The Real Reason behind Falling Fertility in the United States

In 2010, fertility rates in the United States dropped to 1.9 (children per women) which is well below the rate of 2.1 often quoted as that required to replace our population in the next generation.  

Some blame the great recession for the decline.  Some theorize it has to do with the fact that American women are increasingly self-involved. Some blame the increasing stress from the rapidly advancing pace of society.   Some blame God. Some blame Satan.  Some don't care.

Today, I discovered the real reason for falling fertility rates.  Here it is:

This is the Wood Stork, the only breeding stork in North America.  Unfortunately, because Americans are increasingly interested in moving to Florida (so much so that it is now the third most populous state in the country, behind California and Texas), the wetlands of the Sunshine State have been degraded, destroyed, and otherwise maligned to make room for the next greatest subdivision and the next and the next.

Unfortunately, the Wood Stork has a particular predilection for Florida wetlands, because during the dry season, bodies of water remain plentiful.  After all, you would expect nothing less from a state whose land is mostly ten feet above sea level or less.

But, as importantly, these ponds, lakes, and other assorted bodies of water do dry up somewhat during the dry season, thereby providing the ideal feeding and breeding ground for the unique Wood Stork.  Under these conditions, the little fishies in the water become quite concentrated, and the Wood Stork can just insert his (or her) bill into said body of water, open up, and Voila .... lunch!

With a deficit in ponds and the fishies that populate them, two things happen.  First, the obvious -- the Wood Stork babies starve.  And, second, the not so obvious.  The water under the trees where these birds nest disappears and the raccoons take the newly arrived dry land as an excuse to climb a tree and have Wood Stork eggs for lunch.

After this happens a few too many times, the Wood Stork lands himself on the Endangered Species list.  Bless Florida's heart, however, for taking an earnest interest in its poor Stork and replenishing some of its wetlands well enough that as of June 2014, the Wood Stork migrated from the Endangered Species list to the Threatened Species list (progress, at last).

It's about time Florida received accolades for doing something right.  As anyone who reads national news knows, Florida is all too often on the other side of the headlines.

So, next time you celebrate the arrival of a new baby among your family and friends, look out onto the front lawn... quickly so you don't miss it ... and remember that the Wood Stork who just made your special delivery may well have come from a restored wetland in none other than the Sunshine State.

Wait and see ... will U.S. fertility rates recover as a result?

God is not a big football fan

After this season's NFC Championship game, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers had this to say after the game:  

"I don't think God cares a whole lot about the outcome. He cares about the people involved, but I don't think he's a big football fan."

I wasn't a big professional football fan either (although I have been long known to be glued to the TV during college football games which involve select, beloved teams), until I turned around and saw my home team, the Seattle Seahawks, doing far more than just playing football and making umpteen million dollars a year doing so.  Instead, I saw a group of people who were playing football on a heady and inspiring combination of faith (in God), positive energy, mutual affirmation, AND determination to play as a true team.  The Hawks' team mentality goes well beyond a series of loose connections among elite athletes who just happen to be wearing the same color uniform when Sunday afternoon rolls around.  

Aaron Rodgers is right.  God cares about the people involved.   And because He is God and He cares, of course He cares about the outcome.   But, I believe that Aaron Rodgers is also right in saying that God is not a big football fan.  Of course not.  Football fans can't control the outcome of a game.   Cochess can.  Especially all powerful, all loving, all knowing ones.

Move over Pete Carroll.  You have company.   

So, where exactly was God during the Superbowl?   How could a team that He seems to have propelled through the last three minutes (plus overtime) to victory during the NFC championship game then lose via a history-making, heartbreaking last play during Superbowl 49? Did He just turn His back on the Seahawks and decide to focus solely on managing the New England Patriots instead, thereby cleverly diverting all the press from Deflategate?    

While the latter part may be true, the possibility that God decided to go to the NFC championship and then skip the Superbowl is untenable.  No, He was not too busy to attend.  

Instead, many who have walked in faith with God at some point in their lives have lived the answer to the question of "Where was He, when...?  When individual hopes, prayers, longings, and hungers are cast aside... neglected, ignored, shattered... there is usually only one reason.  

