10 year old boys are right: word problems are evil!
A couple of years ago, I stopped trying to get my older son to do word problems. He just didn’t get them. Plus, they often required really convoluted thinking to figure out. I decided that once he knew algebra and knew how to create equations, we’d give them another try. Now he’s in algebra and we’re starting to re-introduce them. Knowing how to create an … Continue reading 10 year old boys are right: word problems are evil!
What’s dumber than a gorilla with a bunch of bananas?
A school administrator, of course! I think they perform lobotomies on students in school administration programs. A school outside of Chicago suspended 11 students for taking part in a senior prank where a kid dressed like a gorilla chased 10 classmates dressed like bananas through the halls. From the story: Senior Andrew Leinonen, who will study criminal justice at Carthage College this fall, wanted to … Continue reading What’s dumber than a gorilla with a bunch of bananas?
Rebecca’s Word of Wisdom for the Day
“Getting what you want and doing what you want are two different, often mutually exclusive things.” – Me Continue reading Rebecca’s Word of Wisdom for the Day
Am I turning into a liberal?
As people who read this blog regularly know, I identify myself as conservative. This is because I hold traditional social views, I don’t trust our government to be able to do much of anything right, I believe that culture and individuals are more important and powerful than anything the government can do, I tend to be a “law and order” type of gal, and I … Continue reading Am I turning into a liberal?
Our Disgusting Government in Action
Perhaps you heard about a recent Supreme Court action on employment discrimination law. In a case of clear cut pay discrimination, Goodyear Tire Co. was able to get out of being held responsible for their discrimination against women because the woman who filed the suit did not file the suit within 180 days of the original decision to pay her substantially less than men with … Continue reading Our Disgusting Government in Action
Republicans Could Do a Lot Worse Part II
John McCain has asked the North Carolina Republican Party not to run an ad which features a clip of Barack Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Wright making incendiary comments and the words “He’s just too extreme for North Carolina”. The North Carolina Republican Party is apparently going to run the ad anyways, but Sen. McCain has made it clear that he does not approve of the … Continue reading Republicans Could Do a Lot Worse Part II
Dinner, Food Riots and You
By now you’ve probably heard about the hardships caused by rising prices on staple food items for poor people around the world. There have been protests and riots in Haiti, Bangladesh, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Indonesia and Senegal. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, Sam’s Club and Costco have also placed limits on the amount of bulk rice which can be purchased at one time.
My question is how do we respond to these sorts of problems. President Bush has announced an increase in food aid, which might help NGOs whose work feeding people in danger of starvation continue their work in the face of rising food prices. However, it is hard to see how $200 million is going to fix the problem of people who are working and who had been self-supporting a few months ago, but are now priced out of the food market. Besides, we know from long experience that while food aid may be a necessary band-aid to prevent starvation, it doesn’t provide a long term solution and tends to come with many negative unintended consequences.
My question is if America is willing to actually sacrifice for the good of people a world away? Would you support a moratorium on the import of rice for 60 days (accompanied by tax breaks to help those in the industry who would be negatively affected) to take pressure off the international rice market? Continue reading “Dinner, Food Riots and You”
Transcending Race and Delusional Conservatives
The candidacy of Barak Obama has inspired a great deal of talk, some of it self-inflicted by Sen. Obama, about the idea of transcending race. However, as the campaign as worn on, it has become apparent that “transcend race” is one of those phrases which means different things to different people. It seems to be a Rorschach test of wishful thinking in which people see it as meaning what they want it to mean.
I want to address how this issue plays out on the conservative side. The conservative perspective is the one which is closer to what I identify with and I think we have suffered as a nation because of conservatives’ refusal to look at and think reasonably about issues of race.
In regards to transcending race, on the conservative side, I have heard a fair amount of talk which indicates a wish for “transcending race” to mean eliminating race as an issue to which we need to pay attention to or offer consideration for. Because of this, conservatives have often reacted to things like the fact that Obama attends an Afrocentric church as a betrayal of his claim to be someone who can help us move past race. However, this perspective is based on a host of completely erroneous ideas.
The first problem with this perspective is that it presumes that in order to “get past race”, we must embrace a sort of “color-blind” nirvana and assiduously pretend that we have already reached such a place. In large part, this seems to mean that we ought to reject anything which conflicts with the idea that we are and should be completely unaware of race. Continue reading “Transcending Race and Delusional Conservatives”
Two Lists
Brian McLaren spoke recently at a conference taking place at Willow Creek Community Church and shared something which I find fascinating. Back in the 1970s, McLaren volunteered as a youth minister. He asked the kids in the group to make a list of what the pressing issues at their churches were. They came up with things like contemporary worship music and speaking in tongues. Then he asked them to make a list of what the pressing issues facing the world were. Their list included typical 1970s concerns like nuclear war, communism and famine. McLaren points out that there was no overlap between the two lists. The problem as he saw it was that as he was leading young people to Christ, they would get drawn into the first list of concerns and become less and less involved in the issues of the wider world.
I think that a lot has changed since the 1970s and churches are starting to do a better job of creating overlap between McLaren’s two lists. In fact, much ink has been spilled observing the rise of a new generation of evangelical leaders who are as interested in social justice and global warming as they are in gay marriage. However, I wonder how much overlap is going on at ground level in churches across the nation between church concerns and world concerns. If you walked into your church’s youth group today and asked the kids for their two lists, would there be overlap? Continue reading “Two Lists”
It is family that will change the world
It has been my observation for some time that we have a very bizarre disconnect in our culture between the way we treat our children and the adults they become. On one hand, when we run across an adult with emotional, mental or substance abuse problems and they share the traumas of their childhood, we are sympathetic. We can see the line between neglect, humiliation, abuse, a failure to protect, etc and the problems which this person has as an adult.
On the other hand, we somehow seem to think that children will survive all manner of things from being dumped in a crowded daycare for 12 hours a day at 6 weeks, to watching violent and sexual entertainment, to being bullied at school without any serious damage being done. It’s as if we as a society seem to think that as long as our children are not subject to permanent bodily harm and have adequate exposure to education and enrichment activities, we’ve done our job. There’s no serious consideration given to the sort of people we are raising and the effect that masses of people raised without adequate attention, nurturing, values and compassion will have on our society. Even when we claim to be advocating for kids, we have a hard time connecting the children of today with the adults they will become. We speak of children as the future, as if they were magical beings who can set things right by virtue of compelling the adults around them to behave well so as not to upset the children’s cuteness, not out of concern for the sort of adults they will one day be.
We have compassion for damaged people on the back end while refusing to do anything to stop the activities which cause this damage to begin with. Adults rule, the kids will be alright and families are whatever the adults want them to be. Continue reading “It is family that will change the world”
The Upside Down World 