Items by JJ

• Young Son’s Shakespeare Set to Scotland’s Pipes

  —Cocking A Snook!

  As promised, a sampling of family photos from the first annual Fall Weavers Festival at historic Millstone Plantation here in Tallahassee FL. You can see Young Son playing as Richard the Third in morning scenes staged under the Great Oak, then as great highland bagpiper with the Edinburgh-born McIlroys in [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 10:39am EST
  by JJ

• Fencing Poem Especially for COD and Son Breck

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 2
  We had a flood in the laundry room last weekend so it’s been a harrowing week of sorting, cleaning, tossing, throwing out wet carpet and ruined stuff, bringing in new equipment, checking to see if we need a new floor. Anyway, today in my labors I got to a top [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 5:09pm EST
  by JJ

• The Liar, The Witch, and the KKK’s Wardrode

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 3
  Sarah Palin’s presidential-ambition-blessing pastor was a real, literal witch-hunter and witch-persecutor. No joke. Now comes another no-joke witch story, one I saw earlier today in the Chronicle of Higher Education weekly round-up by Don Troop, under the irresistible and accurately newsworthy headline, “The Liar, the Witch and the KKK’s Ridiculous [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 4:32pm EST
  by JJ

• Shocking News: Our Dear Friend Betty Malone

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  MEG! What happened?? Nance and I have just learned of Betty’s passing — stunned and saddened. Dear in life, dear in memory. Betty posted a comment here Sunday, about the religious left emerging. She had been writing on FaceBook about having the flu, and then the morning of Nov. 13 said [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 9:56am EST
  by JJ

• Religious Left Emerges, Religious Right Erodes

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  From my hometown newspaper this morning at the heart of Gator Nation, in the South! — even though it’s something I can be proud of this time rather than apologize for, like what passes for good communal citizenship just down the road from UF, in a giant corporate enclave of [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 8:40am EST
  by JJ

• Speak Up When Pro-Child Politics Are Attacked as Anti-Parent

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  Here we go again. Families, child-rearing and home education publicly stereotyped as conservative extremism and anti-human rights, sigh. If you parent and/or educate children and don’t fit this stereotype, make your voice heard too. Don’t let this define your principles. Parental rights rally on Washington planned: Your stories needed! November 11, 11:01 AM by Lynda Ackert The [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 10:09am EST
  by JJ

• More About Young Son’s Shakespeare Saturday

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 1
  Here’s the power of story for Young Son’s Shakespeare scenes coming up this Saturday: FALL WEAVERS FESTIVAL SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 10AM – 4PM MILLSTONE PLANTATION / MILLSTONE INSTITUTE 6500 OLD MILLSTONE PLANTATION ROAD, TALLAHASSEE, FL (off Thomasville Rd) $5.00 Admission for Adults Children under 12 Free EVENTS for the DAY INCLUDE: Seven Hills Handweavers Guild Demonstrations Spinning, Carding, Dyeing and Weaving Yarn [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 5:41pm EST
  by JJ

• Sunday Afternoon Doing Shakespeare in the Park with Llamas

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  The first annual weavers’ and art fall festival at Millstone Plantation happens here Saturday the 14th, and Young Son’s Summer of Shakespeare group will be reprising their Richard III all day. Today for on-site rehearsal, they had the bright, beautiful, breezy lake setting all to themselves — except for the [...]
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  Posted: November 08, 2009, 6:06pm EST
  by JJ

• Beef Jerky Action Cam??

  —Cocking A Snook!

  I am not making this up. Here I am, watching the big college football game of the week on tv — LSU v Alabama — suddenly wondering how I can be so riveted by any meme that involves a “beef jerky action cam!” Posted in colleges and universities, Cynical Stuff, Framing, [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 4:45pm EST
  by JJ

• Pure Dead Brilliant — Jon Stewart Channels Glenn Beck

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 5
  more about "Pure Dead Brilliant — Jon Stewart Ch…", posted with vodpod Posted in Advocacy, Cognitive Psychology, Creative Class, Cynical Stuff, Discipline-behavior, Dominionists, Ethics and Philosophy, Framing, Health, Humor, Journalism, Language, learning, Liberties and Rights, Literacy, Literalism, Logic, Movies/TV, Partisan Politics, Election News/Commentary, Power of Story, Propaganda, [...][...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 4:01pm EST
  by JJ

