I got a replacement passport in less than a week, via mail, recently, and my daughter's new passport took about 2 weeks (had to apply in person, but at local city office). Both were expedited, but no overnight mail.

That reminds me, I need to pick up a copy of my birth certificate just to add it to the family collection. When I picked up birth certs for the kids I went in person, but all I needed was a CA driver's license that proved I was the kids' mother.

Yeah, I need to do that stuff, too. Birth certificate, marriage certificate, ss card, new passport. I really should get on that.

I have no idea where my marriage license is. And I think I'm going to need it to to renew my driver's license, because they'll want my birth certificate with my maiden name and I'll need to prove why my name changed.

I feel a Damn the Patriarchy rant coming on.

A long article, but an utterly thorough take-down of the Tiger Mom Book: [link]

I also think Western ways of parenting are in trouble. The ideas that commonly guide parents today are actually debased and derivative versions of an ethos that has been reduced to clichés (e.g., “Be yourself”; “Do what you love”; “Live your own life”). Rather than simply attacking Chua and reaffirming Western ways of parenting, the task before us is to recover and articulate our own ethos.

At its best, the Western style of parenting aims to help children live authentically, that is, to take on the responsibility to decide for themselves what to do and how to live. My understanding of the world is inauthentic to the extent that I have simply inherited it from my parents or absorbed it from the people around me, without having made any responsible effort to measure it against my own experience. My discourse is inauthentic if I accept and repeat what others say without trying to understand through my own effort what it means or whether it is true.

"Authenticity" is one of the great bullshit standards.

I have a "certificate of live birth" not a birth certificate. I may possibly be a muslim/african born person, I guess.

pssst, Sophia is the president, pass it on!

It’s Official: James Cameron and Google Unveil Plans for Asteroid-Mining

A recently announced space venture backed by James Cameron, Google executives, and others isn't scheduled to formally announce its plans until later today, but as of late last night, the news is official: Planetary Resources, Inc. is fixing to do some asteroid-mining. Here's everything we know about the venture so far.

This is big news on several fronts, not the least of which being the fact that this venture stands to reinvigorate the world's passion for space exploration. Money can be a powerful motivating factor, and all indications suggest that there a LOT of it to be made mining resources like water and precious metals from near-Earth asteroids

At its best, the Western style of parenting aims to help children live authentically, that is, to take on the responsibility to decide for themselves what to do and how to live.

Teaching children how to live capably and independently in the world, anyway. I'm not sure what authenticity has to do with it.