Lift Up Your Hearts!

At our children's elementary school, the administration made it clear that parents were not particularly welcome to visit their children’s classrooms, although occasional visits would be possible if special arrangements were made several days in advance.

Not long afterward, the school sent home a pamphlet about choosing daycare, in which it was stated that under no circumstances should children be in a daycare situation in which parents could not drop in at any time, without warning. If such visits were not allowed, the pamphlet warned, parents should suspect that the daycare provider had something to hide.

As far as I know, no one in the school’s administration appreciated the irony.

Hospitals: You can't live with them, and you can't live without them. A trip to a hospital can add years of health and wholeness to your life. Or, it might shorten your life dramatically, thanks to errors, incompetence, and hospital-acquired lethal infections. The decision as to when to seek medical care and when to trust a less interventionist approach is tricker than it once was. "Wait and see" can save you from huge medical bills, needless pain and suffering, and maybe even from death. But that attitude can also kill you.

Today's news highlights another disturbing piece of the puzzle. Hospitals, doctors, and government agencies are not just offering medical services, but compelling them, as in this story of an Irish hospital that forced a Congolese immigrant to undergo a blood transfusion against her will. It is tragic enough that others have the authority to force medical procedures on children against the wishes of their parents, but this case show that even conscious, cognizant adults are at risk.

The Coombe, one of Ireland's major maternity hospitals, said its policy was to do all it could to save a patient's life—and to go to court if necessary to do it.

Caveat emptor.

Even young children can benefit from music lessons. I knew that, but it's nice to read about this McMaster University study of twelve four- to six-year-old children, half of whom took Suzuki violin lessons. The tiny violinists performed better on both a general memory test and on a measurement related to attention and sound discrimination.

Twelve students is a small sample, so I'll add one more. When I administered early kindergarten "readiness" tests for our local elementary school, the one little boy I knew was a Suzuki violin student showed a marked superiority on the tests of listening skills and auditory processing.

Back in 1990, just before we took the plunge into homeschooling, I sat down one day and typed out every reason that came to mind for our decision. My purpose was not to make a reasoned argument for homeschooling, but to have something written down to which we could refer when the going got rough, to remind ourselves why we had made that choice.

At the time, I posted the list on the good ol' GEnie Education Round Table, my online support group. Now that I have my own blog, I thought it would be fun to publish it again. The list is specific to our particular school situation in places, and somewhat dated, but most of the reasons would still be valid were we beginning our homeschooling journey today.

At the time of writing, we had one child going into sixth grade and another going into third, both at our local public school. The elder had completed kindergarten and first grade in a private, Montessori school. (More)

Clouds prevented our seeing much of the launch, but we did once again enjoy the thrill of seeing the space shuttle's flame soar through the blue Florida sky.

The best view this time, however, was also available to those unable to see the sight live, thanks to the camera on the external tank. How amazing to see the earth receding during launch, and I never tire of seeing our shining planet from space. We were disappointed that our local TV station cut off coverage after the awesome separation of the shuttle and the tank; we would love to have followed that camera view for as long as possible.

Go Atlantis!

I'm cleaning out old computer files, and came upon this article by Paula Rothermal of the University of Durham. Unfortunately, I no longer have any idea where I acquired this comparison of home- and school-educated children in the UK.

For reasons of copyright, the above link goes only to an abstract of the paper, but I'm posting a few interesting quotes that I believe fall into the "fair use" category. (More)

I should be happy that the New York Times is highlighting the importance of breastfeeding. But this article on the difficulties faced by nursing mothers in lower-income jobs is disturbing in ways the author did not intend.

Poor women, and their children, suffer because their employers are not as sympathetic to their need to pump milk for their babies as are the employers of professional women. Thus they are less likely to breastfeed their children, and when they do it is not for as long a time, in yet another case of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. (More)

This isn't a review of Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. I haven't read the book, and am not sure I have the stomach to. But I found Steve Garber's review (thanks to Tom Grosh) and it's well worth reading. It's a little long, so whet your appetite with his conversation with two young women about the book.

One of them found the story of Charlotte's freshman year at college to be frighteningly realistic, while the other recalled plenty of on-campus exceptions to the sex-drug-and-alcohol party crowd: first and second generation Americans, goal-driven students intent on getting into graduate school, people immersed in their field of study, and communities of faith.

I don't know about the book, but the review is simultaneously horrifying and hopeful.

