Anger management for littles
My seven-year-old has been experiencing some very heavy, angry feelings lately. I have been trying to help her deal with these emotions without harming others, but I realized that some of her actions—the stomping, the loud growling—are the exact same things that I do when I am very angry. I have tried to explain to her that I bottle up “my mad” or “my big feelings” and when they build up like a volcano, I kind of explode. That’s not enough, though; I have learned that I, too, need to work on dealing with my mad.
So here are a few ways we’ve started to handle our anger. I hope you can use them for your littles, too.
Cry or Scream Into a Pillow: This is a very safe, cathartic method that you can do anytime you are safe at home or at a location that you can feel safe at, like a friend’s home. Grab a comfortable pillow in private—maybe in a bedroom—and just scream or cry until you feel better. A stuffed animal will work, too.
Hug: Sometimes a giant bear hug is all you need to feel better!
Stomp: Stomping around can help you release anger as well as the adrenaline that comes with it sometimes. Running also helps if you have the room. If you can’t safely stomp or run but you need a physical outlet, we can punch pillows (or a punching bag if one is available) or squeeze playdough.
Get Calm Though Meditation: My daughter likes to draw a rake through her mini Zen sandbox garden while I read her guided meditations about stars and worry trees. They help her feel more calm and relaxed. Older children may want to listen to a guided meditation and sit or lie down in repose, learning to mindfully meditate with parents. Yoga can also be helpful.
Snuggle with a Story: You can read a story about handling anger, like Anh’s Anger, or you can just read a favorite comforting story.
The Mad You Feel: This episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood teaches about expressing anger in different ways, such as through swim or playing the piano. You can use it to build on, adding the things you like to do personally when frustrated. I showed my daughter how I like to write when I’m angry, as well as how I like to discuss things that make me mad or sad with her daddy.
How about a little less rape culture, humanity?
This gang rape case in India has my stomach twisted in knots. I can’t believe what this poor woman had to endure before she died, and how people are reacting to her attack. This is freaking 2013 and we are still blaming women for getting attacked.
Do we really have to keep going over this? I don’t give a flying crap if this woman was drunk and naked on the subway. If she didn’t want to have sex—if the words NO came out of her mouth—then she is completely, 100 percent blameless. If you rape someone, YOU are to blame. Period.
Three of the rapists are actually pleading not guilty because the evidence used against them was supposedly manipulated. The youngest attacker, who was apparently not only the instigator and the most brutal of the six rapists, may only get charged with three years in a “correctional house” if he turns out to be under 18 as he claims to be. The lawyer of some of the rapists made the statement that “respected ladies” do not get raped.
So 1 in 3 women are not respectable, folks. Is he actually insinuating that his clients are just respectable men who simply could not control themselves when they saw a woman walk by? And given that a rape occurs in India at least every 20 minutes, there must be a lot of “disrespected ladies,” including mothers and young daughters and students, walking around.
I hope they rot in jail. These beasts deserve the maximum penalty, just as every rapist does—though fewer than 10 percent of rapists will ever spend a day in jail in America alone.
Speaking of America, a court in the states recently ruled that the rape of an unmarried woman wasn’t rape. Had she been married to the man who pretended to be her boyfriend and raped her, he would be in jail. Due to our freaking misogynist, primitive laws, he’s off scot-free after raping her.
Then, in Canada, a 21-year-old man met and seduced a 13-year-old girl on Facebook, and after he raped her in a park, he only received 14 days in jail for “touching” her. Police aren’t even investigating the situation properly, requesting information from Facebook, zilch. The man, who claims he was beaten up by the girl and her friend (though admits to “having sex” with her, apparently), will also receive a measly year of probation and be added to a sex offender registry for just 10 years. Is it just me, or is consent here not even important? You have sex with a 13-year-old child and you’re over 18, you need to be charged with much more than improper touching!
These incidences only highlight the fact that girls aren’t considered important anywhere in the whole planet. Violence against women is rarely prosecuted, and some women even experience more harm—whether in the military, at the hands of “honor killings,” or other retribution—for simply reporting it. And this heinousness has got to stop.
Click here to find out about this year’s Violence Against Women Campaign, One Billion Rising, and find out what you can do about it.
2012 Pitching Leaderboards -- HR Prevention
We already had a "sneak peek" at the pitching leader boards, but I'm going to go back through them all since I've made some refinements since then. I was also able to adjust for those pitchers who pitched in both the majors and minors.
Note: Unlike hitters, I do not put an age cap on pitchers. So some older guys will be mixed in. The minimum number of batters faced is 100.
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Stat: Home-Run Prevention, which is simply HR/PA (expressed as percent)
Rule of thumb: I consider anything under 1.2% to be very good.
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Starters:
- Stephen Landazuri (20) 0.5%
- Tyler Pike (18) 0.5%
- Brandon Maurer (21) 0.7%
- Danny Hultzen (22) 0.8%
- Steve Ewing (20) 0.8%
- Jochi Ogando (19) 1.0%
- Jordan Pries (22) 1.0%
- James Paxton (23) 1.1%
- Robert Shore (23) 1.1% (also reliever)
- Chris Sorce (24) 1.2%
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Relievers:
0 HR in at least 100 batters faced
- Joshua Corrales (22)
- Oliver Garcia (21)
- Dominic Leone (20)
- Daniel Mata (18)
- Stephen Pryor (22)
- Daniel Thieben (18)
- Grady Wood (22)
8. Bobby LaFromboise (26) 0.4%
9. Josh Kinney (33) 0.4%
10. John Taylor (23) 0.5%
***
Below age-arc (young for level) pitchers:
- Thieben (18) 0.0%
- Mata (18) 0.0%
- Pike (18) 0.5%
- Maurer (21) 0.7%
- Victor Sanchez (18) 1.4%
Homeschool to annoy a liberal
I was looking for a homeschooling bumper sticker to add to the enormous collection on the back of my car—maybe something about the world being our classroom, or an Einstein quote, or something—when I ran across one that says, “Homeschool to annoy a liberal.”
Seriously?
As a liberal homeschooler, I can only snort at this. I really do know plenty of conservatives who homeschool. In fact, in one of my local groups, the majority of the members are conservatives—but I have never seen any of them try to annoy a liberal.
On the other hand, another group that I locally belong to—a much larger one—is made up of mostly liberals. We have humanists and hippies and democratic unschoolers. We have Buddhists and pagans and people from all walks of life. In the third local group we belong to, perhaps the largest of all, there is such a wide variety of people from every political, religious, and cultural spectrum that I couldn’t even begin to classify.
So I don’t know how you’re going to annoy a liberal with your homeschooling when plenty of us are already doing it. So-rry! And I’d really appreciate it if such stereotypical sentiments would stop being reflected on bumper stickers, or anywhere, in the first place. We homeschoolers don’t take kindly to stereotypes…
Care about a cause?
Here’s a quick roundup of some progressive causes you might be interested in this week. Feel free to visit each campaign that you care about and adding your signature to help create lasting change.
Protect wild horses: Tell the U.S. Forest Service to maintain wild horse habitat this year and avoid the horse removal and roundup that is being proposed. Ten percent of the horses’ habitat is at risk right now, so it’s vital that we speak up and protect what little land they have left to roam.
Save the Northwest orcas: The National Marine Fisheries may remove the Pacific Northwest’s killer whales’ protection soon if we don’t speak up for them. Click here to ask that this critically endangered group of whales—with a population below 100—be continually offered protection by the National Marine Fisheries and local laws.
Tell the House and Senate to provide relief for Hurricane Sandy victims! I can’t believe we are still having to ask for this months later. What a gross disregard for American citizens, Congress; you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I think we should all call every day until this relief is passed and sent! Click here to ask that the Sandy Relief Package be passed immediately.
Stop Arctic drilling: After yet another oil spill—just this past New Year’s Eve—have we not learned that drilling in the Arctic—or any of our fragile areas, for that matter—is not the answer we seek? We need a renewable energy strategy now; our children are going to hate us when they live in a world without power because their parents didn’t stand up to the oil companies and Congress, demanding sustainability for all, right now. Make them proud and secure their future by asking that we stop drilling now and start seeking solutions elsewhere.
Ask Weezer to renounce tobacco company ties. I still can’t believe this band—still popular with many teens and young people abroad, as well as with some folks of my own generation—allowed themselves to be marketed and sold with cigarettes. In Indonesia, their recent concert was sponsored by a tobacco company that actually passed out cigarettes during the concert itself! Weezer hasn’t said anything about this “special relationship,” and it’s about time they did. Ask them to stop wasting peoples’ days, and to speak up and out against tobacco use and to stop using cancer sticks to make sales.
Parenting is not a side job
While reading Time’s list of 50 Best Websites of 2012, I cringed to find not only no blogs about attachment parenting, peaceful alternatives to discipline, or any kind of connection-building with children in the “Family and Kids” section, but instead a website called “Mommyish,” which features confessional type stories about parents who leave their infants for vacation or refuse to breastfeed just because.
