Monthly Archives: November 2007

A Thanksgiving Tale from Alice’s Restaurant

There were people singing this song together who, politically, had nothing in common and probably wouldn’t have talked to each other…. It’s just the story of a little guy against a big world. It’s not so much an anti-war song as a song against stupidity…

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Beowulf Live: Reclaiming the Classics on WPR

We got to listen to Grendel gorging flesh and griding bone in the mini-van on the way home from church today…

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Beowulf: Behold the Man

You think you’ve heard about swords, and heroes, and fire-breathing dragons, and friendship, and glory, and treasure, just ’cause you’ve read those Potter books? C’mere, boys, let me tell you a tale…

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Learning Like Magic

It makes a sensational, controversial headline: A Harry Potter-centered curriculum boosts a failing school into the top 5 percent. Students must recite a spell (“numerus subtracticus”) when answering math questions.
But on closer inspection, this turns out not to be just a school carried off into frightening conformity to the current fad. Whatever [...]

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Veteran’s Day

Some thoughts on a solemn fall day, on what we owe soldiers as leaders, and as fellow citizens.
First, from a veteran leader:
I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force [...]

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The Story of the Flood - Disaster and Hope on the Horizon

Stories are always told in specific historical contexts, but the human condition always brings us back to recurring issues, thus:
Teatro La Fragua used “neo-medieval post-modernism” to stage the story of Noah and the Great Flood in a relief shelter after Hurricane Mitch, and Paul Chan is staging Waiting for Godot in the Lower Ninth Ward [...]

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Storytelling and Fear

Ian over at Upper Fort Stewart in The Scariest Books I’ve Read says:
There’s two days left till Halloween. If you’ve got any scary stories yourself why not blog about them and link back here so we can read them or post a comment. I can’t be the only guy around still afraid of Morlocks can [...]

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