Monday, March 31, 2014

A Little Refresher

Unbelievable: Common Core Problem Asks Kids to Choose Two Amendments to Remove From Bill of Rights

A mother in Arkansas has expressed concern over her daughter’s recent Common Core school assignment that asked her to remove and replace two of the first ten amendments of the Constitution. The team assignment stated that the Bill of Rights is “outdated and may not remain in its current form any longer.” Here is a copy of the assignment:

[snip]

The mother who spoke up said she was particularly troubled by the fact that her daughter’s Sixth Grade History class had received no prior training in civics or how to amend the Constitution, which may lead those children to incorrectly believe that it can be changed by a “special committee” as suggested by the assignment.

“After she brought it home and explained her assignment to me, it made me question exactly what she was being taught. Where I can see a class using critical thinking skills to modernize the words, as to help them better understand the Amendments, giving an assignment to remove two then add two with little explanation as to why is upsetting,” she said.


Which reminds me, I came in next to last with my b-ball bracket. The way Mr. Big Food scores, it's possible to know who doesn't have a chance of winning by this round. The fact that I was nostalgic for the good crappy old days-- I had UNC vs. Duke-- didn't bode well for me in the current climate. 

DG

Without your knowledge, I have just placed you, my dear loyal readers, into one of two categories: 1) DG? WTF does DG stand for? OR 2) Oh, I see! A post about Dollar General! How exciting!!

You may find yourself in the former category if you've had no exposure to the "largest small-box discount retailer" in the nation.

offering a remarkable variety of everyday items.
11,000 stores in 40 states
Oh oh. What will Daughter C do??
Or you may be in the former category because you are... well... "storist"-- one who has a preconceived notion of what a Dollar General store is and that's just not good enough for you. (Perhaps you can afford to overpay for paper towels. 99% of us cannot.)

The Dollar General store in a small town is the great equalizer. One is just as likely to be in line behind a bedraggled family doing its weekly grocery shopping as one is to be in line behind the bespectacled county attorney buying a pack of legal pads. Christine-- the check out lady whose niece runs the gas station/plate lunch restaurant just down the road from us-- knows all of our names.


Speaking of equalizers-- did you seen this the other day?


Gunman invades Dollar General, meets concealed carry permit holder.

This happened in Orrsville, Alabama. We looked Orrsville up on the map. Who walks into a DG in Orrsville, Alabama and doesn't see this coming? Some people just aren't cut out for a life of crime.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

I don't get out much anymore

I'll get to this guy in a minute
Missy is exhausted. 

Exhausted. That's a great word, isn't it? Just to utter it makes you want to find a pillow and lay your little head down.

Miss M and I took Rocky & Missy on a run in the pasture today after Mr. Big Food &  I got back from the Piglet. We cheated b/c we put the dogs in the truck and drove them to the pasture gate. Missy loves the truck.

Rocky loves the truck, too, although in a different way. Stalwart.

To be clear, Rocky does not support the UN.


Anyway-- great run!

And then we took Missy out to the Peninsula. And Rocky had some free time.

And we are exhausted.

This guy needs to go for a run. He looks positively snarly, doesn't he? 

Very Important

Margarita's door
We were chatting about Capital Letters just the other day.

No. Seriously. 

We chat about a lot of trivial stuff here at the Farm and the trivial subject of capitalization in old texts just happened to come up. We floated lots of hypotheses but since Miss M-- who might have made a Major chat Contribution-- wasn't participating in the chat (Miss M hates google chat hangout, but the way) we moved on with no definitive answer as to why folks used to capitalize some Nouns but not others and hardly ever capitalized Verbs and rarely, adjectives. Emphasis before type was invented was, of course, a clear winner, hypothesis-wise.

So this sign-- on Miss M's door-- made me chuckle. Like capitalizing "not" and "disturb" add emphasis. Really? if she had written the sign in all little letters, and put it on her door, i wouldn't have disturbed her. there was a very important call in progress, afterall. i respect that.

And here's where the story gets weird. As I was snapping the photo, I heard a cry. I put my camera down and got the heck out of there. She wants privacy, afterall. But was it a cry? or a laugh? Good Lord! I went back to my planting, tormented by the Question.

~~
Thank The Lord! It was Laughter i heard!

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Informing the People

The American people today have at their disposal more current information-- more news-- about the world than perhaps any people anywhere at anytime. All the media of mass communications-- newspapers, magazines, radio, television, motion pictures-- place before them daily huge quantities of easily accessible information. Traditions of freedom, accuracy, and impartiality assure them that they can trust most of the information.

