Brilliance of the Insane

Ammon's Clef Knot (locking slip knot)

2011-06-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

The story behind this is that for weeks, I had been looking for a way to tie up a belay anchor to a tree. I needed something that would be snug to prevent slipping up and down the tree as tension changed and not keep tightening around the tree as tension increased. I first looked at the Girth Hitch. This tightened up to the tree but if tension wasn't maintained, it loosened up and slid up and down the tree. It also got tighter and tighter as tension increased. The other knot I looked at was the No Knot. This is where you just wrap three times around the tree and then tie a water knot to connect the ends. This was better on the tree, but still didn't stay snug when not weighted. I decided to see if I could come up with my own knot to do what I needed. That is when I randomly came up with what I am calling, Ammon's Clef Knot (because it looks like a clef note when tying). It is basically a locking slip knot. If someone else has already come up with this knot, then great they can have the credit, but they really should publicize better because I couldn't find it. Now, before I show you how to tie it, I should tell you that I have not tested it and I have no idea if this affects the strength of the cord or webbing. I'm sure there are some experts out there that could help with this, but that is not me.

Step 1. Start with one end of the rope:

Step 2: Cross the end over the line.

Step 3: Loop the end around the line, back on itself or toward the loop.

Step 4: Loop the end again around the line further up toward the loop.

Step 5: Pull the end down through the first small loop created in step 3. (this is where it looks like a clef note)

Step 6: Pull tight by pulling the end and the diagonal side of the loop.

As the ends of the cord or webbing are pulled, it pulls the knot tighter, keeping it from sliding. To use this in your belay, anchor to a tree do the following:

1. Wrap around the tree three times

2. Tie Ammon's Clef Knot and tighten it to the tree to the desired tension

3. Join the ends together using a Water Knot

At this point, you can clip into the anchor. Ammon's Clef Knot will keep the three wraps from slipping up or down the tree as tension varies. If tightened correctly, it should not tighten any more or less around the tree. The three wraps spread the weight out on the tree preventing damage. The knot doesn't cause any sharp angles so I would think the strength of the cord or webbing is not compromised.

Let me know what you think.

Watch "Unselfish Service" on YouTube

2011-02-23T09:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXNoRDDoXSQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Some Times You Just Have To Take What Life Gives You

2010-11-30T07:06:00.001-08:00

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cat

via Pixdaus: Popular Today Pics on 11/30/10

"cat"

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7+ ways to turn into a morning person

2010-11-15T06:29:00.001-08:00

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7+ ways to turn into a morning person

via How to of the Day on 11/15/10

Welcome to today!

Oh, it's morning again! Why do you hate this time of day? Wouldn't it be better not to hate the start of a new day? Learning how to be a morning person won't happen overnight, but there are some things you can do to try your best to become a morning person.

Steps

Reflect about the purpose of getting up earlier. If you're mentally motivated to get up earlier, it can help to make a big dent in your sleeping-in excuses. Think about the reasons why you'd like to get up earlier in the mornings. Common good reasons include:
- Having quiet time to yourself before anybody else in the house is up. In this time, you can read, write, exercise, contemplate, meditate, make the evening's dinner, or do a little tidying even.
- For many people, early morning is an important time to reflect upon or practice elements of their faith.
- To catch the sunrise. As wonderful as the sunset, the sunrise heralds the new day and brings promise of a fresh start. That's often worth the effort!
- Getting to work, school, or college earlier so that you can come home earlier and do other things you want to do.
- Looking after other people or animals can benefit from getting up earlier, especially if they need feeding, bathing, exercising, etc.
- It's a great time to deal with routine matters while you're alert and ready to get going; things such as checking emails, paying bills, and administrative filing can be done first thing in the morning to get them out of the way.
- For some people, it's about restoring the morning person you used to be until you allowed late night TV, internet chatting, and other wakeful activities to keep you up late.
- Leo Babauta suggests that early risers can benefit from early commutes while the traffic is still light; even better if you're cycling.^[1]
Go to bed earlier. To rise earlier, you'll need to sleep earlier and that can be hard if you're used to using the later hours of the night for activities such as reading, watching TV, or writing. Consider going to bed earlier in increments. Start with 15 minutes earlier, with the expectation of getting up 15 minutes earlier, then gradually increase this to half an hour and then to an hour. If you do this gradually, it will give both your body and your mind time to adjust to the earlier sleeping and waking times. It will also allow you to find your happy medium between too early and too late.
- Avoid watching TV just before bedtime, use the internet, or eat.^[2] These activities can excite you and keep you awake rather than inducing a sleepy state. In particular, don't watch news items or scary movies, or pay your bills late at night, as these will over-stimulate you.^[3]
- Dim your lights one hour before bed to facilitate the release of melatonin and make you sleepy. Avoid bright lights, caffeine, and alcohol, as these will all wake you up more.
- Eventually go to bed by 10 o'clock at the latest; sleep experts believe this is the optimal time.^[4] And as you're easing into the new routine, always aim to fall asleep before midnight, treating midnight as your boundary of "no-crossing".
- Allow yourself to read in bed. Reading is a quiet activity and it will often induce sleep in the supine position. Especially if it's a dreary textbook or work paper.
- If you live with a night owl who hasn't the slightest interest in changing his or her sleeping schedule, ask for a bit of slack and no noise when they finally do go to bed.
Bigger is better; as is moving it away from your bed!
Set your alarm clock. Although it is important to learn to wake up earlier as a matter of will, your alarm clock is the main source of helping establish your new routine when changing over your sleeping patterns.
- Set the alarm clock for a time like 6:00 in the morning (or whenever you want to get up).
- Keep the alarm clock far enough away that you have to get out of bed to shut it off. The effort of having to rise from bed to shut it off will be enough to start waking you up properly.^[5]
- If possible, make your alarm clock play loud music to wake you up, instead of the traditional beep.
Help wake yourself up. It will be especially difficult when you first try to transition from night owl sleeping patterns to morning person sleeping rhythms, so there are some ways to trick your body into greater alertness. For example, turning on bright lights on first thing in the morning resets your circadian rhythm and essentially makes you more alert.^[6] Going out into morning sun would also do the trick provided the sun is up already; natural light will wake you up just as efficiently.^[7] The following suggestions won't reset your circadian rhythm but they might help to get you used to a morning routine:
- Make the bed
  Make your bed. It's a lot less desirable to crawl back into it when you've gone to the trouble of making it up!
- Stop rationalizing and start doing. Force yourself to leave the room – go to the bathroom, drink a glass of water, open the curtains, just do something that will overcome your inner chat about returning to bed.^[8]
- Splash your face with water as soon as you get out of bed.
- Stretch your back.
  Stretch. Stretching can help awaken you gently, as well as improving your flexibility.
- Put on upbeat music and dance to it a little.
- Have a cup of tea or coffee to awaken your senses. Some people swear by slightly warmed water with freshly squeezed lemon juice as a refreshing tonic.
- Morning workout
  Exercise. Exercise will help to wake you up, and exercise undertaken first thing in the morning is more effective at charging up your metabolism than exercise undertaken at any other time of the day.
Have a good breakfast. Don't be tempted to skip breakfast; it's your energy source kick-starter for the rest of the day and the early bird has even longer to wait until lunchtime.
- If you experience problems with not wanting to eat breakfast in the morning, read How to feel like eating breakfast first thing in the morning for more information on overcoming this.
Keep the new morning rhythm going once it's established. It's important to get up at the same time every day once you're established in your new routine, including weekends. Don't sleep in on days when you don't have to be somewhere; doing so throws out your sleep rhythm badly and it's hard to catch up. Leave sleeping in for when you're unwell. Instead, get up and use the time to read, enjoy a longer breakfast, chat with others, or exercise.
- Take notice of how much more you have accomplished when you get home from work and/or school. You'll relax more, sleep better at night, and be more refreshed for when you get up early again.
Persevere and be realistic. It can take time to transition from a night owl to a morning person. Moreover, being a morning person or a night owl has a genetic basis that may not be easy to override.^[9] ^[10]As such, it may not be possible to switch yourself over entirely to becoming a morning person unless you're a morning person reforming from a lapse into a night owl lifestyle. However, if even an hour or so earlier is giving you just a little more space than before you tried this transition, it can be worth the effort and the new routine in your life.
- Even night owls are prone to wake up earlier during the warmer months when the morning light streams through earlier. Try to go with your body's natural flow and it's more likely that you'll wake up earlier than usual anyway during spring and summer months.
- Stick with the process; it's not going to be easy for the first few mornings. The more your body becomes used to the light cues and the regular bedtimes, the more you'll find it easier to transition.
- Have rewards in place for early rising, such as a delicious breakfast at the local cafe, a brand new paperback to read, an early appointment massage, etc. Reward yourself with something that encourages you to keep getting up early each day.
- Remind yourself that today is a new day. Forget about what happened yesterday, it's in the past. Today is a fresh day, enjoy it!

