Bumbo Babies

The twins got Bumbo seats for Christmas. They are from South Africa and are all the rage among hip moms. I think they are pretty funny.


Don't laugh at me--you look pretty funny too!


Twin A's first girlfriend.

More photos at my Flickr account here.

Peace

Sick Boy: Updated

This is the big twin. His mother took the picture. He is going to the doctor today. He will probably be the third member of our family to be diagnosed with an ear infection. Little twin was diagnosed yesterday and three year old girl was diagnosed Monday. No one is getting much sleep right now.

Peace

UPDATE: It was not an ear or sinus infection, merely viral. Everyone in the house seems to have it.

Door into Winter, Part Four

Our Christmas door won the award for "Originality."

Last weekend I was at the computer with my headphones on, enjoying a game of Civilization IV and some DMB, when my wife exclaimed, "There's someone at the door!" It was 9:30pm on a Friday night; who could be at the door? I opened the door to find a group of carolers. They sang a couple of songs with great gusto, but not so much talent and piled into a large black SUV and drove off (we did not invite them in--the house was not ready for visitors). My wife and I have laughed for days about it.

The seven young men (six seniors and one sophomore) were my students. A couple of them had mentioned they might come a-caroling a couple of weeks ago, but I had written if off as typical teenager hyperbole. A few days before, a student had asked me how I would feel if I got t-p'ed. I have gone ten years as a teacher without such a blessing so I equivocated and told him that my neighbors probably wouldn't appreciate it. In retrospect, I think they were trying to plan some kind of event and couldn't decide between a good t-p or caroling. That they actually surveyed me to find out my preference is rather endearing. I approve of their choice.


Peace

Door into Winter, Part Three

I have been writing about the Christmas door decorating contests at my school. You can read the previous two installments here and here.

One year, I had a class of underachievers in a US History class. We spent a number of days planning outrageous things that I would never actually allow. At last, one of my students said, "I have a mounted deer's head at home. Let's stick it on the door." From that moment of inspiration we came up with an award-winning door that was both simple and unique. We mounted the deer's head on the door, put a red nose on it, and put a big sign above it that said, "Doing our part to restore the true meaning of Christmas." Under that was a list of the names of each of the reindeer with most of their names crossed off.

Fortunately, our high school is in a separate building as the lower school.

Our door for this year is complete and was judged this morning. No word on the winner though two judges had good things to say about it later in the day. Sadly, I cannot share the details of this door as it gives away my secret identity. Those of you in the know, it is a play on "I've been dreaming..."

Last thing: I got a google hit for "Christmas door decorating contest". How about that?

Peace

Door into Winter, Part Two

For part one, click here.

My favorite door was my last one. We cut out a simple green tree on a white background and hot glued sugar gum drops to the tree. We then stuck a toothpick into each sugar gum drop and hung a white ornament from each toothpick. Around each ornament we tied a yellow ribbon. We wrote this letter and pasted it to the door:

Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Christmas Tree

This year, as hundreds of thousands of US troops are deployed around the world, it is our hope that you will take a moment to pause and reflect on the sacrifices made by these brave men and women. Many of them will be putting their lives in danger throughout the Christmas season. All of them would prefer to be home with their families. Few of them will have a Silent Night. Some of them will die.

We ask that you would take one of these ornaments for your own tree at home. Each one has the name of a country where US troops are presently deployed. The yellow ribbon has not only become a symbol of the desire for all of our troops to return home safely, but will also draw the eye to this uncharacteristic color for a Christmas tree. When you see this ornament, we ask that you say a short prayer for the safety of our troops, the protection of their families, and peace to all.

We also ask that you take the time to read a sampling of letters from troops away from their homes at Christmas during the American Civil War.

Finally, we ask for a renewed dedication to the preservation of our civil liberties and our unique American heritage so that these sacrifices shall not have been in vain.


“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

I should probably do the same door until it is no longer necessary to have our boys and girls overseas.

Peace

Door into Winter

Update (11/12/2007) Other ideas for Christmas door decorating: Door into Winter II, Door into Winter III, and Christmas Door Decorating Contest.

The SGA at my school sponsors a Christmas door decorating contest every year. We missed it last year (on account of a new advisor), but it is back this year. The first period in a classroom gets the task of decorating their door with prizes awarded for creative, spiritual, and overall. My AP US class is my first period this year, and we brainstormed for eight minutes this morning (that is all the time I could spare). Most of the ideas involved a nude Ben Franklin. I should have never mentioned Franklin's tendency towards naturism (he called it taking an "air bath")as it has become a running gag in class. The one good idea involved using the famous Washington Crossing the Delaware painting and inserting cut out pictures of the members of the class in place of the characters on the painting. I would be Washington. Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas night to surprise the Hessians on the other side leading to one of Washington's finest victories of the war. The painting is, of course, pure patriotic fluff, but wonderful fluff all the same.
















I thought I would give you a taste of doors past this week. Only my first two doors failed to win, but only because my first could not win and the second was bad. That first door was also created by an AP US History class. We simply taped a single piece of white paper to the door that stated:

In protest of the crass commercialization of Christmas, our class would like to humbly present the idea that Christmas is not about contests but is, instead, about the birth of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ:


In Class, December 7, 2001. The unanimous Declaration of the six united students of AP US History,

When in the course of Christmas events, one class decides to separate itself from the bonds of Christmas Door Contests, it becomes necessary to declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all doors are created equal, that they are endowed by their maker with certain swinging motions, that among these are locking, opening and closing.

That whenever any form of contest becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the class to alter or abolish it, and to institute new contests, laying its foundation upon such principles as to them shall seem most likely to effect an understanding of the true meaning of Christmas.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the AP United States of America class, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of this contest, declare that Christmas is not about contests, decoration, winning or losing, or prizes. Instead, Christmas is and shall ever be about the promise of redemption of fallen man by the birth of the Jesus.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, Our Fortunes and our Sacred Door.

The entire class signed it, and we lost. The judges even went to the extraordinary measure of calling us out over the intercom when announcing the winners. They said something to the effect, "Any doors that removed themselves from the contest could not be awarded a prize." They had a point but missed ours.

Peace

Seeing Stars

Last week my three-year-old daughter got hold of a sheet of small, silver star stickers (say that ten times fast). I know this not because I saw her with the stickers but because of the sudden appearance of silver stars all over the house. They showed up on each of the four screws on a double light switch cover. There is currently one nicely centered on the mouse I am using. I thought she was done.

Yesterday, midway through the last period of the day, I hear, "Uh, Mr. Chintzibobs, there's a star on your, er, backside." Indeed, neatly centered on one of my buttons was a silver star. This comes a week after a belt loop on the back of my pants popped off in the middle of the day and stuck out in a most distracting manner. It is never good when the entire class laughs every time you turn around. Remind me to tell you the story about the Arby's ketchup.


The two big kids were in timeout in their room for not cleaning up the cushions of the couch in a timely manner. They were busy blaming each other for their dilemma. I interrupted in hopes of discovering who originally removed the cushions. The five-year-old boy blamed it on the three-year-old girl. In an unexpected rhetorical turn, the three-year-old girl blamed it on momma. The boy immediately recognized the fallacy of her argument, "Why did you say that?" Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I checked with momma. When I came back with the truth, she blamed Jesus. Her brother was outraged and shouted while pointing vaguely up, "Jesus is invisible and He never does anything wrong!" She countered with a devout hand over her heart, "Jesus is in our hearts."


My wife just came down to inform me that there is a giant lady bug blocking the door to our room. That would be my five-year-old son, but that is another story for another day.


Peace

Monday Miscellany: A Grave Subject

The Thanksgiving break was wonderful. I spent as much of it as I could outside. The weather was (and is) just too glorious to spend the days inside. The days are sunny and warm for November. My only complaint is that the sun leaves us by 5:30.

I spent my short break time continuing my winter yard upgrades. There is a narrow strip of wilderness on the north side of our house running the length of the property line. When we moved in, the wilderness was overgrown with blackberry, honeysuckle, and some kind of weed tree. I have been slowly beating back the wild and seem to have it on the retreat. In the process I have discovered that the area was a garbage dump for the previous residents. Two winters ago I disposed of four large garbage cans full of junk including beer cans, beer bottles, beer bottle caps, broken toys, broken tools, and sundry household items. I also discovered the remains of a fort of sorts.

