fun in threes, sometimes fours
general
Self-adjusting clocks are a clockmaker's dream. Nowadays, we have clocks set by the Internet and via satellite. We have three such clocks: two of them stand-alone clocks; one of them our computer.
Photos of those clocks taken within a minute or two of each other:
Three clocks, "automatically" set; three times.
I checked the time zone setting on the computer and had it update the time. No change.
Any ideas?
Many educators are not fond of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, which Obama doesn’t seem intent on scraping. I suppose education is never the priority politicians claim it is, though to be fair, neither candidate made much of education in 2008.
Some outside of education are confused as to why a teacher would oppose NCLB. They see it as an unwillingness to be held accountable for what happens in the classroom. Or even a fear of accountability. This is deeply inaccurate, at least in my case. I (and many others) oppose NCLB because of how it (claims) to hold teachers accountable.
One effective way of illustrating some of the absurdities of NCLB is to apply it to sports. I’d seen this online a time or two, but a professor posted this for us in class the other day and it made me realize anew how skewed some people’s perception of NCLB actually is. So here’s the scenario: football is run according to guidelines similar to NCLB:
The regulations:
- All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship.
- If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.
- All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities.
- All kids will play football at a proficient level.
- Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction.
- Coaches will use all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don’t like football.
- All coaches will be proficient in all aspects of football, or they will be released.
- Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th and 11th games.
This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.
The fact is, children in the same grade start at different places intellectually, emotionally, and socially.
What’s worse, NCLB is a moving target. Every school must achieve “Adequate Yearly Progress.” If you fail to make that progress, you have to make up all that ground and then some for the next year. Another sports analogy (this time, my own) might make it clearer:
Let’s say to make the football team, you have to run the 40 yard dash in 5.5 seconds. You fail to make it by one tenth of a second. You work out. Finally, you reach 5.5 seconds and come back to try again. The coach now tells you that now you have to run the 40 yard dash in 5.4 seconds. You can’t do it, so you go back and work out some more. When you can sprint it in 5.4 seconds, you go back to the coach, who informs you that now the bar has been moved to 5.25 seconds.
Or, as someone else put it:
The annual measurement bar is a moving target and once missed it is like chasing after a train pulling out of the depot year after year. Of course then it becomes the fault of the instructors, and not the curriculum , or the administration, or heaven forbid the students themselves. (Source)
Accountability is good; poorly-thought-out accountability can only be harmful.
L and Bida, our cat, have an uneasy relationship. Or maybe it's a love-hate relationship: L loves, Bida hates.
That might be taking it a bit too far. When Bida is in the mood, a scratch under the neck will bring a quiet purr no matter who's doing the scratching. Yet sensing that mood is difficult for adults; it's all but impossible for L. And so, in the name of love, L simply tortures the cat most of the time.
The trouble is, her "love" often is not affectionate; her "help" doesn't assist in any way whatsoever. L's simply trying out language and ideas she hears and sees all around her without fully understanding what it means (in the case of "help") or how to show it (in the case of "love"). The result: a frustrated cat and a scratched little Girl.
At the same time, it's incredible the patience Bida can sometimes show our budding veterinarian. She has figured out, I think, that if she waits just a moment, K or I will come and rescue her. And if push comes to shove (and L, in her rambunctiousness, can push and shove sometimes), Bida knows how to use her claws. And one would think that two or three painful, deep scratches would teach L to keep her distance, but to date, it hasn't.
So K and I try to save the two smallest members of our household from each other on a regular basis.
I'm not sure why cats feel they must lovingly share their kill with their owners, but I should focus on the "lovingly share" part and appreciate the generosity. When that sharing involves bringing the kill through the cat door, it's a little more difficult to focus on the "lovingly share" part. But when that "kill" is not yet dead and scampers away as soon as it's limp, dangling paws hit the floor, the apprecation is only a vague, theoretical possibility.
We had chipmunks in the basement on a regular basis for a couple of weeks. The big question: where do they live while they're stuck down there?
During the workshop-redesign-and-rebuild-preparatory cleanup yesterday, the answer was made manifest: in the carpet padding we'd stored under the work bench.
Furman University, a private college just north of Greenville and home of the quasi-famous bell tower by the lake, has a summer concert series we’ve just discovered. It’s not Boston Pops on the Esplanade, but for a college of less than 3,000 undergrads, it’s an impressive schedule.
Last night, we went for the jazz program.
We’ve become increasingly fascinated with jazz over the last few years, so L hears quite a fair amount of it at home and in the car. It’s never among her requests — she’s particularly fascinated with Counting Crows’ music — but she does listen and bob her head about occasionally.
Last night, she simply danced. A little. Generally, she was having more fun throwing Baby down the little embankment where we’d spread our blanket, running to get it, and repeating.
She did calm down for the ballads.
Igor Stravinsky said, “My music is best understood by children and animals.” L seems to understand music on some very primal level: it makes her want either to jump about or to sit calmly. It’s rarely merely “there.” It almost always provokes some kind of reaction.
In an informal atmosphere such as this, that’s just about perfect. Space to dance, an informal mood that doesn’t require silence, well-performed music — what could could a two-and-a-half year old want?
