Reinke Faces Life

http://thesurvivalmom.com/2011/05/18/my-top-16-tips-for-beginning-homeschoolers/

My top 16 tips for beginning homeschoolers

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Taking on the education of your children is a daunting task, and most of us need simple baby steps to get started. Here are a few that have worked for me and other homeschooling families.

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I wonder if parents and students realize that they are “home school ers” by definition?

As a fat old white guy injineer, I judge processes by their output. (By their fruit, ye shall know them.) I’d call “schooling” a defective process both on a basis of statistics about the output and anecdotally by talking to young people who’ve “graduated”.

Ever talk to one of these exemplars?

Can they match up in the world? With their elders? With historical evidence?

Nah, not even close!

So, if parents and students do NOT realize that they are getting a sub-standard education, then they are NOT going to realize that they need to supplement.

Those, that do realize, are running around doing “enrichment”.

Karate, dance, and a myriad of other activities are filling that need.

So parents, who love their children, better be “homeschooling”.

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http://freekeene.com/2011/05/18/tweak-the-law-save-lives/

Tweak the Law, Save Lives
May 18, 2011 by Highline

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Most of you who read the things I write know that my pet issue is drug prohibition.

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One idea that has been bouncing around in my head for some time is getting involved in the political process to try and advocate for both a law which would encourage minors who have used alcohol irresponsibly and all people who have used dangerous drugs to seek medical attention if needed. A person having an overdose of alcohol or drugs presently could be (and should be) afraid to call for medical assistance, as when the EMT’s arrive, so does the criminal justice system.

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I know a good way. Let’s try and turn New Hampshire into the 3rd state in the nation which grants limited criminal immunity to people requesting medical assistance for alcohol and drug overdoses.

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This sounds like a GREAT idea!

We need to switch from drug punishment to treating it like a medical problem.

This is the best idea I’ve heard in a while.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/number-of-long-lasting-marriages-in
-us-has-risen-census-bureau-reports/2011/05/18/AFO8dW6G_story.html?hpid=z4

Number of long-lasting marriages in U.S. has risen, Census Bureau reports
By Carol Morello, Published: May 18

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Americans may be postponing marriage, and fewer are wedding at all. But what about the people who do get married? They’re staying together longer than they have in years.

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I’d wager the economy is having multiple effects: (1) one household is cheaper than two; (2) single mom with kids is in poverty for decades; (3) the lack of money means less opportunity for “extravagance”; and (4) the condensation of “extended families” (i.e., parents and children need help).

The gray hair generation is realizing the value of family.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/06/the-tragedy-of-sarah-palin/8492/

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Palin entered the national consciousness more suddenly than most high-level politicians do, and she did it in the intense final stretch of a presidential campaign, which had a kiln-like effect of hardening the initial impression—depending on your point of view, of the provincial half-wit portrayed by Tina Fey or the plain-sense Mama Grizzly proudly leading her army of culture warriors. In modern politics, your “brand,” once established, is almost impossible to change. Only a handful of politicians have changed theirs (Hillary Clinton is one), and then only through tireless perseverance. Palin has shown little inclination to revise or deepen these impressions—she didn’t respond to my requests to discuss her record—and she hasn’t designated anyone else to do it for her. (Mama Grizzlies claw; they don’t contextualize.)

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> I dont think she is viable any more….RP starting to look good, just wish he were a little younger.

Too much military aggression for my tastes.

Well, he still has to get through the “tea party” R candidates, then he has to fight through the conservative / moderate sweepstake to get to the R nod, then he has to fight through the liberal media who will try to “Palinize” him like Katie Kute did to SP, and then he has to connect with the great unwashed of the disaffected voters. Dick Morris thinks he has no chance.

I think it’s more about who he picks as VP. Michelle Bachman? It would be an expressway for her to be the first woman President.

That’s my calculation.

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Recent episode had BONES in the sack, tastefully, without apparent sex, maybe, with BOOTH.

Is this the shark jump?

Is the tension between the kool hunk and the nerdy hunkette over?

Sigh. It was good. But maybe they’ve run out of gas.

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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/early-playboy-playmate-and-b-movie-acress-yvette-vickers-found-dead-in-benedict-canyon.html

Mummified body of former Playboy playmate Yvette Vickers found in her Benedict Canyon home

May 2, 2011 | 2:21 pm

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Yvette Vickers, an early Playboy playmate whose credits as a B-movie actress included such cult films as “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” and “Attack of the Giant Leeches,” was found dead last week at her Benedict Canyon home. Her body appears to have gone undiscovered for months, police said.

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Sad. How does this happen? A year? Auto bill pay? Reminds me of the Beatles’ song.

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<Broken Link>

Wednesday, I made a presentation …

… to some young ladies of Holy Family Academy. (Frau Reinke’s alma mater) Two groups 40 minutes each. 25 in group 1; 40 in group 2. Each group had two teachers as chaperones and the Library Lady listened to both. (Guess that was to monitor discipline. If you’ve read my book, you know there is always “discipline”.)

