Hat tip to Tricia.

In the interest of fairness, I will try to find some information on Obama's views as well.

It has become a Payne family tradition to start each new school year with a fun field trip. One of our favorites here in Hawaii is the Polynesian Cultural Center. This will probably be the last time we get to enjoy this, since we'll be moving soon.

No matter how many times we come here, they just love it!

Their favorite - the canoe pageant

and the favorite end to the night - fire knife dancing!

I love Anthony Bourdain's show, No Reservations. It's quirky, amusing, and sometimes even thought-provoking. Anthony has an interesting and tricky way with language, along with a love for food and a taste for adventure.

His gift for language led me to his blog, where he has additional and sometimes bawdy commentary on his experiences (caution - language). Tonight his latest episode took him to Saudi Arabia, apparently as much a surprise to him as to his fans.

In his entry about tonight's episode, he also referenced his crew's blog, where producer Amy Teuteberg muses on the experience of three women producing a show in a strict Muslim country. For a western woman, I would expect that it would be a frustrating and even angering experience. I was quite surprised to read this:

Although everyone wears an abbaya in public, it comes off at home. When you are hanging out with friends or family, no abbaya necessary. Underneath, many women dress just like they do in New York: skirts, heels, low cut tops, you name it. One particularly scorching day, after Danya, Nari and I had spent hours scouting locations in the desert sun, we had a meeting in my hotel room. The second the door shut behind us, we tossed our sweat-drenched abbayas and head-scarves to the floor. Danya was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. For the first time, I could see her hair, her arms, her legs. I noticed immediately how different this felt. In some ways, it was like I was seeing her for the first time. Like a layer that was new and more intimate had been revealed. I realized in that moment that that was likely the point of the abbaya, or at least part of it. It’s saving that kind of intimacy for those that are close to you, your friends and family, who have earned the privilege. For the first time, I saw that the abbaya may have a role in protecting women, and not as something simply designed to control them.

What a revelatory view of modesty! It even took me by surprise - me, a moderately modest, conservative Christian. Suddenly, my one-size-fits-all view of modesty seems myopic. Is the clothing that is appropriate for my husband and children really appropriate for strangers in the grocery store? This is going to provide impetus to some serious thought and prayer over the next few weeks.

Watching this episode while still mulling over these thoughts, Anthony's guide to the country, Danya, comments on how her American friends once asked her how she feels about being singled out and separated from the mainstream in her culture. She and Anthony and sitting in a family section of a fast food restaurant, where husbands, sons, and fathers can join their families. Single men have a separate section.

Danya waves her hand towards the singles section and proclaims that she's always felt that it was the men who were being separated and singled out in this scenario, and it is probably in their best interests, since single men tend to act badly. I think poor Anthony was quite startled by this, but I instantly understood it; probably not in the way Danya does. It all comes down to the most basic understanding of this fallen world - our sinful natures.

Anthony and Danya, it was right in front of you, and I think you missed it.

Hat tip to Vets for Freedom.

Jim is out of town for a few weeks, and I need something fun to do. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it!


Hat tip to Esther.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2) Italicize those you intend to read (as in the book is bought and sitting on my shelf).

3) Underline the books you LOVE.

Ready? OK!

 

1.Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
51. Dune - Frank Herbert
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
68. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses - James Joyce
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal - Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession - AS Byatt -
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte's Web - EB White
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
91. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
93. Watership Down - Richard Adams
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Janelle contributed two to her list, I'm retaining her first
99. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
and Esther added a personal favorite:
100. The Outsiders by SE Hinton

How can California be talking about severely restricting homeschooling when their own graduation rate is so poor - according to this recent article, less than 70%?

They are attempting to claim that they are consistent with the national average, but according to this editorial, they are shooting themselves in the foot. Their neighboring state, Arizona, with a statistically similar population base, is doing significantly better, especially among those populations which traditionally do poorly, namely, boys, Hispanics, and blacks.

...over the past five years, Arizona schools have improved overall graduation rates by 6 percent while Golden State schools have improved a meager 0.9 percent.

How does Arizona manage to serve similar populations and achieve better results with less taxpayer money? The difference is school choice.

Arizona’s School Improvement Act of 1994 remains the nation’s strongest charter school law, according to the Center for Education Reform, and the 509 open charters in Arizona give parents a range of options. Arizona also offers a tax credit for residents who donate to charitable organizations offering scholarships to students to attend private schools. In addition, the state minimally regulates home-schoolers while guaranteeing home-schooled students equitable access to the state’s public colleges.

California would do well to follow the example of its eastern neighbor. Choice counts more than money or background in determining student progress into higher education and beyond.

And don't even get me started on their recent court ruling on marriage...

The apellate court heard arguments in the homeschooling case in California yesterday. The judges in this case now have 90 days to either strike down or uphold their earlier ruling against homeschooling in California.

This case has implications for all homeschoolers in the nation. Please take these next few weeks to pray that these judges will be guided to make the correct decision.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-homeschool24-2008jun24,0,3660893.story