• Rice Krispies No Health Food, Much Less Medicine Magic

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  And that goes for Cocoa Krispies too, no matter what outrageous corporate “colors” the First Amendment might hold its nose and permit to be inflicted upon our evermore-poorly educated populace. Rice Krispies Are No Substitute For Swine Flu Vaccine: Cereal giant Kellogg said it’s dropping the eyebrow-raising claim that a box of [...]
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  Posted: November 05, 2009, 6:28pm EST
  by JJ

• Capitol Hill Mad Hatters Show Up for More Tea Partying

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  Tea Partiers Hit Capitol: They arrived as early as 8:30 a.m., by bus, car and plane — from Bluffton, S.C., Des Moines and Dorris, Calif. — to rally with conservative lawmakers and possibly roam the halls of Congress. “Can you hear us now!” they chanted from the foot of the Capitol, as [...]
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  Posted: November 05, 2009, 12:31pm EST
  by JJ

• Campaign in Poetry, Govern in Prose

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 2
  Matt Frei for BBC News on this first anniversary of the historic election: The old saying that you campaign in poetry and govern in prose was only partially true for Obama. By late summer of 2008, he had already switched to prose. The cautious and calculating pragmatist who now runs this country [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 12:20pm EST
  by JJ

• Maine Repeals Gays as Human; Public School Parent Protests Gays as Animals

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  Dan Delong of Carlinville, Ill., at teacher at Southwestern High School in the nearby town of Piasa, will face a school board hearing November 2, after being suspended from teaching. A parent of one unidentified student thought the optional reading assignment was inappropriate for her child . . . When this [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 10:54am EST
  by JJ

• See Google This Morning and Smile!

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Then call any handy family members over to share the smile. I just did. UPDATE: See CSM’s favorite video clips from the 40-year run. And here’s one of mine, as a sax lover: Posted in Arts, Creative Class, Early Childhood Issues, Family Values, Health, home, Humor, learning, Literacy, Movies/TV, Nature-nurture, Parent Involvement, [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 8:36am EST
  by JJ

• Mike Lux on America’s “Historical, Hysterical Conservatives”

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  They have used the same arguments — for tradition and states rights, against “big government socialism” — in every era. In those past eras, history was not on their side. It is not in our time, either. . . .These conservative arguments have always been tinged with more than a little [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 11:54am EST
  by JJ

• Young Son the Political and Cultural Cynic

  —Cocking A Snook!

  So you know he’s been reading Les Miserables, all 1,400 pages. I guess it makes sense he would relate the author’s social themes to his own present reality as synched up with his own favorite social commentary artists by night, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and as opposed to the years [...]
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  Posted: October 28, 2009, 12:50pm EDT
  by JJ

• How Do You Define What’s Up (at pussy)Cat’s?

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 9
  The latest round of thinking parents playing “What’s in a Name?” as a floating blog-game of religion and politics costumed as each other for Halloween, apparently started with Lynn and JJ and many commenters both places, riffing on Frank Schaeffer’s books and his new MSNBC repudiation of the evangelical radicalism [...]
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  Posted: October 27, 2009, 12:17pm EDT
  by JJ

• War, War, War Revisited

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 1
  See Because Liz Cheney is a War Criminal too in the rogues’ gallery detailed, then proceed: Liz Cheney, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter, is founding a new group called “Keep America Safe” that will coordinate a campaign of fear intended to paint the President as an appeaser disinterested in protecting [...]
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  Posted: October 22, 2009, 1:07pm EDT
  by JJ

• JJ’s Reading Serious Stuff About Vaccine and Public Health Foolishness

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  Science doesn’t kill people, people kill people. With politics and mind games. And “fear spreads as rapidly as any virus . . .” David Shenk is the author of five books; his next book, The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told about Genetics, Talent and IQ is Wrong, [...]
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  Posted: October 21, 2009, 11:19am EDT
  by JJ

• “Collision: Is Religion Absurd or Good for the World?”

