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Showing posts from August, 2008
Kudos to Monuments that get it right It’s refreshing to read that curators will be refurbishing the Boise Abe Lincoln statue , and transporting it from its obscure foliage-hidden-area, at the Veteran’s Home to a more prominent spot, in time to celebrate our Great Emancipator’s 200 th birthday. This move follows the spirit of Washington D.C. ’s Lincoln Memorial, in the sense that our ancestors deliberately installed this monument in a remote area of the National Mall. Although this tied in symbolically with the remote nature of Lincoln ’s personality, people wanting to honor the man more, made the pilgrimage to that isolated mall area so much, that we have transformed it into a “destination monument.” For more about what our historic sites get right or wrong, check out Dr. James W. Loewen’s groundbreaking, Lies Across America , also author of the American Book Award winner Lies My Teacher Told Me . From the book: “More than any other marker or monument on the American landscape, it
O Stone be not so In palindromic fashion Mr. Gee (brashly presenting himself for the first time): Madam, in Eden , I’m Adam Ms. Stone (thinking): SOS EVE SOS Mr. Gee: O Stone be not so Ms. Stone: (referring to pet wolfs) Step on no pets! Mr. Gee: Too hot to hoot? Ms. Stone: Ma is a nun as I am Mr. Gee: Y flow wolfy? Ms. Stone: Kook! Mr. Gee: Level madam level! Ms. Stone: Draw no evils deeds live onward Mr. Gee: Draw o coward Ms. Stone: Won’t lovers revolt now?
How powerful is Television? (From Slate Magazine) “ Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of three.” I’m not an expert on autism, but last summer I took a psychology class for the first time since the 1970’s. I remember reading from a textbook in the previous psyche class, three decades ago, a statement that claimed 95 percent of Americans dream in black and white. That study was made in the early 60's -an era when over 90 percent of TV shows in America were watched through black and white sets. The textbook from my recent College of Southern Idaho class, claimed exactly the opposite -that 95 percent of Americans dream in living color! What was there to explain for this grand shift? Could there be a correlation between the tones of Americans dreams and the types of TV’s they own? Is television high definition hypnotism, so powerful that not o
Civilizing Cells Bells While the Galena Summit anti-cell-tower crowd may have a legitimate complaint about the potentially dreadful manners of drivers who might blab on the phone, while distractedly driving over Galena ’s slippy slope, when taken in context with the multitude of benefits that a lifesaving tower could provide, they have blown this argument out of proportion. As with most tools, we can use cell phones for a mix of good and bad purposes. Parents can call to check on their children during extended voyages, to remind them how tenderly they care about them, whereas somebody barreling in the opposite direction might be verbally abusing a victim at the end of their line. If we become receptive to a Galena cell tower, it will then become drivers choices to use their potentially lifesaving phones in responsible ways - just as in ranges where cell phones already work. Travelers will have the option to ignore their phones if they ring on dangerous curves, or even turn them off, u