An American In Canada

The Rob Bell Kerfluffle

2011-04-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

I'm finding the debate about Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins, to be very interesting and perhaps revealing of a fundamental struggle that is going on in the evangelical church (at least in North America, where the evangelical church is struggling for survival, IMHO. It's thriving and growing in other parts of the world.)

Some interesting things about this debate are that it began to get ferocious before the book was even released and many of the same things are being said by lots of people who I don't believe have read the book. I haven't read the book, either, but I'm writing about the debate about the book, so I thought it would be good to get down my pre-reading impressions first. (I did buy it. It's on my rather large "To Read in Future" pile.)

The National Post gives an interesting overview of the debate. The whole argument of the book is summed up by Bell's account of seeing a note taped to a Gandi quote that was part of a display at his church: "Reality check: he's in hell." Bell's honest questions are where the debate begins:

Within the national post interview, an evangelical writer (who I've never heard of - Jimmy Spencer - I can't help but wonder from what he says how long he will be considered "evangelical") says this about Bell:

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther said Christians had the right to read the Bible for themselves and define it for themselves. What you’re seeing in Rob is the use of the same motif. I don’t know if Rob Bell is a new Martin Luther, but at the time of the Reformation Martin Luther wasn’t Martin Luther.
There is an erosion that has taken place within evangelical communities today and Rob Bell strikes at the heart of that divide between whether you think God is inclusive or exclusive.

The worst thing you can be accused of in many evangelical settings today is to be called a "universalist." I've heard it a few times in the recent past as a "you don't want to go there" aside in conversations with other Christians. However, I must say that I would rather be accused of being a universalist, than be accused of being the most contemptible of religious types: "fundamentalist."

Another thing I noticed from the article was an incredibly ignorant statement by someone at Christianity Today, which makes me realize why I no longer subscribe to this magazine:

For Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today, what concerns him about Love Wins is what he calls Rob Bell’s failure to behave like a real pastor.
He leaves readers with more questions because he hasn’t really done his job as a teacher, which is what a minister is supposed to be. Instead, he has become a provocateur.
You walk away thinking this is what Rob Bell teaches, not what the Bible teaches.

This is incredibly naive for two different reasons: Jesus did not answer all questions - he told stories. He didn't even explain what most of his parables meant and left his disciples confused more often than not. Also, a quality of a good teacher is someone who always leaves his students with more questions than answers. A very exasperated grade 3 student once blurted out to me: "Can't you ever give us a straight answer?" Well, no, I can't because I'm a teacher and I'm trying to be a good one.

Do you know what Mark Galli is describing as a good teacher? A fundamentalist. I hate that word and that way of thinking.

If anything does lead to hell, the fundamentalist way of thinking (no matter what religion) does.
Update: Here's an interesting article about the history behind the rejection of hell and universalism. Long story short: Bell's not the first to say these things and be rejected by the church.

Comic Sans is evil, apparently

2011-04-01T15:24:00.000-07:00

I've been enjoying April Fools day as much as I ever do. It's great having the day off from teaching (it's the last day of Spring Break.) Teaching on April Fools day is sometimes an awful thing. Once I had kids dump water all over my chair (it's not plastic, but cushioned) and say "April Fools!". I wasn't thrilled at the idea of not having a proper desk chair for the few days it took to completely air dry out. Then there was the time that they replaced all the water in my water bottle with white vinegar. Fun times. (Note the use of a period.)

Now our dear friends at Google have this April Fools joke where you begin to type the word "Helvetica" into the search bar and it automatically switches to the much hated font Comic Sans. Now, it was only recently that I discovered how much Comic Sans is hated by the wider world. Being in an elementary school, I tend to run into Comic Sans quite a bit. I wasn't sure why until I ran into this article from The New Republic, which says that actual research went into this. It turns out that Comic Sans is "the most popular of the four fonts the researchers tested on children."
There is actually a website: bancomicsans.com which is, well, pretty self-explanatory. And here's another article on it from the UK: "Why does everyone hate Comic Sans so much?" Comic Sans was invented by Microsoft (Shake fists at them!) to help the no longer used "Microsoft Bob" be more kid friendly as it would explain to the kids how to use Microsoft. Those were the 90s, when kids still didn't know much about word processing, I guess. Interesting quote from that article by a graphic designer:

Comic Sans just isn't designed well. It was never made to be printed and yet it is everywhere I look. Hardly a day goes by when I don't see it in an inappropriate setting. I would just appeal to people to be more thoughtful. When I get an invitation to the funeral of a friend and it is written in Comic Sans, I just find that thoughtless. It is an epidemic.

I used to use Comic Sans, but I did end up switching to other fonts for my everyday fonts because I just got tired of it very quickly. I usually use Tahoma as the default font. I know others in my school who prefer Arial, which I like also.

So for my last day of Spring Break, I've used my time searching out all the Comic Sans hatred and tried to get Rachel Maddow to trend on Twitter (#maddow) - It's her birthday and...oh, nevermind...
I don't really have such a visceral hatred of Comic Sans, though. I just find it mildly irritating due to its overuse. Now when it comes to Times New Roman - I can get a little violent. So, watch it.

My Favorite iPhone Apps

2011-02-18T17:01:00.001-08:00

Just for anyone who might be interested -

1) Twitter - I like the basic Twitter app - it does everything I feel it needs to do. Although I would love it if it had a "retweet old school" option like I do with the Chrome browser. (UPDATE: I just noticed that it does allow you to quote tweets with an newer update I got automatically. The annoying thing now is, it puts quote marks around the whole thing and you can't delete the quote marks to make a nice, clean RT.)

2) Merriam-Webster's Dictionary - I only discovered this one recently. You can do a voice search and it has an audio clip for each word. Ever wonder how a word you've only seen written actually should sound? This app solves that issue. It also has a "word of the day" button which is cool, too.

3) Youversion's Bible app is brilliant. You have online access to most Bible versions in many different languages. You can also download many of those to your phone to use when outbid wireless range, like when I'm at church. I can quickly view the same reference in NIV, NLT, The Message, KJV, etc. (UPDATE: The latest update has so improved the function of this app. I'm wondering if it will always be free, now. It's worth paying for, though.)

4) Google - voice search on Google. I use this at school a lot.

5) Weather Eye - This is the Weather Network's app - I find it more useful than the iPhone's default weather app. Canadians are really "into" the weather, so the Canadian Weather Network's app being way cool should not be a surpise.

6) Google Translate - Speak into the phone. It instantly translates what you say into most any language you can think of. Most language have an audio button. Press it and you hear it spoken in that language! My only beef: Yiddish doesn't have an audio button. I really want to hear that one!

7) Canpages - The Canadian Yellow pages with audio recognition. Speak whatever business you want and it gives you all the contact information you need. Press the phone number and you're calling them. It also has white pages, but you have to type the person's name in.

8) Flixster - Great for local movie showtimes. Now I always know what's playing close by and when. This is put out by Rotten Tomatoes, so you get all the reviews linked to the movie you're wondering about, too.

9) IMBD - Another movie app (I love movies). This has all the info you can get from the IMBD website, including the top 250, info on actors, directors, etc.

10) Cowbell! - I put this here because I actually do use this in the classroom to get the kids' attention sometimes and I just couldn't leave the list at 9.

I'll leave the list at that so far. There's a bunch of others that I use, but the above are ones that I've downloaded and use quite frequently.

All of the above apps, by the way, have one thing in common: They're free apps! I'm really amazed by the high quality of even free apps, although that whole "I swear I'll only stick to free apps" resolution when I first got the phone really didn't work out. It's just soooo hard when the Apple people put apps for their store right on the phone!

President Obama is a Christian (Get Over It!)

2011-02-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

I'm amazed how many people have a hard time believing that Obama is a Christian. First of all, I counter: How do we know ANYONE is a "real Christian"? I mean, if you do understand the Bible at all, then you know that only God really knows who is real. Jesus said, "Why do you call me good? Only God is truly good." (Mark 10:18) Or how about Jesus' rebuke that not everyone who calls him "Lord" will be acknowledged by him as a follower. (Matthew 7:22)

Secondly: Please consider that the word "Christian" has almost as many as different definitions as there are people who claim to be "Christian." I reject the notion that Christian must imply "Conservative Evangelical American," which is the hidden message that hides behind many of the diatribes against President Obama.

Thirdly: Listen to the President's recounting of his own past at the recent National Prayer Breakfast (below). No, he did not grow up in a "Christian" home, but he became a Christian through conversion later in life. So, he actually chose Christianity deliberately, not as some default position inherited via his family background. Isn't this, then, an indication of someone who is actually the kind of Christian that the "born again" Christians are bragging about on Sundays? I find it hard to believe that Evangelicals would have an issue with this testimony if were uttered by anyone else in their church on any given Sunday.

Lastly: Keep in mind something that I heard a musician say on the Drew Marshall Show : "When the word "Christian" is applied to anything other than a person, it's just a marketing strategy." (I completely forgot who the person was - apologies to whomever. I also am not sure of the exact quote.) The question that I want to leave readers with, then is: When you hear the word "Christian" being used, ask yourself "What are they selling?" Now I'm not trying to imply, like the New Atheists, that all that is being "sold" is evil, but I will say it's important to keep in mind that ancient warning: "Buyer beware."

Shake up at MSNBC? YAWN

2011-01-22T08:28:00.000-08:00

I got into msnbc for a while and watched the line up: Hardball, The Ed Show, Countdown and Rachel Maddow show. After a while (yeah, I'm slow), I realized that the first three shows were just repeating the same talking points based on the current news cycle. Nothing new that couldn't be figured out reading the headlines in the NY Times in 5 minutes. The only exception to this is Rachel Maddow.

Rachel Maddow does not follow whatever the current talking point playbook is. She actually investigates something and attempts to discover the truth at the core of it. Sort of like 60 Minutes can do on its best nights. Except, Ms. Maddow does it 5 nights a week with humor and with something that is almost completely absent from most newscasts: a sense of cautious optimism. She actually is not going to go down the path of "Something I disagree with happened and I'm going to milk it as some kind of megadisaster for the USA."

Now Keith Olbermann, unsuprisingly, has been fired or let go or whatever So? He was just another part of the angry line up. Nothing really unique in his show, except for the Oddball sequence. Kind of a calmer Ed Schultz, although a bit more rational than that. Now they're going to give the angry Young Turk, Cenk Uygur, his own show. He's part of the screamers from the left who are more anti- than pro-Obama. If Obama smiles at a conservative, it's considered a major loss to some of these screamers. Also, MSNBC is a TV business and the ratings are more important than politics or reality or whatever.

Some of the lefties I follow on Twitter are up in arms about this whole Olbermann thing. I don't see the problem. Shows get cancelled all the time and hosts replaced. It's about ratings and making money in the Fox dominated world of cable news. It's just another TV show. In fact, if he gets a gig eventually almost ANYWHERE else, he'll get more exposure and higher ratings. The thing I'm more annoyed about is how so many don't give Rachel Maddow a chance BECAUSE she's on msnbc and people assume she's just as angry and repetitive as an Ed Schultz or Olbermann.

Here's hoping Rachel Maddow gets "let go" and ends up somewhere else with a larger audience.

I just discovered...

2010-12-19T07:33:00.001-08:00

I can actually blog with my iPhone! This is my first post with the phone, so I hope you all can forgive the shortness of the post. I'm getting a bit faster typing with one finger, though. I'm amazed at how easy it is to use the touchscreen keyboard on this thing! Now does this mean lots more short posts? Only time will tell!

Music in the 21st Century

2010-12-18T13:08:00.000-08:00

I was just at the library and they had a bin of CDs that they were selling 2 for $2 and I bought an oldie, but a goodie: "Ella and Basie" put out by Verve records. No hesitation in buying them and if you're reading this wondering who Ella an Basie are, you're probably in the wrong blog.

Anyway, I was listening to this CD on the way home and I suddenly realized how rare it is for my daughters to hear the same music that I hear. We have individualized music so much, that when one person listens to something, the whole family isn't automatically hearing it, too.

Growing up, I heard my parents' music often. To this day I associate Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash with my father. I hear any kind of pop music from the '50s, especially Jerry Lee Lewis and the Coasters, and I think of my mother.

I wonder if my kids will think of any kind of music and think of me. We're always listening with headphones on, in our own private world now.

America is Israel's "Crack Dealer"

2010-12-12T07:34:00.000-08:00

Thomas Friedman's Essay re: Israel and Palestine

I was nodding my head so vigorously I just about got a cramp reading the above essay. The USA needs to just stop with the aid to Israel, the constant attempts at negotiations and let them deal with it on their own:

Oil is to Saudi Arabia what unconditional American aid and affection are to Israel — and what unconditional Arab and European aid and affection are to the Palestinians: a hallucinogenic drug that enables them each to think they can defy the laws of history, geography and demography. It is long past time that we stop being their crack dealers. At a time of nearly 10 percent unemployment in America, we have the Israelis and the Palestinians sitting over there with their arms folded, waiting for more U.S. assurances or money to persuade them to do what is manifestly in their own interest: negotiate a two-state deal. Shame on them, and shame us. You can’t want peace more than the parties themselves, and that is exactly where America is today. The people running Israel and Palestine have other priorities. It is time we left them alone to pursue them — and to live with the consequences

Friedman then goes on to illustrate that the aid that is flowing to Israel could be better used for assisting the many US communities that are having to cut back on basics, such as fire departments and education. We need to realize that we are in a co-dependent kind of relationship with Israel and the aid that we're constantly supplying them with is only lengthening the process.

I'm reminded of a Start Trek episode where Kirk & Co. discover that the war two planets have been fighting for centuries has been fought by computers. The computers do war games and determine the number of casualties. The people are then selected by the computers to go to disintegration chambers. There is no damage to buildings and no famine or any of that ugly stuff that makes war disagreeable.

Kirk destroys the disintegration chambers and asserts that they have to deal with the ugliness of war or negotiate on their own to stop the killing.

This is basically what Friedman is arguing in this essay: We need to just simply stop and let them deal with the ugliness of war or realize they need to negotiate honestly with each other, knowing that compromise will need to occur. If they want US mediators without conditions, then fine, but stop the aid.

Friedman's conclusion:

It’s all a fraud. America must get out of the way so Israelis and Palestinians can see clearly, without any obstructions, what reckless choices their leaders are making. Make no mistake, I am for the most active U.S. mediation effort possible to promote peace, but the initiative has to come from them. The Middle East only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them.

Twitter as Newspaper for 21st Century

2010-12-11T13:06:00.000-08:00

I'm now a die-hard Twitter fan, after previously dissing it. I think sometimes, I get impatient with the new "newness" of something. I guess that comes with being 45 and a bit of an old grump about change.

Anyway, now I am regularly calling Twitter my "21st century newspaper" to those who wonder what on earth I'm doing with it. I read the tweets every morning with my coffee and click on the links that I'm interested in, much like scanning the headlines in the newspaper.

I feel like I'm getting a good sense of the world, rather than just the US, by subscribing to tweets from Al Jazeera English, BBC and various Canadian outlets. It also saves on the time it would take jumping from site to site.

I don't really care who follows and doesn't follow me - I don't find that Twitter always makes for a good chat with someone unless you both happen to be tweeting at the exact same moment. Replies can often get buried, but I've noticed that I pick up on them a lot faster when I use my iPhone for Twitter.

Anyway, I'm tweeting a lot now and those silly little random thoughts are going out on Twitter rather than on the blog. For my twitter page, simply click on the link on the right of this article.

Imago Dei

2010-10-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

I've begun teaching a grade 4 class here and I was talking one time with them about the concept of what it means to be created in the image of God. All of the kids, except for one, insisted that the idea of image was a physical one: that God had a real body. The one child who disagreed kept repeating, "No, God is a spirit!" Finally, I did weigh in that the one child was the one who had the idea and that the imago dei, or image of God, was not about the physical.

Now, we look at children and understand that developmentally, they go through stages of thinking and believing from the concrete to the more abstract. The idea of imago dei as a literal, physical concept is almost impossible for children to shake until they acheive a certain level.

It has occured to me recently that fundamentalist Christians who take umbrage with the concept that we have evolved at all are, in a sense, stuck at the level of thinking that imago dei is a physical idea. They struggle with, as I have in the past, the idea that we are just a few ticks off, genetically speaking, from the chimpanzee. The concept that we are mammals is uncomfortable for a fundamentalist and my idea here is that, in some unconscious way, they can't get over the idea that imago dei is physical is some way.

This is yet another way that fundamentalist thinking is really a betrayal of the core doctrines of Christianity.

The Truth is Not Always Easy to Discover

2010-08-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

I read that there will be renewed Peace Talks between Israel and Palestine. Before I could get my hopes up, the pundits started saying that it will fail. I thought they were just being negative, which is partially true, but then I read an Op-Ed in the New York Times which got me thinking:

Hamas, the I.R.A. and Us

I highly recommend reading it in its entirety, but the basic point is that when we consider what finally worked in the negotiations in Ireland, we realize that it happened when everyone was allowed to come to the table:

Mr. Mitchell’s comparison is misleading at best. Success in the Irish talks was the result not just of determination and time, but also a very different United States approach to diplomacy.

The conflict in Northern Ireland had been intractable for decades. Unionists backed by the British government saw any political compromise with Irish nationalists as a danger, one that would lead to a united Ireland in which a Catholic majority would dominate minority Protestant unionists. The British government also refused to deal with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, despite its significant electoral mandate, because of its close ties to the Irish Republican Army, which had carried out violent acts in the United Kingdom.

A parallel can be seen with the American refusal to speak to the Palestinian party Hamas, which decisively won elections in the West Bank and Gaza in 2006. Asked what role Hamas would have in the renewed talks, Mr. Mitchell answered with one word: “None.” No serious analyst believes that peace can be made between Palestinians and Israelis without Hamas on board, any more than could have been the case in Northern Ireland without Sinn Fein and the I.R.A.