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Last fall, we went on tour debating the topic “Is Religion Good For The World?” Our arguments were captured on film for a new documentary, Collision. Are our morals dictated to us by a supreme entity or do discoveries made by science and reason, make Atheism a natural conclusion? You [...]
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  Posted: October 20, 2009, 5:33pm EDT
  by JJ

• Telling Children Who They Are and What’s Within Them

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 2
  “You are not half. You are a whole soul living in a divided world. “ There Is No Such Thing as Half by Joanna Brooks What comes out when a Mormon and a Jew raise a kid? . .You are a body spun from ancient dust and ancient water; you are the glorious [...]
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  Posted: October 19, 2009, 7:55pm EDT
  by JJ

• Smartest Two Percent Use It to Conclude Home Education is Smart

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  Spunky is blogging a Mensa study done by that organization’s foundation to research the nature of intelligence: First-year college performance: A study of home school graduates and traditional school graduates The academic performance analyses indicate that home school graduates are as ready for college as traditional high school graduates and that they perform [...]
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  Posted: October 19, 2009, 11:59am EDT
  by JJ

• Social and Economic Change Spells School Problem

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Even when the cultural change is the business of sports, it’s still a school problem, particularly in vocational education. (Does this make schooling and its related standards and certifications and enterprises, more conservative economic impediment in effect than progressive asset? ) Choosing to end the barbarism of Spanish bull-fighting for example: Luis [...]
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  Posted: October 18, 2009, 12:00pm EDT
  by JJ

• Kids Need Real Mom to Show Up, Not TV Reality Show

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 1
  UPDATE 1:55 pm EDT – just heard the entire sheriff’s news conference on CNN live, extraordinary. All three boys are said to have had “100% involvement” in the hoax, and what the sheriff called “guilty knowledge” — so one of the felonies with which the the parent/s will be charged [...]
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  Posted: October 18, 2009, 11:30am EDT
  by JJ

• What School Movies Have Affected Your Life?

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  Which ones are personally most memorable, for good or ill or just as powerful story-telling? After posting that video clip from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie the other day, I was stunned that Lynn has never seen it thus doesn’t have it in her frame of reference as we talk [...]
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  Posted: October 17, 2009, 4:58pm EDT
  by JJ

• “Most Inappropriate Halloween Costumes” Slide Show

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  (Strong warning to those offended by, well, things clearly meant to offend. Like listening to Beck or Limbaugh.) Just remember, no matter how bad you may feel about whatever you come up with, as long as you’re not dressed in one of the costumes below, you’re all set. The show starts with “child [...]
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  Posted: October 17, 2009, 11:44am EDT
  by JJ

• Never Mind That Using Kids Is Immoral in Any Belief System

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  Including Church. Including School. Including journalism and media coverage. Including “entrepreneurial” or “abstinence” or “extraterrestrial” or “family values” beliefs. Including political arguments about saving liberty or avoiding debt for the next generation. Just for today, never mind the real horrors and outright tragedies — maybe if we stop to sweat some [...]
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  Posted: October 16, 2009, 10:08am EDT
  by JJ

• Brand-New Homeschooling Video That Will Inspire

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 11
  Cock of the snook to Pam Sorooshian for sharing this — and look for her in it! Then share everywhere with everyone you think of. I am thinking of Alpha and Beta right now, but maybe you have a mother-in-law or a neighbor or co-worker you want to send it [...]
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  Posted: October 14, 2009, 11:53am EDT
  by JJ

• Where is Young Son?

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 1
  We’d been to the branch library and then out to scout up a vest for his scenes as a Village Boy in the upcoming Irish dance version of The Snow Queen. I looked up and he wasn’t around. Guess where I found him? He’s out in the far back yard under [...]
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  Posted: October 13, 2009, 5:03pm EDT
  by JJ

• Georgia Boy Says He’s Not Cross-Dresser, Just Creative — So Far Still Alive

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 1
  Atlanta Journal-Constitution in its news coverage: . . .the 16-year-old says an assistant principal at North Cobb High School told him last week he needed to dress more “manly” for school, or consider being home-schooled. . .On his second day of school, Escobar says he was pulled out of class to [...]
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  Posted: October 07, 2009, 12:03pm EDT
  by JJ

• Why Don’t Pregnant Women Tip Over?

