Odds We Like to Ends

Guestblogging

I got the opportunity to write a guest post for my friend and hero Ian at Broken Telegraph this week. "Narcissistic Stockholm Syndrome: War Machine" is the first in a three part series to be completed within the week at this site.

I'm really grateful for the opportunity to share on someone else's site, especially a friend like Ian's. He first came to my attention by writing an article taking fellow American Christians to task for supporting torture. That's very rare, not just among Evangelicals, but in the US in this particular culture.

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Mission Creepin' in Libya. Yeah...

More than 2,000 U.S. Marines are on the ground in Libya.

WCTI-TV in New Bern reports those Marines, assigned to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) at Camp Lejuene, are "preserving the sanctity of the city [of Ajdubiyah] and the safety of the civilians within it."

Capt. Timothy Patrick with the 26th MEU told the station: "In Libya right now they are doing exactly what we need them to do. They are doing what they are told, and right now that's protecting Libyan people against Qadhafi forces."

Well, we can say they're doing what they're told to do. But where were they in Sudan, or Bahrain, or Rwanda? What happened

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Fiascoin'

Lupe's "Words I Never Said" - from LASER - checks Limbaugh, "the War on Terror", Media BS, the War on Education, Obama, Militant Islam, Israel, banks, and our own complain-y inaction. It's what CNN should be.

I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit
Just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets
How much money does it take to really make a full clip
9/11 building 7 did they really pull it
Uhh, And a bunch of other cover ups
Your childs future was the first to go with budget cuts
If you think that hurts then, wait here comes the uppercut
The school was garbage in the first place, thats on the up and up
Keep you at the bottom but tease you with the uppercrust
You get it then they move you so you never keeping up enough
If you turn on TV all you see’s a bunch of “what the f-cks”
Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such
And that aint Jersey Shore, homie thats the news
And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth
Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit
Thats why I aint vote for him, next one either
I’ma part of the problem, my problem is I’m peaceful
And I believe in the people.

But he's not done yet:

photo © 2008 Vincent & Bella Productions | more info (via: Wylio)

Now you can say it ain't our fault if we never heard it

But if we know better than we probably deserve it
Jihad is not a holy war, wheres that in the worship?
Murdering is not Islam!
And you are not observant
And you are not a Muslim
Israel don’t take my side cause look how far you’ve pushed them
Walk with me into the ghetto, this where all the Kush went
Complain about the liquor store but what you drinking liquor for?
Complain about the gloom but when’d you pick a broom up?
Just listening to Pac aint gone make it stop
A rebel in your thoughts, aint gon make it halt
If you don’t become an actor you’ll never be a factor
Pills with million side effects
Take em when the pains felt
Wash them down with Diet soda!
Killin off your brain cells
Crooked banks around the World
Would gladly give a loan today
So if you ever miss payment
They can take your home away!

And then our complicity through our silence:

I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence
Fear is such a weak emotion thats why I despise it
We scared of almost everything, afraid to even tell the truth
So scared of what you think of me, I’m scared of even telling you
Sometimes I’m like the only person I feel safe to tell it to
I’m locked inside a cell in me, I know that there’s a jail in you
Consider this your bailing out, so take a breath, inhale a few
My screams is finally getting free, my thoughts is finally yelling through

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God-boxin'

And finally, there's this too awesome picture, from Naked Pastor. I meditated on this this morning -- just so awesome.

Weekly Links We Like to Link to: Mostly politics and/or dummies edition

The Lonely Life of Rollie Burris: The Cartoon.

Mel Gibson's latest movie is going to be a spectacular mix of a biopic and more of his trademark redemptive violence.



Intriguing article about Newt Gingrich at New York Times Magazine reveals this tidbit from one of his disciples, minority whip Eric Cantor (R, Va.):

Well, generally, [Gingrich] is very quick to see the historic election of President Obama and the potential for his support to last, and what that means for Congress, and how we compare the success of Barack Obama to, frankly, the difficulties that Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid are having with the American public right now. You know, Congressional Democrats are nowhere near where this president is right now in terms of public opinion.

(On a personal note, I think that's an interesting wedge issue. I may not agree with Newt's ideas, but I think that the Republican party needs to stand up and intelligently challenge the Democrats in power. Otherwise, you face the prospect of a one (weak-arse) party system, as if the Democrats weren't inept enough as it were, they would become inept and fascist.)

And, speaking of the Times and the Republican/Democrat divide, here's an informative article about the sea-change represented in ideals that has come as a result of the new budget. The money passage:

Over the last three decades, the pretax incomes of the wealthiest households have risen far more than they have for other households, while the tax rates for top earners have fallen more than they have for others, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

As a result, the average post-tax income of the top 1 percent of households has jumped by roughly $1 million since 1979, adjusted for inflation, to $1.4 million. Pay for most families has risen only slightly faster than inflation.

