American Anthem - Norah Jones

It is memorial day in the United States. I love the "music video" from the PBS series, Ken Burns "The War", a documentary about World War II.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRv7PXU-l2E

Here it is... and the lyrics are below.
All we've been given by those who came before,
the dream of a nation where freedom would endure.
The work and prayers of centuries have brought us to this day.
What shall be our legacy? What will our children say?
Let them say of me
I was one who believed in sharing the blessings I received.
Let me know in my heart when my days are through,
America,
America I gave my best to you.

Each generation from the plains to distant shore,
with the gifts that they were given were determined to leave more.
Valiant battles fought together,
acts of conscience fought alone,
these are the seeds from which America has grown.

Let them say of me
I was one who believed in
sharing the blessings I received.
Let me know in my heart when my days are through,
America,
America I gave my best to you.

For those who think they have nothing to share,
who fear in their hearts there is no hero there,
know each quiet act of dignity is
that which fortifies the soul of a nation that never dies.

Let them say of me I was one who
believed in sharing the blessings I received.
Let me know in my heart when my days are through,
America,
America I gave my best to you.

Norman Borlaug

During the mid-20th century, Borlaug led the introduction of these high yielding varieties combined with modern agricultural production techniques to Mexico, Pakistan, and India. As a result, Mexico became a net exporter of wheat by 1963. Between 1965 and 1970, wheat yields nearly doubled in Pakistan and India, greatly improving the food security in those nations. These collective increases in yield have been labeled the Green Revolution, and Borlaug is often credited with saving over a billion people from starvation.<sup>[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug</sup>

Star Spangled Banner

A little on the origins of the national anthem:

During the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key, accompanied by the American Prisoner Exchange Agent Col. John Stuart Skinner, dined aboard the British ship HMS Tonnant, as the guests of Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane, Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn and Major General Robert Ross. They were there to negotiate the release of a prisoner, Dr. William Beanes. A resident of Upper Marlboro, Maryland , Beanes had been captured by the British after he placed rowdy stragglers under citizen's arrest with a group of men. Skinner, Key and Beanes were allowed to return to their own sloop, but were not allowed to return to Baltimore because they had become familiar with the strength and position of the British units and of the British intention to attack Baltimore. As a result of this, Key was unable to do anything but watch the bombarding of Ft. McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore, and was inspired to write a poem describing the experience. Entitled "The Defense of Fort McHenry", intended to fit the rhythms of composer John Stafford Smith's "To Anacreon in Heaven", it has become better known as "The Star Spangled Banner". Under this name, the song was adopted as the American national anthem, first by an Executive Order from President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 (which had little effect beyond requiring military bands to play it,) and then by a Congressional resolution in 1931, signed by President Herbert Hoover.

A Decalogue of Canons for observation in practical life.

A Decalogue of Canons for observation in practical life.

1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have it.
4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.
5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
6. We never repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
9. Take things always by their smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.

Thomas Jefferson

Fabulous Quotes on Education

Here are some great quotes on education, teaching, and learning.

Thoughts of Great Teachers and Learners

Howard Gardner

* "If Confucius can serve as the Patron Saint of Chinese
education, let me propose Socrates as his equivalent in a Western
educational context - a Socrates who is never content with the initial
superficial response, but is always probing for finer distinctions,
clearer examples, a more profound form of knowing. Our concept of
knowledge has changed since classical times, but Socrates has provided
us with a timeless educational goal - ever deeper understanding."

Socrates

* "There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance."

Plato

* "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in
a year of conversation."

Plato

* "The object of education is to teach us love of beauty."

Aristotle

* "The educated differ from the uneducated, as the living from the dead."

Aristotle

* Teaching is the highest form of understanding.
* Pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.

Aristotle

* It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a
thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

* All men by nature desire knowledge.
* We cannot learn without pain.
* We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

Rousseau

* "Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. ..
Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are
grown is given us by education."

Brigham Young

* Education is the ability to think clearly, act well in the world
of work and to appreciate life.