This year I am working to excavate the remains of the fort and pull out some rocks for a landscape project I am working on. I found 14 caps from spray paint cans but no cans. I also found some linoleum, some carpet and lots of broken glass. Under all of that was a pile of rocks. When I say pile, I mean there is, in the middle of my little strip of woods, a collection of rocks covering an area about fifteen by fifteen feet and of as of yet undetermined depth. The five-year-old boy and the three-year-old girl helped me move some of the rocks but quickly got bored. I was able to renew the boy’s interest for another fifteen minutes by having him sort the rocks by color (he will gladly sort anything by color). Then he disappeared with a large stick and played with that for an hour. The girl used her shovel and pail in the dead vegetable garden patch.

Later the boy came to me said, “Daddy, you know how when humans die they bury them in the ground?”
“Uh, yes son.”

“I found a dead tomato and buried it. Then I drew an “X” over it in the dirt.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to tell him. I commended him for his creativity and sensitivity and assured him that the tomato’s family would have some closure. That got me thinking about graves. Just the day before at my parents for Thanksgiving leftovers, I had gone out to wonder my parent’s woods (I told you I spent a lot of time outside) and found my self-looking up at a tall, slender, and very dead pine tree that my dad wanted to take down. I stood at its base trying to figure out which way it was leaning to see if it was possible to bring down safely. Something shifted under my foot, and I heard something clink like too stones hitting together. Curious, I used my foot to sweep back the thick sheet of pine needles to reveal this:



Suddenly, a memory as vivid as it was distant came back to me: a little boy laying his dead pet hamster, Ivan III, to eternal rest at the foot of a young pine tree. The scent of the rotting vegetation, the sight of the black, root-bound soil, and the feel of the cold of the rich earth was so strong that I could see myself laying my pet in a small box underneath two red bricks. Years later, the tree that served as marker for Ivan’s grave has died. Even our graves die.

These thoughts went through my mind as I stood on a large pile of stones in the woods. What brought these stones here? Clearly, they were put there purposely by man. Could these stones be an Indian monument, a relic from the Civil War, or a grave?

We played soccer the rest of the afternoon.


Other Miscellany:
While at my parents, we broke out their new faux Christmas tree and decorated it. My daughter is very excited about Christmas this year and has no conception of time and she keeps asking if is Christmas. After three hours of tree decorating, it was time to go home. She was very upset to find out that we weren't taking the tree with us.


I was disappointed to hear about Kramer's offensive outburst but not terribly surprised. The offensive word he choose to employ has become ubiquitous in the current pop culture. Comics, rappers, and movies have made the word commonplace in an entertainment setting. My students (99% white) are growing up hearing the word continuously in daily use, and we should not be surprised to hear the word flowing out of the mouths of our children.

In my ten years of teaching, I have seen a steady increase in inappropriate racial/ethnic joking. While past racism in America was passed down from parent to child, I think a new racism is on the rise that is directly attributable to choices made by entertainment outlets and consumers. I am glad to see that a group of black leaders is seeking to end the black use of the word. According to CNN.com, "Black leaders on Monday challenged the entertainment industry, including rappers, to stop use of the racial slur that Michael Richards uttered in his tirade." For once, I agree with Jesse Jackson. This is a step in the right direction and may prove to be a positive result of Kramer's poor choice.


Peace

Monday Miscellany: The Queen is Dead

I have shared before some of my family's continuing battle to keep beasts of the field from grazing in the fields of our home (see here and here). Our efforts have not always been successful though this has been the first year in several that I have been able to walk to my car in the dark without fear of becoming ensnared in the web of a spider large enough to eat me.

It now appears that our home, indeed our entire neighborhood, sits over a raging hellmouth of Formicidae (ant). One of our new bus stop friends has informed us that the entire neighborhood struggles with ant intrusions. We have battled occasion invasions for several years, usually with Max Attrax or Ant Kil. During times of rain, they take shelter in our cars. During times of dry, they invade our home looking for water. They rarely invade the kitchen. Frankly, I am a bit offended that they do not plunder the kitchen for food. Too good for our grub, indeed! Perhaps the phenomenon is merely a critical commentary on the relative rarity of food preparation in our kitchen. Lately, they have invaded our bathroom. Specifically, they have demonstrated a preference for our bathtub.

After a couple of weeks of intense battle, I thought I had them licked on Friday. Their numbers had trickled to a few stragglers when I noticed that several of them were huddled in the corner around a rather large mass. Large for ants that is. I looked closer and noticed that it was not a mass, but a super ant. The Queen. Had she come out to parlay or had I interrupted her and her attendants during their daily bath? My terms were unconditional surrender, but I don't think she heard me as a stream of hot water and shampoo washed her down the drain. I went to school elated in victory and sure that the ants would not soon return.

Today they returned en masse. I came home to multiple tracks of ants in the bathroom. Their chief objective seems to be the homemade soap. Dejected, I destroyed several tracks and laid out the baits again. The battle between man and nature goes on. At least I can rest assured that our ants are clean ants.


Peace

Genius Has No...

This week we were discussing the rise of the women's movement during the 19th century in my AP US History class. I mentioned writer Mary E. Bryan's argument that "Genius has no sex." One of my students made a knowing, "Uh huh" under his breath. Chuckles of a few followed. I immediately amended my lecture notes. They now read, "Genius has no gender." The rewriting of history goes on...

Peace

View from my Window

My AP US History class has been a lot of fun this year. The biggest surprise about them has been that they actually read and process the textbook. I have never had a class that has consistently read the assignment and brought that knowledge to class with them. Indeed, they have caught me in three minor errors so far this year.

The view from my classroom windows makes it difficult to focus somedays. I would much prefer camping or hiking in the mountains to the growth of absolutism under Louis XIII. I wish the angel of the Lord would say to me, "Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!" (Genesis 19:17, taken badly out of context). Sadly, the master plan for the school calls for the magnificant hardwoods to be cut down and replaced with parking lots and sports fields. Alas the price of growth.

Here are some quick pics I took outside my window:







Peace

Short Update on the Twin Boys

The boys are eleven weeks old today. We took all four kids to a "Harvest" event at a local church tonight. It has become something of a traditon for us. The eldest boy had a fine time as a pirate, and he really wanted to ride one of those carnival rides where everyone stands up around a central cylinder and then spins like crazy. He was too short, but we were proud considering he was too afraid to ride the mini-train last year. Twin B made a startling step foward last week. It was as though he had been sleepy since he was born, but now he is tracking us with his eyes, smiling like crazy, and trying to talk. His face lights up when he finally focuses on me. If you sing to Twin A, he will try to sing along by moving his mouth, but he hasn't quite figured out many sounds yet.

Here is Baby B tonight. Picture taken by my wife.




The sky this morning as I pulled into work.


Peace

Idiotes: updated

Earlier this week I was lecturing on civil participation and used some old lecture material that I written several years ago. I was delighted to see my notes on the origins of the word idiot. According to my notes, the term descends from the classical Greek idiotes (id-ee-o'-tace) which means one who does not vote or take an interest in civic affairs. The Greeks took their politics very seriously and could not abide a citizen who took his civic duty lightly. Citizens were a select group, and citizenship was not a guaranteed right. They understood the value of citizenship, not primarily as a guarantor of personal freedoms, but as a duty necessary to preserve the freedom of the state. Anyone who didn't take their duty seriously was an idiot. Americans have the opportunity to go to the polls on the 1st Tuesday after the 1st Monday of November (November 7). The Greeks would argue that the many millions who do not vote on that day, "idiotes." I will leave it to them to say it. I will make no judgments.

During my lecture, a couple of students thought I was making up my entire account of idiotes. Looking at my old, handwritten notes, I realized that I didn't have a source and couldn't remember where I got the information. I told them I would check my source and get back to them. As soon as class was over, I Googled the term. My search took me here. The definition on the website is one for New Testament days, hundreds of years after Athenian Greek, and does not exactly match mine. At this point in my research and discouraged at not getting immediate satisfaction, I got distracted by the features of the site and started browsing around until I got here.