Before becoming Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers liked to tell a hypothetical story to distill the trend. The increase in inequality, Mr. Summers would say, meant that each family in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution was effectively sending a $10,000 check, every year, to the top 1 percent of earners.

And here's an argument for spading and neutering dumb, dumb parents.

... And that's the rest of the story.

Weekend Links We Like to Link to - Inauguration & Palestine edition

• Wonderful pics of Inauguration Day via the Boston Globe. Numbers 3 & 5 give a wow visual to the crowds. But I was more awed/floored/taken by the pics 19 and 23. Which means, yes, I did cry. Again.

• Among all the hubbub, it was good to see friends who supported and voted for Obama keep their cool about them and just throw a few words of moderation out there. In addition, I did a post on the other site about this social-psychological status called elevation, which I think a lot of people erroneously view as either idol-worship or momentum for change. It is neither, but it can still be a watershed moment (pun not intended).

• My wife's friend is studying in Jerusalem now, expecting to leave shortly (long story). She told us about how the Palestinians were basically trapped - that all of the jobs and money was outside of their encamped neighborhoods but that they could not leave those areas. Now, I'm no fan of terrorism, but I think I can see where the seeds of extremism and violence are sown, and this scenario can't be good for anyone. As Jenn said via Facebook, I don't think they'd put this story ("Inside the World's Largest Prison") in a US paper, which is too bad, because a lot of people are missing something in their anti-terrorism (and anti-Muslim) rhetoric. Pray for the peace of the Middle East.

Weekend Links We Like to Link to - Bah hamburglar

1) Because me Spanish is no so good (and yours may need a little workout too):

Click here if vid isn't working.

and, yes, it's very similar to the wonderful First and Second Semester Spanish Spanish Love Songs. Which is why it's so wonderful.

2) Thanks to astute (Micah's World) reader Reg, I now know that my high school students did not have the most interesting names in the world - but they just might if backers of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez get their way. There was a bill being sent through the National Assembly earlier this month, according to the Times, that would make a list of registered children's names and pare that list down to one hundred. So, no more Tutankamen del Sol, Kleiderman Jesús, Yureimi Klaymar, Yusneidi Alicia, Yusmary Shuain, Kleiderson Klarth and Yusmery Sailing.

So long, Hengelberth, Maolenin, Kerbert Krishnamerk, Githanjaly, Yornaichel, Nixon and Yurbiladyberth.

Was that kid's name Mao Lenin? And another was named Nixon? What's next, a Ronald Reagan, maybe a few Hitlers? ohh, nevermind...

3) OK, this is transcendent wonderment. The octogenarian rock & roll choir Young@Heart performing "Purple Haze." The performers seem to take these songs to be both tongue-in-cheek and fun, but yet it's all so touching and real. Really real. Every. Last. Word. Of it.

Again, click here if vid doesn't play.

fwiw, in honor of the couple who came by for dinner last night, I wanted to play one of the two musical geniuses that came out of Seattle. And out of those two, Hendrix beats Cobain in my book most nights. But I just saw this clip the other day and thought it to be a wonderful confluence of art and life. So, there you go.

Weekly Links We Like to Link to: the Mostly Religious Edition

Roger Ebert on the happy occasions of when religions correct their more hateful and fear-inducing trends.

Speaking of religion, if your blasphemy meters register at a low level, you might not wanna click here, but for everyone else who thought that superheroes (particularly Spider-Man) could've done some major help in the Bible, there's this. (h/t to Wasp Jerky Kevin via FB)

Seth Godin wrote a prescient piece on the power of the organized. (It wasn't all about the economy, y'know.)

And, lastly, Jesus Creed-er John Frye does the woman at the well with a Fundie Jesus (Startled, Jesus said, “How is it that you, a Samaritan, ask me, a Jew, for a drink?”), an Emergent-Talking Jesus (A Samaritan woman-”the other to the second power”-approached the community’s gathering space, carrying the symbol of her status in a harsh patriarchal culture.), an Oprah Jesus (Today’s show will feature a Samaritan woman whose story you just have to hear. Her’s is a story of heartbreak and shame, of isolation and pending hopelessness. I’ve invited her to come and tell us some of her story.), and a Sopranos Jesus:

Jesus: Whattaya mean you ain’t got no man? You got a man. Oh, yeah, you gotta man. You’ve had Vinnie, Rocco, Stephany, Michael, and Bracco. And now you livin’ with Tony. Am I right?

Woman (shocked): How’d ya know?! You got some snitch in town? You got no right to go snoopin’ ’round in my life.

h/t to Scot McKnight

God in our own image indeed.

Weekend Links We Like to Link to - Happy News (?)

Sorry it took so long to post. Been trying to get some jobs out there and trying not to post on political stuff.

