Whether or not you believe in self-defence, Surviving in Argentina's post on a home invasion reminds us all to be careful when answering the door.
Here's an excerpt from James Corbett's The WHO Global Tax Proposals which I hope intrigues you to click on the whole article:
In 1996, the Philippine Medical Association concluded that tetanus vaccines administered as a part of a WHO vaccination program in that country contained hCG. Women who had taken the vaccine and suffered miscarriage shortly thereafter were found to have had the hCG anti-bodies. That the hCG could have accidentally ended up in the tetanus vaccines is almost unthinkable, especially since tetanus toxoids in particular have been known as ideal carriers for the hormone since at least 1980. In 2004, independent testing of a polio vaccine being administered by UNICEF found sterilizing agents had been added to those vaccines as well. In Thailand, the tetanus vaccine is routinely administered to women during pregnancy, often resulting in spontaneous abortions.
At a food court in a department store with my little sister.
On the bus home.
Took J. R. R. Tolkien's little gem of a story Farmer Giles of Ham on the subway and bus for it's yearly read. Fresh all over again.
If anyone knows where to read it online, preferably illustrated, let me know in the comments and I'll put a link here.
A break from the back posts I'm trying to get caught up on ...
January and February are usually the coldest months here in Taiwan. Every winter I have to live with the constant pain of cold in my hands while typing. But this year I can't remember it happening once, and February 10 I went to bed with my windows wide open and no cover though it got nippy in the early morning. This has never happened to me in the past decade. All the next day was too hot even for the spring weather that will show up in March and we even turned the fan on. I don't like to think what the coming summer is going to feel like. Today as I write this it's turned cold again and the weather is supposed to fall 10 degrees Celsius. Never thought I'd hurrah for that.
So is it man-made CO2 or a natural sun cycle causing climate change? I incline toward the latter because:
1) According to The Great Global Warming Swindle video, temperature leads CO2 with an 800 year lag to show which one changes first. The sun cycle heats the earth, which gradually warms the oceans, releasing their CO2. The heat releases the CO2, the CO2 doesn't cause the heat.
2) Animals and bacteria put out 150 gigatonnes of CO2 every year compared to a mere 6.5 gigatonnes due to humans. Decaying leaves are supposed to put out an even larger amount, and dwarfing all of that is the CO2 put out by the oceans.
So we can shut down every factory and economy and it's not going to stop the much huger amount of CO2 being put out by nature. I still hate pollution though ... do I have some nascent posts on that.
The following video is English audio with Chinese subtitles.
If you like this film and want to use it to learn or teach English, see the vocabulary list below of some of the harder words with their (Traditional) Chinese translations. Feel free to correct the translations in the comments, or take this list for your own website.
Or if you just want to watch the rest of the videos without learning English, here are the rest of the links:
The Great Global Warming Swindle 全球暖化是真是假 Part 2
Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" is addressed here:
The Great Global Warming Swindle 全球暖化是真是假 Part 3
The Great Global Warming Swindle 全球暖化是真是假 Part 4
The Great Global Warming Swindle 全球暖化是真是假 Part 5
The Great Global Warming Swindle 全球暖化是真是假 Part 6
imagine 設想
reason 緣故
global warming 全球暖化
alarm 驚動
propaganda 宣傳
evidence 證據
greenhouse gasses 溫室氣體
climate 氣候
increase 增長
temperature 溫度
ice core record [can't find translation]
fundamental 基本
assumption 臆測
theory 理論
moral 道德
political 政治
campaigners 競選活動
debate 辯論
criticism 批評
rigorous 嚴謹
illegitimate
carbon dioxide = CO2
swindle 騙局
media 輿論界
apocalyptic [can't find translation]
politicians 政治家
intolerance 不寬容
dissenting 異議的
criminals 罪犯
politically incorrect [can't find translation]
orthodoxy 正統
frenzy 瘋狂
shriller [can't find translation]
geological timeframe 地質時間表
suspect 懷疑
concensus [can't find translation]
catastrophic 災難的
IPCC United nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
bibliographies 目錄學
polemic 論戰
resign 辭職
author 作家
ideology 意識形態
environmental movement 環保運動
activist [can't find translation]
influential 有影響
distortion 弄歪
funding 資金
vested interest 既得利益
panic 驚慌
bureaucratic 僚官
bandwagon = popular campaign [can't find translation]
farrago [can't find translation]
censorship [can't find translation]
intimidation 恫嚇
fury 暴怒
invoking [can't find translation]
hinder 妨礙
vital 重要
industrial progress 產業進步
developing world 發展國家
cautionary 警告的
defining idea [couldn't find translation]
heretic 異教徒
inquiry 調查
expert 專家
tropical forests 雨林 (?)
ice sheets 冰蓋
plunge 跳進
cold spell [couldn't find translation]
climatologists 氣候學家
illustrations 插圖
Thames [can't find translation]
This list is only for Part 1. If you used it to learn or teach English and want to go on with Part 2, let me know in the comments and I'll do up that post. (The comments are moderated, so I'll know the very next time I check my e-mail.)