If you are too busy to click over and back again, let me summarize. This section of the website is the "Sermon Jazzers" section. It provides free topical quotes and "illustrations" (essentially comedy routines). The free jazzers are, of course, given away in hopes that the high quality of jazzing will lead one to buy the entire book, "101 Humorous Sermon Illustrations." You can also click on a link for a free preview of "Sunday's Sermon." I find this very sad.

I am not so naive as to believe that pastors have never used aids and resources to assist in crafting sermons. In fact, I was quite young when I realized that the "I was on my way to the seminary when..." or the "My precious little one looked up as me and asked 'Why did Jesus' let Snowball die?'..." or the "A preacher friend of mine told me that one of his flock was going through a tough time when...." or the "...That's when he turned around and the hitchhiker had disappeared..." stories were most likely made up or heavily edited to fit the day's topic. I began to assume that every joke, anecdote, and personal story told by a preacher was faux. I guessed that they rationalized it by arguing that one of Jesus' strategies was parable so they should follow His example.

Sadly, this has been one of the things that has turned me off of most churches. The disingenuous calculation of pastors who pass off purchased stories as their own or the knowledge of others as their own really bothered me and continues to bother me. I have caught preachers quoting a famous thinker because the quote fit the sermon when I am sure that the pastors had no idea of the philosophies that that thinker actually espoused. If he had known that he was quoting an atheist he probably would have had to find another quote. Increasingly, I am distraught when I enter a church to hear a sermon opening that consists of a long, humorous story connected to the sermon itself only by the fact that the chief character in each is the preacher himself. The pattern has become as predictable as Atlanta gridlock: Get 'em laughing, then a short devotional.

I believe that a sermon should instruct, convict, inspire, and edify. It does not need to entertain. If I wanted to laugh, I could stay home and watch re-runs of the Daily Show or the Colbert Report. If I wanted to see made-up stories of personal tribulation and triumph, I could watch C-SPAN or the Lifetime Network. Preaching Truth does not require "jazzers". This type of preaching is making us all idiots. Rationalizing using comedy shtick as a way to reach unbelievers only serves to water down the Gospel and presumes that weekly Sunday services will never serve to instruct the believers in the benches.

Teacher: Instruct me. Please.

UPDATE: Wikipedia confirms my definition of idiotes.: "Idiot" was originally used in ancient Greek city-states to refer to people who were overly concerned with their own self-interest and ignored the needs of the community. Declining to take part in public life, such as (semi-)democratic government of the polis (city state), such as the Athenian democracy, was considered dishonorable. "Idiots" were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters. Over time, the term "idiot" shifted away from its original connotation of selfishness and came to refer to individuals with overall bad judgment–individuals who are "stupid". No, I did not personally edit Wikipedia to confirm my definition (though I could have).

Peace

Monday Miscellany: A Day Late But Not Too Short

My posting has been light lately. This is not for any lack of postable material, but for a real lack of time and energy to complete the task. There are so many things to say and so few alert brain cells to compose them. Here are a few.

I recently had a birthday. It brought to mind the best gift my wife has ever given me for my birthday: my HP Photosmart R707 Digital Camera.

When I was younger and much less wise, I had delusions of becoming a writer. I thought I could be the next Tolkien. If not that, maybe the next C.S. Lewis. Well, I would settle for becoming the next George MacDonald. If I had to, I would become the next Stephen Lawhead. Surely, I could write better than Lawhead. My dreams never quite worked out the way I wanted them to. To become a "writer" one has to, well, write. To become an "author" on has to write well (can one "auth"?). I had neither the discipline to write consistently nor the gift to write well (as readers of this blog can well attest).

My wife's gift of a digital camera was a stroke of genius. My wife is a bit of a genius anyway with two possible exceptions: choice of husband and giving of gifts. My wife tends to either reveal the gift to me way too soon, use the gift more herself than I do, or get me something so obvious that I guess what it is just by looking at the expression on her face. She has gotten me some fine gifts in the past, but, in her words, "I never know what to get you." The camera was brilliant. Yes, I gave her a harsh glance for spending so much money on something, but it has become one of my favorite possessions and an outlet for my spirit of creativity past.

In the past year I (mostly I, some by my wife) have taken over 2,400 photographs. Sure the bulk of the photos are deletable, but we haven't had to pay to have any of those professionally processed. I have found that I have to take 10-20 pictures to get one good one. I have to take at least a hundred to get one that I am truly happy with. Sure, digital photography is easy, but creating an image that I find attractive has been a great joy for me in a trying year. Now I feel that I am ready to move up to a "real" camera. As soon as I win $700.00 in the lottery, I am getting this.

I know I am no artist, but here are some of my favorite photos from the last year. I cannot share all of my favorites with you as many of them reveal more of the faces of my children than I am willing to share publicly on the Internet. I will be happy to e-mail information to any friends and family who want to see my "private" photos on my flickr account.

The captions for each photo are above the photo being described.

This is one of the first pictures I took that I really liked. There is a lovely patch of daylilies that bloom quite vigorously each spring. This one waited until the fall. It was as though it was waiting for me to get my camera. I must have take thirty to forty pictures of this one flower. I caught this one the first time I experimented with black and white. It was a beautiful, late autumn afternoon. I love the creamy quality of the pedals against the stone.



This is my "most viewed" photo on my flickr account. It has been viewed 34 times (that means someone saw it and thought enough of it to click on it to get a closer view). Two people have even been kind enough to "favorite" it. I took the photo early this spring when the maple behind my house produces approximately 17 billion of these little beauties. All of them land in my gutters. This is not one of my favorite photos, but I feel I owe it to the 34 people who have made it my most popular photo. By comparison, real photos by real photographers on flickr get thousands of views.


This is my second most popular photo on flickr. It also has 34 views, but no favorites. It looks like my son is being very solemn and patriotic before this veterans' memorial at Veterans' State Park; in truth, he was looking at the water fall.



This is one of my favorite photos of my boy. He was wearying from his first day of fishing and was wishing he could be a rider in the boat in the distance.


This is my favorite "accident". I was trying to get a good photo of this mystery flower (read about it here). I like trying to take "macros" (photos of small things, or extreme closeups) and I saw my girl come into the picture. I said her name disapprovingly, but it was too late to stop my finger from clicking the button. You can see her looking over her shoulder at me as though to say, "What did I do?" She is quite lovely. The flower came out pretty good too.


This is one of my favorites. It was early spring, and I had been trying to take pictures of dandelions for a week. I had gotten a couple of decent ones when I went out at sunset one day and saw this one standing all alone and proud. I have not changed any of the coloration on this photo. I like the bare trees against the sky as frames around the dandelion illuminated by the sunset.


Thanks for the gift my love. If any of you want to see more, please feel free to go to my flickr site. Almost all of the pictures look better big. If you want me stop slowing down your computer with silly pictures, feel free to comment.

Peace

Lonely Girl

On the way to the football game on Friday, we stopped at a local park to run off some energy. I snapped the photo below. It seems to fit with Monday's post about my daughter's adjustments to the changes in our lives.



She had a good time that night. I think she was so happy to be out with her daddy that she didn't complain once (even when we had to use a very unsanitary bathroom). It was her brother who whined (and he only a few times when he was quite tired and cold).

Peace

Monday Miscellany: Homecoming

I have a lot to say, but not enough time to say it, so I will keep it short.

Earlier this summer I was worried about how my son would adjust to having to go to Kindergarten for the first time, get two new brothers, and have his dad go back to work all within the space of a single week. I was worried about the wrong child. My daughter has not adjusted well to the changes. She has been overtly rebellious and is draining what is left of her mother's enengy right out of her. She must be quite lonely.

My wife bought herself Lego Star Wars II for the PS2. It is a very fine game.

Last week was Homecoming. I took the boy and girl to the football game (the entire family got in free). They lasted through the first half. They both profess to wanting to go again. Football is hard to explain to a five year old. He figured out on his own that they went into the huddle to make a plan. He was most impressed when the cheerleaders did a stunt, "Cool, I didn't know they could do that!" He also liked the punts because the ball went really high.

I got my first search result for "Striplings Butt Rub". It took the searcher here. My site came up first on the list. I don't know whether to be pleased or queasy. The good news is that it was probably the only seach to my site that may have gotten information useful to the searcher.