Good to know that not all rich people are stingy. Warren Buffet (whom I heard really recently overtook Bill Gates as the richest person in the world) is not only the first or second richest person, but also the biggest donor among billionaires (in terms of amount donated vs actual wealth) . Gates is second on this list. How much is Buffet worth? Fifty-two billion dollars. How much has he given recently? Between 2001-2006 he donated over $46 billion. Of course, once you hit over 20 billion smackaroonies, you really gotta ask, "Besides become my own superhero - or trying to take one down - what else could I do with this excess moola?"
via Relevantmagazine.com

I had some thoughts about this topic - Christian teenagers going off to college and (at least temporarily) storing their religion away (and not losing it as popularly believed) - and I recognized that my thoughts on it wouldn't fit into this format. So, I'll continue reading this article (and see what else I can find on it) and post my thoughts up on ChicagoDads.
h/t to MarkO

Okay, here's the happy news:

Can it get any more giddy than that?
h/t to MarkO

Weekend Links We Like to Link to - the triumphant return

First off, I would like to turn some attention to my community pastor at New Community Covenant Church, Chicago - David. He's got a great little literate and thoughtful blog called signs of life and I think it's worth a read.
As well, a hat tip to Pastor David (via FaceBook) for this article in Time on the Republican myth of small-town America; Joe Klein particularly addresses the whole small-town/Jeffersonian yeo-man nostalgia that the GOP has so effectively fashioned and hearkened to since Reagan and is now vastly utilizing with the popular Palin.

Since we're on the topic of politics (and we'll be right off again. It's just sooo danged interesting and infuriating at the same time. Sorry), RC has an intriguing article about how Russia/USSR is way ahead of the US in the fight against Baldism and Hairyism in regards to their top leaders.

The Amish have been getting some positive buzz since the school-house killings and their subsequent mercy on the killer. But I had absolutely no idea that not only are they not dying out, but they're sprawling:

The Amish are expanding their presence in states far beyond Pennsylvania Dutch country as they search for affordable farmland to accommodate a population that has nearly doubled in the past 16 years, a new study found...
Amish couples typically have five or more children. With more than four out of every five deciding in young adulthood to remain in the church, their population has grown. More than half the population is younger than 21. A small portion of the increase is also due to conversions to the faith.

Word to the wise: Be kind to the next buggy-driver you plan to pass by.
h/t to Scott McKnight.

Education Links We Like to Link to

I wanted to have an Education Week about a month ago, but that quickly fizzled into an education post that I never got around to amending or serializing. So, in an effort to broaden all of our horizons, I offer the second Education Links Post, which will more-or-less periodically appear as a special edition Links We Like to Link to." Please, for your reading and enlightening pleasure:

Small Kids, Big Words:

Timmy [a pre-K student] insists he didn’t hear [the thunderstorm last night]. No one believes him, but he stands his verbal ground. “I didn’t want to hear it and so that is why I didn’t listen,” he says.

Molly, who’s four, adds, “I guess he was ignoring it.”

It is, of course, always cute when small kids use big words. But a growing body of research and classroom practice show that building a sophisticated vocabulary at an early age is also key to raising reading success—and narrowing the achievement gap. At schools like Lee Academy, teachers are overcoming the age-old habit of speaking to young children in simplified language and instead deliberately weaving higher-level word choices into preschool and primary grade classrooms.

Moral Dimensions of Educational Decisions:
The essential place of values-rich curricula in the public schools:

There is a widely held notion that public schools (which, of course, most students attend) should not teach values. In effect, schools do. Moreover, there are next to no significant decisions a school administrator or classroom teacher can make that do not have a normative dimension...

Schools are under considerable pressure from the community to focus on academics, which in effect means serving the utilitarian, economic futures of pupils. Parents, school boards and news media that push for higher academic achievements are not seeking to turn the students into scholars but to equip them to compete in the marketplace (and in the competitive college admissions arena) by teaching them math, writing skills (memos, not poetry), foreign languages and so on.

In contrast, schools are, and ought to be, concerned with human and social development, ensuring graduates are able to work out differences with others verbally and nonabusively; to walk in the other person’s shoes; to resist temptations to act in unethical ways; and to care about higher purposes than self. Many curriculum decisions reflect the balance those who run schools and education systems strike between these two competing set of values, the academic and the social....

[W]e do not always keep in mind that all selections of books and other materials to be used in teaching students reflect a choice of values. Take, for instance, the Civil War. It can be taught as a grand struggle for liberty and equality; as a political strategy for keeping the union together; as a tragic failure to resolve differences without mass killing and enormous suffering; or something else. Whatever we choose reflects our values and helps transmit them to the students.

Education decision makers are understandably reluctant to view these issues as involving normative choices because framing the decisions in this way forces the question: Whose values are going to be taught? Instead, decisions often are deliberated and made on other grounds, such as “this textbook is highly recommended by …” Furthermore, modifications to curricula are made in terms of “we need to give more room to …” rather than openly reviewing the normative implications that all books, narratives, songs, plays and course outlines have.

