Take some time to study these graphs. And remember as you look at the first one, INFLATION ADJUSTED.

What's wrong with this picture?

hat tip: The Papa

Labels: Family, Food, Homeschooling, Language, Movies, Political Action, Social Observation, Weddings

BEIJING -China spent tens of billions of dollars on a dazzling 2008 Olympics. It has sent astronauts into space. It recently became the world's second largest economy. Yet it gets more than $2.5 billion a year in foreign government aid — and taxpayers and lawmakers in donor countries are increasingly asking why.

And then we have to rethink that hold parent thing about "Finish the crusts on that peanut butter sandwich! Don't you know there are children in China starving right this very minute?" Change that to, "Don't you know there are kids whose daddies are on the unemployment rolls this very week?"

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/ahtHFW

Labels: Political Observation, Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd

Good news from the world of education today. First, score one for the Lone Star State:
Controversial UIC professor denied emeritus status

Labels: Education

More than a quarter million British children have been accused of racism since the country passed its Race Relations Act in 2000, the Daily Mail reports.

Munira Mirza, a senior adviser to London Mayor Boris Johnson, says teachers are being forced to report children as young as 3 years old to the authorities for using alleged "racist" language.

"Teachers are now required to report incidents of racist abuse among children as young as three to local authorities, resulting in a massive increase of cases and reinforcing the perception that we need an army of experts to manage race relations from cradle to grave," she wrote in Prospect magazine.

(And they don't believe in original sin.)


More Than 250,000 British Toddlers Labeled Racists

hat tip: The Papa

Labels: Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd

Please, make sure you are registered to vote, that you know where your voting site is, and that you make a plan to vote, either on November 2,  by absentee ballot, or during your state's early voting period. Without a plan, it's very easy to miss deadlines or let other things get in the way. Don't let this happen to you this year--I can't think of a time in the past half-century that your vote has been more important than it will be this year and in 2012. Talk to everyone you can about getting registered and getting ready. We can do this!

Labels: Political Action

Labels: Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd

Make no mistake: I consider it despicable that a backwoods "pastor" in Florida caused an international incident and brought attention only to his lack of intellect and his misunderstanding of the Gospel by threatening to burn a Koran.

But a lot of us have overlooked the unspoken incongruities and inequities in this whole Muslim sensitivity thing. Read carefully what Mark Steyn has to say today (in his September 20 post) and then examine whether you, too, have internalized what Islam has to say about you.



Mollifying Muslims, and Muslifying Mollies

hat tip: The Papa

Labels: Theater of the Absurd

It's fall. And though usually the beginning of fall is a cruel joke to those of us here in South America Texas, it was actually below 70 before sunset this evening, and that gives me hope. Now if we can just avoid too much rain in the less than three weeks before the wedding. We need to park about 75 cars on our "land" and it would be nice not to have any quicksand, and it would be nice not to experience a deluge during the outdoor ceremony.

Our school is going well this year, but then again, we've way downsized. John Caleb is doing several courses through a local co-op and is just doing math and history with us. I've got lots of time and space now for one-on-one attention with Tim, and that has been very good for both of us.

If you're looking for a good writing program and don't mind giving it some real effort, please look at Classical Writing (www.classicalwriting.com). This is the program I've been looking for for a quarter of a century, and it's one I'd love to use with younger kids (my grandkids and others) when my own teaching responsibilities are over. I love to write, but teaching writing has always been my least favorite "chore," right there behind Texas history.

Learning to walk again with one leg considerably shorter than the other has been one of my biggest challenges in the past decade. And after two false starts at having shoes made for me that would equalize the difference, this week I'm so encouraged! Our friend Cody Longenbaugh brought me in to his company and they worked on two pairs of shoes for me, and I now have hope that I'm not going to have to spend the rest of my life limping or wearing shoes that look like my grandmother's :-)

This afternoon I watched half of the Ken Burns series on Thomas Jefferson. I can never seem to get enough of Jefferson or of trying to figure him out. He's one of the most interesting figures in all of history to me, even when I disagree with him. A couple of things stood out to me today. One is the quote from Tristram Shandy that would have remained obscure except for the fact that Martha Jefferson wrote it out to Thomas as she lay dying and could no longer speak...

Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return...

And then there's this, a quote from a letter Jefferson wrote to William S. Smith in 1787. It more prescient all the time:

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

No, I still don't know what I'm wearing to the wedding. I'm working on it.

To the soprano who sat in back of me this morning and blessed my morning and my worship with your beautiful singing, thank you. You were a gift.

And this week, I WILL make Pioneer Woman's "The Bread." Yes, it's glorified breadandbutter. But I can smell it already. I was going to include a link, but her site is down. You're probably better off.

I hope that where you live you'll be feeling the zip of fall air very soon. I'll be here waiting...

Labels: Church, Food, Homeschooling, TV, Weather, Weddings

From the administration that brought you "man-caused disaster" and "overseas contingency operation," another terminology change is in the pipeline.

