Applications from New Haven Public School teachers to the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute's 2012 seminars are due this week.  Information is available from teachers serving as school Representatives and Contacts for the Institute.

A January 14 post below touched on physics scholarship and the arXiv (and on a New Haven Review article that discussed the progress of scientific research and the arXiv for a general audience).

NPR/APM have run radio broadcasts on science lecturing, with an emphasis on physics, from reporting by Emily Hanford for a documentary inspired by physicist and White House science advisor Carl Wieman.  In a 2001 Nobel Prize speech, Wieman incidentally remembered his rural Oregon childhood yielded “a profound appreciation for the value of public libraries. At the time I was quite envious that my friends had televisions while we did not, but in retrospect I am very grateful that I spent this time reading instead of watching TV.”  He continued: “My young idealistic teachers in mathematics and science there had a significant influence on me. I particularly remember my science teacher … [who] did a great deal to kindle my interest in science with his enthusiasm and knowledge. I still remember his explanations (far better than any of the material from my college courses!) of the structures of atoms in the periodic table and how these structures determined the various chemical properties and molecular reactions.”

Harvard physicist Eric Mazur figures centrally in Emily Hanford’s January 1 NPR/APM story on certain physicists who “seek to lose the lecture as teaching tool.”
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Beyond physics – citing Eric Mazur among others, as well as decades of his own teaching – Yale evolutionary biologist Stephen C. Stearns has reflected on Designs for Learning.  Yale molecular biologist Jo Handelsman and colleagues explore Scientific Teaching. 

Jo Handelsman and Stephen Stearns are among the Yale faculty members who have been involved in review of science teaching and learning at the university, including for non-science majors.  Jo Handelsman directs the Yale Center for Scientific Teaching.

Stephen Stearns and Ramamurti Shankar (the latter in fundamentals of physics) are among the faculty members in the sciences whose lectures are collected as Open Yale Courses. 

Other Open Yale Courses include one in environmental studies led by John P. Wargo and one in biomedical engineering led by W. Mark Saltzman. 

John Wargo and Mark Saltzman have each led several seminars through the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute and its National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools, with public school teachers participating as Fellows and developing curriculum units for their students.  John Wargo’s most recent seminars have addressed “Energy, Environment, and Health”; “Energy, Climate, Environment”; and “Urban Environmental Quality and Human Health.”  The subjects of the seminars that Mark Saltzman has led include “Health and the Human Machine,” “Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes,” “The Brain in Health and Disease,” “Nanotechnology and Human Health,” and “Organs and Artificial Organs.”

A National Research Council committee produced A Framework for K-12 Science Education, to be published in final form in March 2012.
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February 12, 2011, April 10, 2011  and June 25, 2011 blog posts, among others, treated science instruction and science fairs in elementary and secondary grades. 

Domestic violence and its prevention have been the subjects of previous blog posts, such as on October 15, 2011.  Last month, the CDC released results of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS).  According to that survey, and quoting or paraphrasing the news release:

Nearly 1 in 5 women has been raped at some time in her life.

One in 4 women has been a victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in her lifetime.

Almost 70 percent of female victims experienced some form of intimate partner violence for the first time before the age of 25.

About 80 percent of female victims of rape were first raped before age 25.

Female victims of violence (sexual violence, stalking, intimate partner violence) were significantly more likely to report physical and mental health problems than female non–victims.

Across all forms of violence (sexual violence, stalking, intimate partner violence), the vast majority of victims knew their perpetrator (often an intimate partner or acquaintance and seldom a stranger).
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About 1 in 7 men has experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime.

Male victims of violence (sexual violence, stalking, intimate partner violence) were significantly more likely to report physical and mental health problems than male non-victims.
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“This report highlights the heavy toll that sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence places on adults in this country. These forms of violence take the largest toll on women, who are more likely to report immediate impacts and long-term health problems caused by their victimization,” said Linda C. Degutis, Dr.P.H., M.S.N., director of CDC′s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. “Much victimization begins early in life, but the consequences can last a lifetime.”

The CDC’s NISVS results document the severity of violence as a public health problem and how violence can have impacts that last a lifetime.  Findings indicate female victims of violence had a significantly higher prevalence of long-term health problems, such as diabetes, frequent headaches, chronic pain, and difficulty sleeping.

