Amazon.com just came out with a fascinating new feature-- "Statistically Improbable Phrases."
Amazon.com's Statistically Improbable Phrases, or "SIPs", show you the interesting, distinctive, or unlikely phrases that occur in the text of books in Search Inside the Book. Our computers scan the text of all books in the Search Inside program. If they find a phrase that occurs a large number of times in a particular book relative to how many times it occurs across all Search Inside books, that phrase is a SIP in that book.
I'm really fascinated by this kind of 'smart searching' as one might call it-- seeing patterns or hiccups in data would be extremely useful in my work and raises a lot of intellectual questions with me too.
Anyone know of similar projects and/or research elsewhere? I'd be curious to hear about them!
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Very interesting....
And a breath of fresh air since it seems the clout of the big consulting and financial companies that was so stifling when I was at Dartmouth has been broken. More power to my fellow alums who have broken out of the corporate mold-- though I am surprised that 11% of this year's class went into a single program, however worthy.
Teach for America Attracts Record Number of Graduates
NPR Morning Edition, April 12, 2005
(transcript)
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
More college seniors than ever before are applying to Teach for America. That program is a little like the Peace Corps. For the past 15 years it has recruited top college graduates to teach for two years in low-income rural and urban schools. NPR's Anthony Brooks visited Dartmouth College to find out why applications to the program are up.
(Soundbite of voices)
ANTHONY BROOKS reporting:
This past week it was warm and sunny as the long New England winter finally released its grip on Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Students in T-shirts and flip-flops played Frisbee on the campus green while a campus tour guide made the most of this spring day.
Unidentified Woman: Yeah, welcome to Dartmouth. This is clearly an amazing day to see the school.
BROOKS: As the guide welcomes this group of prospective students, another class of Dartmouth seniors is preparing to leave.
Mr. ALEX DOMINGUEZ (Student): I'm from Brooklyn, New York. My focus is international economics and international relations.
BROOKS: But Alex Dominguez says what excited him most about the last four years was volunteering as a mentor for an underprivileged boy from a nearby town, so he applied to Teach for America, was accepted, and for the next two years he'll be a special ed teacher in a Newark, New Jersey, elementary school.
Mr. DOMINGUEZ: A lot of my friends necessarily didn't go to as good a college or even go to college, and I felt that I owed it to society, you know, to give back a little bit.
BROOKS: That's a common theme here. Senior Julia Hildreth wants to go on to law school, but first she'll spend the next two years teaching urban schoolkids. Hildreth, who comes from New Hampshire, says she's committed to Teach for America because of the inequities she's seen between rich and poor schools.
Ms. JULIA HILDRETH (Student): It just seems so unjust for those children in the lower-income schools, and that's a driving force behind my excitement about the program and my reasons for wanting to do it.
BROOKS: More than a hundred Dartmouth seniors have applied to Teach for America. That's 11 percent of the senior class. Surprising, perhaps, given the many lucrative career opportunities available to these Ivy League grads.
Ms. CHELSEA NILSSON (Student): There's a desire to make an impact, there's no question.
BROOKS: Chelsea Nilsson is a senior from Pennsylvania who applied to Teach for America. If accepted, she wants to teach English in an urban high school. It's hard work for relatively little pay, but she says it offers immediate responsibilities that most first jobs don't.
Ms. NILSSON: So many recent graduates feel that you have to commit this obligatory time to being someone's photocopying assistant or someone's coffee runner. I want to find a way to make an immediate impact.
BROOKS: This year, Teach for America has attracted some 17,000 applicants to fill just 2,000 openings, a jump of almost 40 percent over last year. The numbers are up at many schools, from Dartmouth to Yale to the University of Michigan. Elissa Clapp, who heads recruitment at Teach for America, says she's not surprised.
Ms. ELISSA CLAPP (Teach for America): I do think that this generation of leaders is outraged by what they're seeing, and the gap in educational outcomes that continues to persist along racial and economic lines. And at the same time we have ramped up our effort to reach the top graduating seniors on campuses.
BROOKS: A survey by The Brookings Institution two years ago found that more than a third of college seniors were interested in public service work, though many didn't know how to find it. Dan Kessler of Idealist.org, an online clearing house for the non- profit sector, says Teach for America has successfully tapped into that interest in public service. He says the program is highly visible on campuses and employs young recruiters who compete aggressively with the private sector to attract the best and the brightest.
Mr. DAN KESSLER (Idealist.org): It's prestigious and it's intensely competitive, so one of the things that they've done incredibly well in addition to the program itself is simply have absolutely brilliant marketing.
BROOKS: As one professor put it, Teach for America is cool. Senior Alex Dominguez agrees with that and says he looks forward to a new challenge, even if he'll be sad to say goodbye to Dartmouth.
Mr. DOMINGUEZ: I think it's time that, you know, I go and venture out into the world and, you know, start to make my place out there.
BROOKS: Next fall, Dominguez will take his place in a classroom in Newark, New Jersey.
Anthony Brooks, NPR News.
MONTAGNE: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
And a breath of fresh air since it seems the clout of the big consulting and financial companies that was so stifling when I was at Dartmouth has been broken. More power to my fellow alums who have broken out of the corporate mold-- though I am surprised that 11% of this year's class went into a single program, however worthy.
