Lift Up Your Hearts!

A couple more quick takes, as I dig through the backlog.

Think Your Kid's Gifted?  You're Probably Wrong, from Geek Dad.  An unfortunate title, as is the similar title of the article on which he is commenting; I would have said instead, "You're Probably Right."  At long last parents are beginning to realize that children are not mindless lumps of clay, but are nearly all born brilliant.  (You doubt that?  Plunk yourself down in the middle of a foreign country and see how long it takes you to become fluent in the language.)  Finally people are realizing that what they do, or don't do, with their young chldren makes a difference, and that they need better opportunities than most of them get.  Why do some people feel it necessary to debunk the idea?  Probably because, being fallen humans, we tend to focus not on "my child is brilliant" but "my child is brighter than someone else's child."  Geek Dad catches the real issue, however.

It doesn't matter if my son (or my daughter, in a few years) is officially deemed "gifted."  All that matters is that my kids get the best education we can provide for them.  Based on his experience in kindergarten and first grade, I'm certain my son will do better in the G/T classes, and that is really the only reason that matters for my wife and me to push hard to get him into the program.

Whether or not your kids get fitted with the label "gifted" doesn't matter.  All that matters is that you do what you need to do to get your kids the very best education possible for your kids and for their specific needs.  That may or may not be the same education all the other kids are getting, or your next-door neighbor's kids are getting, and that's all right.  If you do what needs to be done to get your kids the best education possible, you've done your job well.

Easier said than done, especially when "best education" must cover social, spiritual, emotional, and physical issues as well as intellectual ones.  Although I have an obvious prejudice in favor of home education on all fronts, what really matters is awareness, flexibility, and freedom.  What is best now might not be best in three years.  Above all, make sure that the person making (and evaluating) educational decisions for your children is you (that is, you, your spouse, and your children together).  Not the state, not your friends, not habit and custom, and not even your well-meaning mother-in-law.  :)

And speaking of the genius of babies, here are three worthwhile discussions of young children and mathematics.  The initial question was "My two-year-old can verbalize the answer to almost any other factual question, and and clearly knows the answers to arithmetic problems I must check with a calculator.  But he can't verbalize the math answers.  Why not?"  From Doman Inspired Parenting: Math (Dots) and the follow-up, Math Dots; and from Life with a Preschooler: The Math Mystery.

"If you ask a fluent reader to explain how they read they would simple state that they can. It is possible that the mental manipulation of quantity develops to the stage where the entire process takes place at a subconscious level."

If math was simply about memorizing a set of facts—What is the capital of France? Who was the fifth President? What sound does the letter A make?—it would simply be a matter of recalling the correct answer, the corresponding fact. But math, in the way that babies can do it, is not about memorizing facts: it is a way of thinking and reasoning.

This brought to mind the stage Janet went through several years later, in which she balked at being asked to show her work on math assignments.  She knew the answer, period—and was right 99% of the time—but could no more put the workings of her brain on paper than she could fly.

Diplomacy.  It was Henry Kissinger's favorite game.  It was also a significant part of our lives in the early 1980s, back when Porter thought he had time to spend on interminable strategy board games.  He played in person; he played by mail.  He designed and implemented a multi-tiered rope-and-pulley game board system for our basement, so he could keep track of several games at once.  By far his favorite—no doubt because it is all skill, no luck—was Diplomacy.

I doubt the number of games Porter persuaded me to play exceeded two, but that didn't stop the whole family from being sucked into the vortex.  Somewhere in the process of all the conventions, fanzine activity, and of course, game playing, we made some lifelong friends, including two for whom Porter would subsequently be best man at their weddings.  Heather gave Porter his less sinister nickname, Dippy Daddy.  (The other, bestowed by one of his favorite opponents, was Porter the Knife.)  Two of our close friends published their own "Dipzines"—small publications with a few articles that primarly served the purpose of managing play-by-mail games—to which I occasionally submitted an article.  In one of them I even had a short-lived cartoon, which I called Dip City.

