TROOPS BRING AID AND SUPPLIES
"We are seeing a show of force. It's putting confidence
back in our hearts and in the minds of our people. We're
going to make it through."
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said about the military presence that calmed the jittery city.
Pictures:
More aerial views of Katrina's devastation on the NOAA site.
KATRINA: THE DAY AFTER
The Gulf Coast begins to grasp the magnitude of the disaster as thousands are evacuated. President Bush called it "one of the worst natural disasters in our nation's history."
The scenes of destruction are mind-numbing, reminiscent of last
year's tsunami. It's going to take years before New Orleans gets back
to normal. My thoughts and prayers are with those who are suffering.
More pictures, analysis, graphics, etc, at Washington Post.
“When I was in college, one of the instructors there gave me the best advice ever. He told me that I should never have to pay for my education and that was the turning point in my life,” relayed Modglin through an email interview. “At that time, I had almost finished my course at KDU, and was looking for a job in Kuala Lumpur. I wasn’t able to afford an overseas education,” she explained.
Being the resourceful person that she is, Modglin applied for a scholarship. As fate would have it, she received one from Hood College in Maryland. However, she decided to give up her scholarship when she found a more suitable course of study at SIU.
“I then moved to SIU which was more diversified across the board. I found that by living frugally and working on student jobs on campus, I could afford to attend SIU with minimal help from my parents,” added the academician.
She started her tertiary education in January 1991, and did her graduate programme at virtually no cost. She was clearly overjoyed about the tuition waiver and stipend provided by the university as she said: “They actually pay you to study!”
No need to pay for your education? Hmm. That's Arlene Tan Modglin speaking. The Malaysian who now lives in Carbondale, Illinois, is a happily married mother of two, and a researcher at Southern Illinois University.
A bunch of homeschoolers held a Great Artists Exhibition/Carnival/Zoo
Benefit recently. It wasn't a smooth ride; kids and parents were
near exhausted at the end of the day. Still, it was all for a worthy
cause. And for those whose works were on display, who manned the games
stalls, and took part auctioning stuff off for the National Zoo, what
can I say? You all did good!
Read Ethan's July 18 post on the event here.
As long as a father lives responsibly, work hard, put food on the table, make time for church, he is deemed to have done his part. He hopes however that his diligence, work ethic, and commitment to provide and protect will impress his children to do right in the future.
Yet if fathers hope to raise children who live God-honouring lives,they will need to do more than impress their children. To do that a father has to intentionally and purposefully direct, instruct, and mentor his children (Eph 6:14), in ways that say who his Lord is and where his heart is set. Exercising this kind of influence is what spiritual leadership is about.
At some point every child must be helped to recognize that Jesus is Lord of all or He's not Lord at all, and that living like Jesus is right and worthwhile. There is nothing easy in such an enterprise, but ready or not, our children are already taking their cues from our life and attitudes. When our 13-year old Elliot told me his dad was supposed to represent the kind of man he hopes to be one day, I think my heart skipped a beat. Of all the things unsaid about fatherhood, the one that we avoid is that which begs the question: how would you like your child to mirror the person you are today?
I find the notion rather unsettling because children in particular are better at doing what we habitually do instead of what we usually tell them to do (i.e., “do what I say, not what I do”). They consciously or unconsciously pick up cues from our lifestyle and attribute significance to our choices, and just as surely take after our indifference – neglect that the early church fathers rightly call ‘sins of omission.’
The Bible assumes leadership of fathers at home and assigns responsibilities that cover body and soul. Fathers who homeschool because they want to do right by their children will have to think hard about the shape of their leadership, because fathers lead – even when they aren't leading. Children live what they learn. Sometimes the lessons they learn are the ones we fail to teach.
"All acts of terrorism targeting the civilians are haram, forbidden in Islam. It is haram, forbidden, for a Muslim to cooperate or associate with any individual or group that is involved in any act of terrorism or violence," he said.
The fatwa also says it is the "civic and religious duty of Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect the lives of civilians."
Let's hope and pray it's the way forward.
So it is was becoming clear that butchery by radical Muslims in Bali,
Darfur, Iraq, the Philippines Thailand, Turkey, Tunisia, and Iraq was
not so tied to particular and “understandable” Islamic grievances.Perhaps the jihadist killing was not over the West Bank or U.S.
hegemony after all, but rather symptoms of a global pathology of young
male Islamic radicals blaming all others for their own self-inflicted
miseries, convinced that attacks on the infidel would win political
concessions, restore pride, and prove to Israelis, Europeans, Americans
— and about everybody else on the globe — that Middle Eastern warriors
were full of confidence and pride after all.Meanwhile an odd thing happened. It turns out that the jihadists were
cowards and bullies, and thus selective in their targets of hatred. A
billion Chinese were left alone by radical Islam — even though the
Chinese were secularists and mostly godless, as well as ruthless to
their own Uighur Muslim minorities. Had bin Laden issued a fatwa
against Beijing and slammed an airliner into a skyscraper in Shanghai,
there is no telling what a nuclear China might have done.India too got mostly a pass, other than the occasional murdering by
Pakistani zealots. Yet India makes no effort to apologize to Muslims.
