misreading 2020

 I saw a Christmas decoration of Santa peeing on a year sign of 2020. But I believe the sentiment is wrong. Not wrong like people don't get it, but wrong in assuming 2020 deserves to be peed on.

I think 2020  has given us a new perspective, of course in order to do that it had to seriously play with our old perspective, and perhaps that is what people don't like.

This year has several major challenges for those of us in the USA, and at least one or two for those of us world-wide.

We have the pandemic which I see as a challenge that has changed many ways things were done, has brought a new amount of tech in our lives. The pandemic has changed my life from one of running everywhere and eating 2-3 meals per day in my car to one where I am home, need to be home, to manage my kids on-line schooling stuff. (tech-love it, hate it). This summer I did massive amounts of gardening and loved being outside and watching plants grow. Using the produce also is fulfilling. Canning, drying, baking, freezing, it all makes eating a wrapped bar in the car seem kinda wrong.

Masks don't bother me. Sewing masks helped me feel useful to my fellow men. Wearing them makes me feel like I am respecting the life and rights of others, and research suggests it does.

Most of the social distancing doesn't bother me. In many ways, it helps me appreciate the interactions I do get with others, whether at the grocery store or stealing that hug from my mother. I do not mind wearing leggings all the time and not worrying about the PJs my preschooler refuses to take off. (I do worry about teaching him to wear clothes again, or finding out none of my pants fit anymore).

And I didn't really lose my job, it's there in some incarnation when I am ready for it (hehehe, maternity leave + on-line schooled kids) of course this made finances tighter, but there I am lucky and was just able to request the help I needed. I know many other people will struggle with this, but it is an opportunity to gain education or to hopefully find something better.

And that is one of the challenges of the pandemic is economic. Those who have money find that many local stores can not get things in that are selling because the factories have been shut down, or can't get raw materials in. I think it is opening many eyes to the challenges of long supply chains.

And of course, then there are racial tensions, the whites only notice it when it disrupts their daily lives or ends up on the news, even though it has been an underlying problem for hundreds of years. Being made aware is often not a gentle process. But the less gentle the process the more people may realize something is there.

And climate change marches on, bringing with it extreme weather events of all sorts. Apocalyptic scenes on the daily news. I realized as I was helping Ewan prepare a presentation on the Joplin F5 tornado in 2011, that no one says anymore that any single event can not be linked to climate change. It turns out it cans and has, since the outbreak of 2011 caused an increase in research and study. Basically, what happens as the arctic warms at 3 times the rate of the rest of the world this decreases the gradient of temps between the artic and midlatitude that causes the jetstream its stable course, so the jet stream ends up with big dips and curves and sometimes even ends up going longitudinally instead of latitudinally, that north/south movements locks the weather pattern in place and creates a longer front across the continent, bringing cold arctic air far south to bunch up with the superheated, moist air coming off the extra warmed Atlantic ocean and creating a perfect mix of stuff to produce strong storms of all sorts, and not just strong storms, but weather patterns that last for days instead of hours because the North/south jet stream patterns gets blocked into place. This blocking pattern also causes other weather to get locked into place- like the path of hurricanes this year, or dry - hot weather causing feeding the wildfires in the west.

And on top of all these fun things we have politics this year- oh yeah- a white house that has lied so often about so much that you know they have no clue what or where the truth really is, which makes it next to impossible to have a national response to any of the challenges listed above that we have faced this year. 

But the slowdown, that time to re-analyze instead of run. That time to focus on the really important- those things that truly matter when the rest of the world is upended- just happen to be the things that truly matter in eternity; Our relationships with God and our family (family can stretch to all the people we love). I believe that refocus change make 2020 one of the best years.

One by One

I have been a teacher of record for Freshman Comp as a graduate assistant for the last 2.5 years. My stint is up in December, as I will graduate. We were given minimal guidance on what or how to teach. So I naturally pulled on my 40+ years of experience teaching things like Nursery, Primary Music, Sunday School, Relief Society, Ballet, and as a homeschooling mother.

The most important thing I ever learned about teaching is that everybody is an individual. I do not teach a class of 30, I teach 30 individuals in a class. Each comes with different experiences, different styles of learning, and different skills they need to build. Their brains and bodies each work in their own unique ways.