“The health problems caused by violence remind us of the importance of prevention,” said Howard Spivak, M.D., director of the Division of Violence Prevention in the CDC’s Injury Center. “In addition to intervening and providing services, prevention efforts need to start earlier in life, with the ultimate goal of preventing all of these types of violence before they start.”  

The NISVS provides data to help inform policies and programs aimed at preventing violence, while providing an initial benchmark for tracking the effectiveness of prevention efforts.  In summary, in the U.S., “On average, 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner,” based on this survey conducted in 2010. Over a year, that represents some 12 million women and men. More than 1 million women are raped in a year, over 6 million women and men the victims of stalking.

The NISVS is one of various related CDC resources, including on teen dating abuse.
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Within Connecticut, Domestic Violence Services of Greater New Haven (DVSGNH) is now part of a larger regional Center for Domestic Violence Services (CDVS), a program of BHcare.  BHcare provides domestic violence and family mediation for Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Branford, Derby, East Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Milford, New Haven, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Oxford, Seymour, Shelton, West Haven and Woodbridge.

The CDVS Crisis Hotline numbers remain (203) 736-9944 and (203) 789-8104, as well as 1-888-774-2900 toll-free.

These developments reflect a trend over several years for nonprofits to consolidate toward greater efficiencies in their operation.  Many (though not all) of the same dedicated staff people who worked with the former DVSGNH remain under the new, broader CDVS and BHcare identities.

News includes a March 10 bowling event to benefit CDVS and the women and children it (mainly) serves.

As an April 2010 opinion article argued, “No one should have to stay with an abusive partner or keep kids in a hazardous home because of a shortage of shelter space and staff. Much of the state’s safety, advocacy, counseling and preventive public awareness efforts come via underfunded regional nonprofit service centers. Public money and philanthropy must maintain a partnership to keep pace. . . . Domestic violence harms families and communities. It haunts children and consumes law-enforcement resources. It invades workplaces and schools. It limits women’s freedom. It repeats through generations. It has to stop. This is not just a private problem; it is a public challenge — a challenge to act. It is in everyone’s interest to halt the cycle of abuse. Men, especially, can help. Let’s show our brothers and sons that we can do better, and our sisters and daughters that they can expect more. Indeed, that’s their right. Our culture and our systems of justice should advance that right: a safe home for all.”

I can’t claim to understand the article that my father-in-law, Q.N. Usmani, and colleagues published in December 2011 in Physical Review C, a journal of nuclear physics.  The subject: “Nuclear matter properties, phenomenological theory of clustering at the nuclear surface, and symmetry energy.” 

Still, this publication reminded me of an article on physics written a couple of years ago for a general audience: Brian Wecht’s New Haven Review article, “The Death of Peer Review: How the Internet Rebuilt Theoretical Science.”  Brian Wecht – a theoretical physicist then at the Institute for Advanced Study – discussed the arXiv, a Web resource that the Cornell library maintains.

This is an occasion to subscribe or renew one’s subscription to the New Haven Review, which is holding a subscription party January 20, as listed on the LiteracyEveryday site.

The article by Q.N. Usmani et al. is freely available at the arXiv.

As mentioned on this blog in previous years, January is national mentoring month.  Connecticut resources include a state prevention partnership.  The LiteracyEveryday website has information on events such as a January 24-25 national mentoring summit.

A new issue of the periodical On Common Ground: Strengthening Teaching through School-University Partnership has been published.

David Bornstein – one of the “Opinionator” bloggers at the New York Times – wrote an October 2011 column on “The Power of Positive Coaching,” with lessons from the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA).

The column and reference were of particular interest as I recently began helping as a volunteer to coach several 1st-graders (boys and girls, including my daughter) introductory basics of basketball at a New Haven public school, one evening and one Saturday per week.  The PCA’s emphasis on “ELM” – Effort, Learning, and responding constructively to Mistakes – is appealing.  Fun, fitness, teamwork, and the balance between competition and sportsmanship are among other elements that my fellow coaches and I will try to cultivate in the kids. 

