Category Archives: Friends, Family, Life

Hope you had a good Memorial Day

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We spent Memorial Day Spring cleaning, Emma, Richelle, and now me, dealing with some nasty sniffles and coughs. As the day wound down, Emma’s Grandparents came by for some hamburgers and hot dogs, and I got the opportunity to tell Emma that the day was a holiday for people like her Granddad who served in the military, serving all of us.

NPR: Memorial Day Miracle At ‘The Wall’

NPR: Keeping The Memory Of World War II Veterans Alive

NPR: Memorial Day: Not Just For Barbecue

Why is it that we don’t hold our elected officials – hold ourselves – to ethical codes (if not similar then complimentary) that we honor our military for? Is it because we don’t permit ourselves to share such burden that we are, as Rafe Colburn says, losing our moral compass?

There is a haiku here somewhere, just know it

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mom I’m drawing a map
we go to around that twister
its on that map
all finished
oh wow wow wow
first we go round
over the bridge
road get bumpy
then you go thru
theres a little nut
its mikey’s party
its a twisty
i call it the planet
i draw a gate and a rock
the rock is inside the gate
im almost finished dad
i need more colors
im all finished
dad move your computer out of the way
round and around and around
lets play the orange cat

Parenting, Education and Inspiration for Sunday May 17, 2009

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Inquirer: Bari Pepe, 46, Years of trauma behind her, now she wants to aid others – ex-addict acheives master’s in social work. Very inspiring story. Read it.

The Boston Globe: Inside the baby mind: It’s unfocused, random, and extremely good at what it does. How we can learn from a baby’s brain. – “Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will.” – Metafilter thread.

New Yorker: The secret of self-control. – let your toddler’s imagination be free, encourage creativity, to try and try again, and understand that we have the power of choice.

Hacking Education – A New York Venture Capital Fund Focused on Early Stage & Startup Investing

NYTimes: Marc C. Taylor: End the University as We Know It – straight up inspiration about tearing down the status quo to meet the needs of today and tomorrow.

CSMonitor: In tough times, graduates (and parents) assess the worth of a liberal arts education – just an opinion – I think liberal arts majors are well positioned for the economy of today and tomorrow.

Deseret News: Universities will be ‘irrelevant’ by 2020, Y. professor says

The Atlantic: Who Needs Harvard?: The pressure on smart kids to get into top schools has never been higher. But the differences between these schools and the next tier down have never been smaller

Chronicle: What Colleges Should Learn From Newspapers’ Decline – Newspapers are dying. Are universities next? The parallels between them are closer than they appear.

Tom Baker: Getting Involved in Higher Education – software engineers should seriously consider teaching, here’s why.

Slashdot.org: With a Computer Science Degree, an Old Man At 35?

Inquirer: Daniel Rubin: Grads, please note: It’s not about you

xkcd: 1000 Times – its all about context isn’t it?

Some interesting music and children links for today

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Boston Globe: Can’t get it out of my head: A father’s yearlong quest to grasp the infant musical mind

NPR: Bringing Up Baby, As Music Lovers Might

Muppet Wiki: Joe Raposo

Thankfully, Emma’s tastes are all over the map, like her Daddy. For example, just this morning she kept replaying The Mother of All Funk Chords – which I could listen to on repeat myself.