I try hard to learn every name every semester. I try to remember their strengths, weaknesses, tolerances for complication and to adjust my discussions, expectations, council, and encouragement for each one.

We can never choose what others are ready to learn, and if they are not ready to learn it, no amount of lecturing or assignments will get them there. What a true teacher really needs to do is meet the students where they are at, and work with them where they are at. If that means sectioning your lecture to cover different needs for different students, then do it.  A beautiful, cohesive, focused lecture will only help the students ready for that material. But if you hit 5 topics, perhaps you can help 5 times as many students.

The other thing I think is crucial is to love them, everyone, individually. Get to know them. Acknowledge their presence, and thank them for coming, discuss their favorite topics. Moving away from home, to a dorm, being in classrooms or lecture halls with 100s of other students, eating dinner in a noisy dining hall, can all be human processing- even dehumanizing. It is easy to become a number or an ID login, and everyone, especially those in emerging adulthood need to be reminded that they are more than a grade or a transcript. So I look in their eyes, write down what I like about what I am seeing in their papers and make a point to call them by name at least once every class. I grade individually, looking for growth in their skills and thought processes, and try to challenge appropriately.

No, I do not teach according to the latest techniques or theories, even if I know them, they are only useful to a small subset at any one time. No, I try to teach what each student needs.  I teach one by one.

American Humorist Novelists

I am at the Mayo Clinic this week, for my son's yearly appointments. School is done for the semester, so I have time to kill, without homework to fill it. I picked up a Terry Pratchett novel. Ever laughed out loud in waiting rooms? or explained to a nurse what you found so funny?

I have found that the best humorist Novelists seem to be English, and not American (of course, it is very hard to read a humorist novel that is not in your native language and understand it well enough to find it funny).

So I looked  up a list of American Humorist Novelists- the list seems to start and stop at Mark Twain- yeah there was a few stand up or TV comedians who wrote books and made the list- but I discount them as not being primarily novelists, as they don't make their bread and butter from it.

So why can't Americans write funny novels?
Perhaps it is National Health Care (Ok, does anybody know if Canada has any humor novelists?)
Maybe Americans are too concerned with earning enough money from their books so they can afford health insurance, that they can not be as off-the-wall funny?

If you look at the English Humorists Novelists, they are zany, they know they can have fun with words and ideas, whereas Americans always try too hard to make things make sense.

When was mark twain funny? When he was taking things lightheartedly- when he was making fun of things or just wondering. This question could make a fun Ph.D thesis. THis the
y can have fun with words and ideas, whereas Americans always try too hard to make things make sense

Read it and Rise Up

/https://happiness-seekers.com/2018/04/30/gods-secret-tribute-to-women-a-hebrew-word-that-will-change-the-way-you-see-womanhood/

It sure seems to be a more accurate job description of the jobs we as women actually do.

descriptive word play

It was green, the kind of green that scientifically was chosen to calm people and so for decades graced ERs, hospitals and waiting rooms, but looking at it now made you feel queasy and brought to mind the smells of antiseptic and cries of pain.

How does Politeness work in Social Media?

Questions to consider:

How does politeness interact with social media, blogs, vlogs and minimal space mediums like tweeting?

Isn't politeness the grease of the social clockwork?s this grease ignored entirely for reasons of shock/attention span or character space? Or did it evolve and change forms?

We know some of the evolution:
All caps = yelling
Terminal periods on texts and tweets seem severe, nay even aggressive. Crair says that line breaks are more effective than the humble period, and terminal periods are completely unnecessary and therefore if they are used, they hold a different meaning, that being one of "pissed."

What about things like  :), or ;p, Where do they come in for politeness? When and how are they properly used?

When does discussion get uncomfortable? or offensive?

Does proper sentence structure show respect to your topic?

Creative Commons and the Sharing Economy

Have you heard about Creative Commons? It is a sharing economy's way of maintaining credit for your work while allowing people to use it and share it and add to it. There are similar platforms for Live Open Science, instantly shared and connected science works. The creators of that were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013. The developed software for that has been superseded with a more advanced platform called Open Hab (although this may not be the right name, as I  can not find evidence of it).

