As folks who read this blog know, I have been pretty hard on Apple about their overzealous policing of the iPhone App Store. Today I have a very personal reason to acknowledge a job well done. Apple took only three days to review the app Alex and I submitted on 1/25. Today SubCalc became a free app on the App Store.

SubCalc is an app to help convenors of precinct caucuses and conventions in Minnesota. The Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) party uses a wonderful, but bit arcane, “walking subcaucus” process that is simple enough to do, but rather difficult to tabulate.

This app calculates the number of delegates each subcaucus gets when you enter the total number of delegates your precinct or convention is allowed and how many people are in each subcaucus. The rules it follows appeared on page 4 of the DFL 2010-2011 Official Call, including the proper treatment of remainders. It makes the math involved in a walking subcaucus disappear.

The app could be used to facilitate a “walking subcaucus” or “proportional representation” system for any group.

If you don’t have an iPhone, try the “web app” version of this subcaucus calculator for at http://www.sd64dfl.org/sub/. But if you do have an iPhone or iPod Touch (or iPad!) please give SubCalc a spin!

School started yesterday and that got me thinking about lunch. How do you handle lunchtime? In Austria lunch is the big meal of the day and dinner is small and snackish. I love that. But here in the USofA it is hard to pull off that kind of schedule. Lunch is often away from home, at school, at work. Eating out (or eating school lunch) is one way to handle this meal, but that can be expensive and not-so-nutricious. The New York Times published a story on Bento Boxes that was full of interesting ideas.

Nathaniel has become very creative in the kitchen, devouring the Betty Crocker cookbook, making lunches and dinners all last week, and wondering when he’ll have time to cook during the school year. He also loves things Japanese, like sushi (well, some sushi). Maybe making bento boxes is an idea that would work for him?

Well, not quite, but not far off. In the Boston Globe this week, The Book of Harry.

Eisenstadt sees Dumbledore and Harry, in different ways, as Christ figures – perhaps Harry representing the human Jesus, and Dumbledore the divine. And she posits that the New Testament depiction of elements of the Jewish community is represented by the goblins (unappealing bankers) and the Ministry of Magic (legalistic and small-minded).

But I am much more attracted to a quote near the end of the article.

“Rather than decrying as wicked certain elements of the series – as far too many Christians have done – we ought to be inviting our communities into deeper appreciation of both the similarities and the contrasts between the stories and our Christian faith,” Mary Hess, of Luther Seminary in Minnesota, writes in the journal Word & World.

Mary in the mainstream! And in an article linked to one of her favorite blogs no less. Yeah, Mary!

President Obama visited my niece’s high school in Green Bay today, rolled out his health care plan and took questions at a town hall meeting. My sister-in-love Holly was hoping to get in the door, she lives only a few blocks from the school. She asked for ideas of questions to ask in case she was able to attend. This is the question I sent her:

Mr. President, I am so pleased that you have made health care a top priority this year. When I look at the endless bills we get for health care and the fights I have with my insurance company to even get the coverage we paid for, it seems obvious that one of the biggest costs in health care is the cost of maintaining this supposedly “market-based” system. Most of us in the real world don’t really have a choice about insurance, our choices are made by our employers. How does the plan moving forward right now address the huge costs of the redundant billing and decision making infrastructures that our commercial insurance industry represents? And why have single-payer plans, which directly address this shortcoming in our bewildering health care system, been left off the table in your planning?

I don’t know if Holly got in or asked any question, much less mine. But from reports it sounds like someone brought up the issue:

President Barack Obama took questions from audience members after his speech on health care reform at today’s town-hall meeting at Southwest High School.

After a member of the audience asked him if he supported a single-payer health plan, Obama said he does not support what is being called “socialized medicine.”

“The majority of people still get their insurance through their employer, Obama said. “Rather than disrupt things, let them keep the health insurance they’ve got. There still is a role for private insurance.”

For others, however, who can’t get insurance privately should have an option for a public plan.

It is disappointing to hear Obama use codewords like “socialized medicine” to tar single payer. I’m not surprised, single payer was never even part of his campaign platform, but I am sad that he does not leave the door open at least a little bit. Employer-based insurance is part of what is dragging our economy into the mud, but I don’t expect the light to dawn on the mainstream in this regard for at least another two years. It’s failure will be plenty disruptive. I certainly hope that what the president and congress is working on succeeds, but that is not my expectation. I think we’ll be back here before his term is up.

