If you still think the folks who run public education in America mean well, read on.
Really, how interested are you in raising up “the international child of the future”?
Update: My Family
So the phone rang last night–never good news, when the phone rings at night–they’re taking Aunt Joan back to the hospital, her fever has returned. It hadn’t been 24 hours, I don’t think, since they’d discharged her.
Tomorrow we hit the terrifying Garden State Parkway for Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s house. Once upon a time Thanksgiving meant a huge family gathering. Now there are only the four of us left, Patty and me, my brother and sister. Everyone else has either died or moved too far away for any personal contact. And we have to walk on eggs tomorrow because my brother is a hair-trigger leftid and we feel sorry for him. My sister has a new job, is being worked to a frazzle, but didn’t want to skip Thanksgiving.
I find that the more I need them, the more I get out of my memories. Their flavor is stronger and richer than it once was. The more evil grows this age, the more recourse I have to prayer and to the Bible. These call forth my thankfulness. God’s Word brings forth hope. And the more we need from it, the more it has to give.
Beautiful! ‘Come, Ye Thankful People, Come’
Either I’m getting kind of soppy in my old age, or there is something special about this hymn: Come, Ye Thankful People, Come, traditionally associated with Thanksgiving but really applicable to all the year. It’s the lyrics, it’s the message, it’s the feeling. It’s the suddenly, unexpected awareness of God’s love. It’s the music, it’s the gorgeous background scenery. It’s thankfulness to the Lord Our God, who daily loadeth us with benefits. Love and be loved. It’s from God.
Versatile Pet Owls
It turns out owls can do a lot more than just sit around and look wise and criticize Freddy the Pig’s poetry. Before youtube came along, who knew owls could make such good pets?
I remember the first time I saw an owl. My friend and I were walking in the woods, I guess I was about six years old, when we disturbed the world’s most enormous owl, who flapped his wings with a sound of thunder and took off. Man! To this day I’m sure that bird was bigger than I was. One of those memories you just don’t forget, ever.
‘The Silver Trumpet’: Almost Ready
If you’re wondering where I’ve been all afternoon, I’ve been right here at this computer, doing my part of the final edit of The Silver Trumpet. Our boss, Mark Rushdoony, hopes to publish it in January.
No one has ever published an error-free book, but at Chalcedon we come about as close to it as humanly possible. This will be my third time proofreading the book, and I’m only one of several proofreaders. Actually, it’s quite shocking when I discover–after the book is published!–a typo on a page.
Susan, my editor, had a rather complicated reaction to The Temptation. She’s worried about some of the characters’ welfare. Some of them are very definitely sailing into harm’s way. I pray that in the spring I’ll be ready to start writing the next installment of the story.
But first we’ve gotta get The Silver Trumpet into print!
At least the editing job takes my mind off WordPress.
Trying to Make Sense of WordPress
(Calling the shots at WordPress’ Fortress of Ineptitude…)
At least one of our regular readers is not getting notified when a new post is published here. If you follow the blog, WordPress is supposed to do that for you. Is anybody else not getting those notifications?
And of course they now notify me when I’ve posted something, just in case I’ve done it in my sleep or something.
And of course my news links within the posts still don’t link to anything anymore. WordPress fixed that once, but in just a few days it happened again.
What are they doing? It seems like the whole business has been taken over by gremlins. I can see no rhyme or reason in it. Imagine if they were in charge of manufacturing cars. On second thought, I don’t want to imagine it.
When are they going to get their act together?
Default on Student Debt–and Lose Your License
Remember debtors’ prison–they throw you in the clink until you pay off your debt? Really stupid idea, wasn’t it? Eventually they discovered that it’s next to impossible to pay off anything while you’re in jail.
But if we really do know better nowadays, how come 22 states revoke your driver’s license, or even your professional license, as punishment for failure to pay off your student debt? (http://www.jwj.org/in-22-states-your-student-debt-could-cost-you-your-job) You could read all about it in this recently updated Jobs With Justice article, if only WordPress hadn’t killed all my news links.
Let’s see, now… You go to collidge and run up a $200,000 student debt–and when you can’t keep up with the payments, they take away your right to drive a car, or even revoke your professional license. Either way, you probably lose your livelihood and certainly lose your ability to pay down the debt. Bad enough you’ve got a master’s degree in Gender Studies or Superhero Studies and it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. But just try to get and keep a job if you can’t drive to work. And just try paying down a debt if you haven’t got a job.
America would be better served if there were some other punishment for student debt default–suspending the defaulter’s right to vote, that would be a good start. Refusal to grant student loans in the first place to anyone “studying” completely useless subjects.Why should the taxpayers loan anyone money to get a degree in Lesbian Chicano Studies?
But it’s just plain mean to take away some poor collidge grad’s ability to eke out a living serving up slurpees at his hometown Seven-Eleven.
‘Old Testament Heretics’ (2013)
Remember this? Self-proclaimed “conservatives” who conserve nothing, urging Christians to jettison the teachings of God’s Word…
‘Light of the World’
I hope you don’t mind my posting this again–Light of the World by Charles Wesley, sung by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band. If there’s another hymn you’d like to see today, just tell me and I’ll post it. But this somehow puts me in the arms of Jesus Christ my savior, and that is a good place to be.
Cats Who Want to be Alone
Alas! Late with the cat video tonight! That’ll cost me points.
Anyway, here are some cats who, like Greta Garbo, want to be alone. That’s why they disappear on you, you know. And they can do it without setting foot outside the house. Think kittens burrow into your box springs.