So there can be no peace unless Hamas is allowed to come to the table without the preconditions that hard right wing Israeli government wants to set on them. The preconditions basically ask Hamas to not be Hamas.

I recall that the difference between a "privateer" and a "pirate" in history depends on which side you were on. If you were favoring England, then French "privateers" are seen as "pirates", for example. Finding the truth in historical events is difficult, which is why history can be so fascinating.

This brings up the question: Is Hamas actually as much of a terrorist's party as our pro-Israeli press tends to paint it? Is Israel any less guilty of "terrorist acts"? Are we just viewing it through a Zionist lens?

Keep in mind that having Hamas come to the table doesn't mean everyone approves of everything Hamas has done. It also doesn't mean we should just blindly assume Israel, or the US for that matter, has always done the "right" thing. The I.R.A. weren't a bunch of boy scouts, either.

Why Conservatives Can't Be Allowed to Govern

2010-07-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

Read this diary at Daily Kos first

That diary I have linked above gives the reason the mainstream media has failed the American public so miserably in the past few decades. It has allowed the fanatical rantings of pundits from the far right (Yes, I'm looking directly at you, Faux News) to become the main points of "debate" in the media. This is false, wrong debate based on false equivalencies, such as the idiotic debate between "creation science" and "evolution" - There are no points of contention. If you want to look at things from a scientific perspective, you go with Evolution. If you want ultimate answers to the meaning of life, you'll have to go with religion or philosophy.

Bill Maher, with whom I disagree quite a bit on some things obviously, had a great segment recently (NSFW language alert!) in which he asserted that we have too many false debates. There are no two perfectly defined sides to every issue or event in the news. We need to stop pretending that people like the birthers have a real point. We need to stop pretending that the truth is up for debate and can be discovered only through proper polling. Case in point, most people seem to be under the delusion that the Arizona immigration law is a good idea. It's not. It WILL lead to racial profiling and the detention of US citizens. There is no debate needed. The truth needs to be told, no matter what the public thinks. The media is supposed to inform the public, not reassure the public that everything they believe is really OK. In this way, the public actually has the ability to decide based on the truth, not based on distortions of interpretations or "misrememberings."

Something that is demonstrably true: Conservatives will drive the economy into the ground with run away spending if they are allowed to govern. This is not a debate:

The Deficit You're Freaking Out About is Bush's Fault

There is also another chart that demonstrates how the US under President Obama is actually on the road to recovery - this is also known as the "bikini graph," which just makes Rachel Maddow blush:

Both charts together directly contradict the narrative being pushed by the massive conservative media machine that the economy is in some kind of nose dive. No, the economy WAS in a nose dive under Bush and Obama pulled the plane out of the nose dive just like James Bond did at the beginning of Goldeneye. Furthermore, what was happening under Bush is exactly what results in the free wheeling, unregulated economy that conservatives are always screaming for.

Please, please educate yourself on what the economy has gone through in reality before voting in November.

Michael Campbell: Biggest Village Idiot North of Crawford, TX

2010-06-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

There's a talk radio station that I often listen to here in BC, CKNW. It consists of all local hosts with a variety of backgrounds, so I do like the balance that exists.

One commentator who I cannot stand is Michael Campbell. He's actually the brother of the current Premier of BC, Gordon Campbell, which is scary. Michael Campbell talks about money and economic issues and is constantly repeating key neo-conservative talking points such as "welfare state" and "don't tax the rich or businesses" or, the biggest tell: "big government." He also likes to talk contemptously of the fools who don't agree with him. He says that economics is simple and easy to understand and other such naive crap that it astounds me that he's tolerated as a economic commentator here. He loves to dwell on the failures of the Greek economy, which he honestly believes is due to too many "entitlements."

Now, I don't know much about economics, I admit that, but I do have this blog to ramble. So ramble I shall! Also, I do know a bit about current events and the state of the US economy.

What part of the near total collapse of the US economy does Michael Campbell NOT understand? The US was the result of 30 years of government deregulation and unfunded tax cuts which were directed mainly at the rich. All the talk of give the rich and big business big tax breaks to create jobs was complete and utter nonsense. Give the rich a tax break - they invest it! Give big business a tax break - they give bonuses to the rich guys and shareholders rake in more big bucks.

Where was the middle class in all this? Bearing the burden for the rich and the big businesses. The US is the ultimate experiment in free (mind boggingly free, i.e. Gulf of Mexico) market. The Reagan experiment of "trickle down" economics has been demonstrated, over and over again since Obama entered office that this unfettered economy is a disaster.

Also, Campbell's simple-minded philosophy doesn't take into account the one important factor: human nature. Specifically, it does not take human greed into account. Give big businesses more money? They keep it. Give the rich tax breaks? They spend it on themselves. Campbell probably thinks that the business will actually hire more people or pass savings on to their customers. Nope - that's not what has happened in the US and it will not happen anywhere else. Any economic philosophy that ignores human greed will lead to economic ruin for the majority of people.

We've learned the end result of Michael Campell's economic philosophy:

Any questions?

Why We Need Separation of Church and State

2010-05-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

This video of the beginning of the Anti-Historical Texas State Board of Education demostrates why the founding fathers wanted this separation. This "prayer" is full of lies and historical untruths regarding the USA:

I'm actually appalled that a governmental body like this is allowed to open in prayer at all. At one point in the past, having a little opening prayer was non-partisan, but this prayer is so obviously skewed and demonstrates the warped agenda of the Anti-Christian "Christian" Right that this kind of thing needs to be banned completely. Just like the Day of Prayer has been hijacked by the religio-political interests of the Dobsonites, the idea of prayer during any goverment event needs to questioned and, perhaps, eliminated.

Sigh...OK...I give up - I REALLY want an iPhone!

2010-05-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. Apple is a cult and people who have Macs and iPhones just jabber endlessly on and on about how wonderful life is now that they have this thing that is just perfect and never has any problems. Steve Jobs is an icon on their dashboard and they kiss it like a...well, whatever that thing that Orthodox Jews have by their doors.

I just totally, sinfully COVET this thing called an iPhone. I haven't had any cellphone in my life yet, but I just want to go all the way and get a really good smartphone. I also hate the idea of a tiny keyboard ala Blackberry. I love the idea of a touchscreen.

I'm totally behind the "App" idea, too. And to top it off, I just read this friday fun article at Daily Kos and I'm even more into the coveting idea. It even works as an emergency flashlight, for cryin' out loud. This is like the swiss army knife of cell phones.

Screw the iPad, I wanna iPhone.

Democratic Triumph in Maine!!

2010-05-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I hope that's what this means. Otherwise it means the first step into fascist-ville courtesy of the teabaggers.

The idiot teabaggers of Maine have released a platform that would open the floodgates to a theocratic nightmare (The comments in brackets are from "Bill in Portland Maine," author at the daily kos link) :

Reassert the principle that "Freedom of Religion" does not mean "freedom from religion".
[What part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" do you not understand?]

We recognize the sanctity of life, which includes the unborn.
[But later they say in their platform that "Healthcare is not a right" but a "service." I'm confyoozed. I guess if you're gonna be born you better come out rich.]

Discard political correctness, make public the declaration of war (Jihad), made against the US on 23 Feb 1998, and fight the war against the United States by radical Islam to win.
[And we will only accept their unconditional surrender on the deck of a battleship!]

Espouse and follow the principle: It is immoral to steal the property rightfully earned by one person, and give it to another who has no claim or right to its benefits.
[Translation: Gimme back my lawnmower, Herb!]

[The] government takeover of healthcare is not only unconstitutional, but detrimental to the entire healthcare system. Only market based solutions will solve the problems.
[Yes, the insurance industry has done such a STELLAR job solving the problems. Although, to be fair, they did solve the problem of how to increase profits by finding new and exciting ways to deny coverage to sick people.]

Defeat Cap and Trade, investigate collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth, and prosecute any illegal collusion.
[No comment---pretty much speaks for the whole document.]

Seal the border and protect US citizens along the border and everywhere, as is the prime directive of the Federal Government.
[Yes, but which border, Mr. Spock? Which...border...must...be sealed? Mexico? Canada? So...many...borders and we're just one...small...starship! Lost! In a nebula of...uncertainty and...confusion.]

Cut spending, balance the budget, and institute a plan for paying down debt. Proclaim that generational debt shifting is immoral and unconscionable and will not be tolerated!
[Disclaimer: Except when Republicans are in the majority, in which case such generational debt shifting will be relabeled "freedom investing."]

Restore a vigorous grounding in the history and precepts of liberty, freedom, and the constitution to the educational process. As Thomas Jefferson said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
[Ahem---that pot-smoking liberal hack Jefferson was written out of the history books, remember? You'll need to find a more suitable quote by St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin or Ayn Rand. With sloppiness like this, how can we be expected to take the Maine GOP seriously?]

And then, for their grand finale, a swan dive into a Dixie cup of cuckoo:

Repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to create a one world government.
[Twitch Twitch]

How unrealistic can a platform be? This further demonstrates how completely out of touch this tea party movement actually is with political (and constitutional) reality.

The big question that everyone should really have is: Why are the Republicans even listening to these idiots?

Persecution? Spare me....

2010-05-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

I can't understand why Franklin Graham has gone so off the rails. I do have a lot of respect for his father, but his son is making the move toward mixing politics with religion. His father, Billy Graham, did not specifically endorse political positions and avoided policy talk in his preaching. He understood what the primary gospel message was, but Franklin is buying into this radical right wingnuttery by going down the Faux News victimhood argument.

In the interview given to wingnut Newsmax he says that his "disinvintation" to the Pentagon is some kind of affront to his freedom of religion. It's not. He's giving the interview and talking on Faux News about how he's so picked on. He's free.

However, his comments about Muslims are a relevant issue. How are we going to make any kind of peace with Muslim nations by excluding them, marginalizing them and calling them evil? Even if you want to preach the gospel to Muslims, you don't begin the conversation by saying their beliefs are evil.

Graham has also probably raised the risk factor for those Christian missionaries who are trying to work with the Muslim people in a manner that is not based on the hate that he is employing. As Bush's war on Iraq increased the amount of terrorist attacks in the world, so will Graham's hateful rhetoric increase the actual persecution of Christians.

Obama needs to make peace with Muslim countries. Didn't Jesus say "blessed are the peacemakers"? Compare Graham's talk with Obama's and tell me - who is actually doing what Jesus would do?

Tea Party's Historical Ignorance

2010-04-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

I found this article, written by Ron Rosembaum about the Tea Party's tendancy to rewrite and misrepresent history.

Here is the take away quote:

Few paid attention, but they got to the truth. And they were Socialists fighting the Nazis, you might recall. Listen up, T.P.ers: The Nazis were not Socialists. The Socialists were not Nazis. They were blood enemies. In fact, the Socialists fought the Nazis, while conservatives and nationalists stood by and thought Hitler would be their pawn. Hitler, need it be said, was not a Socialist. He hated the Socialists. Had thousands of them murdered as soon as he came to power.

I think this is why it bothers me so much when Tea Party ignoramuses put swastikas on their anti-Obama posters. They disgrace themselves, they insult the dead martyrs to the truth, by lumping socialism with fascism and Obama with Hitler. They not only disgrace themselves; they be-clown themselves, they distort the historical consciousness of everyone they spread the comparison to.

Read the full article for why the TP's are so dangerous because of their faulty grasp of history.

Sedition?

2010-04-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

This is a great discussion about how Palin, Beck and the Faux News conglomerate are seditious:

Clinton's comments about this violent language falling on the "sane or insane" are very relevant. Clinton never indicated that all right wing arguments are violent, but that some of the unbalanced listeners take it more literally than the GOP would like.

Timothy McVeigh was just one man who was inspired by the right wing militia movement. The movement may now condemn him, but it continues to inspire McVeigh wannabees such as the Hutaree militia. If the feds were slow on the uptake we could be talking about the deaths of many police officers, which is what the Hutarees were planning to do.

The above clip highlights how important it is for the right to begin to distance themselves from the hate speech of Beck, Limbaugh, Palin and the Faux News idiots.

Currently, Faux News and Company are embracing the inflammatory speech and acting not only as spokespeople for the GOP, but have become a major fundraiser as well.

Why Tea Partiers are idiots...

2010-04-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

I am shamelessly reposting this from the comment section at this link:

How many of you have seen this:

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.

You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the Abu Grahib photos.

You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city drown.

You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when.. when… wait for it… when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.

(From poster named Stock)

This corporate funded astroturf movement deserves all the disdain and namecalling that the left can throw at them.

It's so easy being right wing!

2010-03-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

All I have to do is be willing to lie and distort truth in order to get heard on TV. I am only "for" something until President Obama and/or the Democrats are "for" it. As soon as the President embraces it - I'm against it as a socialist, communist plot to take over the government.

This is the case for heath reform. Obama gave a key statement on health reform today and now is the time of the final push to give Americans what they desparately need: health care without the threat of bankruptcy. For too long the insurance companies have rationed care and denied coverage and this must end before the US bankrupts itself due to health care costs.

The complete lack of support from the Republican side of the aisle demonstrates their complete lack of moral guidance and lack of conscience. They have literally sold their vote to the Health Insurance lobbyists.

For some reason many in the so-called "mainstream media" are saying this is political suicide for the Democrats and Obama. This is nonsense. Once people get a taste of having good health insurance at a fair price without the threat of financial ruin, they will never want to go back.

Come this November, I'm sure many of these Republicans will discover that it was political suicide to say no when people's lives were on the line.

A great clip from Rachel Maddow demonstrating the utter hypocrisy of the GOP:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The best plan for voters? Come this November I believe it would be a good idea to only vote Democrat - vote straight along the party. This would, perhaps, let the GOP know that their gamble with American lives is evil and just plain heartless.

London 2012: The Worst Olympics Ever!

2010-02-17T08:35:00.000-08:00

It seems that some, probably The Daily Fail...um...I mean, Mail, of course - are saying that the Vancouver 2010 Olympics are the "worst ever". They began saying this about 4 days after the Olympics started.

I've decided to begin a satirical campaign of one to call the London 2012 Olympics the worst Olympics ever. I don't need any facts or the fact that they haven't happened yet to get in the way. I can just SAY it. That's all the New Atheists, Faux News, the GOP, Dick Cheyney, Sarah Palin and assorted Christian Fundamentalists do and they get air time! "Religion is behind all evil events." "Obama is going to slaughter you." "We are against the stimulus." "Waterboarding acheived good results." "I resigned my governership for the good of the people of Alaska/the country." "The earth was created in 6 24 hour days." (All of those things in quotation marks are factually untrue, for those unsure of my meaning!)

Quick - INTERVIEW ME!! I can make things up, too! Did you know that the English Olympic Committee is the same committee that planned 9/11? The Founding Fathers revolted against the BRITISH, ya know, so this is why it's unAmerican to support the London Olympics? It doesn't have to be TRUE or anything to get air time. I can be completely made up history, like Dick Cheyney and that former Bush speechwriter have recently begun to do with some airhead on ABC.

It's hard to believe that anyone can think of something as the "best" or the "worst" when it's just started and not finished. You cannot evaluate any event or historical person "in the moment". Faux News began to relentlessly lie about President Obama as soon as he came on the public scene and then repeat the lies and now we have the so-called "liberal" media beginning to allow "birthers" to get away with fabricated nonsense. (They ignored the birther talk at the National Tea Party convention and pretty much ignored the racist/bigoted remarks made by Tancredo. The last I checked only 600 people showed up for this "national" convention. Why does the media give attention to these nut jobs anyway?)

So it doesn't matter if it's true - it only matters if you SAY it: The London 2012 Olympics are (not will be) the Worst Olympics Ever! Those Brits don't know what they're doing and they all have bad teeth! Let's have another Revolution against the Brits!

Manhattan Declaration: Why I Cannot Sign It

2009-11-24T12:23:00.000-08:00

I'm really struggling with this Manhattan Declaration. I cannot condone the legislation of morality and still believe in a country that is truly free.

Basically, the MD has three principles that it elaborates upon:

1.the sanctity of human life
2.the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3.the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

I will probably take days to elaborate and work through this in my head, but I must remain true to what I believe is the specific teachings of Jesus Christ. In some ways, I think the MD is right on, but in others, it doesn't go far enough. For example, if the sanctity of human life is such an issue: Why aren't Christians as a group crying out about the death penalty? Or condeming the Bush administration's throwing away of American and Iraqi lives in Iraq?

It says that the declaration is not partisan, which I don't believe for a minute.

If we believe in religious freedom and have extended that to believe in freedom and equality for all, why the obsession with marriage? Even if a group believes that an act is sinful, does that mean that it needs to be legislated as sinful?

Religious freedom implies freedom to not be religous. The document does not really endorse a free lifestyle, but a severely restricted one. I do believe that sex outside of marriage is not right, but I don't want it legislated to be illegal to have sex outside of marriage. I can't understand how allowing gay marriages will destroy society like a bad disaster movie.

I also am puzzled by the lack of "standing up" for important Christian values like grace and truth.

Where is the condemnation from Christians over the out and out lies being perpetrated by supposed Christians like Sarah Palin or the pretend Christians on Fox Noise? When are Christians going to condemn the name of Christ being peddled in the US as an exlusively right wing Republican product?

As I read the gospels, I see very little about sex and marriage from Christ. The only real statement that Jesus makes about government may be found in the often quoted "Give to Caesar what is Caesar, and to God what is God's". He even acknowledges the corrupt Roman governor, Pilate, as being appointed by God:

8When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9and he went back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10"Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?"

11Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin."

12From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."

from John 19

What am I trying to say here? Christianity should have nothing to do with politics. The church I grew up in may have been fundamentalist in some ways, but I can't recall being told that to be a Christian, I had to be a Republican.

I'm pissed off about the Catholic bishops putting conditions on their charity work, which is not Christian at all. Grace, a central tenant of Christianity is being ignored by the majority of Christians and it must be reasserted.

Love, Grace and Truth: That's what's missing in the Manhattan Declaration.

