Blowing Bubbles...

Kill Your Ipod...

The last few weeks, I have been reading Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" with my junior U.S. History class. Having just finished the book, as an assignment, the class had a "media fast" for 24 hours. During their fast, they were not allowed to use the cell phone, ipod, video games, radio, TV, etc.

The students journaled their day and expressed how difficult it was to fast and how often they were tempted to turn on their radio, check a text message, or call a friend.

When asked what they spent their time doing, I was amazed at how many of them did things that they would have never given the thought to doing. Some decided to read a book (on their own), play Scrabble, talk with a parent for an extended period of time. Two even attempted to go on a bike ride.

This project got me to thinking about what I am missing as both a parent and a husband with the way I use technology. Do I have extended phone calls with others while I could be spending time with my family? Do I surf the internet for hours and miss valuable time with my wife?

Our time with family and friends is very precious, and as I watch my kids grow up, I am becoming more and more convicted that I am missing precious opportunities like teaching my daughter to ride a bike, or flipping my two oldest on the mattress upstairs, or reading more wonderful stories before bedtime.

Technology is not evil. Blogs are not evil. But after giving it some thought, I think I might be posting a little less and spending more time with the "fam."

100 - 0 = Fired

The coach for the infamous Covenant School basketball team has been fired from his position. He did not agree with the administrations decision to apologize for the shame and embarassment that he brought to the school. He responded via email to the local newspaper, which probably was not the smartest thing to do.

A portion of his response is quite telling:

"My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity."

I could think of a whole host of things that could have been done to prohibit such a wide margin of victory that would not have required the coach to just pull his team off of the floor.

If you must...here's the article.

In Your Face...

In all of my years playing sports, and in my short career as a coach, I have always been taught (and now teach) that athletics teach many life lessons. I can only imagine the life lessons that both of these teams learned in one game.

Geography Whiz...

Prophetic (pt. 2)?

Prophetic?

Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace...