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My 6-year old son, Rory, wanted me to share our favorite find. He initially wanted to call in but was a bit too shy to follow through! I'll let him explain our find: "We were in Michigan trying to find a geocache with my Dad and Paba (what I call my grandfather). It was cold and snowy, and we were standing on the side of the road looking around a guardrail. At first we didn't think we would find the cache, but then a bolt on the guardrail wiggled only on one side. We kept on turning it. The bolt fell out, and we saw that it was hallow. We found the geocache inside it. I felt really, really good finding it!"

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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I'm an associate professor of psychology at Lewis & Clark College, and I'm trained to measure people's attitudes and feelings. Your guest's questions are wonderful focus group questions...they catalyze discussion that you don't get from surveys. Focus groups are a wonderful way of getting at the range of thoughts and feelings that people have, and they are a wonderful way of discovering HOW people talk about issues...the language they use to discuss issues.

What neither surveys or focus groups necessarily do well, however, is get at what people are willing to sacrifice, what they are actually willing to do to effect some change. That's what keeps me up a night worrying. When groups make decisions, what often happens is an aggregation of individual demands. Groups boil down what a bunch of individuals and small groups want. But we have to remember, it's important to think not about what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. How do we make people stand up annd act, take responsibility, and sacrifice to effect change? From are unwillingness to pay more at the pump to the hiding of the costs of the war in Iraq, we're not willing to sacrifice for what'll be good for our community and country.

posted 4 years, 10 months ago
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