Video

Tips

A nice bright lamp
Use bright, full-spectrum lighting in your bedroom; turn the light on as soon as you get up.
Avoid bright lights during the evening hours; these will confuse your body. Dim lights several hours before sleep.
Give yourself something to accomplish each day (even on the weekends). Whether it be running 10 miles before breakfast or getting a few loads of laundry through before you go to work, just do something.
Avoid drinking caffeinated beverages or energy drinks after 4 pm.
Avoid listening to fast-paced or stimulating music 2-3 hours before intended bedtime.
A cute alarm clock
Novelty alarm clocks which move around on wheels or fly around the room, making it harder to shut them off, are a good choice for the ultra-sleepy. They're more expensive but they're worth it if you compulsively hit the snooze-button.
Some televisions allow you to use them as an alarm clock. Make use of this feature to turn on the TV (with the volume set at high level) when you want to wake up. Do not keep the remote near you to switch it off. On the other hand, having a TV in your bedroom is arguably a distraction that can keep you awake at night, so the preference would be not to have it in your bedroom at all.
Use an inexpensive electronic light timer to switch on a radio or bright/broad-spectrum lamp at the bedside.
Each sleep cycle lasts 90 minutes. Set your alarm clock to go off after a multiple of an hour and a half, and it will be easier to wake up.
A pet can be a delightful source of early waking (depending on how you choose to perceive this) – give in to your hungry dog or cat and you'll have a reliable early morning alarm for the rest of its life!

Warnings

Avoid putting your alarm clock by your bed if all you will is shut it off and go back to sleep again. Shift it to somewhere that requires you to get out of bed to turn it off.
Sleep researchers believe that many people shift from being temporary night owls in their teens to early 20s (due to hormonal surges) to being morning persons in their 30s onward. However, some people remain night owls for life (being born that way), and if you're a dyed-in-the-wool night owl, it's likely you'll find it hard ever changing over to being a permanent morning person!^[11]

Things You'll Need

Alarm clock

Related wikiHows

Sources and Citations

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Continue in Patience

2010-10-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by Destiny

2010-10-01T05:43:00.000-07:00

Start using Mint.com to manage your money today!

2010-09-29T08:52:00.001-07:00

"I love this site."

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Ukrainian spectacle

2010-09-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

Luck : A Compilation of Close Calls

2010-09-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Gymkhana THREE, Part 2; Ultimate Playground; l'Autodrome, France

2010-09-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

15 Plus Infinity Songs That Sound the Same

2010-09-13T08:11:00.001-07:00

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15 Plus Infinity Songs That Sound the Same

via Urlesque by Nick Douglas on 9/10/10

Filed under: Videos, Music, Busted!, Lists, Mash-Ups

YouTuber sevenheaddivision

I'm jealous of mashup artists, jealous of their talent. I love music, not in a refined adult way, but like a child in a cafeteria mixing every soda from the machine into one cup. I love hearing one song mesh into another like Sprite and Slice. So the videos below, which all compare songs that sound alike, are my Mega-Coke-Punch.

Miley Cyrus and Ke$ha and Katy Perry all sing the same summer hit

Fun fact: 22-year-old Benny Blanco produced two of these songs, as well as everything else ever.

Nickelback Sounds Like Nickelback

Imagine if M. Night Shyamalan's career had been dead the whole time.

Rubinoos vs. Avril Lavigne

Avril's 'Girlfriend' is a ripoff of the Rubinoos' 'I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,' which is pretty derivative of the Rolling Stones' 'Get Off of My Cloud.'

Metallica's 'Enter the Sandman' vs. Excel's 'Tapping Into the Emotional Void'

Ha, YouTube's auto-detection system recognized the Excel song, but not Metallica. GUESS THAT PROVES IT.

Rob Paravonian's Pachelbel Rant

It's just a chord progression that works really well for a lot of song genres. What's really cool is that it's not the only one.

The Axis of Awesome: 4 Chords

Told you.

Vanilla Ice's 'Ice Ice Baby' vs. Queen's 'Under Pressure'

This is the mashup equivalent of making out with your mom.

Every Song Sounds Like Every Song

Also they all suck.

Seriously, Everything.

Led Zeppelin Ripoffs

Not ripoffs of Zeppelin. Other way around.

Oasis vs. Burt Bacharach

There's a whole collection of soundalikes at the TotallySoundsLike YouTube channel.

Alicia Keys vs. James Brown

Here's another from TotallySoundsLike.

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"Instant Elements" using Google Instant Search

2010-09-09T05:11:00.000-07:00

How Italians Do Their Soccer Training

2010-09-09T05:06:00.000-07:00

Pwd!

2010-09-08T12:28:00.000-07:00

Snake Robot Climbs a Tree

2010-09-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

Parenting FAIL

2010-09-01T05:01:00.001-07:00

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Parenting FAIL

via FAIL Blog: Epic Fail Funny Pictures and Funny Videos of Owned, Pwned and Fail Moments by Cheezburger Network on 9/1/10

Submitted by: Unknown

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Don McMillan: Life After Death by PowerPoint

2010-08-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

Voice of the Spirit

2010-08-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

PRANK OF THE WEEK MUST SEE!!!!!!!.mp4

2010-08-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

PRANK OF THE WEEK MUST SEE!!!!!!!.mp4

2010-08-30T05:50:00.001-07:00

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PRANK OF THE WEEK MUST SEE!!!!!!!.mp4

via YouTube on 8/30/10

PRANK OF THE WEEK MUST SEE!!!!!!! (Watch You don't wet yourself Laughing on This One!! LMFAO!!!)

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Fired Chef goes on crazy rampage in the kitchen

2010-08-24T13:53:00.000-07:00

Fireworks FAIL

2010-08-23T06:17:00.001-07:00

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Fireworks FAIL

via FAIL Blog: Epic Fail Funny Pictures and Funny Videos of Owned, Pwned and Fail Moments by Cheezburger Network on 8/23/10

Submitted through the FAIL Uploader

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Daily Afternoon Randomness (40 Photos)

2010-08-19T13:40:00.001-07:00

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Daily Afternoon Randomness (40 Photos)

via theCHIVE by John on 8/19/10

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Extraordinary ambidextrous drawing skills

2010-08-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

Kick Ass Citizen WIN

2010-08-18T10:04:00.001-07:00

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Kick Ass Citizen WIN

via FAIL Blog: Epic Fail Funny Pictures and Funny Videos of Owned, Pwned and Fail Moments by louisichc on 8/18/10

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Parenting: Touching the Hearts of Our Youth

2010-08-18T05:47:00.000-07:00

Photo

2010-08-18T05:08:00.001-07:00

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Photo

via PaperTissue. on 8/18/10

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Radiolab and NPR Present Words

2010-08-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

Fred the Raver: videos of toddler jamming hard to dubstep/jungle/drum and ba...

2010-08-17T05:33:00.001-07:00

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Fred the Raver: videos of toddler jamming hard to dubstep/jungle/drum and bass beats

via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin on 8/16/10

YouTube uploader Orbojunglist, who is associated with Dub Foundation, regularly uploads short videos of his son Fred grooving out hard to dubstep/drum-n-bass/junglist beats. Above, my favorite of all the uploads so far.

Fred's dad explains:

Not to worry, the music was not too loud. I have superimposed a small fraction of the original audio back into the file—the car isnt fitted with any big audio systems or anything. Also, the term 'raver' is used lightly, because of the way he is dancing, and does not mean we are pushing him into any walk of life. (...) Some [YouTube commenters are] saying he's, not dancing he's having a seizure? (...) This is how he dances all the time to this music.

Spotted on Dangerous Minds, where they've just blogged a newer Fred The Raver episode with all-new toddler headbanging. I can't get enough of this li'l guy.

[Thanks, Tara and Richard!]

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Insane Indian Pole Dancers Compete in a Sport Called Mallakhamb

2010-08-16T10:54:00.001-07:00

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Insane Indian Pole Dancers Compete in a Sport Called Mallakhamb

via Urlesque by Jordan Breindel on 8/16/10

Filed under: Videos, Dancing

If you've seen one mostly naked dude riding a pole, you've seen them all, right? I used to think that too, all the way up until about two minutes ago.

That's when I was introduced to the Salmon Trunks (not their real name), an elite crew of male Mallakhamb gymnasts who do things on the poll that would put even the most nimble stripper to shame.

And they do it with their trunks on. How impressive is that?

You've seen the best, now it's time to see the rest. Actually this is volume 1 so they're just as good.

They start 'em young in Mallakhamb. Hey, it's just like regular gymnastics.

This pole isn't even attached to the ground.