Linda and I studying Wesley Simons' Denominational Doctrines in the art museum.
Another excerpt from Bob Chapman's The International Forecaster (This would be the December 23, 2009 issue):
INTERPOL, an international law enforcement agency, has just been granted complete and utter "diplomatic immunity" within the borders of the United States, courtesy of Obama. They are not subject to any Constitutional limitations within the United States. Good luck filing for discovery, documents, witnesses or subpoenas against a police force that is operating outside of the Constitution in your own country! You can't sue them. Their records can't be searched. They are not subject to FOIA requests. You probably won't even know the name of the agent prosecuting you if INTERPOL comes to visit. And they don't have to tell you either.
Obama gave INTERPOL immunity from the Constitution on Dec 16! http://marionsword.spaces.live.com/blog/cns%211B80DAF0A76159D5%211346.entry
Here's a new website I've added to the favorites I read all the time: Surviving In Argentina. Here's how it was introduced by a subscriber in Bob Chapman's International Forecaster (which I also read all the time):
Bob,
Many people are looking for answers to the question of "what do I do to prepare for a financial collapse?" I would recommend that the subscribers read the book Surviving the Economic Collapse by Fernando Ferfal Aguirre. He lives in Argentina and went through the collapse of 2001. He describes what happened, how life in general has changed and things you can do to prepare for a similar occurrence. I have read many "survival manuals", and most end up in an Armageddon/Road Warrior scenarios. FerFal's book deals with what has actually happened there, and what you need to be aware of in the event of a collapse. Reading his book has changed my mind on many issues that I thought of as conventional wisdom when it comes to surviving a collapse. He also has a blog site with lots of good information.
I've already told you how and why in my 7 AM Bible classes with a few of the ladies at the exercise center the first thing we do is read a paragraph of Wesley Simons' Denominational Doctrines series.
The second thing we do is memorize another verse from the Gospel of John that emphasizes the supremacy of Jesus. For instance, that same week we got to this verse:
The Father loves the Son
and has given all things into His hand.
He who believes in the Son has eternal life;
but he who does not obey the Son will not see life,
but the wrath of God abides on him."
John 3:35-36
父 愛 子 ， 已 將 萬 有 交 在 他 手 裡 。
信 子 的 人 有 永 生 ；
不 信 子 的 人 得 不 著 永 生 ,
神 的 震 怒 常 在 他 身 上 。
約 翰 3:35-36
Every Tuesday and Thursday I go to exercise class an hour early and teach 3 - 4 ladies the Bible using English.
One thing we do at the very beginning is read a paragraph or two from Wesley Simon's Denominational Doctrines series, so that when they do get serious about christianity, they know they can't walk into the first group that calls itself christian unless the church is actually doing things according to the Bible, or what's the point in calling yourself a christian?
I think it was this paragraph we were reading the other week:
Now, let’s notice first of all that the Bible speaks of a falling away. See, this did not catch God by surprise. Old Satan is not dumb. Satan is very slick. For instance, in the garden, when God put Adam and Eve there, told them what to do, what not to do, I want you to notice Old Satan came along and what does he do? He changes God’s Word. That’s what he’s doing now with all these different religious groups. He’s changing God’s Word.
先注意聖經有提到離開正道這件事，這並沒有嚇到上帝。撒但不笨，他很狡猾。例如說，當上帝放亞當、夏娃在伊甸園，告訴他們要做什麼、而不要做什麼時，我要你注意撒但來了而他做什麼呢？他改變上帝的話，他現在也對所有不同教會團體做這樣的事，改變上帝的話。
(Watch the whole lesson here.)
This is why you shouldn't keep all your savings in cash or in a bank:
From Bob Chapman's The International Forecaster 2009.12.05:
How could they exploit those accounting rules? Let's suppose that Central Bank A wants to decorate its balance sheet by building up its gold reserves and purchases 10 tons of gold in the gold market (perhaps from a producer, another central bank or a bullion bank) and then immediately leases the same 10 tons of gold to Bullion Bank A, which then sells the gold to Central Bank B, which then leases the gold to Bullion Bank B, which then sells the gold to a jewelry corporation, which turns out to be nothing more than a front company for an Illuminist crime family's gold accumulation schemes. They make a few pieces of jewelry and then send the rest to the smelters to make special bars for the Illuminist crime family. So now both Central Bank A and Central Bank B show the same 10 tons of gold as reserves on their books, even though neither one has possession of the gold, which has been sold into the Illuminist's private stash via its front company, which sale the GFMS treats as a jewelry sale when it was really for investment purposes. The chain of central and bullion banks that purchase, then lease, then sell, then lease again, then sell again could theoretically go on ad infinitum until a non-bank party like the "jewelry company" buys the gold and takes it off the market. You could say that the gold has been "ping-ponged."
