Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 Website Wednesday - (don't despair, picks are here) 

Miss L

This is not the best picture of Miss L but she is difficult to get to pose. She's 5 months and definitely a dog with "a secret in her eyes"; that is, something is always going on in her brain. We have a birthday party on Sunday (not hers) so I will try to get her in a party hat.

OK, I am going to blather for a while (we can call it a digression to be polite) but I hope at the end I make the point I’m aiming for.

As soon as I finish this posting, I have to prepare a cheat sheet for the boy who is finally scrolling through basic math facts in his brain at a high speed so he can use these results with more complicated math facts; and all this is no thanks to the NJ public school system (at least, the pretty superior NJ public school system he and his sister are attending.) Any ability he has with his basic math facts comes from Kumon tutoring. (Since I’m already in one digression, I’ll leave discussing Kumon to another day.) Yesterday, he had done a long division problem incorrectly and as I reviewed it with him (What’s 9 x 7, 8 x 6.....?), he was able to spew out the answers without any visible thinking. That’s an example of what I mean by thanks to Kumon.

But while Kumon gets results with drilling in the basics (and I mean deep drilling, the type which brings weeping and wailing from the student), the 5th grade NJ public school math curriculum works with more esoteric math subjects like tessellation, negative numbers, inequalities, etc,, etc. Now, such math topics can be taught in 5th grade (and probably earlier grades) but not in the scatter shot fashion which is used here. So one day, the work sheet comes home with tessellation, the next negative numbers, followed by long division....... you see the picture. It’s like only surface watering your plants; nothing has time to seep in.

Add to this the fact that the University of Chicago program they are using (aren’t you impressed?) doesn’t have a textbook. Oh, we get a book (unused because it comes home every day with a math packet but is, never, ever opened.) which early on I thought had some explanatory verbiage in it. It didn’t. It’s really just a duplication of the math packet; but apparently just for show. I’m assuming the school teacher is giving the “how-to”s before each new subject but I have no proof. Or rather I have negative proof since whenever I ask: Did the teacher explain this to you? the answer is “No.” (I know, I know, kids bend the truth.)

So I keep an old, old math text (I love book sales!) at home for reference or use the Internet to prepare necessary cheat sheets with the general “How-To”’s of various topics such as mean, mode and median which I can never remember correctly.

Which brings me to another slight digression and, I hope, and tying together. Just like mean, mode, and median, I never, ever understood metaphor which is hell when you’re majoring in English. I would read and then read again the definition of metaphor and examples of them but the penny never hit the slot. I was clueless. And then, one day, I got it. Similar to the Kumon method, but without all the practice: I got metaphor. Now, I’m the metaphor queen! I may have to scurry for definitions of mean, mode and median (that penny ain’t never goin’ fall) but I see metaphors everywhere, like gentle rain on a sunny day.

So that’s why I was so excited when I came upon this picture:

http://cache.foxsaver.com/thumbnails/2011/02/09/1948200243l.jpg

and I said: Wow! This is the best metaphor I had ever seen. I hope you see it as I did. Beyond the baby cub and his dad I see the world as a barren land poised on the cliff with the still blind, new born cub venturing forward protected by a strong, caring parent who knows he is leading his beloved child into a dangerous life without hope. (“Boy.” you must be thinking, “With such thinking, she's got to be the life of the party!”)

What I wonder now is if the photographer saw his shot as deeply as I did?

My website pick for today combines photos with writing:

http://www.pictorymag.com/

I like what it says about itself:

Pictory is a showcase for people around the world to document their lives and cultures. Anyone can submit one large, captioned image to each of Pictory’s editorial themes. I’m editor, designer, and founder Laura Brunow Miner, and I will select a few dozen of the best items from each theme to appear in each showcase.

Why just one photo? I want you to pick your best image — and, it’s really interesting to compare work from different contributors on the same topic. Other sites offer photo essays and bodies of work from one photographer, but I want to help a diverse group of people put together collaborative photo essays.

I like that Laura is using her skills to make choices and that she is challenging photographers to "think" as they shoot. I came across this site from a knitting link ("It's a small world.") and I immediately sent Pictory's Paris photo link to a friend who loves that city.  She wrote back: Great photos.  It makes me remember how Paris feels.

As you know, I love photos but I doubly love photos with explanatory captions. Even I, scaredy-cat to travel by air, get the feel of Paris in Pictory.

But don't stop there, scroll to the bottom for the Older and Newer tabs. Let your mind soar. Hey, you might even pick up some great metaphors! Enjoy.