Teach for America Attracts Record Number of Graduates
NPR Morning Edition, April 12, 2005
(transcript)
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
More college seniors than ever before are applying to Teach for America. That program is a little like the Peace Corps. For the past 15 years it has recruited top college graduates to teach for two years in low-income rural and urban schools. NPR's Anthony Brooks visited Dartmouth College to find out why applications to the program are up.
(Soundbite of voices)
ANTHONY BROOKS reporting:
This past week it was warm and sunny as the long New England winter finally released its grip on Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Students in T-shirts and flip-flops played Frisbee on the campus green while a campus tour guide made the most of this spring day.
Unidentified Woman: Yeah, welcome to Dartmouth. This is clearly an amazing day to see the school.
BROOKS: As the guide welcomes this group of prospective students, another class of Dartmouth seniors is preparing to leave.
Mr. ALEX DOMINGUEZ (Student): I'm from Brooklyn, New York. My focus is international economics and international relations.
BROOKS: But Alex Dominguez says what excited him most about the last four years was volunteering as a mentor for an underprivileged boy from a nearby town, so he applied to Teach for America, was accepted, and for the next two years he'll be a special ed teacher in a Newark, New Jersey, elementary school.
Mr. DOMINGUEZ: A lot of my friends necessarily didn't go to as good a college or even go to college, and I felt that I owed it to society, you know, to give back a little bit.
BROOKS: That's a common theme here. Senior Julia Hildreth wants to go on to law school, but first she'll spend the next two years teaching urban schoolkids. Hildreth, who comes from New Hampshire, says she's committed to Teach for America because of the inequities she's seen between rich and poor schools.
Ms. JULIA HILDRETH (Student): It just seems so unjust for those children in the lower-income schools, and that's a driving force behind my excitement about the program and my reasons for wanting to do it.
BROOKS: More than a hundred Dartmouth seniors have applied to Teach for America. That's 11 percent of the senior class. Surprising, perhaps, given the many lucrative career opportunities available to these Ivy League grads.
Ms. CHELSEA NILSSON (Student): There's a desire to make an impact, there's no question.
BROOKS: Chelsea Nilsson is a senior from Pennsylvania who applied to Teach for America. If accepted, she wants to teach English in an urban high school. It's hard work for relatively little pay, but she says it offers immediate responsibilities that most first jobs don't.
Ms. NILSSON: So many recent graduates feel that you have to commit this obligatory time to being someone's photocopying assistant or someone's coffee runner. I want to find a way to make an immediate impact.
BROOKS: This year, Teach for America has attracted some 17,000 applicants to fill just 2,000 openings, a jump of almost 40 percent over last year. The numbers are up at many schools, from Dartmouth to Yale to the University of Michigan. Elissa Clapp, who heads recruitment at Teach for America, says she's not surprised.
Ms. ELISSA CLAPP (Teach for America): I do think that this generation of leaders is outraged by what they're seeing, and the gap in educational outcomes that continues to persist along racial and economic lines. And at the same time we have ramped up our effort to reach the top graduating seniors on campuses.
BROOKS: A survey by The Brookings Institution two years ago found that more than a third of college seniors were interested in public service work, though many didn't know how to find it. Dan Kessler of Idealist.org, an online clearing house for the non- profit sector, says Teach for America has successfully tapped into that interest in public service. He says the program is highly visible on campuses and employs young recruiters who compete aggressively with the private sector to attract the best and the brightest.
Mr. DAN KESSLER (Idealist.org): It's prestigious and it's intensely competitive, so one of the things that they've done incredibly well in addition to the program itself is simply have absolutely brilliant marketing.
BROOKS: As one professor put it, Teach for America is cool. Senior Alex Dominguez agrees with that and says he looks forward to a new challenge, even if he'll be sad to say goodbye to Dartmouth.
Mr. DOMINGUEZ: I think it's time that, you know, I go and venture out into the world and, you know, start to make my place out there.
BROOKS: Next fall, Dominguez will take his place in a classroom in Newark, New Jersey.
Anthony Brooks, NPR News.
MONTAGNE: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
My apologies-- I misread the dates for my previous post. This year's American Library Week is actually this week (April 10-16)-- Sorry Tricia...
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Next week (April 18-24) is National Library Week, according to the American Library Association.
Must..... resist..... using.... 'check out'.... pun.........(gasp)
Must..... resist..... using.... 'check out'.... pun.........(gasp)
Here's a story Symi sent me:
In Steinbeck's Birthplace, A Fight to Keep the Libraries Open
New York Times
by Carolyn Marshall
April 4, 2005
An absolute travesty!!
In Steinbeck's Birthplace, A Fight to Keep the Libraries Open
New York Times
by Carolyn Marshall
April 4, 2005
An absolute travesty!!
Monday, April 11, 2005
Bleagh! The 'n' & 'delete' keys have died o my home keyboard. Likely the
begi i g of the e d for the whole keyboard-- the same thi g happe ed to my previous keyboard.
Tha kfully, I thi k it is still u der warra ty.
(btw-- if you have a problem with how I typed the letter I was missi g above, realize that I copied it from a other page & pasted it here.)
begi i g of the e d for the whole keyboard-- the same thi g happe ed to my previous keyboard.