The White House wants the public to start using the term "global climate disruption" in place of "global warming" -- fearing the latter term oversimplifies the problem and makes it sound less dangerous than it really is.

White House: Global Warming Out, 'Global Climate Disruption' In

Labels: ObamaNation, Theater of the Absurd

Should we have been so rough on a lack of decorum and so easy on outright deceit?


On Obamacare, Wilson was rude but right

Labels: ObamaNation, Theater of the Absurd

Despite a few ultra-libertarian positions that I'm not totally on board with, I love John Stossel. Especially when he's talking about the boondoggle that is public education. Well, and much private education as well.


Money Is Not What Schools Need

Labels: Education

27 days from now, CJ will be married and she and Tony will start their new life together in Oklahoma...and the population at Granny's House will decrease by one. Half of me is so excited I can't stand it, and the other half wants to pour molasses on the calendar to slow down the passing of days...

I know the next weddings will be here in an instant, so I'm trying to freeze some of these moments in time so they won't all be running together in my memory book. Where do the days go?

The polls ahead of the November election are beginning to look intoxicating and I'm trying not to hyperventilate. I'm hoping and praying that voter enthusiasm hasn't peaked too early.

REGISTER TO VOTE! TOMORROW!! Don't let your voice go unheard on November 2.

Oh, how I'm longing to feel the first zingy-crisp breeze of fall. I know, that's still two months away, but I'm waiting....

Our new landscaping is looking great and is going to be a nice frame for the wedding! Lots of wedding tasks to do this week, including finding a new pianist. Nothing is ever as smooth as it seems it's going be.

The upcoming departure of daughter #4, who has really been the primary caretaker of my kitchen during my years of immobility, is taking some of HER things with her (I know, the nerve, right?)--things I need to replace so we won't have holes in our kitchen. This week I bought a rolling kitchen island to replace the storage cart of CJ's that I've enjoyed using for the past few years. Now if I can just get The Papa to get it out of the box and put together!

Nathan did his first weekend of Air National Guard service and came home this afternoon tired as a dog but loving it. He is still waiting for a Basic Training date but it's look like he'll go right before Christmas and be away from us for the holidays. Much as I hate that part, I'm thrilled that things are moving for him!

I'm going into the new school week feeling terribly unprepared both on paper and emotionally. The weekend has been a nightmare and I've just begun to feel the soothing balm of God's grace fall around me. Unfortunately it comes a little too late to completely save our Monday. But then again, He is never late.

Have I told you that The Papa and I are going on a honeymoon after the wedding? Yep, our favorite Pacific island :-)

For my sweet daughter tonight (you know who you are):


~Dan Burgess for Selah

Labels: Homemaking, Homeschooling, Music, Political Action, Sundays, Weather, Weddings

If you are trying to inculcate good study habits in your children, or if you're simply engrossed with how the learning brain operates, or as in my case, both, you need to read this.

For one thing, it will make you feel better about what you always knew about studying but your mom and the experts told you otherwise. They said study in the same place all the time, minimize distractions, etc. But you instinctively knew you studied best to music, lying on the floor while snacking.

For another thing, it helps to debunk what I've thought for a long time--that all the hoopla about different learning styles is way overdone and really has no basis in scientific research.

One of the reasons I've doubted it is because of my own personal brain quirks. I've always thought of myself as a visual learner, but there are whole areas where I don't learn visually. You've heard people say, "I can't remember names, but I never forget a face"? Well I'm the opposite. I remember the names but I can meet you today and not remember your face the day after tomorrow. I used to think of that as a moral failing, but I've learned that it's just the way my brain works (or doesn't). To make it even more confusing, I can probably identify by face on TV 90 out of 100 U.S. senators, and maybe 30% of U.S. representatives. I can hear the voices of most of them without looking at their faces and tell you who they are. If I don't know their names after hearing their voices, I can probably at least tell you their party affiliation. Isn't that weird? And yet let me meet one of The Papa's co-workers at a Christmas party and then run into him at the grocery store later in the week, and I won't think I've ever met him.

Learning styles are neither as set nor as universal as the past generation of experts has led us to believe. Some kids learn math best visually and literature aurally. Some kids learn science kinesthetically but a hands-on treatment won't help them learn history. And some of us learn best visually at one point in our lives and aurally in another. Moreover, I believe after working with quite a few children that just because they've been tagged as a visual learner doesn't mean you need to use a curriculum with them that is predominantly visual. That may even stunt their growth in other areas by helping them to believe they can only learn one way.

Lecture over. Read this and see what you think.

Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits

hat tip: The Papa

Labels: Education, Homeschooling, Learning, Science

It's about time, is all I can say...

U.S. names Asian carp czar

Labels: Theater of the Absurd

Finally...someone in higher education with something worthwhile to say about higher education. Back to School

Labels: Education

Guess Hawking clears that right up.

No need for God

Labels: Science, Theater of the Absurd