Lift Up Your Hearts!

Advocates of home birth complain that doctors and hospitals view childbirth as a medical procedure rather than a natural event. Today's Orlando Sentinel adds to the evidence for their position, reporting that photographing a birth is now forbidden at most local hospitals.

"You don't go into the operating room and take pictures of surgical procedures," said Pat DuRant, Florida Hospital's assistant vice president of women's and medical-surgical services.

Not only do they consider childbirth to be akin to surgery, but apparently their primary concern is that there not be any video evidence to bolster a malpractice suit if someone makes a mistake.

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.

Fifty Reasons for Homeschooling

1. We have long known that we would have to supplement our children's educations, whether they were in public or private schools. For a while we were content with this, but the increasing homework load, plus all those hours spent in school, has made this impractical if not impossible.


2. More time could be gained by dropping extracurricular activities, such as music lessons, choir, and the Indian Princess program, but we consider these to be essential elements of education.


3. In middle school the time load will become even worse. Not only is there more homework, but the schedule is such that students do not arrive home until after 4:00, severely limiting after-school activities and interfering with a reasonable bedtime.


4. Eighth grade is even worse, as eighth graders with any academic ambitions at all attend their first period class at the high school, for which they must catch a 7:00 bus.


5. Even this long schedule allows only seven class periods per day; sixth and seventh grades have only six. There are no classes that meet less than five times per week, so this leaves open only two class periods beyond the core of math, science, social studies, and English. One of the two may be band or chorus (she'd have to choose between them); the other is required to be 2/3 PE and 1/3 gifted resource class. She would have no opportunity for art, home ec, shop, foreign language, etc. This is simply too restrictive a curriculum. I could cry when I remember all the different classes I was able to take in junior high school.


6. While most middle school girls are probably delighted to have only twelve weeks of PE per year—I wouldn't have minded that myself—it's not enough physical activity for a child who no longer has recess and whose schedule does not permit any other outdoor activities on school days.


7. The situation does not improve in high school, either academically or physically. Only one year of PE is required, and most kids take it in summer school, because summer school is virtually required and PE is easier to compress than algebra. Summer school is necessary for anyone with academic ambitions because there are only six periods in a high school day. That is because these periods are sixty minutes long, longer even than our college classes! After a long fight, the school board finally relented and will be offering a seventh period—after the normal school day ends, thus forcing students to choose between the extra class and any after school activities.


8. I have observed top level sixth grade math classes this year, and am not at all happy with the pace of learning. I realize that math requires a good deal of repetition before it becomes second nature, but the students are entitled to enough new material to keep them from giving up on math as altogether too boring for words.


9. Speaking of math, our youngest has now spent two and a half years in school and knows only a small fraction more math than she knew before she entered kindergarten. I don't know how our country expects to turn out mathematicians if its schools allow them to vegetate for so long in the subject.


10. Both children are suffering the consequences of low expectations. They are working hard, in and out of school, but the work is not the mental stimulation it should be. Any threats to their grades are not academic but organizational: forgotten homework, poor time-management, bad study habits, etc. Granted, organizational skills are very important, but children deserve an academic challenge as well. Our primary concern is in the area of reading; our oldest has never been given any reading assignment in school in which the vocabulary, content, or style placed any demands on her reading ability. It is tempting to be happy that school is easy for her, until you realize that she is missing out on the most important aspect of education: learning how to learn. The lazy mental habits acquired through unchallenged schooling can be disastrous later in life.


11. One-day-per-week "gifted" classes are no substitute for solid academic training. They do provide opportunity for interaction with children of similar abilities, and for more interesting activities than regular classroom work, but in reality the most that is accomplished is the establishment of "one day each week when I'm not bored." Depending on the teacher, far too much time may also be spent on affective activities. The middle school offers some gifted academic classes that would be useful if they were not offered in a six-period day context.


12. The schools' social expectations are low, too. The teachers expect the children to be TV-saturated and rock-music oriented. Although some effort is being made to change it, the Friday afternoon "reward" for a week's good behavior is still most often a movie. I would not mind "educational" movies so much (although I still think recess would be a better reward), but most of them are entertainment-oriented. Some teachers can't seem to imagine children being entertained by something educational. And maybe they're right. Our youngest came home upset one day because they had been watching a movie about animals which she had been enjoying very much. Due to the misbehavior of some of the students, however, that movie was stopped in the middle and a more "entertaining" one substituted.


