Archive for August, 2007
Home School: First Day of School by A First Time Teacher–UPDATE
Monday, August 27th, 2007Like everyone else in Texas, school started today, except we didn’t get up at 6:00 a.m. (7:30) and we didn’t get on a big, hot, un-air-conditioned, yellow bus. We walked to the kitchen, had breakfast, cleaned up, and started with our studies.
I was nervous. There seemed to be so much material and I really wanted to finish in three hours as positive reinforcement for the kids. See? It won’t be as long as school. You’ll get to go swimming for gym time! The day did extend longer than I expected but they took an hour break in the morning to watch Sesame Street with little brother. That won’t happen again. When they take a long break, the momentum is lost. Lesson learned.
The curriculum integrates language, phonics, Bible, history and geography. So today we covered, no joke, Genesis 1 and the creation week, the location of Mesopotamia and believed location of Eden, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and modern-day Iraq. We prayed for the Iraqis and for our Troops. We discussed the notion of pre-history and imagined the world without fire. We also reviewed the continents and oceans. (They knew both. Montessori has a good geography program.) Spelling, hand-writing, math and reading were straight-forward affairs. The math and Latin curriculum are in the mail. Today, we worked on multiplication memorization drills. The kids also learned the proper usage of a/an. And they finished their day by calling a couple grandmas to do an “interview” for a future essay.
Sounds like a ton of work and I guess it was a ton of work. We just didn’t have the business of getting up from desks and sitting down, walking to a class, going to the bathroom, recess and whatnot. So while I fretted about the TV watching, they probably waste at least that much time in class in the morning.
We didn’t do art, music, or science. They will have to practice piano. They will have dance and drama. In the spring semester, we may join a theater group. I didn’t buy a science curriculum. Maybe I will. If things go as I think they might, we may have Friday’s free to do extra art and science projects.
The negatives: Bickering. Fidgeting. Irritating extraneous outbursts. Little brother braying like a donkey being branded to get attention. Perhaps this last issue concerns me most. Little Toot is not easy to entertain at this age. If sister and brother are here he wants them to play. I think this is a stage we’ll have to endure.
All in all, not too bad. Perhaps it’s the first love effect. It very well could be. From what I hear, there are highs and lows and good and bad days, sometimes weeks. That’s to be expected, I guess. We are all learning the drill.
UPDATE: I forgot their read a-loud and their chapter books. They have two stories going–one about capturing family memories (thus the grandma interviews), the other focuses on the Island of Capri and is pleasure reading. They do a lot of reading out loud. They also have a memory verse set to music.
Petreaus & Politics
Monday, August 27th, 2007Matt Sanchez has a must-read essay up at RightWingNews. He’s embedded in Ramadi.
To a man leading the most powerful military in the world, it is disconcerting that Petraeus’ greatest concern may not be enemy action but public dissatisfaction. As an embedded reporter with the American military, I write these words from Iraq, where I’ve never met a “pro-war” Marine, soldier; just troops who want to successfully complete their task. There are those who are opposed to this war and those opposed to the idea of war itself—I suspect these are the groups who denounce children playing pretend war in school yards, but when it comes to supporting a true war on a real battlefield, the troops should expect real support.
I don’t fault General Petreus because he has a clear political understanding. He knows that if he plays this wrong, the outcome could very well be war defunding by a weak, corrupt Congress. He’s heard the words, “Don’t think that we won’t do it.”
Unfortunately, I think the result of the Petreus soft-sell might be the opposite of what he intends. Like the Patton quote Sanchez mentions, Americans like winners. There has been scant evidence, due to a biased media, that we’re winning. The only voice we look forward to hearing is General Petreus. If the President or any military leader claims any sort of victory, the press immediately dissects and discards the notion. They laughably cry “bias”!
In addition, I know people even now, who just can’t let the origins of the Iraq war go. Convinced that Bush manipulated intelligence, they refuse to get behind the effort because it was a made-up conflict. No amount of reasoning works. The war never should have happened. Period. These people continue to refuse to come to the intellectual table now, today, weighing the evidence as it currently stands.
