Link to BabelFox:
http://elliottandlara.com/babelfox

Christmas Prank

Last December, Lara and I went up to Alaska to spend Christmas with her family. It was going to be my first time meeting one of her brothers, who'd recently returned from a church mission. I had heard stories of pranks done on his other brother-in-law (and last visit I myself had been short-sheeted by another of Lara's brothers), so I knew come Christmas time, it was game on.

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Today's Lunch Break:
Early soy diet may protect against breast cancer

It has long been known that breast cancer rates in Asian women are lower than average but that the difference quickly diminishes in subsequent generations after immigration to the West (suggesting a factor other than genetics). The study above lays out strong evidence pointing to childhood soy intake as a major protective factor[1].

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Today's Lunch Break:
Name days

My birthday is over and it was great. Its passing puts me in my late 20s, which is fine, I'm just not sure where the last 5 years went. I still feel 22.

In many countries, including in Europe and Latin America, people celebrate not only their birthdays, but also their name days. You can read up on it here and go here to see if you have a name day. I was surprised to find my name has a day, but Elliott isn't so lucky. And today, happy name day to all the Rebeccas and Beckys!

Lunch Break will return next week. We've been entertaining out-of-town visitors this week, and today Lara is off to California for business meetings (I would be very jealous, except the weather suddenly turned amazing here).

And one surprising discovery. I googled "Elliott and Lara" (in quotes) a couple days back (out of vanity and to see which blogs were giving us the link love), and I learned...that another Elliott and Lara are getting married this August! Congratulations guys! (And nice kitchenware choices!) [1,2]

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Today's Lunch Break:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/using-technology-to-skip-the-doctors-office/

My grandfather, a retired pediatrician who shares my first and last name, speaks fondly about going on house calls, black doctor bag in hand, to checkup on children and calm worried parents. In the past few years, I have run into multiple people who, upon recognizing our shared name, speaks of him in glowing terms like "my doctor" or "our pediatrician." My grandfather says that such relationships were the most rewarding aspects of his career.

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Today's Lunch Break:
http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001426.html

I've had several jobs that required getting CPR training. You sit there in a classroom (usually a freezing one) and spend your day learning how to do chest compressions and how that cracking sound is supposed to happen.

Even though I've been certified at least three times, I couldn't tell you how to do it properly, much less actually perform CPR.

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Today's Lunch Break:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/obama-calls-for-overhaul-of-education-system/

I have many friends in the teaching field, and as this can be an emotionally loaded subject, my apologies if I offend. Let me first say that I truly admire what you do.

Certainly the problems in our school systems have no simple solutions. As for me, I generally support (and all opinions of mine are subject to change, given additional facts and added perspective) charter schools, school vouchers, magnet programs, and merit-based pay. However, I don't pretend that any one of these is a silver bullet, or that they should be applied uniformly across the board[1].

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Today's Lunch Break:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/01/03/opinion/1194837193498/the-face-of-slavery.html

I was at a meeting recently where a man said, "I don't believe anything written in the New York Times."

Recognizing the obvious politics behind his comment, I bit my tongue, but I wanted to say "Please, have your own political views, by all means, but have you read the Times? Do you know what fantastic content they have, even if you never touched an article about politics?" [1]

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