Amazon
Get a new hardcover copy if you can, because this is a solid, serious, readable book from an expert teacher, but...check out those choices. You can also get it as a Kindle, an audio recording, or a computer file. If you're swamped by tuition and book expenses, you can even rent this book.
Animals
Not a cute story and image...Shooting a giraffe? A zebra? Sport? Oh, child...hunting counts as a sport if and only if you're killing something that would prefer to kill you, like bears. Giraffes and zebras may need to be humanely slaughtered, people may be hungry enough to eat their meat (though would you?), and it's nice to be a "sure shot," but I'm sorry...killing a giraffe and a zebra is not hunting-as-sport.
https://gma.yahoo.com/12-old-girl-faces-online-backlash-over-hunting-113309909--abc-news-topstories.html#
Here's the cute story and image. Which of the four pandas in the National Zoo is the cutest?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2016/08/17/panda-performance-review-which-of-the-national-zoos-pandas-earned-their-fruitsicle-this-year/?postshare=1631471442134972&tid=ss_tw
Boycott Update
Good news for those boycotting Target...
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/2016/08/17/ha-retail-giant-target-slashes-earnings-estimates-citing-challenging-environment/
Why is that good news? Because they've actually, er um, listened to reason!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/08/17/target-hit-some-turbulence-this-summer/?
Christian
Quick thoughts for anyone whose ministry might be considered "leadership" (including "leading" non-Christians to study Christianity). Notice which category of people are not mentioned, because the Bible runs over with examples of how those people became great religious "leaders": those without socioeconomic clout. To be fair, of course, most churches and churchgoers don't consciously think "We must not listen to this person because s/he is poor and obscure." They think, and just yesterday I talked to an example of two churchmen who were obviously thinking even as one of them was sliding into poverty and obscurity, "There must be something terribly wrong with this person because s/he is poor and obscure." They think this, even though Jesus gave them a very specific corrective thought in Matthew 25:40--"This person is the living embodiment of Jesus who has been sent to me; I can recognize him/her because s/he is poor and obscure."
https://ericgeiger.com/2016/08/4-types-of-people-leaders-must-not-listen-to/
The Traditional Catholic Knight shares an audio clip with the text of this contemporary Christian song:
http://tradcatknight.blogspot.com/2016/08/poem-last-stand.html#more
Communication
Is this a gender issue, or an introvert/extrovert issue? I suspect it's both. Introverts are the ones who need more time to think things through, using our longer brain stems and/or more acute perceptions and/or superior talent for math and formal logic. Men in a male/female relationship, however, are typically the ones who need to make sure they've thought things through and come to a reasonable, or reasonable-sounding, statement of their case--because nobody, including themselves, likes them if they become emotional, meaning angry.
(Part of the Anger Busting
program is that, in exchange for making a substantial concession just to punish themselves if they express anger toward family members, male "anger addicts" have to call for time out as early and as often as they need it in order to avoid becoming angry. And their wives have to give them time out, no questions asked...and the only string attached is that the men can't spend their time out in bars or with other women.)http://sixseeds.patheos.com/askshaunti/2014/03/how-can-i-force-my-husband-to-listen-to-me/
Education
Thomas Sowell takes no prisoners. Do you need trigger warnings because he's a fiscal conservative, not opposed to private schools? Hah. What about: because he's a Black man, and the father of a Black man, and therefore likely to write more passionately about this subject than some writers do?
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2016/08/16/does-black-success-matter-n2205360?
Employment
If you're looking for the kind of hourly-wage job (young) people get by filling out forms, U.S. Senator Mark Warner endorses this one. (Office, and skilled career job opportunites for computer experts, in Northern Virginia.) Meh, I don't see anything there for home-based writers who work by the job and disclose our real identities via real mail after receiving real payments for real work. If, however, you're a truck driver or nurse aide who's willing to risk your real identity in cyberspace, here is a legitimate site for you:
http://www.snagajob.com/find-jobs
Meanwhile...this proposal seems more likely to force people with minor disabilities back to work than to help them get back to work, and to what lines of work, exactly, can they be forced? I'm all in favor of recognizing that people recover from temporary disabilities, adapt to permanent ones, and go back to work. I admire the ones who do. Now, what about cutting the red tape so more of them can work? If all we do is ease them off the disability pensions, then all we do is force them to compete with people who don't have and never had disabilities. The hero factor works for wheelchair dwellers; it works for Olympic athletes who consent to let the news media air videos about the handicaps they've overcome; it doesn't work so well for people like Grandma Bonnie Peters, who's had a major disability and still has minor physical inconveniences, all right, but she merely looks like a classic, generic, maybe cuter than average grandma. It wouldn't have worked for any of the Roosevelts--who were heroes of overcoming disabilities but didn't choose to publicize the fact. So what about getting "conservative" enough to restore the viable "conservative" solution the Roosevelts offered poor people--automatic free licenses to launch micro-businesses, if only selling pencils on street corners until they could save up enough to do something else? ???!!! Come on (Republicans), I'm talkin' to you...shout!
http://dailysignal.com/2016/08/03/finally-a-proposal-to-help-disability-beneficiaries-return-to-work/?