FOX vs White House: It's about the TRUTH

2009-10-26T11:48:00.001-07:00

I have been spending more time than I should on trying to understand the "war" between the White House and Faux News. The White House simply says what is a well-documented and carefully illustrated truth: FOX creates the news through its commentary and repeats it as news on its "news" coverage. I don't need to document this here for it is already well documented by Media Matters. Now that idiot Sean Hannity says he doesn't trust mediamatters, because it is liberal. The White House's main point is that they don't trust FOX, and nor should anyone else, because they are just a propaganda machine for the conservatives. The White House's response to any criticism from FOX is simple now: "It's not a legitimate news organization. We've made that clear. We can't trust the source, so come back to us when you have facts to back up your criticism that are not FOX-based."

This video is spectacular in how it illustrates the FOX bias and agenda:

The White House is calling a bully a bully. They don't really need to do or say anything else. As for the argument about Fox's increased ratings: that's a red herring. It doesn't matter if Faux's ratings are through the roof. It's all about truth - which is not something that happens by majority vote: Truth just is.

Fox lies, distorts and manipulates the truth to serve its own conservative agenda. The White House is simply stating that. There is no "attack" on FOX: They can still broadcast. They have the freedom to say whatever they want. They insist on the freedom to say whatever they want. It's a shame they don't want anyone to have the freedom to oppose their destructive agenda.

More on this debate

Why I'm Stuck?

2009-08-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this article: The Lost Art of Reading. This exactly describes my predicament with writing papers. I'm too restless and have noticed some of the same difficulties with the act of reading.

David Ulin states that he, like me, grew up reading constantly:

In his 1967 memoir, "Stop-Time," Frank Conroy describes his initiation into literature as an adolescent on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "I'd lie in bed . . . ," he writes, "and read one paperback after another until two or three in the morning. . . . The real world dissolved and I was free to drift in fantasy, living a thousand lives, each one more powerful, more accessible, and more real than my own." I know that boy: Growing up in the same neighborhood, I was that boy. And I have always read like that, although these days, I find myself driven by the idea that in their intimacy, the one-to-one attention they require, books are not tools to retreat from but rather to understand and interact with the world.

Now, it's different - always thinking you're missing something, which has especially seemed more relevant since 9/11:

So what happened? It isn't a failure of desire so much as one of will. Or not will, exactly, but focus: the ability to still my mind long enough to inhabit someone else's world, and to let that someone else inhabit mine. Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being. We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves. This is what Conroy was hinting at in his account of adolescence, the way books enlarge us by giving direct access to experiences not our own. In order for this to work, however, we need a certain type of silence, an ability to filter out the noise.

Such a state is increasingly elusive in our over-networked culture, in which every rumor and mundanity is blogged and tweeted. Today, it seems it is not contemplation we seek but an odd sort of distraction masquerading as being in the know. Why? Because of the illusion that illumination is based on speed, that it is more important to react than to think, that we live in a culture in which something is attached to every bit of time.

Here we have my reading problem in a nutshell, for books insist we take the opposite position, that we immerse, slow down. "After September 11," Mona Simpson wrote as part of a 2001 LA Weekly round-table on reading during wartime, "I didn't read books for the news. Books, by their nature, are never new enough." By this, Simpson doesn't mean she stopped reading; instead, at a moment when it felt as if time was on fast forward, she relied on books to pull back from the onslaught, to distance herself from the present as a way of reconnecting with a more elemental sense of who we are.

I have insomnia at times and can't read for long before I begin poking at the internet, seeing what I'm "missing." It is important, though, to force yourself to enter into the writer's world. Ulin mentions it may take longer and sometimes it takes him at least 20 pages before he is in the state he used to be in when younger and in his pre-internet days. His conclusion:

These are elementary questions, and for me, they cycle back to reading, to the focus it requires. When I was a kid, maybe 12 or 13, my grandmother used to get mad at me for attending family functions with a book. Back then, if I'd had the language for it, I might have argued that the world within the pages was more compelling than the world without; I was reading both to escape and to be engaged. All these years later, I find myself in a not-dissimilar position, in which reading has become an act of meditation, with all of meditation's attendant difficulty and grace. I sit down. I try to make a place for silence. It's harder than it used to be, but still, I read.

I completely agree. I need to just work harder at it and realize it's a new kind of discipline to be a reader in this internet age.

I don't get it...

2009-08-09T15:37:00.000-07:00

I just saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince today, expecting to be at least midly entertained.

I was wrong.

I was bored out of my skull. Bored with the moodiness, the lack of humour the damn teen angst. Has Twighlight even scared the makers of the HP movies?

I love the books. Can't read them enough. Have read them all at least twice, as I recall. I love the humor, the adventure and the not so hidden Christian message in the whole series. A scholar of children's literature, Jack Zipes - Marxist and athiest - said after only three or four of the books were out that this series was following the pattern of the Christian knight. I didn't believe it then, but after book 7, I saw it loud and clear. This profound idea is lost to the idea that we need to just show a string of scenes from each book.

The movies? Don't own or want to own any of them. I find they're more to appeal to fans who want to see "certain scenes" on screen. Unlike Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I feel the makers of the Harry Potter movies have lost touch with the spirit of the stories. Jackson added, deleted and manipulated the key events in the story to fit cinema and illustrate his own interpretations, but I don't feel that we lost Tolkien's original themes and ideas. Harry Potter tends to be scenes from the books, without the ideas that propel the story. I guess, in a sense, I felt the same way about Star Trek (2009) - something was lost in the translation to the big screen.

Although, like ST, perhaps in 20 years we'll get the "reboot" of the Harry Potter movies. I wonder what Jackson is doing after producing The Hobbit?

EDIT: Yay! Here's a review of the movie that I agree with! And it's from Philly!

No more Twitter for me...

2009-07-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed I attempted to add a Twitter account, but I've deleted the account already. There were two problems that I discovered rather quickly. The answer to the question "What are you doing?" seemed too difficult for me to come up with, which demonstrates that this writer's block I've been experiencing is pretty deep rooted by now.

Also, I really got the account to follow "breaking news" kind of items and started following about 14 different accounts. Well, apparently, I did something wrong because all 14 accounts "disappeared" within 24 hours and it said I was following 0 accounts. I discovered that I didn't want to play yet another online game with the non-existent support staff at yet another website (Due to negative experiences with both Ebay and amazon.ca, I will never deal with either again).

Most of the time there are no problems with sites and they can go on automatically and rake in the money without actually having to work. For the few times there are problems the person who has the problem only gets automated responses (amazon.ca does this) and it is very difficult to get a person. When you do, finally, (after 10-20 emails) get a person, they simply continue to repeat what the automated responses say, no matter what. The people do not even attempt to think on their own, which is becoming a larger and larger problem with society as a whole.

Ebay committed the worst "sin" in my opinion. When you file a "grievance" (I never received the book I ordered despite repeated emails from the seller that he sent it), ebay automatically gives your PHONE NUMBER to the person you have a problem with. The guy calls me AT HOME from far, far away and wants to "solve" the problem over the phone!! I immediately stopped going to ebay after that. Within a few months the automatic emails stopped (it's not possible to "unsubscribe" apparently)

Well, these two experiences made me delete my twitter account. I've learned that if you have problems, that is the best way to deal with websites. Don't even attempt to contact them. There's no point.

But it's not Star Trek...

2009-05-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, I saw the movie and I was impressed with the special effects, I laughed and I thought the opening sequence of Kirk's father's death was well done. I can see why the numbers are there and I can see why this will go down in history as a successful "reboot" of the series. It will make tons of money and that's just the way it is: I get it. I'm going against the grain by writing this, but Star Trek was supposed to be about going against the grain and perhaps it never should be "new, hip and uptodate." However, I can't get past the feeling that this is not really a "reboot" as others have been done. Let me try to organize my thoughts and explain why. I will also warn anyone out there that there will be spoilers coming. See the movie first and then come back to this.

Batman, Battlestar Galactica and James Bond have also done the "reboot" thing and started anew, but none of them betrayed their roots like this movie has done. All three of these franchises had something in common: they all kind of fell into "campiness" and silliness at some point and people just lost interest in the goofiness of it all. All three reboots did the same thing, though: they looked to the roots of the stories, stripped them to essentials and began again. The basic story of all three - the foundations of all three - stayed the same. This is important because it is in the foundations that we discover what brought us to these stories in the first place.

About the "nuTrek" as some are starting to label this movie: it has done what no other "reboot" has done - attacked and destroyed foundations by destroying Vulcan and betraying Vulcan culture with a kiss. It basically has eliminated all the TV series and movies that have gone before it with its time travel plot. It is an alternative universe, which is fine with some, but not with me.

Spock's character as revealed during the movie is not Vulcan in his behavior, which is just not consistent with who Spock and Vulcans have developed into over the course of the many shows and movies. Vulcans never - repeat NEVER - display affection in public. It is completely alien (drum riff) to their way of life - it would never even occur to them it is so distasteful. I have no difficulty with Spock/Uhura having a relationship, but openly kissing in front of not only others, but a superior officer is not going to happen. This single event took me out of the movie and wrecked that "suspension of disbelief" I have. It is especially unrealistic in light of the destruction of Vulcan and the death of Amanda, Spock's mother. If I have learned anything about human nature, it is that in times of extreme crisis we tend to cling to what we know and even have a tendency to become more fundamentalistic about our beliefs. Spock would not kiss Uhura in public - that is not Spock.

Star Trek, ultimately, is about characters and challenges to our ways of living and thinking. It is not a space opera like Star Wars. It is a way of exploring what it means to be human and the alien races on the series were ways of exploring different parts of human nature. I feel that this movie gave up on the thought and character development in favor of the quick joke, the grand special effects, and something that would appeal to a wider audience. The question that I have then is: Was Star Trek ever supposed to appeal to a wider audience? Maybe not.

Bad Movies

2009-03-16T21:31:00.000-07:00

I guess the official protocol is to say: "Spoilers ahead!". However, I will be doing you a favor. Don't ever watch this movie: Swordfish. It's been a while since I sat through a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad movie. In a funny way....I feel a bit refreshed by it. No need for seriousness in thinking about this. No Nietzschian metaphors within the bad guys like The Dark Knight. No serious commentary on society's rejected ones as in Monster. No thought provoking commentary on the war in Iraq like In the Valley of Elah.
Nope! This movie is just so bad, it should be illegal to have "making of.." featurettes on the DVD like this one does. You know the ones, where the actors and others involved in this semi-crime against humanity talk up the movie like it's the next Citizen Kane. And the actors? Well...we're talking some of the best actors out there in this movie: John Travolta, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman and Don Cheadle. I guess when there's too many good actors, that should be a sign of some kind?

Apparently this movie is trying to make a STATEMENT about how terrorism is to be handled. You see the key is (I am not making this up): Hit them back harder!!!!! TAKE THAT! That's what settles for profound thinking in this movie. Travolta says that the first few pages of the script are what sold the film for him. Basically the movie begins with Travolta explaining what is wrong with Hollywood films. Big long attempt at Tarantino-esque dialogue. Kinda ironic - an incredibly bad movie talking about....but I guess that was unintentional. This movie is so bad that their idea of a chase scene involves actors rolling after each other down an incredibly steep hill. I'm not kidding - rolling down a hill. It was an excruciatingly long chase sequence, too. Really.

Travolta is posing as a bank robber in order to be a terrorist of terrorists (like Dexter, but poorly edited and with lots more explosions). He's supposed to be our American hero, although we just think he's really a crazy bad guy, but is Halle Berry a DEA agent or is she just his main squeeze after all and we get to see her topless for no other reason than guys can go around and say they saw her topless. That's the movie...a big long run-on sentence. Oh, and Travolta randomly kills people in the middle of LA and gets away with it. I guess that's not as much a stretch as I thought it was initially.

Anyhow - Berry's topless. However, the filmmakers don't seem to understand that in well made movies, there is a reason for things like toplessness or shooting up senators or blowing up LA. In this movie, there's really no reason for any of it. It's so choppily edited that it seems more like a highlight reel and a poorly made highlight reel at that. Now there was toplessness in In the Valley of Elah, too, but it made sense and revealed something about Tommy Lee Jones's character(No, he wasn't the one that was topless. Sorry, ladies.) I won't tell you about it because that would entail spoiling a good movie.

Another test of a bad movie suddenly came to mind: I bet everyone who saw Swordfish remembers that HB was topless for all of ten seconds or so. I also bet that everyone who saw In the Valley of Elah and has been reading this is thinking: "I don't remember any toplessness in that movie...." That's a sign of a good movie - even boobs don't distract from a well made film.

I didn't watch the Oscars...

2009-02-23T08:55:00.000-08:00

What's happening? I've stopped watching TV and now I've actually NOT watched the Oscars for the first time in at least a decade. I was talking to the principal of the school I work at when I'm not taking a year off for grad school and he was talking about Rick Mercer. I haven't watched one Rick Mercer this season!!! I don't even watch the last season of Corner Gas (Although I will by the DVD in Oct/Nov when it comes out.) The time for the Oscars came up, I looked at the clock and decided I wasn't interested. I haven't watched any of the Best Picture nominees this year, although I'm sure "Slumdog Millionaire" deserved the honor. I know just from reading about the movie that it was the one to root for - anything about an underdog is fantastic to me. I was miffed at the exclusion of "The Dark Knight" for nomination. I knew Heath Ledger would win for the Joker, but it should have been at least nominated for original screenplay and director.

That wasn't the reason I didn`t watch and it wasn't because I was too busy with school work. The stuff I've been reading in grad school is actually changing the way I think. The way I view things and I'm not sure what to think about that...

What to do?

2009-02-12T10:16:00.000-08:00

Here I am...I'm still here, but I've hit a big time writer's block. It's called procrastination. For some reason I think that I need a completely written paper in my head before I begin writing it. I am using this blog to help me get over that, so I hope you'll forgive me for my rambling. I've allowed the assignments to pile up and I need to really push to get some done, because I've started new courses and for some odd reason they all have writing assignments too! (That was sarcasm, which I've never figured out how to properly convey in the writing of a blog) I have to keep in mind the line that one of my profs gave us: "Graduate school is more about persistence than intelligence." I must persist! For the very brief time that J.R.R. Tolkien drove a car he would just fly into traffic with a cry something like: "Charge ahead and they'll make way!" His family must have been relieved when he gave up driving due to the way the construction of roads was destroying the English countryside. I need to charge ahead!

Time for a new metaphor??

2008-11-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

Now that Obama's in (was there ever any doubt?) there are a few commentators - the conservative types - who are saying stuff like - "Well, he can't keep his promises on taxes, especially to the richer types - that would be disastrous!" One of those commentators is Michael Campbell - big time financial guru here in BC - who can't even pronounce Obama's name correctly. Imagine: O-BAM-AH. If Canadians keep this pronunciation up, I will retaliate with CAH-NAY-DAH!
Anywhoo... I was thinking about Obama stating that we need to get rid of this old ecomomic model of "trickle down" theory. This, I believe, was started by Reagan (who Obama has thoroughly studied and I believe admires in some ways -- wait : a president who STUDIES something, as in, READING???? What a difference!!) This 'trickle down' theory is a tired metaphor. If you try to hold water, some of it always trickles down. The problem is, there is no trickling....the economy has nothing.
A better metaphor may be of a glutton. The glutton is at the table, slamming down all the food he can get his hands on. As he eats quickly, food flies off the table: We are just getting the crumbs. This displays the need for a different system: We need to take some of that food off of the table and actually give it to the poor souls on the floor. The trouble with 'trickle down' is that it doesn't take into account human greed and the creativity of the human to discover ways (loopholes) for keeping the most food on the table.
This is what we've had and the system is collapsing due to human greed. The gluttons at the top are crying over the loss of food. That's all there is to it.

USA: Obama is the only choice left...

2008-10-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

I'm addicted to watching CNN election coverage. It's gotta be the most entertaining TV at the moment. I love all the talk of polls and 'close call' -- it's hilarious!! I have a hard time believing that there could be any kind of 'close call' - this is the choice, America: More of the same, or the chance for something different. I voted already - for Obama, of course - and my reasoning has really not much to do with all the complicated platforms and rhetoric. It's simply the point of view that the Republicans had their guy in the White House. He blew it: BIG TIME! It's time to give the other guys a chance, no matter what the platforms are. Some people are talking the election like it's about the salvation of the country or something. Well, it's not. You - individual people - are what really matters. The president won't change who YOU are, so go do something about improving the country. Let the party not in power have a chance and go out and give a poor family a nice Christmas.

Some other random thoughts concerning the US election in no particular order:

The US looks 'bad' in the eyes of the world. John McCain's mere presence in the White House will do nothing but confirm to the world that the US is REALLY 'bad'. So think on that.

The election of Barak Obama will potentially enact a profound change in the American psyche. Suddenly, people will realize that people from other races are actually, well, people. I can't really put my finger on it, but we can't afford to have another old white man in the White House at this time....

Palin - Great punchline and she'll be nothing but a joke as VP. We will yearn for Quayle if she gets in.

This whole 'test' idea: The new president will be tested, I would think, by some idiot fundamentalist somewhere on the planet. Biden was right. McCain - you've never been President, so you can't say you've been tested. You're on the same page as Obama in that regard.

Abortion: I hate abortion. I'm not thrilled with most 'pro-choice' rhetoric, but I know Obama gave the most realistic answer on abortion ever during the conversation he had with Rick Warren. No, he wasn't 'decisive': it's called thinking carefully. If you want 'decisive': we had that for the past 8 years, ya know!! I want a President who listens and thinks carefully and weighs all the options. Abortion is an issue that will require a lot of tact and insight. John McCain's answer was decisive and textbook 'pro-life',i.e., he's gonna totally ignore the issue when he's in the White House.

You know why Colin Powell supported Obama, besides that Obama is the only choice. Bush stabbed him in the back and pushed him out of the White House. I'd be shocked if Powell supported McCain. THAT would be news! And please notice other Republicans are supporting Obama. What does that tell you?

Advice to Obama: Hilary Clinton for Secretary of State. Think about it - not that you haven't already!