What do teachers want?:
Teachers Speak on the Profession, Unions, and Reform (pdf):

Today’s teachers have different expectations than teachers in the past, and they expect different things from their professional lives. Yet, they recognize the problems that undermine their profession, including job lock, weak evaluation and reward structures, and too much bureaucracy. With reformers pushing hard for change and teachers unions holding tight to tradition, teachers are caught in the middle, unsure of how their profession should change but very aware that it needs to.

Teachers see problems with their unions as well. For example, many say that the union sometimes fights to protect teachers who really should be out of the classroom. But teachers still see the union as essential, and they value the union’s traditional role in safeguarding their jobs. New teachers are more likely today than they were in 2003 to call unions “absolutely essential.” And many teachers would like to see their unions explore some new activities, especially some of the ideas associated with the “new unionism” agenda, and take the greater role in reform, but not if that comes at the expense of the union’s core mission.

The fluid environment presents both challenges and opportunities for education leaders and policymakers. Teachers unions may claim a deep loyalty from their members but the relationship seems to be based mostly on the practical benefits that the union provides.

And...
Racist Attitudes Challenged at Alabama School

A south Alabama town that was the inspiration for the setting in Harper Lee's book "To Kill a Mockingbird" is finding itself as the backdrop for a real-life legal case involving allegations of racism at school....

The parents [who filed the suit] say black students who got into fights with white students were given off-campus suspensions for longer periods of time while white students were given shorter in-school suspensions. They also said black students were disciplined for minor dress code violations like untucked shirts and for violations that weren't even in the code, such as loose or missing buttons.

The lawsuit also describes an incident in which a student was being teased by white classmates who called her a "black monkey." The student told the white teacher, who responded by saying "sit back down because you do look like a black monkey," the suit claims...

"There are policies and practices that serve to criminalize youth and push them out of classes - primarily children of color," [ACLU Attorney Catherine] Kim said.

(Jasdye's note: What's sad is that this is the only case like this that I've heard about. If you add on the fact that black students are labeled for Special Education at a rate of 2:1 that of Latino and White students [Click here for related story on the disparity in Florida] - and 4:1 students of Asian heritage - than this could be just about Anywheresville, USA. Sadly, even in Chicago.)

All links provided by the Public Education Network Newsblast (via email).

weekly Links We Like to Link to - Memorial Day Edition

Actually, there's absolutely nothing memorial or memorable about this one. Just trying to buy some time until I can put up some substantial, earth-shattering posts...

Is Bill Clinton out of his c.p. mind? I'm sure he could name several other presidential candidates who have been just as or more disrespected than his wife. Hint:
And, as some of my students have pointed out, in order to get respect, you gotta give respect.

Looks like the market might help to right things after all. Too little, too late without some more intervention, though. Let's get together and make SUV's a thing of the past. It's a luxury item we can no longer afford.
h/t to Scot McKnight

Also courtesy of Scot McKnight, "Minor Leaguer Traded for Ten Bats." I didn't think that this sort of thing actually happened. Good thing I never went pro.

And Eugene Cho has a good post on the current exploitation and human trafficking epidemic, starting with this Radiohead video.

Weekend Links We Like to Link to

For various reasons, I just want to give a much-needed shout-out to my homie, the Bishop of Durham, N. T. (Tom) Wright. Here's his peace on the Lord's Prayer (as a paradigm of Christian prayer). Wooorrdd!

Like most people, I can't get my head around the sheer number of people who have died recently in China and Burma (Myanmar). Tens of thousands of people, each with a name, each with a face, each equally beloved by God and each one could have been you or me or our families (and may be. My condolences and prayers to all affected.) And then you realize just how sad it is to lose just one. Steven Curtis Chapman is a singer-songwriter in the Contemporary Christian Music scene. And though I no longer listen to his output, it impacted me quite a bit as a teen (anybody remember "Saddle up your horses..."?). The loss of his five-year old daughter is both dramatic (she was run over by her brother on their driveway. My deepest condolences to him. And just hours before her sister was to be engaged) and sad. Eugene Cho had a lot of feedback on his post of the tragedy and has some tough, pastorly feedback of his own.


You thought that StuffWhitePeopleLike had our white butts in check? Think again, this cat knows his/her stuff. Traditions in White Culture. If that's not enough for you, try Selected Minutes from LOLCat City Council Meetings. Maxim Articles, Rewritten as Sociology Papers. And, What My Dad Is Talking About When He Yells, "That's What I'm Talking 'Bout."

Finally, here's a bevy of mixed spiritual metaphors all coming to a head:
MarkO occasionally has a caption contest that I like to read all the comments for. Unfortunately, the last couple ones weren't as rich, but the top responses were pretty darned good. Here's a few of my faves for this photo:

“cannon ba-a-a-a-a-a-lllllll!”

Xtreme “4 Spiritual Laws” illustration.

Lambert finally found a place where he can truly claim the title “King of the Mountain”.

Youth Pastor-”See kids, without God in our lives, we feel like a sheep that is standing on a rock between two cliffs that are located high above a body of water of some sorts.”
Youth-”WHAT?”