(Note: We'll discuss the lease issues a little further down).
Now let's change the example a little. Let's say that the Fed gave Deutsche Bank a gold swap IOU for 10 tons of Fort Knox US gold in exchange for its cash value, and that Deutsche Bank sold 10 tons of their own gold to Central Bank A at the request of the Fed. This swap arrangement is used so no one knows that it is really the Fed that is dumping gold on the market instead of Deutsche Bank. Note that Deutsche Bank's cash position has not changed, as the money it gave the Fed for the gold IOU has been replaced by the proceeds of sale, or perhaps the proceeds from the bullion sale were used to pay the Fed for the gold IOU. In any case, the Fed and Treasury Department still carry the gold bullion backing the 10 ton gold IOU to Deutsche Bank on their books because the gold has been swapped instead of sold (yet another fiction) with a promise to redeem the gold IOU given to Deutsche Bank in the future, or to cough up the gold instead, while Deutsche Bank shows no change in its gold reserves because the Fed IOU for 10 tons of paper gold is now carried instead of its 10 tons of physical gold bullion which was sold to Central Bank A. Deutsche Bank can get away with this because IMF rules do not require central banks to distinguish between physical gold and paper gold on their balance sheets, but allow them to carry both types of gold reserves as one line item. Note that as per our example, the gold is now in an Illuminist crime family's coffers after being "ping-ponged."
Here are all the quotes that are randomly rotated at the top of my sidebar. I'll update this page every time I add a quote:
"As the desert first teaches men to love water, or as absence first reveals affection there rose up against this background of the sour and the crooked some kind of vision of the sweet and the straight. Something else - something he vaguely called the Normal apparently existed.... But there it was - solid massive, with a shape of its own, almost like something you could touch, or eat, or fall in love with. It was all mixed up with Jane and fried eggs and soap and sunlight and the rooks cawing at Cure Hardy and the thought that, somewhere outside, daylight was going on at that moment." (That Hideous Strength, C.S.Lewis)
"So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom." (Ps 90:12) 求 你 指 教 我 們 怎 樣 數 算 自 己 的 日 子 、 好 叫 我 們 得 著 智 慧 的 心 。(詩 篇 90:12)
"But we will meet them in battle nonetheless." (Theoden, ROTK)
"... the preposterous truth that all really depended on their actions; and far away in time Horatius stood on the bridge, and Constantine settled in his mind whether he would or would not embrace the new religion, and Eve herself stood looking on the forbidden fruit and the Heaven of Heavens waited on her decision." (That Hideous Strength)
"One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before - that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished ... you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other." (Perelandra)
"Some women assume that child care is mind-numbing, spirit-killing drudgery, and that only work outside the home is fulfilling. These are not necessarily statements that women would come up with spontaneously, in the absence of feminist tutoring....It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that my two children needed me at home more than they needed anything my income would buy for them. It took even longer for me to realize that placing my intellect at the service of my family was a greater challenge than my ordinary life as a university professor. I had accepted far more feminist premises than I had realized."(Why the Market Can't Raise Our Children for Us, The American Enterprise, May/June 1998)
"If I might lend a machete to your intellectual thicket ... " (Jack Sparrow)
"I never look at you but there's some new virtue born in me, some new courage. Do you begin to understand a little? Can you feel my soul, there in the darkness, breathe on you?" (Cyrano de Bergerac)
"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must." (Edward Bulwer-Lytton)
"The crocodile passed him, but not another living thing, not a sound, not a movement; and yet he knew well that sudden death might be at the next tree, or stalking him from behind. He swore this terrible oath: 'Hook or me this time.' Now he crawled forward like a snake, and again erect, he darted across a space on which the moonlight played, one finger on his lip and his dagger at the ready. He was frightfully happy." (Peter Pan)
"Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea ... Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, 'To die will be an awfully big adventure.'" (Peter Pan)
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." (Gandalf)
"... a soul clothed in shining armor, hung with deeds for decorations, twirling--thus--a bristling wit, and swinging at my side courage, and on the stones of this old town making the sharp truth ring, like golden spurs!" (Cyrano de Bergerac)
"... too often, 'as long as we both shall live' is replaced with 'as long as we both shall love.'" (Michael Ross)
"A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day." (Aragorn, ROTK)
"Not well? What is illness to the body of a knight-errant? What matter wounds? For each time he falls, he shall rise again, and woe to the wicked." (Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha) This is the movie, not the book.
