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February 28, 2007
Caitlin friends - 2006
Posted at 04:07 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Children
February 27, 2007
Yi Wah and Leann, August 2006
Yi Wah and Leann, August 2006
Posted at 09:57 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Children
February 25, 2007
Bully in the family
"A favorite tactic of the bully in the family is to set people against each other. The benefits to the bully are that: the bully gains a great deal of gratification from encouraging and provoking argument, quarrelling and hostility, and then from watching others engage in adversarial interaction and destructive conflict, and the ensuing conflict ensures that people's attention is distracted and diverted away from the cause of the conflict."
"Bullies within the family, especially female bullies are masters of manipulation and are fond of manipulating people through their emotions (e.g. guilt) and through their beliefs, attitudes and perceptions. Bullies see any form of vulnerability as an opportunity for manipulation, and are especially prone to exploiting those who are most emotionally needy."
. . .
The bully may try to establish an exclusive relationship (based on apparent trust and confidence) with one family member such that they (the bully) are seen as the sole reliable source of information; this may be achieved by portraying the target (and certain other family members) as irresponsible, unstable, undependable, uncaring, unreliable and untrustworthy, perhaps by the constant highlighting - using distortion and fabrication - of alleged failures, breaches of trust, lack of reliability, etc.
Tim Fields on bullying within the family, on "Thru the Looking Glass" blog, February 1, 2007
Posted at 09:07 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Children
"The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
"Kurt Vonnegut and The No Asshole Rule," Bob Sutton, Work Matters, February 22, 2007
"The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't," by Robert I. Sutton
Posted at 08:10 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Free Markets
February 18, 2007
Don't rail at idiots...
“À force de nous inquiéter des imbéciles, il y a danger de le devenir soi-même.”
“By dint of railing at idiots, one runs the risk of becoming idiotic oneself.”
-- Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet, June 28-29, 1853 (trans. Irving Babbitt)
via Terry Teachout
or:
"If we keep troubling ourselves with imbeciles, we run the risk of becoming imbeciles ourselves."
See also Terry Teachout
Posted at 10:17 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Fun
February 17, 2007
Wales to visit Keith, November 2006
Posted at 12:47 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Children , Fun
February 16, 2007
Winter formal 2006
Posted at 07:41 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Children
February 15, 2007
Sonny Rollins on the road - with Bret Primack
Bret Primac has a fantastic channel on YouTube - JazzVideoLand. We love this video of Sonny Rollins, but check out the entire channel: JazzVideoLand.
Sonny Rollins is such a beautiful artist, and this video really brings that out.
Posted at 07:37 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Fun
February 14, 2007
Why you praise children for their hard work....
According to a survey conducted by Columbia University, 85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart. In and around the New York area, according to my own (admittedly nonscientific) poll, the number is more like 100 percent. Everyone does it, habitually. The constant praise is meant to be an angel on the shoulder, ensuring that children do not sell their talents short.
But a growing body of research--and a new study from the trenches of the New York public-school system--strongly suggests it might be the other way around. Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.
"How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praise," by Po Bronson, New York magazine, February 13, 2007
That's why you praise your children for their hard work and perseverance - those are qualities they can change and those qualities will be helpful to them no matter what they do in life. How "smart" they are they can't change. I'm convinced that the praising of children for being "smart" is a reflection not of brighter children, but of insecure parents competing with other insecure parents.
Also see "For once, blame the student," by Patrick Welsh, USA Today, March 7, 2006:
What many of the American kids I taught did not have was the motivation, self-discipline or work ethic of the foreign-born kids.
Politicians and education bureaucrats can talk all they want about reform, but until the work ethic of U.S. students changes, until they are willing to put in the time and effort to master their subjects, little will change.
A study released in December by University of Pennsylvania researchers Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman suggests that the reason so many U.S. students are "falling short of their intellectual potential" is not "inadequate teachers, boring textbooks and large class sizes" and the rest of the usual litany cited by the so-called reformers -- but "their failure to exercise self-discipline."