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Fighting Giraffes - Excellent Footage

2010-08-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

Totally Amazing Technology In This House

2010-08-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

Courier V.S. Business Man

2010-08-11T07:12:00.000-07:00

I Want Your Money Trailer (2010) HD

2010-08-09T06:03:00.001-07:00

This is interesting...

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I Want Your Money Trailer (2010) HD

via YouTube on 8/8/10

I Want Your Money trailer...Set against the backdrop of today's headline - 67% of Americans don't approve of Obama's economic policies, the film takes a provocative look at our deeply depressed economy using the words and actions of Presidents Reagan and Obama and shows the marked contrast between R

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Forgiveness: My Burden Was Made Light

2010-08-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

YouTube's Hidden Snake Game Gives You Something to Do While Your Video Loads

2010-07-27T04:56:00.001-07:00

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YouTube's Hidden Snake Game Gives You Something to Do While Your Video Loads

via Urlesque by Jay Hathaway on 7/27/10

Filed under: Videos, Gaming

Mashable

Are you bored while waiting for YouTube videos to load? Well, the clever folks at YouTube have included a hidden Snake Game that you can play to amuse yourself while your video is buffering, or even while you watch.

The game is similar to the classic Snake you may have played on ancient Nokia phones or early PCs. You control a snake that eats dots and gets longer and faster as the game goes on. If you hit the edge of the screen, or touch your own tail, it's game over.

To unlock this amusing little gem, just hold the left for a while when you've got a video selected. For a clearer illustration of how this works, we've included a demonstration video from the guy who claims to have discovered the game. Happy snaking!

via:// Social Times

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I Believe In Unicorns - John Ramsey

2010-07-26T08:39:00.002-07:00

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I Believe In Unicorns - John Ramsey

via YouTube on 7/23/10

John Ramsey clearly illustrates that Unicorns are, or should be, out there.

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Socially Inept Across All Four

2010-07-26T07:14:00.001-07:00

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Socially Inept Across All Four

via GraphJam: Music and Pop Culture in Charts and Graphs. Let us explain them. by Cheezburger Network on 7/24/10

Graph by:

timmyhutchins

Whatever. It's not stalking until the third restraining order comes down. – Ms. Fix-It

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Federal Court Rules: Cheerleading Not a Sport

2010-07-21T12:01:00.001-07:00

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Federal Court Rules: Cheerleading Not a Sport

via FOXNews.com by foxnewsonline@foxnews.com on 7/21/10

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Our True Identity

2010-07-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

If These Dinosaurs Are Real, We Don't Want to Be Right

2010-07-14T05:26:00.001-07:00

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If These Dinosaurs Are Real, We Don't Want to Be Right

via Urlesque by Eliot Glazer on 7/14/10

Filed under: Videos, Animals, Science

Whatever town square these lifesize puppet dinosaurs came to life in was undoubtedly left in a pile of stone, ash, and human carcass, right? I mean, the kids, leading the giant dinos on chain leashes, look like they're having a blast despite the furious gaze of these toothy monstrosities, enormous and terrifying down to the pimpled, shadowed scales lining their "skin."

Excuse us, but they're literally, like, hissing and snapping at their "handler," and sure, none of this is real life, but when it comes down to it, the Urlesque Time Machine is already pre-programmed to go nowhere beyond the eighteenth century. Things we want to see: powdered wigs, the first ever bidet, and maybe Don Draper's office, but REAL DINOSAURS? No thank you.

via:// Best Week Ever

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Sometimes in life you just get hosed.

2010-07-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

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untitled / captionthis.org/12418

via Pixdaus: Popular Today Pics on 7/13/10

"untitled / captionthis.org/12418"

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20 Weird and Goofy Facebomb Photoshops

2010-07-13T07:15:00.001-07:00

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20 Weird and Goofy Facebomb Photoshops

via Urlesque by Cole Stryker on 7/13/10

Filed under: Humor, Photos

Take a picture of a group of your friends in which one person is making a goofy face. Zoom in on them, then back out. Everyone's making the goofy face! Then post it to your favorite message board to delight those who can appreciate your absurd sense of humor. You'll just have to click through to see what I mean.

Some of these Photoshop jobs are shockingly professional, which is half the fun. Someone spent a few hours making some of these, matching skin tones and resizing features all for a quick little joke. It is exactly like da Vinci slaving over the Mona Lisa.

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Super Mario on Violin

2010-07-06T07:58:00.001-07:00

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Super Mario on Violin

via in the midst of thinking on 7/6/10

Super Mario on Violin

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'Big Bang Big Boom' - New BLU Cityscape Animation Blows All the Others Away

2010-07-06T06:04:00.001-07:00

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'Big Bang Big Boom' - New BLU Cityscape Animation Blows All the Others Away

via Urlesque by Nick Douglas on 7/6/10

Filed under: Videos, Art / Design

BLU, the artists behind the wallscape stop-motion videos MUTO and COMBO, have published a new short film that just lays its predecessors to waste.

I usually watch these kinds of artsy vids halfway through and give up. A few seconds into this one, I went fullscreen and watched it while doing nothing else but drinking a beer and saying "wat" (rhymes with "cat") a few times. There's a truck, and a snow fence, and soccer balls, and they painted the whole front of a building blue!

via:// Have You Seen This: Big Bang Big Boom
previously:// BLU and David Ellis Make COMBO

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frost240z sent you a video: "Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God"

2010-07-01T10:47:00.001-07:00

	help center \| e-mail options \| report spam
frost240z has shared a video with you on YouTube: Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God Elder Jeffrey R. Holland shares an encouraging tribute to mothers who, through both challenges and accomplishments, work in partnership with God to raise His children. Read the entire talk here: http://bit.ly/9PidlC
© 2010 YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

Fwd: Tech Support for Installing a Husband

2010-07-01T05:42:00.000-07:00

Sent to you by Jessie via Google Reader:

Tech Support for Installing a Husband

via Love, Actually by Cher on 7/1/10

When marriage get's frustrating, it sometimes works to have a little humor. Every once in a while, try laughing at the things that irritate you, because you should know, we all deal with our share of marriage frustrations.

Here's a funny for you...

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do?

Signed,

Desperate

———————

Dear Desperate,

First, keep in mind that Boyfriend 5.0 is an entertainment package while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Please enter the command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html, download Tears 6.2 and be sure to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If those applications work as designed Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, please remember that overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (It runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0-program. This is an unsupported application and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck!

Tech Support

Source: StrengtheningMarriage.Com, author unknown

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Amount of Acting Classes Needed for:

2010-06-30T10:43:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

Amount of Acting Classes Needed for:

via GraphJam: Music and Pop Culture in Charts and Graphs. Let us explain them. by Cheezburger Network on 6/30/10

Amount of Acting Classes Needed for:
World Cup / Twilight

Graph by: dunno source via Graph Jam Builder

World Cup - Sports - Soccer - Competitions - 2006

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Good Things to Come

2010-06-28T11:01:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/mormonmessages?v=8nczw6xHJ0I

---
This message was sent by ammon.piatt.petposter@blogger.com via http://addthis.com. Please note that AddThis does not verify email addresses.

Make sharing easier with the AddThis Toolbar: http://www.addthis.com/go/toolbar-em

Photo of the Day: Emotisun. [reddit.]

2010-06-28T06:51:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

Photo of the Day: Emotisun. [reddit.]

via what consumes me, bud caddell by Bud Caddell on 6/25/10

Photo of the Day: Emotisun.

[reddit.]

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Forget About Video Technology In Soccer

2010-06-28T05:58:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

Forget About Video Technology In Soccer

via The Inquisitr by Dennis Bjørn Petersen on 6/28/10

I can see why many people (especially English) are interested in cameras in and around the goals in soccer (aka the real football). It would certainly help a lot of referees out, earn more money to one club/country or player and make soccer more fair.

But soccer isn't fair. Soccer isn't about correct decisions, if it were we'd see a lot more penalty kicks in every match. Soccer is about human decisions and human feelings. If you want fairness and video technology, go play FIFA Soccer 2010 or American Football instead.

Soccer is a drama based on human feelings and quick decisions. That is the charm of watching soccer. If a team get their goal falsely overruled it changes the game instantly. Giving it even more excitement, thrill and tensions. If the game has to be stopped because someone claims the ball was in the net, we'll have these tedious American circumstances where the game is stopped to check something on a screen. This ruins the players concentration, the flow of the game and the overall viewing experience.

I have a better idea. In profesional handball the ball has a small chip that activates a vibrator in the referee's wrist watch, when the ball has passed the goal line. It's similar to the technology in the assistant referee's flag in soccer. They activate a vibrator around the referee's arm when they push a button on the flag.

I think that solution is much better than an extra referee behind each goal or video technology mounted on goals.