So much for that whole 2012 Mayan enlightenment thing.
I don’t know where this whole idea of parenting as a side gig started, but you might think that people would wise up and realize it’s a helluva lot more important than popping out a kid and handing him or her to a sitter/daycare while you build your career, travel the world, or sit back and whine about how hard it is to be Mom or Dad. I am not saying you cannot have a career or travel if you have kids—and I’m certainly saying you’re not allowed to vent about any challenges you face—but having a child isn’t something you do on the side, like riding a motorcycle on weekends or selling Avon at parties.
Parenting is a full-time job. It always has been and always will be. Hell, we used to have whole freaking tribes raise children, with each member teaching the youngling something he or she knew well. It was considered that important. We are mammals; we are built with instincts, with special features, to custom care for our own children. It’s not a burden, it’s amazing! I’m not dogging on women who choose not to breastfeed (or cannot breastfeed, of course)—but families who plan on putting two careers ahead of a child should probably reconsider their course of action. Either don’t have a child—or take the lighter career option to be there for your son or daughter.
I totally get why we think the way we do. The system is set up to unnaturally separate us from our kids as early as possible, and the media makes us think that our children are mere annoyances in our lives that we need to “get away” from, rather than the most important relationships we have. Our children are quickly made into consumers and given a uniform education to prepare them for controlled, conformed lives where they will buy a lot and be obedient. Our very instincts are questioned, and every parenting magazine tells us to ask a doctor about things that we normally would simply do ourselves as nature intended. Then, when we can’t connect with our kids and teens, we cry foul, blaming them and whining to anyone who will listen about how hard it is to talk to your child, whom you spend less than three hours a day with.
If you are going to have children, be prepared to give up things in your life, at least temporarily, because they come first. Want to have a life centered on yourself? That’s completely fine. There’s no shame in it at all. But don’t have kids.
Footage of a giant squid
I have always been fascinated by giant squids. I think it’s not just the fact that they are so elusive that we have rarely ever seen them at all—aside from when they wash up on shores dead—but also because they are truly the monsters of the deep.
They are creatures once thought to be myths and prove that sometimes we really just don’t know what’s out there. Something that huge that evades us for this long has to be admired! They give hope to the cryptozoologist in all of us, no matter how small, and make us wonder what else could exist that we had previously dismissed as legend.
The Discovery Channel has finally managed to capture actual footage of the giant squid for us to enjoy and they are going to air it Saturday, January 27, 2013 at 8 p.m. EST. Set up your DVRs because this is one documentary that you are not going to want to miss! I cannot wait to see this one.
My only hope is that we don’t venture further, trying to kill this animal for jumbo calamari or something as we humans tend to do. It’s been clever enough to avoid us for this long; let’s respect that and just enjoy seeing the “monster” on camera.
Reading Pile: 1/11/13
Godzilla The Half Century War #4- The great thing with this title is that you really don’t have to be a Godzilla fan to enjoy it. Stokoe is telling such a great story from an interesting perspective that this stands as just a great adventure comic that happens to have Godzilla and a slew of other monsters in it. Then you have Stokoe’s lush artwork on top of that, which is more than worth the price of the book itself. If you’re not picking this up issue by issue, you really should check the trade out when it’s released. A
Repossessed #1- You would be infinitely better off watching the 1990 film of the same name starring Leslie Neilsen and Linda Blair. Seriously. This book just tried too hard. The scripting was stiff and forced with no real sense of pacing, and the art just sort of ran with that seem feeling. I was pretty much just waiting for it to be over, and that’s never a good thing to feel when reading a comic. C
To Hell You Ride #2- I don’t mean to sound too surprised by this, but I seriously would have never guessed Lance Henriksen to be this good of a storyteller. It could all be in Joseph Maddrey’s hands as well, but it would seem that the combination can put together a pretty entertaining comic. B+
Thor God of Thunder #4- One thing I never gave Jason Aaron credit for previously was his ability to change tone and storytelling depending on the characters he’s working with. While this still has his distinctive sense of humor, he’s infused it with a more epic and mythically charged tone than his other works. A lot of that is also in Esad Ribic’s artwork, and hopefully they can keep him attached to the title for a good chunk of time. A-
Revival Vol 1 TP: You’re Among Friends- This series has been another pleasant surprise out of Image, and it’s an even stronger read in one sitting. Tim Seeley isn’t always spot on for me at times, but when he is he’s really on game and can spin a great story. Mike Norton’s artwork is the pitch perfect match for the tone of the book. His style is clean with a good sense of storytelling and pacing, with just enough style to give it a unique tone without being too flashy to distract from the story. If you want a different take on the undead and a rural noir mystery, then you should really check this first volume out. A
Best Player In the Deal
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Q. How would SSI calculate the "correct" prospect load for a Justin Upton deal?