Anyways, back to Creative Commons. There are many different levels you may copyright your work at, depending upon how open you want to be with how others can share or add to it. And they have a multi layered tag attached that is instantly read by computer and humans. It is a cool interaction between the human creativity and the computer technology.

I really like concepts related to building a sharing economy and realizations that as robots/tech can replace a lot of our daily work what will we have left except our humanity/creativity? Therefore I would suggest that part of the change towards the sharing economy that we should consider is the concept of Universal Income or Basic Income. I know experiments are being tried in Finland and Norway and Washington state.

I wonder how much of a golden age we could enter as a world society if everyone had their basic needs met and were left to their creativity, especially if they were up to sharing it all?

Interesting Ideas in Digital literacy:

"Digital literacy is not about the skills of using technologies, but how we use our judgment to maintain awareness of what we are reading and writing, why we are doing it, and whom we are addressing."

Maha Bali makes a most interesting point that judgment and awareness are needed even as we are quietly sitting at home on a computer because now this time is spent connected to the world.

Wow- makes me want to snuggle up with a good book.

What do you think?

Learning

We are homeschooling all of our children this year. 7 kids and we are trying to survive in harmony.

The interesting this is that we are discovering that we are teaching art, chores and cooperation more then academic work. We are letting the kids explore the work around them. Everything to Caterpillar and butterfly pets to learning music and horse-riding. The youngster are beginning to ask questions and are finding their own personal thirst for knowledge, rediscovering innate curiosity.

I find it interesting how many of the essential life living skills are ignored entirely in schools, things like tying your shoes, working in cooperation, doing things because you want to make life better for yourselves or loved ones, making food, growing food, chores, teaching others, being kind, living in a community. I find it interesting that we put so much effort into academic pursuits that we forgot how to feed ourselves, and we put so much emphasis on ¨earning a living" that we forgot how to live our lives everyday.

Schools also seemed to forget that the foundations of academic learning lie in the arts and essential life skills.  Once those skills are mastered, then it is much easier to understand and incorporate the academics skill sets.

Nothing quite liking having 2 weeks at home with your kids to realize what essential skills they are lacking. Maybe we will start with conflict resolution.

Unleash the Youth!

In the Book of Mormon there is a story about a group of people who buried their weapons of war and committed to peace. This was great until a big war came about. Then the people felt bad that they couldn't help fight to protect their lands and people, but their children had not made that covenant. So the young people, just kids 10- 16ish years old stepped up and created an army.

Untrained, and young enough to be fearless, they learned the art of war while protecting their people. In the larger army, these young people, what we would call tweens and teenagers (usually with a sigh, rolling our eyes), repeatedly stepped in and saved the older warriors. Over and over they had the energy and vitality to do what was needed doing to save the day.

In our fight to keep our planet inhabitable, in our fight for a better world, should we leave our young people in Jr. High? Or should we let them form an army of doers, designers, and  thinkers?

Are our young people not up to the task of saving our planet from us? Do we not need the help in redesigning our systems?

They have bodies stronger and more supple then ours. They have brains as fast as lightening, and  energy to do and lots of energy to do. They were born using computer technologies, and They are also free of the distractions of making a living.

WHY ARE WE NOT UTILIZING THIS GREAT RESOURCE?

We can trust them, they are un-jaded, they just need to be pointed in the right direction and given a few course corrections now and then.

They learn responsibility by having responsibility. They learn to do things by doing things. They have pure motives.

We need to trust them and watch them earn it and re-earn it 100 times over.  They will save the day if we let them.

The Nursing Culture

I have seen too much lately about rape culture. In the world were we live we have become obsessed with idea that breasts are sexual items and that the sight of them and make a man's hormones get the better of him. However, in my experience, the only person to go gaga at my sight of my breasts is my hungry nursing babies.

I have weaned 5 boys, and not 1 of them thinks anything of seeing breasts of a mother nursing her baby. To them it is just the way babies eat. Of course, I suspect in the right circumstances, where a girl is attempting to entice them (like on their wedding night) I trust that the right unveiling of the breasts will get the their male parts to stand at attention. However, even in those circumstances one would have to admit that the reason they stir feelings is that the ultimate role is that in nurturing the children created in that bond.