A greater purpose.  A longer story.   Another ending. 

the grand coach, having read well beyond management 101, orchestrates a larger vision that anyone ... even the 12th man... could possibly imagine.   

and, that is exactly the kind of God I want on my team.   

I am Peanut Butter

I feel a certain sisterhood with peanut butter.  I know some people cannot relate to this, because they seem to be capable of putting 1.37 million tasks on their plate without being any worse for the wear. I, on the other hand, would spend my life an inch wide and a mile deep if I could get away with it:

I like nothing more than a day spent with a to-do list that is one-item long.  No matter how much of my attention, time, intelligence, creativity, or heart that one item needs, focusing on only one thing to do is like a breath of fresh air in this crazy-paced world we now live in.

Writing fits this bill.  It may be stressful to get started.  After all, how many awful words can you possibly say to a blank computer screen before it cooperates and words begin to appear?   I have sought the answer to this question many times over.  Once the words are finally rolling from the keyboard to the screen though, I can serenely meditate through the hours it takes to put words on paper (provided a steady stream of coffee remains nearby).

Analyzing data fits the bill too.  Even when such data is being amazingly uncooperative and accompanying code to process it seemingly uninterested in the debugging cycle, the analysis itself is still only one thing to do.  Like a few other odd folks in the world, I am quite happy to spend my day doing math, as long as the math = 1 ball up in the air at a time.

In these and a few other rare instances, I am indeed, happy peanut butter in the magical world of work.   But, once the University of Washington or some other element of the crazy world out there breaks in, the situation quickly degrades, as, like peanut butter, I am spread a little bit thinner across a larger area, to no great advantage:

No longer am I happy peanut butter, but instead am downgraded to a thinly put together affair that has obvious signs of insufficient and often sloppy resources allocated to the tasks at hand.  This situation may not be attractive but it is not so bad.  I can handle a few more things on my plate than one.  Really.

Unfortunately, the 'only a few more things to do' scenario is not at all stable.  Instead, it has a widespread reputation of snowballing into the 1.37 million things to do situation described earlier.   Then, we have trouble:

Unhappy peanut butter is not a good thing.  Someone should remind the managers of the world of this profound truism so rapid steps can be taken to alleviate the situation wherever it may arise.

Such are my deep insights for the day after the most heartbreaking Superbowl ever.  

NOTE:  No peanut butter was harmed or wasted in the production of this blog.  All materials were repurposed and donated to the Wilson Fur Facility.

True Kindness

I appreciate kindness in my life, but am finding more and more that, without truth, kindness loses its charm.  

I recently participated on a graduate student's exam committee when on exam day, the graduate student simply appeared to be having a bad day.  She did not answer questions in the usual specific, articulate, and inspiring way which I had come to expect from her.  Behind closed doors, the conversation among the student's committee members reflected this same sentiment.  While otherwise a strong and intelligent student worthy of a PhD, on this day, the student wasn't quite performing at or beyond the bar.  While the committee decided to issue a pass to the student, I was surprised when on returning to the room, she was greeted with "Congratulations" (accurate and appropriate) and "Great Job" (not so accurate or appropriate).   I agreed with passing her, as there was no point in delaying her degree or punishing her for an ill timed bad day.  But, the effusive bouquet of top-notch compliments that followed the congratulatory remarks seemed out of place and confusing.  What good could possibly come of telling a student she did a great job when neither we nor she believed it?  

As a professor, I spent years receiving annual merit reviews that were replete with favorable remarks about my work and productivity.  The positive far outweighed the negative, yet year after year, I was passed over for promotion.  The net result of more than a decade of this pattern is that I no longer believe what my colleagues tell me about my work, good, bad, or in between.   While academic culture may believe the best thing for me is a hearty dose of sunshine pills doled out on an annual basis without regard to circumstance, I beg for something a little simpler: the truth.   

I welcome hearing the truth about who I am and what I do, when such truth is delivered in a basket of kindness.  When kindness follows in the wake of words which may not be what I hoped for, my defensiveness, anger, frustration may still follow, but will ebb much more quickly, allowing me to move on to tasks of a more serious nature.... figuring out how to fix and improve this problem named Denise that I often become in my journey through this world.

So, whether you like me in the littlest or the biggest of ways or not at all, may I appeal to you to share those ways with words embellished only by true kindness and nothing more?

