I am Tammy Cardwell, she of the cluttered desk. (Hey, you think I'm kidding?!) I'm having a blast here in Blogland and invite to you to peruse my ramblings. Like a buffet, they offer variety - essentially whatever makes it to the top of the piles that sometimes clutter my brain. We'll eventually cover it all - homeschooling, God, our church, the Eclectic Homeschool Online, books I'm writing and publishing, conferences I speak at, the joys of grandmotherhood, and hopefully chocolate. Of course, this is only what's near the top now. Who knows what's in those piles?

If you live in Austin, Texas, you might be shouting, "YES!!!!"

This is too seriously cool. You’ll find the whole article at TrekMovie.com. Here’s the first paragraph. Oh those lucky people!

Tonight Paramount pulled off one of the coolest stunts in fan history. Promoted as just a 10 minute preview of the new Star Trek to show along with The Wrath of Khan, tonight fans in Austin, TX were actually shown the entire new Star Trek movie. The event included surprise guests, including the original Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy. [UPDATE: A number of reviews are already in - we have a summary of those below]

The language in some of the reviews is..shall we say…less than delightful. I’d watch who’s reading over your shoulder.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Okay, this is SERIOUSLY cool. A couple of years ago, a double amputee asked Richard Taylor and Weta Workshop to build her a mermaid tail.

And they have.

This rocks!

Double-amputee New Zealander has mermaid dreams fulfilled

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

I’ve mentioned before…I think…that in another life I’d be an archeologist. So it shouldn’t surprise that this article caught my attention right away.

Do these mysterious stones mark the site of the Garden of Eden?

Now, I am not EVEN going to touch that speculation, but the article does raise some fascinating points, like their conclusion that this site predates settled human life. The stones show fantastic sophistication when you consider what scientists have always said about our ancestors that lived that long ago.

Here’s a snippet.

The first is its staggering age. Carbon-dating shows that the complex is at least 12,000 years old, maybe even 13,000 years old.

That means it was built around 10,000BC. By comparison, Stonehenge was built in 3,000 BC and the pyramids of Giza in 2,500 BC.

Gobekli is thus the oldest such site in the world, by a mind-numbing margin. It is so old that it predates settled human life. It is pre-pottery, pre-writing, pre-everything. Gobekli hails from a part of human history that is unimaginably distant, right back in our hunter-gatherer past.

How did cavemen build something so ambitious? Schmidt speculates that bands of hunters would have gathered sporadically at the site, through the decades of construction, living in animal-skin tents, slaughtering local game for food.

The many flint arrowheads found around Gobekli support this thesis; they also support the dating of the site.

This revelation, that Stone Age hunter-gatherers could have built something like Gobekli, is worldchanging, for it shows that the old hunter-gatherer life, in this region of Turkey, was far more advanced than we ever conceived - almost unbelievably sophisticated.

Read the article. It’s fascinating!

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Remember an earlier post I made about Neil Diamond helping Oak Island? Well, my local paper (The Baytown Sun) has an update.

OAK ISLAND — Entertainer Neil Diamond is building homes in Oak Island. And soon.

Eddie Shauberger, Oak Island Baptist Church pastor, said the first phase of the project will begin later this month when representatives of the so-called “Jewish Elvis” arrive in the Chambers County community to begin signing up people whose homes were destroyed last fall by Hurricane Ike.

“Everybody keeps asking about Neil Diamond. ‘Is that a hoax? Is that really real?’” said Shauberger, who, with his wife Cindy, has headed up hurricane relief efforts in the town of 500 south of Anahuac.

“It’s really real. Neil Diamond is coming through with his promise. We’re in the implementing stage and, obviously, everybody is excited.”

Surely you want to read the whole thing!

Diamond’s Oak Island relief gets Grammy boost

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

I was checking into AARP today (My husband’s over 50 and I’m close) and found two great articles on Flight 1549.

Hudson River Hero

After the evacuations, Sullenberger walked the length of the plane twice to make sure everyone was off before he left. Sullenberger’s high school friend, Doug Hoover, 58, wasn’t shocked. “He would have gone down with the plane, if the situation called for it. He was just that kind of guy,” Hoover says. “I’m not surprised he kept his cool.”

Sullenberger cannot grant interviews because the accident is still under investigation, says Hoover. “That’s why we’re speaking on his behalf. He’d probably say that any good pilot would have done what he did. But he deserves all the praise that he gets. He’s exceptional.”

 

Exclusive Eyewitness Account
Flight 1549: First on the Scene
One man’s daily commute turned into an unexpected rescue mission

As the ferry drew closer, its passengers stared silently at the people on the plane wing, who appeared to be standing on the water. “Then, without anyone saying a word, we all just swung into action,” says Watta, who lives in Edgewater, N.J., and worked at AARP until the summer of 2008. The passengers grabbed bright orange life preservers from the back of the ferry and formed a line, passing them down to the crew. “We were like a colony of ants,” Watta says. “No one directed us—we just instinctively organized ourselves.”

For more than 10 minutes Watta and the other men and women aboard the ferry were alone on the Hudson River with the 150 stranded passengers of Flight 1549. The first to be rescued was the flight attendant, carried down into the ferry’s cabin, bloody and in great pain. The passengers cleared a space for her on a bench. Someone shouted, “Is there a doctor?” And there was.

One of my frustrated publisher friends just posted to her blog. Her post soooooooooo expresses what thousands of people are feeling!

Practice with free writing: A rant against CPSIA

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Now the Wall Street Journal has posted an editorial. I’m glad to see someone in the mainstream media sitting up and taking notice.