So anyways, my basic attempt here is to theorize that if people were used to thinking of breasts in terms of nurturing babies, then maybe, just maybe, they would be much less inclined to think of them as purely sexual objects. And that if we, as a culture, were used to seeing them used as natures intended purposes, then perhaps we might not think of them as objects, but as an integral part of motherhood, and nurturing.

Maybe, we need to re-throne motherhood to dethrone the sexualization of our culture.

Soul Sucking

It is always fun, in a soul sucking way, to  meet with our financial advisers. Part of the fun is the fact that we have spent (and continue to spend) the vast majority of our time and energies raising our children. Among our 7 beautiful additions to this world are 3 that have special needs. Yes, we deal with autism, ODD, spinal bifida, mood disorders, the terrible twos and the dreaded teenagers on a daily basis.

 They suggest we hire outside help for the children so we can go and get a career. (Even if we don't break even on costs of career income minus a tutor for our children). Le Sigh... Of course that often seems to be kin to a major sin to refuse to perpetuate a broken system that values your contributions out of your home more then the contributions within your home.  Of course, when you make your money out of the stock and bonds system, anything that grow the economy is good for you. So if I get a job, and have to hire my job out and then drive through on the way hone because I am too tired to cook. It all adds to the economy (as it is counted), but subtracts from what matters most to me, my family. It just doesn't seem logical to do so. When I consider this scenario, I hear a life sucking sound, where all my efforts go to building someone else's coffers and not the one things that truly matter.

Everything we do is for our children. I just wish it could make a difference in the longevity of the world. Sometimes, other times I kinda look towards heaven and wish the end of the world to hurry up. But maybe that should be part of my equation. What good is a career and investments in financial markets when the world ends?

With what time we may or may not have left on the planet, should I not also consider that the economy as we know it perpetuates the destruction of the world? Without the desires for increased wealth would we not have made better decisions as a country or world? Would we not have possibly considered that we can't breathe soot or drink liquid coal and put tons of CO2 into the atmosphere with no consequences?

Seriously folks... you are worried about my retirement plan, instead of if there will be a world to retire on?

PS- I don't plan on retiring, I plan on working and building and learning and teaching and creating as much positive in the world as I can all the days of my life. I plan to prepare for the changes ahead and to ride through them with my family.

Dress well, thy part.

So let me ask a few questions. Does one go to a business meeting in a bathrobe or swim suit? What would happen if you did? You would turn a few heads, be snickered at, perhaps asked to go home and change, or maybe even get fired?

Does one get married in their grubbies? Or go to the fancy restaurant in the same clothes you use for scrubbing a toilet?

How many hours does the average lady spend in front of a mirror everyday to look the way she thinks is her?

Does not every stage costumer purposely construct the look of the character down to the smallest details to tell you what you need to know about them before they even open their mouth?

Do we not dress for the parts we play everyday?

And if so, then it is only reasonable to assume that if we dress like we are seeking male sexual attention that we would then get male sexual attentions? (ie, if you dress like a slut, you are must likely going to be treated like a slut.)

But wait- You don’t want this attention? Then just maybe you should consider dressing for the kind of attention you wish to receive.

I just finished reading an article that complained about the school asking the girls to refrain from wearing tight pants and belly showing shirts to school because they “distracts the boys.” They writer of the article claims that it teaches girls that they are to blame for how the boys treat them, and this creates the “rape culture.”

Seriously, we are now blaming men for the fact that they are hard wired to look at girls?

Yes, ideally, real men will look and never touch, and treat you like a respected equal no matter what you are wearing. But let’s face it, it is hard for the best of us to do that, (not to mention 12 year old boys) we try, but we still judge others on how they present themselves, and quiet often we treat them according to how they dress and behave.

So either you can agree with the writer and believe dress codes blame girls for being raped. Or you can accept the fact humans are humans and subject to biological follies, and use that to your advantage.

And one more word: if you drink to much and walk down dark alleys alone at night, it is not the “rape culture” that will get you. It is your own stupidity. Years ago there were a lot of concrete rules to prevent women from behaving in those ways that were most likely to compromise them.  Dark alleys and drunk girls are putting themselves in compromised situations, no matter what the decade or century is. Yes, the raper is guilty, 100%, but you most likely could have prevented it had you first thought about the possible consequences.