Well, that's the end of my ramblings. I like rambling on the blog - keeps me sane since I have to be so organized in writing for graduate school. I bet you can tell that's quite a challenge for me!!

We're Better Off...

2008-09-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's official. Canada is also going to have a federal election in the fall. However, there isn't much of a choice and everyone knows it. This is even obvious in the Conservative slogan (I'm not making this up): We're better off with Harper. I must say I find it slightly...dismissive? Is that the word for it? When do we say "we're better off" in every day life? Well, we have two ways to go somewhere: "We're better off going this way because the other way has more potholes or traffic lights or is more congested this time of day, etc." It's almost saying "You don't really have a choice and we know it..." Why would Stephen Harper call an election? Well, he's hoping for majority government, of course. It must be mind bogglingly dull to write about the Canadian election this season. There really is no other choice. The other guy, Stefan Dion, is, well, nothing. He's a nothing. A wisp of smoke on the political scene. He couldn't challenge a five year old for a spot at the play dough table. It's the complete opposite of the US election. We're talking celebrities. Obama has rhetorical flair - he's not easily dismissed or put aside. McCain has a solid story rooting him in history. They are, like 'em or hate 'em, characters. I'd read books about either one of them. Now, we have the Canadian side. I can barely read the tiniest article about either Harper or Dion without needing a caffeine jolt of some kind. If Obama was in the same room as I was - I would strain to see him....perhaps try to shake his hand. If Dion was in the room, well, I wouldn't even know it. I could walk right up to a potential prime ministerial canidate and, squinting my eyes and tilting my head, I would ask, "Hey, I know you from somewhere....Where you ever a guest star on Star Trek?"

The Dark Knight: There's a Metaphor....somehow..

2008-07-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've been totally not posting. What a whirlwind! I'm taking a leave of absence from teaching in order to work on my Masters degree and just getting my classroom packed up, doing report cards, helping Ruth with getting a full-time job AND finishing the paper that I needed to write since Fall (It was cool - don't know if it was written well or not, but it was on the idea of Monsters and forgiveness...)

Anywhoo, I'm just putting this out there: The Dark Knight is an incredible movie that has got to be a metaphor for something....something modern.

I should be profound, but I kinda get all the profundity wrung out of me by contemplating JRR Tolkien and the Inklings ~click on the word if you don't know what it means...

The Joker is an incredible villian in this movie. He is Chaos personified - Anarchy without the subtle wit. He has not interest in money or power - just destruction. Why? It seems to be more than he 'just likes to blow things up'. I definitely want to see this movie a few times (own it on DVD, too). Everything in this movie seems to be a Statement About Something. I know there's a connectiong with the Inklings - Dare I bring up movies in yet another grad paper????

Subtle Fundamentalism

2008-04-04T09:52:00.001-07:00

I spent a lot of time thinking about Fundamentalism over spring break - Yes, I think it's fun...why do you ask? - Anyway, I wrote a short summary paper about fundamentalism. Looking at the current so-called "war on terror", Craig Unger points out that this war is really a war about religious fundamentalism (both Islamic and Christian) versus the modern world. Terry Eagleton points out that fundamentalism is a "textual affair" - it 'worships' dead text. The very act of preaching should negate fundamentalism, because as soon as we open our mouth - we are interpreting in a new way. Paul Ricoeur shuddered at the very idea of a "sacred text" - because Christianity is supposed to be about worshipping Christ, not the very text that speaks of him.

Fundamentalism is often characterized as obvious - thundering, smashing its way through society. However, I'm beginning to realize how subtle it can be. I stumbled upon this quote in a magazine for Christian school teachers:

"If Christianity is truth, then Christian education is the only true education and therefore the only practical education. There is no education, no truth - nothing - without God, the eternal author of reality."

(quote is attributed to David Claerbaut, Faith and Learning on the Edge)

Oh, really? It seems like a nice comfortable, perhaps pithy kind of quote, but I will contend that it is an example of how subtle fundamentalism will be.

Let's unpack it a bit by looking first at its conclusion: no education without God, no truth without God... Right away, I begin thinking that the rain falls on the evil and the good, doesn't it? If this is true, then isn't this quote a slap in the face of any kind of public education. Does this mean that Muslims could never make an important discovery or speak truth - ever? Obviously, that cannot be true. Not every invention, every innovation, every insight on this planet was initiated and completed by a Christian.

Wait a second....let's back up to the If...then statement...

If Christianity is truth.....

Interesting assumption. The obvious question: Is Christianity truth? Well, I'm not so sure about that. What is Christianity? A belief system...worldview...an interpretation. Christianity is practiced by those who claim to be following Jesus. Christianity look, sounds, and is experienced differently by different people in different cultures in different ways. How can the practice of following Christ by truth?

Christ never said this. He did say: "I am the way, the truth and the life..." Perhaps we are proceeding from false assumptions or am I being fundamentalistic in my interpretation? *shudder* Well, let's put that aside for now....

So Christ/God is TRUTH. So it must follow that truth is embedded in Creation and all people, who are created in God's image, will respond to it in different ways. Therefore, an atheist may discover a deep, hidden truth that, yes, even Christians can benefit from.

Is Christian education the only 'true' education....nope, can't be. Well, at least it can't be based on this line of reasoning. Sometimes in the intense competitiveness between schools, we need to 'sell' the Christian school to make it 'look' better. Perhaps this kind of thinking is a result of that - for fundamentalism is, ultimately, a fear of non-being, of death, according to Eagleton. Some schools are just not able to compete against the government funding of public schools and are fighting for survival. Fundamentalism, ultimately, never works, though. Clearer thinking is needed.

Sign of the Times???

2008-03-02T09:32:00.000-08:00

I'm currently struggling with writing assignments in grad school as well as trying to write report cards, so therefore I suddenly had an urge to post something here. I wonder why....

Anyway, I was working on report cards, when I noticed one of these "smart tags" appear under the word "ART" on the student checklist. These are little letter i's that appear under names and things in Microsoft Word. Apparently, they are supposed to be useful, but they are basically distracting to me and I see them and end up posting here or doing some other thing that keeps me from continuing to work.

Now, why would an "i with a circle" - which is how I think of them - appear under ART? Would it give me a link to the Metropolitan Museum of ART, the Louvre, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, etc???

Nope.

It gives me links to stock quotes and financial exchanges. It looks like a bunch of these companies say ART in their titles!

I'm not so desparate (yet) to see what these companies are really about. Although you could ask me in a week closer to the report card due date and see if I have.

Is this the sign of the times? Art is reduced to stock quotes???

Perhaps there's a paper for grad school in this somewhere, after all....

Connections

2008-01-03T14:58:00.000-08:00

I started watching The Gospel of John and I saw the part where Jesus was calling his disciples. Now, this is done by the Visual Bible People, so the only dialogue is the actual Bible. They do, however, show visually some different things that one doesn't always have pictured in one's head. I always pictured Jesus calling his disciples, you know, at random or something. Like they didn't already know each other. In this version, it shows the different disciples connecting and getting others that they knew already. I never realized it, but it is in the text, itself:

(from John 1, NIV)
35The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
37When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"
They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"

39"Come," he replied, "and you will see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.

40Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). 42And he brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter[j]).
43The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me."
44Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

46"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked.
"Come and see," said Philip.

47When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false."

48"How do you know me?" Nathanael asked.
Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you."

49Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel."

50Jesus said, "You believe[k] because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." 51He then added, "I tell you[l] the truth, you[m] shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

I just thought it was neat how one goes to the other and brings that person that they already knew to Jesus. Maybe this is a pattern that many modern day Christian kind of don't realize. They just sit and wait for Jesus to do all the calling, when we're supposed to run around telling others. Hmmmmmm......

Maybe Scrooge has a point....

2007-12-22T13:23:00.000-08:00

*****RANT ALERT!!!****

I'm gonna let it out how sucky this past month has been right here and right now. Every person in my family has been sick at least 2 times this past month with stomach flu and/or strep. Meredith is just getting over Scarlet fever. Now, if that's not enough, there was the inevitable stress that Christian organizations insist on doing at Christmas. (Then they all turn around and practically ignore Easter by comparison). So, of course, I got sick from all the stress and pressure. I've been sick most of the month and was horribly ill this past week. On Monday, the car goes into the shop and needs new brakes...$700. Then, while I'm home sick on Wed., Ruth is diagnosed with strep throat and the car won't move. WELL...it's spewing fluid over the driveway and we can't turn the steering wheel. SO...the car is towed away to get a new hose...$170!!. Then, we think things are calming down...NOOOOOOO!! The water heater is flooding the basement. This is actually the second time our basement is flooded this year. The first time is when were were at the "Happiest" flippin' place on earth and became a major insurance claim. We paid our $500 deductible and the floor was replaced. Now, at least, I was home when this happened, so the floor should be ok, but I ain't going away for the holidays, I'll tell you that.

Dennis Leary said it best: "Merry &%$&##@ Christmas!"

Bad Driving

2007-11-04T11:25:00.000-08:00

Abbotsford is about the most tense place to drive that I have ever experienced. Now, admittedly I'm not a world traveller as much as some, but I really know that I'm getting close to home after a long road trip when I suddenly notice two key things: I'm being tailgated and I'm only driving about 10km/h over the speed limit. Now the average speed in Abbotsford is about 20-30km/h over the limit - 40km/h on the Trans-Canada.

I do have issues with road rage sometimes...I might respond to the yelling driver or the completely boneheaded decision the other one made. Or was the other one the bonehead?

I've tried to cope when I drive to my Monday night class by playing music in the car. Right now I'm playing Johnny Cash's hymns CD over and over. When I'm going 110km/h and the majority of drivers fly by me like I'm standing still, I'm humming "I'll Fly Away". That helps.

The issue with tailgaters is solved (for me, anyway) by gradually slowing down to EXACTLY the speed limit and not looking in my rearview mirror. Honestly, I could care less what they think. I don't understand how they think coming up to my bumper helps things.

The last thing I do is mumble: "Get off the phone." whenever I see the ignoramous chatting away on a cell phone. This is impaired driving. I've only seen what I thought what drunk driving once and never had a near miss with a drunk driver. Cell phone idiots? I've had more close calls than I care to describe and usually witness at least 3 different close calls with me or others each month. There are at least two times that I could have lost my life if things were just a few centimetres closer. I wonder if Mothers Against Drunk Driving has taken up the cause of cell phone drivers? (I'm feeling too lazy to look it up.)

I am thankful that I received, however reluctantly I took it at the time, defensive driving instruction when I was first learning to drive. This has helped me a lot in coping. I highly recommend it to the frustrated. It helps to not yell out windows too. Also, letting my wife drive most of the time is the best way to deal with it.

FEESH!!!

2007-10-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

I have had no ideas to write about lately since school started both in terms of teaching grade 2 and also I am taking one graduate course. Many of you loyal readers will wonder if I ever got my papers done from the summer. Well, I did! Now I have NEW papers to write for my course on "Text and Interpretation". I'm learning about guys like Martin Heidigger, who started all this Hermeneutics stuff that the postmoderns like to go on about. I'm starting to understand it. Just barely. So, instead of writing something new;I am shamelessly copying my sister's recent entry in this blog. I wanted to let you all know about the fish I take care of in my life. It's a hobby, but it's grown a bit.

At home:

1) 1 gallon tank with two goldfish. Like my sister's, they were feeder fish and not supposed to actually live very long. We bought them for my oldest daughter's 4th birthday. She'll be 8 in December. Yes, they're still alive.

2) 2 little fish bowls that were given to my daughters that each contain one male betta. There were a year old when we received them. They're still alive two years later.

3) One 29 gallon tank with various tetras, white clouds and a long finned blue danio. There is also one Panda cory, which I totally love and want to get a couple more so he can have buddies.

At school:

Well, they heard I like to take care of fish at school, so they accepted a donation from the local police. It seems that the police busted a local grow-op (marijuana grow operation - quite the business here in BC) and this tank set up was left behind. Well, I got it running and got some fish. I figure the tank is at least 55 gallons, maybe 60. It has a filtration system that cost at least $300! Those grow-ops must make good money....

The school tank is fairly healthy, but I'm having a bullying problem with the Silver Dollar fish (which were donated about two years ago). They are eating everything and leaving nothing for the albino cories to eat. I have a special fondness for cories, so I'm not particularly liking Silver Dollarsso much. I'm getting food to the one albino cory that's left. When I get a good 'sneaky' system up and running for feeding the cory, I'll buy some more cories for the school tank. The school tank also has a mini-school of tiger barbs. These are fun fish, but you have to have a good school of them and they can be nippy, so they limit the kinds of fish you can buy.

So those are the days of these fishies lives....

Opposites

2007-08-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

If you haven't noticed - I've been BUSY with many things. Among them, writing papers for the graduate courses I finished a month ago. Although, don't feel sorry for me - I'm still loving every minute of it!

I'm down to my last two papers. One is on censorship (just about finished) and the last one is about free will (read a lot - haven't started yet...). It just occured to me only yesterday that I'm writing about opposites. I wanted to write this note about two books I've read recently and how they relate to my writing.

The first book is by Al Gore and it is a devastating critique of the Bush administration. It is all about censorship, it turns out. Bush/Cheyney had a vision: invade Iraq - they had it right from day 1 and September 11 was just the excuse they needed. There was,and is, no connection between Saddam and 9/11. Afghanastan is left for Canada to sort out, even though the US did nothing about finishing the job. If even half of what Gore says is right - George Bush should be put on trial for crimes against humanity. The Department of Homeland Security is a waste of taxpayer money - the administration knew all they needed before 9/11 and just didn't act on the information they were given. All the extra security measures in the airport - having gone through that joke this summer - was not even needed. Our intelligence system before 9/11 worked just fine, thank you very much. If the executive branch had listened to their own intelligence, there could have been prevention. They knew all the hijakers before the flight. They knew they were training to fly commercial jets! Bush and Cheyney & co. were so set on Iraq, they blinded themselves, and continue to blind themselves to reality. It's amazing there aren't more protests. It's also amazing that Gore isn't running for president, because this book would make a good platform. Here's hoping Hilary reads it (how could she not?)

**WARNING:SPOILERS TO THE 7TH HARRY POTTER BOOK AHEAD!!

The other book to deal with censorship is the book than many have been screaming to ban from school libraries: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Please note that I've given the link for the far superior Canadian edition. I have never forgiven the USA publishers for ruining the title of the first book. The title in the rest of the world is: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone! Another form of censorship in the US. It's amazing that this book has been so condemned by fundamentalist Christians, especially considering, as stated by Jack Zipes (He's an expert on children's literature) - That Harry Potter, despite being formulaic and sexist (I really don't agree with him on the second), is a "Christian knight". In fact, interviews with followers of Wicca say that Harry Potter bears more resemblance to Christianity than to the Wiccan religion! Does anyone listen, though? I guess not. Here is a hero, who is singled out and hunted down by evil. Evil knows he will triumph and evil also knows that only he or Harry must survive via the other's death. So, what is the final solution? Harry puts his life on the line, not only for the wizarding world, but for the muggle world. Harry dies to save the world. He then is able to return to life. Does that story sound vaguely familiar to ANYONE???

Fast Food Trays

2007-07-09T11:34:00.000-07:00

As I struggle to understand Thomas Aquinas - I'm convinced he would be a shark of a criminal defense attorney today. How can you read this guy and NOT have 'reasonable doubt'???? I swear he made up words just to be confusing. Anyway, I wanted to ramble on something even less profound than whether or not the soul is 'subsistent'. That subject of even less profundity than usual is: the fast food tray.

Question: What do you do with your fast food tray and garbage when you're done eating in a restaurant?

Well, I hear you - how silly! But I will contend there's a major cultural difference here. Now, I'm not always sure if it's a difference between American and Canadian cultures and/or between East and West coast culture, but here it is: Most people around here get up and leave all their garbage and trays on the table, bypassing the garbage can. I remember when living in the Philadelphia area that it was expected - via 'unwritten rule' - that if the garbage cans said 'Thank You' that meant you were expected to throw out the garbage and stack your tray. Doesn't that make sense - shouldn't you throw it away?

There's is where (as I contemplate writing a paper about free will in philosophy) I just can't control myself. I can't give in: I throw my stuff away - it's just too ingrained in me. Hmmm....maybe I should go back to Aquinas and see what he thinks about trash.

Back to School....Again...

2007-06-24T11:01:00.001-07:00

I'm beginning my Masters degree on July 3. I'm 42 and I'm finally beginning my next degree. Where will it lead? Who knows...well...God does. I just discovered a fantastic quote from William Shakespeare: "We know who we are, not what we will be." I just feel that way now: stepping off into the unknown.

It hasn't been without its hitches, though. I found the registration process to be a bit confusing. I received a note of welcome into the Masters of Arts program in Inderdisciplinary Humanities from Trinity Western University . It's a degree that is more for me. I can't conceive of teaching all day and talking about teaching all night *shudder*. (If you haven't noticed, I'm getting kind of tired of education - same old problems in the same old cycles...) Anyway (I'm American and so I say 'anyway' not 'anyways' like the Canadians do.) the note says that "Incoming graduate students are not required to pre-register for courses."

"Even easier!" I think (incorrectly)

I start asking for pre-reading lists in March, thinking I can get a head start during Spring Break. I get e-mails of puzzlement and head scratching over what to do with this kid who's so anxious. At the end I get the syllabus for each course (2 courses) - would that be syllabi for plural? I get the books from Amazon (used of course) and get to it.

Well, that's that, right? Wrong!

I get an e-mail a couple of weeks ago saying that I haven't registered for my summer courses, so I better do it. I thought I was registered. I go to the website, which I'm convinced is out to get me, and find out how to register. Then I need to pay. They don't take credit card. What's with that?

I finally call a human being and figure out how to pay. Then I get to thinking:
"Do the teachers even know that I'm registered for the courses?"

Turns out to be a good question. The philosophy prof doesn't know that I'm registered and he's changed the syllabus. I have the wrong book!

