Lift Up Your Hearts!

There was an interesting column by Laura Vanderkam from Thursday's USA Today:  Tailoring school to the child.  From private tutors to online courses to hybrid forms, homeschooling is drawing in many who thought they never could or would.  Funny, though, how often the next generation mis-characterizes the ones that have gone before:

Once, people saw home schooling as a fringe religious or hippie activity. These days, many families see it as a way to challenge kids and give them time to pursue their passions.

[Ahem]  Excuse me, but "a way to challenge kids and give them time to pursue their passions" was exactly why we homeschooled more years ago than I want to admit.  Hippie religious freaks, hrumph.  The fringe is kinda fun, though.

Isaac Christopher Daley
November 21, 2002 - November 23, 2002

Six years ago I stumbled through a small speech as our first grandson's ashes were interred, along with a cross made of Legos, a small toy car, and innumerable hopes and dreams.  In honor of what would have been his sixth birthday, I think it's time for me to hear again what I had to say then.  You may eavesdrop if you wish.  (More)

The Occasional CEO is on the short list of my enjoyable, regular blog-reading.  Today's offering, I Love the Swiss Watch, struck my funny bone, perhaps because it's a tad sensitive due to a few stresses and the stock market playing How Low Can You Go?

Did I say I'd take the Swiss trains ahead of a Swiss watch?  I really meant I'll take a Swiss son-in-law.  Practical and elegant.

Once when we were visiting Pittsburgh, we had the pleasure of attending a Stephen Foster festival at the cemetery where he is buried.  While there, we heard the group Home Front, and bought their CD, Parlor to Campfire.  It was somewhat amusing (better to laugh than to cry) to hear our stereo system, which randomly plays tracks from a rather large collection of music, wail forth with Hard Times Come Again No More—right after I had sneaked a look at the rapidly plunging (again! still!) stock market.

As I said to the clerk at the post office—in response to his, "What?  You're here again?"—I'm doing my part to support the economy.  The world is apparently falling down around me, yet life goes on as usual.  I think that's not an unreasonable attitude at the moment, but I also sometimes wonder if there's not a bit of Madame Ranevskaya in me.

I've said before that most so-called conspiracies can be more readily explained by simple human stupidity.  Take, for example, the recent brouhaha over NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, whose climate data for October reported temperatures to be an astonishing three-quarters of a degree above normal.  It turns out the data was badly skewed because in several cases September's data had been used rather than October's. 

Some of the commentary I've read accuses the GISS of deliberately putting out a false report, but I see no need to propose a more complicated explanation when a simple one will do:  The GISS was expecting to see warming, so they didn't question the data.  This is why scientific experiments are double-blind whenever possible.  In lieu of that, it might be wise to have your enemies proofread your work:  those on the other side of the global warming debate found the error quickly.

U.S.A. Today recently printed an excellent editorial in support of saving large hunks of taxpayer money by replacing the one dollar bill entirely with dollar coins.  What do I mean by "excellent"?  (1) They got the facts right, which is not nearly as common an occurrence as it should be, and (2) they agree with me.

What happens when an atheistic science fiction writer becomes a Christian?  You get Christian blog posts with attitude, such as John C. Wright's response to the rationale behind an anti-Christian ad campaign planned for the Christmas season.  As an atheist-turned-Christian science fiction fan, I find the fantasy-style metamorphosis both delightful and amusing.  An excerpt:

I realize that, now that I am on the opposing side, I have no more right to feel contempt for weakness in the ranks, but, by Jupiter's holy lightning-flinging scrotum, this kind of whiny talk used to really bug me, and I still suffer flashbacks to my old self. How can you feel lonely during Christs' Mass when YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN CHRIST??!! The crowd of lemmings is rushing off after the Pied Piper to worship the Unseen Flying Spaghetti Monster, and you are feeling all lonesome because you are not in the crowd? Who wants to be in any crowd when the crowd is mad? 

(more, simlar ranting, followed by)

As a Xtian, I have to be nice and kind, and invite in to our cheerful feasts and celebrations the poor, the tired, and the unbelieving. All are welcome to partake of the spirit of Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward Man, even if you don't believe in spirits. A lamp is lifted for you by the open door: within, the feast is spread. Come, and be fed.

Young Mathematicians at Work:  Constructing Number Sense, Addition, and Subtraction, by Catherine Twomey Fosnott and Maarten Dolk (Heinemann, Portsmouth, NY, 2001)

I must return this book to the library today, and I don't have time to finish reading it, but nonethless it deserves mention.  This joint effort of American and Dutch mathematics educators is often repetitive and sometimes wearisome to read, but includes ideas well worth exploring by anyone desiring to teach, or to learn, mathematics at its most basic levels.  Their strategies for encouraging children to think mathematically are aimed at classrooom teachers—and show, incidentally, some of the advantages of group instruction—but many should be adaptable to home education as well.

When I learned of this book I had intended to order it as a Christmas present for our grandkids.  (I know what you're thinking—such an odd grandmother!)  However, while it is a great book to learn from, it's not that exciting a book to own.  So do what I did, and turn to your favorite library—Interlibrary Loan, if necessary.