Family
Dave Willis discusses the idea of a priority conflict between "the children" and "the marriage" in this article. I think attempts to lay down a rule about this conflict may be setting up a false dichotomy...but as some of The Nephews reach driving and/or babysitting age, I recall, with a fond chortle, a speaker at my church college who woke us up during a chapel talk with the suggestion, "Take your brother or sister out somewhere and give your parents some unchaperoned time at home. You're old enough to know how it feels to want time alone together." So my parents' anniversary happened to occur during summer break. So after baking the traditional anniversary cake I took my sister to Natural Tunnel for the afternoon. My parents weren't the type to talk about that sort of thing...but they were only about fifty, and HSP, and they did look sort of pleased.
http://sixseeds.patheos.com/davewillis/the-most-popular-bad-marriage-advice/
Green
Breaking health news from Iowa:
http://investigatemidwest.org/2016/07/22/growing-health-concerns-surrounding-pesticides-including-two-commonly-used-in-iowa/
(In case it's not showing at the site, here's my comment:
"
Well, if Chad Ingels wants a good gross-out, he should watch me during the 48 hours after I’ve either inhaled Roundup or eaten anything containing residues thereof. My reactions are hard to ignore and super-gross, but not so severe that I wouldn’t be able to help him identify his.
My husband died from multiple myeloma. This disease is so rare that nobody has a clue what causes it; the theory was, in his case, exposure to DDT while working with farmers in “developing countries” during his years with the international bank. By the time he knew he had it the symptoms included numbness, but he’d lived with “premature arthritis” for years before anyone suspected the cancer. The most miserable symptom of m.m., though, is the mood swings, from violent hypertensive rage to fainting and depression within hours. I empathize with Mr. Ingels, who obviously has no idea that he’s probably caused me, personally, some intense pain during the past two years. I hope he’s not doing to himself what my husband apparently, like Dr. Tom Dooley, did to himself.
How many good men have to die from trusting these chemical companies?
")More gross-outs in these stunning, National Geographic quality, photos from Argentina: trigger warning--sick children:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160223-photograph-aixa-argentina-avia-terai-pesticides-glyphosate/
Y'know, this article exposes a false dichotomy that's just plain stupid. The shift to solar power is not about global warming theory. It has nothing to do with global warming theory. It's about the fact that solar power is potentially more useful to more people than coal or petroleum used to be. We don't have to buy solar energy from foreigners who hate us; we don't have to get solar energy at the price of landscapes, communities, and the lives of honorable men. Solar energy is something nature just handed to us for the relatively low price of working out how to collect it. Solar energy is practically free of charge. Never mind the bickering about whether a longer heat wave than we've had for a few years means global warming, or a heavier snowfall than we've had for a few years means the opposite. (They don't, but that's irrelevant.)
http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy-bnef-1974864408.html?
Most things Northerners write about "Appalachia" are complete drivel--I've yet to meet a Northerner who could find Appalachia--but this article, which is actually about eastern Kentucky, seems decent. (And Nytimes seems to have cleaned up its act; this page opened quite smoothly.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/us/beyond-coal-imagining-appalachias-future.html?_r=0
Health
Probably not news for celiacs, but here's a quick online list of foods rich in the B-vitamins:
http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/b-vitamin-food-sources-because-a-deficiency-can-drive-you-insane?
How many B-vitamins do you need if you go vegan? I'm guessing that that'll be a question guest doctor Doug Lisle discusses in tomorrow's webinar, hosted by John McDougall. (For those who don't know, this kind of messy-looking link address means the link is temporary; if you revisit this post in 2017, this link will probably have expired.)
http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=5e58f59d97611f910916b6276&id=45c0148318&e=4d57a9fdfb
Here's another petition I won't sign. This one's not even worth a separate post. Do people with PTSD need prescriptions for cannabinoid pills they can pop ('cos they certainly don't need to be told they can inflict marijuana smoke on others every time they feel stress)? Do they need pills? Do they need that kind of withdrawal, on top of everything else? Maybe they need my Significant Other to come out and talk sense to them? Well, tough, he's not on call for that. Maybe they should connect online with Myke Cole
, who (sort of) is, in a nice distant literary way. People with PTSD have suffered enough, been exploited enough, without adding any more addictions or dependencies.https://www.change.org/p/chris-christie-tell-chris-christie-to-sign-ab-457-to-add-ptsd-as-medical-cannabis-condition?
