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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "papersource" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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10:09 pm
[Link] | "The fact that waterboarding was repeated so many times may raise questions about its effectiveness, as well as about assertions by Bush administration officials that their methods were used under strict guidelines."
I am surprised that I get so little comfort from finally having some things come to light.
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08:47 pm
[Link] |
Not-So-Happy Easter
I may have mentioned this before, but I live in a pre-capitalist country in which everything is closed on Good Friday, not to mention Easter Sunday. Seriously, even the 24-hour A&P.
Also, yesterday I had to drive across town to get matzo meal to make matzo ball soup. Apparently, I do not live on the Jewish side of town.
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08:34 pm
[Link] |
Happy Easter
I don't celebrate Easter, but I do have a certain fondness for Peeps. Fellow peeplovers, knock yourselves out.
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10:20 pm
[Link] |
It's ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) peaseblossom's fault
You've turned me into a Sarah Haskins superfan. Have you seen this?
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03:51 pm
[Link] |
Best Idea of the Day
The Catholic Church has brought back the sale of indulgences.
Just because it didn't fly in 1517, doesn't mean that it won't work today.
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10:21 am
[Link] | Wow. I didn't really believe this could happen. I've had so many strange new feelings over the past 24 hours. ( Read more... )
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04:21 pm
[Link] | I just voted!
My Massachusetts ballot arrived today and I wasted no time filling it out and putting it in the mail.
After last night's debate, I needed no extra encouragement to place my vote against "Joe" the "Plumber". Or maybe that should be "Joe" the "tax-paying" "plumber".
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02:27 pm
[Link] |
narratology and the toddler mind
A couple of months ago I went to the mother of all education conferences, the AERA, where I saw a book that was just one researcher's recordings of their conversations with their child at bedtime. Now that the Ukelele is really starting to speak, like in sentences and paragraphs, it is cool to see that you really can write a whole book on one child's journey in language acquisition.
The past couple of weeks, the Ukelele seems especially interested in narrative. This is really interesting because I am currently reading some theories of narrative. Many linguists, anthropologists, philosophers, and educators believe that human thought naturally develops along narrative lines. In other words, we need to make up stories to make sense of the world. However, these narrative-making processes must be learned through social interactions because they develops along culturally specific lines.
I see this playing out as I read the Uke her bedtime stories. For one thing, she is increasingly interested in books with a plot and some form of conflict (i.e. Olivia) over books that just depict and describe objects (i.e. Goodnight Moon). This is interesting b/c she often does not understand the plot, but she requests these books nonetheless. Then she asks a lot of "why" questions. Specifically she points to characters and asks, "Why angry?" or "Why sad?" She's like, what's this character's motivation? How am I to understand cause and effect in human interaction? Perhaps she is also trying to make sense of human emotions by asking, Under what circumstances is an adult likely to get angry? Under what circumstances is it permissible for me to get angry?
Also, she has recently acquired the word maybe, and she deploys it often. She seems to be testing out narratives to see if they are acceptable to her audience (me). Sunday we were in the car driving home from a nursery on the edge of town. On our way out there we had passed a field with some horses.
Uke: Maybe we see horses!
Me: Do you think we'll see horses?
U: Maybe.
M: Look out the window and tell me if you see horses.
*after a minute or so* U: Maybe horses go Florida.
M *puzzled*: You think the horses went to Florida?
U: Maybe. Go Florida airport.
M: Maybe.
Actually, we did pass the airport on the way out to the nursery, so it was interesting that she put the horses together with another notable landmark from our journey. Then she added soemthing from her own past experience - going to the airport to get on a plane to Florida. Then she tested it all out on me with a "maybe" to see if I would buy into her new, original narrative.
( Read more... )
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02:38 pm
[Link] | German expressionist Project Runway!!!!!!! OMG the Heidi Klum and Michael Kors are hysterically spot-on.
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03:31 pm
[Link] |
More important Japanese cultural news
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/business/11uemura.html?ex=1357794000&en=eedfbe6e6818da9b&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink">Shu Uemura is dead!</a>
Why should you care? Because Shu Uemura was the first makeup artist to envision makeup as an art form. Because he brought a finely tuned sense of color to his line of makeup so that his eyeshadow has the highest concentration of pigment in any eyeshadow and includes over 200 shades, including at least 20 shades of green. It's like a Pantone flipbook for the face! He believed that makeup should not include a lot of junk, so women with sensitive skin can wear it, and his mascara is the undisputed best mascara anywhere. And did I mention the eyeshadows?
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02:58 pm
[Link] | Today the NYTimes offers the shocking and gratifying revelation that the fortune cookie, it is Japanese!
Oh, how my heart swells with ethnic pride.
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02:59 pm
[Link] | I really liked the piece on NPR's On the Media about the publicity machine of the Dalai Lama.
I'm always intrigued by the appeal of Buddhism to many Americans.
