Power Corrupts; Powerpoint corrupts absolutely

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation

Learning by teaching

One thing I love about teaching is that I always learn something new. Sometimes it's a new piece of music that a student wants to learn, so I have to learn it, too.

Sometimes it's an insight into how I taught myself to play, which enables me to explain something I wasn't able to explain before. That happened this week.

I've been playing for a long time - 30-odd years. I was in band in jr high and high school, so I learned how to read music, and how to count and clap. I've listened to a LOT of different styles of music, with some fairly complex harmonies and rhythm structures. And back in the day, I'd play in public for hours at a time.

So a lot of what I know is so deeply internalized that I have forgotten how I know it.

Case in point, some fingerpicking twiddly bits I do. This week, working with a student, I suddenly realized how to explain it, how to break it down into bite-sized chunks for a beginner.

When I really thought about how I had learned these bits, I realized that I had spent hours playing with very small movements. For example:

-------------------
-------------------
----0--0--0--0---
--0--0--0--0--0--
-------------------
-------------------

with the thumb on the 4th string and the index finger on the 3rd string.

I also spent a lot of time doing this:

-------------------
----0--0--0--0---
-------------------
-------------------
--0--0--0--0--0--
-------------------

with the thumb on the 5th string and the 2nd finger on the 2nd string.

Hours, mind you. Hours spent doing this. Sitting on that legal-pad-yellow corduroy bedspread - the kind that leaves stripes in your cheek when you take a nap on it.

I combined the two motions:

-------------------
---0------0------
-------0-------0-----
-----0------0--------
--0-----0--------0--
-------------------

Looks a lot more complicated, but it's just switching back and forth. You can simplify it, though, by not worryng about the fingers - just play them together:

-------------------
---0---0---0---0---
---0---0---0---0---
-----0-------0-----
--0------0-------0-
-------------------

Get comfortable with that, and then play the fingers one after the other:

------------------------
-----0----0----0----0---
----0----0----0----0----
-------0---------0------
--0---------0---------0-
------------------------

Do the same thing while fingering a C chord:

------------------------
-----1----1----1----1---
----0----0----0----0----
-------2---------2------
--3---------3---------3-
------------------------

Now, remember that thing called a hammer-on? Do that with your middle finger, on the 2nd fret on the 4th string (keep fingering that C chord, though, so you arch the 3rd finger over the 4th string):

--------------------------
-(1)-------------------------
--------------------------
---0h2----0h2----oh2----0h2--
-(3)-------------------------
--------------------------

Now when you put all those simple things together, you get this:

-------------------------
----1------1---1-----1---
----------0---------0----
-----0h2--------0h2------
--3----------3---------3-
-------------------------

That's a very neat country-sounding twiddly bit that sounds a lot more complicated than it really is, once you break it down. (It's also the foundation for "The Boxer" by Simon & Garfunkle.)

Chocolate Covered Broccoli

Museum Technology blogger Richard Urban of Musematic uses the phrase "Chocolate covered broccoli" in a very interesting post on an unrelated subject to describe the typical educational games found in museum displays (and elsewhere, as I can well attest).

I happen to LIKE broccoli (especially with cheese sauce), but the analogy is apt and vivid.

A prayer for commencement

The school where I work jsut had commencement. Predictably, a member of the faculty sent an email to the administration, staff, and faculty complaining about the fact that there was a prayer. So in the spirit of intellectual syncretism, I offer this non-denominational prayer.


Oh, great celestial Father or Mother or otherwise supposedly Eternal and Beneficent Being or Beings, who may or may not exist (and if you don't exist, please disregard this prayer):

On this occasion, a celebration of knowledge and learning, it seems appropriate to many of us (though not all) to acknowledge You ("you" being used as a generic non-gendered second-person-personal pronoun implying neither singular nor plural status) as the source of knowledge and learning.

As it is written in one text that many (though certainly not all) consider sacred, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,"

and in another, "He grants wisdom to whom He pleases, and whoever is granted wisdom, he indeed is given a great good,"

and in another, "One must possess knowledge about action; one must also possess knowledge about prohibited action; and again one must possess knowledge about inaction,"

and in yet another sacred text, "Inna-godda-da-vida, baby."

Although Your existence cannot be scientifically proven, it cannot also be disproven, and so prudence dictates that it might not be such a bad idea after all to to ask Your blessing - should You be disposed to do things such as give blessings, as described in many (though not all) religious tradtions, which this is not one of, being simply a voluntary ceremonial event, albeit one that's being held on the taxpayer's dime, but then just about everyone here is a taxpayer, and demographic studies show that most Americans believe in You in some form - on those persons among those gathered here who are willing to receive such a blessing from your hand or hands (we certainly would not want someone to receive a blessing that they did not want, and so we offer this opt-out clause).

In the name of Bob and the Flying Spaghetti Monster,

Yeah, Whatever.

The more we know, the less we know

Hidden Star Explains Supernova Oddity, well, sort of, maybe.

God of wonders beyond our galaxy, indeed.

The more we know, the less we know

Hidden Star Explains Supernova Oddity, well, sort of, maybe.

God of wonders beyond our galaxy, indeed.

Popetown

Catholics fail to block "Popetown" in Germany

Of course they can't persuade the local stations to not air insulting cartoons.

They aren't making death threats.

There ain't no doubt, I love this land!

God Bless the U.S.A.!