Tha kfully, I thi k it is still u der warra ty.
(btw-- if you have a problem with how I typed the letter I was missi g above, realize that I copied it from a other page & pasted it here.)
For those of you interested in a deeper look at current issues, I highly recommend PBS' program Frontline.
I have just finished watching one of their reports on the issue of prescription drugs in the US, entitled The Other Drug War. There's a wealth of background information on the site, in addition to a full video copy of the program, divided into six parts for easy loading.
Other topics I think they do exceptionally well are as follows:
Beyond Baghdad
In the summer of 2003, as violence against the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq spiked alarmingly, the top U.S. administrator there, L. Paul Bremer, told FRONTLINE producer Martin Smith that the press was doing a terrible job of covering the story. He said they needed to get out of Baghdad to see the kind of progress that was being made.
Accepting Bremer's challenge, in November FRONTLINE went back to Iraq to see how the U.S. plan to turn the country into a showcase for democracy in the Middle East was faring.
The Secret History of the Credit Card
In "Secret History of the Credit Card," FRONTLINE® and The New York Times join forces to investigate an industry few Americans fully understand. In this one-hour report, correspondent Lowell Bergman uncovers the techniques used by the industry to earn record profits and get consumers to take on more debt.
I have just finished watching one of their reports on the issue of prescription drugs in the US, entitled The Other Drug War. There's a wealth of background information on the site, in addition to a full video copy of the program, divided into six parts for easy loading.
Other topics I think they do exceptionally well are as follows:
Beyond Baghdad
In the summer of 2003, as violence against the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq spiked alarmingly, the top U.S. administrator there, L. Paul Bremer, told FRONTLINE producer Martin Smith that the press was doing a terrible job of covering the story. He said they needed to get out of Baghdad to see the kind of progress that was being made.
Accepting Bremer's challenge, in November FRONTLINE went back to Iraq to see how the U.S. plan to turn the country into a showcase for democracy in the Middle East was faring.
The Secret History of the Credit Card
In "Secret History of the Credit Card," FRONTLINE® and The New York Times join forces to investigate an industry few Americans fully understand. In this one-hour report, correspondent Lowell Bergman uncovers the techniques used by the industry to earn record profits and get consumers to take on more debt.
Some of you are aware that a friend of mine is involved in a legal dispute with George Washington University regarding housing there. The following is an article published in the GWU newspaper, The Hatchet
Student Vows to Continue Legal Battle Against GW
by Larry Adler, Hatchet Reporter
Published 04/11/05
A GW student who unsuccessfully sued President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg over health code violations in his dorm room said he plans to continue with his case even though it was dismissed.
The violations, which were identified by a city agency last semester and have since been fixed, included cracks in the ceiling and walls, defective doors, loose paint, broken floor tiles and missing caulking in his 2109 F St. room. Mike Strong, a senior, also unsuccessfully sued Tom Dwyer, managing director for Property Management, and Walter Gray, director of Facilities Management. He was seeking damages of $4.5 million.
On Aug. 30, Strong went to the basement of his dorm to do laundry and placed a call to Fix-It upon finding roaches there. He then left his dorm for two days, and returned to find a padlock on his door.
After being locked out of his room for hours, he said he was finally allowed back in, and found that the room had been left a mess and was mistakenly fumigated.
Strong said that inside the room was a sign warning that it had been treated for roaches. He said there was no indication that he was in any danger because he did not smell poison. A few days later, Strong started to feel sick and went to GW Hospital, where he was admitted for insecticide poisoning.
Strong also said he noticed other safety problems in his room and asked Dwyer to come take a look at, among other things, a door he was able to unlock with a plastic knife.
"I called in Facilities Management, but they didn't do anything for six weeks, so I called in (the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs)," Strong said. "The day I got the report, I filed the lawsuit for $4.5 million dollars in D.C. Superior Court."
DCRA documents obtained by The Hatchet indicate that on Oct. 4, 2004, the city served GW with nine housing violations for Strong's room plus one for an infested basement.
Facilities Management director Peter Comey referred calls for this article to the University's media relations department and its lawyers. Media relations could not be reached for comment. Linda Schutjer, GW's associate general counsel, said the University was not concerned with the suit.
"He serviced the wrong people," Schutjer said. "He should have sued the University. On these kinds of technical ground they typically try and give them another shot at filing it correctly."
In response to the lawsuit, the University made three petitions to have the case thrown out. One said Strong did not properly serve the University with the lawsuit, and the other two were that the case was moot.
The case was originally thrown out and later dismissed without prejudice, meaning Strong could re-file the case. Strong believes he still has a case and is hoping to make the University aware of the problems with its dorms.
"The lawsuit is not about me, it's about bringing change. It's to ensure students' safety in the future. The University has a rank for their house," he said, referring to the widely held belief that GW offers some of the best college housing in the country. "It's time to live up to their rank."
Student Vows to Continue Legal Battle Against GW
by Larry Adler, Hatchet Reporter
Published 04/11/05
A GW student who unsuccessfully sued President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg over health code violations in his dorm room said he plans to continue with his case even though it was dismissed.