13. The lower grades are not so much of a problem, but rock music blares out of the fifth grade during party times. Some buses play rock music as they make their rounds. I realize that many students love rock music, and if that is their musical taste, I have no right to deny them, on their own time. But as we keep trying to explain to deaf school system ears, there is a big difference between what is allowed in terms of books, music, and movies, and what is school-sanctioned. Are we alone in thinking that the schools should set higher standards than the general community?


14. If the academic atmosphere is too slow, the social atmosphere of middle school is too advanced—if that is the word for it. Having worked in the school for a year, I have observed a steamy atmosphere of pre-teen dances, sexual innuendo, steady dating, foul language, and social ambition. The clothes you wear are very important, and even the teachers have been known to speak disparagingly of "the kind of girl who would buy clothes at K-Mart." It is bad enough that so many of her peers have their standards determined by Hollywood; more disturbing is that the schools go along with it.


15. The atmosphere is not only steamy, it is also cruel. From my own observations, and the experiences of friends with children in middle school, I can see that the "normal" adolescent tendency to cruelty toward other kids is given almost free rein. I don't know if the teachers are afraid of the students, or think this is an important stage of development, or are just unable to keep them civil, but it's a jungle in there.


16. We hear a lot of talk about the need to prepare the students for the "real world." This is true, but the schools' idea of the real world and ours are vastly different. I see the world as a place where you can enjoy and must get along with many different kinds of people, but where there are choices: if it's too hard to get along with your boss, or your neighbor, you can get a new job, or move. Also, in the real world there are laws against assault, slander, and child abuse. (I guess it's not called child abuse if it's done by another child.)


17. We have tried to work within the system, serving on and working with the school advisory committees, PTA, advocacy groups, and the school volunteer program, attending school board meetings, helping with parties, going on field trips, keeping close track of what goes on at school, in general knowing and being known. All these have helped, have been very important. And we have a good school, with a sympathetic administration and wonderful teachers. Indeed, when I look at all the available teachers, I believe that each year our kids were assigned to the best possible ones. But we've also become aware of a few key problems. One, all that involvement helps, but it doesn't help enough. Two, we've seen changes made, changes for the better, and should be able to rejoice. But for the most part, the changes are too little or too late to help our kids. True, there is value in changing the system for the benefit of those to come, but how much family time can you sacrifice for the solving of other people's problems? Which also brings us to: Three, we've discovered that there are a lot of people out there who don't think much of the changes we'd like to make. What good does it do to give up our time to make changes for other people's kids, only to have them turn around and change things back, sacrificing their time to "fix" the system for subsequent students whose parents will probably try to change it back again!?


18. I love teaching our kids, and we work well together. I am not a good teacher, as such, and I take my hat off (or I would if I wore one) to anyone who can work with a classroom of thirty children. But I am a good tutor, and enjoy working with one or two kids at a time.


19. There are three reasons that I volunteer at our schools. One is simply community service, helping where help is needed. Relative to many districts in the country, our school taxes are low; service in the schools is a kind of voluntary tax of my time. The second motive, which in reality is the primary one, is that by helping others I can indirectly help our own children. Because I help run the Math Superstars program for the third grade, others are freed to do the same for the second and fifth grades. Moreover, involvement in the school shows our children that we are interested in their educations, and has vastly improved our relationship with school personnel. The third reason is simply that I enjoy the work. The first motive would be valid no matter where our children went to school, and I would hope that not only I but also the kids will be able to continue to offer some service in this way. The others, though, are somewhat specious. Having the good will of the school is helpful, and I wouldn't want to be without it, but there are too many problems that all the good will in the world won't fix. Above all, what kind of sense does it make to spend my time tutoring someone else's children so that that person can work with ours? It is like fixing dinner for a neighbor while she makes our meal: interesting on occasion, but pretty silly otherwise, since we each know our own family's needs best.


