Thursday Thirteen Good Blogreads

Thirteen Good Blogreads according to Joan My thirteen this week will highlight some good reading I have found since I posted last Thursday's list. 1…. Jollyblogger wrote a good post about the statement made by The Reverend Pat Robertson (that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's massive stroke could be God's punishment for giving up Israeli territory) . He ends the post by saying, "Memo to the rest of the world - Pat Robertson doesn't speak for us Christians!" 2....Jane, at Cozy Reader, also wrote a good post on this same topic. 3.... Number 2 Pencil wrote a post this week about the problems with modern society's fixation on "self-esteem." This has long been one of my hot-button issues. Kimberly quotes from the following blog then adds her own assessments. 4.... Dave of Garfield Ridge: Self-esteem gurus constantly tell our children that they're unique, and special, and they've earned the right to stand up as equals to their elders. Unfortunately, our educational system-- not to mention America's increasingly brittle social fabric, from the family to the village square-- no longer provides these students with either the tools to acquire, or even the desire to acquire the tools necessary to back up this otherwise healthy skepticism with facts, let alone achieve higher-order reasoning...Humility is important...it affords us the opportunity to know when we don't know what we are talking about. Often, it's less important to know the answer than to know when you don't know the answer, yet few educators-- and fewer parents-- bother to instill this basic lesson in children. And if you don't learn it as a child, you won't learn it as an adult. 5....Kathryn at Suitable for Mixed Company provided the link and some commentary for a Jan Karon biography by editor Sam Hodges of the Charlotte News. (To find this article, go to Suitable for Mixed Company and follow Kathryn's links -- I cannot get Blogger to accept the html code for the article) If you are a Jan Karon fan, you would be interested in reading about the obstacles she overcame to reach her current state of success. 6....I found this site with an archive of misheard song lyrics. Some are hilarious. If your blog is where I found this link, please let me know -- I simply forgot my source here. 7....Darren at Right on the Left Coast,to whom I link frequently (he's one of my regular blogreads) wrote an interesting post on the fight over High School exit exams in his home state of California. He says: ...I want to know if, after at least 12 years of education, they can string words together into coherent sentences and can solve arithmetic problems of the most basic kind. That doesn't seem too much to ask. Of course, if they cannot do these things, it's not their fault. It's the fault of the schools, of the teachers, of our racist society (if the failures happen to be non-white), etc. Read the latter half of the article linked above--you get every argument you can think of, and then some. Read more of this post and the ones to which he refers. 8....Semicolon is another blog I read every day. Sherry wrote a piece this week about the fact that Oprah is introducing an essay-writing contest on a book that she says is "mandatory reading for every human being on the planet." mandatory reading for every human being on the planet??? Oprah plans to introduce this on January 16. Do you think that the date of the introduction is a hint? Sherry ends her post with: Now, I wonder, what book or books, other than the Bible (which I’m fairly sure will NOT be Oprah’s selection), would you consider “mandatory reading for every human being on the planet?” Think about that: peasants in China should read this book, Muslims and Christians should read it, young people and old people, men and women, techies, cowboys, race car drivers, mommies, everybody.So, I have two questions.What book would you suggest for mandatory reading for the entire planet?In the prognostication category, what book title do you think Oprah will announce on January 16th? 9....Mothertongue Annoyances linked to a website that deals with delicate medical topics. It is pretty blunt, but I thought it was an interesting idea for a site. I won't detail what MA discussed that led to the link. 10.... Jay Atkins at Daddyhoo quoted a long article by Bob Parks that I found vastly interesting. (FYI: Jay has two blogs that rank in the top 100 of the TTLB Ecosystem) Bob Parks is a former Republican congressional candidate (California 24th District), Navy veteran, single father, member/writer for the National Advisory Council of Project 21, and is a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. In this article, Mr. Parks explains why he, as a black man, is a Republican. He gives specific statistics to show why the typical black party affliliation is not helping his race. He encourages blacks not to submit to the lure of victimhood, use race as the excuse for every failure, and believe that racism is the cause of all their problems. Read it for yourself. He says it much better than I have. 11....Norma on Collecting My Thoughts wrote a thought-provoking, and somewhat frightening, piece about prisoners' access to the internet and their possible use of the information that they can find there. 12....Darla, of Mixed Feelings and Much More, told a funny, though crude and somewhat sacrilegious, story/joke about an imprudent and intemperate priest. She also posted about her progress on a new exercise program -- inspiring to me since I am also attempting to increase my activity level by participating in the Monthly Marathon with Carol of The Median Sib. 13.... Dari, of Almost an Angel, posted a picture of a computer from 1954 along with a prediction made at that time about what computers would be like in 2004. This prediction could hardly have been farther off the mark! You have to go take a look at this one. Happy Blogging! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!) Jeej D Susie JK COABusyMom Jane Norma Tracy Indigo Darla Veronika Happy Mama to Three Angie Stacie Mandz Beth Carol Jennifer Uisce Ardice Janne Chickadee Sherri-Lynn Crystal Kelly Kimmie