A Risky Video

I was skeptical about this one at first, but I ended up laughing a lot. Enjoy.

Cute? Not really.

A friend on facebook posted this recently. I watched it, chuckled, and then stopped chuckling. It reminded me that we, too often, think things like this are cute. Our little children do things that are rebellious and we have a hard time holding back the snickers because it looks cute at the time. But cute sin turns into ugly sin when it is not dealt with properly and promptly.
This little girl has obviously been exposed to the language she is using. There is no mystery here. I am beginning to think that exposure is tantamount to approval in our culture. I have learned, even recently, how important it is to shield my own children from certain things. I've sat at the dinner table and had my children say things that I know they picked up from me, and been ashamed that they said it. My pastor often says that our children will take the sins we play with and perfect them. Sin is covenantal.
Don't think it's cute when three year olds do as this little girl does. If it is your three year old, don't approve of it by laughing, getting her to do it again so you can tape it, and don't post it in public.

Debt Help

Are you a dancer?

No, I'm just drunk.

YouTube and visiting other blogs

Sometimes I feel like I have no original thoughts or content for this blog, but it does serve as a dumping ground for other stuff. I tend to watch YouTube and post videos I find there. I also tend to visit a group of other blogs (seen to the right) and occasionally just say what they have said (with due credit, of course). That is the case today. I just visited Andrew Kern's blog (Quiddity) and found a hilarious math video he mentioned. It is all the funnier because I have a student this year who, in jest, tried to get me with this same Math gag.
Enjoy.

Who's on first - Elizabethan-style

I found this a little while ago and linked it to my Facebook account, but never thought to put it up here. This is hilarious. It actually made me go find the original and watch it too. I used it in Rhetoric class to illustrate the concept of word play and how it can be humorous and confusing at the same time.

Christmas lights

I love taking the kids out to look at Christmas lights. I remember doing thsi as a child and enjoying it very much. The internet and especially YouTube has made doing this a lot of fun as well. You can see Christmas displays from all over the country. A new trend is to use electronic control modules to time lights to a piece of music. The passerby can tune to a particular FM frequency and hear the song while seeing the lights timed to it. YouTube has some interesting displays of this, but a favorite for a couple of years now has been this one. The song is by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. TSO has become very popular in recent years for their Christmas albums mixing progressive metal and traditional Christmas tunes. I have followed them since they began as a progressive metal band called Savatage. Savatage began their transformation as early as 1991 with their self-proclaimed rock opera Streets. There is an interesting review of Streets here. Savatage was famous for recycling lyrics from one song into other albums songs and making it work because the theme was similar or the sentiment was the same.
For example, on their 1991 album Streets, the final song "Believe" declares:
I am the way
I am the light
I am the dark inside the night
I hear your hopes
I feel your dreams
And in the dark I hear your screams
Don't turn away
Just take my hand
And when you make your final stand
I'll be right there
I'll never leave
And all I ask of you
Believe

Savatage recycled this sequence in their 1994 release, Handful of Rain, on the final track "Alone You Breathe," written for Christopher Oliva, brother of band member Jon Oliva. Shortly after Handful of Rain, Dead Winter Dead (1995) became the second rock opera released by Savatage and contained the now popular "Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24." The band released another album of two after this, but mostly began the transition into the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The song, "Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24" was re-released on their first album Christmas Eve and other Stories.
Besides an amazing sound, one of the things that interests me about TSO and the predecessor Savatage is their emphasis on storytelling. In a 2003 interview with Christianity Today (found here) producer, Paul O'Neill stated, "I'm a strong believer in the power of storytelling. I grew up in a large Irish Catholic home, and my parents wouldn't allow us to watch TV. That forced us to learn to read. Also, before we went to bed, my father would weave these incredibly intricate fairy tales and stories from the top of his head. Even as I got older, I'd hang around him telling stories to my little siblings. And Irish music tends to have strong storytelling."
The guys of TSO have some very interesting stories to tell, even if they aren't the most theologically accurate, they can still spin an interesting yarn. For some of us, it might be better to hear a story that is a little lacking in the theology department but makes us think in theological terms. TSO's music and stories do just this.
Give them a listen if you are into Classical and Progressive Metal fusion.

Amazing!

Check out this video from a wonderful classical school in Boise ID. They really know how to integrate curriculum up there.

Radical Thoughts

A friend of mine showed this to me recently. It is an excellent look at our problem from a non-American source.

Every homeschooler and private school should see this.
Enjoy.

If you have ever wanted to go to jail, but weren't sure how...

This is a great way to go to jail for a speeding ticket.

Not on the test

Thanks to Andrew Kern at CiRCE for this one.

Let's End Women's Suffrage

Not really, but this video once again shows the sorry state of our educational machine in America.
Enjoy!

Another video from Requiem for a Dream

OK. The other day I blogged about NarrowGate Studios overlaying Requiem for a Tower on top of The Stupids. Messing around on YouTube can be hilarious at times. While playing around today, I found another guy who has done the same thing with Ferris Beuller's Day Off. This guy has done a fantastic job with this. It is a real joy to watch.
So, without further ado, have a peek at Requiem for a Day Off.

How important is music to movies?

The guys over at NarrowGate Studios (students at Franklin Classical School, Franklin, TN) have done a great job of showing us how important music can be to movies. Neil Postman makes the comment that music in TV (and by extension movies) "helps to tell the audience what emotions are to be called forth." In this case they have taken the main track for Requiem for a Dream, Requiem for a Tower (composed by Clint Mansell and performed with Kronos Quartet) and set it against some odd footage from the 1996 Tom Arnold film, The Stupids. They are attempting to prove that this song can turn any piece of film into an epic. See if they are right.

Very Good Math Video

Two years ago, a math teacher at my school asked me to hunt down a video for her math class. I'll admit I do not remember what she said this was an example of, but it is fantastic. I have shown it to people over and over. It popped up while I was doing some planning for next year and I felt it deserved a little blog attention.
Enjoy.

Sad/Funny Look at the state of Modern Education

This is great!

I found this on YouTube looking for classical Christian schools. I am sorry I missed this when it was first aired. I especially like the part where Roy Atwood talks about the students preparation for the job market. In a world where the major questions parents ask have to do with computer classes, it is refreshing to see that a Liberal Arts education (which includes, in my opinion, a strong curriculum in math and science) is paying off for the students at Logos and New St. Andrews.

Teachers sometimes feel like this