Distributism, as an economic philosophy, is totally new to me.  (My decision to circumvent Pennsylvania's high school graduation requirement of a course in economics, which I ditched in favor of AP physics, continues to haunt me.)  I came upon it while looking for a good G. K. Chesterton link for my O God of Earth and Altar post; Chesterton was one of distributism's more vocal proponents.

Since one obviously doesn't hear much about it, distributism may be outmoded, impractical, unworkable, or just plain wrong; I don't have time to learn more about it now, and Li'l Writer Guy is still chanting with the monks.  However, I find it most intriguing, since at first glance it accords well with my own philosophies, bringing together such diversities as homeschooling, home birth, home cheesemaking, family farms, independent businesses, public transportation, artisan breads, adn above all recognition of the family unit as the basic structure of society.  Here are some quotes from the Wikipedia article: (More)

I checked the date of the article; it's not April 1.  Mexican physicists have made diamonds from tequila.  One can only speculate how they came up with the idea of heating tequila to around 800 degrees celsius and turning the resultant carbon atoms into an extremely thin diamond film, but it might make a good comic routine.  Uses for the diamond film include the manufacture of ultra-fine cutting instruments, and as an alternative to silicon in computer chips.

The scientists found that even the cheapest of tequila brands, averaging at $3 a bottle, are good enough to make diamonds.

 The cost of an 800-degree oven might keep this from becoming a do-it-yourself project, however.

Maybe commenter Phil had the right idea after all.  Since the government is bound to foul up even the best plan when it involves too much money and power, doing nothing might have been the better course.  We had a liquidity crisis from which we probably could have recovered with relative ease had the government bought up massive amounts of undervalued bank debt and sold it at a profit when stability returned.  That would have been a $700 million investment, not a bailout.

Instead, we're all but nationalizing our banks, and now Paulson wants to turn this into a bona fide bailout, pouring money into credit card debt, which must be the worst possible kind short of getting involved with a Mafia moneylender.  (A friend's credit card company, which recently raised his interest rate to thirty-four percent, might be taking lessons from the Mafia, except that his kneecaps are still intact.)  I know we can't change immediately from a society based on massive debt to something more sane, but do we have to discourage reasonable behavior?

It's like Florida taxing people who know better than to build high-rise condominiums on the beach to support those who don't care if a hurricane blows down the building as long as the state continues to underwrite insurance for them.

Thanks to Janet's question about one of my favorite hymn tunes, LLANGLOFFAN, I was reminded this morning of one of my favorite hymns, O God of Earth and Altar, with its amazing and always-timely words by G. K. Chesterton.  (KINGS' LYNN is another great tune for this hymn.) 

I'd hate to see local bookstores go out of business, even chain stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble.  Nothing long-distance and electronic will ever replace the atmosphere of a physical store, and the ability to wander, browse, and hold a book in your own hands.  However, I am also one of Amazon.com's more loyal customers, and not solely for their discounts.  Frequently both Borders and Barnes and Noble will send me coupons that I would love to use in their local stores.  Borders is an easy walk from our house, and I could easily be a frequent shopper there.

Except for one problem:  they rarely have what I'm looking for.  This morning I received a 30% off coupon offer with pleasure, because there's a book that I thought to buy only after sending of my most recent Amazon order.  It's a children's book, and not an obscure one, so I figured the odds of my convenient Borders having it were great.  But alas, no.  It does no good for the sales clerk to suggest that he order the book for me; I can do that myself.  It's rather like calling a reference librarian, having exhausted my own resources, only to hear her typing my question into Google.

Too often, also, the stores not only don't stock what I'd like to buy, but fill their stores with items I most definitely would not like to buy.  The experience is similar to that I've had at so-called farmers' markets, which were populated more by gourmet popcorn stands and vitamin sellers than fresh, local produce.

Regardless, I'm thankful for Amazon and other online sellers.  The local stores are worse-stocked now, but they never did have much of what I was looking for.  How wonderful to have such resources available now for a few clicks (and a credit card).

It must often be so...when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them. (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King)

 Thank you, all veterans and current members of our armed forces.

Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  (Book of Common Prayer, American Episcopal Church, 1979)

Games are a traditional part of our family gatherings.  On any given occasion you are likely to find games in process as varied as Lord of the Rings Risk, Settlers of Catan, pinochle, Quiddler, and n-tuple sol, and a long-time family favorite, Boggle (the 5x5 version, of course).  Because one of our number is the perennial, unassailable Boggle champion, I need to stay in practice to be any kind of competitor at all.  To this end I occasionally indulge in an Internet version of the came, called WordSplay.

There's some fierce competition out there, and I'm usually happy when I find myself around the 50% mark at the end of a game.  Once I almost made it into the top 10 and was elated.  (It helps to play at odd hours, such as early on a Saturday morning, when the number of opponents I face is much smaller.)  This morning I saw my name in third place, only one point shy of the top score, and can't resist reporting the accomplishment.

This is how I know that our own Boggle Champion wasn't playing the game.