SLOW: Children

You may have noticed that Da-da's posts have slowed a bit.
Chalk that up to kidness and illness, including a flu Da-da calls, "22 Barf Street":
Da-da's boys literally barfed every 20 minutes for 24 hours. Yay.

The Wrath of Mom

Uh oh. Ma-ma got the torch out. You guys better run while Da-da distracts her with smoochage...

That Kubrick Look of Parenthood

The PTA That Fell to Earth

"See? It says so right here under Bylaws & Restrictions:
'ALL PTA MEMBERS MUST HAVE SILVER... oh.'"

Friday the 13th's Child Has No Problem With Self-Expression

That's "teen" for, "Hello. I am auto-outcasting.  Keep back 500 feet."

The Saddest Pic of the Week

Social networking is not an evolutionary advance. No, really. (via This Isn't Happiness)

Friday's Child is Bitey

It's best to wear shark-proof gloves around Bitey.

Scenes From Da-da's Mind-Roasting Summer

There was a lot of this... which came in handy for roasting marshmallows -- and body hair -- on the go!
Just think of it as a month-long shave.

The flames weren't due to any great speed, but were instead because the (motor oil and) natives *inside* were indeed restless and, well, COVETOUS of whatever their brother had in their possession, the two often catching fire within Da-da's awesome Wagon Queen Family Truckster, " HONKY LIPS" edition, which is awesome. And typically on fire. And now full of kid garbage. What's the coefficient of friction of kid garbage, anyway?

Let's see... there was also one of these. Mildly deadly.

And one of these. We survived both, despite the psycho children.
Um, FYI: children are far more frightening than any mass murderer psycho.

Then more of this, before finally reaching...

This. Ah. Well... this might be overglamorizing,  esp. as we never really made it out of our driveway. Sorry, the plate in Da-da's head isn't what it used to be (it's now made by LEGO).

The PTA Has Risen From the Grave

School administrators in a rare future planning meeting.

The One Where Da-da Fixes Decades of Societal Ills and Vaguelly Waxes Tofflerian

This is a must-read for parents -- esp. parents of boys. It will surprise no one who knows Da-da (can anyone EVER really know Dada?) that Da-da goes against the grain in just about everything popular culture espouses, but esp. shuns the two grotesqueries mentioned below. Needless to say, Da-da would be an obvious candidate for living Off the Grid if he didn't dislike the hermetic lifestyle so much. Really, wearing bandages in public is kinda the same thing, anyway, but in a fun-n-freaky sci-fi way, which pleases the aliens living inside Da-da. (At least SOME OF THEM. Most of them say, "Hi," btw.) Anyway, all this Da-da-ness notwithstanding, past the jump is an excellent article exposing two main ontological traps for young men (and some young women) in developed nations (NOTE: the article posits this as, "America," but Da-da extrapolates this to mean any country with a Western appetite and ample electricity and politicians who should all be chucked out the air-lock.)

These Two Traps Are Absolutely Destroying The Next Generation Of Young Men In America

endoftheamericandream.com
June 5, 2012

Have you ever noticed that our young girls seem to be far ahead of our young boys and that our young women seem to be much more “together” than our young men are?  Have you ever noticed how many young American men almost seem like zombies and find even the most basic human interactions extremely awkward?  Well, this didn’t happen by accident.  Researchers are finding that there are two traps in particular that are absolutely destroying the next generation of young men in America.  One is video game addiction and the other is pornography.  In the old days, the parks and ball fields of America would be flooded with young boys after school was done for the day, but now our parks and our ball fields are very quiet.  So where did all the boys go?  Well, they are all sitting at home staring into computer screens.  Yes, there are also young girls and young women that are addicted to these things, but the truth is that these addictions are far more prevalent among young men.  Unfortunately, it is not going to be easy to reverse the damage that is being done to the next generation of young men in America, and that is very frightening.

These days, most parents don’t consider video game addiction to be a major crisis.  Many parents are just glad to have something that will keep their children occupied and out of their hair.

Da-da is Tired. How Tired?

This tired.

That Friday Look of Parenthood

It's Friday. You can put the roses out, now.

The PTA Has Risen From the Grave

Da-da's guessing this isn't going to go well.

Pi Illustrated

For your consideration... the best animated illustration of Pi that Da-da's ever seen.

Welcome to the Plagiarism Police State?

Don't worry, education will break you, Joe Parent. But it'll feel so good after it stops hurting.

While Da-da's boys are years away from this, it's inevitable that one of them will be forced to use one of the increasingly rampant, "plagiarism prevention" tools being used by so many schools today (with a 100% penetration into the Singaporean edu market, if this tells you anything). Having worked in K-12 and post-secondary education markets, Da-da has conflicted opinions about this "tool." An educator once told Da-da, "A good teacher knows when kids are plagiarizing; they don't need a computer program's word for it -- or the hefty bills associated with it." However, given how easily kids can now just cut-n-paste wikipedia articles and other content from the 'net into their papers and call it their own, there might be a need for some type of safeguard.