Peace

The Price of a College Education: Dumb and Dumber

Recently, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute issued a Civic Literacy Report titled, "The Coming Crisis in Citizenship. In it, the ISI claims that not only do students learn little about American history, economics, and government in college, in some cases they actually exhibit "negative learning." In other words, they knew more when they were admitted then when they graduated. Testing of incoming freshmen was compared with testing of graduating seniors; this testing showed a remarkable lack of progress. This held true for both Ivy League and "lesser" colleges (or "Elite" and "Non-elite" schools as the report calls them). Students at Yale scored 1.5% less as seniors than they did as freshmen!

Two days ago, CNN reported, "Harvard University, founded 370 years ago to train Puritan ministers, should again require all undergraduates to study religion, along with U.S. history and ethics, a faculty committee is recommending." The article went on to reveal that:

The State University of New York and George Mason University have adopted general education requirements that include mandatory American history.

In the Ivy League, Columbia University has a significant core curriculum with courses that include material on religion, and Dartmouth currently requires a course in the analysis of religion, though that will change next year, according to its Web site. But Harvard would be the only school in that group requiring students to take courses in both religion and U.S. history.

Public colleges in Colorado, along with Ohio University and Arizona State, are among the other universities currently reviewing general education requirements, said Anne Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a generally conservative academic group that has urged universities to toughen general education requirements.

SUNY and George Mason "have adopted general education requirements that include mandatory American history"--it wasn't required before? No wonder the ISI Report found what it did.

I have read with interest the response to the ISI Report. As a high school AP US history and government teacher, I have often noted the happy tragedy that occurs whenever one of my students does well on the AP US History exam. It validates my teaching and his or her learning, but it also means that they will not be taking US history at college. While it is true that many colleges do not accept AP credit, it is easy to see how an advanced student could take enough AP exams to avoid taking any college social science (history, economics, government).

I have always been secretly disappointed that my best students would not be talking a “real” college class in US history. I am not enough of a statistician to know how AP plays into the ISI Report, but it does not appear to my near-sighted eyes to have been addressed as a factor in the report. I think it could be a factor that merits study; until then, I will continue to prepare my students as though they will not be taught a thing in college. It is the prudent thing to do either way.

Today in the WSJ and fresh on the heels of the ISI report, Naomi Schaefer Riley asks, "Test Question: Why is high school the new college?" Her answer, they aren't learning anything useful in college, but the enforced rigor of test-based high school courses (especially AP courses) actually gives students useful knowledge and skills. In her words:

Why? Because college increasingly offers a crazed social experience at the expense of rigorous study. But high school does better: It is often the last time that students are forced to learn something. Parents make their kids show up at school. More than a few teachers convey basic skills and knowledge. After-school life centers on burnishing a college application, not binge drinking. AP courses, where they exist, exploit these structured years for maximum learning.

I'll try.


Peace

October

The calendar has rolled down to October again. Some random reasons why October is my favorite month:

Summer has been left behind in September; the air is cool and the days are still long enough to enjoy the sun.
Baseball playoffs and the World Series
College football
My birthday is this month.
Holiday season will be here soon.
My cooling bill and my heating bill will both be very low.
The grass will stop growing soon.
Orion guards the clear night sky.
Flannel and hot chocolate are socially acceptable again (both together and individually; I had my first cup of steaming cocoa today)



Peace

Key to Good Teaching: Variety

I had to go to a three-hour class this morning on the Christian philosophy of education. The class was delivered on videotape. The instructor was an esteemed professor of education. The content was quite good. The presentation left something to be desired. The professor elected to deliver his information sitting in a comfy chair next to a roaring fire. He then spent the next three hours making a number of points about education. One of his points was that Jesus taught using a variety of educational styles and that we should do likewise. So we should do as you say, not as you do? Sure he was on video, but couldn't he at least stand up?

I have noticed the same flaw in nearly every educational specialist who has ever lectured me about how to teach. They literally lecture. Their lecture advises us not to lecture as a primary means of instruction. So then, why do they lecture?


Peace

Search Engine Wars II

When one posts an item to the internet, one can never be entirely sure who will drop by nor why they will be drawn to any particular posting. My webcounter, supplied for free by the good people at Statcounter (not that I am special to them--they provide the free service to anyone), can occassionally give me insight into the mind of those who come to my site. Whenever someone comes to my blog as the result of a Google or Yahoo type search, Statcounter tells me what words or phrase for which they were searching. The results can be funny, amusing, or deeply disturbing.

I have previously documented some of these searches in a disturbing December post. After that post, my blog seemed to disappear from the Google and Yahoo listings. Maybe word got out that I publicly report search results. Maybe no one found my blog helpful when "I think my husband is gay." About three weeks ago, people started returning to my blog from Google search results (I still haven't gotten any from Yahoo in a long time). Here are the last four:

Google search for
"cathy fail" that lead here. "Cathy fail"??? Hmmm. The end of the original post says prophetically, "This post should lead to some interesting search results."

Google search for
life is too short to clean your own house that lead here. This one came from the Bronx. My first ever hit from the Bronx. How cool is that?

Google search for (this one came from Spain)
monologue of the poem muliebrity that lead here. Did someone else also write a bitter poem titled "Muliebrity?"

If you still believe that mankind is basically good and that children are all "good kids" here is a disturbing Google search for
"human meat" kids that lead, sadly, to my blog here (this post was titled "Rib Ranch: I'll have a half-rack of human" so I guess I deserve it).

On a side note, my wife's blog is soon going to pass me in hit counts (Currently, she has 3,889 hits and I have 3,997 hits). She will pass me in about two weeks. If you don't mind hitting the "refresh" button on your web browser a few times to give me a few more hits so that I can keep ahead of her, I wouldn't mind. I have a very fragile ego. Hopefully, she is too tired to actually read to the end of my post (if you do DW, I am just kidding--ha, ha). I know she posts more often and with more consistent quality, but I do try to make up for my lack of posts with obnoxious opinion pieces.

My senate sim went well, I will post later with some of the details (truthfully, by "later", I mean "probably never").

Peace

Update: I think I fixed the links.

Teacher Blogs: USA Today, I'm Still Waiting for Your Call

USA Today has a short, but interesting story on teachers' blogs here. Needless to say, I didn't make the list though at least one Atlanta social studies teachers did. I have been reading her blog for a couple of months, and it is one of the finer teachers' blogs that I have read. There are links to a few other teacher blogs with the article. Explore and enjoy. Or not.

I wrote a senate simulation over the weekend (it took about twenty hours to create the forty different papers needed to run it) and started it today. Things went much better than I hoped. The students love it. How do I know? Not a single soul asked to leave class for water, to go to the office, or to go to the bathroom during any of the three classes. Even better than that, my last class came in already talking about it and anticipating a fine time to be had by all. Anytime they talk about class outside of class, I've done something either very right or something very wrong. Today, writing bills for the Senate was very right. Some ideas I heard floated: a national autobahn, a pass-grass bill, and immigration reform.

Simulations are a great way to teach and generally have a relatively high rate of long-term retention, but they are highly inefficient of time. My simulation will last all week. They will, I hope, learn a lot from it, but I could present the same information in a twenty-minute lecture. Sadly, even I am bored by my lectures so we shall instead be doing something like, according to one of my students, "Dungeons and Dragons for Politics."


Peace

"I was a good person"

Perhaps you have seen some of the coverage of the blonde teacher in Florida who had a sexual affair with her fifteen year old student. The story is a couple of years old, but she has done some recent talking to the press. The part that struck me about the incident is her own perception of herself and the case:

She told Lauer she never thought she was committing rape when she had sex with the teen but realizes now she "made a really, really, really bad choice."

She acknowledges that the case got so much attention -- when similar cases get little or none -- because she is attractive.

"Sex sells," she said.

Lafave said she has a difficult time thinking of herself as a sexual predator, as she is now classified under Florida law.

"I was a kindhearted person who loved children, who would never, you know, do anything to break the law," she said. "I was a good person. And then, now everything has just changed. So it's just really hard for me to accept that."

She is right in drawing attention to the reason the press was drawn to case, "sex sells." This only became a national story because she was young and attractive. Sadly, that is as far at the press takes it, but there are two things disturbing going on here that merit the nation's attention.

