We have here a few videos of Joseph; there may be some airplane videos soon, but I can’t upload more than ten at once, so I gave the Joseph videos priority. Also, you’re getting the fun Joseph videos, not videos of Joseph biting people or taking off his diapers.

Joseph now also places blocks on top of each other.

I don’t know of any direct ancestors still alive that particularly like dogs.

Intentional faceplants.

He rarely laughs with such abandon.

Down and up again. Easy as pie, and no two steps the same.

What works with a couch, works with a bed: Faceplant!

The end is a bit abrupt. Good thing there were disposables on the floor.

Playing with Mommy.

Kissing little Tychicus.

That’s all for now.

In case you were worried that only in your country tax money is used for useless science, here’s an example from Germany.  (If you’re from Germany, you’ll have to find another study.)

Here’s a little game that will train your visual memory and show you some of the things you can see if you look at metals.  Although our metallographical studies are of the less spectacular kind, focusing mostly on non-metallic inclusions, we take solace in knowing we could do the cool color etches if we wanted to.

I’ve decided to write my representatives concerning the US practice of taxing its citizens abroad.  For your sleepless nights, here’s my letter to Senator Webb – feel free to alter it and use it to write your representatives, too!

US taxation of citizens abroad

Dear Senator Webb,

Thank you for your tireless work on behalf of the State of Virginia. As a citizen eligible to vote in Montgomery County, I want to bring an issue to your attention that concerns over 5.5 million US citizens.

As I am sure you know, the USA levies taxes on all its citizens, regardless of residence. This makes the USA unique among developed countries: all others levy taxes based on residence alone.

As I understand it, this taxation by citizenship is intended to prevent very wealthy Americans from avoiding taxes in the USA by moving abroad. Unfortunately, there are several unintended unfair consequences for less wealthy US citizens abroad. Allow me to mention a few you would have to expect were you to move abroad for job reasons.

1. The US dollar exchange rate unfairly influences taxation. The USA taxes its citizens abroad based on their income converted into US dollars. You might earn the same salary in year one as in year two, with no change in cost of living, but be forced to declare an increase in income of several thousand US dollars because the dollar was devalued in that period. If you buy a home for the duration of your stay, the exchange rate hits you even harder: selling your house might net you little in your local currency, but still look like a fat profit in US dollars, and the IRS would tax you despite your having made no real gain.

2. US citizens have a competitive disadvantage on the global playing field. If you are hired as an expatriate by a large company, you cost the company more in expenses and tax attorney fees, which makes you less attractive for hiring. If you move abroad without company assistance, you have to contend with arcane tax laws and the administrative effort of filing income taxes twice. If your income is above the exclusion, you will pay taxes to two countries. This competitive disadvantage of its citizens is damaging to the US economy, particularly in this climate of globalization.

3. US citizens abroad run the risk of unintentionally becoming criminals because of the complex tax laws and agreements. The US tax code is complicated for US residents; it is worse for you as a citizen abroad. Additionally, IRS personnel rarely are able to answer questions you might have, for instance related to local pension plans and related accounts, so even if you try your best you run a very real risk of unintentionally running afoul of the IRS.

4. US citizens abroad are being denied basic local banking services. Many local banks altogether refuse dealings with anyone liable to taxation by the IRS rather than running the risk of being sued. (They may make exceptions for you if you have sufficient net worth.)

5. US citizens abroad are kept from taking on responsibilities. As stated on the IRS website of the FBAR FAQs: “Any United States person who has a financial interest in or signature authority or other authority over any financial account in a foreign country, if the aggregate value of these accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year,” must file an FBAR. In other words, even if the account is not yours, such as a company account or an account of an association you join, you must report it if you have signature authority over it. This has wide-ranging implications. You may be denied promotion because US tax law would require you to disclose the company account to the IRS. You may shirk involvement in civic associations (or be denied such involvement) for the same reason. Your career options and your effectiveness as an informal ambassador for the USA are thus greatly reduced.

6. US citizens abroad may cause others to become criminals unintentionally. If you have set up your accounts to give close relatives signatory rights for emergency situations, you may have set them up for severe “civil penalties, criminal penalties or both” if they fail to file an FBAR for your account. Because the FBAR requires that the yearly high water mark in US dollars be reported, it would be easy to make a mistake unwittingly. That the FBAR doesn’t allow for account numbers in the international IBAN format seems a minor nuisance in comparison.

7. Taxation of citizens abroad is a form of taxation without representation. You will be able to vote from abroad, that is true, but the vote of overseas citizens like you is split across all fifty states and your concerns diluted to insignificance. Representation is based on residence, and taxation should be, too.

In sum, US taxation burdens and disadvantages its citizens abroad. It is unfair in several regards. I ask you to work toward replacing taxation based on citizenship with taxation based on residence. As a first step in that direction, I ask you to revive and support the Working Americans Competitiveness Act that Senator DeMint introduced in 2007 (S. 1140).

Respectfully,

Stephan Stuecklin-Wightman

“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” wrote one Ralph Waldo Emerson, and when I first read it, the quote angered me.  It angered me because I find it hard enough to live a life of integrity, to be consistent in what I say and do, so to have some dead white guy deride my efforts from beyond the grave was a bit rich.

That was a few years ago, when I was old enough to think I’d figured out that integrity meant consistency, meant sticking with my guns, and young enough not to know I was wrong.  I can cast some blame on people pooh-poohing politicians for being flip-floppers, and elevating consistency of opinion over time to a character trait, but it shouldn’t have taken until I reached the age at which Emerson wrote his quote to realize that consistency may not be the jewel I thought it was.

Writing about this realization has been on my mind for a while, so when I read my sister-in-law’s post on her imperfect life, I thought I’d use that as a springboard.  One of the blessings of marriage is having someone who is on your side, but also has a vested interest to see you become a better person.  It’s a tough blessing sometimes, though, as it will require you to face your imperfections and faults, and realize that change is needed.

And that’s where an undue elevation of consistency is bound to hobble a person.  If consistency is understood as not changing, then consistency means also sticking with our imperfections and faults, defending our mistakes, and perhaps equivocating about the evidence to save face.  Unfortunately, that is easier than changing, which may be why the integrity = consistency holds such an attraction, but it’s not the kind of integrity I’m after if I take time to think about it.  It’s not the kind of consistency I want either, for that matter.

So what kind of consistency do I want, what kind of integrity do I want?  I want a wise consistency, and a wise integrity.  With that, I move dangerously close to Emerson, whose full quote reads, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” but hey, even a Unitarian can be right sometimes.  A foolish consistency, I think, is a complete consistency over time.  It is foolish because it doesn’t allow for growth, and because a person with such consistency has in his pride decided he has arrived at the point of complete understanding of himself and the world, with no need for change.  A wiser consistency to strive for is consistency with an ideal, that is, consistency with what God has created me to be.  This allows me to change with my growing understanding of God’s purpose without being unreliable or untruthful.

The importance of reliability and truthfulness and our desire for certainty is, I believe, where the idea of elevating consistency over time to a virtue comes from.  And it has a certain virtue.  A person should be steadfast enough that not every wind or wave can make him change his opinion and sacrifice his temporal consistency.  Only fools sacrifice their consistency on the altar of expedience; wise men sacrifice it on the altar of truth.  Yet wiser men reflect enough before stating their opinion that they only rarely need to sacrifice their consistency.
I write this knowing that in a few years I’ll look back and wonder how full of myself I was when writing this.  If recent years and all that marriage and fatherhood has taught me are any indication, I have a lot more yet to learn and many consistencies to sacrifice.  It is my prayer that consistency doesn’t get in the way of sanctification, that my pride in my integrity doesn’t keep me from tackling my imperfections.

Here are some videos of Joseph in May, plus a bonus first take video of the announcement that some of you may already have received. Still no Joseph time lapse videos.

We’ve got something to share!