Well, I ordered the books - there's 5 books, it turns out. I had one already. (used on Amazon - I'm not paying double through Trinity! Yes, it's literally double the price!) and, hopefully, I'll have the books before classes begin.

Maybe it's because I'm an old fart and the younger ones are so intuitive with computers they just know what to do. Oh, well..back to reading...

BIG PS - Ok, I'm an idiot - I just discovered that since I registered, I have a new e-mail at Trinity that has most of the info I've been missing.

Adjective VS Noun

2007-06-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

The word is Christian. Quick: Is it an adjective or a noun? Answer: In the Bible, it is a noun. However, we (the Church) have turned it almost exclusively into an adjective. Worse, I've even seen it turned into that most hated of word forms: an adverb *shudders*: 'Christianly'

What's the big deal? Well, I'll tell ya: Putting the label 'Christian' on anything be it music, books or schools implies that it is all the way God, Christ, wants it to be. The label 'Christian' leads to Christians (that's a noun there) assuming that it is the best. The garbage that has the Christian label on it today is astounding. This is the 'white-washed tomb' that Jesus alluded to. I'm so tired of religion and I'm so wanting to follow Christ. I want to BE a Christian, not just have it be just a label over my head.

Christians wonder why they are not always taken seriously and they only have to peek in a 'Christian' fiction book with it's poor, predictable writing to see how shallow we look. It has been said that the North American church is a 'mile wide and an inch deep' - Nothing displays that more than these attempts to mimic popular culture.

Music? Most songs lack content and barely have a complete thought in them. They are sung 6 to 7 times over to try to elicit feeling. Sometimes you feel like crap and all the repition of schmaltzy 'love me' lyrics isn't going to help. Most of the Psalms are arguments with God. Not saying he's my celestial pal!

Christians need to start setting trends - not just following them. If we are followers of the One God who created all...then we should be shaking the world up on a regular basis.

It's All Developmental

2007-06-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

I've just realized that I'm getting old. Big news, eh? Well, as a teacher with a birthday in June - I get this double whammy every year. Now it's worse - Our local paper always prints the pictures of all the local high schools' graduates and I've realized that I've suddenly started to recognize the faces. The very first grade 3 class I’ve taught here is graduating high school. They are now entering the workforce, studying to become whatever – they might be the face behind the counter when I apply for another loan! That just blows my mind. When they sign their names, I’m the one who first showed them how to sign their names!

The upside of all this is that I have a bit more of insight into the process of education. And I can say, after all these years: It doesn’t work.

It comes down to one thing - young children cannot learn what they are not developmentally ready to learn. Children are not at the same developmental level at the same age. Dividing young children into groups by age is the same as dividing them by height. It makes no difference! In one grade 2 class, I have students who would be challenged in a grade 1 class and students who could run circles around most grade 4's.

This all developed from a workshop I prepared a few years back that involved teaching spelling. The long and the short of it is that as I watched grade 2 students struggle with spelling the word 'because' I saw that even if the word was on the wall for them to copy they still got it wrong. Now an intensely famous spelling guru,Rebecca Sitton , would say that it is because I'm 'not holding them accountable' - but I'm in their face (relax - in a gentle, primary teacherish kind of way) about it. They still miss a letter or two. Why? I'm convinced that it has to do with how developmental spelling ability is. In the book,Words Their Way , we find that all children will develop in spelling ability in the same progression. If you try to teach the long 'e' rule before they have mastered short vowels, they will not learn the silent 'e' 'rule' in any permanent way.

This leads to grade 1 teachers (big Canadian thing, btw: you say 'grade 1' not 'first grade'. Another thing: Canadian kids are younger than US kids in each grade. Canadian 4 year olds may enter Kindergarten with a December 31 birthday. That's the cut-off when most states have a cut-off in September) saying: "I taught the silent 'e' rule last year! What do you mean that she doesn't understand it???"

After wrestling with spelling, I began to see this pattern in other areas and they I realized: "It's all developmental." Then I realized the way we do education is not developmental. It only works for the kids whose development happens to match the curriculum. Most teachers don't bother with knowing the developmental level of all the kids because it's usually physically impossible to keep track of each child's ability in each level. Another problem: based on research largely done on US high school students - the educational culture believes that retaining young children even at a Kindergarten, grade 1 or 2 level is always wrong. This is a flat out myth.

If you want to eliminate failing schools: Start extending the time some kids spend in Kindergarten and/or grade 1.

If you truly want'no child left behind' then start from scratch and reinvent how education works. Question everything and be ready for the New Enlightment!

Having a Voice

2007-05-20T12:08:00.001-07:00

I've had two letters published in the local papers so far, with apologies to Ruth. I've gone through the phase of sitting back and letting others settle issues. After all, I think, I can't vote being an immigrant and all. I'm still an American citizen only. I haven't become a dual citizen. Why not? I have this issue with saying I'm a citizen of two countries at the same time. It just seems....well...impossible. However, I've come to the point where I really do care about what happens here as much as anyone else. Therefore, I am writing letters to the editor because I can't think of anything else at the moment.

I'm very concerned: not about the projects but in the contradictions in numbers that seem to be happening. Right now, everything about Plan A seems to be very murky and confusing. City hall refuses to give out number about how the tax payers' money was used to fund the "Vote yes on Plan A" campaign. City hall did not allow an official 'no' campaign at all. City hall has suddenly come out and said the tax increase is only 7.5% when the 'pro-Plan A' media has said that it will be 16% that's a huge difference.

I may be a landed immigrant, but I am a taxpayer, too. Just like a Canadian. I hate dishonesty and deception. Build the projects, but be honest about the costs. I, unlike many immigrants, have the skill and command of the English language to write letters that demand honesty from those who are spending our tax money. It's the least I can do for my family's hometown.

A Rant

2007-04-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite shows happens to also be Canadian - The Rick Mercer Report. In this show, Rick has a weekly Rant - I will now have my rant about the some local Abbotsford stuff. I can't vote, since I'm not a Canadian citizen - so this is my only way to say what I'm thinking. (That, and I promised my wife I wouldn't write any more letters to the editor...)

It's amazing how far a lie can get you in this town. I refuse to call it a city any more. New York is a city. Vancouver is a city. Philadelphia is a city. Abbotsford, with a population of 130,000 - that's a SUBURB!! Canadians don't seem to have suburbs, though. They go right to calling this a city.

"So what?" you may be asking, "What's the harm?"

Well...I'll tell you:

This idea of Abbotsford as a city has led to a lie called
Plan A. Using the idea of Abbotsford as a 'city', the city council has decided that we need $85 million dollars of improvements. The real problem comes down to the $55 million dollar sports arena. The lies started fast and furious when selling this plan to the voting public. There were actually ads in the local paper that had pictures of ticketmaster-type tickets printed up. They were tickets to shows like: Disney on Ice and, believe it or not, MADONNA!!! You're telling me that Madonna is going to show up to perform in a 7,000 seat arena in SUBURBIA???? Madonna's namesake is more likely to show up as an image in a donut at a local Tim Horton's!

Now referendum day comes and: no one shows up. It's snowing - a huge snowfall begins that day that closes schools the following Monday AND Tuesday! The turnout was pitiful. It was approved by less than 20% of voters here. Most people were panicking about the snow - this is not being made up. When it snows in Abbotsford people panic like Stephen Harper at a Greenpeace rally. They weren't thinking about voting - they were thinking: "OH MY GOD!!! Do I have enough bottled water!??!"

Now the lies come fast and furious. The cost isn't $85 million - It's over $100 million now and growing! The councillor in charge of this public robbery states that this increase represents 'soft costs' or some other double-speak phrase and they always knew about the extra costs. Well...then, why didn't they say anything about it in advance? One councillor has finally spoken up (Moe Gill) and said, "Maybe we should rethink this..."

That doesn't seem like much, but for an Abbotsford councillor to say that at a council meeting is like George Bush saying: "Maybe we need to rethink this whole Iraq business..."

Now we're facing a 16% tax increase.

I love how they explain it as: "Well, you voted for it..."

Who exactly is 'you'? Oh, yeah...the business owners who had a shovel and plow that voted in November.

Shakespearean?

2007-03-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

I recently got around to renting The Departed , Martin Scorsese's oscar-winning film, and was impressed. Many go out of their way to put down this movie just because of the violence or the use of the 'f word'. Both seem to fit in the culture that is displayed here. Jack Nicholson's character (forgive me - I have a terrible memory for the character names, so I'll use actor names) says something to the boy he's training to be an insider (cop) for him, something like: "You can be a cop or a criminal. Is there any difference?" That's the main idea of the entire movie there. Is there really any difference? I was struck by the tragic ending and couldn't help but think of how the continual battle, the struggle to be insiders (Matt Damon vs. Leo DiCaprio) seemed to be so like a Shakespeare tragedy. I don't know how else to describe it except to say I felt the same way after seeing any of Shakespeare's plays, such as a Hamlet or, perhaps this movie better reflects: Macbeth. Some of the reviews talk about how long the movie was, but, I must admit, I was so caught up in the story of how Matt Damon was leaking info to Jack Nicholson while Leo DiCaprio was an undercover cop leaking info to the police from inside Jack's own organization - that I was surprised by the abruptness of the ending. However, in reading some reviews for Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, I recognized the kind of violence: realistic. In reality, people live their lives, can be quite happy and BANG! violence intrudes brutally on their reality, shattering the moment. This is a movie to meditate on and think about. This is real film making at its best!

Best Burger in Abbotsford

2007-03-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

The thing is burgers are a matter of taste. If you're really into lots of goop and sauces on your burger or you like a good, meaty patty. Now the tricky part of being an American in Canada is that Canadians have an intense love-affair with mayonnaise. This is probably a youtube clip somewhere, but in the movie The Whole Nine Yards, Bruce Willis has this great scene in a Montreal restaurant ordering a burger. He goes to extreme lengths to describe that he does NOT want mayo on the burger. He threatens, etc. Then the burger comes back later with mayo.

Another movie, the classic A vs C movie, Canadian Bacon (by Michael Moore - who would do well to think about making more funny movies like this to make his point rather than ridiculous ones like Farenheit 9/11). In CB, there is a scene of a news anchor describing the results of a Canadian takeover and one of his points is 'there would be mayo on everything'. My father-in-law likes to put mayo on his hot dogs. Can you handle that, Americans????

Now back to the best burger, which is what this is supposed to be about. What does that ridiculous newspaper vote as best burger every flippin' year? White Spot!!! Now these are good burgers. If you like tons of mayo that you MIGHT be able to convince them to leave off. I gotta admit, if you ask for no mayo, it's about a 50-50 chance it will come WITH mayo. So the goop lovers rejoice at White Spot, but the meat lovers, like yours truly, go good, but not BEST!

What's best? In terms of a good, satisfying burger with lots of styles of burgers to choose from. Not just goopy, but blue cheese, Hawaiian, avocado, etc. or a fantastic cheeseburger, then the hands down winner is Red Robin's!!! They are by far the best here in Abbotsford. So go down to South Fraser Way and order yourself a Blue Ribbon Burger!

Shopaholic!

2007-03-04T10:54:00.000-08:00

I gotta stop, but it's sooooo much fun! I've 'discovered' both ebay and amazon to have such great deals on DVD's that I can't stop. It's amazing how overpriced things are now in Canada with the Canadian dollar stronger. I think it was Ruth that said that it seems that Canadian retailers are so used to marking things up, that they are still doing it, even though they shouldn't really need to.

I'm really spending most of my time looking for good deals on the sets of the Star Trek TV series. They're still all over 100 dollars for each season here. Then, over Christmas break, I was in a Wal-Mart in Bellingham, Washington and I saw the first season of Star Trek: The Original series sitting there for only $54! Well, I've waited long enough for the prices to go down and I bought it. I then began looking on e-bay and amazon (NOT Amazon.ca - the prices are still too high!!). I have a PO box in the US, so I have everything sent there. Another annoying thing about Canada is that the postage is so high, it's never worth buying things via mail here. I used to belong to book clubs, but I discovered that it can cost around $10 to mail just one book! I don't think that Canada post believes in 'book rate'. I even talked to a guy at a used book store around here and he says that it's cheaper for him to go to Washington state to mail his book orders TO CANADA! Canada Post is gotta be the biggest scam....grumble, rumble.

Free Education for all???

2007-02-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

I just had a quick flash of insight and I'm just putting it down here. Why do we insist on free education for all? Why do the well-off people or even those who could afford a minimal fee not charged? Why does it have to be free?

Why not have free education only for those who truly need it? I just thought of President Clinton sending Chelsea to public schools - why shouldn't the Clintons be charged for going to any school?

I'm not thinking that everyone pay full tuition - just that a user fee be charged for education. We now have this overgrown dinosaur called education - something that basically has been done the same way for 100 years and we think it should be free for all. We have a school close by to me, I think it's in Deroche, where most of the kids are First Nations and this school has basically no supplies, library, etc. The districts that collect huge amount of taxes should actually be paying into a pot - the neediest districts, i.e., lower-income - should be able to draw more than the 'richest'. The richest can use user fees to make up the shortfall in their money. Same thing for health care in Canada, by the way.

Now that I've solved the world's economic woes - I'm gonna have lunch.

Control Freak!!!

2007-01-30T08:14:00.000-08:00

I used to be a control freak. I suspect that's a big reason I became a teacher. Teachers must be the ultimate in control freaks. They're actually the worst kind of control freaks imagainable - they are control freaks that usually get their way! Teachers are such control freaks, they have to go to workshops and classes to be taught that kids are actually capable of doing such things as sharpening pencils, handing out papers, thinking for themselves, etc. A teacher cannot stand to allow the kids time to explore without having planned every outcome, developed an exhaustive checklist, and laid out 'roles' for each child to play in a group setting. Teachers are so used to controlling their environment they have no problem, in an informal adult setting, to going 'SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!' right in your face. Your at a party and you're being controlled? There's a teacher behind it! I've learned that control of others is wrong over the past years, so I have changed a lot as a teacher - perhaps this is why I don't feel like I fit into education circles any longer? Hmmmm.....

Now, the most poisonous combination with teacher is religious teacher. Here's where the control freak religion kind of control melds with the control freak teacher. I am convinced by reading a bit of history that religion is about control, while Jesus wasn't about that at all. I'm feeling that Christianity and education does mix, but we have to get the 'religion' out of it. We need to look closely at how Jesus treated his disciples - he gave them choices, honored their ability to choose, etc. This is an idea I'm still developing, muddling over. So I'll stop here for now.

Abby's Best

2007-01-21T11:57:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. This isn't my first foray into blogging. I actually started a blog called something like abby's best. That was two upgrade/crashes ago, so I lost the website address. I haven't been able to find it, but I'm hoping it was put to a merciful death by the host site. In it, I raved in a highly sarcastic way about my current hometown, Abbotsford. I especcially ranted about how terrible the driving is here, which it is, but, what can you do?

Another thing I wanted to do was respond to the Abbotsford Time's so-called Reader's Choice Awards, which I am convinced really translates to the cheapest eats in Abbotsford awards. So I began rating the best this and the best that to eat in Abbotsford. I think I might get to that, but in a less sarcastic way here. I've experienced the worst that sarcasm can do at different times in my life and I'm convinced that it is definitely the lowest form of humor.

Anyway, the first thing I want to discuss about what is best here is where to find the best cup of coffee. This is very important, since you wouldn't believe the amount of coffee shops we have here. And, thankfully, most of the coffee places are NOT Starbuck's!! Abbotsford actually only supports three Starbuck's that I've noticed and that's enough for me. I like buying ground coffee there every now and then as a treat, but I'm eternally baffled about what to order there. I especially despise how they treat coffee sizes. I mean, really, what the hell is a "venti" anyway??? Oh, I was gonna put a youtube link here about starbucks, because there is a really funny rant about starbucks -but every other word is....not appropriate...so just go to
youtube and search for starbucks and you'll come up with the old fart from Brooklyn's rant. Don't say I didn't warn you....

So, what, you are thinking is the best coffee. Well, I'll tell you - the best cup of coffee is that Canadian tradition (with headquarters in Ohio - 'American owned' is yet another Canadian tradition) - Tim Horton's. It's actually named after a hockey player, I mean, how Canadian is that? This is the best
coffee - you also get an extra large cup for about $2 (Eat my shorts, Starbucks!) The thing is, Abbotsford is CRAZY about Tim Horton's! We have at least 5 or more Timmy's here and they are all busy. Tim Horton's is doing better than McDonalds! Also, during spring, there is a contest at Timmy's called Rrrroll up the Rim. I hardly ever win, but my staff at school keep a running tally on our staffroom white board of wins and losses.

The thing is - you could get away with eating at Tim Horton's for breakfast, lunch and dinner without doing a Supersize Me health emergency. They now have breakfast sandwiches, which probably aren't the best for you, but you could get away with a bagel or something. I don't find the 'eats' at Starbucks interesting, the baked goods tend to be dry and cardboard-y. At Tim Horton's you can get great soup and sandwiches made to order. I've heard that TH's have started leaking into the US, so US readers get ready for a Tim Horton's near you!

Colombian Food!

2007-01-02T13:10:00.000-08:00

I turn again to food that I miss. Now for Colombia! Yes, all you North Americans! COLOMBIA with two letter O's! It's amazing how often that's misspelled even in the most reputable of newspapters. When it's the country: Colombia. When it's the province: British Columbia. OK?

Anyhoo... my yummy misses from the corner of South America.

1)Ajiaco is a chicken stew. It's served with capers, heavy cream and avocado. The best ajiaco is a matter of taste. Everybody had their own recipe and argued over what the best was. I loved being judge for any contest! Here's a picture:

2) Arroz con pollo ('chicken with rice') I had a lady clean my apartment every week or so and she would make this for me. I loved just eating it out of the pot when I got home. A simple rice dish - the rice was tinged with a bit of ketchup while cooking. I would pour hot sauce ('aji') over it.

3) The lady who cleaned also made empanadas. A sort of meat and rice pie. I loved dousing those in aji too!

