Ryan and Debi

Month: October 2007

  • an intriguing race issue

    I was discussing race in my Introduction to Sociology classes this week and talked about how race continues to be an issue in the U.S. for a lot of reasons (e.g., income, healthcare, quality of life, racism, etc.). To illustrate that racial tensions have not disappeared, I linked to this NYTimes article about a principal…

  • Sociology Inaction

    I don’t blog enough about what I do and the insights it provides on the world around me. A story developing here in Tampa caught my eye and I have to say something about it as a Sociologist. Don Swartout, a 59 year-old single father and recent widower, was recently arrested for leaving his 7…

  • the new trend in organic food stores – DNA testing

    In a new twist, a post by budding skeptic, Debi: Ryan kept insisting that the little store around the corner from our house (it’s called “Nutrition Works” and is owned by Raj Patel) had a flashing sign saying DNA Testing. Being curious I finally told him I had to go check it out. The store…

  • Portland trip

    We spent the weekend in Portland, OR, attending a conference called: Challenging Assumptions: Religious Faith, Genetic Science, and Human Dignity. It was an intriguing conference. There were probably 50 to 75 people who attended at some point. This was both nice and awkward. It was nice because we couldn’t help but get a chance to…

  • in case you missed it on SNL

    The staff of SNL couldn’t let Mahmoud Ahmadinejad get away with homosexuality denying: —————- Now playing: Jon Hendricks – Jive Samba via FoxyTunes

  • birding and blogging

    Debi and I had our first birding outing last Sunday. A couple of professors at UT we’ve gotten to know are big into birding and took us out bright and early Sunday morning to get a taste for it. We went out to Brooker Creek Preserve and spent a couple hours peering through binoculars looking…