To the English who feel cheated by the referees I can only agree. The assistant referee should have seen the goal!

I'm sure Mexico are a bit upset about Tevez's off-side goal too. This is just as bad as not seeing a goal. Would you want the referee to stop the game everytime that happens too?

(I'm a soccer referee and assistant referee myself, so I know a little about soccer)

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idealist

2010-06-25T05:58:00.003-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

idealist

via Just be spLendid... on 6/24/10

idealist

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Photo

2010-06-25T05:58:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

Photo

via Quote Book: on 6/24/10

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Pixar and Star Wars Hybrid Characters (11 pieces)

2010-06-25T05:29:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

Pixar and Star Wars Hybrid Characters (11 pieces)

via Featured Blog Posts - My Modern Metropolis by Eugene on 6/24/10

"No grand subtext here, they are both old. But this is my favorite one of all."

What would happen if Pixar and Star Wars characters mated and had babies? Thanks to artist Silof, we now have the answer to that long sought-after question.

Along with each image, a quote from the artist is attached explaining his thought process behind which characters were best fit for cross-breeding and why.

"This is the one that started this whole idea. I was watching Monsters Inc. with my daughter for the hundredth time, and the light bulb when we were talking and compared Chewbacca to Sully."

"The bi-pedal design, utilitarian nature, and non vocal communication made them a natural pairing."

"Han obviously has his origins in the gun slinging westerns, so this was an obvious pairing. I am surprised how little I had to change to make this work."

"Short, green, nuf said."

"I really like this pairing. A Bug's Life is often over looked in the Pixar catalog. Both Luke and Flik are wide-eyed dreamers who long for a bigger/better life."

"If Luke was and ant, and Luke and Leia are related then Atta should be an ant. Plus my daughter likes both of these characters so I liked combining them. Both characters are powerful women leaders."

"My first idea was to use Syndrome from the Incredibles to include all the films, but I like the idea of the armor and jet pack. Plus combining my 2 favorite characters from both universes could not be passed up."

"If Wall-E was R2 then obviously Eva should be 3PO, plus the sleeker design when compared to Wall-E had a similar juxtaposition of elements."

"I hated wasting a bad guy on basically a grunt soldier, but the more I thought about it I liked the bug shell/armor comparison."

"Of all the characters this is the biggest no-brainer. Obviously Zurg was inspired on some level as a Vader-esque character. The film even uses Star Wars dialogue, scenarios, and sound effects."

Silof's website

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iPhone Retro Cassette Cover

2010-06-23T10:56:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

iPhone Retro Cassette Cover

via Featured Blog Posts - My Modern Metropolis by nikhil bhatia on 6/23/10

Go back to the future with the fantastic iPhone cover that looks like an old cassette.

This brilliant, retro-tastic, uber realistic Retro Cassette iPhone cover will have you reliving your youth while protecting your handset from bangs, scrapes and dust.

The fantastic silicon cover is designed to look exactly like an old audio cassette, complete with its own case. But instead of making a mix tape of all your favourite, back in the day tunes, this cassette gives complete protection to your iPhone (which probably already contains all your favourite back in the day tunes).

However not only does this perfectly fitting cover keep safe your handset, but the cassette case, when fully opened, also makes a perfect stand for your phone.

It is the perfect gift for the fan of the latest cool, quirky gadget, or for that iPhone owner who wants a memento of his/her youth.

source

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10 Creative and Unusual Book Inspired Design

2010-06-22T17:03:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

10 Creative and Unusual Book Inspired Design

via Design Swan by Vivian on 6/22/10

Book has been our friend since long time ago and apparently, we are not just satisfied by reading…We can to sleep on them, sit on them, cook with them, grow plant out of them. You might wonder I am going crazy, aren't you? Then stop wondering, just check today's post, we have some really creative and unusual idea out of our normal book.

1. Book Pot [link]

Got some books piling up in the corner just collecting dust? Turn them into flower pots! The honbachi, or book pot, was designed by graphic design agency Tokyo Pistol. I love how the moisture corrodes the pages and the book takes on a life of its own!

2. Turn a book into a seat [link]

From the idea that objects should adapt to people, and not the other way around, is born "take a seat". This folder stool uses the existing storage space that everyone dispose. It hides in your interior by taking the form of a regular book on a shelf. When you open this book, the pages unfold and create an extra seat to share with your guests. Made from solid oak boards and steel hinges, "Take a seat" provides a steady and comfortable casual stool.

3. Paperbax – Your bookmate [amazon]

Paperbax: The Ultimate Book Holder– Leave it at home or pop it into your pocket, backpack or handbag. Clip it onto a book to mark your spot and protect pages while on the go. Paperbax is the perfect lightweight and compact literary accessory for readers of all ages. Use Paperbax while exercising, commuting, traveling, for hobbies, homework, typing, bathing, nursing, sunbathing, cooking and more.

4. Spicy Hot Book [link]

This wonderful book actually contains sheets that are embedded with spices. Traditionally we chop and store the flavorings in jars, but this is kinda like the soap-strip! Tear it and use it. Need some pepper? Just tear out the perforated page and add it to the dish! Edible quality paper embedded with the spice dissolve into the food, adding the much needed flavoring. The moisture and heat ensure that the spices mix in well.

5. Good Ideas Glow in The Dark [link]

Despite the crisis, Adris Group has had a successful business year-2008, so they wanted to show it off with their annual report.

During difficult times, only good ideas can light up the path out of the crisis. Ideas are energy! They emerge in a moment and spread at the speed of thoughts and people channel them. Ideas are passed on from person to person until their radiance becomes powerful enough to light up the future.

6. Artecnica – book of lights by takeshi ishiguro [link]

Isn't this neat? we think so, and we love this unique concept. you'll really surprise everyone with this beautiful and semmingly innocent book. the book of light's protagonist pops up when you open its hardy white pages, revealing a wonderfully crafted and cleverly folded lamp powered by a simple low voltage adapter. finally a coffee table book that you'll actually open.

7. Bookworms Go Green [link]

The Live Book is a small planter wearing sheep's clothing – that is to say a book. It's a great way to jazz up that old book shelf and lets face it. Most of us rarely read our collection of books more than once. If anything, it becomes a display piece and so why not add a little green to it. The removable vase has a simple drainage system and actually opens up into a real book.

8. "BookCup" Japanese Designer Mug Shaped Book Cover [link]

Carry your books in style and with a sense of humor with this pretty protective book cover that's shaped like a teacup. You can carry them in your handbag, backpack or suitcase knowing they're well protected. The book cover is neon pink and it's made out of imitation leather. It comes with a page marker, sewn inside the "cup", that imitates the string on a teabag. There are two folds inside for you to insert the book's front and back covers so it'll fit snuggly and won't move or slip out of the book cover.

9. Sleeve blanket [link]

Everyone reading in bed knows the feeling of cold arms. Spanish fashion designer andrea ayala closa came up with an idea to solve this: a 'sleeve blanket' to keep the arms warm. It features an opening for the index finger to allow readers to turn pages conveniently.

10. Workaholic Pillow [link]

We all know real workaholics never rest, and now their secret is out: the Workaholic Pillow! Workaholic Pillow is a cushion hiding in book shell.

Related posts:

9 Creative and Innovative Bookmark Design I am a kind of old fashioned person in term...
Amazing Book Carving I once wrote a blog about "Sculptural Book Art" from...
Incredible Book Carving I saw wood carving, fruit carving and even soap carving...
14 Innovative Egg-shape inspired product designs Easter is there… Let's do something routine…talking about eggs. In...

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What Little Kids Learn from Cinderella

2010-06-22T06:21:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

What Little Kids Learn from Cinderella

via GraphJam: Music and Pop Culture in Charts and Graphs. Let us explain them. by Cheezburger Network on 6/22/10

What Little Kids Learn from Cinderella

Graph by: rubybooksuraski via Graph Jam Builder

Math - Combinatorics - Graph Theory - Graph Drawing - Events

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11 Awesome stop motion photographs

2010-06-21T07:05:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

11 Awesome stop motion photographs

via The Inquisitr by Steven Hodson on 6/19/10

From tilt image photography to things like these stop motion images photographers around the world work their magic to capture a moment – or moments – in time for us to marvel and wonder at for years afterwards. These eleven are but a part of a larger collection but have to be my personal favorites.

Top image by rosendahl

Image by thebmag

Image by jurvetson

Image by WisDoc

Image by Leighton

Image by Rosendahl

Image by Mr. Bones

Image by flickrgao

Image by Drew Wilson

Image by Amnemona

Image by Lindsay Hope

Image by SuperTightStuff

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Brave Face

2010-06-21T07:01:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

Brave Face

via Funny Planet by Fungle on 6/20/10

ouch

little ninja isn't scared of needles!