The violations, which were identified by a city agency last semester and have since been fixed, included cracks in the ceiling and walls, defective doors, loose paint, broken floor tiles and missing caulking in his 2109 F St. room. Mike Strong, a senior, also unsuccessfully sued Tom Dwyer, managing director for Property Management, and Walter Gray, director of Facilities Management. He was seeking damages of $4.5 million.
On Aug. 30, Strong went to the basement of his dorm to do laundry and placed a call to Fix-It upon finding roaches there. He then left his dorm for two days, and returned to find a padlock on his door.
After being locked out of his room for hours, he said he was finally allowed back in, and found that the room had been left a mess and was mistakenly fumigated.
Strong said that inside the room was a sign warning that it had been treated for roaches. He said there was no indication that he was in any danger because he did not smell poison. A few days later, Strong started to feel sick and went to GW Hospital, where he was admitted for insecticide poisoning.
Strong also said he noticed other safety problems in his room and asked Dwyer to come take a look at, among other things, a door he was able to unlock with a plastic knife.
"I called in Facilities Management, but they didn't do anything for six weeks, so I called in (the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs)," Strong said. "The day I got the report, I filed the lawsuit for $4.5 million dollars in D.C. Superior Court."
DCRA documents obtained by The Hatchet indicate that on Oct. 4, 2004, the city served GW with nine housing violations for Strong's room plus one for an infested basement.
Facilities Management director Peter Comey referred calls for this article to the University's media relations department and its lawyers. Media relations could not be reached for comment. Linda Schutjer, GW's associate general counsel, said the University was not concerned with the suit.
"He serviced the wrong people," Schutjer said. "He should have sued the University. On these kinds of technical ground they typically try and give them another shot at filing it correctly."
In response to the lawsuit, the University made three petitions to have the case thrown out. One said Strong did not properly serve the University with the lawsuit, and the other two were that the case was moot.
The case was originally thrown out and later dismissed without prejudice, meaning Strong could re-file the case. Strong believes he still has a case and is hoping to make the University aware of the problems with its dorms.
"The lawsuit is not about me, it's about bringing change. It's to ensure students' safety in the future. The University has a rank for their house," he said, referring to the widely held belief that GW offers some of the best college housing in the country. "It's time to live up to their rank."
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Lots of stuff happening with, to and around me... people have moved into the office next to the Commission... the washing machine is broken.... I'm working hard to make sure the book that's arranged around my conference is moving closer to completion....and lots more to boot.
I'll write more once things wind down a bit...
Not been able to decide on a dish to bring to Penguin in the City's potluck this weekend. Anyone out there have any great (and portable) ideas?
I'll write more once things wind down a bit...
Not been able to decide on a dish to bring to Penguin in the City's potluck this weekend. Anyone out there have any great (and portable) ideas?
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Just got an envelope of newspaper articles from home and found one piece of very sad news. Below is the obituary, run in the local paper (The Desert Sun) on April 1st.
After a full career as a teacher and counselor in one of the outer LA suburbs, she came to the Desert and became a leader in things like Gifted and Talented Education, Career Prep and various parts of the curriculum. She was a tiny woman, definitely under five feet tall, with a heart of gold and able to hold her own in front of a classroom, even at 75 (when I graduated from high school).
The fact that she has died is not a big surprise--she lived an extremely full and long life--it's just a pity that the Earth lost someone so exceptional.
The Desert Sun
April 1, 2005 (Palm Springs, California)
Lives Remembered
Julie Hilla
Julie Hilla, 82, of Ashland, Oregon and formerly of Palm Desert, Died February 23, 2005, in Medford, Oregon.
She was born in 1922 to Albert and Jeanne Schoensieqel in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
She married Harold Abshear in 1943 in San Bernadino and later became an educator for the Whittier High School District. After retiring from that position, she moved to Palm Desert and became an active volunteer in local Coachella Valley schools.
She was active in the Unitarian Fellowship, the Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert and the Democratic Party.
She is survived by her husband, John Hilla of Ashland; her daughter Joan Brown of Ashland; two sons, Donald Abshear of Grand Junction, CO and Robert Abshear of Ashland; her brother, Richard Schoensieqel of Del Mar; six grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
Arrangements were under the direction of Litwiller Simonsen Funeral Home in Ashland.
After a full career as a teacher and counselor in one of the outer LA suburbs, she came to the Desert and became a leader in things like Gifted and Talented Education, Career Prep and various parts of the curriculum. She was a tiny woman, definitely under five feet tall, with a heart of gold and able to hold her own in front of a classroom, even at 75 (when I graduated from high school).
The fact that she has died is not a big surprise--she lived an extremely full and long life--it's just a pity that the Earth lost someone so exceptional.
The Desert Sun
April 1, 2005 (Palm Springs, California)
Lives Remembered
Julie Hilla
Julie Hilla, 82, of Ashland, Oregon and formerly of Palm Desert, Died February 23, 2005, in Medford, Oregon.
She was born in 1922 to Albert and Jeanne Schoensieqel in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
She married Harold Abshear in 1943 in San Bernadino and later became an educator for the Whittier High School District. After retiring from that position, she moved to Palm Desert and became an active volunteer in local Coachella Valley schools.
She was active in the Unitarian Fellowship, the Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert and the Democratic Party.