Quotes about hard work
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Genius will not. Education will not. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Press on."
-- Ray Kroc
"If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly."
-- G.K. Chesterton"Dissatisfaction with oneself is one of the foundation stones of every real talent."
-- Anton Chekov"Let us be grateful to Adam, our benefactor. He cut us out of the 'blessing' of idleness and won for us the 'curse' of labor."
-- Mark Twain"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."
-- Winston Churchill"I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work."
-- Benjamin Franklin"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."
-- Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)"The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight.
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night."
-- Longfellow, "The Ladder of St. Augustine""Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."
-- Theodore Roosevelt"The truth is that many successful people are no more talented than unsuccessful people. The difference between them lies in the old axiom that successful people do those things that unsuccessful people don't like to do."
-- Harvey Mackay
Posted at 06:07 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Children
February 12, 2007
A little angel and an old photo
This is the little angel
The angel is the little one....
Uh, this is the old photo
Posted at 11:57 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Children
The End is Near! - II
Why did global population increase so dramatically in the 20th century, rising from about 1.6 billion in 1900 to a bit over six billion today? As Harvard University demographer Nicholas Eberstadt puts it: "Global population increased not because people started breeding like rabbits, but because they stopped dying like flies."
"Our man in science goes to Congress," by Ronald Bailey, February 4, 2004
Posted at 06:37 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Humor , Politics
February 06, 2007
VYS Avalanche
Waters Field
130 Cherry Street South, Vienna, VA or 128 S Center Street
Vienna Elementary School,
128 S Center St, Vienna, VA
Northern Virginia Jewish Community Center, Gym B
8900 Little River Turnpike, Fairfax, VA
Posted at 07:02 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Notes to Self
February 05, 2007
The Vietnam War divided Vietnam
We always hear how the Vietnam War divided the United States. Odd how few people mention the way the Vietnam War divided Vietnam. I wasn't aware that the war had divided THE WORLD; seems rather chauvinistic, but perhaps people in Namia and Guam and Tibet had bitter arguements over the subject. Anyway, ads in WW2 did not appeal to a yearning for peace. They appealed to a yearning for victory, after which peace would follow. The ads of World War Two were mostly martial, with sweaty stubbed dogfaces, cigars screwed in the corners of their grim-set mouths, dealt the lead. The ad was usually an encouragement to keep fighting so the war could be over and we could have refrigerators again. Towards the end of the war, the ads hinted at the day when Johnny came home – plans would be made, houses bought, appliances ordered, insurance purchased, girls turned into wives with the application of woo, and children produced to populate the new era of peace. But the ads were as cautionary as they were hopeful. Johnny couldn’t come home until the war was won, of course.
"It's four below," by James Lileks, The Bleat, February 5, 2007
"Me travel? ... not this summer Vacation at home." WWII poster
Posted at 06:37 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Politics
February 02, 2007
Photos to CD
ShoeboxReprints.com - put your old photos on CD for $49.95 per 1000 photos - add proof books with 25 images per page to allow rapid viewing
MyPublisher.com can make books from your photos
Picasa - from Google
"Creating Your Own Photo Book Becomes Easier," by Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2006
"A lifetime of photos on a single disc," by William M. Bulkeley, The Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2007
Posted at 06:17 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Fun
February 01, 2007
The End is Near!
Doomsayers like to think they’ve made a rational, scientific inquiry and discovered that the past is an unreliable guide: Sure, we’ve survived all these millennia, but we’ve never faced global threats like the ones today. But I share M. Skinner’s belief that they’re being hubristic in assigning themselves such a special place in history: the first humans ever to accurately foresee the end. It’s always possible they’re right. It seems far more probable they’re like all the past prophets of doom who mistakenly thought they were special, too.
"Isn’t That Special? Copernicus Meets Doomsday," by John Tierney, Tierney Lab, January 31, 2007
See "The End Is Near," by Amir Malka.
Posted at 06:27 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Humor