The situation, therefore, would seem to be ideal. Yet if public opinion polls are a reliable guide [they are not in 2014] 

the People don't know jack.

Informing the People: A Basic Text in Reporting and Writing the News. Charles H. Brown. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. New York. 1957.

Good night! 

1 v 2

That was one of the worst basketball games I've ever watched. It didn't seem like basketball until overtime.

I should look on the bright side.

Western Civilization is Collapsing. We still have March Madness.


Friday, March 28, 2014

Scenes from LA

We trekked out to Zuma. 

And saw this. 

I thought about blotting out the license plate number. But then I thought, maybe this person does want his message to get out-- he did get a license plate.

I thought this a horrible infringement on Individual Liberty.
But the school was cool.

What you missed

if you didn't dine at the Farm last evening.

Homemade Cincinnati chili
5-way: spaghetti, chili, beans, onions & cheese. Yummy.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

B'ball


In this week's paper: 

Books bygone: Time for a Game that can be Played Indoors
Marica Bernstein

“We decided that there should be a game that could be played indoors in the evening and during the winter season. … I tried to modify some of the existing games… but failed.” Since all team sports use “some kind of ball,” it became apparent that, “If the offense didn’t have an opportunity to run with the ball, there would be no necessity for tackling and we would thus eliminate roughness” which was undesirable in an indoor game.

So wrote Dr. James A. Naismith about the game he created in 1891 for the Springfield, Mass Y.M.C.A. Eliminating running in a game designed for “mature individuals who did not desire physical development” but rather “some enjoyable form of entertainment” was just the first step. To minimize “severe driving” of the ball, the goal was made horizontal and placed above the heads of the defenders to “avoid having the defense congregate around the ball.” In the first games, the goals were “a couple of old peach baskets, hanging one at each end of the gym.”

Naithsmith’s story about the origin of basketball is recounted in “Encyclopedia of Sports” (1944). It appears in its entirety along with a copy of the original 13 rules that “were posted on the bulletin board of the gym at Springfield before the game was actually played.” (Hint: Never bat the ball with your fists. That’s a foul. Make three fouls in a row and that counts as a goal for the other side!) As late as 1937, 12 of the 13 original rules were still on the books. I’ll be paying close attention over the next couple of weeks to see if I can spot any new rule changes!

The story of basketball-- the only major sport of American origin-- is but one of many sports featured in this book bygone. Some such as dog-sledding, iceboat racing, and yachting we in rural Mississippi have little opportunity in which to engage. Others such as cock fighting, fox hunting, and bull fighting we’d do well to avoid on humanitarian grounds. I do note that there are chapters devoted to rifle, pistol and revolver and shooting, and trapshooting. We can do those as well participate in the games of Corn Husking (most ears husked wins), Log Rolling (last man or woman standing on the log in the river wins), and Tug O’ War (pull the opposing team over the line and your team wins).

This book has over 600 pages of sports history, rules, famous players, and records and is a veritable gold mine for those who love sports trivia. Rather surprisingly, there’s quite a bit of attention to sports and the fairer sex. Turning again to basketball, girls started playing in “a rather furtive way about 35 years ago, in an era when ladies who participated in combative sports were regarded as ‘tomboys,’ and no approval was given to such conduct.” Despite this, as many as 1,000,000 girls in “every city and hamlet in the nation” enjoyed the game in 1944!

If you love sports, check out this book bygone! And good luck with your NCAA brackets!

“Encyclopedia of Sports Revised and Enlarged.” Frank G. Menke. A.S. Barnes and Company, New York. 1944. Available at MSU Mitchell Memorial Library and online books sellers.

It's about 9:56 central on March 26, 2014

here in Mississippi. I will schedule this to post just after midnight on the morning of the 27th-- HA! how funny is that? I decide to take a month off and I start the month on the next to the last day of the only month of the year that doesn't have 30 or 31 days. That's funny.

In the last month, I read Wide Sargasso Sea in one day, eventually decided I didn't like it, went some places and took notes and photos, looked for but did not find Curious George, learned not to mess around with a gas leak, and planted lettuce.

Oh. I almost forgot. I've been waiting to show you these:


Daughter C and Mr. Big Food share a square on the calender. They have the same birthday!

No stars were visible. Disconcerting for a country mouse.