She is survived by her husband, John Hilla of Ashland; her daughter Joan Brown of Ashland; two sons, Donald Abshear of Grand Junction, CO and Robert Abshear of Ashland; her brother, Richard Schoensieqel of Del Mar; six grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
Arrangements were under the direction of Litwiller Simonsen Funeral Home in Ashland.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Thursday, March 31, 2005
I saw one of the cutest things the other day.
After I finished some work on Capitol Hill, I stopped by the Union Station Au Bon Pain to get something to eat. While munching on a little snack, I was able to look out on a pretty busy passageway of people walking between the Amtrak part of the station and the Metro.
As I looked out into the general bustle, I saw a new mother walking by with a little baby girl, about 5 months old, in a pink snuggly that was strapped to the mother's chest. Every time the mother took a step, the baby's arms and legs (which were sticking out of the snuggly) bounced around, much to her delight.
That pair happened to pass a family walking the other way-- a mother and father pushing an older child in a stroller. Probably about 10 months old.
The parents, each focused on wherever they were going, didn't give each other a second glance but stroller baby saw snuggly baby's arms bouncing around, gave a big smile and waved back.
Everybody saw this and there was about 15 seconds of baby waving to baby--snuggly baby was still a bit young to have the whole coordination thing down, so for her, it was more good-natured flailing--until everybody walked off on their separate ways with a smile on their faces.
Including myself.....
After I finished some work on Capitol Hill, I stopped by the Union Station Au Bon Pain to get something to eat. While munching on a little snack, I was able to look out on a pretty busy passageway of people walking between the Amtrak part of the station and the Metro.
As I looked out into the general bustle, I saw a new mother walking by with a little baby girl, about 5 months old, in a pink snuggly that was strapped to the mother's chest. Every time the mother took a step, the baby's arms and legs (which were sticking out of the snuggly) bounced around, much to her delight.
That pair happened to pass a family walking the other way-- a mother and father pushing an older child in a stroller. Probably about 10 months old.
The parents, each focused on wherever they were going, didn't give each other a second glance but stroller baby saw snuggly baby's arms bouncing around, gave a big smile and waved back.
Everybody saw this and there was about 15 seconds of baby waving to baby--snuggly baby was still a bit young to have the whole coordination thing down, so for her, it was more good-natured flailing--until everybody walked off on their separate ways with a smile on their faces.
Including myself.....
Monday, March 28, 2005
This looks kinda cool and I wholeheartedly support the premise.
The UN recently issued a stamp to celebrate its work on Disarmament.
I like the premise: Books--Not Guns.
The UN recently issued a stamp to celebrate its work on Disarmament.
I like the premise: Books--Not Guns.
The Crow of the Early Bird
By WARREN ST. JOHN and ALEX WILLIAMS
The New York Times
March 27, 2005
Mr. Iger, who is married to the television journalist Willow Bay, with whom he has four children, is up at 4:30 in the morning, works out and arrives in the office by 6:30.
The New York Times, March 14, profile of Robert A. Iger, the new president of the Walt Disney Company
Most days before work, Ward, 53, wakes up at 4:30 a.m. at her South Anchorage condo, grabs her mandatory morning coffee and heads to the gym. Part of her success rides on the fact that she exudes energy and sleeps only six hours a night.
The Anchorage Daily News, Jan. 3, profile of Robin Ward, a real estate deal maker
After Singer's call, Wirtschafter couldn't get back to sleep. He usually drops off for only about three hours a night, anyway, rising at around 1 a.m. to read scripts and scribble diagrams in a blue notebook, plotting the decision tree of the following day's phone calls.
The New Yorker, March 21, profile of Dave Wirtschafter, the president of the William Morris Agency
THERE was a time when to project an image of industriousness and responsibility, all a person had to do was wake at the crack of dawn. But in a culture obsessed with status—in which every conceivable personal detail stands as a marker of one's ambition or lack thereof—waking at dawn means simply running with the pack. To really get ahead in the world, to obtain the sacred stuff of C.E.O.'s and overachievers, one must get up before the other guy, when the roosters themselves are still deep in REM sleep. And of course since so few people are awake at such an ungodly hour, the early risers of the world take special pains to let everyone else know of their impressive circadian discipline.
"I'm an early riser, I'm achievement driven, and oh, my, has it served me well in the business world," said Otto Kroeger, a motivational speaker and business consultant in Fairfax, Va. Mr. Kroeger, who says he routinely rises at 4 a.m., preaches about the advantage of getting up before dawn to audiences and clients. "For 13 years," Mr. Kroeger said, "I never allowed myself more than 4 hours in any 24-hour period. It was all ego driven. My psyche was saying, 'I can do it, I can outlast.' It's a version of the old Broadway song from 'Annie Get Your Gun': 'Anything you can do, I can do better.' "
For late risers, the crack of dawn was a formidable enough benchmark. In today's age of competitive waking, they're made to feel even worse. The writer Cynthia Ozick, who goes to bed after 3 a.m. and wakes up sometime after noon, said she lives with constant disapproval. "I'm a creature of bad habits in the eyes of the world," she said. When Ms. Ozick answers the telephone in the early afternoon, she said, "you're approached in the most accusing voice—'Did I wake you?' "
At least since Benjamin Franklin included the proverb "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" in his Poor Richard's Almanac, Americans have looked at sleeping habits as a measure of a person's character. Perhaps because in the agrarian past people had to wake at dawn to get in a full day's work outside, late sleepers have been viewed as a drag on the collective good.
