Jack White, Joan Baez- sing Wayfaring Stranger

He sang it on the Cold Mountain soundtrack, according to youtube. I think I like Joan Baez's version a bit better:

Overdraft note from 1967

Moving an old secretary from the Rattery into my dining room, an overdraft notice from 1967 slid out from under one of the compartments:

Our books show your account overdrawn $2.35. If this is correct kindly notify us at once; if not correct, notify us immediately.

PLEASE READ RULINGS BELOW:
U.S. SUPREME COURT RULING: "A usage to allow customers to overdraw, and to have their checks and notes charged up without present funds in the bank, is a usage and practice to misapply funds of the bank."

RULING OF COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY: "The granting by some banks of accommodation in the form of overdrafts is objectionable and cannot be countenanced by this office."

Curious about this, I googled and found this ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Secretary of the Treasury ON THE STATE OF THE FINANCES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 1911 With Appendices and on page 409:

The Supreme Court of the United States has given its opinion on overdrafts in 1 Peters, page 71:

"A usage to allow customers to overdraw and to have their checks and notes charged up without present funds in the bank—stripped of all technical disguise, the usage and practice thus attempted to be sanctioned—is a usage and practice to misapply the funds of the bank, and to connive at the withdrawal of the same, without any security, in favor of certain privileged persons. Such a usage and practice is surely a manifest departure from the duty, both of the directors and cashier, as can not receive any countenance in a court of justice. It could not be supported by any vote of the directors, however formal; and therefore, .whenever done by the cashier, is at his own peril and upon the responsibility of himself and his sureties. It is anything but 'well and truly executing his duties as cashier.'"

The overdrafts in national banks of the United States, as reported on the call of the Comptroller of the Currency, within the last five years have been reported as high as $53,000,000 and as low as $23,000,000, with an average for the five years of $35,000,000.

Since the Currency Bureau was established this office has persistently criticized the granting of overdrafts, with the result that the banks in many places have agreed to discontinue them and have entered into a, formal agreement to that effect. The legislation of the different States on the question of overdrafts, as well as the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the subject, is brought to your attention in order that you may take the matter up with the banks in your district.

Text messaging and social skills

In September 2008, when Nielsen Mobile announced that teenagers with cellphones each sent and received, on average, 1,742 text messages a month, the number sounded high, but just a few months later Nielsen raised the tally to 2,272.

One of the first questions homeschoolers get is the S word- What about socialization? Turns out that's a question more appropriately asked not of homeschoolers, not of public schoolers, but of parents who let their kids text overmuch:

We live in a culture where young people—outfitted with iPhone and laptop and devoting hours every evening from age 10 onward to messaging of one kind and another—are ever less likely to develop the "silent fluency" that comes from face-to-face interaction. It is a skill that we all must learn, in actual social settings, from people (often older) who are adept in the idiom. As text-centered messaging increases, such occasions diminish. The digital natives improve their adroitness at the keyboard, but when it comes to their capacity to "read" the behavior of others, they are all thumbs.

Nobody knows the extent of the problem. It is too early to assess the effect of digital habits, and the tools change so quickly that research can't keep up with them. By the time investigators design a study, secure funding, collect results and publish them, the technology has changed and the study is outdated.

Still, we might reasonably pose questions about silent-language acquisition in a digital environment. Lots of folks grumble about the diffidence, self-absorption and general uncommunicativeness of Generation Y. The next time they face a twenty-something who doesn't look them in the eye, who slouches and sighs for no apparent reason, who seems distracted and unaware of the rising frustration of the other people in the room, and who turns aside to answer a text message with glee and facility, they shouldn't think, "What a rude kid." Instead, they should show a little compassion and, perhaps, seize on a teachable moment. "Ah," they might think instead, "another texter who doesn't realize that he is communicating, right now, with every glance and movement—and that we're reading him all too well."

OF course, once the nontexters all die off, the texters will inherit the earth and they won't any of them be paying attention to social cues, body language, or facial expressions. Those who intuitively grasp these things (or come from outlying micro cultures like weird even among homeschoolers who aren't allowed to text) will either be able to sell their skills as social abassadors to the world- or, as in Kipling's horror story of The One-Eyed Man (based on the proverb 'in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king), the ability to read body language and facial expression will actually seem like something weird, too complicated, and actually a hinderance to real communication and the rest of the world will eat them up.

Could get very interesting. As the friend who sent me this link pointed out, these symptoms are the pathology of the autism spectrum.

The CIA did NOT release the documents Cheney requested?

From Timothy Noah at Slate:

I spent two days trying to get an answer out of the Justice Department, expecting at any moment to be told that of course this was a clerical error and of course the Obama administration wouldn't try to pull a fast one, especially given the near-certainty that it would be found out. But nobody was willing to discuss the matter at all. Finally, I got referred to the CIA, where Little finally said, in an e-mail, the following: "The documents that the former Vice President requested are being processed in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act."

In other words … the CIA hasn't released the documents Cheney requested. Or, rather, it released one but not the other.

I suspect the reason the Obama administration is willing to pull a fast one without worrying about being found out is because of how regularly the media carries their water for them.

Now, Noah makes a good argument for why he doubts the actual memo Cheney requested will say exactly what Cheney says it will- but we won't know until the CIA releases the correct document and stops being cagey about it, will we?

Can we stop calling free dealing with OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY compassion, now?

The LATimes lauds the late Senator Kennedy for 'reminding us how great we can be if choose compassion over complacency.' That's kind of an odd either/or choice, since the only alternative to Kennedy's brand of 'compassion' certainly is NOT complacency. But it's also odd because, as Donald Boudreaux reminds us, as with most Democrats who have run for the Executive office, Kennedy wasn't very generous at all where it counted- with his own money:

While he almost always kept his income-tax returns secret, Mr. Kennedy was obliged to release them during his run for the presidency in 1980. These records reveal that Sen. Compassion – worth $8 million at the time (nearly $20 million in today’s dollars) and earning an annual income of close to $500,000 (almost $1.3 million in today’s dollars) – contributed a whopping one percent of his income to charity. This percentage figure is a paltry one-fourth the size of the charitable contributions, made at the same time, of the less-wealthy Ronald Reagan.

Percentage wise, this is a tenth of what each member of our family, including our children, gives to charity.

I do get a bit tired of the hypocrisy:

Frankly, if anybody in favor of higher taxes because it's the charitable thing to do isn't actually voluntarily paying higher taxes themselves, yeah, I think you have a double standard. And anybody in favor of higher taxes because of their alleged compassion ought to be donating more to charity than the average conservative, and those who aren't (which is statistically a huge majority) is at least lacking in some level of self-awareness, and that's being kind- I really think it's hypocritical of the majority of the left to be so much less personally generous than conservatives:

In 1996, the General Social Survey asked a large sample of Americans whether they agreed that, “The government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality.” Those who “disagreed strongly” with this statement gave an amazing twelve times more money to charity per year, on average, than those who “agreed strongly.” People disagreeing strongly also gave nine times more to secular causes than those agreeing strongly, and even gave more to traditionally progressive causes, such as the environment and the arts.