My own experiences in organized basketball from age eight to seventeen are an influence.  Most formative were six years with the Willimantic (CT) YMCA’s “Little Pal” league in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  That league assigned each player to an “A” or “B” team on a larger sponsored team (e.g., “Sport Hut” and “Lewis Insurance”).  The first-string A team and second-string B team alternated four- or eight-minute intervals with the result that the biggest and most skilled players and the smallest, youngest, and/or least skilled players received 16 minutes each, matched up with opponents of roughly comparable stature.  Waves of players would go in and out, cheering on their teammates.  This system allowed younger players to develop, bigger and better players still to be challenged (albeit with less playing time than they might have received in a more conventional allocation of minutes with separate varsity and junior varsity teams), and teamwork to grow.  Some years our teams did well, other years not.  When I was a 5th-grade B-teamer, our Lewis Insurance squad went undefeated with an A team that consisted of at least three future college players (at the Division III level).  By 7th and 8th grade, I was on the A team; it was no coincidence that our team’s winning percentage sharply declined!  Whatever that record, I did enjoy the game. 

Some three decades later, the examples of my own Willimantic YMCA team’s coach, Dan Lamont, and of the league instructor/commissioner, Ron Pires, endure.  Dan was the father of two of my teammates (and friends), a volunteer who taught us fair play and sportsmanship along with fundamentals.  Coach Pires was a genial professional, a former college player himself who tempered his lessons with humor and poise.  He would go on to a long career as the coach of E.O. Smith High School, where his players have included brothers Ryan (now of Fairfield) and Tyler Olander (now of UConn), whose teams met this week.

Beyond the PCA, another resource is Coaching Boys into Men (CBIM), a program of the Futures Without Violence, formerly Family Violence Prevention Fund.  The approach: “Men – as fathers, brothers, coaches, teachers, uncles, and mentors – have a role to play in coaching boys into men.”  The program “invites men to utilize their influence … to prevent domestic and sexual violence. First launched in 2001, in partnership with the Advertising Council, CBIM’s core goal is to inspire men to teach boys the importance of respecting women and that violence never equals strength.… CBIM has been transformed from an awareness campaign into a comprehensive violence prevention curriculum for coaches and their athletes. The Coaching Boys into Men leadership program equips athletic coaches with strategies, scenarios, and resources needed to build attitudes and behaviors that prevent relationship abuse, harassment, and sexual assault.”

This program, along with Joe Torre’s Safe at Home Foundation among other organizations, was mentioned in an October 2008 opinion article, “Domestic Violence No Game.”

Last week brought sad news to my extended family: the death of Farhan Mujib, an artist mentioned in a January 1, 2010 post here.  He was a warm person whom I first met in New Delhi in 2005 and visited with there again in late 2009. 

Excerpts from his Indian Express obituary follow: “His art brought together traditional miniature art and modern-day collage. He experimented with the paint brush, but in the art circle most recognise Farhan Mujib as the physicist who brought scientific precision to collages, putting together pieces of papers from magazines and photographs to create intricate images.… The 65-year-old, who died of cardiac arrest, is survived by wife Fawzia.… ‘He lived his life to the fullest and truly enjoyed every moment. He was very social and had no greed or remorse,’ said Sharon Apparao, director of Apparao Galleries, who organised several exhibitions of the artist and was his close associate…. Mujib, who taught at AMU [Aligarh Muslim University], took voluntary retirement in 2004 when he decided to pursue art as a profession. While his debut solo was held at Triveni Kala Sangam in New Delhi in 2003, the following years saw him hold shows across India, including Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai. Literature often inspired him and the artist created two-dimensional illusions of architectural spaces, complete with minute details. Recognition came not just from artwork on the board, but also book covers that he designed...”

New Haven Reads has launched a new website.  One student who has been receiving tutoring and free books at New Haven Reads since 3rd grade and is now a thriving 10th-grader (and a tutor herself) was featured in a Yale Daily News article, as noted among the News items on the LiteracyEveryday site.  The article mentioned that despite the hundreds of tutors already volunteering locally, more than 200 students are awaiting tutors. 

You can help – contact New Haven Reads or e-mail: info@literacyeveryday.org

Two University of Connecticut historians this month wrote Hartford Courant articles relating current events to history.

Bruce M. Stave (whose books include a history of UConn among other works such as The Discontented Society, edited with LeRoy Ashby) put the recent occupiers in historical context. 