Jesus: “Feed my sheep.”
Peter: “Maybe when he gets off that rock.”

The Lord is my Shepherd….
The Lord is my Shepherd….
The Lord is my Shepherd….
The Lord is my Shepherd….

If you act now, you may be able to enter this contest. I got nothin', man.

Weekly Links We Like to Link to - misc.

No theme today, except for themelessness.

From the trusted LarkNews, a megachurch with satellites transforms into a coffee chain. Attendance skyrockets.

Interim principal tells juniors at an all-girls Catholic school that they cannot go to the prom without a male date (with only weeks to go).
h/t to YPulse

MarkO raves about a documentary focusing on a high school in Indiana. American Teen tells the stories of "the school queen bee, the top jock, the dreamboat guy, a unnoticed geek, and an artsy girl who doesn’t fit in." Yes, it sounds like the Breakfast Club in a very White America. And it sounds wonderful. Can't wait to see it.

Oh, and there's these Muppet movie posters (there were a lot of good ones, but I thought these were five of the most iconic. What do you think?):


Though the movie poster (while definitely not the movie itself) is an instant classic, the riff on it here seems timeless.

And definitely not least...


h/t to Peter Chattaway.

Weekend Links We Like to Link to - Yet Another Political Edition

It seems that I just can't help myself...

Meet the artist of the Obama posters.

I can't be the only person that thinks that the Department of Homeland Security is a piece of irrelevant, bullying sh*t.

Speaking of irrelevant...

“It was pretty tough and hard fought,” [Senator Obama] said about the primary season, describing the former first lady as a “formidable opponent.”

“She was relentless and very effective.”

He may be speaking too early, but not soon enough, for my money.

The real debates have finally begun - and they center on international dealings.

Yet, rural Americans (vastly responsible for the swing states) have different concerns on their minds, and need reassurance that they will be listened to.

Finally, the West Virginia Democratic primary was disappointing, not because of how badly Obama lost by, but for the fairly latent reasons why. But don't take my word for it... here's their words.

(Click here if video doesn't play.)*

And, here's some more of their words.

(Click here if video doesn't play.)

"I guess I'm just kinda scared of the other race because we just had so much conflict with the other race."

"He's Muslim, and you know, that has a lot to do with it."

"I think now I understand West Virginia's state slogan. 'West Virginia, No Interviews Please'."

Now, let's clarify some things (and I wish that the pundits, pontificators and politicians would do the same). My knowledge of Islam is limited, but I do understand that a central tenet of the religion is to declare one's allegiance to and testify to (to use American and Christian terms) the central figures of the religion. Christians like myself should know from our own scripture reading that to deny our God is to forsake our religion, our salvation, so to say. There is no such thing as a "secret Muslim" just like there is no such thing as a "secret Christian" (although in some countries - for safety reasons - Christianity is kept underground, yet it is still practiced and never denied).

One presidential candidate (who shall remain nameless) answered the question of whether or not she believed Obama to be a Muslim by the politically-shrewd yet poisonous non-answer of "Not as far as I know." Let's hope that another presidential candidate (one that was shamed by his own party for having a black daughter), will be more honorable in pulling any similar tactics from out of his campaign's bud (and, in likewise, Obama will shun any playing on that candidate's age).

That's not too much to ask for, is it?

* hat trip to Staycspits

Weekly Links We Like to Link to - Late, post-West Virginia Edition

Know your roots!
I like our coffee table. But this has got to be the coolest one ever:
Not only does it look nostalgic and cool and everything, but it actually operates.


If you thought (as I always did) playing Mortal Kombat was hard enough on a regular NES controller...
h/t to RelevantMagazine.com

While we're on the Relevant Media trip, here's a little story:
A couple of weeks ago, one of our light bulbs broke overnight. Flat out flew out of the ceiling fan and crashed to the floor. Didn't think much about it, even though some time prior to that, my wife had warned me about mercury supposedly in all of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFL's). After all, why would Al Gore steer me wrong?
So, after taking half a day off work to do HazMat clean-up (turns out there are trace amounts of mercury powder in each bulb, and they're working on making it with less. But you need to be careful how you dispose of them. And if you have a little baby in the house, as we do, you may want to consider sticking with regular bulbs if there's a chance that they'll bust on ya), I turn on my Relevant Magazine Podcast (subscribe through the RELEVANT Podcast at your iTunes store. Now.) and find about this helpful and fun site on little practical things you can do for our environment and information about such things. Featured on the site? CFL's and the current (but pricey) alternative, LCD lightbulbs.

A few of my favorite cards from Indexed, a long-running, daily-updated blog I only just now heard of (via MarkO):





Have you seen this site? What are some of your favorite cards? (As if anybody would actually respond...)

Also from MarkO, this study on classical music's effects on raspberries.

Education Week at LeftCheek - pt. 1

As a card-carrying member of the local teacher's union, as a progressive educator in the vein of Dewey, and as an urban and public education proponent, I should be able to take some definite stands on issues related to my field. And I do.

