What's wrong with these pictures? :: ProLifeBlogs

Unlike some people (including some of my dear friends), I think that people who run newspapers and magazines have a fundamental right to refuse to run anything, for any reason, whether it's news or ads, and I don't think they should have to explain themselves. That doesn't mean I have to agree with them or support or condone their decisions, mind you. I just think that whoever owns and runs the publication should be free to put it together their way, since it is their publication, so long as they remain civilized. Let a thousand flowers bloom, and all that.

Having said that, if I ran a newspaper and someone brought these ads in and wanted to run them, I'm almost certain I'd have taken the money and I'd have run them. And since I have a blog, which I am free to run my way (at least under current conditions), I am happily linking to the rejected ads, for free, just to help the would-be advertisers get their views out. (So there ;-).

A Thumbs Up for Curious George the Movie

Stacy L. Harp of Mind & Media was invited to an advance screening of the new Curious George movie -- and loved it. See Blog For Books: Curious George the Movie for more.

GM's Corner -- Newest member of the team

While blogger GM Roper is in the hospital recovering from lung surgery (he's battling lung cancer), several folks have stepped to the plate to keep his blog rolling. The latest addition to the team is Liberty Dog.

His introduction is here. (I wouldn't skip this. Where else can you find someone who describes himself, among other things, as a "...minarchist small L libertarian with Objectivist tendencies. I believe strongly in small government, individual merit and self-reliance. I am a laissez-faire capitalist and an atheist. I am not, however, a militant atheist...")

And yes, that is not a profile that you might expect for someone writing at GM's Corner, but Woody (G.M.'s longtime co-contributor) says "...G.M. and I recognized Liberty Dog's talent and ideas several months ago and think that you might appreciate the offering of a similar, but sometimes different, viewpoint--which remains always courteous..."

Liberty Dog's first post is Liberals Tolerate Liberals--and, That's About All.

It's shaping up into a very interesting group running that blog.

Fight on, G.M.! Your buddies are good but it will be nice to have you back in the game.

Two updates on Haleigh Poutre's case

The Haleigh Poutre case in Massachusetts -- where the government guardians of a girl with brain injuries apparently gave up before she did -- is very disturbing.

So is some of the background that is now coming out. Her mother, Allison Avrett, is now saying that... Well, read for yourself: Biological mother seeks role in deciding care of brain-injured girl - Boston.com, by Mark Pratt, Associated Press Writer, February 8, 2006. Read the whole thing.

For more background, see Mass. Asked to Take Girl Off Life Support, by Adam Gorlick, Associated Press Writer, February 7, 2006.

My thanks, by the way, to AP for its coverage of this case. My thanks, too, to The Boston Globe and The Republican of Springfield for going after documents and digging on this.

BreakPoint | Park Rangers and Pilgrims

BreakPoint has a review and discussion of the book The Right to be Wrong by Kevin Hasson which begins:

In 1989, the builders of a tea garden in a San Francisco park inadvertently left a parking barrier behind. Four years of complaints yielded zero efforts to remove the eyesore. Then—and I’m not making this up—a group of New Agers began to venerate the barrier as “a manifestation of the Hindi god, Shiva.”

Quicker than you can say “wall of separation,” park rangers hastened to remove the now-sacred eyesore. While the barrier’s worshippers eventually got to keep the object of their veneration, officials insisted that their worship be in private.

It’s hard to imagine a better example of the tortured relationship between religion and public life. Fortunately, however, there’s a new book that offers a possible way out of the mess we have created...

Full commentary (Contains "further reading and information" links.)

For more information on the book from Barnes & Noble, click on the book cover below.


Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America

Author spotlight: Melissa Wiley

You do know, don't you, that there are several "Little House" books besides the ones written by Laura Ingalls Wilder? Books that look at the lives of Laura's ancestors?

Melissa Wiley, hostess of the blog Here in the Bonny Glen, has written some of them. Her author page is here. Her books include (among others):


Across the Puddingstone Dam (Little House Series: The Charlotte Years)


The Little House in the Highlands: (Little House Series: The Martha Years)


Little House by Boston Bay


Beyond the Heather Hills: The Martha Years (The Little House Series)


Down to the Bonny Glen

Zagreb coming and going

Yesterday morning, I finished reading Over My Dead Body, a Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin mystery by Rex Stout. The copyrights in my copy are 1939, 1940, 1968.

In addition to the priceless narrative by the incomparable Archie (can you tell I'm a fan?), and the sometimes wild plot twists (which I won't mention, so as to not spoil your fun if you read the book), what struck me about this book is that the author painted such a clear picture of Europe in trouble, and put in his two cents' worth about useful idiots running around doing stupid things and thinking they were making history. It lies underneath the plot, but it's there all the same, functioning, I think, as both a call for sanity in insane times and a warning or reminder that ruthless people bent on their own goals exist and must be dealt with.


