o’incroyable

Continuing on the theme of the small Puffin’s dedication to the written word (lately especially of Mr Ransome)… Puffin was besieged by terrible bug and amid bonfire style temperature, puking his ring up, incapacitated by headache and drowsy state could be heard requesting in a delicate voice in the dark “I wish you could read …” . Point out to Puffin since he’s finding the light very troubling and they are all turned off it would be difficult to read in the dark. “You could go stand in the next room and call out the words to me from there…”

Really, bless, bless. 

Not to be getting to evangelical about literature, oh what the heck, literature can save us. It also got us through the chickenpox a few years back and we’ve walked miles walking and reading, which sounds bizarre probably, but no more so than walking and talking on the phone. 

 Am finding bird population marginally more remarkable than ever previous in this lifetime, probably because I never looked at them til Puffin insisted we bird watch in the middle of busy city streets. Really gulls aren’t bad looking, when they’re not staring at you and 7 songbirds outside the window today in some kind of birdy Eurovision had me feeling quite remarkable. Now Puffin stops on the street to take in some hidden clump of feathers and immediately passing strangers stop and stare up same way people do when there’s a road accident or a fight breaks out. Beginning to think the UN should hand out binoculars ….

Bush’s reading wars

Hmmm. Bush has quietly declared a war on reading. 2 million bucks? My own experience with this new emphasis on phonics is it’s a major pain in the arse for the children who were doing quite dandy on the whole language route because you’re now under pressure to sound everything out, despite it being an extremely tedious way of learning. It reduces language to a packet of tic-tacs.

 Besides it’s hard not to be deeply suspicious of something Bush supports — he’s hardly an example of fluency himself. I must dig out the nuclear example. (There’s a great gaff during a speech on literacy floating about, not on this link though) or http://www.dubyagump.com/ (This fella, of f. u. Cheney fame, has a follow up Dubya moment on youtube that’s very funny.

(From New York Times) 

Across the country — in Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine and New Jersey — schools and districts with programs that did not stress phonics were either rejected for grants or pressured to change their methods even though some argued, as Madison did, that their programs met the law’s standard.

You can see the future, school budgets will be based on how many copies of the bible in the school library …  a bonus for statues and religious iconography. Jesus Camp (clips can be found on youtube) is a great view for anyone interested in the indoctrination of children. It’s not just religious anymore, the documentary exposes the politicisation of these children, who were shown praying for the election of particular Judge (with an anti abortion position), praying intensely for a right wing government. It’s a fascinating documentary.

And down came the flag

Enjoyed this story:

 Vandals have stolen the huge Olympic flag that has been flying at Vancouver City Hall the past year.

Police say someone broke the lock on the flag pole early Tuesday, cut the rope, brought the flag down to the ground and then ripped it off the cable.

Just a small strip of cloth, about 10 centimetres by a metre, was left behind.

 It must be said that it was quite athletic feat to get the thing down, not entirely sure why they are calling them “vandals” ..they’re obviously activists. The average vandal doesn’t shimmy up a pole to make a point, usually a can of spray paint or a brick suffices. The flag dipped just as some important international crowd was arriving to celebrate it I believe.