Over the river

Over the river
and through the woods
and over another river
and over the the newly-renamed bridge
to Grandmama’s and Grandpapa’s
Upper West Side apartment we go!
Happy Thanksgiving!
*  *  *
A Boy’s Thanksgiving Day
by Lydia Maria Child
Over the river, and through the wood,
To Grandmother’s house we go;
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.
Over the [...]

New York: Autumn 2008

:: I’ve moved this post up as a “stickie” so I can make last-minute additions. About two weeks until we depart and everyone is getting excited. ::
We’ve decided to head to NYC to spend Thanksgiving (or “American Thanksgiving” as it’s known around here) with my parents. We haven’t seen them in a year and [...]

Aiming low

For a good laugh on a Sunday, read Dick Cavett, who takes on “The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla” in his New York Times blog today:
I suppose it will be recorded as among political history’s ironies that Palin was brought in to help John McCain. I can’t blame feminists who might draw amusement from the fact [...]

Over

The New York Times reports,
Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska did something here on Thursday that she had not done in her entire campaign as the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee: she stood behind a lectern and held a news conference.
She was asked what had changed.
“The campaign is over,” she said.
Granted, the question-and-answer session lasted only four [...]

Say what?

Gov. Sarah Palin to softball-lobbing Wolf Blitzer on the role of state Governors in the new Administration:
Sitting here in these chairs that I’m going to be proposing but in working with these governors who again on the front lines are forced to and it’s our privileged obligation to find solutions to the challenges facing our [...]

Remembrance Day 2008

Library and Archives Canada, in conjunction with Veterans Affairs Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), has an online exhibition, Oral Histories of the First World War: Veterans 1914-1918 featuring audio interviews and written transcripts, as well as photographs.  The exhibition is organized into seven “interview themes”: Second Ypres, Vimy Ridge, War in the Air, The Somme, Trench Warfare, Passchendaele (Third Ypres), [...]

“A language with roots”

James Wood, in the current issue of The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town”, on talk:

A theatre critic once memorably complained of a bad play that it had not been a good night out for the English language. Among other triumphs, last Tuesday night was a very good night for the English language. A movement [...]

Brains are back, or, Even when no-one is looking

From Nicholas Kristof’s NY Times op-ed column, “Obama and the War on Brains”, today:
Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.
Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a [...]

Speaking of science books

Chris Barton at Bartography is giving sneak peaks of his new science book, The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors, illustrated by Tony Persiani, to be published by Charlesbridge on July 1, 2009.
Here’s the cover, and here’s a two-page spread with a deliciously retro illustration by [...]

Anatomy for children

I’ve been trying to catch up on my blog reading before I unplug myself in the middle of next week and just discovered that my online friend Kathy Ceceri recently reviewed David Macaulay’s new The Way We Work: Getting to Know the Amazing Human Body:
Kathy’s review at the Geekdad blog
Kathy’s related post on Human Anatomy [...]

Links

Via Michael Barton at The Dispersal of Darwin: two UK projects for schoolchildren as part of Darwin200, Survival Rivals (website not yet up and running) and The Great Plant Hunt (up and running already)
Via Jessica Jones at How About Orange: free printable Four Seasons gift tags to download, from Rachel Weber at Fog and Thistle.  [...]

No, thank you

Speaking to reporters today in Alaska, Sarah Palin said she now wants “to be able to help also Americans to know that they can trust their media”. Erm, “also Americans”?  Does that mean Canadians too?  Then again, maybe I’ll still also pass.
According to Lisa Tozzi of The New York Times, Gov. Palin “said for the [...]

Poetry Friday: A thousand whirling dreams of sun

Langston Hughes has been on mind all week.  I think he would be amazed and agog and joyful at the election results. One can only imagine what he might have been inspired to write. Throughout the course of his life (1902-1967), Hughes wrote movingly, painfully, and honestly about blacks in America, in poetry, plays, essays, and [...]

Vigil

Some links for Remembrance Day 2008:
I’m at least two days late in writing about Vigil 1914-1918, which began this past Tuesday. Vigil 1914-1918 is a project from noted Canadian actor and director R.H. Thompson and lighting designer Martin Conboy to mark the 90th anniversary of the armistice.  From November 4 through November 11, the names [...]

Autumn links

I’m behind with some nifty links for October and November:
It’s gift buying season, and if you have children’s books on your list, the Cybils 2008 nomination list, broken down by category, is a terrific way to find current titles for the children you love.
I’m not quite sure what happened to October, so I’m going to [...]

Growing up

The New Yorker’s George Packer writes in his latest Interesting Times blog post this morning,
We will have a President who can think and feel and speak; we will have a grownup who will treat us like grownups.
I was thinking of this yesterday listening to Quebec comedian Derek Seguin’s piece on CBC radio featuring eight years’ [...]

Prescience

I was too untrusting and superstitious to post any of George Packer’s October 23 New Yorker piece, “End of an Era”, before tonight. Now that the results are in, here it is,
Step back a moment from the robocalls and the Biden gaffes and the Valentino jacket to take in the history being made as [...]

Chosen

I lied. I thought I’d avoid election eve results but between my own overwhelming curiosity and Laura’s, we’ve been glued to the computer since coming home from curling; we have only the two Canadian TV stations and neither is covering the election until the late evening news. Laura is madly and gleefully filling in [...]

Why we vote

It is not impossible to conceive the surprising liberty that the Americans enjoy; some idea may likewise be formed of their extreme equality; but the political activity that pervades the United States must be seen in order to be understood. No sooner do you set foot upon American ground than you are stunned by a [...]

Surprise home school content

Color-your-own Electoral College Map, from the generous Elizabeth Perry at Flickr
Just click “ALL SIZES” at the top left of the map