The Blog Carnival gods smiled kindly upon me this week as I reap and present to you a rich harvest of thought-provoking posts. I had hoped to present a quilt of personal glimpses but as those of you who have already hosted know, blog carnivals tend to take on a theme of their own. This week’s carnival has the theme: EDUCATION.
It is fitting to start with a newcomer to the carnival and a great addition to any blogroll, The Educational Tour Marm, whose motto is: Educational travel should be a journey, not a guided tour! Ironically though, Tour Marm serves as a splendid tour guide. She is a proponent of historic character interpreters and relates an inspirational account of a “whatEVER” child who was touched by history when she “met” Thomas Jefferson. The Tour Marm reminds us that education has to be more than memorizing facts and dates. To make history interesting, it needs to be made meaningful. Her story about Christina is an example of how an otherwise indifferent student was transformed by her interaction with TJ.
Eileen continues on with this thread of inspiration, learning and achievement with her carnival submission, deftly entitled, “My Blog Carnival Submission.” She shares with us “the Levandoski women’s adventures in Virginia this weekend” which includes this excerpt:
First up is my 10-year old violinist who participated in her first solo festival. She was adjudicated by a violinist who plays in the Colorado Springs Symphony and scored a I+.
Definitely a testament to the love of learning that Eileen and others have instilled although neither Eileen nor I are quite sure what adjudicated means - I just hope that it wasn’t too painful. (Reminder: Ain’t nobody adjudicating nobody in my house!)
Eileen’s other daughter helped bring home a soccer trophy - WAY TO GO! And Eileen herself was educated in the gentle art of transportation debacles, also known as HB3202, by none other than our very own James Atticus Bowden. She has composed a podcast that I encourage all to hear.
I intend to eventually become educated enough to podcast something but first I’ll need to find me an “Appalachian translator.” Those of you unfortunate enough to hear me speak know what I’m talking about!
“Darling Munchkin” is progressing rapidly with her horse riding lessons and Kat has some wonderful video posted for us.
While we celebrate our children as they continue to achieve success in sports, playing musical instruments, learning equestrianism and mastering history lessons, John Maxfield, in his “Iran’s Children of Hatred” serves us a sharp and sobering contrast between the education of children in the United States compared to that of the children in Iran:
Every morning in America, school children stand up, put their hand over their hearts, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In Iran, school children stand up, and are required to sing a song which is called, Arabs are Beloved, Jews are Dogs. Sometimes their songs have refrains that eloquently echo with, Oh, Jews! Oh, killers!
John Continues:
In America, we’re given the choice (for the most part) of how we want to raise our kids in the educational sense. From public to private, even to homeschooling–it’s a choice. Even in those settings, the flexibility of teachers to teach what they want and/or how they want is broad. In Iran, as you might guess, this is not the case. The government of Iran and their “clerics” are involved in every process of an Iranian child’s education–to the extent of coming on the news, lining out how your child should be taught properly–
I couldn’t help but look at this child and imagine him snuggled up at the feet of Thomas Jefferson as he listens to the remarkable tale of the struggle to achieve democracy and freedom of speech.
Spank That Donkey reminds us of the importance of preserving freedom of speech with his post regarding the stifling of expression that is currently occurring in France. I hope that Chris will continue to follow this story closely and keep us posted.
Ann Coulter certainly exercised her freedom of speech recently, huh? Joe Budzinski astutely notes that:
“. . . Ms. Coulter did not call John Edwards a faggot. The sentence structure is a combination of the pluperfect and future subjunctive forms and yields a hypothetical statement regarding both Mr. Edwards and the term in question. There is no reason to assume she did not choose her words carefully, because regardless of whatever else one might say about Ann Coulter few accuse her of being a poor writer. Her actual statement concerned what happens if you use a particular word. Considering that the public response to her statement has precisely confirmed what she said, there is a simple factual accuracy to the remark.
My response to Joe’s usage of the words pluperfect and future subjunctive confirms that I was snoozing instead of being educated in eleventh-grade English class. Actually, I was probably praying that I wouldn’t be the one to be called “faggot” in gym class later that day.
While Hillary was being educated at Wellesley, she wrote a thesis (probably using pluperfect and future subjunctive forms, no doubt) examining the tactics of radical community organizer Saul D. Alinsky. Bill Dedman of MSNBC says:
“Despite the fervent interest in the thesis, few realize that it is no longer kept under lock and key. As MSNBC.com found, it is available to anyone who visits the archive room of the prestigious women’s college outside Boston. With Clinton’s opponents in the 2008 presidential race looking for the next “Swift Boat” attack ad, and the senator herself trying to cast off her liberal image, Clinton’s 92-page thesis is certain to be read and reread by opposition researchers and reporters visiting the campus.”
Peter suggests that the thesis be posted on the net so that we can all read it. I agree with Peter. Then we can make our own judgments and she won’t have to be concerned with being “Swift Boated” in her upcoming race for election. Besides, just think of the gas we’ll save not having to drive up to the archives at Wellesley! Al Gore would certainly be touched.