  Bill Highfield and Janet

Time, life, and a move brought an end to that era of our lives, but the Internet recently brought it back to mind.  Someone is collecting and posting old Dipzines, which I found through a Google search while looking for something else that I no longer recall.  Lo and behold, there were a few samples of Bill Highfield's The Modern Patriot (scroll down the page to find it) and a good collection of Don Sigwalt's Hoof and Mouth.  Of most interest to me, however, was the inclusion of Hoof and Mouth Issue #27x.

A minor side of the hobby that appealed to me was the creation of fake issues.  That is, someone would publish a Dipzine issue that had the appearance of one of the regular zines, but was not; usually it was a spoof containing clues to its deceptive nature.  As a puzzle-lover, I enjoyed reading the fakes.

I enjoyed even more creating my own.  When Don's typewriter broke down and he came to our house to use ours, I had the final piece for my own puzzle:  access to his mailing list.  I was already familiar with his zine, his style, and his life, not to mention his regular contributors.  Putting together #27x was great fun, and I eagerly awaited the response I was sure it would generate.

That's when I discovered there's such a thing as being too good.  Despite all the clues, to my knowledge no one ever guessed that the issue was a fake.  Even the principals had no idea I was behind it.  We gradually faded away from the hobby and 27x into the mists of time.  Until now.  Because I'm still proud of it.  It won't mean much to anyone not familiar with the real Hoof and Mouth, but if you want you can see it here.  I also can't resist reproducing my favorite part of the issue:

 

Feeling the relief of the immediate pressure of travel/Christmas/wedding, I decided to make some long-overdue blog modifications.  Some were easy, and some...well, let's just say that—as with much system maintenance—it started by breaking more than it fixed.  Specifically, links.  And because this particular change was system-wide, it messed up Janet's links as well as mine.  Not all of them, but some, and finding out which ones is part of the fun.  :)  So please be patient as I continue to work on this, all the while trying not to let it consume too much of the time that should be spent on laundry, etc.

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To contact Lift Up Your Hearts!, please e-mail us at the graphically-rendered address below.

This was going to be another set of Casting the Net quick takes, but it got a bit long.

Theodore Dalrymple's The Roads to Serfdom (thanks to Random Observations) observes the effects of socialism on the character of the British people, a warning Americans would do well to heed.

[Austrian economist F. A. von Hayek, writing in 1944] thought he had observed an important change in the character of the British people, as a result both of their collectivist aspirations and of such collectivist measures as had already been legislated. He noted, for example, a shift in the locus of people’s moral concern. Increasingly, it was the state of society or the world as a whole that engaged their moral passion, not their own conduct. “It is, however, more than doubtful whether a fifty years’ approach towards collectivism has raised our moral standards, or whether the change has not rather been in the opposite direction,” he wrote. “Though we are in the habit of priding ourselves on our more sensitive social conscience, it is by no means clear that this is justified by the practice of our individual conduct.” In fact, “It may even be . . . that the passion for collective action is a way in which we now without compunction collectively indulge in that selfishness which as individuals we had learnt a little to restrain.”

The British tolerance of eccentricity has also evaporated; uniformity is what they want now, and are prepared informally to impose. They tolerate no deviation in taste or appearance from themselves: and certainly in the lower reaches of society, people who are markedly different, either in appearance because of the vagaries of nature, or in behavior because of an unusual taste they may have, especially for cultivation, meet with merciless ridicule, bullying, and even physical attack. It is as if people believed that uniformity of appearance, taste, and behavior were a justification of their own lives, and any deviation an implied reproach or even a declaration of hostility.... The pressure to conform to the canons of popular taste ... has never been stronger. Those without interest in soccer hardly dare mention it in public, for fear of being considered enemies of the people. A dispiriting uniformity of character, deeply shallow, has settled over a land once richer in eccentrics than any other. No more Edward Lears for us: we prefer notoriety to oddity now.