From this article on a Scottish study of the health benefits of drinking cider, I learned the following critical difference between what we in the U. S. and Canada call cider and what you get if you order the drink of that name elsewhere:

What is Cider?

It is an alcoholic drink made from apples which are first crushed and then fermented. In the USA and some some parts of Canada it is known as 'hard cider' - in those parts, the term 'cider' can often mean non-alcoholic apple juice. In the rest of the English-speaking world 'cider' refers only to the alcoholic drink.

Cider usually has an alcoholic content of 5% or more. It is generally stronger than beer. The British are the greatest cider drinkers in the world. In the UK it is available in many forms, such as sweet, medium or dry.

Not to mention the fact that the writer of the article has no idea that in the United States, at least in the Northeast, real cider—unpasteurized, unfiltered, varietal—is one of the most delicious drinks in the world. "Non-alcoholic apple juice"? You might as well describe Everest as "a mountain" or Shakespeare as "a playwright." True, as far as it goes, but it misses nearly everything important.

One recent morning I suddenly realized the theme from the Addams Family television show was running through my head. What brought about this bizarre occurance I have no idea. As far as I remember, I have not heard the song in some 40 years, and I even remembered some of the lyrics.

Be that as it may, it sparked a few thoughts about the evolution of the television experience. Regardless of how macabre Charles Addams' original cartoons, or the more modern stories of the Addams Family, may have been, the 1960's television show was more funny than disturbing. And that was about as deviant as television shows got back then. If most of the shows of that era can be accused of showing life as unrealistically innocent, today's stories (be they television shows, movies, or books) depict life as unrealistically foul, freakish, and frightening. Both approaches may be in error, but I know which is more likely to promote hopeful individuals and a healthy society.

We stopped at a Ruby Tuesday restaurant on our way through North Carolina. There we were delighted to order the bison burger, described in their online menu as "range-fed bison cooked just the way you like it."

Not in North Carolina. When we ordered ours rare, the waiter apologized, citing a state law mandating all burgers be cooked to nothing less than medium.

I might be tempted to appreciate the state's attempt to protect us from the dangers of our modern agricultural and meat processing and delivery practices, were it not for the shocking discovery that North Carolina still allows smoking in its restaurants!

The bison burger tasted good anyway.

Here's a cool interactive flash tool for tracking not only Ernesto but any other tropical storm that might be around, such as the Pacific's Ioke, which yesterday has winds of 160 mph and gusts of 195 mph!

Okay, I'm grateful no hurricanes threatened while we were out of town. Really I am. But it's good to be home, and I'd really rather Ernesto not be on the welcoming committee. Nor do I want him to be one of Porter's new co-workers in New Orleans.

I already gave away much of last year's "hurricane food"—the local food pantry specifically wants the canned stew and such we'd normally only eat as emergency rations. I've been replacing it gradually with new stock, but perhaps I'd better accelerate the process. And add to the stock of ice in our freezer, which as dwindled a bit, though we still have plenty in the form of water-filled, frozen milk jugs. I think everything else is in order.

But I hope not to have to prove it.

You have to bear in mind that the study was done in Britain, and was funded by the Tea Council, but it's still nice to hear more evidence of the health benefits of tea.

The actual research article in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, at least according to this abstract, is less effusive than the popular press version, but it hints at possible benefits in the areas of colorectal cancer, bone density, and dental health. Much clearer evidence associates drinking three or more cups of tea per day with a significant decrease in coronary heart disease risk.

However, the best news as far as I am concerned was learning that tea is as good for hydration as water is. Apparently the idea that tea dehydrates you is just a myth! That misconception never stopped me from drinking tea, but it did make me feel somewhat guilty, so I feel better now. The facts also conform to my experience; it was hard to believe I wasn't being hydrated when it sure felt as if I was, even if that did contradict conventional wisdom.

When I have a problem, I'm always amazed at how often a simple Internet search will reveal other with the same problem and very often a solution. But sometimes not. The negative results fall into two catgories: either I'm having a genuinely rare difficulty, or I haven't found the right combination of search terms to narrow the results down to something relevant.

I don't know which was the case with our recent Firefox problem, but I couldn't find any help, so I'm posting this in case it might help someone else.

Invisible Firefox, Firefox opens invisbly, invisble window, can't maximize window, perpetually minimized window, can't see open application window. Maybe that's enough search terms, at least for someone who thinks as I do. (More)