First, the scandal of teacher sexual abuse and use of students is in all probability many times more significant than the scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church. Sadly, each case is treated as an isolated incident, not as a part of systemic failure.

Second, the convict in the Florida case points out the inevitable result of years of self-esteem building by public and private education and children's television. This past Spring, I was privileged to travel to Walt Disney World with our senior class. While there, I learned from a gaggle of singing princesses that I, too, was a princess and that we are all princesses. That message has hit home for an entire generation of young people who have been taught that they were born into a royal inheritance of self-love and self-respect. Like monarchs of old, nothing must be done to earn one's royal esteem, and all the world is one's due right. One must only believe hard enough and all things are possible, dreams will come true.

This educational model creates a mind that cannot face reality when the world treats one like a peasant, or worse, one acts like a peasant.

Ms. Lafave saw herself as "a good person. And then, now everything has just changed. So it's just really hard for me to accept that." Ms. Lafave thought herself a princess, only to find herself a peasant. For her to accept her disgusting acts will shatter her carefully cultivated self-esteem. She is not alone, and she will not be the first to discover that she is not worthy merely because she exists. I have sat across from countless parents who cannot accept that their child has erred because their child is a "good kid." They have been told so much by his teachers for years, and he has never been caught doing anything illegal. If they accept that their child cheated, or smoked, or did drugs, then the falsely constructed image of their child will collapse like palace of pretty cards. In the typical foggy-headed fashion of American Christians, we deny the doctrine of sin nature without even being aware of it.

We must all learn to accept that, "21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Peace

Monday Miscellany: Goose Poop, the Pope, and Goose Steps

The boy came home from kindergarten on Monday (September 11) and said that another boy had thrown goose poop at him on the playground. He was not particularly upset about it, we didn't make a bid deal about it, and I don't think he was scarred by the incident. This is just another one of the many incidents in a child's life that forces a parent to decide just what pearls of wisdom to impart to their child.

Should we advocate a liberal law-and-order approach and tell him to tell the teacher and rely upon her judgment? Sure, this won't prevent future acts of poopism, but should result in the guilty party being punished or at least receiving a firm talking to by the teacher. Should we adopt a neo-con worldview and preempt the threat by removing the poop and all geese that harbor poop? This will prevent future attacks, but runs the risk of all-out war with the over one billion geese in the world. Would a more green approach (where the playground is destroyed to create a natural goose habitat where humans cannot go) be the answer? Should we count upon a libertarian plan to create our own playground that will be free from meddling outsiders? Or a more paleo-con plan to make an anti-poop shield (PDI) that will protect our son, but will leave the poop-throwers of the world free to throw all the poop they wish? Perhaps I should become an extreme leftist and blame the teacher, compare the principal to Hitler, and wonder what my boy did to deserve a poop-painting.

The world is a scary place. There are those that throw more than poop.

From poop to Pope...Is it strange to anyone else that Muslim groups compare the Pope to Hitler and attack the pope for quoting someone that claimed that Islam spread through violence (a historical fact, btw) and go on to claim that comments that suggest Islam is violent may lead to war? The argument goes something like this: You shouldn't say that Muslims are violent. Muslims are not violent. Saying that they are violent might lead to violence. Whaaaaa? I know that the majority of Muslims are peaceful and even peace loving, but those that are must stop serving as apologists for Islamic rage and address the truly violent elements that are tolerated and sometimes encouraged among them. These elements are tolerated, I believe, because a strong Muslim majority harbors a deep hatred of the West, Jews, and the United States.

The goose-stepping of politicians of all sides continues as all sides compare everyone else to Nazis, Hitler, and fascism. It ends all debate.

Rosie O'Donnell compared Radical Christianity and Radical Islam on the View this week. Many on the Right saw this as evidence of the Left's severe case of moral relativism. Pershaps, but just as Muslims must begin dealing with the cancer within their religion, so must Christians. Timothy McVeigh, the KKK, the IRA, and Eric Rudolph all follow[ed] what they see as pure Christianity. Rosie wasn’t quite right, but there was an element of truth to what she said even though she didn't quite mean it that way. I am sure she meant people like George W. Bush, Pat Robertson, and any Christian who vote Republican.


The days of my wife have degenerated into a simple pattern: change diaper, feed baby, repeat. You can pray for her.

Here is what happened when we tried to take a photo of all four of our children together for the first time:




Peace

Equivocation: a statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth

My five year old has been exploring the limits of language lately in an attempt to quantify his world and interpret the secret language of parents. He has been unremitting in trying to pin us down on the meaning of such words as "sometimes", "soon", "later", "maybe", "a few" etc.

These wonderfully malleable words are of course the type of words most often employed by harried parents unwillingly to commit to a definitive answer to a child's plea for permission to do something. To commit in the affirmative is an unbreakable covenant to the child and will invariably result in years of therapy to reverse the harm done by promise-breaking parents. To commit in the negative will result in a "scene" of Old Testament proportions. To equivocate creates a temporary reprieve during which the parent hopes that the advance invasion force of aliens from Chocolatacon7 will arrive, distracting the child and causing him to forget the original request/question, or that an affirmative answer will somehow become possible, perhaps revealed by an image of the Virgin Mary appearing in the plate of leftover surprise in the back of the refrigerator, miraculously uncovered while searching for something to feed the kids.

I think my son is starting to get the nuances of parent-speak. The other day he came up to me and asked, "Is 'we'll see' another way of saying 'no'?"

Thinking that I can't let him figure us out too much, I told him, "Sometimes" but I think he knows.

Peace

Sign # 1 of Being Too Tired for Effective Teaching: UPDATED

Trying to say "Lived in the splendor of Pharoah's palace" and instead say, "Lived in the splendor of Paroah's Phalace" in front of a class of seniors.


Peace

When the World is Normal Again: Apologetics According to a Five Year Old

It was the day after we came back from the hospital with the twin boys and my five year old boy was ready to test his father's orthodoxy. We were talking about mosquitoes and their feeding habits.

Boy: Does grandma W like mosquitoes?
Dad: No, no one likes mosquitoes. (note: avoid universal statements when talking to the boy)
Boy: What about Jesus?
Dad: Ummm...
Boy: He made them. Doesn't He love them?
Dad: Well...Yes....
Boy: Why did He make mosquitoes that hurt humans?
Dad: Okay. (At this point my befuddlement is giving way to pride. My boy has asked a fundamental question of theology). Originally, mosquitoes didn't harm people. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, sin and death entered the world and things changed. Then things could hurt humans. One day, God will make the world new like it was. (Or I said something like this).
Boy: Oh. So one day mosquitoes won't hurt humans?
Dad: Right.
Boy: Then the world will be normal?
Dad: Yeah.

Now he likes to ask me about when the world will be normal again. It is good to be reminded of it.


Peace

A couple of recent pictures of Twin B:

Meet Second Born Twin (Twin B)

We had trouble coming up with a name for Twin B. I really wanted to work in the name "Arthur" somehow, but informal polling discovered a strong association with a children's television character, not the first great English king. We didn't reach a final decision for his name until we were at the hospital. He was born breech, but I have already told that story so here he is...

Twin B:
Is the bigger of the two
Can be a bit fussy but calms easily
Sleeps quite a bit
Smiles more than his brother
Has lighter hair than his brother
Has a round face
Laid sprawled out under a heat lamp for the first four hours of his life; he looked very comfortable
Had to be woken up after four hours of sleep last night so he could be fed (they say that scheduling is vital to surviving twins)
Loves his mama
Can soak through a diaper within a couple of hours.


Here he is at the hospital on his second day of life (it has been too busy for much more photography). It is a bit out of focus due to the low light, but he is smiling so I couldn't resist:



Peace

Meet First Born Twin (Twin A)

The twins are beginning to show their two distinct personalities. Twin A, the first born twin, was in line to be Twin B up until about two weeks before delivery when he decided that he just couldn't wait around for his brother to get things started so he pushed his brother aside and became Twin A.