 [For this final quote I have copied the excellent edited version at Random Observations.]

Hilaire Belloc, in his book The Servile State, predicted just such a form of collectivism as early as 1912.... In his view, “The future of industrial society, and in particular of English society ... is a future in which subsistence and security shall be guaranteed for the Proletariat, but shall be guaranteed ... by the establishment of that Proletariat in a status really, though not nominally, servile.” The people lose “that tradition of ... freedom, and are most powerfully inclined to [the] acceptance of [their servile status] by the positive benefits it confers.”

And this is precisely what has happened to the large proportion of the British population that has been made dependent on the welfare state.

The state action [the sweeping institution of socialist "reforms"] that was supposed to lead to the elimination of Beveridge’s five giants of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness has left many people in contemporary Britain with very little of importance to decide for themselves, even in their own private spheres. They are educated by the state (at least nominally), as are their children in turn; the state provides for them in old age and has made saving unnecessary or, in some cases, actually uneconomic; they are treated and cured by the state when they are ill; they are housed by the state, if they cannot otherwise afford decent housing. Their choices concern only sex and shopping.

No wonder that the British have changed in character, their sturdy independence replaced with passivity, querulousness, or even, at the lower reaches of society, a sullen resentment that not enough has been or is being done for them. For those at the bottom, such money as they receive is, in effect, pocket money, like the money children get from their parents, reserved for the satisfaction of whims. As a result, they are infantilized. If they behave irresponsibly—for example, by abandoning their own children wherever they father them—it is because both the rewards for behaving responsibly and the penalties for behaving irresponsibly have vanished. Such people come to live in a limbo, in which there is nothing much to hope or strive for and nothing much to fear or lose. Private property and consumerism coexist with collectivism, and freedom for many people now means little more than choice among goods.

There must be several proverbs similar to this one, but being for the moment unable to find an example, I made one up.  This is a lesson God has apparently decided to teach me recently, given that several opportunities to explore it have appeared in quick succession.  No, not from literal enemies, but why create a proverb if you can't be a little hyperbolic?

Anyone who was active in the earlier days of homeschooling will recognize the name of Gregg Harris, and for many it will not be a positive memory.  One should not visit the sins of the father on the sons, but my experiences left me cautious and suspicious when I heard about Do Hard Things, a book written by his twin sons, Brett and Alex, and The Rebelution, their challenge to other teens to rise above society's low expectations.  However, since I've long preached that we cripple our children by our low expectations, not just of teens but all the way back to birth, it seemed prudent to grit my teeth and read the book.

It was all I could to to keep from buying a copy for every one of our nephews.  (No sexism here, just a regrettable lack of nieces.)  What can I say?  Some of the political and religious views expressed set my teeth on edge, and I suspect most of the families I would give the book to would react still more strongly.  But it's well worth the effort to get past that reaction, because Brett and Alex write well, and what they are saying is incredibly important, not just for teens who share their beliefs, but for everyone, of any age.

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The next challenge came when I learned of Angels in the Architecture, by Douglas Jones and Douglas Wilson.  About Douglas Jones I knew nothing, but for reasons both personal and philosophical the name of Doug Wilson ties my stomach in knots.  I believe both private and home educators owe Wilson a great debt for popularizing Dorothy Sayers' great essay, The Lost Tools of Learning, and for inspiring the tremendous quantity of high-quality materials that have erupted out of the Classical Christian education movement.

That doesn't mean I like the man.  The only other of his books that I have read, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, I found to be arrogant, condescending, and rude—and hearing him speak in person was an even worse experience.  So my initial attitude toward Angels in the Architecture was as suspicious as that toward Do Hard Things.  However, Amazon's description of the book was too compelling to ignore, especially when accompanied by this comment from one of the reviewers:  "The book avoids much of the sarchasim [sic] for which the authors have become quite famous."