The site's welcoming text reads,
Any fair study of the scriptures coupled with the study of the signs of the times will convince almost anybody with a modicum of intelligence that the end of the world is drawing nigh. [...] Barack Obama is the Antichrist, and is leading doomed america [sic] to her final destruction and the destruction of the world! We're not talking some vague, nebulus [sic] postulation, we're talking plain, straight BIble [sic] talk backed up by an overwhelming amount of real evidence - on the ground! Watch this fascinating, three-part documentary and check out the rest of the site for Bible perspective on the rise of Antichrist in the last hours of these last, dark days.
Anyone who is not familiar with Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church would do well to watch this BBC documentary.
One might wonder what someone is hoping to accomplish by insulting its readers by suggesting that those who disagree (or who are not yet convinced) don't even have a "modicum of intelligence." Yet once it's clear that this is one of Westboro Baptist Church's many web sites, all is clear.
What's interesting about this is the time line Phelps is setting up for himself here. By calling Obama the Antichrist, Phelps is painting himself into a corner; it is a definitive claim about prophecy.
When Obama leaves office and not a single thing has happened, what will happen? Will Phelps admit he was wrong and at last quiet his irrationally bigoted voice?
Doubtful -- false prophets always have a way of reinventing themselves.
Six mornings in a row the Girl has had a completely dry diaper. We attribute this to four nights of waking up around midnight, hearing L crying out for the potty.
The new ritual is well established now. I stumble to the guest bathroom for the potty chair as quickly as I can while half asleep: I don’t want L to wake up any more than she has to. The real adventure begins in her room, for she’s often still partially or completely asleep. And she can fall back asleep at several points in the process. She has dozed off while
One night last week, she drifted off during four out of those five times.
“It’s time to start planning the final step of potty training,” I say to K over breakfast. There are the obvious things: a switch to training pants; a re-make of the crib; several nights of helping L get out of the bed and trundle off to the potty. There is an enormous potential pitfall, too, and a very literal one at that: our guest bathroom is just at the top of a short flight of stairs down to the kitchen.
Now that all the gates and barriers in the house are long gone, it’s time to start thinking about putting up new ones, which is sort of what parenting is all about: creating boundaries that (ideally) keep little hands safe but not restricted. Those gates will soon be much less literal, though.
The tag line is intriguing: “What if church wasn’t just a building, but thousands of doors?” That appears to be a motto for the United Methodist Church, which is running advertisements in Times Square through September. One ad reads, “What if church was a literacy program for homeless children? Would you come?” Another: “What if church considered ecology part of theology?”
Their web site reads,
We are doers. Committed to social justice, ending hunger, eradicating diseases of poverty, and being the healing faith community as God calls us to be.
We accept you for who you are, and guide others searching for deeper meaning. We respect other religions and welcome diverse opinions.
We offer thousands of ways to experience church so you can find a journey you can call your own.
We aren’t striving to be all the same, but we are striving to work together to make a significant difference in the world.
There’s a small discussion forum, which is nothing spectacular or novel, but the lead question is: “How do you think high profile deaths can connect people?”
The site allows users to locate places of need using Google Earth. Some of the topics are a little vague:
I’m not sure what “transforming lives” or “breaking ground” might be. Still, a wonderful idea.
The site also incorporates Google’s Friend Connect, providing something of a sense of community, and one only has to read the book of Acts and some of Paul’s epistles to see how important community was in the early church.
It’s a promising idea, one that’s sure to make nonbelievers think, “Hey, now there’s a church that’s following Jesus’ example and helping people on an existential level.”
Source: Blogging Religiously.
An occasional selection for my nightly bedtime reading with L is One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. She sits on my lap, commenting on pictures, asking with every pause, “Turn the page?” We make our way slowly through the book — it’s not one we read often and she can’t recite any passages from rote as I read, like she can with Fox in Socks or Green Eggs and Ham.
I’m always taken aback at the appropriateness of the ending:
Today is done.
Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one. …
If we could only keep that in mind daily.
We took L for her first swimming lessons when she was six months old. She loved it. Then through some kind of osmosis, she began taking on the fear of the kids around her, I think, and by the end of the series of lessons, she wasn't wild about swimming.
Last summer, she still clung to her anxieties: we really didn't go often as a result.
This summer, it's a different girl with us in the pool.
This makes for different parents in the water, as well.
It has, in short, become a family affair. L floats; L slashes; L jumps -- and we have to be there for it all. And that's not just the parental pride; it's L's request.
"Hey guys!" she likes to call out, "Watch me!"
The clearest indicator of how her attitude toward the water has changed is her willingness to jump excitement about jumping.
Again, and again, and again, only occasionally losing her nerve.
Nothing deters her, not even a face full of water. Not even a face entirely under water.
All of this is both gratifying (it's great to see her overcoming her fear) and terrifying (it's sometimes heart-stopping to watch her overcoming her fear). During a visit last week, she was being silly at the water's edge and fell in. I was ten to fifteen feet away, so I swam there in a matter of moments. But those moments seemed eternal as she bobbed about in the water, unable to get her head out of the water, clearly terrified.
Another object lesson in the obvious: parenting isn't about holding tight, but it is about being close by when those tight embraces are necessary.