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Fwd: Don't Taz Me Bro

2010-06-18T16:47:00.001-07:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ammon <ammon.piatt@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 9:45 AM
Subject: Don't Taz Me Bro
To: Ammon Piatt <ammon.piatt@gmail.com>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bVa6jn4rpE&feature=player_embedded

Fwd: Americanized Soccer

2010-06-18T16:46:00.001-07:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ammon <ammon.piatt@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 12:05 PM
Subject: Americanized Soccer
To: ammon.piatt.petposter@bloger.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJn5XxWg9U&feature=player_embedded

15 People Who Don't Know How to Use a Car Wash (Videos)

2010-06-17T11:57:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

15 People Who Don't Know How to Use a Car Wash (Videos)

via Urlesque by Jordan Breindel on 6/17/10

Filed under: Humor, Videos, Lists

If you've ever gotten your car washed, you'll know that it's one of the easiest things you could ever possibly do. Finding your keys, walking to your car, turning it on -- all of these tasks are exceedingly more difficult than actually getting your car washed. There's nothing complex about stopping a car or putting it in neutral. And yet, for some, it seems that that is in fact too much to ask. But who are theses challenged folks and what does their incompetence look like? Here are 15 exquisite examples.

Just when you think it can't get any worse...

One car goes crashing into another. So what to do you do? Hose it off. That's the sign of a true professional.

At the last minute, she decided she didn't need it cleaned.

Runaway Hose

Runaway Car

What? You've never had the urge to get out of your car and walk around?

I guess the inside was dirty too.

There's nothing sexier than falling on the ground.

I wonder if this driver got a ticket.

Oh, yeah. I'm towing a trailer full of cars.

The car's fine, but the video camera he mounted on top of the car so that he could capture the magic of a car wash on film, not so much.

And...he almost dies.

She mistakes the accelerator for the brake, somehow speeds across a four line highway without killing herself, and the worst part is: She totally freaked out the poor dryer girl.

Hey, I think I'll get out for a minute.

This was no accident, but still...

At least it's brushless.

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28 Pairs of Weird Shoes

2010-06-17T07:21:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

28 Pairs of Weird Shoes

via Urlesque by Drew Villano on 6/17/10

Filed under: Fashion, Weird, Photos, Art / Design, Lists

We need shoes to do pretty much anything outdoors, but the fashion industry has turned them from a necessary, functional item of clothing into a work of... Something entirely different. Some may call it art, but some of these crazy creations are just plain silly. If they can't be worn, at least they're fun to look at. Here are 28 pairs of weird shoes.

Horses everywhere are rolling their eyes.

If you love your CDs to skip constantly, these are perfect.

INCOMING!!

The spikes on the front look like really gnarly toenails.

Pieces to a Puzzle

Gun Safety Completely Ignored

You can just go barefoot for free.

Lift Weights While You Walk

These seem to be the most practical so far.

All Metal? Ouch!

Shoes of the Future

Our Calculations: Very Uncomfortable

Swimming Made Easy, Walking in Sand Made Impossible

Feet Tied into the Position They're Normally Rendered into by High Heels -- Pretty Clever

Business Casual?

These are uncomfortable just to look at.

Do they make you run really fast?

Finding the Right Size Must Be a Real Drag

Chia Shoes

The Stinky Transformer

Anyone with these had better warn their guests.

These probably don't work the way they look like they should.

So Fly

Bringing Something to the BBQ

Han Cholo

Monopoly Sneakers

Cork Sandals

Bikini Sandals

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Incredible Chinese Acrobats!

2010-06-17T05:21:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

Incredible Chinese Acrobats!

via Featured Blog Posts - My Modern Metropolis by Eugene on 6/17/10

This performance by Chinese acrobats for the 2010 CCTV Spring Festival is absolutely mind-blowing! Cirque du Soleil performers got nothing on these guys!

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Buzz from Ammon Piatt

2010-06-10T19:28:00.001-07:00

Link to this post:
http://www.google.com/buzz/100420632305890384397/Wnb5R71A9LV/http-picasaweb-google-com-Ammon-Piatt

11:15 am Ammon Piatt: http://picasaweb.google.com/Ammon.Piatt/PicturesForWeb

Until We Meet Again

2010-06-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

Fantastic Fantasy World - Jason Chan (10 pieces)

2010-06-08T10:49:00.001-07:00

These are amazing.

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

Fantastic Fantasy World - Jason Chan (10 pieces)

via Featured Blog Posts - My Modern Metropolis by alice on 6/8/10

The Girl Who Could Fly

Take a quick peek into the world of Jason Chan and you'll be dazzled by all of the mystical creatures. It's where flying children, rock monsters and beautiful sorcerers are as commonplace as ghosts, unicorns and dragons.

Combining his love for video games with his skill for drawing, Chan was destined to become an artist. His fantastic fantasy world will open your mind up to a whole other level - making you wonder what's truly possible.

"I love to draw. Ever since I was a kid I've always been drawing characters for make believe video games, cartoons and comics. I also loved drawing my favorite X-men characters, warcraft heroes, and video game sprites. I drew a million Mega Man and Mario drawings. As I grew up, that love for video games and fantasy never left me. I grew to love fantasy novels and that inspired my work. Many of my favorite video games were japanese made so as I drew the characters from those games, I began to fall for the anime style. Of course, that lead me to watch anime - an addiction I still haven't been able to shake. After a couple of yearsof horrible attempts at manga style art, I began school in San Francisco and actually got some decent life drawing and anatomy practice. I began to to be exposed to some of the western masters such as Sargent, Leyendecker, Rockwell, and Frazetta. I embraced the esthetics of western art and tried to improve myself in that direction. Now I am trying to marry my western art education with my eastern art interest and see what happens." - Jason Chan

Wish

Waterfall

Among the Ghosts

Geist: Book of the Order

Hunter's Moon

White Angel

Jason Chan

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Dell Adamo Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 13.4in Laptop (World's Thinnest Laptop) $...

2010-06-02T13:43:00.001-07:00

Sent to you by Ammon via Google Reader:

Dell Adamo Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 13.4in Laptop (World's Thinnest Laptop) $999 at Dell Home

via Techbargains.com by rss@techbargains.com on 6/2/10

Dell Home Coupon Codes

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The Catholic Church Sold Out

2009-10-20T08:49:00.001-07:00

Does the Catholic church realize what they did? They pretty much just said that their doctrine means nothing that you can do whatever you say your culture allows. So much for them claiming to have the truth.

From CNN.com

Vatican welcomes Anglicans into Catholic church

ROME, Italy (CNN) -- The Vatican said Tuesday it has worked out a way for groups of Anglicans who are dissatisfied with their faith to join the Catholic Church.

The Vatican says more Anglicans have expressed an interest in joining the Catholic Church.

The process will allow groups of Anglicans, including bishops and married priests, to join the Catholic Church some 450 years after King Henry VIII broke from Rome and created the Church of England.

The number of Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church has increased in recent years as the Anglican church has welcomed the ordination of women and openly gay clergy and blessed homosexual partnerships, said Cardinal William Joseph Levada, the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Their talks with the Vatican recently began speeding up, Vatican officials said, leading to Tuesday's announcement.

"The Catholic Church is responding to the many requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to enter into full visible communion," Levada said.

Levada said "hundreds" of Anglicans around the world have expressed their desire to join the Catholic Church. Among them are 50 Anglican bishops, said Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia of the Congregation of the Divine Cult.

The Anglicans will be able to retain their Anglican rites while recognizing the pope as their leader, Vatican officials said. The British monarch is the head of the Anglican Church.

While married Anglican priests may be ordained as Catholic priests, the same does not apply to married Anglican bishops, Levada said.

Don't Miss

"We've been praying for this unity for 40 years and we've not anticipated it happening now," Di Noia said. "The Holy Spirit is at work here."

The Church of England said the move ends a "period of uncertainty" for Anglican groups who wanted more unity with the Catholic Church.

Both groups have a "substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality" and will continue to hold official dialogues, the archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster said in a joint statement.

"Those Anglicans who have approached the Holy See have made clear their desire for full, visible unity in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church," Levada said. "At the same time, they have told us of the importance of their Anglican traditions of spirituality and worship for their faith journey."

Preserving Anglican traditions, such as mass rites, adds to the diversity of the Catholic Church, he said.

"The unity of the church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows," he said. "Moreover, the many diverse traditions present in the Catholic Church today are all rooted in the principle articulated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: 'There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism."

Something to Think About

2009-09-17T15:00:00.001-07:00

Go Public Schools

2009-08-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

The success of public schools has me anxious to get my kids enrolled. Check out THIS article about test scores.

You don't have to make $200,000 a year and pay for a privet tutor for your kids to get the attention to education they need. You could just home school.

