Reflecting on Kids...

I attended a meeting tonight and a small child that can't be more that two decided I had an inviting lap. I know her grandparents, but I'd never seen her before. She decided to perch herself in my lap and laugh and giggle for a while. It's been a long time since I held a child that young. Usually small children are a little skeptical of people they don't know. But this child comes from a very loving family and I guess her sense of security was pretty strong. She made me her new friend and spent a good ten minutes with me. It made me think of my own daughters at that age...

I have the good fortune this year to spend a little time each day with every grade at my school. I spend 45 minutes each day with kindergarten through fifth grade. And I see the preK kids at lunch and at bus duty. In just a few short weeks it's given me a real sense of how kids develop.

I told my wife yesterday that I'd decided that second grade was a turning point. Most kids at that point emerge from some sort of fog or haze that seems to me to have a lot to do with their ability to articulate ideas and the depth of their perception of the world. I enjoy my time in second grade reading block a lot.

At the moment kindergarten and first grade are both working on writing. But for kindergarten that's a motor skills and memory activity. But the first graders are having to think of words to put in blanks in their sentences: He see a _______. In some cases they're being required to create whole sentences on their own. And you can see the wheels turn as they think...

By fifth grade they're almost like little adults - with some depth of knowledge, the ability to really reason with you, a much firmer grip on behavioral issues, etc. The irony is that a week or to after finishing fifth grade, hormones (and the emotions that come with them) will make them almost unhuman.

Five Things I Wish I had Time to Write About...

A few links to articles I wish I had time to comment on...

• Hello? If McCain Had His Way, That'd Be Our Social Security Money Wall Street is Losing - by John Neffinger
• GOP gets no love from musicians
• Proud to be a Community Organizer - by Christine C. Quinn
• John McCain's Health Records Must Be Released! - by Robert Greenwald
• Is It Sexist To Want The Person Flying The Plane To Be A Pilot? - by Kathleen Reardon

It's Official: We're Worse Off Than Before Bush Took Office...

Mother Jones pointed out today that the stock market has now fallen below where it was when Bush took office almsot eight years ago.

Remind em again... Which party is good for business? I've been told a lot that investing in the stock market is a sure thing over time. But a lot of people's retirement accounts are pretty bad off at the moment.

Congress Threatening Second Life (and Other Games)? Not for Now...

Someone I follow on Twitter pointed out that a Congressional committee was voting the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act's regulation. The badly written law was passed in 2006 to regulate Internet gambling, but because it is fairly vague it would also impact other form of online gaming, including the virtual reality game Second Life, when it begins to be enforced.

Second Life is a multiplayer online game that allows players to live and work in a virtual world. It is the "work" part that raises issues. Second Life has its own money, and that money can be converted into real world money. Under the new law, that would make it a game of skill - like poker, I suppose.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act evidently places most of the burden of enforcement on banks and other financial institutions. The result is likely to be that those banks will set up barriers to dealing with online gaming as a way of avoiding liability.

For now the issue seems to have been postponed. The House Committee on Financial Services today The Payments System Protection Act (H.R. 6870). If passed into law, that law would "direct the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve System, in consultation with the Attorney General, to appoint a special Administrative Law Judge to define the types of unlawful online gambling and conduct an economic impact study on the costs for compliance," according to USNewswire - effectively undermining the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

In other word, Congress is no longer sure that every game that makes money on the Internet qualifies as gambling...

I Guess I'll Twitter

Well, I've heard a lot about it. I figured I'd sign up for Twitter and see what it was like.

First thoughts: it was puzzling. But I suppose most new platform is puzzling...

Twitter is a little like blogging, only you're limited 140 characters. That makes it more like working with instant messaging or texting on a cell phone - neither of which I do.

Connecting with people is easier than just about any social network that I've worked with. I found TwitterPacks on Google. That gave me a few people to follow. I think I'd been on twitter half an hour when the first people signed up to follow me on twitter. I have no clue how they found me...

So far, it's interesting and a little addictive. Probably more to come about Twitter...

Mitt Romney on McCain Lies: "What's the heart and the soul of the Republican Party going to be...?"