Happy As Kings

• Salon.com: Home schooling: How we do it

  The article at the link is the second in a series from Salon.com Home schooling: How we do it -- What's the curriculum for our twin 5-year-olds? Greek myths, costumed trips to the Met and Lightning McQueen So at least... [...]
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  Posted: October 21, 2009, 8:55am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Reply to Oath Keepers post

  For reasons beyond my knowledge, the comments section at the previous post would not accept this comment from me. Because of that, it's going here. 1. I acknowledged my authorship via the links. In my comments, I spoke in 1st... [...]
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  Posted: October 17, 2009, 1:51am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Oath Keeper badge on an Army uniform worn in Iraq

  I just came across the picture that is said to be of an American soldier wearing an "oath keeper" badge on his uniform in Iraq. If this picture is real (I've seen references to the uniform and gear looking "too...'" [...]
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  Posted: October 12, 2009, 12:48pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Edible food-like substance pantries

  From Deborah at Antiquity Oaks: Food, oh, food, where have you gone? I just received an email requesting donations for a local food drive. The problem is that they are not asking for food. They are asking for the stuff... [...]
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  Posted: October 01, 2009, 10:06am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Fantasy Fiction clichés to avoid

  I don't write fantasy fiction, but I like the nutshell descriptions of the fantasy clichés to avoid. In thinking about it, though, I would like to do a fun writing exercise of putting them all in. That would be a...' [...]
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  Posted: September 30, 2009, 12:11pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• The Camazotz Award

  Camazotz is the name Madeleine l'Engle gave, in her book A Wrinkle in Time, to a planet controlled by the "Black Thing." On Camazotz, everyone obeys each tiny legal dictate to the nth degree. L'Engle shows this when her characters,... [...]
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  Posted: September 30, 2009, 11:05am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Law & Order (in)credibility

  OK, so it's a television show, and they're almost all fiction, but a little continuity in the script would be nice. I rag on Law & Order for their years-long representation of homeschooling parents as creeps, jerks and weirdos. Just...' [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 11:35pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Copyrighted materials

  While my mind was wandering this morning, the eye that never sleeps (sometimes actually) noticed that the blurb on the toothpaste tube, Pepsodent during this shopping cycle, is copyrighted. Intrigued, the inner homeschooler went looking, and found that the Cortizone... [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 8:48am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• In etiquette of ahchoo, sneeze in sleeve will do

  In etiquette of ahchoo, sneeze in sleeve will do, Kansas City Star Last week, after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius chided a reporter for sneezing into his hand at a news conference, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh pooh-poohed the... [...]
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  Posted: September 24, 2009, 9:19am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Grocery stores won't take checks?

  Grocery stores taking check use off shoppers' lists In my shopping with Whole Foods, a store I like, I already have to fit in that particular grocery run with something else, such as visiting the library, fabric shopping or an...' [...]
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  Posted: September 22, 2009, 10:43am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Threatening the President: No

  There is no discussion about threatening the life of the country's president. The subject is ... just plain out of bounds, and religion is not an excuse for such incitement. “[I] Pray For Barack Obama To Die And Go To... [...]
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  Posted: September 18, 2009, 11:12pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Social worker at the door? What is the main reason for homeschooler concern about legal problems?

  The past few days I have kept myself busy reading through the nine years of archives of the email list for the group, Association of HomeSchool Attorneys (AHSA). I did this to find out the most common reasons for asking... [...]
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  Posted: September 15, 2009, 8:05pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Bizarro gets homeschooling wrong, too

  Bizarro is the latest syndicated comic strip to tackle 'homeschooling.' Bizarro gets it as wrong as just about all the others I've seen, and some I hadn't until I searched just now. Using mass-schooling as a template for humor about... [...]
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  Posted: September 14, 2009, 12:16pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Confessions of a media dupe

  My reply (the previous blog post here) to the posting on an email list of an Infowars site announcement that outed the government roundup of all children, and their subsequent forcible inoculation, drew fire. A brave soul: Suggested I lacked... [...]
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  Posted: August 27, 2009, 5:21pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Forced inoculations: Authorities Prepare To Seize Kids During Swine Flu Pandemic

  From an email list: Authorities Prepare To Seize Kids During Swine Flu Pandemic, at Infowars.com Authorities are preparing to seize children from schools, set up quarantines and morgues, conduct mass vaccinations, and deal with riots and unrest, according to an... [...]
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  Posted: August 25, 2009, 2:37pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Nazis, health care and shouting 'fire!'