Bruce Stave, with specialties in urban and oral history, concluded: “The Occupiers' practice of micro-democracy and shared decision-making is not dissimilar to ‘participatory democracy’ favored by the New Left during the 1960s, and to anarchism long before that. The lack of structured leadership and hierarchy in favor of loose organization without a specific program does not have many precedents, but may prove an advantage. It offers a safety valve to ward off failure. If you don't have a program, there is little risk in not having it implemented.  Success for Occupiers is existing as a movement and raising society's consciousness about the inequality that divides America today as rarely before. Success, too, is in the global reach of the movement that spread across the Western world in opposition to imbalanced and inequitable economies.  Whether concrete solutions to the nation's and the world's ills will result from, or be shaped by, the Occupy movement remains to be seen. Whether turmoil will continue for a prolonged period is uncertain. Our society, however, has been discontented before, and the center has held. I fear, unfortunately, that in this age of greatly diminished political compromise and unbridled greed, we may be in a new ballgame in which there are few winners.”
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The prior week, Richard D. Brown invoked the Puritans to argue that if the alleged crimes involving Penn State occurred, punishment through the legal system is necessary but insufficient.  He suggested that in addition, “If Penn State is to put this scandal behind it and restore its good name, it might begin by following the Puritan model and thrusting out the offenders. Evidently the trustees have started that process by firing [football coach] Paterno and accepting [university president] Spanier's resignation.”

Together, Richard D. Brown and Irene Q. Brown (my parents) wrote a book, The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler, about an early-19^th-century case in which a Massachusetts man was executed after being convicted of rape (and incest).

My father’s current work explores equality and equal rights in the early American republic.  A podcast related to a recent journal article connected history – and possible historical errors – to subsequent policy-making.  In 2010, in a volunteer advisory capacity, he participated in a non-partisan search process to identify a new Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Stephen Sawchuk’s recent Education Week article on New Haven’s collaborative teacher evaluation system cites teachers including John Laub, who has twice been a Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Fellow.  As a Fellow, he prepared curriculum units such as this one on epidemics and infectious diseases in the 20^th century.

Yesterday the seventh Annual Conference of the Yale National Initiative concluded.

Locally, the curriculum units that New Haven teachers developed as 2011 Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Fellows are online.  Fellows produced these units in seminars in the sciences and the humanities to complement the district's standards-based learning goals for students.  Volumes from national seminars are also available.

The New Haven Public Schools recently posted a news release that – in the full version – quotes each 2011 seminar leader from the Yale faculty, as well as the superintendent of schools and the president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers.

This week, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote a column on the importance of early learning, citing several Harvard scholars, landmark studies on the Perry Preschool and Abecedarian Project, and renowned economist James Heckman.  

Heckman’s spring 2011 article, The Economics of Inequality: The Value of Early Childhood Education (based on a July 2008 article he wrote), includes these conclusions:

“Creating a positive early environment through parental support and/or formal early childhood education shapes abilities, capabilities, and achievement.  Knowing this, it is imperative to change the way we look at education.  We should invest in the foundation of school readiness from birth to age 5 by providing early childhood education for disadvantaged children.  We should build on that foundation with high-quality elementary and secondary education to sustain the development of successful lives.  Providing that kind of equity will build a more productive society for all.”

In a letter he wrote the Bowles-Simpson commission, Heckman urged that the U.S. better “braid funding streams,” saying: “Effective early childhood development cuts across the silos of education, health and economic development—as well as local, state and federal programs and funding for child education, health and welfare. Current spending is inefficient because it is not coordinated and comprehensive, nor is it focused on a single approach with singular goals.”

More effectively integrating such “funding streams” is part of what Connecticut is now trying to do, as a Connecticut Mirror story on the state's latest federal Race to the Top application reports.
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A September 2008 opinion article addressed related issues – nationally, locally, and personally – with references to James Heckman et al.

The Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence recently held an event to recognize men working to counter domestic violence.  The event marked the beginning of October and a month of awareness-raising activities.  Among the men honored were Richard Blumenthal, Christopher Donovan, and Burton Weinstein.  As attorney general and now U.S. senator, Richard Blumenthal has spoken on this issue many times across the state, including at the 30^th anniversary of Domestic Violence Services of Greater New Haven (DVSGNH) in 2007.  Most recently, on October 12 of this year, House Speaker Christopher Donovan (along with Judge Susan Connors and Attorney Michael Jefferson) participated in the annual Sound of Hope occasion held by DVSGNH, now teaming with The Umbrella, a sister organization in the Naugatuck Valley.  In 2008, Attorney Burton Weinstein was among the speakers at the Sound of Hope.

Blog posts on July 18, 2010 and September 24, 2009 – along with a 2008 account of the Sound of Hope event – provide context, as do 2010 and 2008 opinion articles on this site.  Prosecutor Marc Ramia, physician John Leventhal, and educator Ronald Herron are among the men whose work against domestic violence has been noted.