A. My considered opinion is that these kinds of prospect-for-star trades are (normally) far too complicated to "solve" with math.
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Q. Upton's contract will underpay him by $20-40M, depending on your projection for his WAR. Taijuan and Franklin project to be underpaid by about $28-45M, total for both, during their first six years. That's sound enough, right?
A. We wouldn't use batting average alone to evaluate trades of position players, and for similar reasons, we can't use this paradigm alone to evaluate the Upton deal.
BUT! The profit comparison is important. You would not want to be ignorant of what this calculation says. Having the "surplus value" charts is necessary for these trades. If you weren't aware of what the numbers said, you would be derelict.
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Q. First of all: let's see the prime facie case. What does the paradigm say?
A. Here are the charts.
Fangraphs' calculations -- see this article -- are based on paying $5-6 million per WAR, as teams have (usually) actually had to do in the free agent market.
The $40M for Upton factors in an additional $4M worth of value for either (1) a possible draft pick compensation or (2) a discounted extension. Those assumptions are not very reliable, but this article (again) does a great job of acknowledging the unreliable nature of the calculations.
| Player | On-field value | Salary | Profit |
| Upton | $75-80 million | $38 M | ~$40 M |
| TOTAL | ~$40 M | ||
| Taijuan | ~28 M | ||
| Franklin | ~$17 M | ||
| Furbush | ? | ||
| Pryor | ? | ||
| TOTAL | ~$60 M |
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And here's a similar calculation by one of the crack posters over yonder at Lookout Landing:
Based on either Victor Wang’s original research or Pirates’ Prospects updated version. Walker was BA’s number 20 prospect last year and Franklin was 77; that gives:
1) Wang’s figures
Top 11-25 pitcher = $15.9m
Top 76-100 hitter = $12.5m2) Pirates’ Prospects figures
Top 11-25 pitcher = $18.89m
Top 76-100 hitter = $10.43mEither way that’s about $28m; then you probably need to adjust Franklin’s value for the good year he’s just had that could move him into or close to the top 50, which would add another $5m or so to give $33m. Add Pryor and Furbush and you’re probably up around $40m, maybe more depending on how reliable you think Furbush’s breakout is.
If Upton is only going to provide 11.5 WAR in the next three years and we’re not getting anyone else back, this looks like a serious overpay. If he’s something closer to the MVP-level player he was in 2011 – say, 5 WAR/year – it looks decent.
There's a key factor we have to add in at this point, however ...
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Q. It looks clear that the M's would have been overpaying, right? You've got $20-40M for Upton and $40-60M for the M's prospects.
A. The method isn't sound, not at all, because Upton provides his $20-40M in surplus value WITHIN ONE ROSTER SLOT. The other four players give the $40-60M surplus BUT THE PLAYERS OCCUPY FOUR ROSTER SLOTS TO DO THIS.
It's not a lot different from saying, "Hey, we gave you four 12-point players for LeBron James. We overpaid by 22 points a game."
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Q. So how does SSI run the math?
A. Here's a chart that DOES capture the idea of Stars & Scrubs. These aren't random numbers; they're actually best guesses.
| Player | On-field value | Salary | Profit |
| Upton | $75-80 M | $38 | ~$40 M |
| SP5 (Hultzen) | ~$28M | ||
| SS (Miller) | ~17 M | ||
| MR (Capps, whoever) | ~8 M | ||
| MR | ~6 M | ||
| TOTAL, UPTON + 3 PLAYERS | $120 M | ||
| Taijuan | $28 M | ||
| Franklin | $17 M | ||
| Pryor | ~8 M | ||
| Furbush | ~6 M | ||
| TOTAL, TAIJUAN / FRANKLIN | $60M |
So when we change the paradigm -- Upton plus 3 young players on the 25-man roster, against 4 players who would have been on our roster -- suddenly, we wayyyyyyyyy underpaid.
And here you had sportswriters asking if it should cost Zduriencik his job, to pay such exciting young prospects for an established ML star.
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Q. Okay then ... is YOUR calculation sound?