How to Handle Challanging behavior in children

A new Approach-


http://acestoohigh.com/2012/04/23/lincoln-high-school-in-walla-walla-wa-tries-new-approach-to-school-discipline-expulsions-drop-85/

There are just two simple rules, says Turner.

Rule No. 1: Take nothing a raging kid says personally. Really. Act like a duck: let the words roll off your back like drops of water.

Rule No. 2: Don’t mirror the kid’s behavior. Take a deep breath. Wait for the storm to pass, and then ask something along the lines of: “Are you okay? Did something happen to you that’s bothering you? Do you want to talk about it?”

It’s not that a kid gets off the hook for bad behavior. “There have to be consequences,” explains Turner. Replace punishment, which doesn’t work, with a system to give kids tools so that they can learn how to recognize their reaction to stress and to control it. “We need to teach the kids how to do something differently if we want to see a different response.

Principals for a non-political party

Principals for a non-political party

1. We believe we need to educate all people in sustainable and local farming and food production.
2. We believe that the family is the basis for a healthy and sustainable communities and together they are a hedge against the challenges of climate change and peak fossil based energy.
3. We believe that every action we undertake should be in consideration of the impact upon our next 7 generations.
4. We believe that war is a waste of resources except in defense of your liberty, life and family.
5. We believe that GDP and other economic indicators is not a way to measure what matters most to the health and happiness of a people, and that debt is not a way to finance.
6. We believe that death is not to be feared, but to be seen as a natural part of life, and that the natural life process is sacred.

Civilization takes civilaized behavior

I read this article today: http://www.businessinsider.com/18-signs-the-collapse-of-society-is-accelerating-2011-6#

And it does point out some trends I have been seeing this week.... now I understand what was talked about in General Conference as we were admonished to be kinder, more helpful, and really watch our behavior to be/stay an example of Christ.

And indeed I have found more times this past week were I have had to censor my own language or thoughts. And I was wondering what makes the swearing seem normal? Of course, all I had to do was look around at the media, mass and semi private to see it. It is way more common and way more accepted. But that does not mean that we need to allow ourselves to follow the trend towards less civilized behaviors.

Stand up for goodness, stand out due to polite behavior.

Welcome to the Third World

A great little article.... read it and weep.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brooks18-2008sep18,0,6908905.column

rant

Hi,
I really need you all to get on over to my website and prove to me that there are ecologically minded people in this world.

Because when people write a post like this http://autismbitestheblog.blogspot.com/
I just want to barf. Apparently they haven't read this http://cbs11tv.com/health/autism.coal.power.2.712702.html

and put two and two together- which in their case equals 6 autistic children. Of course the need to have something now, obviously must outweigh the need to protect our future generations from the same, or worse, things then we are suffering through.

Of course if gas were to drop down to $1/ gallon again I would probably give up hope that there would be future generations- at least of anything other then cockroaches and a few very adaptable weeds. But hey, the need for me to drive a lot in a big SUV outweighs those considerations. But of course, we all know that if we destroy this planet, the Lord is sure to give us a new one. (please notice this line IS dripping with sarcasm)

And while we are on that topic I have come to understand that all the nasty stuff talked about in revelations- all the end times wars, famines, plagues and what not- that we have/ are bringing those on ourselves. The Lord is not sending them. He was just warning us. It is our actions as citizens of this planet that have/are making those happen. Can I say that again? It is our actions as citizens of this planet that have/are making those happen.

That means that we have the power to change it. But first we got to change ourselves.

He who is prepared shall not fear.

Ok,
I fully expect gas to reach $5/ gallon this next winter. After all, have we ever seen it climb higher or faster then we have in the last 2 years? And knowing that the factors making it climb are only going to keep pushing it higher.

Our heating bills last winter already topped $1000/month (it was a cold winter). So, while the temperature is just beginning to get decent outside, I got to ask myself the question... how are we going to prepare to survive this next winter?

I wonder what it would take to get our arc built in time?

The overriding challenge for our generation is to build a new
economy—one that is powered largely by renewable sources of
energy, that has a much more diversified transport system, and
that reuses and recycles everything. We have the technology to
build this new economy, an economy that will allow us to sustain
economic progress. Can we build it fast enough to avoid a
breakdown of social systems?