In exchanging emails with the powers that be, it became apparent that they wanted “guest speakers” and the topic of my book was of interest to them.

So, hey, I’m always up for some “fun”.

The essence of the spiel was “I did it. I published a book. And, you can do it too.”

I connected them to Frau Reinke by their school. I told how Frau Reinke told me to “do it or shudup!” Lovingly. I related about a day dreaming grade schooler. Early mornings, 5k words/day, and some of the challenges. Went thru the technology, step by step. (The second group actually wanted that repeated during the Q&A.) Riffed off the line about 197X FireFox kids doing it WITHOUT technology. And, challenged them to some things they could do.

It was interesting that three of the TEACHERS got really excited about the possibilities.

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After action report:

It wasn’t “fun”. It was tough. I guess it’s part of learning to deal with the “ouchie”.

It was difficult because I’ve never “performed” in front of an audience this young. And, as you know, I’m an ITSJ. So, that’s ALWAYS a problem. (Had to be extra careful that any “injineering” language didn’t slip out.)

It was interesting in that the children as NOT as “computer literate” as I would have expected. Most had never heard of an RSS feed out of FACEBOOK.

First group (high school freshman), I needed the filler: SFYG and the Burqa. Second group (English honors juniors and seniors), were more into “novel” and how to do it. We got into Burqa, “digital dirt”, and, then, into a repeat of the EXACT steps to move data from FACEBOOK to a book. The Principal had to call time because they were getting into the gory details.

(The Principal complemented my on my ability to take them as deep as they wanted to go and explaining it such that she could understand it. :-) The essence of a fat old white guy injineer is to make sure you use little words and speak slowly.)

In retrospect, I gave them the rough stats on copies published. Last time I checked. To one significant digit. I could have given them the exact numbers but I didn’t think that was a big deal. In retrospect, I probably should have given them exact. The zeros make a bad impression. Argh! Now I feel bad.

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The library had “brag books”. Evidently, each student had to put together a book of what they accomplished at HFA.

(I call it a “brag book” because I recommended something similar to my “turkeys” when they were doing “job search”.)

A lot of it was format stuff and some filler. But, in the forms they had, there was a self assessment. Leadership, speaking ability, yada, yada, yada. Rows of the stuff; maybe 20 rows? With four columns for grading. “Outstanding”, “excellent”, “good”, and “needs improvement”. I looked at more than 20 of them — I was killing a half hour — there was no one who “needs improvement”. I thought that was funny. Funny ha ha!

Now I recognize that if I’d have had to do one in high school. It would have been very very thin with accomplishments.

But, I’d have known I needed a lot of “improvement”. (Luckily, a young lady came along in my sophomore year of college and helped me “improve”.)

SO here we have 20 or so brag books, and NO ONE needs improvement?

That’s a failure.

I saw cheerleaders, Irish Dancers, Eucharistic Ministers, Drama Queens, … …

I didn’t see any Engineers, Scientists, or such …

I didn’t see any athletes …

I did laugh that many claimed that “marching in the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade” was an achievement. That sounded like filler to me.

Robert Byrnes cited “the gift to see ourselves as others see us”. Sounds like these teachers and students need some eyeglasses.

Everyone always “needs improvement”.

Even me.

That’s why I don’t take such tests.

Frau Reinke left that job unfinished!

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http://web.docuticker.com/go/docubase/64167

The New Digital American Family
April 14, 2011 02:36
Source: Nielsen

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• Ward and June Cleaver have left the building. The white, two-parent, “Leave It to Beaver” family unit of the 1950s has evolved into a multi-layered, multi-cultural construct dominated by older, childless households. Marketing budgets need to recalibrate to reflect the very different composition of the New Digital American Family.

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Sad to see that era pass. Women had to go back to work to pay the taxes. That’s not progress!

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http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-noise-impacts-your-health/

14 APR
How Noise Impacts Your Health

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A friend of mine recently turned me on to a book called In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise by George Prochnik. Prochnik’s a self-proclaimed noise-a-phobe who sets out to probe both the culture of noise and science behind silence. His quest takes him everywhere from urban streets to university labs to a Quaker meeting to Trappist retreats. The stakes are high, experts tell him: one-third of us, Prochnik learns, demonstrate measurable hearing loss.

And it’s not just our ears that feel the toll. Noise, experts explain, causes stress that can result in serious health risk. A New York Times article last week reported ominous findings of a study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. Noise, and the stress and sleep disruption it imposes, appears to be responsible for 1.8% of heart attacks in Western Europe and 2.7% in more densely populated Germany.

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I used to listen to a lot of background noise. Water falling was my favorite. Instant sleep.

Now I’ve started to turn off the TV and radio I play as “background noise”. (That’s a habit my Mom had. Our Girl too. She liked music though.)

Maybe I should spend some time in the Trappist monastery?

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