I wouldn't put it quite as harshly as Chapin, but there is some truth to this:

The hypocrisy and self-deception of the leftist is acute. They pretend taxes are patriotic and that government itself is a charity but prove scofflaws if their own IRS returns are examined. Pseudo-liberals contrast themselves with the right by proclaiming a love for minorities and the poor, but curiously choose to live in exclusive suburbs and eschew contact with the general population whenever possible.

The study by Arthur Brooks really ought to have gotten a lot more attention than it did, but I am not surprised it didn't:

Brooks shows that those who say they strongly oppose redistribution by government to remedy income inequality give over 10 times more to charity than those who strongly support government intervention, with a difference of $1,627 annually versus $140 to all causes. The average donation to educational causes among redistributionists was eight dollars per year, compared with $140 from their ideological opposites, and $96 annually to health care causes from free marketeers versus $11 from egalitarians.

A 2002 poll found that those who thought government "was spending too much money on welfare" were significantly more likely than those who wanted increased spending on welfare to give directions to someone on the street, return extra change to a cashier, or give food and/or money to a homeless person.

Brooks finds that households with a conservative at the helm gave an average of 30 percent more money to charity in 2000 than liberal households (a difference of $1,600 to $1,227). The difference isn't explained by income differential—in fact, liberal households make about 6 percent more per year. Poor, rich, and middle class conservatives all gave more than their liberal counterparts. And while religion is a major factor, the figures don't just show tithing to churches. Religious donors give significantly more to non-religious causes than do their secular counterparts.

I'm not sure what word would be appropriate when describing a free hand with other people's money, but I know it's not compassion.

Vintage Book: The Second Graders Build a Class Library

Had I done a better job of scanning, this first illustration would make a nice avatar or illustration for a bookblog:













I find this stuff fascinating. These second grade children- what is that? Eight? These 7 or 8 year olds are ripping apart boxes, painting furniture, making curtains, and fixing and selling candy. We don't expect that kind of competence from teens anymore. Look at the second illustration- They have a saw, exposed nails, and several children (including both little girls) are wielding hammers. How dangerous and scary of them.

And making chairs from old orange crates? They're bound to get splinters. Especially the girls in those short frocks.;-)

This would give far too many mothers the vapours today, let alone the likes of the PIRG and Public Citizen nannies. And are we producing young people who are more or less capable than those of yesteryear?

Living the interested life

When you enter the wonder-world of the insects, I have discovered, your adventures are limited largely by the extent of your knowledge. You make progress by the extent of your knowledge. You make progress in exploring this world on two legs: interest and knowledge. If you are interested but don't know what to look for, you are like a one-legged man and hobble along getting only half the fun you might. Even the commonest cricket or katydid, if you learn enough of its life and habits, becomes intensely interesting.

The Boys' Book of Insects by Edwin Way Teale (this book is a rare find, so I didn't bother to link it at Amazon- there is, however, a reprint of Teale's "Insect Life," a booklet he wrote for the Boy Scouts of America's Merit Badge program).

That reminded me a bit of the story of Eyes and No Eyes by Dr. John Aiken and Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld- in the tale two boys, Robert and William, each go on a walk about, and their teacher asks them each where they have been and what they have seen. One says he has seen nothing and it was all very dull, and the other waxes on for several pages about all the interesting things he has seen. The story ends with this moral as voiced by their teacher:

one man walks through the world with his eyes open, and
another with them shut; and upon this difference depends all the
superiority of knowledge the one acquires above the other. I have
known sailors, who had been in all the quarters of the world, and
could tell you nothing but the signs of the tippling-houses they
frequented in different ports, and the price and quality of the liquor.
On the other hand, a Franklin could not cross the Channel, without
making some observations useful to mankind. While many a vacant,
thoughtless youth is whirled throughout Europe without gaining
a single idea worth crossing a street for, the observing eye and
inquiring mind find matter of improvement and delight in every
ramble in town or country. Do _you_, then, William, continue to
make use of your eyes; and _you_, Robert, learn that eyes were
given you to use.

More thoughts along these lines in the post Live an Interested Life.

Sunday Hymn Post

The HG mentioned this hymn as one of her favorites here in 2005, and I thought it was fitting to share it again:

The Spacious Firmament On High:

The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame
Their great Original proclaim.
Th’unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator’s powers display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty Hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
While all the stars that round her burn
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though no real voice nor sound
Amid the radiant orbs be found?
In reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
“The hand that made us is divine.”

You can listen to a midi file of it here

New Hope Road Church of Christ has something they call a 'song learning page,' They say if you download Finale Notepad you will be able to see, hear and even print the songs which they have linked on the New Hope website. There are no lyrics, but you get a printable music score (in shaped notes) and a midi file.

The lyrics are by Joseph Addison and were published in The Spectator in 1712.

Blynken and Nod Eat Peanuts in the Shell

And other events from this evening.

Nod has to be stopped from eating the peanuts in the shell, if you know what I mean. Blynken is excited- every newly cracked peanut is a new discovery-

"There are TWO peanuts in there! Hey, look at this- it's shaped like a deer foot- deers have two toes and and this peanut looks like that. I am about to eat the deer foot!! Hey, this one just popped out of the shell! Why do they have paper around them? Skin? Peanuts have SKIN? That sounds kind of gross, you know.


Can I eat it?"

He does and decides he does not like the skin. He says it tastes like stale french fries.

"Can I put some of them in a glass of water to see what they do?" he asks. He is a little scientist, is Blynken. I tell him yes, he can, and so he does.

Stories chosen tonight:
Harold and the Purple Crayon
The Little Engine that Could
The Story of Little Babaji
George and Martha Round and Round
A Kiss for Little Bear
Blynken wanted The Man Who Didn't Wash His Dishes, but we couldn't find it.

"Why do you have so much books?" he asks. "There's, like, a dozen."

"Not a dozen," I tell him. "A dozen is only 12. We have way more than 8,000."

"How do you know," he demands, instantly full of suspicion. "Did you count them?" Quite the skeptic, our Blynken is. He never believes anybody.

Earlier in the evening his mother was here and she called to him in another room and told him to stop doing something or other.

"How do you know what I was doing?" he asks.

"I am a Mom. I can see through walls," she tells him.

"No. You can't," he tells her flatly. "That's a lie. People cannot see through walls."

She laughs, but it hurts me a little. I have strong feelings about telling children things you know to be false (they are told it doesn't hurt when they go to get shots, too).

Later, at bedtime he hides in the closet and peeks out and announces, "We are not from this planet, you know."

The boys romp through the house with the FYG, chasing each other like puppies. Then they plan to hide from the FYG, but Bynken tells me, "You turned out all the lights in all the other rooms, so there's nowhere to hide!"

I disagree, "You can hide better in the dark."

"But I am afraid of the dark," he says. "Shadows come out of places into my face in the dark."

But at bedtime, he demands that the FYG tell him a super really very scary story. "You never tell scary stories in this house," he says.

She tries to make one up. He scoffs. "That's not scary. It should be more violet."

