Author Archives: Geoffrey Graham

Boys and girls are different

My son and I have birthdays in the same week. For his eighth birthday, he received some money from my brother (his uncle) in a birthday card. Within the same envelope was another card for me, in which my brother had inserted my birthday present: two pennies. Thanks bro!

The envelope within which both cards arrived was addressed to my son, as was the card containing his folding money. The card with the pennies was addressed to me. My son insisted that his uncle had intended the two pennies for him, as they’d come within the envelope that was addressed to him. I argued that the pennies were clearly meant for me, as the card into which they were taped had a hand written note for me.

We discussed it for a few minutes, each of us arguing plausible scenarios that would support our position. Finally, my five year old daughter intervened. “Why don’t we just call him and ask!? Give me the phone,” she demanded.

In response to her question, I turned to my son, “What do you want to do? Call him and ask him what he meant, or decide right now?”

“You can have the pennies,” he replied.

In my experience, there are innate differences between men and women.

My dad is so cool

My mother and father: in 1962 and 2012

In the last 12 months, my dad has:

  1. Turned 71,
  2. visited Cuba,
  3. celebrated the 50th anniversary of his marriage to my wonderful mother, and
  4. started blogging about health and wellness.

His first two posts: How I got fat and How I got lean again.

I’m telling you the truth: My dad is getting younger every year. Check out his story, leave a comment on one of his posts, and follow him on Twitter.

Incentives, Education, & Religion

Hume and Smith observed that “governments who supported churches with tax dollars got a less religious populace.” In a post at Values & Capitalism, Isaac Morehouse extends that thinking to education:

When the church is publicly supported it becomes less responsive to parishioners and less creative in gaining and retaining new members. When churches had to rely solely on voluntary support, they innovated. Sermons became more interesting to the listeners, facilities were built to meet the needs of attendees, and church leaders more aggressively and creatively looked for ways to show the applicability and value of religion to everyday life. This marketing, innovation and energy resulted in greater “consumption” of religious “goods” than in countries where the state supported the church…

It’s silly to suggest that religion cannot exist without state support, and even more absurd to suggest that the federal government could improve upon religion. Yet the vast majority of Americans fail to see the same cause and effect relationship between state funding of education and the level of education among the public.

If you like the idea of a population that is competent in math, science, reading, writing, physics, philosophy, biology, history, economics and every other field of knowledge, you should oppose state support for education. Without resorting to complicated debates about curricula, teachers unions and budgets, the same economic analysis Smith and Hume used to understand the relationship between church and state can be used to understand the relationship between school and state. State support for education results in a less educated populace.