But as a parent and as a reflective and - hopefully thoughtful - teacher, I still need to question the accepted wisdom given me from all directions. This bonus Weekly Links edition is dedicated to the ongoing questions and struggles that we as educators (and particularly, of course, me) face on a regular basis. This is just a little window into our souls, into our highly politicized world, into our hearts and minds and emotionally charged experiences. It's a lot of questions with quite possibly a few answers if we're lucky and willing to dig.

This is part one.

Teacher Opposed to Standardized Tests Reconsiders. In this NPR piece, a teacher considers what good is coming out of NCLB for the left-behind children of the urban landscape. She also considers how the high-stakes testing playing field is furthering the educational gap between the haves and the have-nots.

From the Harvard Education Letter is the non-news that students' literacy and learning (and, subsequently, their testing) is affected by the interaction in literacy and learning that they get at home, particularly with their parents.

School matters, but literacy starts at home. Teachers armed with reading contracts and carefully worded missives have long urged parents to read aloud to their children. But now there is a second and perhaps more powerful message: Talk to your kids, too...
“It is really what parents have been doing at home that children have to draw on when they become readers and writers,” says Gail Jordan, associate professor of education at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minn., who says children from three to five are “ripe” for engaging in rich language learning.
A decade ago, Jordan created Project EASE (Early Access to Success in Education) to help parents and kindergarten teachers work shoulder to shoulder to help children develop literacy skills. The program, now used in 120 Ohio schools and in Minnesota, invites parents and children to participate in structured evening events that provide education and modeling for parents and offer weekly activities to do at home. Parent-child activities include storybook reading, retelling family narratives, and talking about the world. Retelling family stories, for example, reinforces the sequencing of ideas, emphasizes the value of detail, and sharpens children’s narrative skills.

Blogging helps encourage teen writing. Also, not news. But glad that someone is giving this form of writing a shot.

And I know that you've been burning with this question forever: Where do homeschoolers go to when they're suspended?
We got yer answer right here!

Weekly Links We Like to Link to - Kansas, Hippies, and Early-Early Education

• Carry On, Wayward Synthesizer. A ten year old girl plays everything but the vocals at a keyboard recital. Better, I must say, than even I would at my advanced age.
  

• Our planet. Our resources. Our present. Our future. Our grandchildren's future. Their grandchildren's future. Too much to change. Not enough time to get it right now. Why should we bother? (NYT. May require registration. h/t to Scot McKnight.)

Some choice selections:

For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not really serious about changing — something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do...

Wendell Berry... argued that the environmental crisis of the 1970s... was at its heart a crisis of character and would have to be addressed first at that level: at home, as it were. He was impatient with people who wrote checks to environmental organizations while thoughtlessly squandering fossil fuel in their everyday lives — the 1970s equivalent of people buying carbon offsets to atone for their Tahoes and Durangos. Nothing was likely to change until we healed the “split between what we think and what we do.”...

For Berry, the deep problem standing behind all the other problems of industrial civilization is “specialization,”... Our society assigns us a tiny number of roles: we’re producers (of one thing) at work, consumers of a great many other things the rest of the time, and then once a year or so we vote as citizens. Virtually all of our needs and desires we delegate to specialists of one kind or another — our meals to agribusiness, health to the doctor, education to the teacher, entertainment to the media, care for the environment to the environmentalist, political action to the politician.

As Adam Smith and many others have pointed out, this division of labor has given us many of the blessings of civilization. Specialization is what allows me to sit at a computer thinking about climate change. Yet this same division of labor obscures the lines of connection — and responsibility — linking our everyday acts to their real-world consequences, making it easy for me to overlook the coal-fired power plant that is lighting my screen, or the mountaintop in Kentucky that had to be destroyed to provide the coal to that plant, or the streams running crimson with heavy metals as a result.

• Some of these ideas have been flowing through my head for the last year (regardless of the fact that I now have a daughter that we are trying to raise well and intelligently). The Chicago Tribune has an article about recent childhood development findings and the value of early intervention for toddlers and pre-schoolers. It's worth a read and reminds me of Jonathan Kozol's contention that middle- and upper-class kids will always have a clear (and, to be honest, unfair) advantage over their poorer counterparts because they will have received intense education from an early age, whereas most minority and poor students in the US will enter school largely unaware of the relationships of letters, social relationships, or certainly the process of schooling.

My side of the argument is that we need to give parents the tools to raise their children right. The more we take kids away from the parents of the poor, the more that raising children will become the government's (and teachers') jobs. And that is a disservice to everyone involved.

Weekly Links We Like to Link to - This One Goes Out to All the Fly Fellows and Lovely Ladies*

Our Racist, Sexist Selves.
If we didn't know it already, our racial and gender biases go very deep, whether we want them to or not.

The University of Chicago offers an on-line psychological test in which you encounter a series of 100 black or white men, holding either guns or cellphones. You’re supposed to shoot the gunmen and holster your gun for the others.