Alison Krauss and Union Station sing Wayfaring Stranger

Unfortunately, they're singing at what is apparently a festival of idiots in Penssylvania somewhere.



It's a very rough recording of an incredibly golden voice.

The Equuschick Writes Required Reading for Her Equestrian Curriculum

Since The Equuschick hasn't been able to ride comfortably in a couple months and since she won't be able to do much at all outside immediately after the Little Guy's arrival, she has been spending some extra time with her riding student and Pipsqueak so that they can keep Sky moderately in shape until The Equuschick can take over again.

Sky in fact has had several opportunities lately to have new and interesting people ride him, or ride him in different ways. When confused, bewildered, or just plain annoyed or disinterested, he is smart enough to tone out and develop his own agenda that will eventually lead his rider straight back to the barn or the throes of the Slow and Lazy Endless Circle of Doom. (This has been the HG's nemesis.)

Now the interesting thing about this evening was that it was the first time in quite some time the Pipsqueak has been on a horse at all. Her last lessons were Western, Sky has been used in a primarily English style. Naturally, there was some inevitable confusion. When The Equuschick first began to watch she wasn't sure what her role would be or how much aid to give. There were certainly some rough issues in the beginning.

But note, all of you- With The Pipsqueak on his back, Sky never once went back to the barn, snuck quietly into a sleeping circle, or just stopped and fell asleep.

He was confused, a bit frustrated from time to time. But he never lost attention for his rider. He remained alert and awake from the mount to the dismount and for the most part The Equuschick was silent while Pipqueak and Sky worked through their little issues and arrived together at a point of communication intelligible to both.

Perhaps you think that the Pipsqueak is some sort of supernatural horse whisperer of the kind sensationalized in literature. It really isn't that fancy.

Perhaps you think the Pipsqueak carried a riding crop the whole time and that Sky was soundly beaten for every misstep, but good communication between horse and rider is much more just than that.

The Pipsqueak did not demand instant obedience of a horse when she knew they may not always understand each-other, she simply demanded his attention. Here's how it works.

When The Pipsqueak asked for something and she got the wrong response she did much the fairest thing of all. She told Sky so immediately. Not with violence, not with anger. But a very quick, precise "Nope, that's not it." A sharp tap of the heels perhaps or a swift adjustment of the reins, pressure immediately put on and immediately released when the horse has at least moved in the right direction.

It is a common habit in many unsure riders to hesitate when they've asked for a response they've failed to get, so the horse will carry on offering the wrong response (or no response at all) while the rider offers yet another conflicting cue after another or turns in bewilderment to the instructor, allowing the horse to stop of his own volition. A few things are likely to happen.

The horse may become frustrated by the barrage of muted and confused cues and become annoyed or tone them out together, the horse may learn "Aha, if I get confused enough I'll get to stand still for a moment", but in every possible scenario the end result is the same. The rider has lost the horse's attention and this is one problem that cannot be resolved by the instructor.

A horse is not a vehicle with a set of keys and buttons. You don't push a button to get a preprogrammed response. You communicate. You give and take. The analogy is that of learning to speak to someone who doesn't speak your language, and this goes for every horse and rider no matter how experienced because every rider and every horse is different.

Think about the communication analogy for a minute. Don't you hate it, doesn't it drive you nuts to be in communication with someone who just won't tell us when we've done something they dislike or if we've unintentionally offended them? We hate talking to people who don't know what they want. Don't we all prefer to communicate with someone who will say, if we've misread them "No, that isn't what I want?" We all like clear communication. Sometimes it is hard to communicate what we want of each-other, but it saves everyone a lot of time and trouble if people communicate immediately what they don't want.

It is the same with our horses. They are very, very smart. Just because they may not know what you want the first time you ask doesn't mean they're not capable of figuring it out. Don't stop asking for it, don't stop correcting. Don't let yourself become a helpless passenger while your horse muddles around trying to read your mind. If you can't be clear about what you want, at least be clear about what you don't.



This doesn't have to be with punishment.

This isn't a question of you asserting authority. This is a question of you quickly and efficiently facilitating some return to mutual communication for the mutual benefit of both horse and rider.

In some cases this can be as practical as skipping all correction altogether and just going back to the last cue you gave that your horse understood.

So you're having a bad day and your horse is going in circles when you want to get him out of it, everybody can give the "Whoa" command and then enforce it. What does your horse learn? "My rider is still giving commands. I still must pay attention."

From there perhaps you can work with your instructor on fine-tuning your skills, but the instructor can't do anything for you until you've got your horse's attention.

If you are communicating leg yields and your horse just wants to stop, anybody can cluck and kick. Just tell your horse "move forward." When he wakes up and moves forward, reward that. Again the horse learns "my rider is still speaking to me, I owe her my attention."

Once you've gone back to Square One you can take a deep breath and try to solve your communication issues from there but until your horse knows what you don't want and that you will correct him should you offer that response, there is no reason whatsoever for him to pay any attention to you. You will only bore or overwhelm him.

An instructor can give you guidance and support, he or she can teach you the vocabulary and the basic rules and body positions.

But nothing happens between the horse and the rider until the horse learns that the rider is worthy of his attention.

The instructor cannot teach the horse this for you. Only you can do that. Only you can take the horse out into some quiet corner of the field and say "Look, I know I'm not very clear yet. I'm sorry. I'll be just and kind to you. That is my job. Your job is to listen and make an effort to understand."

Everybody likes to know up front what is expected of them and everyone respects those people who are direct and honest up front. Horses are no exception.

Come Back

Mother Bear's eyes filled with tears.
She took the robin out into the garden.

"I love you, little robin," she said.
"But I want you to be happy.
Fly away, if you wish.
You are free."

The robin flew, far up
into the blue sky.

It sang a high, sweet song.

Then down it came again, right down to Mother Bear.

"Do not be sad," said the robin.
"I love you, too.
I must fly out into the world, but I will come back.
Every year, I will come back."

So Mother Bear kissed the robin, and it flew away.

"And it came back, Grandmother. Didn't it?"

"Oh, yes, Little Bear. It came back.
And it's children came back.
And it's children's children--"

Little Bear's Visit

New Rule

Don't suck your arm hard enough to give yourself a hickey, no, not even if you you're trying to make a smiley face tattoo. In face, probably especially if you're trying to give yourself a smiley face tattoo.

Johnny Cash sings Wayfaring Stranger

The FYG doesn't like Johnny Cash, and I can't figure out where she gets her poor taste from. This isn't the best song for him, I think, but when he's got the right song, which is almost always, I think there's just something deeply satisfying about his voice. And I do love songs in minor key.

Judge sends child to school to consider adopting another religious point of view

A friend sends the following link and writes:

New Hampshire Court orders home-schooled girl to attend public school -- The girl's academic performance was excellent, but the guardian ad litem was troubled that Amanda shared her mother's Christian faith and concluded that Amanda's "interests, and particularly her intellectual and emotional development, would be best served by exposure to a public school setting in which she would be challenged to solve problems presented by a group learning situation and...Amanda would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior."