UPDATE: Holly did not get in after all. But she did see the motorcade! Here is my favorite moment from YouTube…

Mary loves walking Nathaniel to the school bus because it is a time that he often shares things happening in his life that she might not otherwise learn about. I can understand that. I love those moments of sharing. Still, I wish we could let our kids go a bit further afield. The other day I let Nathaniel go to the local park with two friends to play basketball. That earned me a horrified look and an order to head over to the park myself to keep an eye on the three of them. I went, I played b-ball too, I had fun. But I failed to let Nathaniel and his friends own the afternoon.

Today Andrew pointed me to an interview of Lenore Skenazy. Remember her? She let her 9 year old ride the subway alone in New York, earning all sorts of praise and condemnation. I believe she is right, we fundamentally wrap our kids in too much “protection”. They need room to grow, we keep them in pots way too small.

You want kids to feel like the world isn’t so dangerous. You want to teach them how to cross the street safely. You want to teach them that you never go off with a stranger. You teach them what to do in an emergency, and then you assume that generally emergencies don’t happen, but they’re prepared if they do. Then, you let them go out.

The fun of childhood is not holding your mom’s hand. The fun of childhood is when you don’t have to hold your mom’s hand, when you’ve done something that you can feel proud of. To take all those possibilities away from our kids seems like saying: “I’m giving you the greatest gift of all, I’m giving you safety. Oh, and by the way I’m taking away your childhood and any sense of self-confidence or pride. I hope you don’t mind.”

Amen. Of course, some kids will be hurt this way, but you know, kids get hurt every way you turn. How do kids get hurt the most? By being in cars with their parents.

We visit my grandmother in Austria regularly. On a recent trip my kids worked up a “Vienna Culture” comic book. Many pages were devoted to public transit, and one in particular to kids taking public transit to school. Alone. Heck, I took public transit alone in Cleveland, Ohio, from third to sixth grade. Why do we run school busses hither and yon instead of making public transit more multi-age and core to our society?

We worry so much about the worst case scenario instead of celebrating the varied and welcoming world around us. The irony is that the more we wall ourselves and our children off from the chaotic and beautiful world around us, the more that world loses its light and our children fail to thrive. Sounds like a vicious cycle to me.

Today my home town of Cleveland, Ohio, began to accept domestic partner registrations. As bigger dominos fall around the country (yeah Maine yesterday!) this can seem like a small step. But even small steps help move us forward. I particularly like that heterosexual couples are registering, some in lieu of marriage, as an act of solidarity with gay friends. One couple writes:

We’ve both always felt strongly about equal rights for everyone, and for the past four months, we’ve been working with the gay-rights organization called Ask Cleveland, on their “Keep the Registry!” campaign. Marriage may be in our future somewhere down the line, but we feel it is important for us to show our support for the LGBT community by registering now.

When we were married, we shared our vows with everyone who joined us, because we knew many of them had not been allowed to share such vows with one another publicly. I am hopeful that the day is coming when our friends won’t be excluded from the peculiar pleasure and pain that is marriage.

Marika Viragh has created a wonderful “Race to Africa” project for her senior year in high school. She hopes to attract support for kids at the Ubumwe Community Center in Rwanda. She’s collecting shoes and dollars. Consider it.

I’m also impressed with the webhost she’s found for her site. Squarespace looks a bit like an iWeb that could actually work: solid hosting with the sugar of interesting design.

Nathaniel just played his last basketball of the season today. It is really fun to watch him growing and enjoying games like this.

Then this evening I found this picture on Flickr.

I guess I’m not the only one who enjoys watching his kid play ball!

Today’s front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer feels like a Celeste family edition to this far-removed Clevelander. The Sunday PD’s painful article about the closing of parishes in Cleveland includes an image of St. Colman’s and another of St. Malachi’s. St. Colman’s is the church I went to as a boy, it is where I had my first communion. I remember waiting on the street after Sunday School there, thinking heretical thoughts about our lessons. St. Malachi’s is where we worshiped as a family when I was a bit older, though high school. I learned to love the music now in the Gather hymnal there. My sister was married there. It looks like St. Colman’s will be closing as the Cleveland Catholic Diocese adjusts to new demographic realities. St. Malachi’s will stay open, though the picture in the paper is a far cry from the standing-room-only crowds I remember there in my youth. Sad news, though I must say the church is bringing this on itself.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the front page a glimmer of happier news from the Cleveland International Film Festival. My sister has worked with the film festival for years and next week I may have my first chance to attend since she has been involved. Happy news!

Two people have announced their candidacy for the open 2010 US Senate seat in Ohio. My brother, Christopher, has not announced yet. But he has said he’s considering a run and so his is being included in various straw polls. This weekend we see another one at Ohio Daily. Please vote for Christopher. I’d like to keep the race in Ohio interesting!