A. It is not.
:- )
For instance ... did you remember that Upton will be providing his $40M surplus value within three calendar years? So you'll have three other calendar years in which a young player can tack on even more "profit."
There are many, many other confounding variables here also.
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Q. Such as?
A. We replaced a $28M Taijuan with a $28M Danny Hultzen -- here, by the way, is where we get that $28M figure from. Guys just went back and counted up how much "profit" there has been with pitchers and hitters who make Baseball America's top 100.
That's pretty much in the ballpark. Take ten players ranked super high by BBA, and paid minimum wage at the start of their careers. Of course you're going to get a lot of profit. $28M average, for guys like Taijuan, Hultzen, Paxton, and Erasmo, that sounds about right.
Anyway, slamming in Hultzen for Taijuan makes it look like you haven't lost anything .... actually, you have. You've lost a draw at the deck. Suppose there is a 70% chance that any given ML-ready pitcher stays healthy ... well, then, you've got a 91% chance that ONE OF TWO such pitchers stays healthy. You "paid" that marginal 21% chance of injury, though it doesn't show up in the chart.
..........
There are lots of variables ... and realistically?, if you have four Clayton Kershaws you're not going to "waste" any of them. You'd use them all, or you'd trade one to get back Lou Gehrig, or something. If the M's kept all of the Big Four, they'd phase them in, and extract a lot of their value even though they overlap.
Still, you only have five starters. SOMEWHERE there's a guy who's the 26th man on the roster. :- ) If you used Victor Wang's method to evaluate all of the M's young pheenoms you'd have like $300M of profit. Every time you put a young player on the roster, you're pushing out some kid who also had a lot of value.
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Q. Okay, there are no real answers, mathematically. Leaving us where?
A. One thing we know: when you cram extra value into the top slots on your roster, THAT is value you will actually be able to exploit.
Justin Upton figures to return his team about $40M in profit value over the next three years, from approximately the #4 or #5 slot on the 25-man roster. That $10-15M per year, from a top-5 slot, is what roster config is all about.
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Q. The market has been way down for prospects this winter, true. People went nuts over the Myers/Shields deal.
A. If I didn't know better, I'd honestly think that back channel, somebody circulated a memo this winter. And it clarified all of the GM's about these Stars & Scrubs concepts.
I know how weird that sounds. But all of a sudden, the entire industry seems to be taking these things into account.
You know what really blows me away? The DBacks making sure to get back Charlie Furbush and Stephen Pryor. They got back ML players, ML impact players, with the prospect bundle. Think about it.
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Q. How much is too much? By this logic you might give eight young players for a Star, or fifteen of them. That can't be right.
A. Don't be so sure. You could give 15 Willie Bloomquists for one Mike Trout, and be glad you did. Even if Willie were an 0.8 WAR player, you could give 20 of him for Mike Trout. It's because of this "25 Man Roster" concept. The cutoff at #26 comes back to bite you again and again.
One thing Dr. D knows. The market needs a correction, as far as how many prospects equal one Giancarlo Stanton. When you're in doubt, pay more prospects than people think you should.
There are more prospects where Nick Franklin came from. And you only get to select a few of them to actually put on the field. So GET BACK THE BEST PLAYER IN THE DEAL, babe.
BABVA,
Dr D
Humans aren’t the only sentient beings on the planet
It’s pretty easy to see that animals feel pain. Humans are animals too, after all—but if you cut a cow or a pig, you hear it scream just as much as a person does. I’m not speaking from experience here, but I have eaten plenty of both to feel guilty about it. Animals as sentient creatures are not an unknown concept.
The fact that animals have a consciousness, however, has continued to remain a question of debate among many people. If we knew that animals could think and reason as we can, or that they loved as deeply as we do, we might think twice about killing them for food, experimentation, and other reasons, after all. Personally, I think all you have to do is watch elephants mourn a loss of their own or apes share tools and food to know that this is true.
Now scientists are confirming that animals have a consciousness the same as humans—which makes perfect sense, since we’re from the same genetic material. We were once quite hairier versions of ourselves, closer to our primate cousins than we are today, and our random development could have easily been deterred in favor of another species.
Yet instead of being humble and careful about our presence (perhaps) as the most developed species, we spend it sneering at other species, proclaiming our superiority in the name of the Bible or our taste buds (myself guiltily included). Eventually, if we can actually communicate with other species or otherwise prove intelligence, I wonder if we will maintain our excuses. Perhaps this Korean-speaking elephant could shed some light on the subject…