Friday miscellaneous (11/30)

A blogger at Mint.com looks to Australia for student loan restructuring.

And speaking of looking to other countries, England offers a lesson in trying to raise the top tax rates: the number of millionaires fell by over 10,000, resulting in a revenue drop of £7 billion.

Low wages and high corporate profits often make headlines. But one company is succeeding by paying its employees generously and decreasing its profit margin. Did anyone guess Costco?

Mark Mitchell explains the historic meanings of the terms “liberal” and “conservative,” concluding that:

If partisans on both the left and right express themselves primarily in terms of individual rights and think of politics in terms of an underlying and open-ended progress, then we don’t really need the term “conservatism” at all. Both sides are firmly rooted in the soil of progressive liberalism. They agree about the purpose of government (to protect individual rights) and the direction of history (progress). They may disagree about which individual rights to privilege and what specifically constitutes progress, but these are really in-house debates among liberals.

He then further explores the meaning of “conservative.”

Carl Trueman (as usual) offers excellent thoughts on how to measure legacy. Best line:

So here is a word to those involved in big churches and big organisations: Watch the succession plans closely, for they will reveal much about the real priorities and vision of today's leaders for the church of tomorrow and beyond.

An unknown author from the second or third century captured some of the paradoxes of Christianity.

They live in their own countries, but only as nonresidents; they participate in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. 

Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign.

Have you ever felt like no one actually reads the reports you compile? One pastor tested this, with hilarious results;

So the next month, after dutifully compiling the statistical data, I turned to page two and described as best I could an imagined long, slow slide into depression. I wrote that I had difficulty sleeping. I couldn’t pray. I was getting the work done at a maintenance level but it was a robotic kind of thing with no spirit, no zest. Having feelings and thoughts like this I was seriously questioning whether I should be a pastor at all. Could they recommend a counselor for me?

And he was only getting started.

For those writing papers and looking for that elusive citation, look no further.

And now on to the parenting front. One therapist writes that making your kids too happy can land them in therapy. As if testing this proposition, a preschool saw positive results after it replaced toys with cardboard boxes. It stumbled on one of the 5 best toys of all time.

Another toy that is quite versatile, Box also comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Need proof? Depending on the number and size you have, Boxes can be turned into furniture or a kitchen playset. You can turn your kids into cardboard robots or create elaborate Star Wars costumes. A large Box can be used as a fort or house and the smaller Box can be used to hide away a special treasure. Got a Stick? Use it as an oar and Box becomes a boat. One particularly famous kid has used the Box as a key component of a time machine, a duplicator and a transmogrifier, among other things. 

* * * 

Wired: Best celebrity endorsement: Calvin & Hobbes.

Update: a journalist writes about how Presidents Clinton and Bush helped him be a better father.

And finally, speaking of childrens’ imaginations, Anthony Esolen visited Fox this week to discuss his book on how to destroy a child’s imagination--and the hosts certainly weren’t ready for him.