I absolutely love Mary Grace. She cracks me up and writes rave reviews for Sonlight (even when I don't send her a free MathTacular DVD). Her posts often find their way into my "Other Posts of Note" and she has made me tear up at least once. Not to mention her incredible skillz with the iMovie.

With that as an introduction, here's Mary Grace on Strengths and Weaknesses. Well worth the read (including the comments).

Back?

I decided my comments warranted a post of their own. A post on this blog, since they'd be my thoughts, not a post on hers because my thoughts aren't that insightful <smile>.

What if one of the greatest strengths of homeschooling is also its greatest weakness?

That wouldn't surprise me at all. In fact, I think the world operates in this: Whatever could be our greatest asset to others also has the potential to be the most destructive force in our lives. It's the whole deal of "the bigger it is, the harder it falls."

In other words, the creativity, inventiveness and customization of homeschooling has, in this instance, failed to produce a desirable employee.

This also does not surprise me. But I'm going to spin it a slightly different way:

The public school system tends to produce people who are good for the workforce (this goes back, I'm told, all the way to the institution of bells that mimic the factory). Public education is designed to make good employees, not to inspire entrepreneurs or business owners. So the fact that a system, such as homeschooling, caters to a child's bent makes them dissatisfied with another's system and more prone to doing what they feel is best. This is a very good thing when it comes to innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.

In fact, I would say that Mary Grace's brother-in-law is right:

...you're setting your children up for a lifetime of frustration when they realize that college, workplaces, etc., don't follow those same, "have it your way" rules.

But, I would add, that can be a very, very good thing!

So even here, the potential of a "strict"/inflexible system is for both good and bad. It comes back to what you want for your children, and who they are. And that is what parenting is all about.

~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

Sadly, I can not offer you free Taco Bell. If I could, I would, because I do love me some Taco Bell. However, in my blog browsing today, I learned that if I went to Mexico again it is possible to get a #3 south of the border.

Moving on...

I love useful free stuff. I use many useful free programs. I have no problems with quality free stuff. I'm all for it. In fact, I've got several lists of such programs.

But it boggles my mind how people rave about the "free curriculum" that is out there on the web. And it bothers me when they claim that these resources are a free alternative to Sonlight.

I don't have a problem with the "alternative to Sonlight" part. There are many other companies out there that are reasonable alternatives to Sonlight (but, I maintain, Sonlight is the best <smile>).

I have a problem when people claim that something is a "free" alternative, when, in reality, it isn't free at all. I'm not going to point any browser fingers, but I've visited several "free curriculum" sites that are nothing more than a book list and perhaps a schedule.

What? That's not free. You still have to buy the books! In fact, it's likely more expensive than Sonlight and does not come with the support or guarantee that Sonlight offers. Yet people keep proclaiming it as a free alternative.

<shakes head>

I am the king of Open Source software. I love getting freebies. But because I'm so into really free options, it bugs me when people talk about "free" stuff that isn't free in the least.

It may be time for Sonlight to do another cost comparison, but Judy did one a few years ago with some pretty impressive results. Find out more on the Price and Shopping Comparision page.

And if you're looking for a free alternative to a program you're using, just ask. I may be able to shoot you a link to a completely legitimate, absolutely viable option <smile>.

~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

Palpitations
Brittany asked me to listen to her heart last night because it was skipping beats on a fairly consistent basis.

That doesn't sound good.

Dr. Luke

Because it was late, Brittany had to self-diagnose with the internet as her only tool. She discovered that the cause could be anything from "low blood sugar" to "something serious."

Hmm... informative.

With that wide of a potential cause base I would appreciate your prayers for her. And if prayer isn't your thing, I am thankful for your thoughts as well. And if you're not into thinking, well, I'll take...

Murmurs
Isn't that cool word?

Mur-mur.

As I've thought about that word, I'm not sure I've heard too many people murmur in the recent past. And, I guess the word popped into my head because sometimes corporate prayer sounds like murmurs and sometimes hearts have murmurs, and I guess my brain put those two together.

Goo
Now to the slimy substance of this post: Goo.

I was up late last night playing a really fun physics game with Jason.

Physics? Fun?

I hear ya. I took a physics lab in high school too. I remember how my grade depended on how close the marble landed to the bulls eye after calculating the trajectory and assuming that air resistance was negligible.

I feel your pain.

But, seriously, you need to check out World of Goo. You can download the free trial which includes several really fun levels of physics learnin' via goo balls. It's kinda like Lemmings, only far better and more dependent on physics.

Seriously: Download the Goo Demo Now!