Christianity presents a glorious vision for culture, a vision overflowing with truth, beauty, and goodness. It's a vision that stands in stark conflict with the anemic modern (and postmodern) perspectives that dominate contemporary life. Medieval Christianity began telling a beautiful story about the good life, but it was silenced in mid-sentence. The Reformation rescued truth, but its modern grandchildren have often ignored the importance of a medieval grasp of the good life. This book sketches a vision of "Medieval Protestantism," a personal and cultural vision that embraces the fullness of Christian truth, beauty, and goodness.

Having experienced too much of contemporary Protestantism's denegration of art, beauty, and culture, I was anticipating a keen, fresh wind to cut through those prejudices.  It wasn't there.  Not even close.  Part of the fault probably lies in having read it very quickly, since I bought it as a gift and had time only to down it in great gulps before turning it over to its rightful owner. I'm sure he will read more thoughtfully, and perhaps find the gems that eluded me.  I'm certain that Jones and Wilson have discovered something of vital importance, but for me it was lost amidst a great deal of chaff.

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My final lesson (for now) in learning from those with whom I disagree is personal, and ongoing.  I have sung under half a dozen or so church choir directors in my adult years, in different denominations and in different parts of the country.  With all of them I got along well, and some became good friends.  The new music minister at our church, however, has been a challenge for me.  My reaction, when I first learned he had been hired, was "Here is someone I can learn something new from, for he is vastly different from me and from any other choir director I have experienced."  I still believe that, as I also believe that there's a good chance he is exactly what our struggling church needs at this moment.

That doesn't make it any easier to sing under him.  Our personality differences are extreme, and I seem to get under his skin as much as he gets under mine.  It's early yet, so I don't know what it is I'm to be learning from him, but if it's only to speak less and listen more it will be worthwhile.

One reason I keep this blog is to share with others what I find in my meanderings: large or little, delightful or dreadful, whatever I think someone else might enjoy, learn from, or care about.  Having learned the hard way that providing full commentary for each subject is not the best use of my time, I'm trying a new tactic.  Instead of apologizing each time I can't give what I'd call a proper response to a book, issue, or article, my omission has become purposeful.  "Casting the Net" is the title I'm giving to short introductions to random items of interest to me—and maybe to you.

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A Little Encouragement for Baby Boomers from The Occasional CEO.  Our productive life need not end at 49, or even 66.  Our best years may yet be ahead of us.

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The Gridlock Economy, thanks to Peter V.  I haven't had a chance to read this book yet, but the website is fascinating.  I would love to know what Steve Landsburg (my brilliant fellow math student at the University of Rochester, now a professor of economics there, a man full of quirky and counter-intuitive takes on the subject) thinks about it, and Andy F.'s comments on what the author has to say about radio spectrum use.  It's not often that Porter (economics major, also at the UR) hears what appears to be an economic idea that is new to him.

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A Conversation with Peter Kreeft, thanks to Conversion Diary.  I knew at a gut level that the way we use language is vitally important; Kreeft helps me understand why:

As a philosopher the thing that strikes me most is the brilliant strategy of the gay marriage movement. Like Orwell in 1984 it sees that the main battlefield is language. If they can redefine a key term like "marriage" they win. Control language and you control thought; control thought and you control action; control action and you control the world. Mussolini knew that too. He made it illegal for Italians to say "hi" in the traditional way. The Italian for "how are you?" is "Come sta lei?" "Lei" is the feminine inclusive pronoun. Fascist ideology held that this was emasculating and weak, so you had to say "Come sta lui?" from now on. "Lui" is the masculine pronoun. So no one could say "hi" in Italy without identifying themselves as pro or anti-fascist.

In America, the feminists have succeeded in exactly the same way. They've labeled the traditional inclusive language, the language of every single one of the great books of Western civilization written in English, as exclusive because it uses "he" and "man" to include women; and they've labeled their new artificial ideological invention, which insists, contrary to historical fact, that "he" and "man" exclude women -- they've labeled this "inclusive" language.  And amazingly, nearly everyone follows like sheep!