Gaming Husbands Beware

2009-08-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

If don't push pause and take out that trash your wife might have you committed. Then you'll be feeding goats instead of beating that high score.

First U.S. Rehab Center for Internet Addicts Opens

Lessons in social skills such as conversation and reading body language are among the programs offered at the first U.S. rehab center for Internet addicts, which recently opened in the state of Washington.

"We are a cold turkey place; no technology," reStart psychotherapist Hilarie Cash told Agence France Presse. "A gamer is not going to be allowed to game any time they are here because it is the gaming that is their drug of choice."

Along with learning social skills, participants at the five-acre rural facility do hands-on activities such as feeding baby goats or building a chicken coop.

"We are not anti-technology," Cash told AFP. "It is about helping people addicted to technology to get through the withdrawal and help their brains get wired back to normal and connected to the world in a positive way."

The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher

2009-08-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

****I know this and my last post are quite long but if you care anything about your kids or kids you might care about some day then you probable should read this.****

I found this essay in the Fall '91 issue of Whole Earth Review. It finally clarified for me why American school is such a spirit-crushing experience, and suggested what to do about it.

Before reading, please set your irony detector to the on position. If you find yourself inclined to dismiss the below as paranoid, you should know that the design behind the current American school system is very well-documented historically, in published writings of dizzying cynicism by such well-known figures as Horace Mann and Andrew Carnegie.

The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher

by John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991

Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing better to do, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. My license certifies me as an instructor of English language and literature, but that isn't what I do at all. What I teach is school, and I win awards doing it.

Teaching means many different things, but six lessons are common to schoolteaching from Harlem to Hollywood. You pay for these lessons in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what they are:

The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong." I don't know who decides that my kids belong there but that's not my business. The children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned to the right class. Over the years the variety of ways children are numbered has increased dramatically, until it is hard to see the human being under the burden of the numbers each carries. Numbering children is a big and very profitable business, though what the business is designed to accomplish is elusive.

In any case, again, that's not my business. My job is to make the kids like it -- being locked in together, I mean -- or at the minimum, endure it. If things go well, the kids can't imagine themselves anywhere else; they envy and fear the better classes and have contempt for the dumber classes. So the class mostly keeps itself in good marching order. That's the real lesson of any rigged competition like school. You come to know your place.

Nevertheless, in spite of the overall blueprint, I make an effort to urge children to higher levels of test success, promising eventual transfer from the lower-level class as a reward. I insinuate that the day will come when an employer will hire them on the basis of test scores, even though my own experience is that employers are (rightly) indifferent to such things. I never lie outright, but I've come to see that truth and [school]teaching are incompatible.

The lesson of numbered classes is that there is no way out of your class except by magic. Until that happens you must stay where you are put.

The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch. I demand that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor. But when the bell rings I insist that they drop the work at once and proceed quickly to the next work station. Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of.

The lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Bells are the secret logic of schooltime; their argument is inexorable; bells destroy past and future, converting every interval into a sameness, as an abstract map makes every living mountain and river the same even though they are not. Bells inoculate each undertaking with indifference.

The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command. Rights may be granted or withheld, by authority, without appeal. As a schoolteacher I intervene in many personal decisions, issuing a Pass for those I deem legitimate, or initiating a disciplinary confrontation for behavior that threatens my control. My judgments come thick and fast, because individuality is trying constantly to assert itself in my classroom. Individuality is a curse to all systems of classification, a contradiction of class theory.

Here are some common ways it shows up: children sneak away for a private moment in the toilet on the pretext of moving their bowels; they trick me out of a private instant in the hallway on the grounds that they need water. Sometimes free will appears right in front of me in children angry, depressed or exhilarated by things outside my ken. Rights in such things cannot exist for schoolteachers; only privileges, which can be withdrawn, exist.

The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study. (Rather, I enforce decisions transmitted by the people who pay me). This power lets me separate good kids from bad kids instantly. Good kids do the tasks I appoint with a minimum of conflict and a decent show of enthusiasm. Of the millions of things of value to learn, I decide what few we have time for. The choices are mine. Curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity.

Bad kids fight against this, of course, trying openly or covertly to make decisions for themselves about what they will learn. How can we allow that and survive as schoolteachers? Fortunately there are procedures to break the will of those who resist.

This is another way I teach the lesson of dependency. Good people wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of all, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. It is no exaggeration to say that our entire economy depends upon this lesson being learned. Think of what would fall apart if kids weren't trained in the dependency lesson: The social-service businesses could hardly survive, including the fast-growing counseling industry; commercial entertainment of all sorts, along with television, would wither if people remembered how to make their own fun; the food services, restaurants and prepared-food warehouses would shrink if people returned to making their own meals rather than depending on strangers to cook for them. Much of modern law, medicine, and engineering would go too -- the clothing business as well -- unless a guaranteed supply of helpless people poured out of our schools each year. We've built a way of life that depends on people doing what they are told because they don't know any other way. For God's sake, let's not rock that boat!

In lesson five I teach that your self-respect should depend on an observer's measure of your worth. My kids are constantly evaluated and judged. A monthly report, impressive in its precision, is sent into students' homes to spread approval or to mark exactly -- down to a single percentage point -- how dissatisfied with their children parents should be. Although some people might be surprised how little time or reflection goes into making up these records, the cumulative weight of the objective- seeming documents establishes a profile of defect which compels a child to arrive at a certain decisions about himself and his future based on the casual judgment of strangers.

Self-evaluation -- the staple of every major philosophical system that ever appeared on the planet -- is never a factor in these things. The lesson of report cards, grades, and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents, but must rely on the evaluation of certified officials. People need to be told what they are worth.

In lesson six I teach children that they are being watched. I keep each student under constant surveillance and so do my colleagues. There are no private spaces for children; there is no private time. Class change lasts 300 seconds to keep promiscuous fraternization at low levels. Students are encouraged to tattle on each other, even to tattle on their parents. Of course I encourage parents to file their own child's waywardness, too.

I assign "homework" so that this surveillance extends into the household, where students might otherwise use the time to learn something unauthorized, perhaps from a father or mother, or by apprenticing to some wiser person in the neighborhood.

The lesson of constant surveillance is that no one can be trusted, that privacy is not legitimate. Surveillance is an ancient urgency among certain influential thinkers; it was a central prescription set down by Calvin in the Institutes, by Plato in the Republic, by Hobbes, by Comte, by Francis Bacon. All these childless men discovered the same thing: Children must be closely watched if you want to keep a society under central control.

It is the great triumph of schooling that among even the best of my fellow teachers, and among even the best parents, there is only a small number who can imagine a different way to do things. Yet only a very few lifetimes ago things were different in the United States: originality and variety were common currency; our freedom from regimentation made us the miracle of the world; social class boundaries were relatively easy to cross; our citizenry was marvelously confident, inventive, and able to do many things independently, to think for themselves. We were something, all by ourselves, as individuals.

It only takes about 50 contact hours to transmit basic literacy and math skills well enough that kids can be self-teachers from then on. The cry for "basic skills" practice is a smokescreen behind which schools pre-empt the time of children for twelve years and teach them the six lessons I've just taught you.

We've had a society increasingly under central control in the United States since just before the Civil War: the lives we lead, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, and the green highway signs we drive by from coast to coast are the products of this central control. So, too, I think, are the epidemics of drugs, suicide, divorce, violence, cruelty, and the hardening of class into caste in the U.S., products of the dehumanization of our lives, the lessening of individual and family importance that central control imposes.

Without a fully active role in community life you cannot develop into a complete human being. Aristotle taught that. Surely he was right; look around you or look in the mirror: that is the demonstration.

"School" is an essential support system for a vision of social engineering that condemns most people to be subordinate stones in a pyramid that narrows to a control point as it ascends. "School" is an artifice which makes such a pyramidal social order seem inevitable (although such a premise is a fundamental betrayal of the American Revolution). In colonial days and through the period of the early Republic we had no schools to speak of. And yet the promise of democracy was beginning to be realized. We turned our backs on this promise by bringing to life the ancient dream of Egypt: compulsory training in subordination for everybody. Compulsory schooling was the secret Plato reluctantly transmitted in the Republic when he laid down the plans for total state control of human life.

The current debate about whether we should have a national curriculum is phony; we already have one, locked up in the six lessons I've told you about and a few more I've spared you. This curriculum produces moral and intellectual paralysis, and no curriculum of content will be sufficient to reverse its bad effects. What is under discussion is a great irrelevancy.

None of this is inevitable, you know. None of it is impregnable to change. We do have a choice in how we bring up young people; there is no right way. There is no "international competition" that compels our existence, difficult as it is to even think about in the face of a constant media barrage of myth to the contrary. In every important material respect our nation is self-sufficient. If we gained a non-material philosophy that found meaning where it is genuinely located -- in families, friends, the passage of seasons, in nature, in simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, generosity, compassion, and service to others, in a decent independence and privacy -- then we would be truly self-sufficient.