Furthermore the court order states that despite Amanda's mother insisting that her daughter's religious beliefs were her own, "it would be remarkable if a ten-year-old child who spends her school time with her mother and the vast majority of all her other time with her mother would seriously consider adopting any other religious point of view."

Since when is it the business of the court to ensure that a child consider other religious options?

THOUGHT QUESTION: And what does this infer?
ANSWER: That the public school has assumed responsibility for ensuring that your child will question your religious beliefs and consider alternatives, including homosexuality, atheism, secular humanism, socialism, marxism, etc.

I have a minor beef with the judge and the ad litum:

The court order stated: "According to the guardian ad litem's further report and testimony, the counselor found Amanda to lack some youthful characteristics. She appeard to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith." The guardian noted that during a counseling session, Amanda tried to witness to the counselor and appeared "visibly upset" when the counselor purposefully did not pay attention.

Well, duh. Children and adults both are annoyed when somebody appointed by the court to listen to them 'purposefully' doesn't pay attention. This was rude and insultingly dismissive behavior from the sound of it, an attitude which would have legitimately annoyed anybody, and it's also highly subjective as to how and why Amanda 'appeared visibly upset.'

But there's more going on here. I will acknowledge that the ruling is a bit more complicated than Judge VS Mom, where the utter wrong headedness of the ruling would be a no-brainer. It's not just Judge VS Mom- it's Dad Vs. Mom, and I do believe fathers have some say in their children's education and religious upbringing.

The problem here isn't so much what the judge ruled as the stated basis for his reasoning, and that affects all of us. Although I think the father is mistaken in his desire for his daughter to go to public school (and, in fact, she did attend public school for three classes), she is his child as well as her mother's and they had a custody agreement which included joint decision making. Had the judge merely ruled in the father's favor on that basis it would have only concerned the child and her parents- but he didn't.

Alliance Defense Fund-allied attorney John Anthony Simmons has filed a motion to reconsider. He says this ruling is dangerous to home schoolers because it will set a precedent for other cases.

"Every time you have a court order that uses a wrong standard or misapplies constitutional law, everyone's rights are eventually at stake," the attorney explains. "Because what happens with precedent is it gets expanded -- it gets cited in other cases."

It's one thing to send the girl to school because that's where her father has wanted her to be for the last four or five years and he has joint decision making rights. It's entirely different to sent her to school so that she will consider other religions.

Yes, ObamaCare DOES cover illegals

See HotAir:

Mark Tapscott discovers a nugget in the analysis provided by the Congressional Research Office on HR3200, the House version of ObamaCare coming to the floor. While Barack Obama insists that the idea that ObamaCare will cover illegal immigrants is a “myth,” the CRS points out that the bill does nothing to prevent it. Since HR3200 doesn’t require people to establish citizenship or legal residency before applying to exchanges for health insurance, including the public option, taxpayer money will certainly flow to illegal immigrants...

Incidentally, while the Democrats have been insisting on ID and voter verification at their town hall meetings (something they are loathe to apply to actual elections), there is no citizenship verification mechanism in place in the bill- another reason the CRS says the bill will, indeed, include illegal aliens as well.

CRS reports do not get released to the public. CRS offers private analysis to members of Congress on request, but rarely do they see the light of day. However, David Freddoso got his hands on a copy of the 11-page analysis, “Treatment of Non-Citizens in HR3200″ late last night, and confirmed Tapscott’s reading...

So, question: Obama said it was a dreadful myth and calumny that anti health care bill folks were spreading around. Was he:
A. Uninformed about the contents of the bill he insists we must have NOW
B. Lying

Or something else?

CPSC Grants Waiver to.... Mattel?!

From HotAir:

Now one of the companies that created the problem in the first place has gotten a waiver from the CPSIA’s requirements for third-party testing:

Toy-makers, clothing manufacturers and other companies selling products for young children are submitting samples to independent laboratories for safety tests. But the nation’s largest toy maker, Mattel, isn’t being required to do the same.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently, and quietly, granted Mattel’s request to use its own labs for testing that is required under a law Congress passed last summer in the wake of a rash of recalls of toys contaminated by lead. Six of those toys were produced by Mattel Inc., and its subsidiary Fisher-Price. …

Mattel is getting a competitive advantage, Green said, because smaller companies must pay independent labs to do the tests. Testing costs can run from several hundred dollars to many thousands, depending on the test and the toy or product.

Mattel had to recall more than 2 million toys from the market after inspectors discovered lead in the imported products. Now they claim that their “firewalled” labs will protect consumers and block out “corporate influence”. Where are the labs that Mattel will use? Mexico, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China — and China is where the dangerous toys originated.

July was the 40th anniversary of Mary Jo Kopechne's death

I am sorry for the Kennedy family, who have had more than their share of violent tragedies, and I am sorry for anybody who dies of brain cancer. But I can feel all these things personally while still recognizing that the man had a reprehensible career, and he served longer in the Senate than anybody other than his fellow Democrat, the former Klansman Robert Byrd (I do not admire life-time politicians). This is a politician whose reaction to driving off a bridge and leaving his car in the lake with a young woman drowning in the back seat of that car- walked past houses with lights on them, returned to a party, ignored the fireman with lifesaving skills in order to have a private talk with his lawyers, swam back to his hotel room, made 17 personal phone calls, went to bed, and waited until the morning to let police know he'd left his car in the lake with a human being in it who deserved much better from him.

She deserved MUCH better:

One of Kennedy’s close friends, former editor of Newsweek and New York Times Magazine Ed Klein, tells the Diane Rehm Show that Chappaquiddick jokes were high up on the list (audio here, at 30:10):

It's not because he wasn't sorry, says Klein. It's because he always saw 'the other side' of things, too, the ridiculous side. Um. There is no 'ridiculous' or funny side to the fact that Kennedy got drunk, drove off a bridge and left Mary Jo to die, trapped in the car beneath the lake while he visited with his lawyers, made over a dozen personal phone calls, went to bed, cleaned himself up and put on a neck cuff so he'd look good. This is creepy, not amusing, and it's disgusting.

If I were to do anything to 'honor his legacy,' it would be to make a donation to Mothers Against Drunk Drivers," not change the rules to allow the governor to appoint a Democrat replacement. From Cafe Hayek:

Lion of the Senate

Posted: 26 Aug 2009 12:45 PM PDT

Here’s a letter that I just sent to the Boston Globe:

You report that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick supports “changing state law to allow him to appoint an interim successor to Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat while a special election is held” (”Gov. would OK law change for Kennedy successor,” August 26). You report also that only last week a dying Sen. Kennedy requested this rule change.

But you fail to mention that the very rule that Sen. Kennedy last week pleaded be scuttled is a rule that he himself lobbied for in 2004. As your own Jeff Jacoby wrote last week, “Kennedy wants the Legislature to upend the succession law it passed in 2004, when – at his urging – it stripped away the governor’s longstanding power to temporarily fill a Senate vacancy. Back then, John Kerry was a presidential candidate and Republican Mitt Romney was governor; Kennedy lobbied state Democrats to change the law so that Romney couldn’t name Kerry’s successor.”

