Japan lost a heartbreaker game in its World Cup match with Belgium earlier this week. Normally that would be the focus when talking about the game afterwards. But because of the actions of the Japanese team, and its fans, that was not the case. Instead, Japan showed the world what it means to be a … Continue reading Japan: A Model for How to Be Gracious in Defeat
Garrett Hill, PA and the 4th of July. That means one thing. A parade. It's a tradition that's carried out in communities across the U.S. And we are fortunate to live within 200 yards of the route for the Garrett Hill parade, and so we've made it part of our 4th of July for the … Continue reading A Classic Small-Town Parade
My son and I were watching the Colombia vs England World Cup match today, and while I am not really a soccer fan, the game was quite exciting. Perhaps because I spent most of this past winter in London, I was rooting for England. When Colombia scored with less than three minutes to go to … Continue reading Is There a More Pressure-Packed Job Than This?
That's the average number of hours worked per week per person in the U.S. And for all of the talk of the U.S. being a nation of workaholics, it is ranked number 13 on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's annual list of hours worked around the world. Mexico had the highest average, at … Continue reading 34.2
Marketing Birds posted this clever ad from an anti-littering campaign that ran in London in 2015. Perhaps Marketing Birds tweeted it out last week since the World Cup was in full swing, and it was a nice reminder of how great the ad campaign was. Here is the ad: UK organization Hubbub, in collaboration with CommonWorks, came … Continue reading Ronaldo Wins The Smokers’ Vote
Those are the words of an 18-year old college freshman, relating how he felt after his first weekend at college. He was invited to a party that first weekend, and he didn’t know anybody. So he started to drink. He drank way too much and ended up lying on a bench in his residential hall, … Continue reading ‘There I was, alone, with all these people around.’
Most of us probably don't bother thinking about it, and just assume that prices are cheaper at dollar stores. But that is not always the case, according to a study by The Guardian. For example, a 4.5 ounce box of raisins costs $1.00 at a dollar store, but a 72-ounce box at a big box … Continue reading Buyer Beware
A couple of weeks ago I received the results of my teaching evaluations from this past Spring, and to say they were less than stellar would be putting it mildly. In fact, they were among the worst evaluations I've received in 30 years of teaching. My first reaction was to downplay the significance of the … Continue reading Asking For, and Getting, Help
A few weeks a go I wrote a post about how the Burger King on Market Street in San Francisco played classical music all night and all day, to discourage the homeless from hanging around. I also noted how that was not the first time such a tactic had been used. A Canadian 7-Eleven used … Continue reading Barry Manilow Writes the Songs That Repel People??
In a series of laboratory studies, former Stanford postdoctoral fellow Paul O’Keefe, along with Stanford psychologists Carol Dweck and Gregory Walton, examined beliefs that may lead people to succeed or fail at developing their interests. Now I'm a fan of Dweck's work on the importance of having a growth mindset, and while this current research seems to build … Continue reading How Is This Stanford Research Considered “New”?
Borden's Blather 