As Mary Katherine Graham says, "Heck yeah! We pray, we race, and we recognize the benefits of aggressively marketing ourselves to others who like racing and praying, by way of the hood of a speeding Chevy. We are Red America and we are not ashamed."

Preach it, sister!

Nuts about blogging

Southwest Airlines has a blog! ht: Randy at Boeing.

Circular reasoning?

Fossil Suggests Snakes Evolved on Land

It's the first time scientists have found a snake with a sacrum, a bony feature supporting the pelvis, he [Hussam Zaher of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil] said. That feature was lost as snakes evolved from lizards, and since this is the only known snake that hasn't lost it, it must be the most primitive known, he said.

Catch that? Since we already know that snakes used to have legs and lost them through the process of evolution (having smaller / shorter / no legs confers a survival advantage, right?), a snake with a sacrum must therefore be more primitive. Nothing like assumptions that define the meaning of the evidence, eh? Of course, one couldn't possibly call this evidence for Gen 3:14 being accurate, could one?

A very good day, indeed

It's Good Friday for us Christians.

A holy day; a solemn day. But a Good day? Yes. Oh, yes.

It is good to reflect on the agony Christ endured on our behalf. Not merely the agony of the Cross (from where we get the term excruiating), though that was severe enough.

But Christ's real agony was knowing that God - Father - Abba (Daddy!!) - had turned His face away from the Son He had loved since before the beginning of the world. "He who knew no sin became sin" on our behalf, and the Holy God turned away in disgust.

That is why Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and then, "It is finished." For at that moment, it WAS finished, for all time. "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that all who believe in him might not perish, but have eternal life."

A very good day, indeed.

May your Good Friday be blessed.

Well, Gawrsh!

Some Immigration Marchers Pay High Price Some folks are getting fired from their jobs or suspended from school for taking off without permission to protest in favor of flauting immigration law. Of course, as soon as the advocacy groups sponsoring the marches get involved, the employers cave and the skippers get rehired. I wonder if people have ever gotten canned for skipping out to attend, say, a "Legalize Marijuana" rally, and then gotten rehired because NORML came calling? (For the record, I'm not in favor of legalizing pot.) I love this quote by a marcher:

"'We have to change the way the American people think about us,' Ortega said. 'We are here to work and to make our lives better.'"

Well, Senor Ortega, I'd say that members of your groups are doing a mighty fine job of changing the way Americans look at you. Yup. Flying the Mexican flag above an inverted US flag, chanting "La Raza!" and "Reconquista!", carrying Che banners, signs that read "Anglos are the illegal immigrants," beating up counterprotestors that just want to see the law enforced ... yup, you're changing the way people look at you. Not for the better, I'm afraid.

Merde alors!

Cajuns Ponder Life Without Crawfish

Dat's not so good, hunh? Son! Cher, we gots to have dem mudbugs, oui? But de Good Lord, he provide, non? Jes' you wait some. Dey come back, oui, dey will.

If there were any doubt remaining...

...about the nature of Islam, I think it's pretty well dispelled by this quote:

Afghan Clerics Demand Convert Be Killed:

"Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001.

Emphasis added. If moderate Muslims are insisting that a man die because he has decided to think for himself, then it's pretty clear that Islam is no "religion of peace."

VERY cute picture

ht: HH
Just go see it.

Huh? Say WHAT?

Iraqi Insurgents' Raid on Jail Thwarted - Yahoo! News

Let's compare a couple of sentences:

Emboldened a day after a successful jailbreak, insurgents laid siege to another prison Wednesday. This time, U.S. troops and a special Iraqi unit thwarted the pre-dawn attack south of Baghdad, overwhelming the gunmen and capturing 50 of them... (emphasis added)

versus

Although the raid failed, the insurgents' ability to put together such large and well-armed bands of fighters underlined concerns about the ability of Iraqi police and military to take over the fight from U.S. troops.

"Underlined" according to whom? The Associated Press?

Solemmegethistraight...
(SLMGTS)
Iraqi police captured a couple dozen bad guys, therefore America's "strategery" has failed?!?!?!

Just for the record - I am getting really, really tired of the MSM's aiding and abetting.

A useful Catch-22?

The case of Abdul Rahman has President Bush"deeply troubled."

Very good news. Looks like the Afghan government will find a way to back out by finding Rahman "mentally unfit to stand trial" - after all, he'd have to be crazy to admit to being a Christian, knowing it could get him executed, right?

Hopefully they've never heard of Jim Elliot, who said, "He is no fool who loses what he cannot keep in order to gain that which he cannot lose."

Finally some good news from Europe and NPR

Heard in the radio this morning that the case of the Afghan man facing a death sentence for converting to Christianity is getting some serious traction. Italy called in the Afghan ambassador for a - dare I say it? - "come to Jesus meeting" to tell the Afghan government that Italy might have to rethink its committment to rebuilding Afghanistan. Germany - secular Germany! - did something similar, according to the report.

Very good news indeed. I'd like to hear President Bsh say something publicly about it, though.

Whew! That's a relief!

I used to be really concerned about my kid's incessant whining, but no more. :-)

A CHRISTIAN ON TRIAL

Michelle Malkin points to the story of an Afghan Christian on trial for his life in that country. Under Afghanistan's Islamic constitution, he faces the death penalty for converting to Christianity 16 yeras ago.

This is an outrage. I expect Christians to be persecuted and martyred, but not in countries where Americans have bled and died to give them freedom.