I shot armed blacks in an average of 0.679 seconds, while I waited slightly longer — .694 seconds — to shoot armed whites. Conversely, I holstered my gun more quickly when encountering unarmed whites than unarmed blacks.

Take the test yourself and you’ll probably find that you show bias as well. Most whites and many blacks are more quick to shoot blacks, no matter how egalitarian they profess to be...

Experiments have shown that the brain categorizes people by race in less than 100 milliseconds (one-tenth of a second), about 50 milliseconds before determining sex...

Yet racism may also be easier to override than sexism. For example, one experiment found it easy for whites to admire African-American doctors; they just mentally categorized them as “doctors” rather than as “blacks.” Meanwhile, whites categorize black doctors whom they dislike as “blacks.”

In another experiment, researchers put blacks and whites in sports jerseys as if they belonged to two basketball teams. People looking at the photos logged the players in their memories more by team than by race, recalling a player’s jersey color but not necessarily his or her race. But only very rarely did people forget whether a player was male or female.

“We can make categorization by race go away, but we could never make gender categorization go away,” said John Tooby, a scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who ran the experiment.

h/t to Scot McKnight.

Generally speaking, Stuff Christians Like isn't nearly as funny as, say, Stuff White People Like or LarkNews. But I found this piece on infant/toddler's tv both true and funny (in the "Yep, that's true," sense). Being a young father really does change your outlook. Or at least what you watch.
h/t to Cubical Reverend and Jenn (with two N's) for SCL.

Ever since Stanley Fish became the head of my school and started breaking down the English Department at the U of Illinois at Chicago, I've had it in for him. Nevertheless, I find this article on deconstructionism (or French Theory) intriguing and worth a read (and someday, I'll put on my big boy pants and finish it).
h/t to Tony Jones

*That would be everybody.

Weekend Links I Like to Link to - Revenge of the Red-Eye

1) Keep your eye on the drummer.

If the video of the Korean Keith Moon doesn't work properly, connect here.
h/t to Eugene Cho.

2) Still going... Former Prez Bill Clinton acknowledges he was tickled:

A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me. But there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995.

All good said and done. Except that, according to Ben Smith,

the speech where she got in trouble for “misspeaking” about arriving under sniper fire was in the morning, she told the story more than once, she didn’t acknowledge that she misspoke until more than a week after giving the speech... and Pat Nixon visited Saigon in 1969 .

I guess it depends on what your definition of 'Is' is...

3) The Emerging/Emergent movement in the 21st Century Western Christian Church is becoming increasingly widespread. Now the Amish want in on the missiological fun.
h/t to Jesus Creed

4) First mistake: making a hit list.
Deadly mistake: putting Chuck Norris at the top of it.
h/t to Relevant

5) Also from Relevant:
This may just be too gourmet for Starbucks:
Dung Coffee (at 50 Pounds per cup, once again we poor blokes get no fun).

Update:
Apparently, the ever-thoughtful journalist Dave Barry uncovered this trend eleven years ago.
Some choice lines from his investigative reporting:

It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity. I bet this kind of thing does not happen to heroin addicts. I bet that when serious heroin addicts go to purchase their heroin, they do not tolerate waiting in line while some dilettante in front of them orders a hazelnut smack-a-cino with cinnamon sprinkles...

Then I thought: What kind of world is this when you worry that people might be ripping you off by selling you coffee that was NOT pooped out by a weasel?

Weekly Links We Like to Link to - Post-Easter Edition

Easter weekend was weird for me. I didn't post not because I was being extra sanctimonious, pietous, meditative or even fasting from posting. I was just out of sync. And I guess I might just use the Pentecost season as the time to contemplate the death, resurrection of Christ and also how it affects me in the world around me. Here's some starter kits, though:

Andy Whitman uses T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" to understand why "We Call This Friday Good".

N. T. Wright - I don't think I'd trust another theologian to write a better piece on Easter than he, but I haven't read this one yet. So, it's here so that I will. "The Uncomfortable Truth of Easter." (Btw, I'm not sure if what's at the bottom half of the page should be there. I may just copy and paste it somewhere else before someone takes it down...)

An older post of mine on Easter.

And, finally, a reminder to unconsciously live the Resurrection in day-by-day exchanges.
h/t to I Am JoshBrown.

Weekly Links We Like to Link to - The Religious Edition

Because what better way to honor a Saint?

Speaking of which, Dan Kimball at Vintage Faith has a post on the Missional St. Patrick, noticing how he had been scorned by the officials in Rome and England for hanging around scoundrels and sinners, rather than making enclaves in the pagan Ireland. (And yes, this is being posted on Tuesday - sadly, late - while St. Pat's day was supposed to be celebrated on Saturday due to Holy Week. But I think it's a nice culmination of events.) Here are a couple other links on poor misunderstood St. Patrick, the one-time Briton slave and then missionary to Ireland (who did not, apparently, drive out the snakes via the Pied Piper). Blarmey!