"When life hands you a lemon, just suck on that lemon and say, 'Oh, yes, lemons. I love lemons. What else have you got?'" (Henry Rollins)
"My arrogance, sir, extends just as far as my conscience demands." (Chariots of Fire)
"JACK SPARROW: One question about your business, boy, or there's no use going: This girl... how far are you willing to go to save her? WILL TURNER: I'd die for her. JACK SPARROW: Oh good. No worries then."
"RITTER: You are SUCH a Boy Scout! You see everything in black and white! JACK RYAN: No, no, no! Not black and white, Ritter, RIGHT and WRONG!" (Clear and Present Danger)
"Stephen is my name. I'm the most wanted man on my island, except I'm not on my island, of course. More's the pity." (Braveheart)
"BUTTERCUP: We'll never survive. WESTLEY: Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has." (Princess Bride)
"INIGO MONTOYA: .... Let me sum up. Buttercup is marry Humperdinck in a little less than half an hour. So all we have to do is get in, break up the wedding, steal the princess, make our escape... after I kill Count Rugen. WESTLEY: That doesn't leave much time for dilly-dallying." (Princess Bride)
" ... a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again ... " (Proverbs 24:16) 為義人雖七次跌倒 、仍必興起 - 箴言 24:16
"People are not born in an infant-school, anymore than they die in an undertaker's shop." (G. K. Chesterton)
"The weather doesn’t stop drag queens from wearing skirts or dresses; it only stops women." (www.womenandmarriage.org)
"BUTTERCUP: You're the Dread Pirate Roberts, admit it. WESTLEY: With pride. What can I do for you? BUTTERCUP: You can die slowly, cut into a thousand pieces. WESTLEY: Tsk, tsk. That's hardly complementary Highness. Why loose your venom on me? BUTTERCUP: You killed my love. WESTLEY: It's possible. I kill a lot of people." (Princess Bride)
"Now, I know some men are abusers and women will benefit from the ability to stay away from them. But most men don't abuse their wives, never did and never will! I have a wonderful husband, but suppose in theory there's a chance he will abuse me, or walk out on me. Should I invest in career and earn my own income, and be proudly self-supportive? Maybe in a few years indeed some terrible tragedy will happen in our family and I will say, oh, good that at least I have my career to fall back on. However I think it's more probable I'll wake up in twenty years and realize I have given up on my dream of giving my all to my family and living a peaceful life at home - for no good reason... " ("Domestic Felicity" ccostello.blogspot.com)
The choice isn't, "Rules or no rules?" The choice is, "Rules made and enforced by voluntary contractual arrangements, or rules made and enforced by coercive agencies that can't go out of business?" (Robert P. Murphy) http://mises.org/daily/3946
The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace-makers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. (Nazi leader Herman Goering)
“Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of govt, those entrusted with power have, in time, & by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny”—Thomas Jefferson.
A child who learns by didactic methods knows a little, but most of what he knows is that if he remembers the right answer long enough to write it down, he will get a good grade and no one will punish him, and then he can go about his life.
-- From "Be Still My Soul" blog. Read the rest of the article here.
Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16)
當 用 各 樣的 智 慧 、 把 基 督 的 道 理 、 豐 豐 富 富 的 存 在 心 裡 、 〔 或 作 當 把 基 督 的 道 理 豐 豐 富 富 的存 在 心 裡 以 各 樣 的 智 慧 〕 用 詩 章 、 頌 詞 、 靈 歌 、 彼 此 教 導 、 互 相 勸 戒 心 被 恩 感 歌 頌 神 。 (歌 羅 西 3:16)
When you look at us, it's amazing how late we marry. I got married a few months ago. I was 22, and my husband was 27. 27 is considered a young age for a man to marry these days, even in certain Orthodox Jewish communities. Yet these same men are also told to never touch a woman with their little finger prior to marriage. The result? They suppress their natural and normal sexual desires not for a few years, but for 10, for 15 years. Does anyone really think it's healthy?
-- from "Domestic Felicity" blog. Read the rest of the article here.
.... Because the fact is we are telling young adults that sex is for marriage only - while at the same time telling them they are not ready for marriage...and encouraging them to postpone it for as long as possible. The encouragement to postpone marriage is a lot stronger in our society than the push for abstinence.
In the 50s, the abortion rate was lower by FAR. But teenagers were still having sex, and babies. And they weren't using more condoms, either. They were MARRIED teenagers. And their divorce rate wasn't any higher than ours. In fact, it was lower!
.... So when IS someone "ready for sex" and for marriage? When they finish high school? No, because they need to finish college first. When they finish college? No, because they need to be settled in their career first. When they get a job? No, because they need to save up for a house first. And don't forget finding their exact perfect soulmate, "finding themselves" enjoying their taste of "freedom", etc.
.... The purely intellectual concept that it is better to start a family when you are well off, educated, and settled, is no match for the biological mapping of our bodies. The desire for love and affection and sex and family is written on our very souls. We simply can't wait forever.
-- From "Be Still My Soul" blog. Read the rest of the article here.