Ha Ha....

Let it be said that, for the record before the rest of this blog comes rolling off my tongue pen, in general, I strive to avoid being obnoxious -- that is, at least in front of other people... what my dogs know about me, they'll never tell.

But, here I may make an exception.

On Sunday, January 18, 2015, for 57 minutes of regulation game time, the Seattle Seahawks orchestrated one of the most unexpected and discouraging strings of fumbles, interceptions, three-and-outs, and assorted other foibles that caused the steepest rise in the use of TUMs ever recorded in an American football game.  Dread filled the heart, nausea the gut, and defeat the mind of the collective 12th man, as never before, even in Seahawks history.    Some plays were so awful that even the eyes of Green Bay Packer fans must have filled with pity for the blue and chartreuse team roaming across Century Link Field in Seattle.

While I don't presume that any member of the Green Bay Packer football team was actually laughing at the Seahawks, I do have my suspicions.  These suspicions are especially strong for the young man, Mr. Clinton-Dix, who intercepted two of Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson's passes in the first half of the game, a half which at one point was so horrible that the Green Bay Packers had caught infinitely more of Russell Wilson's passes than Seahawks receivers.   Each time that an interception from Mr. Clinton-Dix was announced, I heard a subtle "Ha Ha" in the background.   My husband tried to tell me that "Ha Ha" was Mr. Clinton-Dix' first name, but I continued to believe, in my NFC championship game induced despair, that the sound I heard come from the sportscaster's mouth was instead the entire city of Green Bay, Wisconsin laughing at our poor struggling Seahawks.

Ha Ha.

As the game marched relentlessly on, I sank further into the couch, tempted to drink yet another beer, but too riveted to the unfolding trauma on the television to go to the refrigerator and get one.  The minutes of the game ticked away, and I kept hearing:

Ha Ha.

Finally, the last four minutes of the game came and went.  Overtime came and went.   As I watched this funny shaped brown thing with laces on it sail threw the air and land in Jermaine Kearse's hands (this time with no Mr. Clinton-Dix available to intercept), I no longer heard:

Ha Ha.

from the sportscaster.

Yet, a moment later, when the game was over and the television volume muted during a seemingly unending string of commercials, I heard it again:

Ha Ha.

Strange.
I looked at my husband, who was looking at me strangely (which is not at all uncommon).
I asked:  "Do you hear that?"

Ha Ha.

"What is that noise?  Where is it coming from?"

My husband's eyes rolled back into his head as he responded:
"My dear ...
that noise is coming out of your mouth"

Ha Ha.

The author of this blog wishes to acknowledge that she makes no assumptions whatsoever about the outcome of the upcoming SuperBowl, recognizing that the opposing team could quite possibly do a similar number on the Seahawks as was done on the Indianapolis Colts... only this time with properly inflated footballs.   

Some Assembly Required

Whatever happened to the phrase "Fully Assembled"?

Did it disappear with the twentieth century?

Is it simply old-fashioned and out-of-date?

Did it get lost in China?
(No, I  don't have anything against China, but shipping anything halfway around the world even marginally assembled seems to be as impossible a feat as my surviving a week without coffee).

I often wonder which corporate entity first decided that the ordinary consumer needs to be greeted, right after purchasing a new piece of furniture, with the ominous words "Some Assembly Required."?

The phrase "Some Assembly Required" is itself replete with half truths:

"Some"
Hmmm ... seems to be all that lies in The Box is the raw materials and that ALL assembly is actually required of whichever poor member of the household first gets tired enough of looking at the box, breaks down, and opens it.

"Assembly"
This word implies that the pieces actually fit together as designed, and the use of a supplementary hammer and related force fitting tools are not at all needed during the course of assembly.

"Required"
It'a amazing how long our household can leave all those parts all by their lonesome selves in the big (ominous) cardboard box.  Assembly becomes optional, a task to be done only when a rainy day arrives and when patience indoors is as plentiful as the clouds are outdoors.