Even today, said Edward J. Stepanski, the director of the Sleep Disorders Service and Research Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, "it's a uniformly negative characteristic to be asleep while everyone else is going about their business."
But before slinking back under the covers in shame, slugabeds of the world should consider: Sleep researchers are casting doubt on the presumed virtue and benefits of waking early, with research showing that the time one wakes up has little bearing on income or success, and that people's sleep cycles are not entirely under their control. Buoyed by the reassessment of their bedtime habits, a few outspoken and well-rested night owls are speaking out against the creep of sleepism.
"There are night owls who have just had their fill of people making them feel guilty and of other people who rag on them," said Carolyn Schur, a late sleeper from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, who advocates for night owls in speeches and in her book "Birds of a Different Feather." "A lot of people are just saying, 'I can't take it anymore.'"
Whatever the negative associations with sleeping late, scientists say there's good reason to doubt the boasts of the early risers. Dr. Daniel F. Kripke, a sleep researcher at the University of California, San Diego, said that in one study he attached motion sensors to subjects' wrists to determine when they were up and about. While 5 percent of the subjects claimed they were awake before 4 a.m., Dr. Kripke said, the motion sensors suggested none of them were. And while 10 percent reported they were up and at 'em by 5 a.m., only 5 percent were out of bed.
Dr. Stepanski said the same is true of people who boast they need little sleep. In a study in which subjects claimed they could get by on just five hours' sleep, he said, researchers found the subjects were sneaking in long naps and sleeping in on weekends to make up for lost z's.
"There's a tendency to generalize and to do it in a self-serving way," Dr. Stepanski said. "If your view is that you can get by on less sleep than the average person, then you're going to play that up."
Scientists call early risers larks, and late sleepers owls, and speak of morningness and eveningness to describe their differing circadian rhythms. Researchers believe that about 10 percent of the population are extreme larks, 10 percent are extreme owls and the remaining 80 percent are somewhere in between. And they say the most important factor in determining to which group a person belongs is not ambition, but DNA.
"Timing of sleep is genetically determined, whether you're an owl or lark," said Dr. Mark Mahowald, the medical director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center. While most people are a little bit owl or a little bit lark, for others, Dr. Mahowald said, altering sleep habits is "like changing your height or eye color."
Dr. Christopher R. Jones, the medical director of the Sleep-Wake Center at the University of Utah, said that just as there are morning people, scientists have found morning flies and morning mice. Variations in sleep patterns among the population, he added, may have benefited the species.
"The whole tribe is better off if someone is up all the night, listening for a lion walking through the grass," he said.
The rhythms of modern times are determined not by fanged predators, of course, but by the 9-to-5 schedule of the workaday world. While those hours would seem to benefit larks, there is little evidence that night owls are any less successful than early risers. Dr. Kripke said that a 2001 study of adults in San Diego showed no correlation between waking time and income. There's even anecdotal evidence of parity on the world stage; President Bush is said to wake each day at 5 a.m., to be at his desk by 7 and to go to sleep at 10 p.m., while no less an achiever than Russian President Vladimir V. Putin reportedly wakes at 11 a.m. and works until 2 a.m.
Night owls thrive, it seems, by strategizing around the expectations of the early crowd. Bella M. DePaulo, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who goes to sleep around 3 a.m. and wakes about 11 a.m., said that before she answers the phone in the late morning, she practices saying "Hello" out loud until she sounds awake. Ms. DePaulo said she has been a night person since childhood, and that she gravitated toward academia in part of because of her sleep habits.
"Academia is a good place to be if you're out of the mainstream," she said. "If you're doing 80 hours of work a week, what does it matter what 80 hours you work?"
Dr. Meir H. Kryger, a professor of medicine and a sleep researcher at the University of Manitoba, said that many people choose professions in line with their circadian rhythms.
"There are whole professions that tend to be larks," he said, like bankers and surgeons. "Very often people self-select themselves into that kind of career." Owls, he said, tend toward the entertainment or hospitality industries and the arts. But not everyone manages to find a perfect fit.
Drue Miller, a design and marketing consultant in San Francisco and the creator of a satirical late sleepers' bill of rights online bulletin board, said that when she worked as a Web designer, she was able to indulge her night owl tendencies by coming in late in the morning and working into the evening. That changed when she became the boss and found herself adjusting her schedule to fit the perception that people who run things are at their desks early. "I felt like I was being a 'bad boss' by showing up so much later," she said.
Perhaps the biggest boon to night owls in keeping up with the larks has been the Internet. Ms. Schur, the night owl advocate, said she spends the wee hours shopping, paying her bills and doing her banking online.
"It's a vehicle for maintaining a night owl lifestyle," she said of the Web. Ms. Schur added that if she is expected to get some bit of work to clients or colleagues by the early morning, she typically does it late at night.