They're magically delicious.

Tony Jones is considering why Liberal and Conservative Christians are so boring.

James Dobson wonders, "Where have all the cowboys gone?" No, wait. Who will lead the conservative Christian movement now that the Grahams, Falwells and Colsons are fading away? Here's another question: Will there be a conservative Christian movement in a similar form as there is now in the next generation? Or will American Christianity (in particular, Protestant Christianity) be more fractured than ever before. Or rather, hopefully, find more common ground and begin acting as a large unit?

The Christian Vision Project this year is asking, "Is our Gospel too small?" I think that's a great question. Tim Keel responds that the word "Gospel" is now short-hand for many of a truncated view of how one gets to heaven.

Asking "Is our gospel too small?" implies that something is off kilter—that somehow we have gone off course in the way we answer "the gospel question." But it may not be just our gospel that is too small. It may be that we have been living in a world that was too small—the small, reduced world of modernity.

One of the features of the modern world was "reductionism": the belief that complex things can always be reduced to simpler or more fundamental things. To reduce something is to take it out of context and to take it apart. Church leaders have become experts at reductionism. Ministries that are successful in one context are reduced to "models" that we try to duplicate in other contexts. Sometimes such reductionism is effective. But when we use reductionism indiscriminately, we end up in a world so simplified it is barely recognizable.

So in a modern world, we tend to reduce the complexity and diversity of the Scriptures to simple systems, even when our systems flatten the diversity and integrity of the biblical witness. We reduce our sermons to consumer messages that reduce God to a resource that helps the individual secure a reduced version of the "abundant life" Jesus promised (John 10:10).

And the gospel itself gets reduced to a simplified framework of a few easily memorized steps.

Scot McKnight's response is that our vision of the gospel needs to be more robust, more fully-dimensional. I'll include two of his "8 Marks of a Robust Gospel":

2. The robust gospel places transactions in the context of persons. When the gospel is reduced to a legal transaction shifting our guilt to Christ and Christ's righteousness to us, the gospel focuses too narrowly on a transaction and becomes too impersonal. We dare not deny transaction or what's called double imputation, but the gospel is more than the transactions of imputation. The robust gospel of the Bible is personal—it is about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. It is about you and me as persons encountering that personal, three-personed God.

Indeed, more often than not in the New Testament, the gospel is linked explicitly to a person. It is the "gospel of Christ" or the "gospel of God." Jesus calls people to lose their life "for my sake" and, to say the same thing differently, "for the sake of the gospel" (Mark 8:35; 10:29). Paul preached the "gospel of God" (1 Thess. 2:9) and the "gospel of Christ" (3:2) and "the glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1 Tim. 1:11). Paul tells us that the gospel is the glorious power of God's Spirit to transform broken image-bearers into the glory of God that can be seen in the face of the perfect image-bearer, Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:18–4:6). In our proclamation, too, the focus of the gospel must be on God as person and our encountering that personal God in the face of Jesus Christ through the power of the Spirit...

7. A robust gospel includes the robust Spirit of God. How often do we hear about the Spirit of God in our gospel preaching? To our shame, the Spirit has been defined out of the gospel. But notice these words from the New Testament's most notorious gospeler, Paul: "For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ" (Rom. 15:18–19). For Paul, the gospel, the power of God unto salvation (1:16), was also the "power of the Spirit of God." Again, "In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory" (Eph. 1:13–14). Jesus, too, said, "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you" (Matt. 12:28). The gospel is animated by God's powerful Spirit, and its result is Spirit-empowerment for new living.

Weekend Links We Like to Link to - the non-political edition

The Packers tell fans that Favre went away to live in a farm. (from The Onion)

"Don't be sad," Packer head coach Mike McCarthy told fans, many of whom began crying audibly, shaking their heads, or turning away at the news. "You should be happy for Brett. He is in a much better place now. He has many of your other favorite Packers, really great Packers like Reggie White and Ray Nitschke and Max McGee, to keep him company. And he even has a coach—Vince Lombardi is on that farm, too."

Although Packers officials gave no specific details of the farm, its location, or the family who will now take care of Favre, Thompson confirmed that it is "far, far away, beyond the football fields we know, in a very happy place where Brett will never be cold or get sacked ever again."

"There are no winters there, and no injuries, and no interceptions, and even though people will play football with Brett all day, they all have so much fun that no one remembers who won or who lost," McCarthy added.

The penny-farthing for extremists:

According to Brad [the creator], the 12-foot SkyWalker is so strong that it can
easily take a 500-pound pilot, a little trivia fact that makes me imagine a
Fantasia hippo driving one.

h/t to Mark o

On teens and the amount of time watching tv and internet (i.e., screen time):

"Girls that lived in more disadvantaged neighborhoods were four times more likely to be in these high viewing groups. And boys in disadvantaged neighborhoods were two to three times more likely to be in this high-risk group," said Barnett.

h/t to YPulse