4) Hot chocolate with a mild, young cheese was served regularly for breakfast. I loved this - miss it more than you can imagine!

I guess I didn't have the links like the Philly one, so I'm thinking of some places in Bogota that I especially miss, too:

- I loved the hamburgers at El Corral. They actually had green tomatoes on them and then you could order anything else you would want. I loved getting mine with guacamole on it!

- I really miss the mall called Bulevar Niza - a short walk from my apartment! I called the third floor 'my office' as a joke - I almost always went there in the afternoons and often had supper at one of the many restaurants there. I had many a 'supernacho' platter with Ruth at Todo Taco. Sometimes we would eat at Crepes and Waffles! I remember a great ice cream place too - Benny's (I think it was called). There was a theater (movies were english with spanish subtitles!) and afterwards, we could check out books and have a cappicino at OMA libros!

Food, Glorious Food! (Part I)

2006-12-19T16:37:00.000-08:00

Having slept just a few hours last night and feeling grumpy, my mind turns naturally to food. It just occured to me - and I was just saying this to someone at work - that of the things I miss about a place, besides the people, of course. (I think...) Is the food. So I thought I would venture into a review of some of my favorite foods from Philadelphia first. Hopefully, I'll find yummy looking links to go with this. Anyway, here are the foods I miss from Philly (in no particular order)

1)The Italian Hoagie! The thing about this sub-style sandwich is you just can't get the taste outside of South Eastern PA. I mean, they can't even make good ones in Lancaster - the last time I bothered to try. The hoagie must be thoroughly drenched with vegetable oil to be the best. Don't you dare try puttin' mayo on it you Canucks! I also like my hoagie with a mix of both hot and sweet peppers.

2) The Philly Cheesesteak sandwich. Now this is incredible if done right. And, I have had some good ones outside of Philly. There is even a site that lists where you can get cheesesteaks in each state. I like my sandwich with lots of grilled onions, mushrooms and grilled bell pepper. If you wanna get yourself sick, then have an order of cheese fries with it.

3) I miss the pizza that was so greasy it soaked through the box by the time you get it home. They're just too healthy here.

4) Italian water ice is just incredible. This is NOT chips of ice with syrup poured over it! (Yuck!) This is incredible stuff. Rita'sis just about the best! I love the mango.

5) I just can't find a good cannoli anywhere. Another fantastic dessert that I miss!

6) I grew up near one of the best bakeries for Philadelphia Sticky Buns I must say, as I hang my head in shame, I liked to butter these things and eat them.

7) The Soft Pretzel with Gulden's brown mustard!!

8) And 'Nobody Bakes a Cake as Tasty as a Tastykake!' Butterscotch Krimpets were one of my big faves here!!!

OK, now I'm off to get something to eat. Next time - my favorite foods of Colombia!

Christmas Games

2006-12-09T19:41:00.000-08:00

Try these Christmas Games while you're waiting for me to post again! I'm much too tired to do much but veg out lately - just finished report cards and looking forward to Christmas break!

This is an odd one - but fun when you get used to it:

Rooftop-Hop

Help Santa deliver all the presents in time for Christmas day!

Play this free game now!!

This is a fun one - my type of game!

Santa Balls 2

Have festive fun by matching 3 or more matching balls.

Play this free game now!!

Empty Santa's Sack

Knock the presents out of the Elves hands.

Play this free game now!!

The above one is for people who are sick of Christmas already and just wanna pound something!

Enjoy!

Let it Snow!

2006-11-28T09:04:00.000-08:00

We've had a huge storm over the past days. This picture shows the level of snow on the top of an outside railing - this is from Sunday. We had quite the dump and it continued snowing into and through the night. Schools (I can't think of any that were actually open - this is quite rare here!) were closed yesterday and they continue to be closed today. After the snow - we got an incredibly cold Arctic wind that kept the streets and sidewalks ice-covered. There are white-out conditions on the major routes around Abbotsford and the side roads are very icy. Now, Abbotsford is often the one place in the area that has rain. We just haven't had this much snow in a long time. It's great though, because I have report cards due next week and I'm hoping to get a lot done before the weekend. So, I write this entry. This is supposed to help me 'warm up' to writing comments. Dunno if it's gonna help. Plus I'm listening to Diana Krall's Christmas CD- which is incredible. Pick it up if you can! So I'll leave you with one more picture and I'll try to get to work ;-)

He Don't Need No Steeking Gadgets!

2006-11-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

I just saw the latest Bond movie, Casino Royale and WOW!Daniel Craig presents us with a different Bond. He bleeds, rarely looks neat and tidy and even eats with his mouth full. He is definitely the closest Bond to the original Bond featured in Ian Fleming's novels. Craig is a Bond who is polite only when it gets the job done. He is sort of the 'MacGyver' of Bonds, using whatever is at hand to pummel his enemies. His only true gadgets are ones any of us could buy at the local electronics store - laptops, cell phones, etc. He has a gun every now and then, but it usually gets lost and he just pounds the other guy. He runs after a guy more often in this film that I ever remember a Bond doing. The best chase sequence I have ever seen is right at the beginning and - get this - there's no cars involved! Well, there is a bulldozer, but only for a few seconds...
He has few one liners. He is a very cold Bond. After he kills someone, he only looks coldly down to make sure that the other is truly dead. I thought for sure he would say 'Nailed him!' after killing a guy with a nail gun, but....nothing and that shows how well done this movie is. It avoids the camp and cartoonish-ness of the previous Bonds. Brosnan came close to this kind of coldness in The World is Not Enough, but not this close. He still was too neat and tidy. I appreciated how this movie took the time to tell the story, although I did find the double and triple crossing hard to follow, but maybe that's the point - Bond is new and he's learning what life as a double '0' really is like. It's not an easy to understand this life and the only one he can really trust in is himself. And the 'bad guy' isn't always so easy to identify. It's a lesson he learns over and over in this movie and we learn it while having our breath taken away.

The REAL 'Best of Abbotsford/Mission'

2006-11-10T17:48:00.000-08:00

A local paper here, which shall not be named here in order to sound like I'm being responsible or something, gives out 'Readers' Choice' Awards regularly to local businesses and the 5 or so regular readers fill out ballots and send them in. (An aside - this paper was on strike a while back and when they finally came back in print after a whole summer of no paper, I said to my father-in-law, 'Well, they're back!"
He just looked puzzled and said, 'Where did they go?'
"They went on strike."
"Oh, I didn't notice.")
Now, these readers are kinda weird in their tastes. Some of the regular winners make sense and I agree with, but SOME are just ridiculous.

Then comes THE POST (No website yet - it's THAT new!) A new paper trying to make its way in town. I'm not sure about the 'twin cities' thing and if that'll catch on, but who knows? Probably the only paper that will actually tell it like it is, it looks like. I notice that the POST has none of those annoyingly wasteful Plan A ads. This is good, because the ad-campaign itself could end up defeating the plan due to the high amount of tax dollars being spent wastefully by city hall to keep people from actually thinking that there is more than one option to vote for. But I digress from the news of major importance! It actually has a restaurant critic, anonymous of course, that toodles around town to find out what's really good. Now she has only written twice, but both sound great. Want a good breakfast? Don't listen to readers' choice - go to Rivers Restaurant. This week she reviewed Wee Chippie in Mission which actually has deep fried Mars bars on the menu. Hmmm...sounds interesting....
(Another aside: The Deep fried mars bar scored alot of hits on Google! Sounds terrible, awful and I gotta try one at least one time in my life!) Now I want the critic to actually find out the best Chinese food in Abbotsford, because the one that wins it every year must be bribing the paper-that-must-not-be-named, because it is not the best by a long shot. It's cheaper though, so maybe that must be the 5 readers actual criteria

Weather

2006-10-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

One thing I will never get used to on the West Coast is how people perceive the weather. We have had a stinkin' hot summer, followed by a (pretty much) too warm fall and people love it??? Well, the people on the news here talk about how "gorgeous" each day is. That's easy for them to say as they work in central air conditioned buildings.

Honestly, we can have a stretch of months of hot, sunny days and things could be dying all around us. Forests bursting in flames, etc. And people walk around saying how "gorgeous" it is. Then we have ONE day (yes, count 'em, ONE) day of rain and everyone seems to be borderline suicidal.

On the other hand, one of my secret ways of tormenting west coasters -note: In order to survive happily in another culture - one must discover at least one way to annoy the people of that culture without totally becoming their enemy. It's a subtle little survival trick - is to walk around on a grey, rainy day with a cheerful expression and talk about how lovely the weather is. That's just fun!

On the other hand, talking about the weather here is not 'small talk' like it is in most other places....

Searching for My Denominational Connections

2006-09-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a fundamentalist, non-denominational, evangelical church. This was an interesting experience that left me with a firm grounding in what the Bible says. I also learned to appreciate what a good, exegisis of the Bible through a sermon could sound like. And I desperately miss the organ, played by the extremely talented Dr. Jerry Wright. Nothing in modern church music - I refuse to call music 'worship' as it oversimplifies and destroys the true meaning of what worship is - can match the sound of a well played organ. Thank you Dr. Wright!!!

The side-effect of this experience was that I had no idea of what a denomination was. I assumed that there were two (and only two) kinds of churches. What I went to, which I called "Christian" and then there were the other churches, which are called "Catholic". I had also assumed in my black and white child's mind that only the churches labelled "Christian" were the 'right' churches. Sorry, Mom, but that's only what the little me thought!

Then my Christian life became complicated by going to a Christian High School. Here's what a conversation in eighth grade went for me:

Other student: What kind of church you go to?
me: A Christian church.
Other student (laughs, rolls eyes): Yeah, but What KIND?

I'll save you the trouble of reading further and state that eventually I came to realize there were "little" differences like, Baptist, Presbyterian, and People Who Shout Alot But Were Still White and Black Churches. That's about what I had figured on my own. Through required Church History courses I learned about Luther and figured that the Lutherans came from him. Brilliant, wasn't I? I leaned a little about Calvin and nothing about Menno Simons that I can recall. But I didn't realize that Calvin inspired denominations of his own.

Then I went to Colombia and met my future wife, Ruth, who was a Mennonite and married into a Mennonite family. I now attend a Mennonite Brethren Church and don't forget the Brethren because there are different flavors of Mennonites. I am quite comfortable now with the MB's although religion does sometimes get in the way, as, I realize now, it does with all churches.

Then I was hired at a Christian School. I assumed it was a Christian School based on the pattern that I learned though High School and through my teaching experiences in Colombia. Nope, turns out there's another denominational flavor that I needed to discover: Christian Reformed, based on the teachings of that guy I only heard a little about in eighth grade, which is called grade 8 in Canada: John Calvin.

It took me a long time to figure out what 'reformed' meant and the definitions varied and straight answers are, apparently, non-existant. I struggled when I first encountered it, not really understanding why. It forced me to read voraciously, which is a good thing that probably would make John Calvin proud, but eventually led to me rejecting which probably wouldn't. I can't embrace TULIP. Maybe in another article I'll go into detail why I reject the 5 points of Calvinism, but let me sum it up here: Free Will is just too important to reject, which I see rejected in Calvinism. I believe the real key to understanding of what "made in God's image" means is to understand free will. The real highlight here, is that suddenly, after all my reading and prayer, I can see in other's writings were I agree or disagree. For example, I read a quote from a book called Heaven Is Not My Home, which says that "God created culture" and even implies that cars are from Him too. Nope, I don't believe that - the God Image gives us free will and imagination to create something and those are People creations which, I will concede, my have God's inspiration behind it, but are, in the end our own creation.

Does that mean I undermine other denominations? No - In fact I realize that even through the most greedy TV preacher, sometimes people come to a real, genuine knowledge of Christ despite the presentation. We must, as Christians in this post modern world, realize that there is no ONE Christian worldview. Just looking at how different cultures see things make it obvious.

Now, I wait for the other shoe to drop...

Visiting Corner Gas!!

2006-08-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

I've finally (after lots of fiddling) figured out my new digital camera (ta-dah!!) enough to post some pics here on the blog.

We (the family) just got back from our cross-Canada driving vacation and one of the highlights was that both Ruth and I got to visit the set of one of our favourite TV shows, Corner Gas! We got to visit the town that all the outdoor shots are filmed in; Roleau, SK (which doubles as Dog River) The town has a total population of about 450 or so people. Most of the indoor sets are filmed in sound studios in Regina, SK.

Our tour guide was the guy (can I remember his name? Sorry, guy...) who is Brent Butt's stand-in. Do you notice the resemblance? He really looks like a twin from the back.
It was so much fun! I'll publish more pictures of our trip later!!

Gandhi

2006-07-06T08:39:00.000-07:00

I just recently finished reading Mahatma Gandhi: His Life and Influence by Chandra Kumar and Mohinder Puri (London: Heinemann, 1982). I have seen the film version of Gandhi's life and, while it was very well done - I wished for more of how Gandhi came to the conclusion of acting the way he did. The film was great for highlighting why he is such an impressive man and what he stood for. This book helped me to understand some of the 'why' behind his life and work. I don't want to clutter this entry any more with my words, I want to just add some quotes selected from the end of the book:

"I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could do. In doing so, I have sometimes erred and learnt by my errors. Life and its problems have thus become to me so many experiments in the practice of truth and non-violence..."

"I look upon myself as a dull person. I take more time understanding some things, but I do not care. There is a limit to man's progress in intelligence; but the developments of the qualities of the heart knows no bounds. It is literally true in my case that God provides the man of faith with such intelligence as he needs. I have always honored and reposed faith in elders and wise men. But my deepest faith is in truth so that my path though difficult to tread has seemed easy to me."

"I have been known as a crank, faddist, madman. Evidently the reputation is well deserved. For wherever I go, I draw myself to cranks, faddists and madmen. If I had no sense of humor, I should long ago have committed suicide."

"I disbelieve in the conversion of one person by another. My effort should never be to undermine another's faith but to make him a better follower of his own faith. This implies the belief in truth of all religions and respect for them. It again implies true humility, a recognition of the fact that the divine light having been vouchsafed to all religions through an imperfect medium of the flesh, they must share in more or less degree the imperfection of the vehicle."

"I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world."

"Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents, never revenges itself."

"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good it does is temporary, the evil it does is permanent. I do not believe in violent short-cuts to success...however much I may sympathize and admire worthy motives. I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes...experience convinces me that permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence."

"Means and ends are convertible terms in my philosophy of life. They say 'means are after all ends', I would say that means are everything. As the means so the end. There is no wall of separation between means and end. Indeed the creator has given us control over the means, none over the end..."

"I value individual freedom but you must not forget that man is essentially a social being. He has risen to his present status by learning to adjust his individualism requirements of social progress. Unrestricted individualism is the law of the beast of the jungle...Willing submission to social restraint for the sake of the well-being of the society enriches both the individual and the society of which one is a member."

"Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the finest thing in the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious will land itself in chaos and may be self-destroyed."

"By education I mean an all-round drawing out the best in child and man - body, mind and spirit. But unless the development of the mind and body go hand in hand with a corresponding awakening of the soul, the former alone would prove to be a lopsided affair. By spritual training I mean education of the heart."

Anyways...

2006-06-13T08:04:00.000-07:00

Canadians speak English (and French, but not here in BC). Many Americans think, as I did in my early years in Pennsylvania, that Canadians actually speak the same language then....

I learned in a childhood visit to Sudbury, Ontario (most BC'ers shudder when I say the name of that city. My response always is: "Hey! Alex Trebek came from Sudbury!" ) My aunt married a retired nickel miner (How Sudbury is THAT!?!) We went up sometime in my childhood to visit them in his home town. Side note: Even MORE Canadian, they were snow birds, living in Florida half the year! I realized very quickly that "Eh?" was like the Canadian equivalent of "Aloha", which means all sorts of things.

One time my uncle was struggling to fix some mechanical monster of a thing - maybe it was a log-splitter, I kind of forget - when he told me to go across the street while he tested it. Puzzled a bit, I complied and watched as he rip-roared this thing to life in his garage. Over that loud roar, I vividly remember his broad smile and his shouting of "EH!?!" right before the thing blew up in a billow of smoke. (No injuries, other than pride..)

Another time we were at the little car race track, you know, where you actually drive the things? Whatever you call it... I went to the snack bar and in typical Philly-ish English asked for a "soda". The guy said they didn't have soda - I was stunned and asked what he had : "pop" and I had another lesson in Canadian English. Although, to be fair, most of the US calls it "pop", too. Except for the Southern US, where everything is "coke". *sigh*

Canadian English fascinates me. I even found a Canadian Spelling Dictionary on the web! Fascinating reading, btw!

Other subtle difference include: "Anyways" - I say 'anyway' - How about you? Or, in BC at least, the kids say "pencil crayons" instead of "coloured pencils" (please note the Canadian spelling in the last one!!) It took me a few years to realize that 'pencil crayon' is the English speaking way of saying the French side of the box!

My mother-in-law says 'serviettes' instead of napkins. She's unsuccessfully tried to convert me to saying that. I'm proud to say my kids are hanging in there with 'napkins'!! I have nothing against Canadian English - I just can't stand 'serviettes' for some reason.

Oh, wait, I can't stand the way 'pasta', 'drama' and 'Mazda' are pronounced. Canadians tend to say the first 'a' as a strong short 'a' sound. In the states, the first 'a' is pronounced as a 'schwa' sound. Don't know what a 'schwa' is? Check your local dictionary!! It is for this reason that I will never own a 'Mazda' in Canada. I like Hondas better, anyways.... Oops...

A Favourite Bible Verse

2006-05-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

I love this verse. It's from The Message by Eugene Peterson. It sort of describes perfectly the approach we are supposed to be taking when thinking about the kingdom of God. I have been going through a lot of rethinking about my "worldview" ~ in beliefs and what they mean to my teaching and living life. Here's the verse:

Then you can see how every student well-trained in God's kingdom is like the owner of a general store who can put his hands on anything you need, old or new, exactly when you need it."