The challenges of an infant anatomy.

Born performer.

Basketball with the high chair, self-narrated.

Joseph enjoys books differently than we do.

Water for a thirsty boy.

For all those who thought he behaved perfectly in the announcement…

There are a few more photos up in the usual place. Write me if you don’t know (or forgot) the username and password!

Here are some more videos of Joseph past ten months, plus a bonus video of some sprouts. Still no Joseph time lapse videos.

Peek-a-tube!

The world is full of distractions.

Excited enough to yodel!

Playing with Mommy’s old glasses.

Kissing the platter.

First steps as a pianist.

Joseph reads DVDs.

Five minutes of baby boy action.

Our apartment – y’all come visit!

Parsley, Marjoram, and Chives.

At Christmas I received Donald Palmer’s “Looking at Philosophy: The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy Made Lighter,” and got to borrow Brett McLean’s “Confessions and Reflections of a Traveler” at about the same time. I read them in parallel; Palmer mostly on the train to and from work, and McLean on the can. I’ll keep this review short; whoever wants more details on McLean’s book can read Sursumcorda’s review.

Both Palmer and McLean aim to bring philosophy to an understandable level, but take vastly different approaches. Palmer structures his book chronologically, starting with the pre-Socratic philosophers and following the history of philosophy and the evolution of ideas up to the late 20th century, ending with Luce Irigaray, all illustrated with his own drawings. McLean divides his philosophy primer along the four big fields of ontology, epistemology, ethics, and teleology, and intersperses these chunks with sequences of his own experiences traveling across the USA one college summer.

To put in bluntly, Palmer succeeds, and McLean doesn’t. Palmer gave me the understanding to realize that McLean’s philosophy, which starts out well in the chapters on ontology and epistemology, never went beyond Aristotelian idea of “essence” – but without properly stating this or other underlying assumptions. Palmer also benefits from focusing only on philosophy and from the clarity of organization that comes with a chronological approach; McLean’s dual approach of interweaving his story with his primer on philosophy falls flat because the story and theory barely intersect. His story stands on its own, but doesn’t illustrate his philosophical points and is only rarely illuminated by the concurrent philosophy. The purpose of his book then forces a major emphasis on redemption onto philosophy, which doesn’t seem to be a major philosophical concern outside the Christian world; the first word of his title forces a few sexual confessions that won’t shock anyone who’s been a victim of TMI on facebook, which leads to an excessive emphasis on sexual ethics in his ethics chapter. If McLean cut out the philosophy and hired a proofreader, he’d have a crackling story of an extraordinary summer to offer; if he cut out the story and had the person he thanks for proofing the chapters on ontology and epistemology read the other philosophical chapters, he might have an attractive alternative to a chronological approach to philosophy. However, with the purpose of his book being to introduce people to Christ, the philosophical primer suffers from a lack of breadth. The disparate elements fail to enrich each other – which is precisely where Palmer succeeds, occasionally just being punny but often able to exemplify a train of thought through his drawings. His bias occasionally shines through, but not in a distracting or disrespectful way, and he has an extensive reading list of primary and secondary sources with comments like “Ouch!” and “A fine little book by a friend of mine. Buy it; he can use the money.” I found that starting with Kant I found numerous trains of thought confusing, but that may not necessarily be Palmer’s fault; I suspect that some of our more recent philosophers have a somewhat kooky bent because all the good ideas have lost their novelty. At the same time, reading Palmer’s book was the first time I thought Kant might be understandable material, which I count as a success for Palmer.

In short: Palmer’s worth reading in entirety; if you pick up McLean’s book, consider reading only the odd-numbered chapters.

Here are some more videos of Joseph at ten months, plus a bonus video of a cherry tomato sprout. The latter is cool because it’s time lapse, but Joseph is more entertaining. We should make some more Joseph time lapse videos.

Doing everything but eating the apple.

Lured off the pot by the camera.

Excited to see himself on the video camera screen.

The famous tomato sprout.

Somersaults.

“Dots!”