First- I was walking behind a girl in a wheelchair today, and trying my best not to listen into her talking on her cell phone. And then she said something about her dance class and I had to listen. Yes, girl in wheel chair, no wrapped feet, no cast, but no legs at all, talking about her dance class. Epic, no?
Second- Glowstick tool's youtube profile- http://www.youtube.com/user/Kanashimi36#p/u
And because it's awesome- the gs.c conversation about it- http://www.glowsticking.com/forums/Tool-Academy-Season-t24858.html
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
V for Alliteration
"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V"
and for the Video of the epic event-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDzB-hfF_NM
and for the Video of the epic event-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDzB-hfF_NM
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
In 30 years without spanking, are Swedish children better behaved?
I thought of you :)
Stockholm – When celebrating the 30th anniversary of the world's first national ban on corporal punishment of children last month, Sweden's social affairs minister, Göran Hägglund, claimed a dramatic success over something many Swedes now consider a scourge.
"Colleagues from other countries often ask how we manage to raise children here without hitting them, but it works," he said. "Many countries have followed our model but we still have a way to go."
Sweden was the first of 24 countries to introduce a ban on smacking children in 1979. At the time traditionalists said it would lead to unruly kids, and other critics say the ban would be largely unenforceable. But according to official figures, just 10 percent of Swedish children are spanked or otherwise struck by their parents today. More than 90 percent of Swedish children were smacked prior to the ban.
It is held up as a model by child rights campaigners lobbying for wider adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, on which the Swedish law is based. The campaign experienced a setback last month when New Zealanders voted to repeal their anti-smacking law in a hotly contested referendum. The law places a legal obligation on teachers, day care workers, and health care professionals to report any suspicion of abuse. This has led to a surge in the number of reported cases, yet the proportion of serious cases of abuse has decreased.
"When there is this moral standpoint that you should not use any violence against children, it influences the more severe kinds of violence," says Children's Ombudsman Fredrik Malmberg.
Spare the rod, spoil the child? Polls show the ban has near universal support in Sweden. However there is a vocal international movement against the Swedish model.
"In Sweden parents are afraid of their children. They don't dare to correct them for fear of being reported," says Ruby Harrold-Claesson, chairperson of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, a Scandinavian-based lobby group fighting for the repeal of anti-smacking laws.
"It is a crime to smack a child," she adds. "But children constantly test the boundaries of how far they can go - and if a parent always has to back off then the children take over."
Mrs. Harrold-Claesson, who contributed to the campaign to repeal New Zealand's smacking law, claims the law is causing a crime wave in Sweden by preventing parents from controlling their children.
Mali Nilsson, at the international charity Save the Children, denies the ban has increased crime. She cites official figures from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention indicating that youth crime has decreased in Sweden since the mid-1990s and violent crime has remained static.
She says that smacking is a human rights issue.
"If you get upset with me about something you don't have the right to hit me, do you? Then why shouldn't children enjoy the same rights?" she says, adding that the main purpose of the Swedish law is to change attitudes.
"The law does not actually lay down any legal punishment for smacking but requires social workers to support families with problems. There's been no increase in parents drawn into the criminal justice system or of children taken away from their families," she adds.
However research carried out earlier this year points to a slight uptick in the number of parents who say they smack their kids over the last decade.
Professor Staffan Janson, one of Sweden's leading child health experts, attributes the change to the country's relatively high level of immigration, as well as the influence of foreign, often American, TV shows offering parenting advice.
"Parents who are not sure how to discipline their children can find it easier to adopt the simple message that you get quicker results by hitting them."
Stockholm – When celebrating the 30th anniversary of the world's first national ban on corporal punishment of children last month, Sweden's social affairs minister, Göran Hägglund, claimed a dramatic success over something many Swedes now consider a scourge.
"Colleagues from other countries often ask how we manage to raise children here without hitting them, but it works," he said. "Many countries have followed our model but we still have a way to go."
Sweden was the first of 24 countries to introduce a ban on smacking children in 1979. At the time traditionalists said it would lead to unruly kids, and other critics say the ban would be largely unenforceable. But according to official figures, just 10 percent of Swedish children are spanked or otherwise struck by their parents today. More than 90 percent of Swedish children were smacked prior to the ban.
It is held up as a model by child rights campaigners lobbying for wider adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, on which the Swedish law is based. The campaign experienced a setback last month when New Zealanders voted to repeal their anti-smacking law in a hotly contested referendum. The law places a legal obligation on teachers, day care workers, and health care professionals to report any suspicion of abuse. This has led to a surge in the number of reported cases, yet the proportion of serious cases of abuse has decreased.
"When there is this moral standpoint that you should not use any violence against children, it influences the more severe kinds of violence," says Children's Ombudsman Fredrik Malmberg.
Spare the rod, spoil the child? Polls show the ban has near universal support in Sweden. However there is a vocal international movement against the Swedish model.
"In Sweden parents are afraid of their children. They don't dare to correct them for fear of being reported," says Ruby Harrold-Claesson, chairperson of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, a Scandinavian-based lobby group fighting for the repeal of anti-smacking laws.
"It is a crime to smack a child," she adds. "But children constantly test the boundaries of how far they can go - and if a parent always has to back off then the children take over."