Watching Russert’s round-table this Sunday, I marveled at the reporter’s consensus: No matter what happens, Iraq is lost. It’s a mess. It’s irredeemable. The only choice is the least bad choice. It was a disgusting display, really. All smartly dressed, erudite and vapid at the same time. Do they know of any facts on the ground at all? Maybe, but they’re just spewing what they believed before the war. It’s hopeless.
And while a few educated people read blogs, and lots of people keep personal blogs and diaries, the main news people consume is beamed from NBC, CBS and ABC. Russert throws soft-balls to three biased reporters (the New York Times guy was the only one remotely positive) and those are The Facts. Ameicans, the vast majority uninterested in politics, absorb them like poison.
“The Facts” are nothing of the sort. They are opinions backed with selective evidence. But how is David Petreus supposed to fight against that narrative? Unless he was making a daily news conference, he couldn’t.
Perhaps, a few emotional speeches talking about a peaceful Iraq would help. It’s the moral thing, after all, to be on the side that promotes freedom, choice and peace. It’s the warriors and their supporters that speak and write in these terms.
Losing means, chaos, crime, and murder. It is hardly the moral choice.
France Aplogizing to Iraq
Monday, August 27th, 2007For what do they apologize, if they had the moral high ground before the war? And will France apologizing make the haters here nervous? No, it will take a while for America’s Leftists to get it. Americans have always been slower than the French. As Glenn Reynolds says:
They’re usually pretty good at spotting a shift in the wind.
In America, the Leftists are still defending the indefensible–namely letting Vietnam fall to communism and murder. Don’t expect American Leftists ever to apologize. It would undermine their narrative, not to mention call into question their raison d’etre.
Yahoo! Communist Collaborators: Selling Out Freedom To Make A Buck
Monday, August 27th, 2007
LEFT: These people were tortured by the Chinese government because of information given to them by Yahoo!
You know those German companies that made money using slave labor during WWII? Remember the whole premise of Schindler’s List? Yeah, well, Yahoo! can put themselves in the same category of business owner–willing to look the other way at moral depravity for their own bottom line:
Yahoo! acknowledged that it provided Chinese officials with identifying information of its Yahoo! service users that made these arbitrary arrests and long-term imprisonments possible, but the company claims that it had to provide the information in compliance with Chinese law. Sklar noted that “the language of China’s requests to Yahoo! make it clear that these individuals were being targeted for their exercise of free speech and free press rights, and not for any legitimate law enforcement reasons.” During Congressional hearings held in February 2006, Yahoo! also defended its actions by claiming that it was not aware of the purpose for which the information was requested. Recent information has surfaced, however, indicating that Yahoo! was, in fact, aware of the repressive purposes of the requests. On August 3, Tom Lantos (D-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced that Congress would investigate Yahoo!’s conflicting statements to determine whether the internet company lied under oath about what it knew during last year’s Congressional hearings.
I’m not saying that the Yahoo! leadership are a bunch of Nazis. I’m saying they are communist collaborators. Perhaps they never viewed themselves this way. Perhaps they quaver at losing the Chinese market over principles. Perhaps they rationalized into collaborating with communist thugs. I hope they’re losing sleep at night.
Berkely Breathed Rocks
Monday, August 27th, 2007
I have all the Bloom County books as anyone who stays in the guest bedroom knows. In my bleak teenage years (are there happy teenage years?), Berkely Breathed’s witty takes and silly satire got me through with lots of laughs. To prove my County cred, my favorite character is Oliver. See left. In my favorite series, Oliver debates whether God exists and God answers, but Oliver studiously misses the message in the stars.
Berkely Breathed is back in the news. His syndicated column Opus won’t be run in some papers because of this strip:
Today’s strip features Steve Dallas and his on-again, off-again paramour and spiritual flibbertigibbet Lola Granola. In the strip, she has changed her name to “Fatima Struggle” and argues that she now knows not to resist a “man’s rightful place”. That’s it; no exploding bombs, no images of Muhammed, no violence.
Also, no newspaper has addressed its decision to black out Breathed for today and next Sunday. It’s possible that next Sunday has something more objectionable, but if today’s strip is any indication, the reasoning is that newspapers refuse to show any kind of satire that targets Islam, even if specifically aimed at its radical extremes.