Twin A:
Is the smaller of the two
Can be a bit fussy
Is awake and alert more often than his brother
Has darker hair than his brother
Has a long, thin face
Keeps trying to get his hand in his mouth
Has peed on everyone who has changed him
Likes to pull in his lower lip
Pooped once before I fed him, once during feeding, and once as soon as he was done; he can poop three times in one hour while his brother might do it three times in a day
Has pooped on everyone who has changed him
Causes his father to fall asleep every time he holds him for longer than five minutes
Can make it three hours between feedings

Here he is this afternoon:




Peace

The Twins

Some more pictures. The captions are for the photos below.
Mom and Baby A (6 pounds and 6 ounces):




Baby A gets his first bath; Baby B is under the heater. Baby B was a breach extraction and gave his daddy a bit of a scare. Since this was considered a high risk birth (twins and one breach) there were about 10 people in the room with us (as oppossed to our first two births when we had a nurse, a newborn tech, and a midwife). There were two teams of two newborn techs, three or four nurses, one doctor, and one midwife. Baby A came out quickly and cried quite quickly. Baby B came out quite blue, limp (in the words of a nurse), and quiet, and the Doctor called for a team "quick". Thankfully, momma was in a drug induced haze, couldn't see, and didn't seem concerned. I stayed with momma as they worked on the twins behind me. Within a minute the twins were screaming like crazy and scored 9's on their apgars. It was a good sound (at the time anyway). Ten minutes later we were down to about five people and I knew things would be alright. They took Baby B away from us for a few hours to check his blood sugars and to keep him warmed up, but there was no sense of urgency.




Our round-faced "Baby B" (8 pounds even):




The twins napping happily (this hasn't happened much since). You can see the beginnings of jaundice that has led to several heel pricks but seems to be okay. Baby A has a long thin face, is fussy, very expressive, and doesn't like to be moved much. Baby B slept his first day of life, has nice naps, and is very tolerant. They both love their momma very much.




Baby A getting ready to go home. They had matching outfits. Their momma got them for $.99 each (not only can she really birth some babies--she can shop).




Peace

Home

Today we were driving home from the hospital and my wife said, "We should go to church here on Sunday."

I said, "What? Why?"

Then I looked at the sign.



"Oh, yeah" I said as I remembered why were driving home from the hospital:





We are home. Everyone is doing very well. The details can be found at my brave wife's blog titled, On Considering Incoveniences.

More details to follow.

Peace

Boy on Bridge over Busy Waters

A couple of weeks ago I took my five and half year old boy to a park named Vickery Creek. He asked me if he had ever been there before. Upon finding out that he had not, he optimistically demanded, "You have to tell me all the things I don't know here." His complete faith in my ability to explain the mysteries of the world was reassuring and humbling at the same time.



Tomorrow, I will put my boy on a bus for kindergarten. I won't be there to tell him all the things he doesn't know there. He will survive, and learn, and grow as he crosses this first of many bridges.

Tomorrow, I will take my wife to the hospital for the delivery of two more boys.


Peace

World Trade Center and United 93

Back in April and May I posted about my reactions to United 93. I had three posts on the film (here, here, and here). The big debate in the media concerned whether it was "too soon" for a film about 9/11. I have seen a few articles recently asking the same question about the Oliver Stone film "World Trade Center" (released nationwide this weekend).

In reading back over my previous posts I was reminded that the third post declared, "My own struggle with the question of whether it is too soon for such a movie were put conclusively to rest yesterday when I discussed the movie with some of my classes. I will tell you why in the next exciting edition of TOLN." I don't think I ever did tell you why my struggle with the question was put to rest. Here it is:

9/11 was five years ago. For most of us, it is tragically fresh in our memories, but many were quite young when it happened. When I told my 9th grade students about seeing United 93, one of them quite innocently queried, "Isn't that some kinda movie about a plane crashing?" She was only nine when the attacks came. Other comments similarly revealed an ignorance about the events of that day. So, no, it is not too soon to educate the young and remind the not-so-young about 9/11. Film is a medium that can serve to educate, remind, and enlighten. United 93 met the first of those two goals.

That being said, I am thrilled that the terror plot based in England was broken up. Many lives were saved. Five years ago (pre-9/11) the resources probably would have not been in place to catch the terrorists before the event. Our governments were not properly vigilant. As poorly as some things in the struggle against terror have been handled, it is nice to think that someone is doing his job and protecting us from sudden and viscous death. Timely reminders of 9/11 are a necessary component of vigilance and avoiding the deadly dangers of complacency.


Peace

Monday

Monday's Itinerary:
7:08am Put eldest son on bus for first day of kindergarten
7:09am Try to drive safely to my school for first day of classes
7:12am Explain to police officer that there was something in my eye
8:15-3:15 Teach
Exact time TBA: Drop off kids at grandparents and report to hospital with wife for an labor induction for our twin boys.

Life is about to get real interesting.

Peace

Making Hamburger out of Tofu

As I am a teacher, people often ask me, "What's wrong with education in America? What can we do to fix it?" Okay, so no one has ever asked me that, but it is a question I think about a lot. I am convinced that that is the wrong question to ask.

The American educational establishment has, to its credit, continually experimented, tinkered, tested, gone back to basics, and thrown money at the problems of K-12 education, and the problems have only gotten worse. Americans are concerned about education. The increase in educational spending since World War II has been incredible. Every few years a new panacea is introduced as the cure-all to the educational malaise that infects our nation. We have tried block scheduling, cooperative learning groups, teaching to learning styles, drugs, year-round schooling, online schooling, giving notebook computers to students, teacher training, couches in the classroom, ergonomic design, student-centered learning, and a host of other ideas. None of the these can change the raw material of education: the students. Teachers can have only so much influence on the development of their students' lives. The parents and the society and culture in which students are raised are immeasurably more important to the success or failure of education than the way in which a student is taught.

Imagine a school as a giant intellectual meat-grinder. The meat-grinder is designed to make hamburgers. Put in some lovely, fresh chuck and, after some blood and sweat, out comes eight ounces of ground chuck, ready to be shape for the grill of college or career. Put in a chunk of tofu and no amount of adjustments to the grinder or spices mixed into the tofu will produce a grill ready burger. Either the grinder will have to be replaced by an all new device, or you will have to stop stuffing tofu into the machine and expecting something that won't fall through the grill in messy glops onto the hot coals. Our society and culture is sending tofu to school and expecting schools the school to transform it into a half-pound bacon-cheeseburger with a grilled bun and side of fries.

That being said, I see three significant problems affecting the efficiency of the limited time given to education: the professionalization of high school sports, the hijacking of all aspects of teaching and teacher training by modern psychology and trends in psychological research, and the control of education by at least three levels of government.

I shall expound on these ideas over the course of this school year. Until then, I have to get to pre-planning and try to focus on the start of school on Monday while awaiting the birth of my twin boys on Tuesday.

Peace

The American Student: "Geography? But I'm not good at math!"

American students are notoriously poor at geography. I could cite you a dozen studies that illustrate my point, but I don't know where to find them. Shortly after the American invasion of Iraq, I gave my students a black outline map of the Middle East and a list of the names of the countries. Not surprisingly at a Christian school, students did best at identifying Israel. Sadly, fewer than 25% could find Israel. A large number of students had trouble telling the diffence between water and land.

My first full time teaching job was at a very small Christian school. It was a lovely place to work and felt like a big family. If a speaker fell through for chapel, which happened quite often, we would divide the chapel into teams and play Bible trivia. For the chapel before Christmas, the questions were Christmas themed. Our headmaster asked, "Where did the wise men come from?" A smart junior's hand shot up enthusiastically (she would later be our valedictorian). Her hand was the first one up, so she stood up, confident that she was about to earn her team a point and earn herself the respect of her peers, and shouted out, "Orientar! Orientar!" After our headmaster explained that the song says, "We three kings of orient are" and that he was looking for "East", she sunk under the pew and did not show her face again until chapel was over.

Every time I hear that song I smile.


Peace

Ruins on the River

In the midst of the sprawling suburbs of north Atlanta, among the Super Walmarts, Super Krogers, Super Targets, McMansions, McDonalds, and miles and miles of steaming tar, there is a green gem hidden away. Every day, tens of thousands drive down one of Atlanta's major north-south thoroughfairs in forest green SUVs, oblivious to the secret that lies but a cigarette's flick from the roaring, belching river of cars. That secret is a foaming, rumbling mountain stream hidden in a heavily forested green valley.