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 5
  Ask an Ig-noble award winner! — Yes, the Ig-Nobles, Improbable Awards for Improbable Research, dedicated to “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think” — Posted in Awards, Creative Class, Cynical Stuff, Humor, Pregnancy, Reason, Research and Science, WTF [...]
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  Posted: October 06, 2009, 7:42pm EDT
  by JJ

• JJ Stands with Consumer Reports

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 3
  Finally! We believe that so much attention has been focused on the politics of health care that we’re losing sight of the core problems. Health costs are skyrocketing, which affects all of us, and if you get seriously sick, having insurance is no guarantee that you’ll get the care you need. We [...]
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  Posted: October 05, 2009, 8:42pm EDT
  by JJ

• Just Had a Long Talk With My Sister. . .

  —Cocking A Snook!

  and I realize all over again how personal and individual power of story is, how it’s different for my nephews than for my own children (their cousins) not to mention other children I don’t even know . . . Posted in Academics, belief in gods, Bullying and control, Change, Cognitive Psychology, [...]
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  Posted: October 04, 2009, 6:27pm EDT
  by JJ

• How Humans Are Hard-Wired to Treat Each Other

  —Cocking A Snook!

  “So easy a caveman could do it” sells insurance on tv as laissez faire capitalism good for us all. A new congressman boldly goes where no Dem has gone before, calling out GOP obstructionists and greedy antisocial insurance companies as “foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals” this week. [see six-minute mark into video] [...]
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  Posted: October 03, 2009, 11:26am EDT
  by JJ

• Fun Jaunt to Costume & Magic Shop

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 3
  Young Son decided he would be Inspector Javert from Les Miz for Halloween this year and after a few afternoons scouting thrift shops, we thought of the local landmark costume & magic shop, mainly because as a French Revolutionary policeman, Javert sports a tall black top hat — magicians used [...]
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  Posted: October 02, 2009, 10:46pm EDT
  by JJ

• Foundation Beyond Belief: Humanity at Work

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 3
  It’s Beyond Belief — what Dale has been up to is up, go see, explore and join this eminently ethical community if it reflects your family values. Its purpose is to articulate and put into coordinated action the humanist perspective for making the world a better place. As Dale’s personal epiphany puts [...]
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  Posted: October 01, 2009, 1:05pm EDT
  by JJ

• Education Freedom and Religious Freedom In Conflict?

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 6
  Power of story worthy to lead education: “It’s really wrong to assume that there is an inconsistency between seeing complexity and taking a strong position. . .In a society committed to free speech . . . we are called on to maintain our courage to confront bad words with better words. [...]
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  Posted: October 01, 2009, 12:09pm EDT
  by JJ

• Whose Rights Ring Wronger at School?

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 4
  Public school? Check. In the United States of America? Check (well, it’s Tennessee, and the states aren’t very united these days, does that still count?) Constitution still technically in effect despite a decade of stacking the U.S. Supreme Court with evangelical Catholics? Hmmm. . . At a football game on the school’s field, [...]
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  Posted: September 30, 2009, 1:27pm EDT
  by JJ

• The Unvirtuous Truth About The Virtue of Harvard

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 1
  While you’re raging against American institutional gods like Wall Street and the insurance cabal, think about this: CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION Think Tank: The "Veritas" About Harvard" Elite universities have benefited mightily from a number of converging long-term trends, none of their making. The markets made them rich, America made them famous, globalization [...]
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  Posted: September 29, 2009, 12:12pm EDT
  by JJ

• “Confessions of a Home-schooler”: Salon

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  Cock of the snook for this to COD: . . .Some people seem genuinely disturbed by our decision, on philosophical or political grounds, as if by keeping a couple of 5-year-olds out of kindergarten we have violated the social contract. Specifically, we have rejected the mainstream consensus that since education is [...]
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  Posted: September 28, 2009, 10:45am EDT
  by JJ

• JJ Reading Dan Brown’s New Book

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 4
  . . .and glad it isn’t BANNED! At the same time, I quite appreciate Killing the Buddha’s much more, ahem, historical and rational writing about the new book. Dan Brown shares with the Masons a belief in the mythology that gave rise to modern culture, and hopes that his readers [...]
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  Posted: September 27, 2009, 6:04pm EDT
  by JJ

• My Most Favorite Part of the Speech Tonight

  —Cocking A Snook!