Apropos of elections, Rick Sincere gives an in-depth report on the Election Reform Conference held at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington:
Addressing the questions, “Is Our Election System Broken? Can We Fix It?”, the conference – part of an ongoing joint project of conservative AEI and the liberal Brookings Institution – heard very different answers from different participants, reflecting an observation of panelist Thomas Mann of Brookings, who compared the situation to Rashomon, the classic film that tells the same story from various points of view.
Mann said that people of good will and integrity can “view the world in different ways,” and gave as an example the issue of proposed legislation to require photo ID cards from voters. There is “a belief among Republicans that there is fraud” that needs to be prevented, while “Democrats believe there are accessibility problems” making it more difficult for people to exercise their right to vote.
Read it and you’ll be educated about the suggestions regarding various reforms as well as view a first-hand example of the two sides of the political aisle coming together to resolve current voting issues.
Just as Tour Marm referred to our former president, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Gurri refers to another former president, Woodrow Wilson, in his recommendation of “What Has Government Done With Our Money?” by Murray Rothbard. While the book sounds like an interesting foundation in the history of currency, what I found more interesting was Adam’s idea:
“More and more I think that the best policy would be to allow banks to establish their own competing currencies. There’s no reason why we should have to “privatize” the dollar–the government could still issue its own currency. It could even make it mandatory for taxes to be paid in that currency. But in terms of what currency people use for their savings or even for day to day purchases, the dollar should be made vulnerable to the competitive pressures of any other commodity. That way, if inflation gets out of control, people can simply choose to exchange their money for the currencies provided by banks that aren’t so dishonest as to devalue the holdings of their clients for their own profit.”
I feel we should first privatize the DMV, USPS and ABC stores - that will leave us with more currency regardless of who’s printing and backing it. With more money in our pockets, Eileen, Kat, Tour Marm, myself and thousands of others can continue to see to it that our children have even more educational opportunities as they mature into adulthood.
I remember fondly how my grandmother took advantage of almost every opportunity for learning that presented itself. Until she no longer could.
I’ve written about the cruel, gnarled talons of Alzheimer’s Disease which has now grasped and taken away two of the most beloved women in my life. Fortunately for myself and others, we have people heroes like Scott White and programs like Project Lifesaver:
As a police officer and first responder, I often find myself in situations dealing with Alzheimer’s patients as well as autistic children and other conditions associated with “missing persons”. Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to be able to find, help find, or facilitate the locating of most of the folks that have wandered away from their caregivers. In fact, I can’t think of any that I was personally involved in that didn’t end happily. But there are a few that my agency has had to deal with. This of course is hard, beyond comprehension on the family, but trust me when I tell you it is hard, very hard, on the public safety officials who are involved.
While saying the course is “hard” is somewhat of an understatement, I can’t imagine how much harder it would be without Scott and the many dedicated public safety officials helping us keep our loved ones safe. For the umpteenth time, Thank you, Scott!
Not only does Scott help protect us and our families, he has helped protect my Web site from its greatest threat, me. He has been an invaluable asset in my ongoing love/hate (mostly hate) struggle with WordPress. Another valuable asset is David St. Lawrence.
David helps us decide if we even need a Web site (we’re bloggers so I say we do) and then helps us decide how much of a Web site we need. His post deals with business Web site applications but it’s still a good read for the garden variety blogger.
After we decide that we need a Web site and how much Web site we need, it’s time to name our Web sites. Is it narcissistic to name our Web sites with our real names? Douglas T helps us sort that out. Using my REAL name wasn’t an option for me because the domain mamapleasebuymethis.com was already taken.
Roci has excellent points regarding the recent news about Walter Reed Army Hospital. One of his ten hard-hitting points is this:
Everything in the legacy media misses the point entirely. This issue was not about rodents and mold. This hospital is in DC. Every building in DC has rodents and mold. Nor is it about a failure of leadership. No leader can be everywhere and see everything. Firing Generals is great sport for politicians but ultimately solves nothing.
Check it out to catch the other nine points and proposals.
Spring is just around the corner! Andrew saw a half dozen or so Cedar waxwings and Ward directs us to a site where we can learn how to plant America’s Anniversary Garden to help individuals, communities and groups mark America’s 400th Anniversary with a signature garden planting. The signature gardens will have red, white, and blue color schemes.
Last, but certainly not least, Alton shares photos of his recent trip to deep, dark and mysterious Southwest Virginia and challenges us to identify the sights he captured.
I wish to thank all who contributed to this week’s Virginia Blog Carnival as well as bestow an extra heapin’ helpin’ of gratitude on Eileen (affectionately dubbed Demzilla) for helping to bridge the gap between bloggers of different political persuasions. What a boring world it would be if we were all alike. (Unless, of course, everyone was just like me!)