Over My Dead Body

Rex Stout, for that matter, was a crusader against Nazis both in fiction and in real life, and he got in a few salvos in this book, again without burying the story in messages.

But here's the funny part. This book features a couple of characters who have come to America from Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Part of the story hinges on Nero Wolfe having been there in his younger days.

So, last night, after work was done and just before going to bed I finally finished watching Fiddler on the Roof on DVD (I've been watching it in stages). And when the credits rolled, what did I see but that it was filmed to a significant degree at Zagreb, Yugoslavia...

I don't know about you, but this is not a city that comes to my mind very often, if ever. And there it was, starting my day and ending it, too. These days, I might mention, it has become Zagreb, Croatia.

Fiddler on the Roof, I might add, is one of those movies that makes clear how much I've changed over the years. I'm sure when I watched it when I was young that I picked up on different things, cheered where I don't cheer now, liked different characters and for different reasons. And, doggone it, how did the daughters get younger with the passage of time? I look at them now and think how incredibly young they look. I'm sure that when I was more or less their age, they looked all grown up. (Sigh.)

Here in the Bonny Glen's Carnival of Children's Literature

Children's books lovers unite! (OK, so that might be a little over the top ;-).

At any rate, I'm looking forward to reading the entries in the first Carnival of Children's Literature, coming February 13, hosted by Here in the Bonny Glen. The deadline for entries is 6 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 11.

hat tip: Semicolon

We're discussing not-too-dry history books...

Krista over at Musings of a Lady is looking for recommendations for interesting history books. In a post called "Geekish Things" she says:

I hate a history that is merely dates, places, battles, and names. I want to know about the people who made things happen, the people who stand in the shadows...

Just off the top of my head (and glancing at my bookshelves), in no particular order, I'm going to suggest a look at Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King, Shrinking the Cat by Sue Hubbell (history as well as science), Names Through the Ages by Teresa Norman (which has history as well as names, and is great geek fun, in my geeky opinion), Power With Grace by Ishbel Ross (a biography of Mrs. Woodrow Wilson), Hard Bargain by Robert Shogan (FDR and Churchill), John Adams by David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough, (OK, practically anything by David McCullough), Washington Goes to War by David Brinkley, Spies of the Revolution by Katherine and John Bakeless, and New Land, New Lives: Scandinavian Immigrants to the Pacific Northwest by Janet E. Rasmussen (oral histories).

Another regional book with a narrower focus, which is sometimes dry facts and sometimes full of hilarious or odd happenings, is Cornerstone: The formative years of St. Vincent -- Oregon's first hospital by Ellis Lucia. It also has some great old photos, if you like that sort of thing.

For a really geeky entry, there's One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw, by Witold Rybczynski. Hey, don't laugh. This is about a tool that changed civilization, and its history encompasses more than you might think.

In the same vein, there's The Evolution of Useful Things by Henry Petroski and The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance, by the same author. I've long since sold my copies of those, but I seem to remember them as interesting reads.

This list is, admittedly, all over the board as far as subject matter, depth, and style. I hope Krista finds something she likes in it.

But I'm sure she'd like to have your recommendations, too. So would I, for that matter.

Anybody?

They also serve who build and grade

I just love it when engineers get put in the spotlight for a job well done :-). See: Big Islander literally moves mountains.

The hand raising kerfuffle (and kids weigh in)

I don't remember any of my teachers being cowed by the fact that some kids raised their hands more often than others. (Nor did kids who tried to stay invisible get away with it.) But apparently some teachers in London don't know how to deal with it, and so have posted "No hands up" notices. No, really. I couldn't make this stuff up.

And, no, I don't think that going to a no-hands-up policy in and of itself is necessarily a bad thing. I think that a teacher scanning the room and picking on the student he wants to pick on can work very well. For that matter, that's what I remember my teachers doing anyway, if they weren't content with whoever was vying the most strenously for attention. That old 'you never know when you'll be called on' idea has some merit, of course.

But to ban hand raising as if teachers can't bypass handraisers at their discretion strikes me as a bit odd.

And to do it for the reasons cited in the above-linked article -- most nobably, to contend that hand raising leads to feelings of victimization, for pity's sakes -- doesn't strike me as indicative of a healthy school environment, let's put it that way.

I feel for public school teachers these days. Really, I do. Troublemakers in the student body have too much protection, unions fight for the right of incompetent teachers and administrators to set the standards, too many parents have yielded their responsibilities to whoever will pick up the slack, the pop culture can't be helping young folks too much, etc.

But, honestly. Stuff like this makes it very hard to feel sorry for the teachers involved. Really it does.

If you're wondering what kids think, the CBBC has invited students to discuss Should you put your hands up in class?. The comments are all over the board, as you might imagine, but quite a few of these youngsters show some pluck and common sense. (A number of them, of course, appear to feel put upon by whatever option they're under. Are we surprised?)

One common topic seems to keep popping up, however. It seems like a lot of these kids think that the alternative to hand raising is to have students shouting out the answers. It sounds like that's what they're used to?