Earlier, Connecticut Judge David Gold was the featured speaker at an April 2004 event – summoning men to address this problem – at New Haven City Hall.  A similar event was held there in 2005.  Mayor John DeStefano spoke both years.  The 2005 occasion also included then-Attorney General Blumenthal, along with NHPD Sergeant Ricardo Rodriguez, artist/activist Delmance “Ras Mo” Moses, and Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce President Tony Rescigno. 

In spring 2006, Tony Porter of A Call to Men was among the panelists when N’Zinga Shani hosted a two-part television program on domestic abuse in the New Haven region and beyond.

Fund-raising to counter and prevent this violence remains difficult.  There may be a tendency to blame victims, as well as limited understanding of the good that service organizations can do in offering safety planning, shelter, advocacy, counseling, and a route to better lives for survivors and their children.  Still, in recent years – particularly with the Connecticut Speaker’s task force and the legislature’s support of various measures – awareness of and action against domestic violence has grown substantially.

While public and nonprofit budgets are as strained as ever and unemployment has worsened some cases of abuse, women are somewhat more likely to come forward.  Police departments have had a quarter century to adapt to more protective laws and to implement them more effectively.  There’s recognition that men can be victims of domestic abuse, that elder abuse as well as child abuse is a problem, that same-sex partners can be abusive.  Men are more conscious of the injustice of abusing women and children, and increasingly likely to speak out against this injustice.  Yet a great deal remains to be done.

People of all political stripes can agree on the need to prevent domestic violence, and on the role that men have to play in that effort.  Let's get to it, understanding this is not just a private problem but a public challenge – and that public and philanthropic dollars must work together to meet this challenge.

Chris Willems, a teacher at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, has received the 2011 Outstanding Biology Teacher Award (OBTA) from the National Association of Biology Teachers, Leica Inc, and the Connecticut Association of Biology Teachers.  This honor identifies a teacher from each state “who has made valuable contributions to the profession and to his/her students. Criteria for the award include teaching ability, experience, inventiveness, initiative, inherent teaching strengths, and cooperativeness in the school and community.”

According to a release from the Connecticut Association of Biology Teachers, “Mr. Willems … grew up in New Haven, and graduated from Wilbur Cross High School in 1985. He received bachelor's degrees from the University of Connecticut in 1990 and the University of Massachusetts in 1997 and a master's degree from Lesley University in 2002.”

The statement notes that Chris Willems has been active at Yale University with both the Peabody Museum of Natural History and the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute.

He was honored last night at a ceremony sponsored by the Connecticut Association of Biology Teachers and Manchester Community College.  He will also be recognized by the National Association of Biology Teachers at its National Convention in Anaheim, CA on Saturday, October 15.  “The National Association of Biology Teachers and the Connecticut Association of Biology Teachers are extremely proud of Chris Willems and his accomplishments. Such accomplishments not only make Wilbur Cross High School proud but the entire state of Connecticut proud as well. He is a priceless member of the education community,” said Sharon Gusky, Director of the OBTA program in Connecticut.
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Congratulations to Chris Willems for this well-deserved recognition.  I first met him some eight years ago, when he returned to New Haven and worked initially as a middle-school science teacher.  He then moved to his alma mater, Wilbur Cross H.S., where he has been a contact for the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute for years.  He has participated as an Institute Fellow twice, including in a 2006 seminar on “Engineering in Modern Medicine” in which he developed a curriculum unit on “The Challenge to Deliver Insulin.”
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The Yale faculty member who led that 2006 seminar, W. Mark Saltzman, has proceeded to lead New Haven Institute or national seminars related to medicine, health, and engineering every year since.  The subjects of those seminars include “Health and the Human Machine,” “Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes,” “The Brain in Health and Disease,” “Nanotechnology and Human Health,” and “Organs and Artificial Organs.”

For International Literacy Day on September 8, Susan Monroe and I prepared a September 7 essay that touches on local, state, and national as well as international dimensions of literacy.

This morning, my three- and six-year-old children gathered with me to watch on TV the New York commemoration of the 10-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks.  The kids recognized President Obama but not former President Bush; the Obama presidency is the only one within their consciousness (though my daughter may now have forgotten, at age three she was aware of Bush and the 2008 election).  I showed the children several pictures of the World Trade Center towers online and explained the 9/11/01 attacks, including the planes that hit the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania field, due to the heroism of passengers.  Yet it was impossible, without alarming the kids, to convey the magnitude of what had happened.  As delicately as possible, I suggested that 10 years ago we had lived through history – events students would explore for decades to come.  (The same may be said of subsequent developments, not only the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and the rise of Homeland Security but also the financial and unemployment crises – not to mention global climate change, stark inequalities, and any number of other current events.)  We observed the 8:46 and 9:03 a.m. moments of silence.