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11:15 am
[Link] |
breaking down . . .
I think we need to acquire some children's music. We have long avoided this, but I think that the Uke is less enchanted with 8hrs/day of NPR than I was as a child. I need children's music that won't drive me bonkers? The only thing we have is that Sandra Boynton CD, which I don't mind hearing <1x/day.
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10:02 am
[Link] |
I guess my lj friends aren't up yet . . .
b/c no one has commented on how this is like the best day of the summer!
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02:00 pm
[Link] | "For every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old watched such popular video series as Brainy Baby or Baby Einstein, they knew six to eight fewer words than other children."
I enjoyed the short interview with the author of this study that I heard on NPR today. We tightly control The Ukelele's tv viewing so that one some day, in the words of Jonathan Coulton, she can be smarter than me.
[Edit: I should add here that in actuality, I don't think that The Ukelele's vocabulary is any bigger than average.]
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01:55 pm
[Link] | Oh Tammy Faye! I promise to remember you whenever I see fake eyelashes or tear-streaked mascara.
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08:56 pm
[Link] | Today Uke made me take her out to the flowers in our window boxes so that her bear could smell the flowers. It was cute, but it also made me wonder, as I wonder daily, what is going on in that little head of hers. For one thing, it means that she understands that the bear is a representation of a living thing. Does she think that the bear can actually smell the flowers, or is she pretending that the bear can smell the flowers?
A couple of weeks ago she didn't seem to get what a hug is. We'd hug her and she'd get excited and start smacking us about the head. But lately she's been sitting absorbed for long stretches of time in wrapping a stuffed animal or doll up in a blanket and then hugging it to her or carrying it around with her. The other day after I held her and patted her back she picked up her doll, wrapped it in a blanket, and patted its back, hugging it to her chest.
Yesterday I noticed her making car noises (like "vroom vroom," only when she does it, it comes out more like, "AaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaAAAA") while pushing a piece of banana around the tray of her highchair. Does she think that the banana is a car? Is she actually pretending that the banana is a car?
It's funny that before you have a kid you hope that your kid will be very intelligent, meaning an early walker or a precocious talker or a musical genius or a mini-celebrity chef or what have you. But as they grow you realize that even when they aren't identifiably gifted, they are as intelligent as they need to be. They're constantly learning and growing and changing and it's totally fascinating to watch.
Last week we started consistently saying no to her, as in, "No smacking mommy's face, please" and "No chewing on your nightlight bulb, please." Her response was to wrinkle up her face and let out this anguished fake-sounding cry, causing us to debate whether she was trying to make us think that she felt bad about our censure or whether she really did feel bad. Now when she sees something that she's not allowed to touch she'll look at us and shake her head no with this questioning look on her face, like, "No touching, right?"
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11:06 am
[Link] | I'm very angry, ANGRY about Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's sentence. Hellooo? You people there, on the other side of the border? Your "rule of law" is going to hell in a handbasket! Do something! I'm thinking something that rhymes with shmimpeachment. Don't just shrug your shoulders and move onto the next newscycle! ARRRRRGH!
Also, I would like to mention that when I flew back from visiting my parents on Sunday the TSA guy wanted to check the Ukelele's footwear for explosives. I was bewildered by both the implication that there is enough room in her little slippers for anything dangerous and by the guard's mischaracterization of her Robeez as shoes.
I should also mention that her first word is shoes. Well, more like "shez".
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11:41 am
[Link] | Some teachers bribe their students with donuts, I used yoga. Seriously, when my kids were really wired or lethargic, I would look at them and say, "Do you know what you need? Some yoga." For a treat, the class that met at the end of the day would do a little downward dog, a little trikonasana as an incentive to give me their attention.
I knew it worked, but I always closed the door for yoga/meditation time. Who wants the principal walking by and seeing a class lying on the floor with the lights off? But guess what - the NYT says that yoga and meditation have educational value! So I guess now teachers can leave their doors open.
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01:28 pm
[Link] | I've been reading about Theodor Adorno in my smart person's Wikipedia:
"Contrary to some interpretations, Horkheimer and Adorno do not reject the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Nor do they provide a negative "metanarrative" of universal historical decline. Rather, through a highly unusual combination of philosophical argument, sociological reflection, and literary and cultural commentary, they construct a "double perspective" on the modern West as an historical formation (Jarvis 1998, 23). They summarize this double perspective in two interlinked theses: "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology" (DE xviii). The first thesis allows them to suggest that, despite being declared mythical and outmoded by the forces of secularization and disenchantment, older rituals, religions, and philosophies may have contributed to the process of enlightenment and may still have something worthwhile to contribute. The second thesis allows them to expose ideological and destructive tendencies within modern forces of secularization and disenchantment, but without denying either that these forces are indeed progressive and enlightening or that the older conceptions they displace were themselves ideological and destructive." [emphasis mine]
Why haven't I been reading this Frankfurt School stuff all along??
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