Meanwhile, the point appears to be moot: the Plagiarism Police are making sizeable fortunes playing on the fears (and laziness) of some academics -- and kids now, too, with moneygrubbing "lite" versions marketed directly at kids, so the already academically paranoid can "vet" their paper to get their, "originality score." Sure, it makes sense to be original and keep your money, but even original kids who do their own work are being made to feel paranoid about their papers, just so some company can make a profit. What kind of lesson is this teaching? 

Like other Orwellian Borg-o-types, the Plagiarism Police State pretends to care, telling you it's a teaching tool... but is this what it's really being used for? The fact that prices for these services (which are just web-based computer algorithms) go up in price 8% every year, even when things are bad-going-to-worse in education, worldwide, should tell you something about the mindsets of those running the companies. Perhaps if a not-for-profit arose to do the same thing, partnering with the schools instead of preying on them?

Plagiaristically speaking, it should be noted that the best schools don't hype or subscribe to the plagiarism police state (Da-a won't list them, you can uncover them for yourself). These last bastions of academic trust rely on their educators, where the onus should be in the first place. So, if you're the head of an academic department or a dean or provost, you need to ask yourself a question: Is this plagiarism prevention service really worth the money? Or should you use that moolah to pay for more teachers?

The biggest academic ship taking on water is TRUST. Da-da has worked with kids for years, and there's a special magic to giving a group of kids your trust and having them work to keep it. Sure, there are setbacks; people are inherently imperfect (no, really), but if you give them your trust first and foremost, they often far exceed expectations. YES, there will be a few who abuse said trust, but they're just hurting themselves and will feel their self-inflicted pain later on in some other way. Bottom line: children need to be NURTURED, not policed.

But don't take the word of a parent who is the future gateway to countless hundreds of thousands of dollars of future education-buying potential. Nooo, don't do that. Like governments and the Federal Reserve, corporations really do have your kid's best interest in mind. No, really. Jeez, how could they not?

Timmy meets his new first grade teacher.
"Do your work, citizen, or there will be... trouble."

That GO-TO-SLEEP Look of Parenthood

"...GOODNIGHT... MOON... BOWL FULL OF... MUSH... AUUUUUGH!!"

Now Playing at Da-da's

Da-da's thinking that perhaps chocolate donuts weren't the best breakfast for four- and six-year-old boys.

Da-da's Got HOMEWORK EYES

Coefficient of friction, NOT coefficient of fiction!

Beware the Grade Ninja

                                                                                                                                                         [via SuperPunch]

Da-da's Theater of the Absurd (Ga-ga)

Bronko decidedly Puckish as Ipso. Or is that Facto?

Da-da's in the process of reading John Lithgow's excellent new book, *DRAMA: An Actor's Education*. Bronko inquired as to what the book was about and Da-da tried to describe what "acting" is, as well as staging, etc. 4 and 6YO Bronko and Nagurski nodded, as if they understood perfectly. Unconvinced, Da-da decided to put it to the test and stage our own little acting exercise to see what would happen (this is, in fact, Da-da's favorite thing about BEING Da-da, being able to try something totally new with total newbies and see if the freshly minted Hindenberg rises aloft, sits there like a cinder block, or catches fire and crashes into Haddonfield, NJ). So, Da-da set the stage.

Da-da was to act as disinterested night janitor of a decided off-off-off-Broadway production of "Ga-ga," forced into helping two young renegade thespians, Ipso and Facto, run their lines. The boys were the young thespians.

Da-da then explained that the only word allowable was, "ga-ga." (Note: this has nothing to do with Lady Gaga, whom Da-da has never even heard. It's actually an inside joke, as Bronko, Da-da's youngest, has been having an inexplicable regression stage here and there, often using, "ga-ga" as his only linguistic currency. Thus, we would perform the entire improv using that one single word. So, Da-da dressed one boy in a red superhero cape with a blue/white "A" on it, and the other in a blue superhero cape with a red/gold "M," decked them in matching yellow funny pikachu hats and yellow Spongebob jammies, put both boys on the fireplace bricks in the family room and sat below them as if proofing stereo instructions in Hindustani, and said... "GO!"

[Note: 6YO Nagurski is Ipso, 4YO Bronko is Facto.]

Ipso: "GA-Ga!"
Facto [aside, nodding and pointing]: "GA-ga!"
Ipso: "Ga-GA!"
Facto [puzzled, shaking his head]: GA-ga.
Ipso: GA-ga?
Facto: GA-ga.
Ipso: GA! Ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga, ga-ga-ga-ga-gaga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-gA-ga-GA!

[Facto looks impressed, then looks at the night janitor for his reaction.]

Night Janitor (shrugs): "GA-ga?"
Facto: Ga-gA!
Ipso: GA-GA!

And so it went for about five minutes before Nagurski rolled his eyes and said, "Blah blah blah," then we were all laughing too hard to go on. Da-da has no idea what that was about, but for a brief moment, he could imagine how Edward de V... er, Shakespeare felt when he encouraged Flop to vomit over Improvio while sawing the air with a long and indifferent chicken. Or was that Beckett?

Gaga? You want want gaga? YOU CAN'T HANDLE GAGA!