Pelosi’s Toy Story

Here are some snippets

In the tale of "The Velveteen Rabbit," a child’s stuffed toy can only become "real" once all its fur has been loved off, and it’s missing a button or two. If only. Under a new law set to go into effect February 10, unsold toys, along with bikes, books and even children’s clothing are destined for the scrap heap due to an overzealous law to increase toy safety.

<snip>

The burden may be manageable for big manufacturers and retailers that can absorb the costs of discarded inventory and afford to hire more lawyers. Less likely to survive are hundreds of small businesses and craftspeople getting hit with new costs in a down economy.

<snip>

Because the new rules apply retroactively, toys and clothes already on the shelf will have to be thrown out if they aren’t certified as safe. When Congress passed the legislation in August, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi boasted that "With this legislation, we will not only be recalling, we will be removing those products from the shelves." Yeehaw. While large retailers may ask manufacturers to take back uncertified products, independent stores may be stuck with inventory that is suddenly illegal to sell. One Web site, NationalBankruptcyDay.com, is cataloging the costs faced by small businesses.

There’s more. I suggest you go read it for yourself.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

CPSIA = Child Protective Safety Improvement Act

I’ve been trying to decide what, if anything, to write about this act. The odds are good that you’ve not even heard about it, but it’s been a hot topic among my publisher friends for months. Why? Because it threatens to put a LOT of them out of business in a matter of days. (February 10th, to be exact)

CPSIA was a knee-jerk reaction to all those children’s toys that had lead in them last year. To protect our children, they passed this law that applies to anything that is intended for children 12 years old and younger.

ANYTHING

They have recently made clarifications that save resale shops (Yep, any resale shop that relied solely on children’s clothing, etc., was facing being pushed out of business), but pretty much everyone else is still hanging in limbo, because anything intended for children 12 and under now has to be tested or pulled from the market immediately.

This means, among other things, that publishers of children’s curriculum are facing having to have each of their products tested before February 10th (Which, I may point out, is a physical impossibility given the number of publishers and relatively few approved labs). It also means that libraries may have to pull massive quantities of children’s books. Don’t believe me? Check out …

Congress bans kids from libraries?:New safety law may prohibit children under 12 from libraries – or make many books illegal

This means mom and pop businesses that have made wooden toys have to have each of their toys tested. This means that…

I could go on, but this thing is seriously seriously bad. Some of the big guys are fighting it, obviously, but every one of our voices needs to be heard.

Someone posted a really good piece about it today. The following came to me through one of my homeschool lists.

Here is a portion from: http://ceska.typepad.com/little_ida/2009/01/cpsia-disheartened-but-not-without-hope.html  where you can read the whole article. I’ve pasted a portion of it here.

Cathy
————————————————————————————-


The unintended consequences of the sloppily written atrocity called the CPSIA are unraveling at a dizzying pace. Even the consumer groups who pushed it through are no longer denying the law is a mess.

The latest news comes from Emily Sheketoff, Associate Executive Director of the American Library Association. Sheketoff warns that if the CPSC does not issue a statement saying that books are exempt from the CPSIA, she will have no choice but to ask American libraries to “take all the children’s books off the shelves,” or “ban children from the library.” Read this article-

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/74940-Congress-bans-kids-from-libraries/

And listen to this interview where you will hear these words from the mouth of Emily Sheketoff herself:

 http://moodyradiopaulbutler.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/consumer-product-safety-improvement-act/

Yesterday, with Ms. Sheketoff’s chilling message and printed documents as evidence, I took a good chunk of time out of my busy day running my company, Craftsbury Kids, to let some of the staff and faculty at the local elementary school of my city, Montpelier, Vermont know what was going on. I expected concern, I expected shock, and I expected questions. Instead, I was met with blank stares and even downright contempt from the school librarian as I explained what was going on.

Some of the responses I’ve been receiving from local businesses and others here in Vermont, when talking about the publishing industry dilemma and the CPSIA in general: “But that’s absurd.” “Impossible.” “There’s no way they can do that.”  Another popular reaction is “They’ll never be able to enforce it.” Are my fellow business owners and citizens really saying: “We’re willing to give up our rights to produce children’s products in America because we don’t want to bother fighting for and protecting our constitutional freedom. We’d rather just fly under the radar and hope we don’t get caught”?

This is the type of story I wish I’d see more often. You’ll find the full article at ESPN The Magazine

They played the oddest game in high school football history last month down in Grapevine, Texas.

It was Grapevine Faith vs. Gainesville State School and everything about it was upside down. For instance, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through.

Did you hear that? The other team’s fans?

They even made a banner for players to crash through at the end. It said, "Go Tornadoes!" Which is also weird, because Faith is the Lions.

"I WOULDN’T EXPECT ANOTHER PARENT TO TELL SOMEBODY TO HIT THEIR KIDS. BUT THEY WANTED US TO!"

It was rivers running uphill and cats petting dogs. More than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on—by name.

And I loved this part too..

This all started when Faith’s head coach, Kris Hogan, wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team. Faith had never played Gainesville, but he already knew the score. After all, Faith was 7-2 going into the game, Gainesville 0-8 with 2 TDs all year. Faith has 70 kids, 11 coaches, the latest equipment and involved parents. Gainesville has a lot of kids with convictions for drugs, assault and robbery—many of whose families had disowned them—wearing seven-year-old shoulder pads and ancient helmets.

So Hogan had this idea. What if half of our fans—for one night only—cheered for the other team? He sent out an email asking the Faithful to do just that. "Here’s the message I want you to send:" Hogan wrote. "You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth."

I highly recommend that you go read the whole article, because it really helps build your faith in your fellow man. But if you have any heart at all you’ll want to grab a box of tissues first.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Unfortunately, this version of our "news" isn’t quite so pretty.
 But it is news.

First Snow in Four Years

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C