tfdl

Using the news cast as a focal point, she can help these children practice various social skills that are often such a challenge. Appropriate social space, eye contact, listening postures, all these social and communication skills come together as these kids take on all the various roles on the newsroom.

Details here.

Posted by Edd at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Several of the presenters seem really stellar.
Check it out here.

Posted by Edd at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

But here is what I didn't know. He only was involved in the anti-war movement to punch up his resume on his way to working for McGovern, and to meet girls and get laid (his success there is in question). Huh? Most of the folks I knew were actually trying to end a war. (Imagine that.)

His name-dropping, and inside baseball went a bit far, however. He also spoke of certain inside information he had. (At times it was difficult to tell the difference between his talk on a college campus and daytime TV). At one point he spoke of the many ways people tried to avoid the draft (Chapter 5), including a certain current presidential candidate who got a psychiatric deferment. (It is in the "public record" after all. It's just that most people didn't know about it... now they will.)

You can see the talk here on fora.tv , but no need to suffer through an hour of blather (we did that for you). Just scroll down the channels on the left to Chapter 14, and you can see and hear this rehabilitated liberal out this "presidential candidate", and throw him under the bus.

Posted by Edd at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stormer writes:

The United States also does not transport nuclear weapons meant for elimination attached to their launch vehicles under the wings of a combat aircraft. The procedure is to separate the warhead from the missile, encase the warhead and transport it by military cargo aircraft to a repository -- not an operational bomber base that just happens to be the staging area for Middle Eastern operations.

He then asks:

Why, and for what ostensible purpose, were these nuclear weapons taken to Barksdale?
How many and which security protocols were overlooked?
How many and which safety procedures were bypassed or ignored?
Does the Bush administration, as some news reports suggest, have plans to attack Iran with nuclear weapons?
If this was an accident, have we degraded our military to a point where we are now making critical mistakes with our nuclear arsenal? If so, how do we correct this?

Posted by Edd at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The Vietnam experience left the military leadership feeling that they should advise against involvement in counterinsurgencies unless specific, perhaps unlikely, circumstances obtain -- i.e. domestic public support, the promise of a quick campaign, and freedom to employ whatever force is necessary to achieve rapid victory. In light of such criteria, committing U.S. units to counterinsurgencies appears to be a very problematic proposition, difficult to conclude before domestic support erodes and costly enough to threaten the well-being of all America's military forces (and hence the country's national security), not just those involved in the actual counterinsurgency."

The answer of course is General David Patraeus. Now click here and here to see the citation. MoveOn.org clearly does not represent all those opposed to the War in Iraq, but perhaps after reading Patraeus' quote and watching this Charlie Rose interview with David Kilcullen (a counterinsurgency expert who was on Patraeus' staff) their question deserves another look.

Posted by Edd at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When there is a miscommunication of some importance - and that often means misunderstood tone, or a poorly worded joke - reverting to more direct communication is the way to go. He writes:

The advantage of a phone call or a drop-by over e-mail is clearly greatest when there is trouble at hand. But there are ways in which e-mail may subtly encourage such trouble in the first place.

This is becoming more apparent with the emergence of social neuroscience, the study of what happens in the brains of people as they interact. New findings have uncovered a design flaw at the interface where the brain encounters a computer screen: there are no online channels for the multiple signals the brain uses to calibrate emotions.

Face-to-face interaction, by contrast, is information-rich. We interpret what people say to us not only from their tone and facial expressions, but also from their body language and pacing, as well as their synchronization with what we do and say.

Most crucially, the brain's social circuitry mimics in our neurons what's happening in the other person's brain, keeping us on the same wavelength emotionally...

The entire article is mercifully brief, and so worth a read. I am continually amazed at Goleman capacity to make the obvious seem so subtle, and how he had managed to build such a worldwide franchise on such a misnomer as "EI".

It did remind me, though, of a flame war in The Well, if memory serves - an early iteration of "social networking" from a decade or more ago (and is still alive, and well... well). The initial message that started the cascade of insults and abusive messages back and forth was:

I resent your message.

If only the writer had written, "I sent your message again"...

Posted by Edd at 6:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The possible eradication of this group is directly related to the US invasion of the country. The Mandeans believe in non-violence and do not carry guns or other weapons so common on Iraq's streets these days. Because of that they are extremely vulnerable to kidnappings, rapes, murders - you name it.

Professor Deutsch writes:

Practitioners of a religion at least as old as Christianity, the Mandeans have witnessed the rise of Islam; the Mongol invasion; the arrival of Europeans, who mistakenly identified them as "Christians of St. John," because of their veneration of John the Baptist; and, most recently, the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein, who drained the marshes after the first gulf war, an ecological catastrophe equivalent to destroying the Everglades. They have withstood everything -- until now.

Another indications of just how far we have gone astray from our core values.

As stated above, a disturbing, yet important, read. Again here is the link: Save the Gnostics.

Posted by Edd at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the startling reality that is presented on National Geographic's' Enduring Voices site:

Every 14 days a language dies. By 2100, more than half of the more than 7,000 languages spoken on Earth--many of them never yet recorded--will likely disappear, taking with them a wealth of knowledge about history, culture, the natural environment, and how the human brain works.

The interactive map of "language hotspots" is jaw dropping as well.

Posted by Edd at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)