When extremists occasionally riot and kill, they usually cease quickly
before the response of a much more unpredictable angry populace.What can we learn from all this?
Read the rest of Victor Hanson's "And Then They Came For Us"
Not everyone is happy with Live 8. Although it was served by good
intentions and a desire to end poverty and hunger, Cameroonian journalist
Jean-Claude Shanda Tonme
says it's "all rock, no action." The consultant on interational law and
columnist also called the whole effort 'misguided,' organised to
assuage a guilty conscience, amuse the crowds, but ultimately reinforce
dictators.
We Africans know what the
problem is, and no one else should speak in our name. Africa has men of
letters and science, great thinkers and stifled geniuses who at the
risk of torture rise up to declare the truth and demand liberty.
Don't insult Africa, this continent so rich yet so badly led. Instead,
insult its leaders, who have ruined everything. Our anger is all the
greater because despite all the presidents for life, despite all the
evidence of genocide, we didn't hear anyone at Live 8 raise a cry for
democracy in Africa.
Don't the organizers of the concerts realize
that Africa lives under the oppression of rulers like Yoweri Museveni
(who just eliminated term limits in Uganda so he can be president
indefinitely) and Omar Bongo (who has become immensely rich in his
three decades of running Gabon)? Don't they know what is happening in
Cameroon, Chad, Togo and the Central African Republic? Don't they
understand that fighting poverty is fruitless if dictatorships remain
in place?
Money is,
for the Europeans, the solution to all of Africa's problems. But despite yearly payments of, at last count, some $26
billion, the majority of the continent resembles something approaching one big
emergency military hospital.
Already today there are increasing numbers of Africans who call for an end to
this sort of support. They believe that it simply benefits a paternalistic
economy, supports corruption, weakens trade and places Africans into the
degrading position of having to accept charity. "Just stop this terrible
aid," says the Kenyan economic expert James Shikwati.
It's a complex issue and I don't think there's an easy
solution. It's impossible to develop prosperity in states that are
falling apart, say the writers who also blame poor distribution of
donor aid and wrong priorities. Then again, as the concert organisers
say, it's a "long walk to justice" and you just gotta start
walking, to begin with.
I suppose there's a place for generosity (sustained aid - not just in
spurts) but the unintended consequences may just undo all the good that
comes out of Live 8. Beside raising funds, debt forgiveness, etc,
there are unjust power structures that need just as much attention and
political will to address. What happens when the music stops? Now
that's the hard part.
Take a look at this news report from the Baltimore Sun about the first nationwide research conducted by Yale University's Child Study Center on preschool expulsion:
After surveying 52 state-financed prekindergarten programs in 40 states, the study found that about 10 percent of teachers had expelled at least one child in the previous year and a handful of those teachers had expelled as many as four children. The estimated total of students kicked out of preschool was 5,117 out of a total estimated enrollment of 766,907. In Maryland, about 38 of approximately 6,390 state-subsidized preschoolers were kicked out, for an expulsion rate that was below the national average.
The study also found that the likelihood of being expelled increased with age, as 4-year-olds were 50 percent more likely to be kicked out than 2- and 3-year-olds, and 5-year-olds were twice as likely to be expelled as 4-year-olds. Black children were twice as likely to be expelled as white or Latino children and five times more likely than Asian-Americans. Boys were expelled at more than four times the rate of girls. The researchers reported that children were expelled most frequently because of antisocial behavior, particularly aggression toward other children, such as kicking or biting.
Preschool/Pre-Kindergarten expulsion is not as uncommon as you think - even in Malaysia - and I know of parents who have had similar experiences and who finally decided to homeschool. One case involved a preschooler who was ADHD who obviously demanded more out of his Kindy than the teachers were prepared to provide. He was expelled from 3 other schools. Another was a mother (who's now an unschooler) who couldn't get her daughter's Kindy to ease up on the academic in favour of a simpler curriculum.
In any case, I have my reservations about kindy anyway. My views are that children at the ages of 3 - 5 years are best nurtured at home. Why the hurry for pre-K and Kindy anyway? Expulsions are all about keeping pre-K and Kindys in the good books of parents and prospective students, which as a business proposition seems the way to do things. But for the child who is expelled, there is nothing but trauma, and possibly a long-term disdain for formal education or learning in general.
Whether early childhood education or kindergarten is necessary or not has been debated for years. Sheri Oden has published a book called, Into Adulthood: A Study on the Effects of Head Start which cites encouraging findings on a 17-year follow-up study on 622 adults who did or did not attend Head Start (using the HighScope Curriculum). Since I haven't read the book, I can't say much except that the study suggests effective outcomes involving children at risk and those from low-income homes.
I am not saying there is no place for pre-K or Kindys, because extenuating circumstances and a host of other factors do require specific attention. But I'd like to think they must be the exception and never the norm. Parents need to know that just because "everyone's sending their kids to Kindy" does not make a done thing the better deal.
Meanwhile, the controversy rages.
Related Stories:
Research on Early Childhood Education
Head Start Improves Achievement and Reduces Crime
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