'Anchor baby' problem solved

The immigration problem caused by “anchor babies” has created a great deal of controversy lately. I believe I have a solution to this thorny issue that should please both sides of the debate and help alleviate other social problems as well.

When an illegal immigrant, or “undocumented” immigrant if you prefer, comes to this country and gives birth to an “anchor baby”—a term, by the way which has nothing to do with the baby’s physical appearance, but is used to communicate the fact that the family’s residence becomes more “anchored” in the United States by virtue of the child—we should allow that child, when he or she becomes a teenager, to decide whether or not to deport his or her parents.

In my experience, the vast major of teenagers would kick their parents out of the country if given the chance. With my approach to this problem, federal immigration authorities are no longer the “bad guy” so I don’t think there’s much room for anyone to complain.

Yes, you say, but what about those families where the relations between their teenage sons and daughters are sufficiently amicable that the teenagers would not deport their parents? In those cases, and I anticipate this to occur only very infrequently, the parents must have some secret piece of child rearing knowledge that could benefit us all.

These people should be given jobs where they more or less raise our children for us. They can work as nannies and maids, for example. And fortunately, we already have this part of my system largely in place.

Problem solved.

Why not make OJ and Lindsay Lohan cellmates?

Lindsay Lohan is just crying out for help.
Lindsay Lohan is just crying out for jail time.

Wherein I turn a 53-word Facebook status update into a fully realized 524-word essay full of important insights.

As I searched for good and important subjects for this blog, I discovered a fertile source of material that has, to date, been mostly unexplored by serious writers: my recent Facebook status updates.

For example, yesterday I posted the following:

I got really upset today when I heard that Americans drink so many bottled waters every year that the bottles, when laid end to end, would stretch around the world 100 times. It mostly bothered me that we don’t live on a bigger planet so people couldn’t make this kind of stupid comparison.

After I deftly crafted those two sentences, I copied and pasted them into that long and thin “What’s on your mind” rectangle and pressed “share.” I then sat back and waited for the “LOLs” and smiley face icons to appear.

I was quite disappointed.

Only one person responded, my BcFF (best childhood friend forever) and she said this:

Check out the artist Chris Jordan...similar topics and some really interesting work.

I did check out the artist Chris Jordan. His work is critical of American consumerism. I now think that my BcFF didn’t read the second sentence of my post. That suspicion and the fact that—aside from the aforementioned single ill-conceived response—my post so far remains bereft of responses, I feel I need to develop this theme somewhat further and, as I sit here thinking about it, this will naturally lead to a whole series of blogs based on my misunderstood, or overlooked, cleverly worded Facebook status updates.

However, let me set my introductory comments aside for a moment and explain this specific, hilarious status update.

You see, the circumference of the earth is almost 24,902 miles. The water bottle statement implies that a train made from our plastic bottles would stretch for 2,490,200 miles. As a side note, I might mention that I think the original statement would have been even better had they used the other old standby impressive distance comparison: “to the moon and back.”

The one-way distance to the moon is 238,857 miles, so they could have said that if laid end-to-end, we use enough plastic water bottles in a year to stretch from the moon and back more than five times. Personally I prefer the “moon and back” comparison because it always reminds me of Tom Hanks’ heroics in, “Apollo 13.”

Even more than that however, I am generally tired of these types of comparisons and truly wished we lived on a planet such as Jupiter. The circumference of Jupiter at 279,118 miles is, interestingly enough, even further than the distance between the earth and the moon. So, if we lived on Jupiter I could actually turn this statement against the environmentalists and say something like, “You know, if stretched end to end, all the plastic water bottles we use in a year wouldn’t even stretch around Jupiter 10 times!”

That would be telling them!

However, if you paid any attention at all in your high school science classes, you’ve probably already picked up on an even more salient fact: there is virtually no water on Jupiter, therefore no water bottles.

I rest my case.

Damn You Ken Jennings

Only humans use tools.

Only humans mourn their dead.

Only humans can play Jeopardy.

Only humans bother listing things they mistakenly believe only they can do.

Need a (cheap) life coach? Try Pythagoras

The self-help shelves at the book store are overflowing. Demand for "life coaches" is at record levels.

Save your money. Take some free advice from a guy who was in his prime about 2500 years ago, Pythagoras.

We all know the name. And depending on your attitude toward math you probably either love him or hate him. No one can avoid A² + B² = C² . That fact alone should tell us that Pythagoras was a man we should listen to. The Greek philosopher and mathematician came up with this truth almost three millennia ago and we're still teaching it in school.

I don't think that will be true for any of the self-help authors who are pumping out today's bestsellers.

Last night I was reading a general interest book on math and the author spent a few pages outlining some biographical information on Pythagoras. Pythagoras took on students. He impressed upon them a few simple disciplines. You can fire your life coach if you adopt these for yourself.

First he made them establish a strict routine for going to bed at night and getting up in the morning. That's simple enough, although it's often hard to do.

But, when you combine this with two little rhymes Pythagoras had his students memorize and obey, it can be life changing.

Commit this to memory:

As soon as you awake, in order lay

the actions to be done in the coming day.

Don't hit the snooze button. Don't lie in bed day dreaming. Lay out what you need to accomplish. If you're an iPhone person, get yourself an app and enter all "the actions to be done in the coming day."

Pythagoras then had his students "close the loop"—if I can borrow a phrase from the days when I worked as a quality control engineer in the electronics industry—with another short rhyme they were required to memorize and recite at the end of the day:

Allow not sleep to close your eyes

Before three times reflecting on

Your actions of the day. What deeds

Done well, what not, what left undone?

Before you nod off at night, make an honest evaluation of what you were able to accomplish from the list of actions you laid out for yourself in the morning. Note the qualitative aspect of this evaluation. What did you do well? What did you do, but perhaps poorly? Then, of course, what did you fail to do?

For many of us, our days look more like this flow chart than the disciplined approach to life that Pythagoras instilled in his students.

I don't expect my legacy to last nearly as long, or have any impact like A² + B² = C² , but maybe if I start my days with a clear understanding of the actions I need to take, and spend a few moments at night to honestly reflect on my day, I will be a better person and have more to offer my family and friends.

I don't suppose they had business cards back in the days of Pythagoras. But if they did, he could have listed "life coach" along with mathematician and philosopher. And, I think his rules to guide our relationship to the tasks of our daily life are just as enduring as his formula that defines the relationship of the sides of a right triangle.