How did these awful places, these "schools", come about? As we know them, they are a product of the two "Red Scares" of 1848 and 1919, when powerful interests feared a revolution among our industrial poor, and partly they are the result of the revulsion with which old-line families regarded the waves of Celtic, Slavic, and Latin immigration -- and the Catholic religion -- after 1845. And certainly a third contributing cause can be found in the revulsion with which these same families regarded the free movement of Africans through the society after the Civil War.

Look again at the six lessons of school. This is training for permanent underclasses, people who are to be deprived forever of finding the center of their own special genius. And it is training shaken loose from its original logic: to regulate the poor. Since the 1920s the growth of the well-articulated school bureaucracy, and the less visible growth of a horde of industries that profit from schooling exactly as it is, have enlarged schooling's original grasp to seize the sons and daughters of the middle class.

Is it any wonder Socrates was outraged at the accusation that he took money to teach? Even then, philosophers saw clearly the inevitable direction the professionalization of teaching would take, pre-empting the teaching function that belongs to all in a healthy community; belongs, indeed, most clearly to yourself, since nobody else cares as much about your destiny. Professional teaching tends to another serious error. It makes things that are inherently easy to learn, like reading, writing, and arithmetic, difficult -- by insisting they be taught by pedagogical procedures.

With lessons like the ones I teach day after day, is it any wonder we have the national crisis we face today? Young people indifferent to the adult world and to the future; indifferent to almost everything except the diversion of toys and violence? Rich or poor, schoolchildren cannot concentrate on anything for very long. They have a poor sense of time past and to come; they are mistrustful of intimacy (like the children of divorce they really are); they hate solitude, are cruel, materialistic, dependent, passive, violent, timid in the face of the unexpected, addicted to distraction.

All the peripheral tendencies of childhood are magnified to a grotesque extent by schooling, whose hidden curriculum prevents effective personality development. Indeed, without exploiting the fearfulness, selfishness, and inexperience of children our schools could not survive at all, nor could I as a certified schoolteacher.

"Critical thinking" is a term we hear frequently these days as a form of training which will herald a new day in mass schooling. It certainly will, if it ever happens. No common school that actually dared teach the use of dialectic, heuristic, and other tools of free minds could last a year without being torn to pieces.

Institutional schoolteachers are destructive to children's development. Nobody survives the Six-Lesson Curriculum unscathed, not even the instructors. The method is deeply and profoundly anti-educational. No tinkering will fix it. In one of the great ironies of human affairs, the massive rethinking that schools require would cost so much less than we are spending now that it is not likely to happen. First and foremost, the business I am in is a jobs project and a contract-letting agency. We cannot afford to save money, not even to help children.

At the pass we've come to historically, and after 26 years of teaching, I must conclude that one of the only alternatives on the horizon for most families is to teach their own children at home. Small, de- institutionalized schools are another. Some form of free-market system for public schooling is the likeliest place to look for answers. But the near impossibility of these things for the shattered families of the poor, and for too many on the fringes of the economic middle class, foretell that the disaster of Six-Lesson Schools is likely to continue.

After an adult lifetime spent in teaching school I believe the method of schooling is the only real content it has. Don't be fooled into thinking that good curricula or good equipment or good teachers are the critical determinants of your son and daughter's schooltime. All the pathologies we've considered come about in large measure because the lessons of school prevent children from keeping important appointments with themselves and their families, to learn lessons in self-motivation, perseverance, self-reliance, courage, dignity and love -- and, of course, lessons in service to others, which are among the key lessons of home life.

Thirty years ago these things could still be learned in the time left after school. But television has eaten most of that time, and a combination of television and the stresses peculiar to two-income or single-parent families have swallowed up most of what used to be family time. Our kids have no time left to grow up fully human, and only thin-soil wastelands to do it in.

A future is rushing down upon our culture which will insist that all of us learn the wisdom of non-material experience; this future will demand, as the price of survival, that we follow a pace of natural life economical in material cost. These lessons cannot be learned in schools as they are. School is like starting life with a 12-year jail sentence in which bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.

A 1997 interview on We The People radio has been transcribed here.

[The following is from a letter by Grace Llewellyn (author of the Teenage Liberation Handbook), printed in the Spring 1992 issue of the Whole Earth Review:]

.. Gatto has a new job. Having resigned, he continues to implement his unique "guerilla curriculum" at the Albany Free School, and also lectures nationwide. In his lectures and his writing Gatto not only adeptly denounces the public schools, but also makes radical suggestions for improving them. These suggestions are grounded not in hypothetical clouds but rather on his own innovative methods of teaching which involve community service projects, independent study, apprenticeships, and solitude. ... More of Gatto's writing can be found in a new collection of his essays entitled "Dumbing Us Down" (New Society Publishers, 1992) [excerpted in WER issue #81].

"Dumbing Us Down" is available from New Society Publishers (POB 189, Gabriola Island, BC, V0R 1X0 CANADA), or via Gatto's own online bookstore, or from your friendly neighborhood bookstore (ISBN 0-86571-448-7).

A more comprehensive book, newly available on-line as well as in print is "The Underground History of American Education", and may be found at John Taylor Gatto's own web site, johntaylorgatto.com. You can buy a copy via his online bookstore, or from your friendly neighborhood bookstore (ISBN 0-945-70004-0). (Note: I have no financial relationship with him or the publisher.)

Harper's September 2003 issue had an essay, "Against School".

If you maintain a web page, you are encouraged to add a link to this one, as a short introduction to the problem of school. This page will be stable forever.
Return to The Cantrip Corpus.
© Copyright 1991 by Whole Earth Review & John Taylor Gatto. All Rights Reserved

Against School

2009-08-07T08:16:00.001-07:00

Disclaimer: If you are a fan of public/government school and want to stay that way then you probable should not read this because it might educate you beyond repair.

Against School*

John Taylor Gatto**

How public education cripples our kids, and why I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.

Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn't get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?

We all are. My grandfather taught me that. One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainly not to be trusted. That episode cured me of boredom forever, and here and there over the years I was able to pass on the lesson to some remarkable student. For the most part, however, I found it futile to challenge the official notion that boredom and childishness were the natural state of affairs in the classroom. Often I had to defy custom, and even bend the law, to help kids break out of this trap.

The empire struck back, of course; childish adults regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty. I once returned from a medical leave to discover that all evidence of my having been granted the leave had been purposely destroyed, that my job had been terminated, and that I no longer possessed even a teaching license. After nine months of tormented effort I was able to retrieve the license when a school secretary testified to witnessing the plot unfold. In the meantime my family suffered more than I care to remember. By the time I finally retired in 1991, I had more than enough reason to think of our schools - with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers - as virtual factories of childishness. Yet I honestly could not see why they had to be that way. My own experience had revealed to me what many other teachers must learn along the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal: if we wanted to we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old, stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merely receive a schooling. We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness - curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight - simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then.

But we don't do that. And the more I asked why not, and persisted in thinking about the "problem" of schooling as an engineer might, the more I missed the point: What if there is no "problem" with our schools? What if they are the way they are, so expensively flying in the face of common sense and long experience in how children learn things, not because they are doing something wrong but because they are doing something right? Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child behind"? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them ever really grows up?

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a secondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry, like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.

We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of "success" as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, "schooling," but historically that isn't true in either an intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble prisons. Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such a system? What exactly is the purpose of our public schools?

Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:

1) To make good people.

2) To make good citizens.

3) To make each person his or her personal best.

These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim.. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States . . . and that is its aim everywhere else.

Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted to dismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article, however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational system back to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, military state of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the irony that we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussian thought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Our educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern.

The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again and again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to it many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s. Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here. That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising, given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian served as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many German- speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws. But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens - all in order to render the populace "manageable."

It was from James Bryant Conant - president of Harvard for twenty years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bomb project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany after WWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century - that I first got wind of the real purposes of American schooling. Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000 students at a time, like the famous Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's 1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the modern schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered between 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."

Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever reintegrate into a dangerous whole.

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such a herd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.

There you have it. Now you know. We don't need Karl Marx's conception of a grand warfare between the classes to see that it is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don't conform. Class may frame the proposition, as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." But the motives behind the disgusting decisions that bring about these ends need not be class-based at all. They can stem purely from fear, or from the by now familiar belief that "efficiency" is the paramount virtue, rather than love, liberty, laughter, or hope. Above all, they can stem from simple greed.

There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and unwise to buy things they didn't actually need. Mandatory schooling was a godsend on that count. School didn't have to train kids in any direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. And that left them sitting ducks for another great invention of the modem era - marketing.