20. Homeschooling is not an option for most people. For those whose needs include day care, for those who don't like to teach or who don't feel competent to do so, for those who think the benefits of their school outweigh the problems, for those who have little interest in education, schools are a blessing. But I am home, I love to teach and am confident in my ability to help our children learn until they are experienced enough to take over the process themselves, I'm convinced that the disadvantages of school now outnumber the advantages, and I have lived and breathed education for the last seven years.


21. Their dad is a good teacher also, and strong in my areas of weakness. While of necessity most of the teaching responsibility will fall on my shoulders, he has a lot to contribute in the evenings and on weekends, and in terms of ideas, wisdom, and direction.


22. Homeschooling will allow our children to learn at their own paces, permitting them to advance in their areas of strength and take more time in areas of weakness.


23. A homeschool curriculum can be tailored to fit each child's individual needs and interests.


24. In the one-to-one, tutoring relationship, misunderstandings can be detected early, and mistakes corrected while they are still fresh.


25. Homeschooling should save a lot of time. Not the parents' time, of course. But tutoring is a much more efficient use of a student's time. Witness a friend's daughter, who was as an eighth grader confined at home by illness for three months. She had no difficulty staying caught up with her classmates on two hours of work a week—and she was in advanced classes! Not that we expect to spend only two hours per week on school work. The homeschoolers we know spend anywhere from two to six hours per day "in school." But we expect to do a lot more than just "stay caught up" with the public schools.


26. Time is a major issue. The enormous amount of time swallowed up by school (and, I'll admit, extra-curricular activities) is depriving our children socially, physically, and emotionally. Socially, they have little time to play with their friends. Traditional ways of coping with this might be: Letting them stay up later to do homework, so they could play in the afternoons (unacceptable; they need the sleep). Cutting down on their TV time (impossible; you can't watch less than nothing). Teaching them to work more efficiently (a good one; we're working on it). Restricting extra-curricular activities (forget it). Encouraging them to take the route many of their friends have, of not worrying so much about doing a good job (forget this one, too). Or reducing the number of chores they are expected to do at home (they'd like this one, but we wouldn't). One of our homeschooling goals is to work the kids hard during the day, but to arrange it so that they will be finished when their friends return from school.


27. We have seen our oldest daughter's physical fitness level drop each year, as she spends more time with the books and less outdoors. With homeschool, not only would there be more "after school" time, but we could incorporate recess and daily fitness activities into the curriculum.


28. One of our biggest time concerns is that our children do not have enough time to be kids. They need time to play, time to explore, time to call their own, even time to be bored, if that were possible. Homeschooling will give them time to be children while avoiding the middle school atmosphere that forces children to grow up before they are ready.


29. Homeschooling should also reduce the unnecessary stress put on adolescents these days. Every school official we have heard from admits that middle school is too stressful; it is even noticeable in elementary school.


30. In homeschool, we can teach practical home economics. (And not "Orientation to Home Economics Occupations," which is what is offered in our middle school!) Cooking, sewing, housekeeping, etc. can be taught in a much more logical manner where the benefits are immediately obvious.


31. Other "practical arts" courses would have similar at-home benefits. Yardwork, car maintenance, the use of basic tools, and the like could be taught in a much more natural way.


32. We can provide a better, more practical, and more comprehensive computer education program than the schools do.


33. Homeschooling will enable our oldest to continue in church choir. Because of the middle school schedule, which would get her home after choir was more than half finished, she would otherwise have to drop out.


34. This way we can be more flexible about scheduling music lessons, not being restricted to normal after school hours.


35. Homeschooling removes us from the uncertainties of the public school situation. Rapid growth is threatening us with cutbacks in services, rezoning, double sessions, and/or year-round schools.


36. As long as we put in the required number of days, and cover the material, we are free to be as flexible as we like in our schedule. This means we can have classes in the summer and take our vacation in the winter, if that is what we'd like. We can take off the same days that our county does, for more interaction with neighborhood friends, or work on some of those days and take off days that correspond with vacations of friends in other counties, or with the arrival of relatives, or whatever.


37. The girls need more religious instruction than they get at church. As noted before, time for supplemental teaching is scarce, and they certainly won't get it in school.


