Lift Up Your Hearts!

Last Child in the Woods:  Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv (Algonquin Books, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2005)

I'm sorry to say I gave this book short shrift, but reading time has been scarce lately, and I must return it to the library today.  I can say, however, that it is a must-read for anyone who is not already convinced that children need, as one of life's basic necessities, plenty of time in the natural world:  hiking, camping, and learning with their families, building forts and tree houses, exploring on their own, and just being in the world of bugs and fish, stars and sand dunes, trees and caverns.  If for you this kind of exhortation is preaching to the choir, it's probably still worth at least skimming it as much as I did, if only for the shock value of learning that today's children are even more cut off from such activities than you had imagined. (More)

In another context, someone asked if the folks at the Front Porch Republic were Presbyterian.  I spent a little time trying to determine the answer, without success.  From the writings, I'm pretty sure some are Catholic, and others, if not Presbyterian, would at least own the label "Reformed."  Darryl Hart, who has thus far contributed two essays, would not least but most own that label, and "Presbyterian" as well, being an elder in the Orthodox Presybyterian church.  This unfortunately evokes an automatic negative reaction from me, both personal and theological, but as I've mentioned several times before, God seems to have taken on as a special project this year the task of teaching me that those with whom I do not get along are sometimes right, and always have important things to teach me.

In this case, I'm pointing you to Hart's latest post, John Calvin and the Land of Chocolate, because of the prominent display of the Swiss flag (correct shape and all), and his kind remarks concerning my country-in-law. (More)

I never could keep cousins straight.  First cousins—the children of my parents' siblings—I understood, but I was lost when it came to second and third cousins, let alone those with the "removed" designation.  Not that I cared; it was rarely an issue for me.  When genealogy entered my life, however, family relationships suddenly needed to be a whole lot more specific.

After much puzzing over confusing definitions and tables, I gained enough head-knowledge to create the following algorithm.  My gut instincts in the matter are still a bit fuzzy, so I fall back on the strategy of the confused high school algebra student and rely on formulas. (More)

You can always count on Mallard Fillmore, the only one of my favorite comics to remember.

Worms Eat My Garbage, by Mary Appelhof (Flower Press, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1997)

Long, long ago, John Holt introduced me to Worms Eat My Garbage.  Whether it was in one of his books, or in the magazine Growing Without Schooling, I don't remember.  What I do remember is that worms ate his garbage.  John Holt lived in an apartment in downtown Boston; if he could manage a small worm farm there, what was my excuse?  It would be many years before I finally joined the movement, but here we are.

The book I borrowed from the library is the second edition; the original was written in 1982.  Both are somewhat dated, and offer much more detail about making your own worm bins that I needed, being quite happy with our out-of-the-box Can-o-Worms. It's also oriented towards people of northern climes, offering more advice on dealing with cold weather than hot.

I'm glad I borrowed the book, because while I was glad to read it, I don't feel the need to keep it as a reference.  There's plenty of information about worm farming online now, too.  But for those of us who prefer the comfort of reading a physical book, it's a good introduction to the subject of vermiculture and vermicomposting.

It's officially summer here, whatever the calendar may say.

We can pretty much count on temperatures in the 90's, afternoon thunderstorms have returned, the brachiation ladder has been reinstalled over the pool, the water temperature is up to 75 degrees, showers with unheated water feel really good, the A/C is on, hurricane season has begun, schoolchildren are visible during the day, and vitamin D production is 'way up.

Sounds like summer to me.

We're now officially into hurricane season, which means I'll be paying more attention to the Tropical Weather link on the sidebar.  The last two months of weather have been quite interesting.  April was lovely:  we were able to enjoy open windows and doors, using neither heat nor air conditioning.  (Yes, I know—I used to believe air conditioning was for wimps.  That was before I lived in Florida and learned the inverse relationship between sweltering temperatures and productivity.  The "lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer" only work if you don't have summer temperatures most months of the year.)

We weren't far into May before we turned on the A/C, but May's claim to fame this year was its rain.  As U understand it, an unexpected low pressure system stalled over Florida, and day after day after day sucked water from the Gulf of Mexico and deposited it on Central Florida.  Orlando had 14 inches of rain, breaking the previous record for May of 10 inches back in 1976.  Daytona Beach had almost 22 inches!

Although the surprise innundation (our rainy season doesn't usually begin till the end of the month) did some damage, flooding even non-flood zones, overall it was a very welcome break in our drought.  Now we seem to have settled back into the regular summer pattern of afternoon thunderstorms, and I must get back in the habit of remembering that outdoor work needs to be done in the morning.

The lituus is not a test to determine the pH of a substance, although that's how I read it at first.  It's a musical instrument, and one of the last works written for it was J. S. Bach's O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht.  No modern listener has been able to hear Bach's motet as it was intended, however, because the instrument fell out of favor and became extinct.  No one today knows what it looked or sounded like. 

Until now.  Alistair Braden and Murray Campbell, from the University of Edinburgh, at the request of—ta da!—the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, applied to the problem software they had designed to improve modern brass instruments. (More)

The young lady at the grocery store was right:  a chopstick makes a great cherry pitter.

Until I was nine years old, I lived in a small house with a yard that was small by American standards, but large enough to support four beautiful trees:  two spruce, one maple that was the delight of my heart and the joy of my tree-climbing days, and one cherry tree.