This time around, with our purchase of what appeared to be a very simple wall unit, I had high hopes in Costco.  After all, The Box looked just about the right size to contain the fully assembled version of the desired furniture.  But, as I gave in to the impulse to peek inside The Box, my hopes were again dashed, my renewed faith in corporate America, however slight, was quickly doused as I opened The Box, and a seemingly endless stream of wood slices, metal pieces, and jingling hardware bags issued forth, equalled in part only by the equally endless packaging from which they were to be extracted.  An hour passed, and finally all the pieces lay on the carpet, chuckling among themselves.  Another hour passed, and the assembly progressed:

Even after the rain ceased outside, the assembly marched on inside:

Finally, as we marched stubbornly and determinedly toward the finish, we found ourselves at Step 21 of 21 in the lengthy, multi-lingual instruction manual (in retrospect, the language in which the instructions were written didn't seem to make much of a difference).    Step 21 read "Adjust the leveling foot until the top shelf surface is level."   The designers of said furniture had included every tool and piece of hardware in creation EXCEPT a level.   So, we did what all exasperated consumers do.  We looked all over the garage, in every toolbox, storage container, and crevice for the level that we don't own. After 20 minutes of searching in vain, we gave up, and like any other self-respecting homeowner, hacked a solution:

Welcome to the latest design of a level.  Formerly, a favorite cat toy, it has now found a new purpose in life.   After some adjustment to ensure the ball ('level') did not roll off the top shelf without provocation, our latest Some Assembly Required project became complete:

Amazing, how much more grateful we are for this piece of furniture than if we had just pulled it out of the box, stood it up, and plugged it into the wall.

Do you ever wonder what your mother would have done if you had come forth from the womb with the words "Some Assembly Required" tattooed on your arm?

Yesterday, by Job

Modified from a well-known Beatles song, without permission...

Yesterday, all my troubles weren’t so far away.

They were close enough to put me in a crazy way

Oh, I don’t long for yesterday.

Suddenly, I’m not half the train wreck I used to be

There’s a ray of sunshine hanging over me

Oh, yesterday left so suddenly.

Why my troubles finally had to go, 

I don’t know, He wouldn’t say

I prayed something right

Now, I don’t long for yesterday

Yesterday, faith was not such an easy role to play

Now, I have it renewed along my way

Oh, I don’t yearn for yesterday

In my simple ways of thinking, these are words I imagine Job strumming on his ancient guitar once God decided to restore blessings into his life after trauma after trauma, affliction after affliction, crisis after crisis.  Job’s train wreck of a life combined with his unbelievably enduring faith amounted to a joyful ending in one of the Old Testament's most difficult stories.   Why did God allow so much to be taken away from Job, year after year after year?…the answer is a key piece of Job's story that is never fully revealed.  

Our adult Sunday school leader reminded us this morning to hold onto hope and faith as we walk through the struggles of the present and face those of the future.   She directed us to find some of that hope and faith by remembering the steadfast presence of God in our struggles of the past.

Unfortunately, if I look down that road into my past,  I see a decades long train wreck that tempts me to stick my head under a pillow and never get out of bed again.   If I look behind me, I will see long years where at best, I failed to notice God's presence, hand, and purpose in my life and at worst, they simply seemed not to be there at all, even as I searched and searched and searched.  If I look too long in the direction of the past, my faith will start to crash and burn as my fear of returning to those dark years creeps in along the edges of my spirit.    

I, like a few others I know who have an extended train wreck etched into their life resumes, have spent many moments perched on the edge of hopelessness, pleading for a God who seems to remain silent, crying for Him who seems unreachable, and continuing to believe only by the merest shred of faith.   Years and Years of stepping into the day on only a whisper of hope and ending it in a dark flourish of deep, lonely fatigue... suddenly end.   A God who seemed to not hear, nor see, nor remember this little sheep named me .... suddenly turns despair to joy.  Suddenly... within a few weeks' time... the whole pathetic story of my life just abruptly turned from train wreck to sunshine, surrounded by whatever lies opposite to dark, lonely silence.

That's not to say that my present life is not without its struggles nor without grief.  But, the train now remains on its tracks. Only, sometimes, on mornings like this Sunday and moments deep into dark nights, I wonder if those painful years will return once again.

Since I don't know why the dark times suddenly disappeared, I am faced with the fear of their reappearing.   I am not anywhere near as good as Job in my faith nor as steadfast in my hope.   So, to have hope for the future, I can’t look back.  I just can't.

The prospect of returning to times like those of the past... is more than I can bear.