"People will call me and say, 'Hey, your e-mail said 2 or 3 in the morning—did you really send it at that time?'" Ms. Schur said. "I say, 'Yes.' "
For people desperate to change their circadian rhythms, doctors say, there are some options. Dr. Kripke said that light therapy, melatonin and large doses of vitamin B12 can be used to adjust the body's natural clock. (Dr. Kripke outlines these treatments in a free e-book on his Web site www.BrightenYourLife.info.) But because sleep rhythms are so ingrained, the treatments must be practiced continually and so for many are impractical.
"People come to my clinic and want to change," said Dr. Jones of the University of Utah, "and I tell them I can't, I don't have a genetic screwdriver to get in there and tweak the gene."
Of course for hardened members of the early-to-rise crowd, any talk of being a slave to a notion as wispy as circadian rhythms is a sure sign of weakness. Their message to the drowsy is more or less: Get an alarm clock.
"If you work two extra hours a day," said Brian Tracy, the motivational guru, "you will outstrip everyone else in your field. The question is, where do you get those two hours? Early morning time is the most productive. It does no good to do work later in the day, because by then your batteries are burned out. Most successful people try to get up by 5 or 5:30 in the morning."
He added: "Getting up late, having fun at work, these are all for losers."
By WARREN ST. JOHN and ALEX WILLIAMS
The New York Times
March 27, 2005
Mr. Iger, who is married to the television journalist Willow Bay, with whom he has four children, is up at 4:30 in the morning, works out and arrives in the office by 6:30.
The New York Times, March 14, profile of Robert A. Iger, the new president of the Walt Disney Company
Most days before work, Ward, 53, wakes up at 4:30 a.m. at her South Anchorage condo, grabs her mandatory morning coffee and heads to the gym. Part of her success rides on the fact that she exudes energy and sleeps only six hours a night.
The Anchorage Daily News, Jan. 3, profile of Robin Ward, a real estate deal maker
After Singer's call, Wirtschafter couldn't get back to sleep. He usually drops off for only about three hours a night, anyway, rising at around 1 a.m. to read scripts and scribble diagrams in a blue notebook, plotting the decision tree of the following day's phone calls.
The New Yorker, March 21, profile of Dave Wirtschafter, the president of the William Morris Agency
THERE was a time when to project an image of industriousness and responsibility, all a person had to do was wake at the crack of dawn. But in a culture obsessed with status—in which every conceivable personal detail stands as a marker of one's ambition or lack thereof—waking at dawn means simply running with the pack. To really get ahead in the world, to obtain the sacred stuff of C.E.O.'s and overachievers, one must get up before the other guy, when the roosters themselves are still deep in REM sleep. And of course since so few people are awake at such an ungodly hour, the early risers of the world take special pains to let everyone else know of their impressive circadian discipline.
"I'm an early riser, I'm achievement driven, and oh, my, has it served me well in the business world," said Otto Kroeger, a motivational speaker and business consultant in Fairfax, Va. Mr. Kroeger, who says he routinely rises at 4 a.m., preaches about the advantage of getting up before dawn to audiences and clients. "For 13 years," Mr. Kroeger said, "I never allowed myself more than 4 hours in any 24-hour period. It was all ego driven. My psyche was saying, 'I can do it, I can outlast.' It's a version of the old Broadway song from 'Annie Get Your Gun': 'Anything you can do, I can do better.' "
For late risers, the crack of dawn was a formidable enough benchmark. In today's age of competitive waking, they're made to feel even worse. The writer Cynthia Ozick, who goes to bed after 3 a.m. and wakes up sometime after noon, said she lives with constant disapproval. "I'm a creature of bad habits in the eyes of the world," she said. When Ms. Ozick answers the telephone in the early afternoon, she said, "you're approached in the most accusing voice—'Did I wake you?' "
At least since Benjamin Franklin included the proverb "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" in his Poor Richard's Almanac, Americans have looked at sleeping habits as a measure of a person's character. Perhaps because in the agrarian past people had to wake at dawn to get in a full day's work outside, late sleepers have been viewed as a drag on the collective good.
Even today, said Edward J. Stepanski, the director of the Sleep Disorders Service and Research Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, "it's a uniformly negative characteristic to be asleep while everyone else is going about their business."
But before slinking back under the covers in shame, slugabeds of the world should consider: Sleep researchers are casting doubt on the presumed virtue and benefits of waking early, with research showing that the time one wakes up has little bearing on income or success, and that people's sleep cycles are not entirely under their control. Buoyed by the reassessment of their bedtime habits, a few outspoken and well-rested night owls are speaking out against the creep of sleepism.
"There are night owls who have just had their fill of people making them feel guilty and of other people who rag on them," said Carolyn Schur, a late sleeper from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, who advocates for night owls in speeches and in her book "Birds of a Different Feather." "A lot of people are just saying, 'I can't take it anymore.'"
Whatever the negative associations with sleeping late, scientists say there's good reason to doubt the boasts of the early risers. Dr. Daniel F. Kripke, a sleep researcher at the University of California, San Diego, said that in one study he attached motion sensors to subjects' wrists to determine when they were up and about. While 5 percent of the subjects claimed they were awake before 4 a.m., Dr. Kripke said, the motion sensors suggested none of them were. And while 10 percent reported they were up and at 'em by 5 a.m., only 5 percent were out of bed.