....We tell them it's OK to date, but not in order to find a marital partner. Just to "make friends" and experience other people's personalities and have fun. We tell them to suppress nature, avoid love, avoid physical closeness, focus on their careers and on money, while at the same time yanking the rug of family closeness out from under them and expecting them to enjoy their single years - absolutely alone. We have no backup plan for love. Love isn't a factor in our ideology at all. We naively assume that dating won't lead to emotional closeness, and that this closeness won't lead to physical intimacy, and that this intimacy won't lead to children.
-- From "Be Still My Soul" blog. Read the rest of the article here.
.... Birth control isn't the answer, because it creates the illusion that there is such a thing as "safe sex". In reality, sex is rarely safe. Feelings are involved, diseases are passed, lives are changed forever. We act as though a pregnancy cannot occur this way, which is a lie. And when it does, it's an accident, a horrible mistake that just wasn't supposed to happen.
Abstinence isn't the answer either, because it fails to address basic human needs. It denies and tries to thwart nature, tries to postpone it for longer than is reasonable (or at least, reasonable for all but a measly 10% of the population - obviously this is not good enough!).
So what do I think is the answer? The only thing that has ever been proven to actually work in real life. Young marriage.
.... I am not saying encourage young marriage, necessarily, and I'm definitely not saying push for it. I'm saying PREPARE your children for it, so they have that option. Give them the opportunity to understand how to be a husband or wife, to manage a house, to be a partner, to care for children... Give them a sense of confidence in their own capabilities, that they can deal with it.-- From "Be Still My Soul" blog. Read the rest of the article here.
... encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. (Titus 2:4, NASB)
I've spoken to a lot of working mothers, and very few have told me they do it because they just love their jobs. Most, almost without exception in fact, say they simply can't afford to stay home. I find that extremely sad, for those for whom it really is the case.
But a lot of the time, I just don't believe it. When a woman wearing 3 thousand in jewelry and an expensive suit, with a fresh manicure and perm says this to me, I find it hard to believe. When a neighbor living in a house which is bigger than ours says this to me, I find it hard to believe. The reality is, it is hard for many people. But also, we make choices in life. We choose the big house over time with our children. We choose the 2nd car, the retail wardrobe, the jewelry, the cosmetics, the dinners out, etc.
There seems to be this myth floating around that men used to be so oppressive they wouldn't allow their wives to work, that they were forced to stay home. In reality, most women stayed home back then for the same reason they go to work now: it's the societal expectation.
-- from Be Still My Soul blog. Read entire article here.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24, NASB)
Who is among you that fears the LORD, that obeys the voice of His servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.
Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with firebrands, walk in the light of your fire and among the brands you have set ablaze. This you will have from My hand: You will lie down in torment. (Isaiah 50:10-11)
But the main point is that the world outside the home is now under a rigid discipline and routine and it is only inside the home that there is really a place for individuality and liberty. Anyone stepping out of the front-door is obliged to step into a procession, all going the same way and to a great extent even obliged to wear the same uniform. Business, especially big business, is now organized like an army... But anyhow, it is obvious that a hundred clerks in a bank or a hundred waitresses in a teashop are more regimented and under rule than the same individuals when each has gone back to his or her own dwelling or lodging ...
-- The Drift From Domesticity, Brave New Family, G. K. Chesterton
If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless and of small import to the soul, then, as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.
-- The Emancipation of Domesticity, Brave New Family, G. K. Chesterton
I doubt whether mothers could escape from motherhood into Socialism. But the advocates of Birth Control seem to want some of them to escape from it into capitalism. They seem to express a sympathy with those who prefer "the right to earn outside the home" or (in other words) the right to be a wage-slave and work under the orders of a total stranger because he happens to be a richer man. By what conceivable contortions of twisted thought this ever came to be considered a freer condition than that of companionship with the man she has herself freely accepted, I never could for the life of me make out.... I can easily believe that there are some people who do prefer working in a factory to working in a family; for there are always some people who prefer slavery to freedom, and who especially prefer being governed to governing someone else. But I think their quarrel with motherhood is not like mine, a quarrel with inhuman conditions, but simply a quarrel with life. Given an attempt to escape from the nature of things, and I can well believe that it might lead at last to something like the "nursery school for our children staffed by other mothers and single women of expert training."
I will add nothing to that ghastly picture, beyond speculating pleasantly about the world in which women cannot manage their own children but can manage each other's. But I think it indicates an abyss between natural and unnatural arrangements ....
-- Social Reform Versus Birth Control, G. K. Chesterton
The actual effect of this theory is that one harassed person has to look after a hundred children, instead of one normal person looking after a normal number of them. Normally that normal person is urged by a natural force, which costs nothing and does not require a salary; the force of natural affection for his young, which exists even among the animals. If you cut off that natural force, and substitute a paid bureaucracy, you are like a fool who should pay men to turn the wheel of his mill, because he refused to use wind or water which he could get for nothing. You are like a lunatic who should carefully water his garden with a watering-can, while holding up an umbrella to keep off the rain.