Maria Montessori

* "If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the
children, for the children are the makers of men."

Henry Adams

* A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

Josef Albers

* Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving
of right answers.

John Dewey

* The origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion or doubt.
* One can think effectively only when one is willing to endure
suspense and to undergo the trouble of searching.

John Dewey

* Since there is no single set of abilities running throughout
human nature, there is no single curriculum which all should undergo.
Rather, the schools should teach everything that anyone is interested
in learning.

John Dewey

* Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's
knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed
earlier.

Albert Einstein

* It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative
expression and knowledge.
* Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simplier.

Albert Einstein

* "It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern
methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy
curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from
stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to
wrack & ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that
the enjoyment of seeing & searching can be promoted by means of
coercion & a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe that it would
be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness,
if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to
devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the food,
handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly."

Albert Einstein

* Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another,
it is the only means.

William Glasser

* Effective teaching may be the hardest job there is.

B.F. Skinner

* Many instructional arrangements seem "contrived," but there is
nothing wrong with that. It is the teacher's function to contrive
conditions under which students learn. It has always been the task of
formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or
enjoyable later in a student'slife.

John Holt

* "There is no difference between living and learning . . . it is
impossible and misleading and harmful to think of them as being
separate. Teaching is human communication and like all communication,
elusive and difficult...we must be wary of the feeling that we know
what we are doing in class. When we are most sure of what we are
doing, we may be closest to being a bore."

John Goodland

* "As one high school student put succinctly, "We are birds in a
cage. The door opens but there is a cat outside"

John Roueche

* Teachers who cannot keep students involved and excited for
several hours in the classroom should not be there.

Stephen Brookfield

* The best learners... often make the worst teachers. They are, in
a very real sense, perceptually challenged. They cannot imagine what
it must be like to struggle to learn something that comes so naturally
to them.

Stephen Brookfield

* We teach what we like to learn and the reason many people go
into teaching is vicariously to reexperience the primary joy
experienced the first time they learned something they loved.

John Updike

* The founding fathers in their wisdom decided that children were
an unnatural strain on their parents. So they provided jails called
school, equipped with tortures called education.

Howard Gardner

* "We've got to do fewer things in school. The greatest enemy of
understanding is coverage... You've got to take enough time to get
kids deeply involved in something so they can think about it in lots
of different ways and apply it."

Howard Gardner

* "I have become one of the most insistent critics of such tests,
feeling that, whatever they successfully assess, they miss much; that
they often fail to pick up the most important human capacities and
attributes; they favor the glib and the conventional rather than the
profound or the creative; and that people who do not understand these
instruments attribute to them much more merit than they actually
warrant."

Howard Gardner

* "In my view, if we are to encompass adequately the realm of
human cognition, it is necessary to include a far wider and more
universal set of competences than has ordinarily been considered. And
it is necessary to remain open to the possibility that many - if not
most - of these competences do not lend themselves to measurement by
standard verbal methods, which rely very heavily on a blend of logic
and linguistic abilities"

Howard Gardner

* We should use kids' positive states to draw them into learning in the
domains where they can develop competencies....You learn at your
best when you have something you care about and can get pleasure from
being engaged in.

pulpo gallego - how to make it

I learned today how to cook octopus. In Galicia they pound the octopus
before they boil it, or they freeze it (both break down the tissue)
then they "scare it" by putting it in hot water and then cold water
three times. Next time I spear an octopus I will know how to cook it.

Election Day Arousal - Patrick Henry's Speech

To hear this dramatized speech go here:
http://www.history.org/media/audio.cfm

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable ­ and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace ­ but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Nicaraguan canal

On September 29, 2006, Nicaraguan officials said an announcement would
be made soon on a $20-billion proposal to build a canal linking the
Pacific and the Atlantic oceans! - Wikipedia

Metaphor: The Lamb of God

Today David and JoAnn Seely presented an amazing lecture on the
metaphor of the lamb of god. They showed amazing art work and quotes
from the bible and other literature.