Now, you needn't have studied marketing to know that there are two groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than they need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children. Again, this is no accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his once well-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P. Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successive school enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years, and forced schooling was at that point still quite new. This same Cubberley - who was dean of Stanford's School of Education, a textbook editor at Houghton Mifflin, and Conant's friend and correspondent at Harvard - had written the following in the 1922 edition of his book Public School Administration: "Our schools are . . . factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned.. . . And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down."

It's perfectly obvious from our society today what those specifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearly every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask questions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has seen to it.

Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.

First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a preteen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there's no telling what your own kids could do. After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.

** 09/2003 Harper's Magazine. Copyright of "Against School" is the property of Harper's Magazine. Its content may not be copied without the copyright holder's express written permission except for the print or download intended solely for the use of the individual user. Content provided by EBSCO Publishing.

* John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground History of American Education. He was a participant in the Harper's Magazine forum "School on a Hill," which appeared in the September 2001 issue. You can find his web site here.

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This is genius!

2009-08-07T05:33:00.000-07:00

You know you want one.

What I have learned using a public bathroom

2009-04-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

1. I can open doors with my wrist or elbow
2. I can flush using my foot
3. I can cover an oval using only squares
4. If you put some TP in the bowl first I don’t get splashed
5. I can hold my breath for 1 minute 22 seconds
6. Going to the bathroom takes more than 1 minute and 22 seconds
7. I can dry my hands using the insides of my pockets
8. People that write on walls are very angry or very lonely
9. Public bathrooms are like a box of chocolates
10. Some times it’s better to just hold it

Beauty and the Beliefs

2009-04-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

Ok not so beautiful but I have to give her props for standing by what she believes. I guess you can count that has her beauty. Check THIS article out, (The article got squashed so I pasted a copy in this post. Happy Reading) it says a lot about the world we live in. I think it is important for everyone to realize that tolerances does not mean acceptance. I can tolerate gay's in there struggles but I will not accept their views are anything other then wrong and an abomination. I can still be their friend, love them and try to help them overcome but I will always stand up for what is right.

Perez Hilton: The Foul Face of ‘Gay’ Activism
Friday, April 24, 2009
By J. Matt Barber
Warning: This article contains graphic but accurate material that may be offensive to some readers.

You may have heard. During Sunday’s Miss USA pageant openly “gay” activist and pageant judge Perez Hilton – the self-styled “Queen of Media” – ambushed Carrie Prejean – the openly Christian Miss California – with a politically loaded question on so-called “same-sex marriage.” Prejean’s candid answer – as both Hilton and Miss USA organizer Donald Trump later admitted – likely cost her the crown.

From the moment she opened her mouth, Prejean has given liberals a clinic in class. Hilton, on the other hand (a.k.a. Mario Armando Lavandeira), has provided the world a sneak peek into the soul of homosexual activism.

This is one for the up-is-down-black-is-white hall of fame. The media’s fabricated flap over Prejean’s answer – a public defense of legitimate marriage – has a reasonable America scratching its collective noggin in stunned disbelief. Not because of the answer she gave Perez – which was both well received by the pageant audience and overwhelmingly shared by about 70 percent of Americans – but, rather, because of Hilton’s hate-filled, misogynistic response to her answer and the disgraceful, knee-jerk defense of that response by liberals in Hollywood, the media and organized homosexuality.

After Hilton asked the lovely and talented Miss California whether “every state” should legalize “same-sex marriage,” Prejean responded: “In my country, in my family … I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be – between a man and a woman.”

Oh the humanity!

Evidently this was not the rooty-tooty-fresh-n’-fruity answer Hilton – the creepy valley girl wannabe with a five o’clock shadow – had hoped for. He promptly marked Prejean’s score card with a zero, plopped down in front of the television cameras and began blubbering away like a fussy little snot with a dirty diaper.

Having already publicly called Prejean a “dumb b----,” he then yammered to a sympathetic Norah O’Donnell on MSNBC that, not only was he refusing to apologize, he was actually “thinking the C-word.” This, of course, one of the vilest things anyone can call a woman. Yet, rather than taking Hilton to task for the boy lover’s girl-hating poison, O’Donnell joined in on the bash-fest, criticizing Prejean for her traditional view.

But Hilton wasn’t done yet. Ramping up his vicious attack on the Christian California bombshell, our lispy-wispy lil’ cupcake dove headlong into the annals of dirt-baggery lore. He defaced a photo of Prejean on his weblog scribbling, below her chin, a crude depiction of a male phallus ejaculating in her mouth.

How did Prejean react?

While talking to Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show she said, “I knew at that moment after I answered the question, I knew, I was not going to win because of my answer, because I had spoken from my heart, from my beliefs and for my God. … I wouldn't have answered it differently. The way I answered may have been offensive. With that question specifically, it's not about being politically correct. For me it was being biblically correct.”

On the Fox News Channel’s Hannity program, Prejean shared, “You know, I forgive him. I know that he's angry for whatever reason. I know there must be a bigger issue going on in his life.”

Like I said – Class.

Still, Perez Hilton – Hollywood’s frothy-potty-mouthed little drama queen – isn’t alone in his hatred for Prejean or the three-fourths of Americans who share her opposition to the novel and incongruous concept of “gay marriage.”

For example, Wayne Besen, a prominent leader in the homosexual activist community, unbelievably went on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor to defend Hilton. He picked up Hilton’s anti-Christian torch, incredibly charging that it was Prejean, not Hilton, whose millennia old recognition of biblical marriage “was divisive.” Besen then added insult to injury and revealed his true rainbow colors by tagging the 70 percent of Americans who oppose “gay marriage” as “bigots.”

This whole hateful affair provides the perfect metaphor for the current divide between defenders of traditional sexual morality and the extremist “queer” activist movement. As Congress debates the constructive repeal of both the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of “equal protection under the law” and the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and freedom of religion through passage of discriminatory and wholly unnecessary “hate crimes” legislation, this little episode once again reminds us that the self-described champions of “tolerance” and “diversity” are the most intolerant and hateful among us.

How soon we forget. Just hearken back a few months to the passage of California’s Proposition 8, which restored the definition of natural marriage to the Golden State. There we all played witness to “gay” activist calls for church burnings, Mormon Temple vandalism, death threats against Prop 8 supporters and quasi-riotous assaults against peaceful Christian marriage supporters.

So, insofar as liberals continue to dig their own hole by defending Hilton and piling on Prejean, I submit they’re doing the other 70 percent of us a favor. In their biting anger, they’ve cast aside the sublime mask of “tolerance,” revealing an ugly, desperate and most intolerant countenance below.

For that, I say thank you. For your treatment of Carrie Prejean, I say shame on you.

The mind of a fat kid

2009-04-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what is going through a fat kids head when he sees cake?

Happy Gilmore got it right......

Why don't you just go home?!

That's your HOME!
Are you too good for your home?

We make bald look good!

2009-04-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hey we get to add Noah now!

Man's Best Friend

2009-04-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

If Man’s best friend is a dog, then a boy’s best friend is….. a worm?

The Sky is Falling

2009-04-20T11:11:00.001-07:00

We all go through times in our lives when every thing seems to be coming down on us. It only takes someone how cares to make things bearable. It may not make everything better but it will make a difference. So it doesn't matter which side of the road you are currently on make sure that love is always part of your life.

Stop Spam, Stop Global Warming

2009-04-16T06:14:00.000-07:00

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=7343518&page=1

This goes for all you chainmail forwarding people too. You really won't find the love of your life if you send that e-mail to 20 people.

FORMS ARE GOING FAST- SIGN UP TODAY!

2009-03-31T05:12:00.000-07:00

Becoming Illegal (Actual letter from an Iowa resident and sent to his senator)

The Honorable Tom Harkin, 731 Hart Senate Office Building, Phone (202) 224 3254 Washington DC , 20510

Dear Senator Harkin ,

As a native Iowan and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service , I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.. My primary reason for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stems from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill'sprovisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, all I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out. Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxesevery year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005. Additionally, as an illegal alien I could begin using the local emergency room as my primary health care provider. Once I have stopped paying premiums for medical insurance, my accountant figures I could save almost $10,000 a year. Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications , as well as 'in-state' tuition rates for many colleges throughout the United States for my son. Lastly, I understand that illegal status would relieve me of the burden of renewing my driver's license and making those burdensome car insurance premiums . This is very important to me given that I still have college age children driving my car. If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your assistance.

Your Loyal Constituent, (hoping to reach 'illegal alien' status rather than just a bonafide citizen of the USA )

Donald RuppertBurlington , IA

Get your Forms (NOW)!! Call your Internal Revenue Service at 1-800-289-1040

Rock on!

2009-03-29T18:58:00.000-07:00