  The striking image and power of story of those three amazing, accomplished, influential though unelected, intelligent, compassionate, complicated, and yes, beautiful pro-choice (AND pro-life, pro-liberty, pro-pursuit of happiness) women sitting together in the gallery: Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden with Victoria Kennedy between them. Now that’s integrity of public and [...]
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  Posted: September 09, 2009, 11:21pm EDT
  by JJ

• Handy-Dandy Public School Test For Constitution-Waving Conservatives Who Think The President Is Our Problem

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 8
  Watch closely for evidence that the presidential speech protesters have real principles, or if it’s mere propaganda behind their outrage over public school indoctrination. Cock of the snook to Lynn, our high priestess of evangelical excess as “education” – Take Me to the River, On the Public School Bus, Never Mind [...]
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  Posted: September 09, 2009, 11:07am EDT
  by JJ

• Blame This Shocking Photo on Lynn

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 6
  She made me do it. Posted in belief in gods, Cognitive Psychology, Cynical Stuff, Dominionists, Family Values, fashion, God, History, Human Networking, Identity, Institutions and Individuals, Leadership, Memes, Photography, Political Frames, Power of Story, Pro-life, Pro-choice, Punished By Rewards, Reason, Religion, Separation of Church and State--the First Amendment, Shopping/consumerism, Socialization, Strange [...]
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  Posted: September 08, 2009, 8:41am EDT
  by JJ

• Patching the Evangelical Soul or Just Bearding It?

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  UPDATE: Parents’ Advisory before you open the comments! — if you are naive or painfully prudish, or just “not in the mood” today, don’t. Why All the Little Beards? at Killing the Buddha: How is the emerging evangelicalism likely to differ from the old? One difference stands out at first glance. Picture [...]
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  Posted: September 08, 2009, 12:55am EDT
  by JJ

• Young Son’s Other Shakespeare Scene: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 5
  Most people don’t realize Richard the Third was also Demetrius. Posted in Arts, Books and Movies, Creative Class, Culture, education, homeschooling, Identity, Language, Literacy, Play, Power of Story, Shakespeare, Strange Bedfellows, Unschooling, What's In a Name?, Wonder, Young Son [...]
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  Posted: September 07, 2009, 11:26pm EDT
  by JJ

• Text of President Obama’s Planned Speech to Schoolkids

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  Just released here. I like the commentary at Time Magazine’s political blog Swampland: Rather than any lefty, neo-socialist, communitarian brainwashing, President Obama’s speech to your kids reads like a paean to individual striving and free market capitalism, the sort of thing that Ayn Rand and Barry Goldwater might have signed onto. At [...]
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  Posted: September 07, 2009, 3:25pm EDT
  by JJ

• What’s in a Name: Beetleness and Daffodility

  —Cocking A Snook!

  and whatever it is humans are made of, too. Reviving the Lost Art of Naming the World, adapted from “Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science” by Carol Kaesuk Yoon, 2009 Taxonomy is dying. But it is by classifying nature that we come to know it in all its beetleness and [...]
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  Posted: September 06, 2009, 12:36pm EDT
  by JJ

• Any Wisdom About Wisdom Teeth for Favorite Daughter?

  —Cocking A Snook!

  Number of comments: 12
  Guess what we’re doing today? Hint: it’s surgery under anesthesia and shockingly, have-to-charge it-and-pay-it-off-over-time expensive (thousands of dollars) and all out of pocket, not a dime covered by our already very expensive health insurance plan. I shouldn’t complain though. Favorite Daughter has the leading role in this life drama. Her dad and [...]
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  Posted: September 04, 2009, 10:36am EDT
  by JJ