3 Ring Binder

Rather than being eaten, it’s possible that at the age of four to five months old, our turkey chicks may actually be living on their own, so we shouldn’t be too sad that another one is missing (one other is just not pictured) today – so I explained to my youngest this morning . No doubt inspired by my frank discussions with her twenty year-old brother about his uncertain future due to his lack of enthusiasm in college, she suggested that perhaps the turkey “is living in his mother’s basement”. Maybe I should stop wearing this t-shirt around the house. Update: my daughter may have been onto something this morning. This afternoon Butterball decided to grace his family (and our back yard) with his presence, so there are still seven of them.

Lately, when I'm not channeling Peter Frampton, I've been feeling like this grumpy looking fellow (just the curmudgeonly sqwinched up face, not the whole head on a pike thing). If you'd rather make the shrunken head look out of apples than with your own face, visit Martha Stewart's Halloween Idea of the Day , today.

Over the last few days, I’ve heard a lot of disturbing things come out of the mouths of politicians mostly echoing this sentiment of Nancy Pelosi, “We need to insulate and protect the taxpayers”. I thought this save them from themselves attitude was a rather odd way of describing a $700 billion government spending spree on bad debt being that the government doesn’t actually have any money except that which it can raise from the taxpayers. Now, in case you haven’t guessed, I’m not an economist (although I did get A’s in both macro and micro and finally borrowed the text book toward the end of the second semester – a flimsy claim at knowledge, I know) but it appears the “leadership” in our country may have forgone even attending economics class. This is what I understand so far: the crisis, or credit crunch, is due to overextension of credit for housing loans, much of which was originated (?) or purchased by the government sponsored enterprises (GSE), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or throu...

I could only hope to be as straight forward but still respectful as Sylvia Bokor . Speaking of what's new, check out her new blog, Sylvia Bokor Comments .

In a momentous decision, I have linked my blog with my blogger profile. "So what?" you may ask. This is big news for me. Now, wherever I have made a comment in the past, I can be linked to this blog which is quite personal. For someone who has been concerned about the impact of her opinion on the treatment of her children by others and learned to harden the target against some pretty unsavory people, this move in some way represents the letting go of fear. Don't get me wrong - I respect fear . I think it can be an instructional emotion. But some fears should be overcome. I just hope that this move will not cause my posting to go from rather tame to unforgivably boring. I don't think I could take another Welcome Fall post. And by the way, Happy October! I really am a simply happy person. I just don't suffer fools lightly which is why I always look angry and why I find living with teenagers so hard, but that's a story for another time.

This is the title of Scott Powell's excellent essay in the Secular Homeschooling Magazine quarterly issue. As a homeschooling parent whose child is going on her third year of learning history with Mr. Powell, I really can't express enough how well he distills and presents the important facts of history to his students. He is always ready to answer any questions, or consider what and why some things may seem important. Best of all, he inspires them to make connections between the facts of history and their present day lives. As you can imagine, the study of history can present some pretty ugly facts, but he never shies from the truth, or candy-coats things. He approaches it all with a sound pedagogy. He truly is a wonderful teacher. From the essay: "The most brilliant people are not those who retain everything, but those who have the instinctive ability to discard anything that isn't relevant." The subject of history in unique in academic efforts in that when you ...

"Today, people are beginning to understand that the government's account is overdrawn, that a piece of paper is not the equivalent of a gold coin, or an automobile, or a loaf of bread—and that if you attempt to falsify monetary values, you do not achieve abundance, you merely debase the currency and go bankrupt." —Ayn Rand, "Moral Inflation," The Ayn Rand Letter , vol. 3, no. 12, p. 1 For more information, please visit the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights .