Lift Up Your Hearts!

Non Campus Mentis:  World History According to College Students, compiled by Anders Henriksson (Workman Publishing, New York, 2001) (Later retitled Ignorance Is Blitz)

This compilation of major historical events was pieced together from the essays and exams of students at a variety of colleges in the United States and Canada.  If you know a reasonable amount of world history and geography, you will find it hysterical, at least till you get to the quiz in the back of the book.

It would be a good book to read aloud at a party, although you would miss some pretty funny misspellings.  Reading it aloud in the car, however, as we did, would be unwise:  If you think texting puts the driver at a disadvantage, you should see what happens when he's doubled over with hysterical laughter.  (More)

Can you believe I get tired of hearing that my blog is absolutly brilliant, and the commenter can't wait to share it with his friends?

Well, I do, and so I'm trying out comment moderation.  If I'm going to have to spend log in several times a day to remove spam, I might as well spend that time approving comments.

The down side is that if you write a comment here, you won't see it right away, at least not at first.  Jon has enhanced the moderation software to allow previously-approved commenters to bypass the moderation process, though you'll have to go through it again if you write from a different IP address.

I trust it will go smoothly, but if your comment gets lost, please let me know.

This resolution has been coming up on my agenda for months, only to be replaced by what seemed to be a more urgent or appropriate idea.  But now its time has come.

I love you.

What a powerful phrase—perhaps the most blessed concept in any tongue.  But what does it mean?  What do we mean when we say it?  (More)

Can it have been almost four years since Kelly James, Brian Hall and Nikko Cooke died in a blizzard on Mt. Hood?  I'm not usually one to follow closely television's relentless coverage of unfolding tragedy, but knowing Kelly's brother, Frank, made the events personal.

In the Shadow of Mt. Hood is an article written by Frank James in the September issue of Christianity Today.  (It's available online if you follow that link.)  I'm a bit reluctant to provide excerpts this time, as there is nothing he says that's not important.  (Those of you who know that I knew Frank when he was an elder in our PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) church, and know how I feel about most PCA sermons, will understand how significant it is for me to make such a statement.)  But here is a taste, anyway:

Grief is a relentless predator. Those who have lost loved ones tell me that one never completely escapes it. Strangely, a part of me does not want the grief to stop, because the grief itself is a connection to Kelly. Yet another part of me is so weary from carrying the burden of a broken heart.

In the midst of our family tragedy, I made a peculiar discovery. One would think that grief and disappointment with God would lead to bitterness against him. In my nightmare, I not only prayed intensely in private but also publicly declared my faith and confidence in God on CNN—but Kelly froze to death anyway.

There is disappointment, sadness, and confusion, but oddly, there is no retreat from God. Instead, I find myself drawn to God. To be sure, he is more enigmatic than I thought, but I still can't shake loose from him. There seems to be a kind of gravitational pull toward God.

"Harm reduction," a new term to me, though not a new concept, is a controversial approach to social problems, in which illegal, immoral, or otherwise harmful behaviors are attacked, not at the root, but at the branches:  distributing condoms to slow the spread of AIDS, needle exchange programs for drug addicts, and legalized prostitution, for example.  It is palliative care: attempting to ameliorate the symptoms of an apparently incurable social disorder.

Whether you approve of the idea or think it only exacerbates the problem—like Needle Park in Zurich, one of Switzerland's early experiments, which succeeded in reducing AIDS infections and drug-related deaths, but attracted addicts and professional drug dealers from all over Europe—the following story is heartwarming.  It brings to mind Mother Teresa, who, if she couldn't cure the ills of the lowest and the poorest in Calcutta, at least gave them the touch of a loving hand, and a clean, safe, comfortable place in which to die.  (More)

I haven't time for a long post this morning, so here's the story I alluded to yesterday.

There is one upside to allowing several months to elapse between visits with the grandchildren:  the thrill of realizing how much they have grown in the interim.  During my recent visit, all three of the young Daleys surprised me.  This is Jonathan's story.  (More)

Free-Range Kids:  Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry, by Lenore Skenazy (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2009)
Paperback subtitle:  How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)

I've been following (and blogging about) Free-Range Kids for quite a while now, so it's about time I finally read the book.  First off, in case you don't bother to read the rest of this post:  Get a hold of a copy of this book and read it.  If you are tempted to dismiss the free-range movement as crazy, irresponsible parenting, this will reassure you.  If you're already sold on this idea, it will open your eyes to how we got to the point of needing it.

Being so familiar with the Free-Range Kids blog, and even having made some contributions myself, I thought I knew what to expect from the book.  Boy was I wrong. (More)

Jonathan's birthday is coming up, and he told me what he really wants:  a real Boba Fett costume, from the local costume store.  (Perhaps it was Jango Fett, or Olive Fett, or some other miscellaneous Fett.  I lost track of the Star Wars characters once inflation set in and Episode 1 became Episode 4.)

I expressed my surprise, because he had already created wonderful costumes—headgear and jetpacks—for himself and his siblings, out of cereal boxes, styrofoam cups, and pipe cleaners.

"I am only creative," he replied, "because I don't have what I want."

Bingo.

There, from the mouth of a six-year-old, is the driving force behind innovation.

Not long ago, my lovely external monitor gave out completely.  I suppose I could complain about how nothing lasts well these days, but it lasted a lot longer than the Gateway computer it originally came with, which self-destructed after 19 months of an 18-month warranty.^*

One does not need an external monitor, and I was prepared to do without for a while, but Porter, God bless him, cares for his wife's desires as well as her needs...and an external monitor is especially nice when the regular one is a small laptop screen.  So we ventured out shopping. (More)

Fruitless Fall:  The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis, by Rowan Jacobsen (Bloomsbury, New York, 2008)

Fruitless Fall had been my "to read" list since mid-2009 and, thanks to generous family, on our bookshelves since Christmas.  I loved Jacobsen's Chocolate Unwrapped, so why it took so long to begin this book is beyond me.  Once begun, however, I couldn't stop, and finished it the same day.  There are a few compensations for being sick and not having the energy to tackle much of anything else.

Speaking of feeling sick ... Fruitless Fall is scarier than The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food, Inc., and Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal combined.  Or perhaps the effect is cumulative.

That's not to say the book isn't a delight to read, doing for honey and beekeeping what John McPhee's Oranges did for the citrus industry many long years ago.  (I wish someone would write an update, as McPhee's book ends when frozen concentrate was king.)  The overall theme is the recent precipitous and inexplicable decline of bees and beekeepers, with many side notes (some delightful, some frightening) along the way.  (More)

Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites ...and Other Lies You've Been Told, by Bradley R. E. Wright (Bethany House, Minneapolis, 2010)

Frankly, my expectations were not high when I picked up this book.  The title may be eye-catching, but for that reason it doesn't inspire confidence that there's serious writing between the covers.

There is, however, and serious research, too.  Bradley Wright is a sociologist, a professor at the University of Connecticut.  His words are aimed at the layman, not the academic, and he writes with a nice sense of humor; even so, the array of facts and graphs and studies is dizzying.  (More)

Micro Mobility Systems makes classy scooters, and look what I discovered when I ventured onto their website from a FRK article:

I like to take the bus to the airport, but the mile and a half walk to the bus stop is hard on luggage wheels.  They're not designed to take long distances on concrete.  But this is!  It's a scooter, zipping one to the bus stop and then folding to cabin-baggage size.

On second thought, it wouldn't really solve my problem, as cabin-baggage isn't that hard to haul to the bus; my real problem comes whenever I have to bring a bag big enough to check—the weight is much greater and the wheels no better.   With Lufthansa having an 18-pound carry-on weight limit, the scooter part probably adds an unreasonable amount of overhead, anyway.  But it's still a cool idea.

Micro Mobility's scooters in general look pretty classy.  They might make a nice addition to bicycles and trams in the Swiss commuting arsenal.

I have another post on Free-Range Kids.  You've probably read most of it here already, in my review of the Melendy books, but I mention it because the comments over there are brimming with other good book suggestions that you may want to check out.

Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2,  "The Musician's Stimulus Package"

Okay, so that's not the name Mahler gave to this symphony, but he didn't call it "Resurrection," either, which is what usually shows up on concert programs, so I claim the right to my own title.

Last night was the Orlando Phil's season opening concert, consisting of but this one work.  The ticket-takers thoughtfully warned us, as we entered, "Ninety minutes, no intermission!" causing an immediate run on the bathrooms. (More)

The Saturdays
The Four-Story Mistake
Then There Were Five
Spiderweb for Two:  A Melendy Maze

by Elizabeth Enright (Holt/Square Fish, New York, 2008)

I've heard it said—and often by teachers—that it doesn't matter what children read, as long as they're reading.  I couldn't disagree more.

Actually, there's just enough truth there to be dangerous:  When one is learning to read, the very best path to the next level is merely to read, and read, and read.  It doesn't matter if it's Dr. Seuss, Calvin & Hobbes, Star Wars, or Anna Karenina—almost anything will do that is decent and holds the reader's attention long enough for the practicing to work its magic.  When my father was sick and terribly thin, we pressed upon him high-fat, high-calorie, high-sugar foods that would normally have been anathema to a sensible diet.  (More)