Mrs. Harrold-Claesson, who contributed to the campaign to repeal New Zealand's smacking law, claims the law is causing a crime wave in Sweden by preventing parents from controlling their children.
Mali Nilsson, at the international charity Save the Children, denies the ban has increased crime. She cites official figures from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention indicating that youth crime has decreased in Sweden since the mid-1990s and violent crime has remained static.
She says that smacking is a human rights issue.
"If you get upset with me about something you don't have the right to hit me, do you? Then why shouldn't children enjoy the same rights?" she says, adding that the main purpose of the Swedish law is to change attitudes.
"The law does not actually lay down any legal punishment for smacking but requires social workers to support families with problems. There's been no increase in parents drawn into the criminal justice system or of children taken away from their families," she adds.
However research carried out earlier this year points to a slight uptick in the number of parents who say they smack their kids over the last decade.
Professor Staffan Janson, one of Sweden's leading child health experts, attributes the change to the country's relatively high level of immigration, as well as the influence of foreign, often American, TV shows offering parenting advice.
"Parents who are not sure how to discipline their children can find it easier to adopt the simple message that you get quicker results by hitting them."
Monday, September 21, 2009
The Fall Folk
Autumn is for spoiled rich kids and poets- fall is what the rest of us have to deal with. Autumn is the crisp walk through the meadows with a box of Crayola crayons worth of colors to enjoy and soak in for hours on end. Along with the changing colors of everything around you the inspirational migrations of animals brings you to a deep insight of how the circle of life is constantly moving, elaving you dreamin of the oncoming spring. Autumn is the time of celebration to mark another successful harvest of our labor filled summer that can be spent together with a loving family over a steaming plate of delectable finely made food.
Fall fails.
Fall, for the rest of us, is cold, grey and dead.
My color palate for fall is primary; yellow. The trees are yellow, teh bushes are yellow, and the grass is yellow. the only thing orange anywhere near my house is the slide in teh local park down my street that is covered in tags from the most recent middle school kids that thought they were in a gang. even then teh orange of the slide isn't really an ornage but more of a tiger print when you squint your eyes with all of the black lines running across it.
Fall's migration of animals is basic too; the good stuff leaves, the bad things only get closer. even the autumn people know that the cool thigns leave. Bears go and hibernate, deer get shot, bald eagles take a vacation from the nation that made them famous, turkeys show up on your plate, and even whales get out while they can. These spokes-animals for autumn know when things are going down hill fast; and they get out. they take their song singing, camper mauling, fether flapping, blow hole blowing, butts out of fall as soon as is it gets close. Us fall people get stuck with the things that are either too dumb or too lazy to get out.
We get cockroaches.
During spring and summer it's not too bad, they stay on their sdie of the walls, and you ocasionally get a visitor here and there to freak out your sisters with. during fall the entire cockroach community int he square mile aroudn your house deicde to take residence in your room because it's the only place warm enough for them to live.
Long walks through meadows? only for those autumn folks, us fall people have to deal with school. When school starts your first reaction is- hey this isn't too bad, it's sunny, I can still be happy, I'll do all of my homework and turn it in on time. Then fall comes around. things turn yellow, the cockroaches stake their claim and start to colonize your closet in the name of her royal highness, and we're stuck with homework.
I don't know what school the autumn people are going to, or who they're getting to do their homeowrk for them, but even in kindergarten I was too busy with school to find a decent time to take a walk around the block to take a slide down the tiger slide, let alone a pastoral stroll through groves of trees. I was busy. I had to write the alphabet five times before the next day, and that's hard to do when you can't remember if LMNOP is two letters or three. Now days, my long walks browsing the colors of the seasons are limited to long walks around the shelves of the library enjoying the dull autumn yellows of the older books while I try to stretch my legs before I have to write the alphabet five times in Swedish.
Celebrating our harvest and hard work through thanksgiving with friends- it sounds great when those autmn people talk about it; but then the fall folk dive into the fun. Thansgiving is a lie. Autumners want you to believe that Thanksgiving is a celebration of a job well done over the summer. Who has ever done any job well during the summer? The annoying work that you have to put up with is just starting when you're celebrating not having to work any more. Thanksgiving to the fall folk is throwing a party to celebrate a lie. you're not done with work, it's just starting.
Friends, family, and food; the divine trinity of autumn festiviites- the axis of evil of all fall feuds. Nothing says famillies are forever like locking up poeple that haven't been with each other for a week in the same house. autumn people play football and come closer together as they bond as a family; fall folk remember that Uncle Rowland is creepy even when you're an adult and he says that he wants to play touch football with you. Autumn people go to grandma's for a feast, fall folk have had at least one Thanksgiving at Denny's after the turkey was still froen at eight in the evening.
Even if fall is dark, yellow, cockroach infested, with homework due, and the constant threat of Thanksgiving happening, there is one thing that the autumn people are missing. Fall folk enjoy everything. We don't care about the tiger slide, we love it. The cockraoches become a weird sort of frienemy that we have turf wars with when we have nothing else better to do. Thanksgiving we look forward to just to watch how much it won't be like yours. We learn the waiters name at Denny's and invite Robert to eat with us the next year. We do our homework and pass the class while you're failing it from your walks our in nature. Your trees take hours to color, while our world only takes one crayon and then we can get on with more important things. You can have your autumn, we'll stick to our fall.
Oh, and by the way. . .
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
