Tom thanks Pope Benedict

"Idle thoughts"
Saturday September 9, 2006

Tom says here's to the Catholics who believe the Protestant work ethic is a dangerous thing.

take back summer

The Grinch Who Stole Summer
By Karin Klein

the perils of multitasking

I knew it. Not only is multitasking a "moral weakness", it is bad for you!

From TIME magazine:

Help! I've Lost My Focus
by CLAUDIA WALLIS, SONJA STEPTOE
TIME magazine
Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006

busyness

The Death of Stillness
The Price We Pay For Losing Our Private Peace
by Richard Mahler

This is a good column but it leaves out one thing. It does not discuss the phenomenon of people who wear and state their "busyness" as a badge of honor. These people are not even that busy, but they deliberately fill their schedules (and empty lives) and discuss their busyness in order to let other people know how busy they are. How's it going? Busy, busy, busy!

time

Out of Time
by Jonathan Rowe
from yes! magazine

A big-ticket “Alpha Mom,” profiled in New York magazine, said that her baby was something she and her husband “really dedicated time in our schedules for.”

She said this with pride, as though she had identified a hot strategic opportunity. The schedule rules, and kids get fitted to it. Chances are her child, like others, soon will become hyper-scheduled as well. Kids today are getting day planners at age six. Their days consist of a sequence of lessons and supervised sports, all governed by the clock. Unstructured outdoor play has dropped by 50 percent since the late 1970s. (A letter-writer to New York suggested that Alpha Mom start to set aside money for the psychiatry bills that are coming.)