In Kreeft's surprising statement of what inspires him to write I found—if I may be allowed such a mountain-to-molehill analogy—the clearest, neatest expression I know of Li'l Writer's Guy's raison d'être.

Greed inspires me. Greed for truth, for one thing: I want to learn, and I learn best by teaching, and writing is a form of teaching. Greed to share the truths I find exciting and joyful with others, too. Greed to create, for another thing. What the artist wants to build with color or the musician with sound, the writer wants to build with words.

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The Domestic Monastery, also from Conversion Diary.  Especially for young mothers who feel isolated and without the ability to string two thoughts together without interruption.

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Here's a scary one that deserves more attention, but you can find out for yourself by clicking the links.  I've heard about serious problems with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 from many diverse sources—liberal and conservative, from librarians to makers of organic diapers.  While the Consumer Product Safety Commission relieved some fears in a clarification two days ago, the new testing requirements for children's products are still likely to drive out of business small companies, particularly those in niche markets for organic, "green," and handmade items.  How is it that in response to irresponsible behavior on the part of Chinese manufacturers we enact laws that favor big businesses like Wal-Mart and destroy the small companies that were already offering safe alternatives?

Li'l Writer Guy has return from his monastic retreat (we picked him up on our return from The Wedding), but is still experiencing re-entry, so you'll still mostly be getting quick takes and pointers to what others have written.  Probably lots of both, however, as the number of comment-worthy events and posts has multiplied almost out of control.  The most efficient way to deal with them is probably to present them with a simple "here, you might find this interesting."

I'm also working on a restructuring of this blog, so please bear with me as I play around.  For the first time in months I haven't had the immediate pressure of travel/new grandchild/wedding/holidays driving my life, and I'm looking forward to some signficant housecleaning in many areas of my life.  This feeling of reduced pressure is probably a fool's paradise, as there are still major wedding plans to work out (for the U.S. ceremony in the summer), other travel coming up, and the backlog of important work that was set aside for the more urgent (but also important)—but let me enjoy the moment.

Li'l Writer Guy completely understands that what you are all waiting for is the story of our trip and the reason we made it, and plans some serious work on that once his desk is dusted and the piles organized.

With a fair amount of admitted prejudice, I have said that Heather and Jon's wedding was the most perfect, beautiful, and appropriate wedding ever.  Now I must expand that statement:  Janet and Stephan's wedding was totally different, yet equally perfect, beautiful and appropriate.  (I can say this because I had little to do with the planning and execution of either wedding.)

The all-day festivities deserve a much longer post, but the day is very nearly over, so details will have to wait.  But to all you who were praying for and/or thinking of us today, rejoice that from the ceremony in the ancient church to the dinner in the Medieval castle, from the radiant bride to the adorable ring bearer, from the live Medieval music to the lively Renaissance dancing, all crafted and infused with the great love of family and friends, the wedding was a magnificent success.

Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Stephan Stücklin!

Marie Winn, in The Plug-In Drug, tells us that it's not enough to substitute good television shows for bad, because the process of watching television has physical and psychological effects that are independent of content.  Andrew Pudewa makes the same point for music, in The Profound Effects of Music on Life.  Most of us are reluctant, for good reason, to believe that harm can be inherent in a particular technology, but take the view that good or evil is a matter of intent:  the question is whether the knife is in the hands of a surgeon, a chef, or a hit man.

The Chinese government, however, understands:

Amid post-Olympics shifts in China's attitude toward the West, the government decided that sacred music should disappear. "Quietly and without publicity, the Chinese authorities have let it be known that Western religious music should no longer be performed in concert halls. It's an unexpected decision, and one for which there is no obvious explanation or trigger," Catherine Sampson wrote in The Guardian. Even things that merely seem like Western sacred music—including Carl Orff's decidedly unsacred Carmina Burana—have been stopped.

