Little League Comes with a Big Price Tag

Poll: What do you think? Is the cost of kids' sports out of hand?

Have you purchased a baseball glove for your Little Leaguer lately? Did you pay more than $100? How about a $250 bat? Baseball and softball equipment, including cleats and uniforms, accounted for over $1 billion in sales in 2010, reported the New York Times. "Youth equipment represents the highest percentage of sales, particularly bat sales, as the parent willing to buy a $200, 28-inch bat for a 9-year-old is likely to pay the same price for a 30-inch bat for a 10-year-old the next season," wrote Mike Tanier in "Big Price Tags Attached to Even the Littlest Leagues." The cost of joining a league and outfitting a player can overwhelm families, and may even prevent some kids from playing. So what do you think? Has the cost of bats and gloves …

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OM Is Where The Breath Is

Mind Thy Yoga

It’s important to reevaluate practice. Maintain humility, and listen to the educated.

Two weeks ago I wrote an article featuring me in a weak version of a difficult pose: handstand scorpion. In the same article I hailed the research of a real live PhD from Berkeley who discovered that part of what makes yoga awesome is that I become more aware of my body. I say that part of what makes yoga terrible is that I can get really arrogant and competitive. Notice I’m the problem. Not yoga. Not So Sexy Last week I was in the chiropractor’s office and complained to him that I was feeling weak and having shortness of breath. It turns out that attempting that sexy scorpion pose might have been causing problems in my spine, which in turn was causing problems in my organs. Adrenals – my kidney hats – when not functioning properly can …

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Ask the Techie: Cell phones and parent-teen communication

Nearing adulthood - how you communicate with your kids makes a difference when they have a cell phone

The New York Time's health blog, 'The Well', published an article titled "What Cellphones Say About Parent-Teenage Relations". It discusses a new study conducted by a professor of human development from California State University in Monterey Bay, Robert S. Weisskirch. The study suggests that the types of communication via cell phone between parents and teens reflect the level of harmony or conflict in the relationship. Using a survey given to both parents and teens, it looked at who iniated the call, the purpose of the call and questions that are meant to gauge the self-esteem of both. The communication was characterized as either harmony, autonomy or conflict. The results measured in this study generally fell along the lines that …

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Choosing a College - The SATs

A necessary evil or accurate predictor of performance?

On Saturday morning, Katelyn Crank joined thousands of high school students across the country in taking the SAT Reason Test (formerly known as the Scholastic Assessment Test), commonly referred to as the SAT. Over the past several decades taking the SAT (or one of its competing tests such as the ACT) has become an essential rite of passage for anyone who wants to go to college. The SAT in particular has maintained its importance despite a number of changes over the years, and not a few criticisms about bias in its content and manner of posing questions. For the uninitiated, the tests are scored on a scale of 200 to 800 and are administered in Reading, Writing and Mathematics. Each section is allotted just over an hour to complete. The …

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