mayor of Providence, RI, saying that two-thirds of RI kindergartners start out the year below national literacy averages.  However, the article and the mayor make no comments about the income backgrounds of those children.  This begs the question: Are these subpar literacy skills the result of the word gap, or other factors?  Further, if it is connected to the word gap, perhaps not speaking to your children is cultural to the area, not connected to economic background?

What bothers me about this research is that it is largely about the result -- the lack of words spoken to poor children -- as opposed to the reasons why this occurs.  The article posits a few reasons for the gap, but at the same time, these reasons seem to be in the vein that poor people don't know how to parent effectively.  Using this as an excuse to enact universal preschool is especially disgusting; not only would preschool would be a band-aid measure that "fixes" the problem after it's all ready happened, but it also acts on the assumption that 10-20 children in a room with one teacher for a few hours everyday is better than the more individual and substantial interaction from a parent.

Other research has found that low income families are more likely to watch TV and movies with their children, which takes time away from talking, playing, or reading books.  It would follow that this fact is involved with reducing interaction between parents and children, much more than simply "poor parents don't talk enough".  What's interesting, is that studies have shown that less parental life pressures, less parental screen time, and greater social support, are connected to reduced screen time in children.  Those factors are all probably connected:  More social support leads to less stress in life, thus parents are less likely to want to "veg out" in front of the TV after a long day.  If parents aren't watching TV, their children probably aren't, either.

(imgs via Wikipedia, NPR.com)

What-What?! Week of August 11th

This week, I actually started writing several posts, but they all turned into topics that were more suitable for stand-alone articles than for blogging.  Incidentally, I forgot to mention that I had two articles published last week, this time by Yahoo! Voices:  In Defense of New Grads, and Three Reasons Why the Job Market is Better than You Think – And One Reason it Isn’t.  I have another article that is currently going through the editing process, but should be published within the week, and another article that I’m still developing (featuring Jeremy Clarkson, of all people).

In other news, Netflix is no longer offering Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (UK); I watch that show for both cooking and business inspiration, which it really has in buckets.  I am terribly disappointed, and now I have to go find something else to watch.

Disney Planes Travel Posters via BuzzFeed

As part of the promotions for Planes, Disney developed these brilliant travel posters – however, I believe that the one labeled Japan is actually for China.  Otherwise, these are very visually striking posters.  Click the link above for the other five.

Food:  Cowboy Casserole

In searching for this recipe, I read it described as looking “like dog food”, and another that described it as a lazy man’s shepherd’s pie (which is pretty close, actually).

Overall, this was a winner.  This recipe would be great for large families or groups, as it makes a full 9 x 13 pan of food, and it is quite filling.  One could not mistake it for a healthy meal, however, so a side salad is a must.  The combination of the creamy meat with the crispy potatoes and cheese was delicious, though using two cans of “cream of” soup was too much fake-creaminess, so I would cut it down to one (or even none, and use a basic béchamel sauce instead).  My husband suggested added some chopped mushrooms next time, which I think we’ll definitely try.

News:  5 Reasons Every Job Seeker Should Blog via Careerealism

This is kind of a funny article; when I started this blog, I never did so with the intention of improving my chances of getting a job.  However, I’ve had several interviews where the interviewer commented about it; generally, the reaction has been quite good.  One of the things that this article brings up at the beginning is blogging missteps, like inconsistent timing, walls of text, and inside jokes – I think that a lot of people get grandiose ideas about blogging, but when it comes to actually doing it, it just doesn’t happen.  Blogging is a lot of work, requiring planning, research, writing, and editing.  When I started this blog in January, I decided to post once a week, because I knew, even when I was in the middle of finishing my senior project, it would be manageable.

(Note: That the “5” in the title of that post should actually be written “Five”.  I have a whole handout from one of my classes devoted to the rules of when you should write out the word for a number or the number itself; I don’t believe that many people are formally taught this, though.)

Until next week!