-- The Drift from Domesticity, Brave New Family, G. K. Chesterton
To give you more confidence, consider Sudbury Valley, a real school where the students can do whatever they want, figure out what they want to study all on their own, and most of the time teach themselves:It starts with someone, or several persons, who decide they want to learn something specific -- say, algebra, or French, or physics, or spelling, or pottery. A lot of times, they figure out how to do it on their own. They find a book, or a computer program, or they watch someone else. When that happens, it isn't a class. It's just plain learning....But when they do use classes, they go find a teacher to make an appointment with. Read the chapter on how they do classes at their school. Their students often learn six years of math in 20 weeks. Most of their students teach themselves to read without help:
Most of the time, kids at school figure out what they want to learn and how to learn it all on their own. They don't use classes all that much.
-- excerpted from Free At Last by Daniel Greenberg
In fact, no one at school bothers much about reading. Only a few kids seek any help at all when they decide to learn. Each child seems to have their own method. Some learn from being read to, memorizing the stories and then ultimately reading them. Some learn from cereal boxes, others from game instructions, others from street signs. Some teach themselves letter sounds, others syllables, others whole words. To be honest about it, we rarely know how they do it, and they rarely can tell us. One day I asked a child who had just become a reader, "How did you learn to read?" His answer: "It was easy. I learned 'in.' I leaned 'out.' And then I knew how to read."
- excerpted from Free At Last by Daniel Greenberg
I guess it's worth repeating. At Sudbury Valley, not one child has ever been forced, pushed, urged, cajoled, or bribed into learning how to read. We have had no dyslexia. None of our graduates are real or functional illiterates. Some eight year olds are, some ten year olds are, even an occasional twelve year old. But by the time they leave, they are indistinguishable. No one who meets our older students could ever guess the age at which they first learned to read or write.
- excerpted from Chapter 5 in Free At Last by Daniel Greenberg
Chapter 1 And 'Rithmetic from Free At Last by Daniel Greenberg
Sitting before me were a dozen boys and girls, aged nine to twelve. A week earlier, they had asked me to teach them arithmetic. They wanted to learn to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and all the rest.
"You don't really want to do this," I said, when they first approached me.
"We do, we are sure we do," was their answer.
"You don't really," I persisted. Your neighborhood friends, your parents, your relatives probably want you to, but you yourselves would much rather be playing or doing something else."
"We know what we want, and we want to learn arithmetic. Teach us, and we'll prove it. We'll do all the homework, and work as hard as we can."
I had to yield then, skeptically. I knew that arithmetic took six years to teach in regular schools, and I was sure their interest would flag after a few months. But I had no choice. They had pressed hard, and I was cornered.
I was in for a surprise.
My biggest problem was a textbook to use as a guide. I had been involved in developing the "new math," and I had come to hate it. Back then when we were working on it -- young academicians of the Kennedy post-sputnik era -- we had few doubts. We were filled with the beauty of abstract logic, set theory, number theory, and all the other exotic games mathematicians had played for millenia. I think that if we had set out to design an agricultural course for working farmers, we would have begun with organic chemistry, genetics, and microbiology. Lucky for the world's hungry people that we weren't asked.
I had come to hate the pretensions and abstruseness of the "new math." Not one in a hundred math teachers knew what it was about, not one in a thousand pupils. People need arithmetic for reckoning; they want to know how to use the tools. That's what my students wanted now.
I found a book in our library, perfectly suited to the job at hand. It was a math primer written in 1898. Small and thick, it was brimming with thousands of exercises, meant to train young minds to perform the basic tasks accurately and swiftly.
Class began -- on time. That was part of the deal. "You say you are serious?" I had asked, challenging them; "then I expect to see you in the room on time -- 11:00AM sharp, every Tuesday and Thursday. If you are five minutes late, no class. If you blow two classes --no more teaching." "It's a deal," they had said, with a glint of pleasure in their eyes.
Basic addition took two classes. They learned to add everything -- long thing columns, short fat columns, long fat columns. They did dozens of exercises. Subtraction took another two classes. It might have taken one, but "borrowing" needed some extra explanation.
On to multiplication, and the tables. Everyone had to memorize the tables. Each person was quizzed again and again in class. Then the rules. Then the practice.
They were high, all of them. Sailing along, mastering all the techniques and algorithms, they could feel the material entering their bones. Hundreds and hundreds of exercises, class quizzes, oral tests, pounded the material into their heads.
Still they continued to come, all of them. They helped each other when they had to, to keep the class moving. the twelve year olds and the nine year olds, the lions and the lambs, sat peacefully together in harmonious cooperation -- no teasing, no shame.
