Ryan and Debi & Toren

Author: rcragun

  • 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…

  • sad, sad, sad

    What has the world come to? I saw this story in the local paper today and it made me want to cry and kill the perpetrators at the same time. Basically a guy who is a bit slow but who is an avid walker in his neighborhood was jumped by a couple of young thugs…

  • 2 great sociology articles today in the NYTimes

    I generally don’t post links to these anymore on here (though I do include what I’m reading in the widget to the right), but these two articles were too good not to post. The first is by Paul Krugman, who does a great job illustrating that race still matters in the U.S. The second is…

  • something you never thought you’d hear from us 😉

    Debi and I went to a professional football game yesterday – Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. New Orleans Saints. In fact, we even had $250/seat tickets for club seating. Here are a couple pics (from my crappy cellphone camera) as evidence: Here’s Debi at the game: Here’s a shot of the famed pirate ship: And here’s…

  • hard-wired politics?

    I caught this article in the LA Times today about some recent neuroscience studies illustrating differences between conservatives and liberals. Turns out, there are actual biological differences: conservatives don’t respond well to ambiguity and don’t take kindly to change; liberals, on the other hand, are very accepting of change and tolerate ambiguity well. Like the…

  • vegetarianism and the environment?

    Here’s an interesting news item I rediscovered in the NYtimes today: raising animals for meat releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than does the entire travel industry combined. This is based on research conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. I’m sure some of my regular readers will take issue with…