When I sing in a choir, I hold my music folder almost horizontal just about at neck level, much like a waiter holding a tray. This has several advantages over holding it lower or at a greater angle. First, the sound of my voice can move freely past my folder and out into the hall, as opposed to bouncing off my folder back to my body. The audience can see my face better and if I am trying to emote in some way they’ll catch it better than if I’m looking down. But most important, I can focus on the notes in my music while at the same time keeping the conductor in the upper part of my peripheral vision. I can also glance very quickly between the conductor and my music. This lets me follow the conductor’s beat and direction while still reading my music.

Something strange happened at our first concert last weekend. As I was singing, a twinkling light began to appear and disappear in the blur of my peripheral vision just over the conductor’s left shoulder. I managed to keep singing and during some long held notes tried to figure out what was going on.

There was a gentleman in the audience who happened to appear just to the left of the conductor from where I was standing who was dressed for the season. He was wearing a bright red beret, an impressive set of sideburns and mustachios, and a red-and-black shirt with a bright red tie. He was evidently a nervous sort, because he kept picking up his program, reading it, and putting it down. Whenever he put it down, he revealed the flashing red and blue LED lights on his tie pin.

Just a tiny bit distracting when you’re trying to focus on an inherently multitasking effort — reading your music, watching the conductor, listening to your section, listening to the other sections. Oh, and singing too.

Mr. LED caused a triggered a lot of hilarity in the choir room afterwards, but as I was thinking about what would possess someone to wear such an ornament at all, let alone at a choir concert, it ocurred to me that this situation has some bearing on my future — a future that’s a decade or so away, but something I’ve thought about a bit.

You see, I have a two-year-old daughter.

Let’s set up the beginning of an analogy here. It is certainly within Mr. LED’s rights to wear all the (literally) flashy bling he wants, and no one would dispute it. It would have been impolite and uncharitable to ask him to leave, and obviously immoral and illegal to do violence to his person in response to his insensitivity to the distraction he was causing. But he was still causing a distraction, significantly degrading my and the other choir members’ powers of concentration, and causing not a little annoyance and frustration.

You see where I’m going here. Before my daughter is a teenager, I’m going to have to talk to her about the fact that although she has (or will have, once she’s no longer a minor) the right to wear anything she wants, it might actually be insensitive of her to do so.

It is obviously impolite to stare at or comment about a scantily-dressed female, and the pathetic loser who would make wardrobe an excuse for assault should feel the full force of the law.

However, she will need to be aware that her style of dress will have an immediate effect on any present male’s powers of concentration, and, for the well-socialized at least, cause not a little annoyance and frustration.

I read a fascinating article just this morning that talks about a recent study that found that when people (of either sex) see a scantily-dressed person, there is a reduction of activity in the region of the brain that is dedicated to modeling other peoples’ agency as independent thinking beings.

So it’s not a bad upbringing or choices that cause men to objectify women who show skin (and vice versa!). It’s a basic biological fact.

That is not to say that this fact is desirable! My poor eyesight is a basic biological fact too, but that didn’t stop me from wearing clumsy technological prostheses to compensate for it, and finally getting a doctor to cut the front part of each eyeball off and used a high-powered laser to burn layers of corneal tissue away.

This basic biological fact is actually detrimental, because it causes us to undervalue others’ abilities. If you are interviewing a prospective employee, for example, you need to evaluate them in a realistic fashion, not with half your brain shut down!

We took a road trip last week, first to Sun Peaks (very nice — thanks, Airmiles!), and then to Calgary to visit Andrea’s parents.

Emily did extremely well with the driving, apart from blowing chunks all over the place on a winding section of road. Goes with the territory, I guess.

I’ve had Emily to myself the last two nights, as Andrea is getting back into work via special events. The first night, she yelled continuously from after dinner until midnight. Last night, she played and had fun. Go figure.

She’s a pretty smart little cookie, too. She knows she’s not allowed to climb the stairs by herself, so last night she wandered over to them and yelled “Daddy, daddy, daddy!” to get me to come watch her climb. A first both for calling me, and for not just saying her usual “Enh! Enh!”

I’ve gotten an Android phone, and it’s nice, except for not being small enough to fit in my pants pocket. But having games and net access on the bus is cool. I haven’t gotten around to exploring development, yet, as I am trying to get my latest project to properly find all its frameworks on the Mac.