To the very end, Mr. Kennedy displayed his lack of principles. And your paper continues to display its reporting biases.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

Nick Gillespie has more on the legislative legacy Kennedy left us.

And there's a good read here:

In protesting Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, Kennedy thundered, “Is there one system of justice for the average citizen and another system for the high and mighty?” These words, uttered five years after Chappaquiddick, are ubiquitous on conservative websites where they are offered up as evidence, not only of Kennedy’s hypocrisy, but the mainstream media’s as well.

Kennedy knew perfectly well that there was indeed one standard of justice for him and his cronies and another for the rest of us.

What to do with Cookie Crumbs

We had some cookies that were falling apart into crumbs because they were stored in bags in the pantry instead of layered on waxed paper in a rubbermaid box in the freezer.

You can use these as ice-cream topping, as topping for pudding, combined with butter and sugar for a cookie crumb crust (like a graham cracker crust), and for cookie truffles (combine crumbs with some sugar and cream cheese, roll into balls, dip in melted chocolate or almond bark)

Or you can make:

Recipe: German Butterscotch Cookie Crumb Cookies

1/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar (tightly packed)
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup milk
1 cup flour
1/4 t salt
1/2 t soda
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 cup walnuts
1 cup cookie crumbs

Cream butter, sugar, add egg yolks and continue heating. Stir in flour sifted with salt, soda and spice alternately with milk. Finally fold in walnuts and cookie crumbs. Drop from teaspoon. Bake in a moderate oven (350) 10 to 15 minutes.

These are kind of odd, but most kids just want cookies.

Bill Monroe sings Wayfaring Stranger

Bill Monroe is the father of Bluegrass music and he was also responsible for the longest running annual Bluegrass festival. He hosted it on his land in the delightfully named Bean Blossom, Indiana.

Your appendix is not a vestigial organ

Read why here.

Roots for vocabulary words

• jur
• lith, petro
• voc
• morph
• soph
• rupt
• fid
• jec, ject
• phon
• psych
• man
• sol, helio
• gen
• cor(s), corp

Can you give a word for each root?

Quotes on Pregnancy

I was searching this morning for the literary reference for a quote I wanted to describe the EC's full-sailed gait, and here it is:

Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--
Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.

~ Titania, of a mortal maidservant whose child she is rearing in Midsummer Night's Dream

That search led me to two others, both from serving maids in reference to the pregnant queen:

The queen your mother rounds apace

She is spread of late
Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!

The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare

Anybody else have any favorites to share?

Obama has NEA ask artists to propagandize for him

As Ace says:

You know, I don't drop the N-word much (Nazi, I mean), but seriously, if you don't want to be called a Nazi, stop doing Nazi stuff.

As a commenter points out, artists are overwhelmingly leftists and do 99% of Thy Master's Bidding anyway. And yet they apparently feel they must organize the effort and have the NEA -- the country's largest funder of art -- slip out the word that all efforts in this area would be much appreciated.

What is wrong with these people that they don't see how unethical this is?

Rules My Mama Never Told Me I'd Need to Make, Redux

It's pretty funny that Kim should bring up this old list of mine the morning after I was thinking of an addition.

I like Kim's basics:

1. If you learned it from Calvin and Hobbes, it's probably not allowed.
2. Emulate The Three Stooges and Little Rascals with great caution.
3. Don't be stupid on purpose.

One of our basic rules, of course, was:

Before you do anything with a rope, ask Mama. I mean that.

She did warn me about the Calvin and Hobbes thing, but I didn't listen. Last night we were driving home from midweek Bible class when the HG received a phone call. We knew who it was from by her tone of voice, even though she didn't actually say anything mushy.

The FYG and the FYB spontaneously burst out in unison (in very sugary voices) with this:

Oooh, snoogy-woogy wips [lips]

"Snoogy, woogy, WIPS?" I asked. "Where on earth did you hear that?"

"Calvin and Hobbes," they admitted. And then they started chanting "Two little lovebirds, sitting in a tree..." which they also learned from reading Calvin and Hobbs. The fact that I joined in with them in no way makes this okay, says the HG.

So this morning, when I read Kim's post, I added a new rule to the list- if you got the idea in Calvin and Hobbes, you probably shouldn't do it.

"Is Calvin and Hobbes now classified?" asked the Boy.

Kim's list is invaluable. I think I must have been a more obnoxious child than Kim, and so were my brothers, because my Mama didn't need to tell me about rules 4 (don't drink the leftover communion wine after church) and 6 (I believe 6, don't color on the puppies with permanent marker, prompted her post) because my little brother did the fourth one and I did some variation of rule 6. Um, except he did it before church, so it wasn't exactly leftover.

It was discovered in the midst of the church service when the servers lifted the tray covers off in preparation for serving communion and the stunned servers looked up and blankly said, "But the communion cups are all empty." That's when a little old lady realized why my littlest brother had been hiding behind the communion table before church started, and that's when my mother realized we needed to move out of the state. Immediately. Did I mention Dad was the preacher?

Number 6- well, that was me. I think I was in sixth grade. My other brother and I had dozens of pet mice, white ones. They kept reproducing, and my friend and I wanted to be able to tell them apart so we drew bands and numbers on their backs with various colors of permanent markers. Regrettably (and thus making this less amusing than I would like), most of the mice sickened from it and a few died. At least, we assumed that's what it was, since they were perfectly healthy the day before we colored their white coats into psychedelic loveliness (it was the early 70s when you could still buy neon colored chicks and ducks at Easter, so we thought it would be both useful and also very groovy).

Rule 20- my little brothers did this one, too, and some variation of 19, 16, 15, 1 and 10 have had to be addressed at my house, too.

I have long wanted to meet Kim- we have a lot in common and I know we'd enjoy each other's company. I'm wondering now if we ever get that chance if we should leave our children at home, duct-taped to the wall. While I am reasonably sure they would have an absolutely gloriously grand time, and Kim and I would get much deliciously bloggable material from it, I am not sure the universe would survive the meeting.

Another Political Crime

One of two people suspected of shattering 11 windows Tuesday morning at the state Democratic Party headquarters has an arrest record and a history of helping a Democratic political candidate, public records show.

Police said that about 2:20 a.m., 24-year-old Maurice Schwenkler, now in custody, and an at-large accomplice took a hammer to the picture windows displaying posters touting President Barack Obama and his health care reform efforts.

Early Tuesday, Democratic Party chairwoman Pat Waak said the damage to her building in Denver's art district was a consequence of "an effort on the other side to stir up hate." She tempered her statement after Schwenkler's political history was revealed.

"What I've been saying is there is a lot of rhetoric out there from both sides of the spectrum," Waak said. "That's what's been disturbing to me. People are saying a lot of things not appropriate for civil discourse."

Now she says just because he did all this stuff for Democrats and campaigned for them, that doesn't mean he was a good Democrat. I'll grant her that, but I don't believe for a minute she'll admit that the guy who shot the abortionist in his church building wasn't a good Republican (even though there's more evidence to support that claim than her own).

