My Own Thoughts

fine new museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, devoted to the American Civil War.

Monday Memorial Day holiday. Remember those who have died in this nation’s service in the last 231 years. Remember their families as well. … My family and I were talking about Memorial Day versus Veteran’s Day. Veteran’s Day celebrates those who made it home.

I broke my elbow biking with my folks’ dog on Monday. So I am not typing much.

If a small vocabulary and the frequent use of clichés promote understanding and communal solidarity, the achievement of verbal-intellectual sophistication can have the opposite effect. The more people know and the more subtle they are at expressing what they know, the fewer listeners there will be and the more isolated individuals will feel, not only [...]

ancient ceramics: goat motifs Live Science has the pictures and story of a 7th Century BC sunken treasure that has been excavated. Would be useful for Dielli.

Go, quickly, to Stanford University’s A Fair(y) Use Tale to see what it is and why we need it. Do it now. Before Disney gets rid of it.

So said Abraham Lincoln.

Monday night while I was making dinner my sister called. Her husband and our dad were both out of town. She thought A, age 6, had broken his leg. She’d have to take him to the ER. Could I come watch the girls? I was out of the house in three minutes and at her [...]

Apparently it really is true that sleeping more means weighing less. sleep loss can alter hormones involved in appetite and metabolism. In one small study, healthy young men who slept for only 4 hours for two nights in a row showed a dip in the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin, and an increase in the appetite-stimulating hormone [...]

Live Science says “In every tested situation a 10-foot ceiling correlated with subject activity that the researchers interpreted as “freer, more abstract thinking,” whereas subjects in an 8-foot room were more likely to focus on specifics.” They also said there was more criticism in short ceilinged rooms. We need to move. That’s the ticket. We [...]

A contest from 5 Minutes for Mom which is giving away an ipod and chocolate, somehow, to someone who comments and links. What should I post this under?

The Physics of Christianity The Physics of Immortality These both sound like something that it might be good for me to read. Maybe good for my son to read. While I’m listing, how about The Language of God? Maybe I should get these for my summer reading.

can be modified or deleted by the author of this blog. That seems to me to be something that ought to be obvious. But apparently it not only isn’t obvious, but if I haven’t stated it, it isn’t true. See AviaDirectory’s Twelve Laws of Blogging.

Clayton Cramer has been talking about inappropriate institutionalization. May I say that I know personally of three instances of this. Thankfully only one was long term. 1. The valedictorian of his class, a friend’s uncle had a grand mal seizure. He was institutionalized. It was 1930 something. I think they may have eventually overdosed him [...]

There are several out there. This list is for modern book and goes through grade 7. HedgehogBooks also has lists of modern books. They go through eighth grade. Reading Ideas from TeachersAndFamilies has both classics and modern books. It has all the grades. Of course I am not sure of their leveling choices. I totally [...]

The name of the book is The Musashi Flex and it is by Steve Perry. Perry wrote a series which began, originally, with a short book about a revolutionary who fought the corrupt intergalactic government and not just won but came out alive. That book was called The Man Who Never Missed. The series is [...]

I’m up to a total of 96 books. That’s 96 books in 126 days. Not too shabby. Fiction: Ordinary Heroes: A Novel by Scott Turow Irish Magic II- story by Susan Wiggs was good, the rest not so much The Man from Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller, very well written Western Frankenstein by Mary [...]

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, Gov. Perry has suggested that perhaps Texas should not prohibit concealed carry permit holders from taking their guns to school or church. Many people are upset about this. One of the guys in my office was appalled. “What if the person is crazy?” You have to go [...]

When I have five minutes to not think about finals and Maymester classes, I am going to go back and read Mirabilis on pandemics. I think it might be interesting for Dielli. But I don’t have time right now.

We kept fighting in Germany for four years after May 7, 1945. We lost 4,000 soldiers. We dug up rusty ships and hijacked war memorial tanks in order to fight the Korean War.