There is no credible evidence to indicate that any of this [vaccines harm America’s children] is true. None. Twelve epidemiological studies have found no data that links the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine to autism; six studies have found no trace of an association between thimerosal (a preservative containing ethylmercury that has largely been removed from vaccines since 20011) and autism, and three other studies have found no indication that thimerosal causes even subtle neurological problems. The so-called epidemic, researchers assert, is the result of improved diagnosis, which has identified as autistic many kids who once might have been labeled mentally retarded or just plain slow. In fact, the growing body of science indicates that the autistic spectrum — which may well turn out to encompass several discrete conditions — may largely be genetic in origin. In April, the journal Nature published two studies that analyzed the genes of almost 10,000 people and identified a common genetic variant present in approximately 65 percent of autistic children.

I am proud to say that Emily had another round of vaccinations the other day. Her risk of dying from a host of fatal childhood diseases has gone down significantly.¹ Her risk of developing autism has increased by an amount so small it would take a scanning electron microsocope to detect.

We evaluate risks every day. There is a small but non-zero chance that I will be run over by a truck while biking to work. Should I then refuse to get out of bed?

My extremely fetching orange and yellow reflective vest is made of plastic, which is flammable, and might melt itself into my skin if it catches on fire. Is the risk of my vest catching on fire (perhaps from static electricity generated by rubbing against my jacket) greater than the risk of a truck driver not seeing me on a dark rainy evening if I don’t wear it?

Sounds crazy, but that’s how anti-vaxxers sound to me. Is the infinitesimal (and in fact made up out of whole cloth) risk of autism greater than the risk of brain damage or death from rubella or measles, or pertussis?

The other day I was bouncing her on my knee and singing a song, she was paying attention and sort of giggling. When I finished, she began waving her arms and vocalizing, so I started singing another song, and she smiled.

Very exciting.

Kompreneble mi profitos dum la tri sekvaj tagoj de la ŝanco rigardi perfortajn filmojn, kaj komputile ludi, kaj manĝi tiujn, kiujn la obejendino ne kutime ŝatas.

Estante introverto, mi ĝuas ĉiun maloftan kaj malmultan momenton de soleco.

Baldaŭ ŝi ekparolos!

Nun staras la demando: kiun linvon paroli krom la angla? Ne estas demando ĉu uzi aliajn lingvojn! Sed estas multaj lingvoj, kaj nur iometo da tempo.

Mi kompreneble unue pensis pri Esperanto, ĉar mia Esperanta povo pligrandas ol mia Klingona, la sola alia lingvo, kion mi esploris en iom da detalo. Mi studiis la Klingonan antaŭ dudek jaroj, do mi forgesis la plejparton.

Mia preskaŭ sola kritiko de Esperanto estas, ke ĝi retenas malbonan patriarkan econ. Ekzistas reformoj, ekzemple riismo, sed mi ne scias ĉu ĝi subteniĝas.

Legi nuntempe la mirinda In the Land of Invented Languages, per Arika Okrent, memorigis min pri la lingvo Láadan. Ĝin kreis Suzette Hadin Elgin por esplori virinajn aferojn, kiujn ne povas facile esprimiĝi per niaj aktuala patriarkaj lingvoj.

Inter multaj interesaj trajtoj, en Láadan la ina estas la nemarkata sekso, kaj Láadan ankaŭ estas tona lingvo.

Do mi pensas, ke estos interesa provo. Sed mi (elble ni) devu lerni Láadan rapide!

Loĝante en Vankuvero, Emily certe lernos la Francan kaj la Mandarenan. La Francan per siaj gepatroj, kaj la Mandarena espere per la najbaroj.

Oni ne povas koni tro da lingvojn!

I’m sure most everybody who would like to know has found out from email or on Facebook, but Andrea’s and my daughter Emily was born last Tuesday. She is the cutest little thing in the world.

Labour took about 18 hours, but went quite well, all things considering (Andrea might disagree, of course :-). After an hour of pushing, out came Emily all wide awake and squalling.

There were a few pretty sleepless nights since, but she’s now sleeping longer periods, and we are settling into something like a new pattern of life.