I'm just curious- if there's all this violence out there against the Democrats by the Republicans, why is it that the Democrats have to actually commit the acts of violence themselves?

Before the election in a discussion about how likely it was that anybody would try to violently remove Obama on the basis of his race, I said that it was my opinion that the biggest threat to Obama- is his own supporters. He is a panderer who convinced many that he is a Messiah. There is no way he can fulfill all the hopes and dreams he encouraged people to place in him. No. Way. Hell hath no fury like that of a kool-ade drinking activist who believes he's been betrayed by his god. Michelle Malkin has more:

Schwenkler has a prior criminal history…

On the last day of the 2008 Republican National Convention, he was charged with misdemeanor unlawful assembly in St. Paul, Minn.

Court records provided through the St. Paul Pioneer Press show he was jailed about 2 a.m.

…and unhinged grievances against Obama over gay rights, with declared intent to wreak havoc as inspired by eco-terrorist at the Earth Liberation Front:

The anti-Obama site says that Schwenkler is one of the bloggers behind Gender Munity, a site that advocates a direct-action approach to gay rights. One post, a “Communique from the Gender Liberation Front,” takes inspiration from radical activist groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the “Stonewall Rioters” by “seeking vulnerable targets and unleashing chaos”…

I hope the Secret Service is watching .

Huffpo, Chris Matthews- tin-eared when it comes to satire

This is both utterly hilarious, and tragically sad. First, you have to watch this video:



This mild-mannered gray haired man in a t-shirt is a comedian with a message- he is delivering a serious message, but he has clothed it in a rich gown of satire- and this is obvious to anybody with a shred of intellectual honesty, anybody who doesn't live in tightly wrapped cocoon superglued within a tightly sealed, oxygen deprived, bubble chamber.

In other words, Matthews and the folks at HuffPo. Honestly. The man says "I have been known to say things fishy," and the crowd laughs because they recognize the allusion. He admits to attending tea parties, and the crowd cheers, and he says he is a proud right winged terrorist and the crown laughs again- because they get the satire.

He then says he left his notes at home while he was looking for his birth certificate, another great big steel belted baseball bat of a clue that he's being sarcastic- for those who haven't encased their skulls in an impermeable shell of leftwing groupthink (and I use the word 'think' loosely here). He couldn't be more obviously mocking the leftist tropes if he'd bookended his remarks by holding up two signs that said, "sarcasm on" and "/sarcasm off."

As Allahpundit says:

He’s transparently mocking the left’s hysterical demagoguery over grassroots conservatives’ protests. And the left is either too dumb or too dishonest to recognize it.

Herger complimented the man, and has since defended him most soundly (you can read his statement at HotAir, linked above) and the left has its collective superhero undergarments in a state of unsightly and most ridiculous dishevelment.

Like AP, I don't know if those having a tizzy over this man's comments and Herger's agreement are really this incoherently stupid or if the are simply this blatantly, shamelessly dishonest, but at this point, it really doesn't matter. They're embarrassing themselves, and anybody who tries to use something Matthews says to prove a point has just lost the argument.

Here's how Matthews misrepresented and mischaracterized the event on Hardball:

MATTHEWS: Next up, here's one from Republican Congressman Wally Herger of California. At his town hall meeting some guy yelled out, bragging that he was quote, "A proud right wing terrorist." To which the Congressman responded, "Amen. God bless ya! Now there's a great American." A great American. A guy who thinks it's okay, in this day and age, to call himself a right wing terrorist. This is the dangerous edge, in which these people, including some elected officials are now dancing. We've been here before. Words lead to actions, words create the national mood, the mood creates a license. People take that license and use it. I'm not spelling it out any further because I don't want to.

Consider these statements from Huffpo:

In light of the angry protests sprouting up at townhalls throughout the country -- with several of the protesters toting guns -- the scene was clearly noteworthy. But questions remained as to how just how sincere the man was in registering his anger and Herger in his response.

Pretty sincere, it turns out. A Democratic source passed along video of the event to the Huffington Post and it shows, quite clearly, that Herger offered not just sympathetic laughter and a hearty smile but also a full-throat endorsement of the Stead's position.

What a poor attempt at sleight of hand. Because the video, in fact, does not show that the man is sincerely claiming to be a right-wing terrorist. He's mocking the left's accusations, not admitting some nefarious desire to blow things up and kill people.

And the comments! What a rich vein for mockery.

Somebody tries to help the little dears out:

How many people here think the guy was actually admitting to being a terrorist, versus mocking some on the left's characterization of teapartiers?

Typical responses:
And how many people believe this guy had enough intellect to comprehend irony and mocking?. Probably just you.

How many people at the Town Hall meeting do you think actually supported the guy's admission of being a Right Wing Terrorist and fully endorsed it...? That's what you need to be worried about!!

We can clearly identify as.sas.sin.ation as the latest political tactic being proposed by the Conservati­­­ve/Repub­l­i­cans..­

My, My.
A right-wing domestic terrorist...AND a patriot.
Isn't that what the people who steered planes into the Penatogn, a field in PA. and the Twin Towers believed they were? (not domestic at least)
The people who cheered what this guy said?
Isn't that what people in various Middle East countries did when world news showed the towers collapsing?
I guess they can sympathize and empathize.



You gotta love those Central NoCal folks with no jobs, no opportunity, surviving on non-livable wages who has difficulty attracting healthcare business because of the low population and the inaccessibility to the communities reject what they need most. The willingness to be ignorant is frightening.

You got it. That's just how cults do it. The really sad part is that these people are so s_t_u_p_i_d they think they are looking out for their own best interests.

Right. These commenters who cannot recognize sarcasm when it's outlined in glitter, tapdancing in spats and a tophat and highlighted in neon orange are the _s_m_a_r_t_ ones who know better than the rest of us what's good for us.

The news about the economy is giving me a very sick feeling inside

Unemployment predicted to be 2.3 million MORE than previously expected, and the Atlanta Federal Reserve chief says, basically, that if we used the same methods for counting the unemployed now that were used in the Bush era, unemployment would be over 16 percent.

The coming high tech crunch:

Beijing is drawing up plans to prohibit or restrict exports of rare earth metals that are produced only in China and play a vital role in cutting edge technology, from hybrid cars and catalytic converters, to superconductors, and precision-guided weapons.

The ten year estimate for the deficit now FOURTEEN POINT FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS!

Tom Fox sings Wayfaring Stranger

Not sure what I think of this one. The music video is starkly, and slightly Gothicly, beautiful (Pip would love it). It's pretty- but the vibrato seems just a pitch over done.

Corruption and Theft

Charles Rangel:

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel , already beset by a series of ethics investigations, has disclosed more than $500,000 in previously unreported assets.

Among the new items on Rangel’s amended 2007 financial disclosure report were an account at the Congressional Federal Credit Union worth at least $250,000, an investment account with at least $250,000, land in southern New Jersey and stock in PepsiCo and fast food conglomerate Yum! Brands. None of those investments appeared on the original report, which was filled out by hand and filed in May 2008.