  The Truth About Nazis, by AKMuckraker I remember as a child I was not allowed to watch Hogan's Heroes. It wasn't a joke in my house. There was nothing funny about prisoner of war camps. There were no handsome well-fed...' [...]
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  Posted: August 24, 2009, 12:06pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Singer, Ashley Cooper

  Today, Mom's retirement community enjoyed the talents of Mr. Ashley Cooper. I very much enjoyed Mr. Cooper's narrative between songs, his interaction with the residents, and how he included a family of children visiting their grandmother (they were his 'backup...' [...]
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  Posted: August 14, 2009, 5:41pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Health care reform politics from HSLDA

  I want to do things other than 'react' to HSLDA. Reacting is not on my 'to do list' and reacting interferes with what I am already doing. However, even a person who doesn't have an agenda other than 'leave us... [...]
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  Posted: August 11, 2009, 5:55pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• What is the priority for HSLDA? Homeschooling or politics?

  I've already commented on the inappropriate connection the National Guard has with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA): National Guard and HSLDA. The connection seems to go farther than just a military ignorance of 'how' homeschooling 'works' (thoroughly decentralized,...' [...]
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  Posted: August 10, 2009, 11:00pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Jupiter's 'job' is to protect the Earth?

  The other day on an email list, the moderator sent out a message that seemed to be about science education; astronomical science to be particular. The event that prompted the message to the list's moderator was another hit on Jupiter... [...]
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  Posted: July 29, 2009, 3:58pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• G. Washington: Letter to Hebrew Congregation at Newport

  Letter to Hebrew Congregation at Newport ... The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike... [...]
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  Posted: July 14, 2009, 11:58am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• National Guard and HSLDA

  This past week while I was looking for information for a mom asking an enlistment question on a homeschool email list, I came across a National Guard page with a link to HSLDA’s site. Not only does the link go... [...]
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  Posted: July 06, 2009, 1:08am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Michael Jackson scared me, but not like you'd think

  Michael Jackson died. Sorry to hear that, condolences and everything, but surely the television stations didn't need to replace last night's shows for special programming. Everywhere I looked on television, there was Michael, and even though I only surfed channels...' [...]
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  Posted: June 26, 2009, 1:32pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Irony in some Common Core Standards reporting

  The Common Core Standards initiative came to my attention this morning in a newspaper editorial in the Kansas City Star. The editorial writer is dismayed because Missouri has yet to join the initiative because of necessary bureaucratic procedures after the... [...]
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  Posted: June 10, 2009, 2:29pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Attn: freelancers and reporters who want to write about homeschooling

  I've read many, many op/eds, news reports, blog posts and letters to the editor about homeschooling. After years of doing this, fielding the same old questions has lost any charm it ever had, and the latest from USA Today (and...' [...]
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  Posted: May 30, 2009, 2:20pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Homeschooling still illegal in Germany: Hardening Pharaoh's heart?

  Fox News (and many other news outlets) passed along an Associated Press report that homeschooling is (still) illegal in Germany and that German homeschooling parents are political refugees seeking the protection of American laws that allow homeschooling under various conditions.... [...]
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  Posted: April 02, 2009, 5:39pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Welcome to America, now speak ... English?

  This evening, while riding in the car, I saw that the car in front of us had a back window sticker that stated, "Welcome to America, now speak English." I'm assuming that in the opinion of the maker of the...' [...]
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  Posted: March 25, 2009, 10:40pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Linguistic peeve of the moment

  "Recoup" is not short for "recuperate." Recoup means to be reimbursed. "The stock market rebounded and the investor recouped his losses from the day before." Recuperate means to recover one's health. "After the accident, Monique needed a cast on her..." [...]
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  Posted: March 25, 2009, 11:57am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Did you know?

  This YouTube video is making the rounds (or already has, and I'm late again) Did you know? I saw this video a few weeks ago (saw it at a blog), and while it's interesting, it still generates, a 'but what... [...]
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  Posted: March 21, 2009, 12:51am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Contrasts

  Composition assignment for the day Compare and contrast: AIG using bailout money to pay executive bonuses the contemporaneous presidential plan for military veterans injured in battle to pay for their own medical care [...]
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  Posted: March 18, 2009, 9:39am EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Reindeer games?

  So I was at the clinic waiting with my mom for the results of Mom's blood test when one of the nurses commented that there was a deer outside. Watching a deer nibble on shubbery the didn't belong to me...' [...]
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  Posted: March 12, 2009, 6:57pm EDT
  by Your Majesty

• Alan Watts: Work as play

  [...]
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  Posted: February 12, 2009, 4:05pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• The Serious Need for Play

  From Scientific American: The Serious Need for Play Free, imaginative play is crucial for normal social, emotional and cognitive development. It makes us better adjusted, smarter and less stressed [...]
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  Posted: February 10, 2009, 1:05pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• Is 5/7ths a big enough piece of the tax pie?