Health News
This could be big, and very very important to those discussing stem cell research: Stem cell research has not necessarily involved fetal tissue for a long time. We've known that stem cells can be harvested from tissues adults have actually paid to donate--unwanted fat cells, e.g. Now there's the possibility of their being "mass-produced" from blood samples.
http://humanprogress.org/blog/health-breakthroughs-for-hiv--alzheimers-depression-and-more?
Now some bad news: Why all celiacs (even if they like the stuff, which I never have) should never eat anything containing honey.
http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/monsanto-has-ruined-our-honey-its-contaminated-with-glyphosates-from-roundup?
Language
I, personally, think that if a person had no hereditary obligation to learn even a little bit of Cherokee, it might be fun for that person to learn Potawatomi. (Or Ojibwa, the related language of which we learn a few words from The Birchbark House
series.) This Dailygood article contains a link you can use to sign up for online live Potawatomi language classes, if you choose. Warning: studying any Native American language will help you appreciate how almost boringly easy learning French or Spanish is.http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=6819
(The position of this web site is that everyone in North America should be able to read English, French, and Spanish. We understand that everyone didn't learn all three languages as a child, but it's not as if any of the three were difficult to learn to read once you've learned to read any of the others. Once you start reading news in the other languages, Bing and Google even offer instant free translation...full stories can come out strange, but you can look up words online as needed. So there is no excuse.)
Now, what about companies trying to "own" words? Pathetic, or...pathetic?
https://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2016/aug/17/shouldve-seen-it-coming-the-trademarking-of-public-language?CMP=twt_gu
Oregon Update
Cool things are still going on in Portland with the Street Books "free library." Their web page is really growing!
http://streetbooks.createsend1.com/
Politics (Election 2016)
As if I could afford to send money to re-elect other people's Members of Congress. Somehow that wouldn't feel right even if I had the money. Do we have readers in Arizona? Youall should support your man:
http://gosar.house.gov/
You have a State Senator who's pleading for campaign funds out of state, too, Arizonans. I'm in Virginia. I don't even have online time to do the research to find out how well State Senator Biggs represents his constituents in Arizona. But that's what the Internet's for...fiscal conservatives and social libertarians/liberals in Arizona should be bragging about your people, so those of us who live in Virginia will remember their names if and when they come up for promotion.
http://www.azleg.gov/MembersPage.asp?Member_ID=88&Legislature=51
Harry Reid is challenging the #BankruptcyBillionnaire to take the U.S. naturalization test. I think it'd be interesting to compare The Donald's scores with The Melania's. You?
http://act.moveon.org/go/5175?t=4&akid=168074.34312935.gsoOO1
Ben Shapiro (who is not my favorite Republican either) nailed it this time. Whichever candidate we vote against, and voting for won't be a viable option, in November fiscal conservatives will be embattled against an administration that does not represent us in any way.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/8443/trump-isnt-easy-decision-and-nobody-should-pretend-ben-shapiro?
Is Trump even a serious candidate? Remember, this web site called it last year:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/jasonhopkins/2016/08/16/gop-congressman-openly-wonders-if-trump-is-trying-to-lose-n2205888?
What about Gary Johnson? He sounds...so...young, in this piece. So dang young. So dang dang... Dang. (Feel free to substitute Army Language vocabulary of choice if you are a veteran reading this post.) I would've liked to've been able to vote for him, but no. He's "pumped." He's a guy. He's a flippin' fifteen-year-old guy, at heart anyway, just obsessed with trying things and seeing for himself what blows up, 'cos he really thinks explosions are kind of cool anyway, and hey, as long as it's not his car and none of the shrapnel happens to land in his eyeball...Guys have done so much harm in this world, thinking like this, er um, Johnson. (Y'know, we in the United States have already had two Presidents whose names were Johnson, and both of them were bad Presidents...)
No. That's what that Jules-Verne-esque science fiction story, the one I never would've dreamed I could write before the Internet, was all about...the promises and also the problems with cutting-edge technology. I wish I could post it here, but under contract I'm going to have to post one of those lame and nerdly "Writer talks prose all around the themes in writer's story" pieces, for which I apologize in advance.
http://futurism.com/gary-johnson-wants-driverless-secret-service-cars-and-a-us-led-gene-editing-revolution/
Sports
You've been bombarded with Olympics-related content already, and I promise not to rehash that news topic here, but this may actually be fresh: Dan Lewis reports on the special sand imported for Olympics beach volleyball.
http://nowiknow.com/spiking-the-sand/
Zazzle
Are canvas totes not solid enough for you? If so, Zazzle offers a special collection of leather totes from Kenya...
Bach Cello Suite Original Handwritten Score Tote by missprinteditions
View other J s bach Leather Totes
If canvas will do, here's a cheaper tote from the U.S.A.:
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