Dr. Stepanski said the same is true of people who boast they need little sleep. In a study in which subjects claimed they could get by on just five hours' sleep, he said, researchers found the subjects were sneaking in long naps and sleeping in on weekends to make up for lost z's.
"There's a tendency to generalize and to do it in a self-serving way," Dr. Stepanski said. "If your view is that you can get by on less sleep than the average person, then you're going to play that up."
Scientists call early risers larks, and late sleepers owls, and speak of morningness and eveningness to describe their differing circadian rhythms. Researchers believe that about 10 percent of the population are extreme larks, 10 percent are extreme owls and the remaining 80 percent are somewhere in between. And they say the most important factor in determining to which group a person belongs is not ambition, but DNA.
"Timing of sleep is genetically determined, whether you're an owl or lark," said Dr. Mark Mahowald, the medical director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center. While most people are a little bit owl or a little bit lark, for others, Dr. Mahowald said, altering sleep habits is "like changing your height or eye color."
Dr. Christopher R. Jones, the medical director of the Sleep-Wake Center at the University of Utah, said that just as there are morning people, scientists have found morning flies and morning mice. Variations in sleep patterns among the population, he added, may have benefited the species.
"The whole tribe is better off if someone is up all the night, listening for a lion walking through the grass," he said.
The rhythms of modern times are determined not by fanged predators, of course, but by the 9-to-5 schedule of the workaday world. While those hours would seem to benefit larks, there is little evidence that night owls are any less successful than early risers. Dr. Kripke said that a 2001 study of adults in San Diego showed no correlation between waking time and income. There's even anecdotal evidence of parity on the world stage; President Bush is said to wake each day at 5 a.m., to be at his desk by 7 and to go to sleep at 10 p.m., while no less an achiever than Russian President Vladimir V. Putin reportedly wakes at 11 a.m. and works until 2 a.m.
Night owls thrive, it seems, by strategizing around the expectations of the early crowd. Bella M. DePaulo, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who goes to sleep around 3 a.m. and wakes about 11 a.m., said that before she answers the phone in the late morning, she practices saying "Hello" out loud until she sounds awake. Ms. DePaulo said she has been a night person since childhood, and that she gravitated toward academia in part of because of her sleep habits.
"Academia is a good place to be if you're out of the mainstream," she said. "If you're doing 80 hours of work a week, what does it matter what 80 hours you work?"
Dr. Meir H. Kryger, a professor of medicine and a sleep researcher at the University of Manitoba, said that many people choose professions in line with their circadian rhythms.
"There are whole professions that tend to be larks," he said, like bankers and surgeons. "Very often people self-select themselves into that kind of career." Owls, he said, tend toward the entertainment or hospitality industries and the arts. But not everyone manages to find a perfect fit.
Drue Miller, a design and marketing consultant in San Francisco and the creator of a satirical late sleepers' bill of rights online bulletin board, said that when she worked as a Web designer, she was able to indulge her night owl tendencies by coming in late in the morning and working into the evening. That changed when she became the boss and found herself adjusting her schedule to fit the perception that people who run things are at their desks early. "I felt like I was being a 'bad boss' by showing up so much later," she said.
Perhaps the biggest boon to night owls in keeping up with the larks has been the Internet. Ms. Schur, the night owl advocate, said she spends the wee hours shopping, paying her bills and doing her banking online.
"It's a vehicle for maintaining a night owl lifestyle," she said of the Web. Ms. Schur added that if she is expected to get some bit of work to clients or colleagues by the early morning, she typically does it late at night.
"People will call me and say, 'Hey, your e-mail said 2 or 3 in the morning—did you really send it at that time?'" Ms. Schur said. "I say, 'Yes.' "
For people desperate to change their circadian rhythms, doctors say, there are some options. Dr. Kripke said that light therapy, melatonin and large doses of vitamin B12 can be used to adjust the body's natural clock. (Dr. Kripke outlines these treatments in a free e-book on his Web site www.BrightenYourLife.info.) But because sleep rhythms are so ingrained, the treatments must be practiced continually and so for many are impractical.
"People come to my clinic and want to change," said Dr. Jones of the University of Utah, "and I tell them I can't, I don't have a genetic screwdriver to get in there and tweak the gene."
Of course for hardened members of the early-to-rise crowd, any talk of being a slave to a notion as wispy as circadian rhythms is a sure sign of weakness. Their message to the drowsy is more or less: Get an alarm clock.
"If you work two extra hours a day," said Brian Tracy, the motivational guru, "you will outstrip everyone else in your field. The question is, where do you get those two hours? Early morning time is the most productive. It does no good to do work later in the day, because by then your batteries are burned out. Most successful people try to get up by 5 or 5:30 in the morning."
He added: "Getting up late, having fun at work, these are all for losers."
Friday, March 25, 2005
This is a really interesting site!
MLA Language Map
It's a map that shows national distribution of people speaking a wide variety of languages based on 2000 US Census data. The chloropleth geometry can be arranged by counties and by zip codes, making it useful both as an overview and in great detail.
MLA Language Map
It's a map that shows national distribution of people speaking a wide variety of languages based on 2000 US Census data. The chloropleth geometry can be arranged by counties and by zip codes, making it useful both as an overview and in great detail.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)