Division -- long division. fractions. Decimals. Percentages. Square roots.
They came at 11:00 sharp, stayed half an hour, and left with homework. They came back next time with all the homework done. All of them.
In twenty weeks, after twenty contact hours, they had covered it all. Six years' worth. Every one of them knew the material cold.
We celebrated the end of the classes with a rousing party. It wasn't the first time, and wasn't to be the last, that I was amazed at the success of our own cherished theories. They had worked here, with a vengeance.
Perhaps I should have been prepared for what happened, for what seemed to me to be a miracle. A week after it was all over, I talked to Alan White, who had been an elementary math specialist for years in the public schools and knew all the latest and best pedagogical methods.
I told him the story of my class.
He was not surprised.
"Why not?" I asked, amazed at his response. I was still reeling from the pace and thoroughness with which my "dirty dozen" had learned.
"Because everyone knows," he answered, "that the subject matter itself isn't that hard. What's hard, virtually impossible, is beating it into the heads of youngsters who hate every step. The only way we have a ghost of a chance is to hammer away at the stuff bit by bit every day for years. Even then it does not work. Most of the sixth graders are mathematical illiterates. Give me a kid who wants to learn the stuff -- well, twenty hours or so makes sense."
I guess it does. It's never taken much more than that ever since.
Delightful Discipline, Goodgame's reminisces of growing up in a Polish-American family, was so funny I read the book aloud to my family even in restaurants.
Here's an excerpt and some of my thoughts after ...
At the age of four, I experienced another example of mother's discipline which left her mark on me.
For being a good boy, mother rewarded me with a trip to the local Woolworth store and the privilege of selecting one ten cent toy. I am of the opinion that more parental authority has been lost in Woolworth dime stores than probably any other public structure. (Not that Woolworth is the chief offender; any modern shopping center will provide equal opportunity for rebellion.)
Mother deposited me at the toy counter under strict orders to remain there awaiting her return. Actually, wild hippos couldn't have enticed me from those treasures. My serious meditations were abruptly violated by a small boy and his mother. This mannerless male shoved me rudely aside and began grabbing toys wholesale. His mother pleaded for moderation, but to no avail. I was shocked by his behavior, yet fascinated by the amount of plunder it produced.
"Rupert," the mother sniffed, "don't you think you've quite enough toys?"
He never gave her the courtesy of a reply as he continued to rip toys off the counter and fling them into her out-stretched shopping bag.
"Rupert, dearest," she pleaded, "unless you come with me this very instant, I shall be forced to speak to your father." Rupert merely glared and kept on grabbing. "Now, Rupert," she cautioned, "perhaps father shall be so upset with your conduct that he might even be forced to spank-"
She never finished. At the very mention of the word "spank," Rupert went into instant insanity. With a screech he hurled himself head-long to the floor, kicking and thrashing like a snake in a lawn mower. He was magnificent!
Rupert's mother immediately dropped to his stricken side, sobbing apologies for having hurt his finer sensibilities. All sorts of desserts and bribes were promised if he'd only stop screaming and be a good boy. Rupert's recovery was as remarkable as his affliction. He hopped to his feet and filled the shopping bag, then dragged mother to the candy counter. At the time, I thought their togetherness, each attached to the shopping bag between them, was pure tenderness.
Rupert's theatrics were not wasted, as I was inspired to use the same act on my mother. It seemed most logical that she would be too embarrassed to punish me in public, especially in the presence of strangers. The walk home would also work to my advantage, allowing time to cool her ardor. Besides, unlike Rupert, I would only request one additional toy. I was positive that mother would reward such unselfishness.
I went into action. From the vast array of toys I selected two, a blue Model A car and a red World War I German Fokker airplane. My expectations were so great that I forgot mother's command to stay at the toy counter and I sought her out in the "no man's land" of women's wear. "Mommie," I gushed, "these are the toys I want."
"Junior," she reminded, "why didn't you wait for me at the toy counter?"
"I'm sorry," I explained, "but I just wanted these toys."
"Well, all right," mother replied, "give me the one you want and take the other back and wait for me there like I told you."
I was apprehensive at mother's blindnesss to my needs, but with the success of Rupert still music in my ears I pressed on. "But, Mommie," I begged, "I've been such a good boy, can't I have two toys?"
"Do what I told you," she said firmly.
A small group of spectators began to collect and I gathered courage from their presence. The moment of truth had come, I stood my ground.
"If words fail to move you," mother warned, "I might have to spank ..."
Spank! The magic word, and like Rupert I responded on cue. With a shriek I dropped to the floor, noting with satisfaction the startled expression on mother's face. I had just begun to thrash when I felt her tender hands lifting me to my feet. "It worked!" I thought, as I helpfully turned toward the direction of the cash register. Then, all came crashing down as mother re-wrote the ending. Her actions were shockingly swift and professionally pure as she stripped my short pants to my ankles and upended me over her knee. In this woefully exposed position, I received personal tutoring.