I don't remember what first drew me there, but I vividly remember the day I first discovered it. I say, "discovered" and truly mean it. I have heard it said that every New Yorker sees Central Park as their personal park and all other visitors are merely interlopers there. People feel that there are secret places in the park that only they have seen, and they vividly remember the moment when they rounded that corner or pushed through that bush to see their space. There is a deep sense of connection, possession even, in certain places of the world.

On the day I "discovered" this park I felt that I was the first person to see the sights that I saw and that I was some kind of English speaking conquistador viewing the ruins of an ancient civilization. It was a winter day as I pulled into a NPS parking lot built for about six cars. Mine was the only car there. As soon as a stepped onto the overgrown trail, the suburban world passed away and I was in wilderness. The thrill of discovery grew as I followed the trails across a cliff, past the rapids, and across a sand bar. The trail all but disappeared as I pushed through the thick underbrush covering the steep, rocky bank. Above the low roaring of the rapids, I began to hear a louder, more insistent crashing. Through the brush a wall of falling water began to appear. At last I stepped out into the stream and was met by a sight that left me stunned to see. How could such a thing be here and I have never heard talk of it?



I spent the day and days after exploring my new park. Ruins lined the far side of the creek, and I eventually found my way over to what turned out to be the carcass of old cotton mills. I found a perfect reading rock at a bend in the stream where I first read Jane Austen. I sat many days on the heights overlooking the stream, letting the sun warm me as I listened to the gurgling of the waters.

I went back there today and took these pictures. It is surprisingly underused. I was there for almost two hours and only saw three groups of people, all of them near the entrance. It might be the lack of large, open spaces for fine weather frolicking. It might be the fact that the city of Roswell runs several sewer lines through the park and at certain times and in certain places, there is a strong odor. Mostly, I think people just don't know that it is here.

Every time I go there I think of Van Morrison song and every time I hear the song I think of the sunny heights over the stream:

I'm tired Joey Boy
While you're out with the sheep
My life is so troubled
Now I can't go to sleep
I would walk myself out
But the streets are so dark
I shall wait till the morning
And walk in the park

This life is so simple when
One is at home
And I'm never complaining
When there's work to be done
Oh I'm tired Joey Boy of the makings of men
I would like to be cheerful again

Ambition will take you
And ride you too far and
Conservatism bring you to boredom once more
Sit down by the river
And watch the stream flow
Recall all the dreams
That you once used to know
The things you've forgotten
That took you away
To pastures not greener but meaner

Love of the simple is all that I need
I've no time for schism or lovers of greed
Go up to the mountain, go up to the glen
When silence will touch you
And heartbreak will mend.





Peace

One of these things is not like the other...

I have been trying to keep up with the news lately. Here is a snippet from the homepage of CNN.com from just moments ago.

Note the list of top stories and see if you notice any themes.
Story one: "Deadly"
Story two: "Depression"
Story three: "Perish"
Story four: "Murder"
Story five: "Bush" (ie something just as bad as the above; see story six)
Story six: "The cussing, spitting, open-mouth chewing Bush" (can a major news organization use that as a lead or has some deep thinker from DailyKos hacked the site?)
Story seven: "Jerry Springer"
Story eight: "Kill"
Story nine: "Killer"
Story ten: "Brad Pitt says fatherhood is 'true joy'"

Five of ten stories involve death.
One of ten stories involves impending death (tropical depression).
Two of ten stories involve something President Bush did wrong (one with video to prove it).
Two of ten stories involve icons of pop culture.

At the bottom of this list is a link with a promise to "Laugh your way through lunch". I guess you kind of need it after all that killing, scandal, cussing, spitting, and Pitting.

Is this really what people want from news? Is this who we are: obsessed with violence, destruction, crass behavior, shallow pop culture, and the wanton disrespect of figures of authority?

Peace

For Shame, "Raymond V. Fretchild", Part II

"At 8:11 am on July 11, 2006, a person claiming to be "Raymond V. Fretchild" left the following comment in response to my post, "For Shame Raymond V. Fretchild."

Mr. Chintzibobs,

I happened to come across this posting after conducting a Google search of my name. Prior to my retirement in 1994; I was head of Astronaut Recruiting for the Lego Space Academy. I was a bit taken aback by your posting; I remember the letter you sent to me like it was yesterday. I was excited by your interest in the Lego Space Program; it was not often a person of your caliber applied for our space program. We always seemed to be the red headed step child to NASA. I am sorry you felt my letter was a vicious prank, however; I assure you it was legitimate. I anxiously awaited your application and deposit; checking my inbox daily. I worried night and day; hoping your application would arrive. I have to apologize to you as I lost your contact information in a tragic training accident resuting in a horrific explosion that destroyed my cubicle and I was unable to send you our followup package of Junior Astronaut Training Material. You would have then known; we were legitimate. Alas, the world will never know what a great astronaut you may have been; I believe you could have been the best of the best. Best of luck to you with the addition to your family.

Sincerly,

Raymond V. Frethchild

PS: The Polish Space Program does not require its Astronauts to be in perfect vision. In fact, we developed prescription lens for their helmets!

7/11/2006 8:38 AM

The last line is automatically inserted by blogger to show the time and date of the posted comment and is the key to unraveling the twisted truth behind the myth of Raymond V. Fretchild.

I must admit, the author of the comment weaves a compelling story, but it must be considered nothing more than another clever prank perpetrated on myself. How can I know that the story is a despicable lie? Granted, the spelling errors ("resuling" for resulting and "sincerly" for sincerely) are consistent with the original 1980 document ("Expierienced" for experienced, "traing" for training, "thre" for three, and "ad" for and). This only serves to suggest a link between the two documents; it does nothing to prove that "Raymond V. Fretchild" ever existed.
Evidence does, however, exist that fatally undermines the claims of the new Fretchild document from the very first line. The prankster claims that, "I happened to come across this posting after conducting a Google search of my name." This is demonstrably false. My hit counter logs every visit to this site. In addition it takes note of the time and date of every hit. It also records whether or not someone got to my site through a Google or other type of search. No one has ever reached my site through a search for "Raymond V. Fretchild" or any variation thereof. Worse, the only Google search to result in a hit on my site on the day in question (even within the week before it) was this one:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22dead."

Translated, this means that someone (in Longmeadow, Massachusetts no less) did a search for the phrase "dead animal" with the words "bury" and "prank". My site comes up ninth on such a search.

According to my hit counter, that search led to my site on and at "11th July 2006 07:48:25", a time only fifty minutes before "Mr. Fretchild" posted his comment!

I don't know what you might be planning next, Raymond V. Fretchild, but I have contacted the authorities and sincerely hope that your sick "pranks" never move beyond crushing the dreams of children and burying dead animals. You should seriously consider therapy (and a spell-checker) as most serial killers get their beginnings by mutilating pets and are poor-spellers. I have also contacted the Polish embassy to inform them that a prankster has been passing himself off as a high official in a fictional Polish governmental agency.

Peace

Burning Porcupines

I am at an AP European History all week at Oglethorpe. In case you missed it, an anonymous commenter claiming to be Raymond V. Fretchild responded to my post For Shame, Raymond V. Fretchild. Read the second comment carefully. I will be dissecting it later in the week.

While in my class for teachers I heard two interesting expressions that I had never heard before. One came from a young lady of Cajun descent and fiery disposition. In response to an unpleasant activity, she exclaimed, "I would rather give birth to a flaming porcupine." The other comment came from a very young teacher who said that while she didn't mind using the word "s*cks" around us, she said "Sips" around her students. Yes, much more delicate.

More later in the week. 8:00-4:00 classes and the drive to and fro have left me drained (I was almost in a wreck both coming and going today).

Oh yeah. Another thing I heard for the first time this week (though it has been going around for a very long time according to my source): In heaven, the English are the policemen, the French are the cooks, the Germans are the engineers, the Italians are the lovers, and the Swiss organize everything. In hell, the English are the cooks, the French are the engineers, the Germans are the policemen, the Italians organize everything, and the Swiss are the lovers. Offensive or true? Or both?


Peace

Monday Miscellany: Oh, Is It for Books?

Technically, this will be posted on Sunday as I will be at a "How to Teach AP European History" seminar at Oglethorpe University this week and will be departing early tomorrow morning.