~ Matthew 13:52

I've always had this approach for teaching, learning to be eclectic and learn from the old and use what can be used from the new.

Now I'm not saying that I am denying the Trinity or anything, but I'm rethinking things along the lines of postmodern thinking. Thinking about things like: What did Jesus really mean when he talked about the kingdom of God/heaven? What is hell? What kernel of truth is there in things like pluralism, etc.? I'm finally starting to 'get it' and realize what is needed. So I am reading a lot of Brian McLaren right now and I am fascinated by the conversation going on through the Emergent Village site.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking during my lunchtime today!

On Control

2006-05-17T15:36:00.000-07:00

I have a sign that says, "God is in Control" in my classroom. I haven't hung it up for a few years, because I was just having a hard time imagining what, exactly, I'm saying when I say that. Is God at a big panel, pressing buttons, pulling levers. No, I don't think that can be true. We have this big, mechanistic view of God being at a big computer. But we don't control every aspect of the computers we work on. I don't really understand how these words get from my computer screen to yours. I use it anyway. A lot of what the computer does is automatic, even though I am involved with the computer. It would do nothing on its own. I wonder if that's what it means for God to be in control.

One of the advantages of teaching the same Bible curriculum to the same grade, grade 3, for the past 8 years, is you really get to know those parts of the Bible REALLY well! I taught the Old Testament, Genesis to about Joshua, every year. I really began to think about this idea of control especially as I wandered through the wilderness for forty years with the Israelites. I wandered with them through 8 different classes of grade 3 students and I began to understand something. It came to me in a flash one day. Something that should have been obvious, but wasn't until I went through the stories over and over again: God was not controlling the Israelites at all. He only gives choices.

I love the line God gives Bruce in the movie, Bruce Almighty. God is allowing Bruce to have His powers for a certain amount of time and gives him the ground rules. The big rule is: "Don't mess with free will!"

That's it, exactly! Throughout the whole Bible, God is stepping back and letting people make choices - to choose. This really changed how I saw my classroom. I don't 'control' the class, in fact I have come to despise that word in reference to human beings. I can't think of any good that has ever come from controlling people at any time in history. In fact, I can only think of evil coming from attempts at control. I'm involved with my class - I offer choices.

So, when someone asks me, when the kids are being annoying, wild, or whatever, "Can't you control those kids?" I really, honestly, have to say "NO!" As for the sign in my classroom? I still have it up, because it makes me think. I realized that even though the kids may not read everything I put up, I DO! And I need sayings, quotes, etc, to catch my eye and make me think carefully about what I believe. Is God in control? Somehow, I would say, Yes, He is, but God don't make no puppets, either!

Computers in Education, Part 2

2006-05-14T16:31:00.000-07:00

"I hope for some sort of peace - but I fear that machines are ahead of morals by some centuries and when morals catch up there'll be no reason for any of it."
~President Harry S. Truman (quoted in McCullough, David. Truman. p. 415)

Pres. Truman wrote this shortly after touring the rubble that used to be Berlin shortly after Germany's defeat. He actually said this before he authorized the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is an interesting comment and I wonder what we will say in the coming generations about our infatuation with technology. It makes it all the more important that schools come up with ways to incorporate the technology and guide students in the proper and safe use of technology, because they are involved, whether we like it or not! I'm thinking I should have titled this "Technology and Education", but there it is.

The first part of this article dealt with the largely downside of technology in education, but now I wanted to think and write more about why we need to incorporate even more technology in our schools.

An interesting article came out in the December 2005 issue of Educational Leadership. It's called, "Listen to the Natives" and it's written by Marc Prensky. He's coined the terms digital natives, which our students are. That is, they are the ones who are immersed in the culture. We (the adults/teachers) are the digital immigrants. We do some technology, but we speak with an "accent". We have to begin to listen to the students if we want to help prepare them for life in the 21st century.

I am becoming fascinated with the idea that we are approaching another "Enlightment" of sorts. As the postmodern culture begins to take over and leave the modern culture behind, there are new movements afoot. One of them that I am looking into very closely now is the emergent church.
Churches and Christianity must find a different way of thinking as it strives to bring the message of Jesus Christ to a different culture. But I digress....

In this article, Prensky shows how schools, as they are now, cannot prepare kids for the 21st century:

"Pragmatically, our 21st century kids' education is quickly bifurcating. The formal half, 'school', is becoming an increasingly moribund and irrelevant institution. Its only function for many students is to provide them with a credential that their parents say they need. The informal, exciting half of kids' education occurs 'after school'. This is the place where 21st century students learn about their world and prepare themselves for their 21st century lives."

It's funny how we herd kids, group them unwillingly, make them learn what they don't want to learn (and probably don't really need for the future, anyway). We make them shut up, sit still and take it in. I'm still guilty of this because I learned this way and it worked for me. The point is - it CANNOT work for today's kids!

I'm starting to feel increasingly restless with old style school and curriculum. As I have becoming more immersed in technology, I find that I can only express myself through technology. It's becoming a part of me - and it is even more a part of kids lives today. Banning the use of cell phones in schools, for example, could be leading to more problems that it will solve. The cell or blackberry has become an extension of our children's brains and they can't function without them. How about using the video games that our students are so involved in as a model of curriculum organization? It may seem silly, but many are giving it some serious thought!

An important thing to keep in mind that this doesn't mean we need lots of actual technology in the classroom. What we need to consider is how technology is actually changing the way kids think and process information. Children learn differently than the children of just a generation ago.

I get a pen and paper and it remains blank to me. I can't think of a thing to write. Give me a computer and I can't shut up! I need an electronic medium to talk out loud and give myself a voice now. How odd.... I wonder how much of an accent I still have...

I know this has been kind of a jumble of thoughts ~ maybe I'll come back and clean this up some day. Make it more presentable. But I had fun writing it and that, in the end, is what counts!

I found this cartoon and found it appropriate here. Sometimes I feel like this is what educators on low budgets are doing in the classroom...

Why Corner Gas is Profound....

2006-04-28T07:59:00.000-07:00

I've neglected my favourite show, next to The Rick Mercer Report. That would be Corner Gas. This show is about small town life in the flattest place on earth, Saskatchewan. (Hope I spelled that correctly...) Anyway, I've haven't laughed so hard for such a long time until this show came along. I am faithfully getting the series DVD's as they become available...I'm that serious about how funny it is. I'm so interested in this show that I've suggested that we tour the town where it's filmed. Maybe we will visit Dog River!

This show does have uniquely Canadian references in it, too, which my wife has to explain to me, but I find the humor so universal. It is more 'small town humour' than Canadian humor. You'll notice as an American in Canada, I sometimes put my 'u' into words like 'humour' and sometimes I don't. (I love Canadian spelling!)

The main characters are:

*Brent - Owner of Corner Gas.
*Lacy - Brent's next door neighbor, owner of the diner, The Ruby
*Hank - Brent's best friend and rarely employed layabout (he must have inherited the house)
*Frank - Brent's crusty, cranky old dad
*Emma - Brent's wise-cracking, eye-rolling mom
*Davis - The cop who likes to 'be real' and relax
*Karen - The newer cop who likes to be careful to follow regulations.

The writing on this show is fantastic and the characters are so small town. There is so much recognition of basic human foibles and follies hiding in this show too. It demonstrates, as true comedy should, how people can sometimes just be plain silly about their obsessions and priorities. In that way this show is more 'real' than the shows that call themselves 'reality'.

The show is proof of that famous quotation: "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." Corner Gas demonstrates that we can either laugh at this foolishness, or go insane. I'll go for the former. See you at The Ruby!

History - A New 'Hobby'

2006-04-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

"Perserverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages."

~ General George Washington

I've just finished reading 1776 and it got me to thinking about how moving to Canada has really made me more interested in history. I think what really got me started was when I had to take two courses in order to get my permanent teaching certificate here in BC. The two courses were basic, 100 level courses in Candian geography and in Canadian history. Now, there were other teachers in the courses who were from other provinces here in Canada and they were bored out of their gourds because they had heard most of this stuff before. Me, I loved it. I didn't know any of this stuff and I really enjoyed learning about the history of Canada. I especially was interested in how Canadian and American history intertwine with each other. You can't really have one without the other and, you really couldn't ask for better neighbors. (Despite that softwood thing. For the record, though, cough up the money US - you owe Canada a bundle.....but I digress)

I really enjoyed reading A Short History Of Canada by Desmond Morton. Then I couldn't resist Canadian History for Dummies by Will Ferguson. I loved that the US tried to invade Canada at least 4 times in the early years. Lincoln actually contemplated fighting the Civil War on two fronts - and Canada's birth year, 1867 is not coincidentally located closely to the end of the Civil War....

Which makes me think of 1776, which prompted a question from my wife: "What's that about?"
I looked at her blankly: "Well, 1776...." I'm thinking it should be obvious. She basically replied with "Fine, don't tell me then..." I did very nicely explain the significance of the year.

Now, 1776 was not a year of triumph. It was a year of hardship and defeat for the American forces. It's amazing (and this is what intrigues me most about reading history) how just a little more effort from one of the sides in a different direction could have changed the course of history. How close the battle was. As an American, I tend to associate 1776 with the year (singular) of the Revolutionary War, but it was just the beginning. The Treaty of Paris ending the war was signed in 1783 - a little more than 6 years later.

That quote above is significant, McCullough indicates, because that was kind of George Washington's theme throughout the war:

"Again and again, in letters to Congress and to his officers, and in his general orders, he had called for perserverance - for 'perserverance and spirit,' for 'patience and perserverance' for 'unremitting courage and perserverance.' " (p. 293)

I have read elsewhere, perhaps in McCullough's book, John Adams, that somewhere along the way Washington realized he did not actually have to win battles to win the war. He had to keep fighting until they couldn't afford to fight any more. He knew that eventually, the British had to realize it wasn't worth it. So perhaps it was perserverance, and not brilliance strategies that one this war. There's a lesson in there somewhere...

Immigration

2006-04-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

I was watching "Face the Nation" yesterday. They had two US senators on arguing about the latest immigration bill that either passed or didn't pass. There has been so much heated debate about illegal immigrants and the implications of allowing them to live and work in the US. It all comes down to money, though, whole businesses would shut down if they had to hire only legal immigrants - they couldn't afford all workers. It is a complicated issue, but I was sitting there realizing that it's not such an issue with Canadians, only Mexican or Latin Americans mostly. Why? Canada's lifestyle is so close to the US lifestyle - economically speaking.

These people are desparate to feed and care for their families - they'll do anything. The low pay they get seems like a fortune to them. It occured to me that the only real way to solve the problem is to improve living conditions in Latin America and Mexico. Hey! You think that's expensive - I find it hard to believe that the huge wall or fence that some are proposing would be at least as expensive, if not more. I wonder how much it would cost to make the majority of Mexicans lifestyles better. That way they won't be so desparate for jobs in the US. Lets create jobs in Mexico...put the billions of dollars we want to spend on keeping "them" out and improve their lives instead. $5 billion to improve the Mexican lifestyle will be a better idea than $5 billion on a fence!

Oh, wait...we don't want to interfere in their country's affairs....like we haven't interfered in Iraq, Afganistan, etc......

That is something that I would love to hear debated by politicians of a country one day. How can we make the other countries better? Yup, that would be neat to see!!

Internet Safety for Children

2006-03-29T13:20:00.000-08:00

I tell the kids that the Internet is a city, like Vancouver. They need guidance and supervision to get around the city. I wouldn't take them into certain parts of Vancouver - if I had a choice. If I did need to take them into any part of Vancouver - I would make sure I, or another responsible adult, was with them.

To that end, I wanted to take some time and talk about internet safety. I have also posted some excellent links here to help you. There is one site, Netsmartz.org, that is designed for children to learn about internet safety through music videos and other activities. I encourage you to take the time to go to that site with your child.

We are at a point where we cannot just keep kids away from the internet. It is too interwoven in our lives now. It also is such a powerful tool for all people to use, whatever their occupations or interests are. Therefore, rather than avoiding internet use, we need to educate children (and especially their parents) in some basic guidelines.

Keep that city image in your mind as you evaluate your child's access to the internet. Would you allow your child to walk alone down the streets of any city with their name, phone number, address and daily schedule stuck as a label to their jacket? Yet that is what we sometimes do without thinking, by allowing our child unrestricted, unmonitored access to the internet. As we teach children about being safe with strangers, being home alone and with matches, we need to give them instruction on internet safety.

I wanted to list some things that are good for parents to know about internet safety:

Computers should be a public area in the home, not in bedrooms.
When commenting on my blog or the classroom's blog, do not use your last name at all...I have deleted all comments that refer to last names. Better yet, enter your comment as 'anonymous' - If it is a positive and/or appropriate comment, I will allow it to appear on the blog.
Learn how to check 'history' on Internet Explorer or the alternative on whatever web browser you are using. This will list all the sites that the browser has been to for the past X number of days (you can reset the number of days, I forget what the default is.)
Beware of Internet Messenger (MSN) and/or Yahoo Chat or other instant messenging programs. If you don't know what those are, talk to me or your local computer geek.
Look for how to set parental controls on your computer and web browser. Again, talk to me or your local computer expert if you don't know how to do that.
Make sure you sit down and talk about what your child is not allowed to post - basically, they should never give away their full name, daily schedule, phone number or location. They should never meet someone they met on-line without your knowledge and presence.

My commitment to you in regards to internet usage at school and the publishing of information on both my blog and the classroom's blog:

I will not allow your child's full name to be posted on the internet.
I have removed the link to the school's website to avoid any potential 'undesirables' from connecting your child to a specific location.
I have enabled 'comment moderation' on both blogs. This means that I will preview all comments before allowing them to be posted on the blog. If they are positive and/or appropriate comments, I will allow comments from anyone.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please let me know. I'd be happy to show you how to do some things with the Internet, too, if you're unsure of your way around. Happy surfing!!

Here are some links to help you, specifically with blogging:

blogsafety.com

kidshealth.org

familyinternet.com

netsmartz.org

Look What I Found!!

2006-03-28T19:54:00.000-08:00

I changed my profile picture to go with my title...I think it's more interesting than a personal photo. While I was googling for the photo, I came across more photos that I thought would just be fun to share here. It's amazing what an image search comes up with!!

And that's just some of them....Now I'm thinking I should change my profile picture every other day...lol!!!

On Hypocrisy

2006-03-24T14:14:00.000-08:00

In the most recent Reader's Digest, Margaret Wente writes about David Suzuki - "Canada's Prophet of Doom". It talks about his opposition to Kyoto - even though to fully implement will meant bankrupting Canada's economy. He also opposes genetic modified foods -which he should know are really the only key to fighting hunger around the world. I wonder how consistent he is with his beliefs? George W. Bush, Suzuki says, is "the ultimate eco-terrorist on the planet." I wonder what Suzuki would say if he knew that the Bush ranch is eco-friendly? I wonder how cosistent Suzuki's beliefs are with his lifestyle.

This article made me think of a book I have just finished reading. It details how US liberals actually live and make their money. Michael Moore, for example, talks about how he owns no stock, but actually owns quite a bit. He even owns stock in the very companies and corporations that he speaks against, like Halliburton. I have had such a struggle with Michael Moore since his last "documentary" - Farenheit 9/11. When he tried to get senators to sign up their own kids into the army, I felt like shouting at him: "But parents CAN'T sign up their own kids in an all VOLUNTEER army!!!!" His criticisms of the war were criticisms of war in general. He actually had very little to say about the war in Iraq, other that the oil connections - which is no news to anyone. It was there that I lost most of the respect that I had for Michael Moore, or whatever was left of it. I have a copy of Stupid White Men which I will hand over for free to whomever asks for it, by the way - I found his prose even more irritating than the movies. The only thing he did that I'm hanging on to is Canadian Bacon, which is a really funny movie...

The books basic premise is that the major liberal spokes people like, Ralph Nader, Moore, Barbara Streisand, Noam Chomsky and Al Franken fail to live the anti-capitalist lifestyle that they say they do. None of them are doing what they're saying, in other words.

The book is a fun read, although I do want to say I'm taking it with a grain of salt. I found it very interesting that the hypocrisies are so dramatic, though.

Bibliography:

Schweizer, Peter. Do As I Say (Not As I Do). New York: Doubleday, c 2005

Wente, Margaret. "Canada's Prophet of Doom" Reader's Digest (Canada), April 2006, pp 135-138.

Bogota Memories

2006-03-20T08:21:00.000-08:00

I wanted to write a bit about my time in Colombia (BTW - Colombia, the country, is spelled with two o's). I have tried to include a picture taken by my pitiful webcam of a poster that I have now in my computer room. It is my favorite poster from Colombia - we have quite a few - because, possibly it is the most abstract. Which, in some ways, is the best way to remember Colombia. A beautiful country, sometimes difficult to understand. Definitely hard to live in, but you'll never want to leave once you've been there a while.

I arrived Good Friday in 1989 and just about everything was closed. I had to prepare hurriedly for class on Monday. I was basically given a stack of teacher manuals and told good luck by a very tired looking mother who was filling in for the last few months and was glad her time in the 3/4 split class was over. I got to work to begin my first full-time teaching experience in the garage of the house that the school had rented.

Now for those of you who don't know Colombian history, I was living in Colombia at the time of Pablo Escobar. He was in control of the infamous Medellin drug cartel. He was a nasty, vicious sort of man to his enemies. A loving, caring leader to those who had earned his favor.

By the fall of 1989, when I returned, visa hurriedly worked out, to teach a grade 2/3 class, Escobar had begun his campaign of terror that would ultimatel lead to his dramatic and televised shooting on a rooftop by police. Escobar was randomly bombing anything, banks, food stores, etc. to protest and try to stop the extraditionof drug dealers to the US. For more details of these times, please see the bibliography below.