"Lesson one," she spoke as her hand descended, "if words won't move you, something else will."
I immediately took this lesson to heart and elsewhere.
"Lesson two," she continued, "whenever you cry for something, you won't get it."
Both of us were now warming up to the subject at hand.
"Lesson three," she concluded, "toys are not worth crying over, so I shall provide you with something worthy of your tears."
I cried, honestly and unashamedly, with mother's full approval. Lessons reinforced, she set me upright, restoring my pants to their former honor, which now barely covered my embarrassments. I looked to the crowd for some shred of sympathy, but I stood alone. Even Rupert would have disowned me for the way I had botched the job.
"Take one toy back," mother gently reminded me.
I recognized this as a command, not a request, but rebellion dies hard, even in a four-year-old. I gave it one final shot. "Mommie, I pleaded, "can't I have both toys since you've already spanked me for them?"
A ripple of admiration came from the crowd, but my mother was not to be intimidated. "Junior," she explained, "one toy is yours for being good, you earned that toy. But for the other toy you were naughty, and I'm not going to give you a toy for being bad."
A wave of praise burst forth from the multitude. Even Solomon would have been impressed at mother's wisdom. "Now be a good boy and take one toy back," mother urged.
In full view of the admiring throng, I obeyed. We left Woolworth's together. With one hand I held my toy, the other clutched my mother. Somehow I knew as never before how much she loved me.
Even today, when I enter a dime store, memories of my mother's firmness tickle my heart, especially if the Ruperts are still practicing their profession. For who else but a real mother could have taught her son a million-dollar lesson in a dime store?
from Chapter Three: Woolworth Wail-out
I have heard all sorts of nonsense excuses for sending children to public school, including that they'd be a "light in the darkness" for the other, less spiritual children. That's a heavy expectation indeed, for someone who probably can't even tie thier own shoes.
The sad fact is that most parents spend less than 1 hour a day of quality time with their school-aged children. We expect them to learn OUR values in 1 hour a day, and hold them responsible if they don't. Yet at the same time, we expect them to be exposed to the attitudes, philosophies, curriculums and beliefs of people who may think the exact opposite from us for 6 or more hours per day - and not absorb any of it!
Read the rest of "Be Still My Soul"'s article here.
Generals 上將
Stonewall Jackson 托馬斯*傑克遜
Robert E. Lee 羅伯特·李
Douglas MacArthur 道格拉斯·麥克阿瑟
George Patten
Inventors 發明家
Alexander Graham Bell 亞歷山大· 格拉漢姆 · 貝爾
Thomas Edison 托馬斯·愛迪生
Orville and Wilbur Wright 萊特兄弟
Painters 畫家
Claude Monet 克勞德·莫奈
Andrew Wyeth 安德魯·魏斯
Preachers 傳道者
John Wesley 約翰·衛斯理
Scientists 科學家
George Washington Carver 喬治·華盛頓·卡佛
Pierre Curie 皮埃尔·居里
Albert Einstein 愛因斯坦
U.S. Presidents USA 總統
George Washington 喬治·華盛頓
John Quincy Adams 約翰·昆西·亞當斯
William Henry Harrison 威廉·亨利·哈里森
Abraham Lincoln 亞伯拉罕·林肯
James Madison 詹姆斯·麥迪遜
Franklin Delano Roosevelt 富蘭克林·德拉諾·羅斯福
Woodrow Wilson 伍德羅·威爾遜
World Statesmen 政治家
Winston Churchill 溫斯頓·丘吉爾
Benjamin Franklin 本傑明·富蘭克林
Patrick Henry 帕特里克·亨利
William Penn
Writers 作者
Hans Christian Anderson
Pearl Buck 賽珍珠
Agatha Christie 阿加莎·克里斯蒂
Charles Dickens 查爾斯·狄更斯
C. S. Lewis C·S·路易斯
George Bernard Shaw 蕭伯納
Others 其他
Charlie Chaplin, actor 查理·卓别林
George Rogers Clark, explorer 喬治·羅傑茲·克拉克
Andrew Carnagie, industrialist
-- a partial list from Home-Style Teaching by Raymond and Dorothy Moore
As soon as I could sit up, my mom would prop me up next to her on the sofa and putting a magazine in my lap she would look at her magazine while I looked at mine.
When I was three, my dad memorized scripture with me in his study and read me Curious George and Richard Scarry's Please and Thank You Book.
Related Posts:
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beloved books (8 - 9 years old)
beloved books (10 - 12 years old)
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beloved books (15 - 30 years old)
books (30 years old to present)
books I want to read
Another set of covers (these I used to own):
9. Old Yeller 老 黃 狗 - Fred Gipson