The cherry tree produced a gorgeous display of blossoms every year, followed by an abundant harvest of cherries.  These were sour cherries, the kind used most often for pies, though to my child's tastes they couldn't get much better than straight from the tree into my mouth.  The abundance, however, was more than I could consume, even had that been allowed, so I remember hours of sitting around the table with my family, pitting cherries to freeze for future pies.  Despite the work, it was a delightful time because we were all together, working and talking and laughing.  It is nonetheless a pity that we didn't discover the delights of Chinese food until after we had left the house and its trees behind. (More)

A common theme over at the Front Porch Republic is a respect for place: for home and community, for not only eating locally but being locally, staying in (or returning to) one's hometown rather than venturing off to "better" places.  The article Root Hog or Die is where I chose to ask a question that has been bothering me about this approach to life, much as I like some of the ideas. (More)

A friend alerted me to an article on midwives from the May 20, 2009 Orlando Sentinel.  It's about a recently-developed program of the Orange County Health Department that provides hospital-based midwife services for low-income women in the Orlando area, and told me some things I didn't know about midwives and Florida law.

Knowing from experience that links to Sentinel articles break after a while, I'll provide a few relevant excerpts below.  (More)

Not only does North Korea continue to flaunt its testing of nuclear explosives and ballistic missiles, but it has abrogated the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean war.

Since its nuclear test Monday, North Korea has issued a stream of harsh rhetoric, even declaring that the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War is null and void.

The situation in North Korea, with what appears to be a madman brandishing nuclear bombs, will require more knowledge and wisdom than even President Obama's most ardent supporters can claim for him.  Hence the prayers; feel free to join me.

Who the Hell Writes Wikipedia, Anyway? is a refutation of the idea that "[t]he bulk of Wikipedia is written by 1400 obsessed freaks who do little else but contribute to the site."  That disparaging notion came about by looking at Wikipedia editing activity to see who made the most contributions to the project.  Therein is the problem: What is "most"?

[Aaron] Swartz analyzed percentage-of-text instead of number of edits, and what he found was slightly different: The bulk of the original content on Wikipedia is contributed by tens of thousands of outsiders, each of whom may not make many other contributions to the site. The bulk of the changes to the original text, then, are made by a core group of heavy editors who make thousands of tiny edits (the 1400 freaks).

When you put it all together, the story becomes clear: an outsider makes one edit to add a chunk of information, then insiders make several edits tweaking and reformatting it. In addition, insiders rack up thousands of edits doing things like changing the name of a category across the entire site—the kind of thing only insiders deeply care about. As a result, insiders account for the vast majority of the edits. But it's the outsiders who provide nearly all of the content.

I find that reassuring; Wikipedia is useful and much better for finding the random information I look for than any other encyclopedia I've found. It's much like the news media:  great for getting information if you don't trust it overmuch.  In all the times I've actually known something from the inside about a news story, whether newspaper, magazine, or television report, it has been obvious that the story, as reported, was wrong.  Sometimes egregiously so, sometimes in minor detail, but never reliably correct.  So too with Wikipedia, as anyone who knows Old Saybrook, Connecticut, will attest upon reading the entry on Katharine Hepburn, which contains the following sentence:

On September 21, 1938, Hepburn was staying in her Old Saybrook, Connecticut beach home when the 1938 New England Hurricane struck and destroyed her house. Hepburn narrowly escaped death before the home was washed away over the cliffs.

Behold the cliffs....

It has been nearly five years since I honored here two family members who gave the "last full measure of devotion" in France during World War I:  Harry Gilbert Faulk and Hezekiah Scovil Porter, both of the 101st Machine Gun Battalion.  Today, for Harry I post a picture of the tree planted in his memory in Cypress Cemetery, Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  It has been a few years since World War I.  (More)

I know why I write, but why do you read?

Because writing is an essential part of the way I think, and blogging is the best venue I've yet found, I'm not likely to stop posting here anytime soon.  However, as part of an ongoing analysis of the most productive use of my time, I'd appreciate your feedback very much.  Feel free to answer here, by name or anonymously, or if you prefer you can e-mail me.  Below are some questions that are burning in my mind, but don't let them limit you.

1. Which subjects and approaches make you eager to read the post?  Which do you read with only minor interest or skip altogether?   Book reviews?  News, commentary, and ideas I've found elsewhere and repost here?  My own commentary on various issues?  Stories about our everyday life, including travels?  Education, children and family issues, conservationist living, health topics, food, genealogy, computing problems/solutions, amusing comics and other fun stories? Short posts with links, or longer posts with quoted excerpts?
2. How often do you like to see new posts?  Does one/day overwhelm you?  Does one/week disappoint you?  How often do you visit?  Do you come by every day, hoping for something new?  Or do you check in via feedreader once a week and think, "Oh, no, there are too many"?  (If you say the latter I won't take it as an insult; I love the quality of most of the Front Porch Republic posts, but I can't handle the quantity.)
3. What, if anything, do you find of value here?  This is not quite the same question as #1.

Many thanks for your responses.  I don't know yet how I'll use them, but I'm sure they'll help in my deliberations.  Choosing good over bad may sometimes be difficult, but at least it's usually clear.  Deciding among several good things can be rather murky territory.