38. Frankly, despite our love for our school, I'm tired of "winter holidays," "spring break," and the unnatural removal of all references to religious activity in life as it is presented in public schools. I realize schools must be very careful not to give offense, but I find the resulting blandness pretty offensive myself. Once when I observed a second grade class, the teacher gave the following lesson in her reading group: "Who made the mountains? Did men make the mountains? No, Nature made the mountains." And this year, at a "holiday party," the teacher (a Christian herself but limited by school policy) sang a dozen carols with the class, not one of which made any reference to Christmas at all! I hate to start any sentence with "In my day . . ." because it makes me feel old, but in my day people at least realized that Christmas is a national holiday and therefore didn't choke on the name. Songs were not excluded from our repertoire just because they mentioned God; the musical and historical value of Christmas carols, Negro spirituals, and the like were recognized. (I wonder what Negro spirituals are called these days; maybe they're just not sung at all any more.) In addition to excluding traditional religion (meaning Judaism and Christianity, mostly) from the classroom, the schools seem to have invented one of their own, a combination of pop psychology and materialism that comes across as flat and boring. There's a limit to how much of this kind of stuff I can stomach.


39. Homeschooling seems to be the only way out of our reading dilemma. There are so many books that we feel are important for the kids to read; books that we read as children, but also many that we didn't read but wish we had. (The expectations placed on us in school were not always the best, either.) Our children are quite willing to follow our suggestions in reading, but time again is our enemy. We're more inclined to encourage them to play outside in their free time, because they spend so much time at bookwork as it is. The schools are not helpful at all in this, even at the middle school level; they seem to have quite a different set of books that they think are important. Reading will be a big part of our homeschooling curriculum, and we get to choose the books.


40. We believe that one of the primary forces that drives a family apart during the adolescent and teen years is the excessive peer dependency fostered by the school environment. Homeschooling will provide a proper balance of peer and family activities.


41. A chief goal of our homeschool will be to teach the girls how to learn: how to dig into a subject and work at it until it is understood, how to find out information on their own without having to be spoon-fed. Too many bright children graduate from high school without ever learning anything of the sort.


42. Field trips would be less crowded and hectic, with more opportunities for discussion, and more direct application to what is being studied.


43. Once you begin to think in terms of homeschool, all of life becomes educational. We have always been education-oriented, but now find ourselves even more so. Once we made the decision to homeschool, we began integrating learning into everything we do. This not only increases our knowledge, but enriches our relationships as well.


44. Homeschooling is legal in Florida, with modest restrictions.


45. While homeschooling is not commonplace, we are hardly pioneers. There are many resources available to us: other homeschooling families (we know several), books, curriculum publishers, support groups, and magazines.


46. Homeschooling will allow us to begin foreign language instruction before eighth grade. (You can begin in eighth grade if you are willing to attend first period at the high school.)


47. We are tired of fighting a school system with values so markedly different from ours. Why spend so much energy trying unsuccessfully to convince them to teach what we think they should, and not to teach the things we think they should leave alone? Surely that energy is better and more effectively spent working directly with our own kids.


48. We also have trouble with the schools' approach to discipline. The philosophy, even in middle school, is a kind of mushy behavior modification approach that is teaching the kids to expect a reward every time they do something right. There is also altogether too much group discipline, where everyone is punished for the misbehavior of a few. And the kids who are real troublemakers rarely get any punishment worse than a severe "talking to." I know that the schools are very leery of corporal punishment, but why they don't use their power of suspension more often is beyond me.


49. In short, we believe homeschooling to be the alternative that best meets our children's academic, mental, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual needs.


50. Besides, we expect to have a lot of fun!

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.

School is not compulsory in the United Kingdom, contrary to some official notices....In the UK it is not necessary either to register as a home-educator or to ask anyone’s permission.

Parents of the home-educated children in this age group tended to have planned for home-education from birth, or at least from very early on; thus the parents had generally given more attention to their children’s early learning than they might perhaps have done had they known that the children would soon be starting school. The parents were thus not awaiting the ‘big day’ when school began and responsibility for their children’s education would be delegated to an external institution. Unlike the situation for schoolchildren, for the home-educated cohort, there was no right or wrong time to learn and it may well be that the most efficient way in which to gain skills and knowledge for life, would be to permit children to acquire information at their own pace.