And if you're looking for another, potentially educational game, check out one by the FTC. It looks like an interesting concept with potentially damaging purposes.

Jerri Ann

~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

Two weeks ago I got stung by a bee while weeding my lawn. It hurt, but we got some baking soda paste on it pretty quickly and that helped.

But by Sunday morning my hand was swelling.

I started popping Diphenhydramine pills like they were candy ...candy I was only allowed to eat two of every six hours.

It helped the redness, but not the swelling.

So, I started my own RICE project (Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate). The ice helped the redness get redder, but did nothing for the swelling.

Am I allergic to bees? Am I going to need to start carrying around an epinephrine pen?

We had to go to the doctor anyway, so I asked her about it. She glanced at my hand, took note of the fact that the swelling was slowly creeping across my hand, pointed out that it was also heading up my arm and told me that the bee had given me an infection. "You were stung by a dirty bee," she quipped.

So now I'm popping these instead:

Cephalexin

Speaking of Rice [bag] Projects:
Due to a "coincidental" set of events, my mom was interviewed on the radio.

I was graciously given the opportunity to share that segment with you, so if you'd like to listen to it you can find it at the above link or on Sonlight's site. It's less than 5 minutes in length.

In other news, we're having a typical Holzmann party at our house tonight: Come whenever, bring whatever, do whatever. We're low key, but we love hosting parties and people seem to like to come. But we haven't figured out what we're going to "be" tonight. Last year I was a very white Frozone.

But Kelli reminded me of the time that Brittany and I were Han Solo and Princess Leia. So, to commemorate, here's a picture:

Luke and Brittany as Harrison and Carrie

Have a wonderful, blessed, and safe weekend with your friends and family. See you all on Monday!

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

[title link here]

This is not a political post. The politics are merely here for illustrative purposes.

Not a political post.

Capice?

Good.

So, yesterday I bumped into a video that I thought was noteworthy (guess where it ended up? ...you got it!).

The video is a fairly straight-forward explanation of why it's a good idea to vote Yes on Proposition 8.

But then I read a post by one of my friends about why you should vote No on Proposition 8. Please at least browse through it.

[NB: Highly cut down, but my friend said that was okay]

Mike and I got married on June 28th. We want to remain married on November 5th. And without your help, we won’t.

8 has nothing to do with education

Did you see that ad with the little girl talking to her mom about what they taught her about marriage in school? Total fabrication and fear-mongering. Do you remember being taught anything about marriage in school? I remember eating paste and learning my multiplication tables. But that’s the story they’re trying to sell. Fortunately, the state superintendent of schools and every teacher’s group you can think of came out very strongly against this inflammatory untruth.

If the backers of this proposition were worried about education, they should have sponsored a ballot initiative about education, rather than trying to strip away rights from thousands of California families.

8 has nothing to do with taxes or religious freedom

One of their early ads implied that churches would lose their tax-exempt status if they refused to perform same-sex marriages. Think about that for a moment. Are Catholic churches required to perform Jewish weddings? Would you go to a Mormon temple for a Indian wedding? No. You would not. Churches have always and will always be able to choose whom they wish to marry, thanks to the First Amendment. (You know, that one before the awesome “right to bear arms” one.)

“Activist judges” are the new “terrorists.”

You’ve seen ads arguing that the Supreme Court ignored the will of the people by ignoring Prop 22, which was passed in 2000 with the exact same wording. But consider that nearly every major civil rights issue in our history has come as a court decision. In fact, it was the California Supreme Court that overturned the ban on inter-racial marriage, almost twenty years before Loving v. Virginia. Few reasonable Americans would argue that blacks, Latinos and women should have waited patiently until the majority of voters felt comfortable giving them rights.

Vote No on 8, because “domestic partnership” is not the same thing

You’ll hear, “Couldn’t they just settle for civil unions?” Or, “California already has domestic partnership.” So let me set you straight on these terms. They’re meant to be comfortable replacements for the word “marriage.” But they’re not the same thing. If they were, Bristol Palin would be getting civil unioned. The word marriage matters. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t have spent $40 million putting this ballot issue together.

The other fundamental problem is that separate-but-equal has never worked out that well, historically or now. For example, before we got married, Mike and I were domestic partners. It’s supposed to give us all the same rights as marriage, but in practice, it’s basically roommates with hospital visitation privileges. Companies can happily ignore our joint status. Mike and I get challenged on the paternity of our daughter. It sucks. So what’s meant to be a parallel system inevitably becomes a second-class system.

What would you do if the government tried to take your marriage away?

The Yes side seems to cheerfully ignore that we’re not talking about a hypothetical right to get married. Eleven thousand couples have gotten legally married in California since the court’s decision came down. What happens to those people? There’s no clear answer. If that sounds scary, it is. So Vote No on 8.

Odd, he's saying the opposite of just about everything on the little video.

How can that be?

I doubt my friend is totally ignorant. Of course, I don't think the makers of the video are either. So, how can we have two conflicting sets of facts?

The tendency, for me, is to write off one of the sides as just plain, flat-out wrong. So we're certain that:

• Education is being affected.
• Churches aren't likely to be affected, but no one is sure.
• ...but Civil Rights?
• Marriage is important, even to homosexuals...
• ...who are real people with real marriages.

I can't just write that off.

So how do we get to the truth of this matter?

My solution would be to take each of these arguments to the ridiculous extreme, but that really won't help me answer my friend. See, he's married, and he's also pretty smart and could easily respond to several of my attempts of making his side look ridiculous.

I'm a black and white kind of guy, but we live in a world that is far from perfect so black and white doesn't work.

And I think it was last night that I finally actually heard the other side.

Not that I'm going to even try to discuss this with my friend, but if he ever asked me, what should I say?

~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Friend, Expectant Father

P.S. Sorry. I hate writing long posts like that, but there was too much information to do otherwise. Thanks for taking the time to read.

...doesn't mean we want it.

There are loaded statements just as there are loaded questions. For instance, it is unfair to ask, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" In fact, the answer may be:

Mu taken from Wikipedia

But with loaded statements, sometimes it's harder to have a good answer like a single, cool-looking Japanese character. Two posts got me thinking about this today, one by Jessica and the other by Karen.

The first loaded statement is "you should give back to the community." Is anyone mean enough to say, "Oh no, I don't want to give back." But who readily gives back? Well, those of us who like to share what we've learned. But, as Jessica points out, you can't give back something that you earned--that's just simple, charitable giving... not "giving back."

Along the same lines, Karen (Spunky) points out that no one doesn't want children everywhere to have a "decent education." The problem arises when people fail to define what a "decent education" is. As it stands, that phrase means very different things to people. Until we decide on a clear definition of that statement, I don't think anyone should agree that we should push for everyone to get a "decent" education.

So, like loaded questions, loaded statements would disappear with more clarification, definition, and quick discussion. Otherwise people are likely to say, "We want that," but then wonder why they didn't get what they wanted when it comes about.

If you're looking for a fun extra topic to start introducing, fallacies could be a fun one. Your students will certainly need that knowledge in the future.

~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

...an even keel.

The Sonlight Forums are down for maintenance for a couple of days. And from what I've heard, that may be a good thing.

Sonlight Forums Maintenance

See, in case you hadn't realized it, it's time for some campaignin' in these here good ol' United States. And, for some reason, people get all fired up this time of leap year*.

And when you get people fired up, they sometimes say stuff that isn't, well, calm, cool, or collected. And if you have a moderated community, sometimes the loving thing to do is censor those who won't do so themselves.

But this can lead to upset people. One of the Sonlight customer support representatives told me today, "It's not every day that I hear people say that Sonlight is a communist company."

With all that in mind, let's turn to Sussane's post about unity. Her post is mostly about denominationalism** and how that leads to a refusal even to pray together. And I agree: That's not good.

But...

[and you knew that was coming because, otherwise, it would merely be another "post of note"]

...there is something powerful in all these denominations. Denominations allow people to experience God in a way that is more meaningful to them. And just like the various cultures worldwide that worship God in their culturally appropriate way, so denominations within the US allow each of us to worship God in a way that is suitable to our culture. I don't get much out of liturgy, but I know my "flavor" of worship isn't for everyone.

So, I'm against denominationalism--the tendency to think that you're right and everyone else is wrong to the point of rejection of people--just as I am against flame wars in politics. But I'm very happy for denominations--the opportunity to work within the framework that makes the most sense to you--just as I am happy that we have more than one political party. ...of course, I wish we had a few more viable options for those <smile>.

I do pray and long for unity, but we won't get there by "making everyone the same." Communism doesn't work. And I'm glad I'm not involved with a communist company, even if we do ask people to play nice.

Flame Wars

Are you playing nice, even if you don't agree with others (especially members of the Body)? I hope I am, while maintaining a meaningful stand for what is good, right, and true.

~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

*The good news is that we have an extra day of campaigning to do! ...wait... is that good?

**Though, from my many chats with Mormon missionaries, I wouldn't list Mormonism as a Christian denomination. And when my missionary friends object, I clarify "oxthordox Christian" because, at some point, we get to disagreeing on the majors.