One time, I had just returned from a grocery shopping expedition at Carulla (grocery store) next to Bulevar Niza (mall that I lived close to) when I felt a shudder go through my apartment. I looked out my window and saw smoke rising from the direction of Bulevar Niza. My good friend (now my wife), Ruth was still there, I thought. I called her apartment and she was there - I sighed in relief. It turns out the car bomb went off in front of the Carulla, but didn't level it. One of the families at my school was actually there when it happened. The father was getting a haircut close to the grocery store and he ran out to try to get into the store after the bomb went off. The police hit him with batons to keep him from entering.

His wife and daughter were in the store. The girl must have been around 5 or 6 at the time. When the bomb went off, the mother and daughter flew away from each other. The mother looked frantically for the daughter and found her, miraculously, sitting on top of a pile of rubble that fell from the ceiling! Needless to say the family came out of it physically undamaged. The news that night said that only 8 or so people were killed but the father later told me that he saw a lot of bodies being quickly hidden by the police. The news was toned down publicly so as not to cause panic.

So you must think it was awful to work there. No, it was tense, yes, but I loved my time there. Perhaps it was because that is exactly where God wanted me at the time. How could I not feel secure in God's hands?

I loved Bogota! I love that it is the land of 'eternal spring'. It is quite situated at quite a high altitude, 8,600 feet or so. There are no extremes in climate there. It is either raining or it isn't. I can't recall talking or hearing much about the weather there, because it would be the most boring topic. Cool in the morning, warming up during the day. The sun setting at 6:30 and rising 12 hours later. Only a few minutes variance during the year.

I loved walking to Bulevar Niza. I often joked that the third floor of that mall was my 'office' to my students. The third floor had all the restaurants and the movie theater... I would vary where I would eat each night. I was single, the US dollar was strong and it was actually cheaper and easier to eat out. I pretty much would only prepare lunch and breakfast at my apartment.

I loved being able to see the Andes mountains around me. I loved that they were green and filled with trees all the way up. We had a fantastic principal, Stan Yohe, who would take the teachers on tours around Bogota and to towns just a short ride away for the weekends. Stan was a historian at heart and would be forever telling us stories about what happened here and there. We really didn't need any other guide!

And the food! My mouth waters thinking of ajiaco, - a kind of chicken stew, of arroz con pollo, of empanadas. I grew to love the traditional breakfast of hot chocolate with a young, runny kind of cheese - I think it was called campesino. I loved grabbing a bus like we grab taxis in North America. You would just wave it down and tell it to stop where ever you needed it to. I learned the buses fairly quickly, once I got my own apartment and actually preferred them over a taxi. They were not only cheaper, but it was easier for me to 'blend' in on a bus - I didn't have to talk so much...

Colombia still is a violent place, gripped in an unending civil war, but I know what the place is really like. I have seen the Colombian heart and I miss it. The violence is not what Colombia actually is - I would hope that others would discover that, too!

Bibliography:

Bowden, Mark. Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, c2001.

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. News of a Kidnapping. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, c1997.

On Computers in Education, Part 1

2006-03-17T10:53:00.000-08:00

I remember how disgusted I was that evening. I was watching the evening news and I heard an interview with a middle school principal here in BC. He was complaing about the lack of funds for finishing the new middle school library and he said something to the effect: "When we were all done putting in the computers, we didn't have enough money left for books."

Why was I disgusted? Priorities seem out of whack in education today, particularly when it comes to the subject of technology.

We are in such a hurry to be 'up to date' we don't have enough information or in-staff training to support the technology that we buy. So there are no books and the computers collect dust.

When I was in high school, personal computers were just starting to make headway into the everyday lives of consumers. Our school had just aquired what was then considered pretty good technology - TRS-80's from Radio Shack. My friends and I called them "Trash 80's". Now my high school is no slowch when it comes to having staff that is well-trained and 'with-it'. It did not rise to become one of the best Christan Schools in the US by being lazy and 'out of it'.

However, at this time, even the staff was in a quandry with how to even use these computers within the school. The computers were kept in a room (hooked up, ready to go) within the large library.

My friends and I, having recently discovered the loophole in the PE teachers curriculum in High School, spent most of our PE periods there learning how to program the computers using the BASIC language. We would purchase books that would be full of computer games, only you would have to literally type in the BASIC program into the computer. Then you could play the game (provided that you didn't have even ONE typo or skip one of the hundreds of lines).

After about a year of this, one of the math teachers, a dear lady who I absolutely dispised at the time, but now I see that she was an incredible teacher (her name escapes me at the moment) - she had to teach us basic computer skills. We kept our tongues out of respect (in other words - FEAR) of her stumbling. Finally, she turned parts of the class over to my friends - I was more of a follower in this endevour, so couldn't say much. Turns out, one of my friends, Mark Milbourne, actually was paid by the school to write the first program to catalogue the school library. He went on to DuPont, I think...

There are certain cautions about technology that have been brilliantly pointed out by Neil Postman and others. First, there can be no true community through computers. Schools are about being communities of learning and technology is about individuals interacting with the technology. We need to be very careful as we look at technology in our schools and remind ourselves that technology cannot instruct students how to work and live with others. Secondly, computers are a tool and not an end in themselves. We can teach more about computer skills actually by using them as tools and ignoring the 'computer skill' curriculae. For example, in order to teach students to write, I want to use a classroom blog as well as on-line student written book reviews. The computer is just a tool. All the skills for computers are taught incidentally as one goes about the job. The advantage of this is I don't need to worry about being 'up to date' (let's face it, we never will be - unless we have money to burn..). I can just work with the technology given and use what I can.

An incredible article came out in a recent edition of , Educational Leadership, which also gives some caveats that we, as parents and educators need to think carefully about. I'll close this post with just a few quotes from this article:

"...the more access student had to computers in school and at home, the lower their overall test score were....computers more likely distract them from their studies."

" For example, although we know that computer programs can help small children learn to read, we also know that face-to-face interaction is one of the most important ingredients in reading readiness. As a result of increased time spent with computers, video games, and TV the current generation of elementary students will experience an extimated 30 percent fewer face-to-face encounters then the previous generation."

Makes you think, doesn't it??

Bibliography:

Groothuis, Douglas. The Soul in Cyber-Space. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997

Healy, Jane M. Failure to Connect. New York: Simon& Schuster, 1998

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. (and other works)

Monke, Lowell W. "The Overdominance of Computers" Educational Leadership Dec'05/Jan '06, Vol 63, No. 4. pp 21-23.

On Culture

2006-03-17T09:30:00.000-08:00

I have been fascinated with the idea of culture ever since I set foot on Colombian soil. I have continued to explore cultural differences since then. There is not only cultural differences between countries, but between regions of a country, between religious denomination, even between family units, if you want to go that far.

I think it was Aristotle who insisted that we define terms before talking about anything. Indeed, he insisted that most arguments are mostly about definitions of terms.

So a definition of culture would be a good place to begin:

"Culture is an integrated system of learned behavior patterns that are characteristic of the members of any given society. Culture refers to the total way of life of particular groups of people. It includes everything a group of people thinks, says, does, and makes."
(from Living in Colombia by Hutchinson, et al.)

This is my first introduction to culture, through the concept of culture shock that was carefully outlined in the above mentioned book. By experiencing culture shock personally, I learned a lot about what defined my culture and made the culture I was currently living in different, even 'strange' at times.

What are the stages of culture shock?

The Honeymoon period ~ Just what it says - nothing is wrong with this culture and everything is right and beautifully different!!
Flight, Dependency or Fight ~ None of these strategies are healthy and a healthy mind moves beyond this stage. Flight is retreating into a cocoon and avoiding all outside influences, i.e. creating a North American oasis of your home. Dependency is the other extreme = "going native". Fight is insisting on how 'wrong' the culture is and how 'right' your way of behavior is.
The Road to Recovery ~ This shows that you are on your way to being a healthy part of the culture. You are more open to cultural differences, you participate more, you may even joke about your cultural faux pas.
Cultural Adjustment ~ You now accept the host culture as a different way of living. You are able to live in it and appreciate the differences without being totally immersed and lost in them.

What is fascinating about this is that everyone goes through culture shock at different rates, depending on your length of stay. It actually takes longer to go through if you are moving to a country for the long-term (10 years) than if you are planning on being there for just 6 months of a year. Another thing that is interesting is that re-entry culture shock (returning to your home culture) can actually be a harder adjustment than the initial culture shock.

Now, for me it has been a difficult adjustment to life here in Canada, or should I say, Western Canada - for the culture of East vs. West I feel has made it more difficult for me. For example, when I have visited my sister-in-law in Winnipeg, I felt that the culture there was more like the culture I grew up in near Philadephia than here in Abbotsford. Winnipeg is definitely more of an urban culture. Abbotsford, technically, is a city, but not a city like I have ever experienced before in any place I have lived before.

Bibliography:

Hutchinson, William R. et al. Living in Colombia: A Guide for Foreigners. (Yarmouth, Maine: Interalculture Press, Inc.) 1987.

Important Grade 2 links!!

2006-03-09T07:35:00.000-08:00

Hey all you grade 2 students and parents! Another reason I wanted to begin with this blog is to actually post some links that you can just click on and then you can go to the site. I will keep updating this post, so check frequently for changes! You could use the public library for extra books to read.

Also, please use the math links below to help you practice your math facts!!

Math links:

aplusmath.com

coolmath4kids.com

aaamath.com

mathplayground.com

Math Magician

Science / Social Studies (Unit) links:

Bat Conservation International

On-line Bat Puzzle

Mexico for Kids

Kites in the Classroom

Local Nature Reserve

Find out about Canadian Animals Here!

Spelling and Phonics review:

Phonics Games from Between the Lions

General sites for fun and/or skill review:

Funbrain

The Kidz Page

Big Idea Fun

PBS Kids

Funschool

Puzzles, Puzzles, Puzzles!

Facthound - great site for kid-safe searching!!!

Living in Canada - An American Perspective

2006-03-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

Since I have traveled a bit, I have become fascinated by how different cultures work. I enjoy reading about cultures and I have become more interested in history over the years.

The running joke is that Canadians are just 'misplaced' Americans or that they are just an offshoot of the US, embracing the same culture. I would argue that they are a unique culture, and that this culture that is now in place is very needed in this world that can be dominated by images, ideas, etc. from the US. Canada is in a unique position to be a 'check and balance' to the US. Hopefully, Canada will begin to embrace that concept of being a Berean-like thinker to the US. There are some hopeful signs in the latest Canadian government, led by Stephen Harper.

Anyway, what are the key ideas that float around that make up the Canadian identity. I have found that a lot of it boils down to this quote:

"A Canadian is someone who is always asking, 'What is a Canadian?'"...(will add info about where I got quote when I find it...)

The Canadian identity seems to be wrapped up in the idea of questioning, probing, wondering. Sometimes this does look a bit neurotic, but it really isn't. Canadian culture is more open to other ideas and cultures. They don't usually just 'settle' for an answer...they want reasons.

Being outside of the US for so long, I have noticed that Americans (including me) have a tendency to be more sure. Don't bother me with more questions, I've already figured it out. President Bush's idea of "with us or against us" is, to me, something that is taking the American mindset to the extreme. (Don't get me wrong, either, I love my home country, but all cultures have their failings.)

I am fascinated by the interplay between the two countries over time. How Canada's very existence is due to the USA. How the idea that "Canadians are Americans that rejected the Revolution." (Nothrup Frye said that) is true. I think it is fascinating how the birth year of Canada, 1867, is right on the heels of the end of the US Civil War (1865).

I am fascinated by Prime Minister's and Presidents and how they get along. There's LBJ grabbing Pearson by the collar and telling him to 'stop pissing on my carpet!' (PM Pearson was not a big fan of the Vietnam War and actually talked out loud about it). There's Trudeau's famous 'sleeping elephant' reference.

Essential reading for Americans in Canada:

Coupland, Douglas Souvenir of Canada (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre) 2002

Ferguson, Will Canadian History for Dummies (Toronto: CDG Books Canada) 2000

Ferguson, Will Why I Hate Canadians (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre) 1997

Ferguson, Will & Ian Ferguson How To Be A Canadian (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre) 2001

Essential TV viewing for Americans in Canada:

CBC

Spend a week or a month, if you dare, and watch CBC. If you do, let me know...you should be rewarded, or something...

In my opinion, the best, funniest and most informative show about Canada is The Rick Mercer Report

And a word to my Canadian friends: Yes, Rick did "Talking to Americans". Yes, it was funny. However, Rick's moved on. So should you. End of comment :-)

Essential website for all Americans to have under "Favorites" while living in Canada (believe me, you'll need it!):

THE Canadian Spelling Dictionary!!

It wouldn't hurt to get the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, either!!

How did I get here??

2006-03-03T10:51:00.000-08:00

Good question.

I was born and raised in Delaware County, PA. I attended the local public schools until 8th grade, when I switched to Delaware County Christian School. While at DC I attended a high school job fair. I was very interested in being a scientist (l think it was an astronomer at the time), but there weren't workshops for scientists in every single block. I then chose one that looked at least semi-interesting and it was led by an elementary teacher. In fact, he was the 2nd grade teacher at the time. I listened and was fascinated. After the workshop, I spoke with him about volunteering in his classroom during some of my study halls.

Well, after that - I was hooked!! I could still communicate my love for science to someone and I could also talk about so much more!

After high school, I bumped around - mostly due to finances - to different universities. I ended up graduating with a B.S. Ed. in Early Childhood Education from West Chester University in December of 1987.

After that, I subbed in and around the Delaware County area in various school districts. I also worked at the local YMCA in an after school program as well as in the summer and holiday day camps. After a year of this, I was very discouraged by substitute teaching.

I attended a College and Careers Bible study through my home church in Pennsylvania, Aldan Union Church. One very cold night, a missionary from Youth For Christ spoke at our Bible study. This missionary was, at the time, the Director of Youth for Christ in Bogota, Colombia. He spoke on the calling of Phillip to preach to the Ethiopian Eunuch Acts 8:26-40 - this convicted me. I felt God calling me to do SOMETHING - but what???

Now this was the winter of 1989 ( I think) and there were ice storms. You could park your car and get a jug of milk at the local convenience store and go back out and your car would be frozen shut.

This missionary, it turns out, could not get his car open after the Bible Study. I offered him a ride home and we began to talk more about the school that his son attended in Bogota. It was a day school for missionary kids - quite small at the time - and about 10 years old. The school was desperate for new teachers and was only running half time because they could only get parents to fill in the gaps. It was then I realized that God wanted me to go to South America!

Off I went - after all the pre-trip fundraising and stuff - on Good Friday, 1989 and began my teaching carreer with a 3-4 combination class at El Camino Academy . I taught there for 4 1/2 years. I taught 3rd grade most of the time. I will probably do another post about my fond memories of Bogota....

Anyway, while there, I met a very interesting woman teaching a 1st grade class. She grew up in a place called Abbotsford in British Columbia, Canada. We were friends for most of that time. When it came time to leave Bogota, I realized that I couldn't just leave her and say good-bye. And, after the prompting of a friend (Hi, Jackie!!), I proposed. She, of course, made me wait two weeks or so for an answer, but on Canadian Thanksgiving Day in 1992, she finally said, "Yes!!!".

All of our friends reactions in Colombia: "Finally!!"

The long and the short of it after the engagement? The job opportunities were much better, at the time, in BC, Canada and we decided to make Abbotsford our home.

That's how this American ended up, not only in Canada, but on an opposite coast!

The All-Important First Post!!

2006-03-03T08:26:00.000-08:00

Why am I beginning a blog?

I really like the idea of putting some of my ideas, opinions, interests, etc. out there.
I would like to begin a blog for my grade 2 classroom and I thought the best way would be to create my own.
I'm just so tickled that I came up with a title that worked!!!
Well....why not???

Hopefully, you find this blog interesting. I will welcome your comments and suggestions. I'm excited about this and I hope you are too!!

An American In Canada

The Rob Bell Kerfluffle

Comic Sans is evil, apparently

My Favorite iPhone Apps

President Obama is a Christian (Get Over It!)

Shake up at MSNBC? *YAWN*

I just discovered...

Music in the 21st Century

America is Israel's "Crack Dealer"

Twitter as Newspaper for 21st Century

Imago Dei

The Truth is Not Always Easy to Discover

Why Conservatives Can't Be Allowed to Govern

Michael Campbell: Biggest Village Idiot North of Crawford, TX

Why We Need Separation of Church and State

Sigh...OK...I give up - I REALLY want an iPhone!

Democratic Triumph in Maine!!

Persecution? Spare me....

Tea Party's Historical Ignorance

Sedition?

Why Tea Partiers are idiots...

It's so easy being right wing!

London 2012: The Worst Olympics Ever!

Manhattan Declaration: Why I Cannot Sign It

FOX vs White House: It's about the TRUTH

Why I'm Stuck?

I don't get it...

No more Twitter for me...

But it's not Star Trek...

Bad Movies

I didn't watch the Oscars...

What to do?

Time for a new metaphor??

USA: Obama is the only choice left...

We're Better Off...

The Dark Knight: There's a Metaphor....somehow..

Subtle Fundamentalism

Sign of the Times???

Connections

Maybe Scrooge has a point....

Bad Driving

FEESH!!!

Opposites

Fast Food Trays

Back to School....Again...

Adjective VS Noun

It's All Developmental

Having a Voice

A Rant

Shakespearean?

Best Burger in Abbotsford

Shopaholic!

Free Education for all???

Control Freak!!!

Abby's Best

Colombian Food!

Food, Glorious Food! (Part I)

Christmas Games

Let it Snow!

He Don't Need No Steeking Gadgets!

The REAL 'Best of Abbotsford/Mission'

Weather

Searching for My Denominational Connections

Visiting Corner Gas!!

Gandhi

Anyways...

A Favourite Bible Verse

On Control

Computers in Education, Part 2

Why Corner Gas is Profound....

History - A New 'Hobby'

Immigration

Internet Safety for Children

Look What I Found!!

On Hypocrisy

Bogota Memories

On Computers in Education, Part 1

On Culture

Important Grade 2 links!!

Living in Canada - An American Perspective

Shake up at MSNBC? YAWN