The poem "The Lamb" by William Blake illustrates many of the qualities
we view lambs as having. They devided the lecure into 3 parts, three
ways we can view the metaphor. The sacraficial lamb, the Suffering
Servant, and the Apocalyptic lamb.

They showed some amazing christian art work, a couple had melchezidek
portrayed, which I have not seen before. Abel had his sacrifice,
Melchedek had bread and wine (symbol of the sacrament) and Abraham was
sacrificing Issac in one mosaic.

Akedah is the greek word for Binding, which is what the jews call
Genesis 22 (When Abraham sacrifices Issac). There is an interesting
Jewish artwork (which is rare to find because the Jews did not make
much art because of the graven images problem) that illustrates this
event. There are two very different paintings by Carravaggio that
portray this event in two very distinct ways.

A group in Israel, the smaritans still practice animal sacrifice, but
it is culturally acceptable and a form a worship, unlike what it is
for us westerners. The children bring the lambs which they have raised
to the gathering, were people are happy, right at sundown the lambs
are sacrificed, and the people rejoice (in a good way).

We often think of death when we think of blood, but it would be more
proper to think of life. When Jesus gave his blood for us, he gave us
life. This is illustrated in Exodus 24:8 and Matt 26:28.

The image of the cross is often seen as a sad thing, when it can be
seen as a glorious thing. It is a symbol of triumph and vctory, often
the lamb (in paintings) is close to a banner, a banner uses a cross to
support the fabric of the banner. The metaphor of the lamb of god is
powerful and can change our lives.

The Long Now: Lecture on campus

I attended a lecture on campus sponsored by the Humanities Department.
The author of "The Long Now" spoke. Here are my notes:

I found the lecture interesting, even from the overflow room with only
a video feed of the slides. The main idea was that we should not be as
rushed. Time has been around a long time. He made a clock that is in
the mountains, that measures years by the thousands of years. It will
be interesting to see if he is remembered for that.

He talked about bristlecone pines how they are the oldest living
things on earth, 5000 years old. We don't know why the Jericho Tower
was built, nor Stonehenge. Perhaps they had something to do with time.

Shinto shrines in Japan are rebuilt every 20 years, because of all the
earthquakes and wet climate factors. This obviously did not happen
with Stonehenge. He also talked about the bowling ball shaped thing
that is on old globes. I have always wondered what that was! He showed
pictures of the sun's movement that demonstrated the purpose of the
object.

He showed slides of mosques in turkey that were left standing after
earthquakes because of the care in their building that had been taken.
He showed many pictures of mosques in Indonesia that were left
standing after the tsunami.

He talked about the dangers of global warming. It was interesting to
find out that Methane in sea beds can just come out, making the
atmosphere warmer. If the Ross Ice Shelf separates from Antarctica and
melts, Oceans will rise 16 feet! There is a trend that implicates that
we are moving toward a permanent El Nino effect.

Environmentalist have given Nuclear Fission a bad rap, and it is not
nearly as bad as most people think. They are creating portable
concrete containers to store nuclear waste. These are very useful, as
it delays the decision of where we will put this waste for 1000 years.

A Little Mixed Up - A poem

"Just a line to say I'm livin' - that I'm not among the dead.
Tho' I'm getting more forgetful, and more mixed up in the head.

"For sometimes I can't remember when I stand at the foot of the stair,
If I must go up for something, or if I just came down from there.

"And before the 'frig', so often, my mind is filled with doubt -
Have I just put food away, or have I come to take some out?

"There are times when it's dark out - with my night cap on my head,
I don't know if I'm retiring, or just getting out of bed.

"So, if it's my turn to write you, there's no need for getting sore,
I may think that I have written and don't want to be a bore.

"Just....remember, I do love you, and wish that you were here--
And now it's nearly mail time, so I must say, 'Good-bye,' dear."

There I stood beside the mail box, with a face so very red;
Instead of mailing you my letter, I had opened it instead.

author unkown