  HistoryDay after day, year after year, decade after decade I've read that 'education' needs more money, programs or clout. 'Education' usually translates to taxpayer-funded schooling. For me, the awareness about 'education's' need came when I was young. Sputnik, the first... [...]
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  Posted: February 08, 2009, 3:00pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• LOWL

  more animals [...]
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  Posted: February 06, 2009, 12:37pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• All fertilized eggs will become someone great

  Unborn Obama Point 1: declining to accept a production for broadcast is not synonymous with banning. I just watched the advertisement, so it hasn't been "banned." Point 2: the implication that all children born to broken homes or in circumstances...' [...]
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  Posted: February 04, 2009, 2:18pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• Bailout banks pledge allegiance to the bottom line

  After a weekend of having fun online, my Monday-morning grownup-self lectured me on responsible use of time, and told me to do real-world necessities first (no one else is going to vacuum the carpet -- I know, I've waited for...' [...]
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  Posted: February 02, 2009, 10:30am EST
  by Your Majesty

• The upper-crust schools at home

  Hessisches Landesmuseum Dana commented on an article about QED -- Quality Education by Design. The company provides tutors to families, and the misnomer, 'homeschooling' is applied. I realize that, as Helen notes: I think this argument may very well be... [...]
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  Posted: January 27, 2009, 4:58pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• Scheduled unschooling

  I shouldn't poke fun, but I can't resist. Spicing things up for home-schooled What I offered to him this fall has become flat and near-drudgery. In order to revive his spark for learning, I’ve drummed-up a deviation from our lesson... [...]
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  Posted: January 27, 2009, 1:43pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• Testing bias against homeschooling?

  I think the irony is lost on the blog writer: Better TOEFL Scores: How to Avoid a Common TOEFL iBT Reading Trap To succeed on the TOEFL iBT integrated writing section, you will need to identify, by way of note-taking,... [...]
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  Posted: January 27, 2009, 12:15pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• Ted Bundy and James Dobson

  On a homeschool email list, a concerned member posted a PR-release about an interview by James Dobson of Focus on the Family with Ted Bundy, an infamously notorious serial killer who targeted young women between 1974 and 1978. I was... [...]
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  Posted: January 23, 2009, 4:05pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• The Inauguration

  Too bad I don't also have a 'day late and a dollar short' category. Make that, two days late. I watched (most of) the inauguration from my mom's (temporary) hospital room. She has regular transfusions, and that was the first... [...]
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  Posted: January 22, 2009, 5:46pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• Read in the Kansas City Star (even ...

  Read in the Kansas City Star (even if not found online at that site) Battle lines drawn over sex education Good. I'm too prudish to be a fan of explicit classroom instruction -- cucumbers and such -- but young people... [...]
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  Posted: January 19, 2009, 10:37am EST
  by Your Majesty

• Bärli-bär

  Me schmoozing with happy Zina Bear who sits as close as possible in order to be cuddled. [...]
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  Posted: January 06, 2009, 11:33am EST
  by Your Majesty

• Early human development

  I don't remember how I found the book, but I was lucky that the library had it. I'm just finishing Dr. Ian Tattersall's slim-but-rich volume, The World from Beginning to 4000 BCE, and like with many of the fiction authors... [...]
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  Posted: January 02, 2009, 11:06am EST
  by Your Majesty

• Tracking homeschooled kids

  Mary Nix has a post titled "Enrollment data on homeschoolers." I'm interested in the points made in the comments, as well as the information Mary provides. One thing that strikes me as tone-deaf in the original blog post that led... [...]
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  Posted: December 24, 2008, 12:41pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• The Twelve Days of Christmas and Advent

  'Life' has me by the throat at the moment, so blogging isn't high on my to-do list. Right about now, 'supper' is probably the pole star around which my days revolve because it shows up regardless. Despite my focus elsewhere,... [...]
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  Posted: December 19, 2008, 12:36pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• Baby's own ball pit

  Ems got the best 1st birthday present from his Grandma Nancy: plastic balls. He now has his own, in-house ball pit. Apparently, he thinks it's grand. [...]
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  Posted: December 16, 2008, 8:58am EST
  by Your Majesty

• Life's about the journey, not just the destination

  Thanks to Chris, I had to log back in to TypePad after swearing to myself that I'd shut off the computer after reading Just One More Thing. [...]
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  Posted: December 04, 2008, 2:17pm EST
  by Your Majesty

• School science standards? No.

  From Greg Laden via Daryl. Federally-imposed national science standards. Homeschooling, for a change, isn’t mentioned. What’s also missing is a discussion of the rather unconstitutional nature of the proposal. Compulsion associated with education seems to often wind up with some... [...]
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  Posted: December 04, 2008, 2:04pm EST
  by Your Majesty