As the children commonly spent their time with either one parent or the other, parental influence appears to have been an important contributing factor in the children’s exceptionally high…scores. In the same way that [other studies] found that the effect on children of a good teacher was enduring, so the home-educated children’s continued high scores may have been the result of the strong bond with their parents. Just as…teachers responded better to children whose company they most enjoyed, it would seem that the parents were those who had the most invested in their children’s development; this pattern created the cycle of positive attribution.

All the children scored good marks, whatever their background and family structure…. [T]he home educated children from the lower socio-economic groups scored significantly higher than those with professional parents. The most obvious reason for their doing well, and one that is supported by evidence from other sources, is that home-educated children are, at least amongst their own ranks, free from the stigma of being poor, simply because they are not learning in an environment where affluence and labelling are an issue.

[S]tarting school at a later age may well have no detrimental effect upon learning skills. The results from the present study suggested that a delayed school start date may have very positive effects.

 

The findings lent support to the idea that parental input was not just a useful support tool, but that indeed, it could substitute for professional assistance.

 

The findings in the present research, underpinned as they are by previous research, provide support for the value of informal settings in children’s education and inherently questions the ‘accepted’ wisdom that children need school to learn.

[I]nterviews with home-educating families show that while for many home educators, raising a family on the equivalent of one income is a burden, the families valued the freedom to live according to their own ideals and relished the flexibility to, ‘do what we want, when we want.’ It seems that happiness, a feature of home-education…may well extend to raising the children’s levels of learning.

Research focusing on older home-educated children suggests that the findings reported here of high attainment continue through Key Stages 1 and 2 [UK educational terms, roughly ages 5-7 and 7-11]. However, in view of the overall indication that home-educated children are learning on an entirely different trajectory from schoolchildren it is perhaps unhelpful to think of these children in terms of Key Stages. Expectations and outcomes for these children may have little in common with those anticipated from schoolchildren. Indeed, while the phrase ‘home-education’ suggests an education taking place in the home as opposed to the school, this is incorrect. Home-education is best described as an individually tailored education (ITE) whereby the children work from a home base but often spend a large amount of their time away from the home itself, instead attending group get-togethers and activities, visiting parks, museums, friends’ houses, libraries and ‘after school’ groups. In general this is an education gained through ‘living and doing.’

And the conclusion:

 

Insofar as the PIPS Reception data was concerned, the home-educated four and five-year-olds demonstrated high levels of ability and good social skills. The children appeared to benefit from an education that was flexible and tailored to their individual needs and interests. Another important factor was the attention given to them by their families. In particular, parental input and interest was high. Learning appeared to be on a gentle incline from birth, a process that appears to have suited the children very well.

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.

All too true. But the idealized portrait of the corporate "lactation room" supplied with pumps, telephones, Internet connections, CD players and reading material neglects a major component of the advantages of breastfeeding. Yes, the milk itself is perfectly designed for human beings and superior in countless ways to the best possible artificial formula. However, just as the formula-makers try to isolate and imitate what they consider to be the important components of human milk, the proponents of workplace lactation are focusing nearsightedly on one part of the breastfeeding relationship—the milk—and ignoring or minimizing the human factors. Nursing is a relationship, a two-person job, an intimate interaction between mother and child. Milk that is mechanically pumped, far away from the sight, sound, smell, and touch of the baby; refrigerated, stored, and dispensed in plastic bottles by someone who is not the baby's mother—this cannot come close to providing the benefits of an on-demand, skin-to-skin, eye-to-eye mother/child connection.

It may be the best that can be done in difficult circumstances, and it's certainly better than the same non-interaction using commercial formula. But it's time to stop pretending such substitutes are anything more than second best. One mother is quoted in the article as saying, of pumping milk for her son, "There is a lot of satisfaction in knowing I am doing right by him." She's doing better than she could be, and perhaps the best she can—that's not for me to judge. But she's not doing what's best for her son, and she shouldn't be beguiled into thinking she is.

Inexpensive prints of famous art works are a boon and a blessing, opening a world of beauty to many who could never see, let alone own, the originals. But no one pretends that a photo of the Mona Lisa is da Vinci's masterpiece, and someone who attempts to pass an imitation off as the real thing is normally considered a criminal.

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.