According to the original report, Rangel’s net worth was between $516,015 and $1,316,000, while the amended report showed his net worth, as of Dec. 31, 2007, roughly double that amount — at least $1,028,024 and as much as $2,495,000.

Rangel also revised his disclosed investment income from 2007. The original report showed he had received between $6,511 and $17,900, but the new report shows between $45,423 and $134,700. The report also includes eight previously undisclosed financial transactions.

Hassan Nemazee:

a heavy donor and bundler for both the Clinton and Obama Presidential campaigns, bringing in over half a million for the new President; he was also a major bundler for the Presidential Inaugural.

NY Businessman Charged With $74 Million Bank Fraud Against Citigroup

A New York man was charged with allegedly defrauding Citigroup Inc. (C) out of $74 million in loans.

Gabe over at Ace of Spades has more:

Do you know what's not in the CNN article? Or this Reuters one? Or this AP one?

A crucial detail from Nemazee's bio:

National Finance Chair - Hillary Clinton for President, 2008
National Finance Chair - Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC)
New York Finance Chair - John Kerry for President 2002 -2004

He was also nominated by President Clinton to be U.S. Ambassador to Argentina.

Think those details would have been missing had he been a Friend of Bush?

Me, neither.

Vintage School Book: Balloon ride

Inflation

Economics lesson-

Inflation refers to the money supply being inflated. Following the law of supply of demand, when the supply of money is inflated so there is a surfeit of the tokens we call money floating around, the surplus dollars are not worth what they used to be, so it takes more of them to do the things we used to do with them. In this way, inflation causes prices to rise, not the other way 'round.

Here's a good analogy I found:

Three hungry kids sit around a table, bidding on an apple. The apple seller may wish he could get a buck for his apple, but the kids have 8 cents, 9 cents, and 10 cents, respectively. In an honest auction, that apple is going to go for a dime.

The losing kids complain they need more money. You up their allowances, handing them more money even though there’s been no real increase in their productivity. Now they all have 10 times more money, and they’re hungry again. Auction off another apple. One kid has 80 cents, another has 90 cents, the third kid has a dollar. The apple goes for a dollar.

Did the apple-seller get any “greedier”? No. Is the apple bigger and more nutritious? No. There were just more dollars out there bidding for the apple, which drove the price up, when measured in nominal “dollars.”

More dollars bid for limited goods, and the dollar price rises. You have to spend more dollars than you used to. If there are 20 times more so-called “dollars” floating around than there were in 1958, the dollar is going to buy what just about a nickel used to buy ... like, say, one little bottle of Coca-Cola (though not really — it used to contain cane sugar, now it’s “corn sweetener,” unless you find one from Mexico.)

Attributing the cause of inflation to rising costs is like attributing cold temperatures to an orange grove damaged by freezing, according to J.S. Kim, who also explains:

In very simple terms, when goods are priced in stable currencies, their prices remain much more stable as well. When goods are priced in unstable, highly inflated currencies, then their prices soar primarily due to the significant debasement of the currency they are priced in. Furthermore, as I explained in this previous article, the debasement of currency often gives rise to an illusion of wealth creation while in reality, it actually destroys real wealth.

So what difference does it make? High prices are high prices, after all. There's this:

...the ultimate outcome of inflation is always a general and sustained increase in price levels. It is thus easy to define inflation in terms of its ultimate results - the price increases that it causes - and ignore the underlying causes of inflation - the underlying forces that caused those results.
?
This is no minor matter. It leads to the common policy mistakes that arise from the belief that anything that holds prices down is "anti-inflationary" - when the opposite is often actually true.

And this:

Monetary inflation is actually a tax by which government - by expanding the money supply - transfers wealth from its people to itself. Indeed, inflation is perhaps the most destructive tax that can be imposed - but unfortunately it is the easiest one for a government to impose on its people. It also results in the transfer of enormous amounts of wealth from the hands of ordinary people to the hands of those speculators shrewd enough to take advantage of the price volatility inflation causes in the markets.

The only loopholes I can think of to this hidden tax are to live so as to need to spend less- barter goods and services, grow your own food, wear your clothes until they wear out, not until they go out of style or you get tired of them, pay down debt, don't start new debt, seek entertainment at home, use what you have, do business online as much as possible in order to avoid the high overhead costs that have to be added for brick and mortar stores, learn skills that save you money or make you money, and don't be a picky eater. I could write an entire series of posts on how being a picky eater is a character flaw with all sorts of ramifications.

But in a word (or two), learn self-denial. And then vote out the politicians who impose this hidden tax.

Vocabulary Words

More words from my 12 grade English vocabulary lists:

• coterie
• halcyon
• heinous
• decadence
• altruistic
• terse
• perphery
• penchant
• milieu

Of Squirrels and Alcoholics

A couple of years ago we wrote about Charlie the squirrel and his sad demise. Charlie was a squirrel who frequented the center of the four way intersection up the road from us. We always stopped at the corner and waited for him to move.

But somebody else didn't. As I said in that older post, our waiting for him at the intersection seemed kind, but it really wasn't:

Thus did we teach young Charlie by our kindesses, charity, and patience that the usual laws of physics did not apply to him, and that the world was a lovely place where human beings in large vehicles stopped and waited patiently for small squirrels putzing around in the dead center of four way intersections. Charlie is either an example of all that is wrong with the welfare state or a cute, furry recipient of the Darwin Awards.

As Timotheus said in the comments, we enabled the squirrel's self destructive behavior.

But at least we didn't feed and even lure him to his self destruction by leaving piles of corn in the middle of the road, and it seems to me that this what the misplaced and cruel compassion of the city of San Francisco is doing to a human 'Charlie;'

Walters, who was decked out in a red, long-sleeve Spider-Man shirt, isn't homeless or broke. The 41-year-old happily shared his story with me. He sat up, pushed his blond bangs off his face, and blinked his striking blue eyes until his surroundings came into focus.

"I do get caught for drinking out here every day," he said affably. "I wish I had another beer right now."

He said he gets $953 a month in Supplemental Security Income for disabled and aged citizens and pays $650 a month for a hotel room in the Tenderloin under the city's Care Not Cash program.

With free meals available from local charities, that leaves $300 a month for booze.

The city spent 150,000 dollars on him last year alone.

About that 9 Trillion Dollar Deficit

Hotair:

Fun fact: Back in March, when the White House was still scoffing at CBO’s $9 trillion estimate, White House budget director Peter Orszag actually admitted that if CBO was right then The One’s budgets would be unsustainable. And now here we are, five short months later.

Tighten your belts. I think things are going to get much, much worse.

Conformity and Human Nature

It would usually start with a funny story one of the wives told on her husband, or sometimes a request for advice. And then somebody else would tell a funnier story about her husband or share something her guy did that seemed relevant to the first wife's request for advice. And then somebody else would share- and we'd all be giggling and as the night wore on, and I would find myself sharing a story about my husband that was less than respectful, not really a dreadful story, just the kind of thing that maybe he didn't want the entire church to know (this was a ladies' Bible study group) just because everybody else was. I would go home and ask myself, 'what just happened here?' I realized that if I knew my husband was hanging out with the guys telling them the same sorts of stories about me, I'd be hurt- or seriously annoyed. So why was I doing it?