Update: More on this over at Either End of the Curve

The Bird's Nest: Women Sue Wal-Mart Over Contraception

That so many people seem to think that stores are somehow supposed to be run entirely by mindless, value-devoid pawns instead of self-determining human beings who answer to their own conscience is one of my pet peeves. Honestly, just because someone puts out an open sign does not mean that he's volunteered for social engineering duty. Really. If you don't like a store's policy, for crying out loud go open your own store and run it how you think it ought to be run, and may you both prosper, after your own fashion, with your own customers, in proportion to your merits. And stop suing people for having their own minds and hearts and hopes and dreams and---

*Deep breath*

*Unclench jaw*

*End of rant* (For now, at least.)

As you might have guessed, this is one of the things that gets under my skin. So I am delighted to find someone who maintains a better outlook than I sometimes slide into on this issue.

From Sharon at the bird's nest, in a post on those women who are suing Wal-Mart in Massachusetts:

Then this comes along. Is it not just another attack on Wal-Mart? Ok, these women were inconvenienced because a baby-killer prescription is not offered at their store. It states right there in the article- "CVS, the state's largest pharmacy chain, stocks the pill at all of its drugstores." Could they not have just gone to CVS?

Yes, they could have. Instead, they have to draw attention to another store for not being liberal enough. It's getting a bit ridiculous.

What she said.

It's getting a bit ridiculous.

Welcome, Nathaniel Hector Correa

Mark Correa, who writes the A Dad Is Born blog, and his wife Amanda welcomed their firstborn into the world yesterday evening -- and then had to fly him to a children's cardiac center. This is not what they expected, by any stretch.

Best of luck, you three.

Joust The Facts: Ahh, New Hampshire

I live in Oregon, which does all elections by mail. It's convenient, but I suspect it tosses timid people to the sharks of their households. Add in the registration options available today (You have an electric bill? That will do...), and who knows who is actually marking ballots?

So, hey! Hooray for New Hampshire, which is trying to cut down on voter fraud.

Giacomo has info (and commentary).

Another Western Union end-of-the-telegram story

I posted on this yesterday, but Jen Haberkorn of the Washington Times has a nice article on it today: Western Union announces end of telegram services.

normblog: Hot joke?

Poetic humour ;-).

Yesterday's news : Friday, May 29, 1896: Schoolchildren move a house

The Star Tribune of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, has a blog called Yesterday's news, which features stories from the paper's archives. This January 30, 2006, post begins:

How many children does it take to move an old, decrepit house six miles? The answer, Minneapolitans learned back in 1896, was about 10,000.

Two years earlier, a Minneapolis Journal reporter had tracked down the oldest wood-frame house west of the Mississippi and proposed to have the city’s schoolchildren team up to move the structure from its temporary address, 324 16th Av. S., to Minnehaha Park, where the Stevens House would be preserved for future generations to enjoy.

The newspaper solicited donations, added its own money and bought the house, then organized the move with the support of the Park Board, the school board, the mayor and the streetcar company. On May 28, 1896, about 10,000 first- through 12th-grade students got a day off from school to handle the big job. In seven relay teams, they latched onto ropes and helped 10 horses pull the house down Minnehaha Avenue to a spot outside the park.

You can imagine the mayhem...

After a bit more introduction, the very long article from 1896 is republished, with one snip (certain dignitaries apparently waxed eloquently on and on, and on and on, according to the information in the snip). There are illustrations, including a photo of the house being moved.

Western Union Telegrams A Thing of the Past

I'm sure the era of the telegram effectively ended a while ago, but it's more or less official now. From the westernunion.com website:

Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage.

The telegraph changed the world. Just being able to send news of ceasefires or surrenders made a huge difference, of course (doesn't it just break your heart how many soldiers got killed in the old days when wars were over but their officers didn't know it yet?) -- but there were also a lot of civilian uses. Construction of railroads, calls for help, warnings of fires, floods, you name it. The telegram was useful, and it changed the way the world worked. It also changed the pace of life, for better and for worse.

And then there were the dreams. For a while after international telegraph service was set up, some folks thought that world peace was at hand, because, after all (they argued) if you can just communicate there won't be any misunderstandings, and if there aren't any misunderstandings there won't be any fighting. (And you thought hippie-think was new, eh?) Some newspapers bought into this delusion and ran with it. (And you thought that the odd and sometimes-dangerous phenomenon of journalists being utopians was new, too, eh?)

The following book covers history directly and indirectly related to the telegraph. I found author Tom Standage's insistence on drawing parallel after parallel with the Internet sometimes a wee bit grating, but otherwise found it a good read, and very interesting; enjoyable as well as informative.


The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers

Bookworm Room: The Great Conservative Slogan Contest

Bookworm has launched a slogan contest. Get your entries in.

Short and sweet

To laugh or not to laugh, that is the question...