Every day I drive by a pickup truck with a sticker that says “My Other Car Is A Jet.” Which is pretty impressive, if you think about it: driving a jet. Not bad, right? Except I once saw one that had that one beat.

Back in the early 90’s, my ship was visiting Alameda, CA for some repairs. At an adjacent pier was the USS Abraham Lincoln, a massive, floating steel city. In the commanding officer’s parking space was a tiny Honda Civic with a sticker that read (wait for it): “My Other Car Is An Aircraft Carrier.”

It don’t get much bigger than that.
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Research indicates that TV permanently affects the attention span of kids. Seems the fast-paced images are to blame, permanently altering how the brain develops.

“The newborn brain develops very rapidly during the first two to three years of life. It’s really being wired” during that time, Christakis said.

“We know from studies of newborn rats that if you expose them to different levels of visual stimuli … the architecture of the brain looks very different” depending on the amount of stimulation, he said.

Overstimulation during this critical period “can create habits of the mind that are ultimately deleterious,” Christakis said. If this theory holds true, the brain changes likely are permanent, but children with attention problems can be taught to compensate, he said.

I find the whole topic fascinating because … hey, have you seen penguin baseball?
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