Carmina Burana—the gateway drug.  :)

Here in Florida we have our own way of celebrating great events.  It helps to know a Disney big-wig or two.

 

Congratulations, Janet and Stephan!

 

(Click on the link.)

Patrick Deneen has a thoughtful meditiation on the Winter Solstice that is worth reading in its entirety.

Christianity was able to adapt aspects of these ancient practices, given that they were not contradictory to the way in which time was experienced in the life of the church. While there have been many claims that Christianity introduces a linear conception of time, the life of the Church is experienced in a circular fashion—from Advent to the birth of Christ, through the "Ordinary time" in which the words and deeds of Christ are recalled, into the Lenten season of penitence and fasting (during the deadest months of winter and just before the bursting of Spring), to the Triduum and the Easter celebration of resurrection and renewal (coinciding with the beginning of Spring, with all of its images and resonances of fertility), and again into "ordinary time" until the coming again of Advent. The Church's calendar was overlaid on these ancient practices, recognizing the coming and passing of seasons, of planetary motion and of the course of human birth, life, death, and (it was hoped) renewal.

This morning Google News reported the following two stories sequentially [emphasis added]:

Controversy Over New 'Conscience' Rule:  Bush Broadens Rule on Refusal of Health Services for Moral Reasons

An 11th-hour ruling from the Bush administration gives health care workers, hospitals, and insurers more leeway to refuse health services for moral or religious reasons.

The rule, issued today, becomes effective in 30 days. Its main provisions widen the number of health workers and institutions that may refuse, based on "sincere religious belief or moral conviction," to provide care or referrals to patients.

"This rule protects the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience," says Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt....

A wide number of medical groups strongly oppose the new ruling. These groups include the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Nurses Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and 27 state medical associations.

"Today's regulation issued by HHS under the guise of 'protecting' the conscience of health care providers, is yet another reminder of the outgoing administration's implicit contempt for women's right to accurate and complete reproductive health information and legal medical procedures," says a statement from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Shocking revelation: Santa Clara University professor mirrors famous torture study

Replicating one of the most controversial behavioral experiments in history, a Santa Clara University psychologist has found that people will follow orders from an authority figure to administer what they believe are painful electric shocks.

More than two-thirds of volunteers in the research study had to be stopped from administering 150 volt shocks of electricity, despite hearing a person's cries of pain, professor Jerry M. Burger concluded in a study published in the January issue of the journal American Psychologist.

"In a dramatic way, it illustrates that under certain circumstances people will act in very surprising and disturbing ways,'' said Burger.

The study, using paid volunteers from the South Bay, is similar to the famous 1974 "obedience study'' by the late Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. In the wake of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann's trial, Milgram was troubled by the willingness of people to obey authorities — even if it conflicted with their own conscience.

Take time out of your Christmas Rush and enjoy this offering from the Von Tone-Deaf Family Singers.  :)

(Hat tip to Jennifer at Conversion Diary.)

I'm sorry I've been too busy to write much lately.  Here's a quick tidbit for the one or two of you who check here daily and may be wondering where I am.  (Thank you, loyal reader!)

Here's an article that debunks some common medical myths.  I don't know as I believe everything they say (I mean, what parent hasn't seen a child go crazy after eating lots of sugar?), but here's an interesting take on the idea that it's important to wear a hat because we lose most of our body heat through our heads.

[T]he US Army Field manual for survival recommends covering your head in cold weather because around 40-45% of body heat is lost through the head.  A recent study, however, showed there is nothing special about heat loss from the head - any uncovered part of the body would lose heat.  Scrutiny of the literature shows this myth probably originated with an old military study in which scientists put individuals in arctic survival suits (but with no hat) and measured their body temperature in extreme conditions.  If the experiment had been done with the participants wearing only swimsuits they would not have lost more than 10% of their body heat through their heads, the researchers said.

Interesting.  I'm keeping my winter hat, though; there are times when I need that 10%.