Marking a decade since the attacks prompts reflections, as on September 11, 2010 and other anniversaries of 9/11.  I was in Manhattan that day in 2001, began the morning walking to my office on West 26^th Street only to evacuate it within hours, with the burning towers a few miles south and smoke stinging the air.  Later, an interfaith vigil in the magnificent Cathedral of St. John the Divine helped thousands of us adjust to the surreal shocks of the day.  We thought of the families who lost loved ones in the attacks; gave prayers of thanks for having survived; began to wonder what the days, months, and years ahead might bring to the U.S. and the world. 

A September 4 post below discusses Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.  One exchange from that play resonates on the 10^th anniversary of 9/11.  Condemned, Claudio says: “The miserable have no other medicine/But only hope: I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.”  Duke Vincentio replies: “Be absolute for death: either death or life/Shall thereby be the sweeter.”

No one I know is “absolute for death.”  Still, having to some small degree “prepared” psychologically for the possibility of another terrorist strike (or for the far less remote possibility of injury, illness, violence to family or friends – and having continued to hear too often of real tragedies in that circle and especially the broader community), I do try more than before to cherish each day as “sweeter.”  Hope is medicine not only for the miserable but for everyone.

Last year, days before the anniversary blog post of September 11, 2010, a post on September 6, 2010 (“recognizing and defusing bigotry toward Muslims”) included mention of Eboo Patel, who spoke at Yale on the occasion of a 2008 Ramadan dinner in the spirit of the Interfaith Youth Core he leads.

In a June 2011 New York Times article profiling Eboo Patel and the Interfaith Youth Core, he said, “You need a critical mass of interfaith leaders who know how to build relationships across religious divides, and see it as a lifelong endeavor.”

See also Eboo Patel’s series at the Washington Post, "The Faith Divide: What Brings Us Together and Drives Us Apart" – where an April 25, 2011 article records his statement: “Faith can either be a barrier of division, a bomb of destruction, or a bridge of cooperation. Our job is to make it a bridge of cooperation.”

In this vein, my wife and I recently learned of a book by Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol, Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty.

Ours is a culturally interfaith, yet largely secular family (discussed for example in a December 2, 2009 post and in a commentary on the This I Believe website, "Cushioning Globalization through Global Families" in May 2006).  In our home, religion is often less apparent than nationality, with my wife a citizen of India and our having traveled there together, including with our children.  Still, their nationality is clear; they are U.S. citizens.  They will be able to choose their religion from an inherited combination of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Lutheran Christianity, and scientifically secular humanism in their extended family -- or to select something else.

A year ago, the blog post of September 11, 2010 recorded how friends had reclaimed that day by marrying, two citizens of the world – well aware of its pain and dangers – embracing their love and the future.

Last month, my wife and I (this time with our kids) attended another wedding, of a friend from India who is from a Hindu family.  She married an American man of Irish Catholic descent who has introduced her to Buddhism.  Toasting this happy couple was her warmly gracious ex-boyfriend, who is a Muslim from Pakistan and a scholar of religion.  A Tibetan Buddhist monk officiated.

In a January 25, 2009 post on “The Obamas, a Global American Family,” I tried to put such hybridity in context, in part by referring to a New York Times article days before.  (Now, in 2011, the Times has published a series of articles with the theme, “race remixed.”)

That January 2009 post also mentioned my own June 2006 essay that expanded on earlier This I Believe comments: “A happy consequence -- and a cushion -- of increasing globalization will be more global families. Call this intimate diplomacy. Countries including the United States and Canada have long prospered through immigration. Further weaving together the planet's continents and citizens should be our aim. Love and marriage -- the deepest forms of trade and investment -- complete the tapestry.”

That June 2006 essay concluded this way:

“There is enough hatred and terror on earth. Military and economic strength are insufficient in combating these backward-looking dangers.  ‘Soft power’  matters, as national security specialist Joseph Nye reminds us.

Love is a form of soft power. It is a force for freedom. Its advance can help bring not only people, but also peoples, together toward peace.”