This very funny video (which I think I've showed before) illustrates why:



That funny video illustrates a very painful truth- the human need for conformity.

What happened was that I wanted to fit in. As time went on one of the wives had the courage to tell the rest of us that she had been going home regretting some of the things she'd said, and so the rest of us were able to admit that we were, too (and probably some who admitted it actually had not had any such regrets, given the nature of humankind). So we committed to try NOT to let our conversation degenerate in that fashion, and it did make a difference.


For school we're reading The Family Book of Manners, and after a few lessons on personal decorum and manners (how to introduce people, etc), there's a section on how choosing the right friends is more important than choosing the right fork, and avoiding harmful influences because evil companions corrupt good morals. I am often uncomfortable with such lessons- not because I disagree with the general truth but because the *focus* seems to me to have a danger of making people a little self-righteous, Pharisaical ("I thank God I am not as others, and I won't associate with them..."), holier than thou, and judgmental- when I think the focus ought to be on recognizing our own personal weaknesses and the human tendency towards conformity.

I think it's useful for young people (and old) to know that they share the same human weaknesses in kind with the rest of their species. How common is that need to conform?

The Asch experiments are very interesting- purportedly about visual perception a group of people are shown several lines and asked to tell which is the shortest, or which line from one group matches the line on another card. Only the real experiment isn't about visual perception, but about conformity. All the people in the group but one have been told to give the same wrong answer:



The Asch experiment shows just how easily we human beings- nearly all of us, say things we do not believe to be true, even when they don't really matter, just because everybody else is saying it. We want to fit in- even if we think we don't, we just mean we don't want to fit in with a given group. Some of the most lockstep thinkers (and dressers) I have ever known were the nonconformists I was busy being nonconformist with in high school.

Here's a diagnostic check I suggested to my children after watching the above videos: If you find that you are being quiet when something you value is being trashed, if you find that when you are around certain people you are less honest, less true to yourself, are embarrassed by your beliefs and convictions, are acting differently in a negative way, lowering your standards, doing something you would be embarrassed about if your parents, Sunday School teacher, preacher, elders, etc, were to see you, then you do need to walk away- NOW- and stop hanging out with those people- but you need to recognize that it's not so much because they are so evil, but rather because of the human weakness within yourself.

Here's another experiment that demonstrates our dangerous tendency to let others do our thinking for us- the Milgram experiments. This isn't the original experiment, but it's along the same grounds:


Watch carefully and see if you can notice an early mistake in judgment.

What do you think? In my opinion, that mistake is when he stays to argue a bit with the 'authority' figure. Instead of discussion, there needed to be fleeing. Instead of staying to explain why he could not keep pushing the button, he needed to get up and walk off. He missed several opportunities to escape.

There are several youtube videos about the Milgram experiments- it's a pretty eye opening view into human nature. It's why I shudder at the idea that we should just submit to a cop because he's in uniform and therefore an authority, and we deserve it if we get mouthy and he tasers or arrests us.

That's why I get really twitchy about the idea that a person in a uniform is an 'authority' regardless of how he is wielding that 'authority' and whether he is legally authorized to claim that particularly authority or not- but that's a different soapbox.

Or maybe not. It's really just conformity of a different flavor.

But I digress. I think The Milgram and Asch experiments were useful tools for teaching the Progeny about their human tendency to conformity, and you might find them helpful, too.
Previous posts about these experiments here.

I've also blogged about the Milgram and similar experiments (Asch's Conformity Study) and their ramifications for our culture in these posts:
Speaking Truth to Power in Lockstep With Everybody Else

Conformity

Maimed Existence


Milgramesque Experiments in the Classroom

Countering Culture

The Existence of Evil

Senator Ted Kennedy Passed Away

He was elected to the Senate in 1962, during the Camelot days when his brother John F. Kennedy was still President. That's 47 years.

I Just Won 2 Swag Bucks on www.swagbucks.com

I Just Won 2 Swag Bucks on www.swagbucks.com You can start winning, too. I use mine for Amazon gift cards which make nice gifts and add up quickly- I also use them to pay for things I was going to have to buy anyway. I like this program!

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Update on a school book

I mentioned Eyewitness: Life here, and said:

this is hard slogging. I thought it would be easier, but the FYG is really not enjoying it at all. The FYB likes it a little better, but finds it hard to understand in places as well

The two youngest were not particularly helpful or enthusiastic about school when I pulled it out yesterday morning to read our next section, so I was surprised at the reaction I got when I said, "This is a little stiffer going than I expected, we may not keep doing this one for school."

The HG sat up straight and wanted to know why not, because she liked it, and the FYB asked if we weren't going to do it for school could he just have it and read it himself. I asked them a couple of questions about what we'd read previously, and they were both able to answer those questions accurately, so we're keeping it in as a school book.

We do go through it slowly- about two pages at a time, and we only use it about twice a week. I like take books with meaty concepts in short bites, with space between them to mull over the information.

For my YEC friends who are wondering, yes, it's evolution based, and, in fact, I bought it because the blog of a well known evolutionary apologist recommended it.

For those who wish to know what I believe, I am of the opinion that it doesn't matter what you believe about the creation debate (or any debate, really), at some point you need to be sure your kids know the most common and the best arguments of each side of an issue to the best of your ability to give them this information.

I also think that diatoms are one of the most breathtakingly lovely things in the universe, and I am glad I live in the post-microscope edge so that I am privileged to know of them and what they look like, and this Eyewitness book has one of the prettiest pages on diatoms I have ever seen.

They've always amazed me since I first learned about them in the dark ages of my own schooling. They're like three dimensional glass spirograph designs.

Amazing.

Dusting

If the furniture is rep or woolen of any description, dust about each button, that no moth may find lodgment, and then cover closely. A feather duster, long or short, as usually applied, is the enemy of cleanliness. Its only legitimate use is for the tops of pictures or books and ornaments; and such dusting should be done before the room is swept, as well as afterward, the first one removing the heaviest coating, which would otherwise be distributed over the room. For piano, and furniture of delicate woods generally, old silk handkerchiefs make the best dusters. For all ordinary purposes, squares of old cambric, hemmed, and washed when necessary, will be found best. Insist upon their being kept for this purpose, and forbid the use of toilet towels, always a temptation to the average servant. Remember that in dusting, the process should be a wiping; not a flirting of the cloth, which simply sends the dust up into the air to settle down again about where it was before.

If moldings and wash-boards or wainscotings are wiped off with a damp cloth, one fruitful source of dust will be avoided. For all intricate work like the legs of pianos, carved backs of furniture, &c., a pair of small bellows will be found most efficient. Brooms, dust-pan, and brushes long and short, whisk-broom, feather and other dusters, should have one fixed place, and be returned to it after every using. If oil-cloth is on halls or passages, it should be washed weekly with warm milk and water, a quart of skim-milk to a pail of water being sufficient. Never use soap or scrubbing-brush, as they destroy both color and texture.
The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking, Helen Campbell, 1893