My boy is going to be quite the charmer. This summer we have been working on his vocabulary. He chooses a word to learn, we put it on a 3x5 index card, and then he practices writing and recognizing the word. He has been doing much better than I thought he would, and his summer attitude has improved with the mental engagement. His mother asked him one day if he had a favorite word in his word hoard (his box of words). He said that he did but that he couldn't tell her what it was. She pressed him on it, so he said, with perfect sincerity as he walked away, "Momma." Lock up your daughters.


We have struggled to get our boy to eat healthily. We have tried a number of things to make eating "fun". The 'prinkle butter sandwich, a peanut butter sandwich with sprinkles on it and a registered trademark, was a hit for about eight weeks. He has taken to eating grapes, but it takes him forever to consume a small handful. I listened closely yesterday and discovered that his right hand is an "Oviraptor" (egg-eating dinosaur for those you not blessed with a dinosaur obsessed boy). The grapes were eggs. It was an epic battle for survival.


Last weekend the wife and I brought home a small storage unit from Walmart to store some of the babies' stuff in. Just as I was finishing its assembly, the three-year-old girl came dancing in and asked expectantly, "Oh, is it for books?" She knows us too well.


On Sunday night I took the kids to the grandparent's house for dinner and to leave them there for a sleepover. They love sleepovers (my kids). Before I was done with my dessert, the girl looked straight at me and said in exasperation, "Why are you going yet?" There will be tears when she comes home tomorrow. Last week, while the kids were out with their aunt and cousin, my wife and I were enjoying a quiet afternoon of TV when my wife exclaimed, "Could you check outside, I hear screaming and it sounds like our daughter!" Sure enough, they were home and she wasn't ready to be home. She started screaming as soon as she saw our house. Some parents have kids that cry when the parents leave. Our child cries when she comes home to her parents.


Peace

Putting a Stop to the Summer Doldrums

The five-year-old boy seemed to be going through a type of summer doldrums. He showed little interest in his normal activities (his food items were not battling each other for domination over the known universe), was growing cranky, and was often caught staring into space over his Frosted Flakes. His parents weren't sure what was going on inside his head, but they knew that such a sullen attitude was out of the ordinary for their normally even-keeled child.

The father, guiltily theorizing that maybe he wasn't spending enough time with his son, took him on an unexpected daddy-son walk. They boy perked up as soon as his feet hit the road. His uninhibited laughter rang out as he raced from crack to crack, imagining each as a finish line. His shouts of joy in physical effort lifted his father's spirits as he thought, "This is the son I know. He is back."

Then the boy planted his face square in the middle of a cold silver pole holding up a bright red stop sign. A street that had, moments before, heard the sounds of a young boy's giddy happiness now rang out with anguished cries. "Is it bleeding?" and "I want to go home" came out between sobs as a spot of red came out on the boy's lip as if to match the unmoved sign above the pair. The contrast couldn't be greater as the two retraced their steps home, blood dripping from one's swelling upper lip while the other wondered if this was always to be the fate of fathers: the unintended cause of their children's misery.


Peace

For Shame, Raymond V. Frethchild

On January 3, 2006, the Ohoopee Online posted a human interest story about the dreams of children concerning what they want to be when they grow up. A Mr. Splitcat Chintzibobs had responded to the question, "What did you want to be when you grew up (WYGU) while you were a kid?" with the answer:

The first thing I remember wanting to be was an astronaut. I desperately wanted to fly, land on other worlds, and live a life of adventure. My evil eldest brother typed a prank letter to me from the Lego Space Academy, informing me that I had been accepted and only had to send in my $1,000,000 application fee (my brother went on to a long and successful career with a Nigerian bank). The thrilling hope that rose within me and the combination of my two greatest loves (space and Lego) fell back to earth quicker than a Soviet space capsule as everyone was very fast (and gleeful I think) to point out that you had to be a pilot to be an astronaut and that pilots can't wear glasses (I wore them young). I moved on to other dreams.

Some questioned whether any brother would be so cruel as to play with a younger brother's desperate dreams to such an extent as to actually compose an elaborate prank letter on a tricky old manual typewriter. The manipulation of a child's two great loves was judged to be either the result of a deeply twisted but brilliant mind, or a complete fabrication similar to the Dan Rather/60 Minutes story. It was posited that the Ohoopee was attempting to smear the reputation of a man whose only failing was a high school PE class in disco dancing. Granted, TOLN has been caught in few minor fabrications and exaggerations in the past, but the editors stood by this story and promised that the full truth would one day be revealed. Today is that day.

This past weekend, TOLN researchers uncovered the original document in the extensive Ohoopee archives while looking for items to include in the semi-millennial yard sale benefiting Truth in Media. Experts in Lego-fraudulance have confirmed its authenticity. The editors ask our readers to be the judge (click image for close-up):

Mr. Splitcat Chintzibobs was an innocent 10 years old when he received this letter from "Raymond V. Frethchild". He has never quite recovered from the pain of discovering that Raymond V. Frethchild, the Lego Space Academy, and the Polish Aeronautic Space Association never existed; he occasionally Googles "Raymond V. Fretchild" in hopes that one day his twenty-two three page applications will be finally received and processed. Until that day, he religiously does three push-ups every night to stay in top physical shape, just in case.

Peace

Meme: Love that House!

Via 4boydad: "List 5 things you like most about your house."

1. The price. We purchased our house just as the real estate boom began. We didn't have much to spend on our first house, but three years of apartment living and prompting from my dad led us to explore our options. Our agent searched diligently for a home in the area that we wanted and in our price range. Sadly, the only homes in our price range were former crack houses (or worse). One day he drove us to a pre-foreclosure in "great for a fixer-upper" condition. So we bought it. Now we live in a former crack house. One day I will tell you the rest of the story; it takes me about twenty-five minutes to tell when I tell my classes (it is a perfect story for the half-day before Thanksgiving when a third of the students are gone and nothing is getting done anyway).

2. The downstairs living room. This large, L-shaped living area is where we spend most of our time indoors. It has plenty of room for the kids to play, a TV area, a computer area, a fireplace, and most of our books. Because it is below grade, it stays quite cool in the summer (though it is tough to heat in the winter).

3. The backyard. Our house sits on a large, trapezoidal lot (.79 acres). The house is sited at the narrow part of the trapezoid near the street leaving the bulk of the acreage behind the house in a spreading, west-facing lawn. When we moved in, the backyard was a bit of a jungle, but I have put in many hours making it quite a pleasant place. Much remains to be done (a large crabapple tree just split in half and awaits my chainsaw, but the westerly wind that almost always seems to be blowing will make the chore bearable). The backyard is continually surprising us with some unexpected wonder. Just this year we discovered that the unusual tree in the back corner of our lot is a pecan tree. In addition the mysterious disappearance of the neighborhood cats has led to the return of reptiles to our backyard (only a couple of months ago I saw the first lizard in our yard in eight years).

4. The Two Trees: It will be hard to move if we ever have to. Each of our children has a tree in the backyard that was planted in the year they were born. Our boy has a silver maple. Our girl has a redbud. The twins will, perhaps, have red maples.

5. Location: Just before we bought our house, I was having a discussion at my temp job with a
co-temp (temps generally only talk to other temps) about living in the suburbs versus "in-town" (not quite downtown but close enough to feel urban-chic). She was a recent social work grad and wanted to move in-town for the diversity; she wanted any kids that she might have to meet all kinds of people (in a reversal of white flight, a large number of young, white suburbans have begun moving back "in-town" over the past fifteen years in Atlanta). I thought she might have a point until we moved in to our own, very suburban home. Our Iranian neighbors live across the street from our Vietnamese neighbors who live down the road from our Indian neighbors who always walk their dogs past our African-American neighbors, our Mexican neighbors, and our white neighbors (both red-necked and white-collared). Walking down the street at dinner time, one can be met by a wondrous melange of international food scents. In addition, I am only fifteen to twenty minutes from work and within thirty minutes of most of our families. Plus, we are close to a good Mexican restaurant, a good barbecue restaurant, a good Italian restaurant, a good pizza joint, a excellent movie house, a national park, a major trout stream, a thrift store, and are only three miles from the interstate.


Peace