Last week, the Post and all of Breathed’s customers had no problem satirizing Jerry Falwell and Christian beliefs of the afterlife. I’m glad they didn’t; I found it funny and provocative, the kind of installment that Breathed usually produces. If anything, today’s strip is less about the religious belief of Islam than last week’s was about Christianity’s tenets, and yet, the newspapers found it necessary to protect themselves from this strip and not the other. Why is that?
Oh, yeah — because radical Islamists react with violence rather than rational objections. And the newspapers, in all their collective courage, can’t find it within themselves to let a satirist do his work where it is most needed. Billy Hollis at QandO says the newspapers should be ashamed of themselves, but won’t be. Maybe Breathed can tackle that as his next subject.
Wouldn’t want to inflame the moderate American Muslims. Don’t worry about inflaming the Christianists, though.
More Politically Correct Research
Sunday, August 26th, 2007Do racial preferences result in failure for the lawyer aspirants they’re meant to help? We’ll never know, because the results could be uncomfortable for all those who value the status quo.
Forget truth. Political correctness trumps science.
Spouses Sleeping Separate TomKat Edition
Sunday, August 26th, 2007I’m telling you, I’m a trend-setter. I don’t know if this will make you a believer or if you’ll suffer the snoring just to keep you out of their crazy camp, but Tom Cruise and his beloved Katie Holmes sleep in separate rooms:
“In fact, they even joke about having separate bedrooms to their friends – Katie says Tom snores, and this way she can get her beauty sleep!”“Of course they spend time together alone at night like most married couples; after all, they conceived Suri!”
Mais, oui! Conjugal relations and sleep are two entirely different things. The former can be had in airplane bathrooms, the latter, to be fully enjoyed needs a lovely bed, pillows, peace, quiet and sufficient darkness.
Can Americans stop the charade? Sharing a bedroom is uncivilized. Who needs to share all the nasty business of sleep (drool, gaseous emissions, eye boogers)? Better to leave some things mysterious, I say. Separate bedrooms keeps the love alive.
"Texans are doing just fine governing Texas."
Sunday, August 26th, 2007Governor Rick Perry responds to European critics of the death penalty:
“230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.”
Yes, we are. Thank you. Just last week, I cited this example of why I believe in the death penalty. The Europeans should just eat their crumpets and croissants in silence. When they criticize they make themselves look stupid.
H/T Glenn Reynolds
Iraq Successes Framed as Failures by AP
Saturday, August 25th, 2007The real story from Iraq being obscured by another MSM source. Snooze. Gateway Pundit shows the real numbers and says this:
Rather than report honestly about results on the ground in Iraq since the surge began earlier this year, the AP plays with numbers to paint a bleak picture.The Associated Press leads off today with the headline:
“Iraq body count running at double pace”
The media is again leading the charge to make sure that America loses this war to the militant Islamic killers in Iraq (and later in Afghanistan, no doubt). It used to be that losing a war meant that you were losing more soldiers or assets than your enemy. That certainly isn’t the case anymore as you can see from the chart below:
Go over and read the whole thing.
Interesting….
Saturday, August 25th, 2007It’s raining right now and the sun is shining full blast. Weird. Global warming must be caused by humans. How else would this be possible?
More incongruous thoughts:
Mother Theresa didn’t believe in God?
The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book’s compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, “neither in her heart or in the eucharist.”
Isn’t she a Saint? And didn’t Christopher Hitchens play Devil’s Advocate against her sainthood?
Jonah Goldberg discusses the love of dogs and what it means to be human regarding Michael Vick’s conviction. He’s changed my mind. This is what he said:
Indeed, as many have noted, dogs look to us as we look to God. Even Ambrose Bierce, a great cynic, defined “reverence” as “the spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.
Finally, Brendan Loy notes, “All’s Quiet on the Atlantic Front“.
It’s still not a “slow season” yet, but if this keeps up for the next couple weeks, it will be.
Let’s hope the scientists are wrong. Again. For many different satisfying reasons.
