Thursday, August 25, 2011

Best website ever?

That's a hard thing to judge but this must be a contender: The Kid Should See This collects pictures and video clips that should fascinate kids, whether about science or art or just neat stuff. I was going to save this for my next bunch of parenting links, but I've spent the last hour watching clips on the site (Baryshnikov from 1969! an octopus doing amazing things for camouflage!), so I think it can't wait...

(via kottke)

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Belated stones of July

Ok, so I think this proves either that I'm incapable of a sustained project in the summer or that this particular summer got the upper hand over me. I basically managed almost no small stones for July, but here are the few that have been rattling around in my bookbag...
pebble 1

winds rising --
in the middle of the sidewalk
a single shoe

pebble 2

mossy shingles --
a sparrow calls from the sycamore

pebble 3

the high bounce of my eraser
as if trying to come back to the desk,
to have another chance...

Monday, August 15, 2011

Warren "no-B.S." Buffet

Buffet points out to our buffoon Congress that the ultra-rich don't need protecting from higher taxes and would be happy to pay more to prevent widespread pain among the working classes.
My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.
You tell 'em, Warren!

Monday kid-blogging: Action edition

Man, Speck is all swinging and jumping, ALL the time. Jumping from the kitchen stool, swinging from a stair rail, and on and on. All accompanied by "watch this! watch this!" wow. I'm throwing in one picture here from a quieter occupation, just to give us all a breather...

Speck hangs from bar, climbing doorway
Here, both hanging and climbing!

Speck coloring on the big chalkboards
A little updating of math on the big chalkboards at Dad's work.

Speck hangs from the low monkey bars

Dangling from the monkey bars -- oh how she wants to swing to the next bar!

Hope to upload some videos of swinging and jumping soon!

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Poem of the day


Questions Before Dark

Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you? Are the corners
sharper or rounded off? Did you
live with death? Make decisions
that quieted? Find one clear word
that fit? At the sun's midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible? What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again? Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?
- Jeanne Lohmann
The Light of Invisible Bodies
beyond the fields we know
(via whiskey river)

Friday, August 05, 2011

Making a mess that can't be cleaned up?

Just my feeling about the downward spiral of American politics these days. Sigh.
  • Lessons of the Crisis -- The debt-ceiling debacle revealed that politics is broken in every possible way and there's no point in explaining complicated matters to the American people. (author's subtitle)

  • On Rules and Norms: Four Reasons to Regret This Moment -- once somebody has tried "things that just aren't done" and succeeded, is there any going back to rational discourse?
Every economic study seems to indicate that the economy needs more stimulus, but our idiot leaders are going with austerity instead, and I fear that Ireland and Greece are our future. Hard to know what to do with one's own savings and future planning in that light, let alone how to steel oneself for the wider national suffering to come...

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Maybe if I post this here, I can get back to work

A little frog-obsessive today, sigh. Anyway, here's a screenshot of my frog nursery, complete with a number of eggs waiting to hatch (that is, tormenting me with their lengthy maturation times)...

Frog Nursery 1, with pink rock and floating eggs

When I get some of my other habitats filled with thematic frogs (earthy amid dry leaves, or neon on black gravel, say), perhaps I'll share some more.

Monday, August 01, 2011

Link dump: We can all use some cheery distraction edition

Informative and interesting:

Hilarious:

Summer fun/try at home:

sunshine and flowers made from food, by A Mindful Life
(a cheery toddler lunch by A Mindful Life!)

Twitter quote of the day


A good jobs program would be paying people to whiteout 2011 on calendars and replace with 1937.
- ntoddpax
(NTodd Pritsky)
(via Medley)