Posted on 11/27/2006 7:04:44 AM PST by meandog
Sounds to me like you have exemplary child-rearing skills! Carpentry pales beside that any day!
I don't think they're particularly important texts culturally, but they are well-crafted.
Whitman was pretty odd, and quite scandalous in his day, but as C.S. Lewis says, the moderns interpret every expression of affection or honest love between males as "he's gay!" ("What, Boswell and Johnson (a pretty flagrantly heterosexual couple), and all those hard-bitten hairy old toughs of Romans in Tacitus asking for last kisses when the legion was broken up . . . ALL pansies? If you can believe that, you can believe anything.")
Whitman was celebratory of affection between males and the human form, including the males, but I haven't seen any information that he ever acted on it sexually . . . we just have to quit buying into the propaganda.
. . . and, btw, it might or it might not affect the quality of his poetry. THESE days, it seems that a writer's political, social, and sexual leanings positively INFECT his work.
My brother told me raccoons would come through the roof and get in bed with me.
Don't forget Simon Schama and Martin Gilbert for history. Mr. Martin is even a decent fella, although Schama is a moonbat.
Maybe ... I'd really like the kids to have learned carpentry - that would show some child-rearing skills.
I learned all I know about carpentry at my daddy's knee. It's enough to let me do whatever I need to do (horse jumps, dog house, agility obstacles) but I'm what's called a "rough carpenter -- good on rough work, and rough on good work." I can cover most of my mistakes up with putty and paint . . . < g >
Dad is a real genius - he can do furniture and stuff like that. I'll never forget the beautiful REAL walnut birdhouse he "helped" me build for a first grade birdhouse contest. All dovetailed joints - it was a bird duplex, one house at each end, with rings on the top and a pipe socket so you could hang it or mount it on a pole. I sanded all the pieces, held the end of the wood furthest from the saw blade, and rubbed on every one of the 2 coats of stain and 3 of varnish. (Parents were allowed to help . . . that may have changed after they saw that gorgeous thing.)
Sigh. It appears that liability insurers frown on kids hanging around carpentry. Maybe during the summer, I can get Bill some work with the "facilities manager" at our church (I call him that, he calls himself the "handyman"). Not much carpentry, but he'd pick up some plumbing and painting and heavy-duty maintenance skills.
At 16, they can go to whatever Vo-Tech calls itself these days.
Yeah - don't you love siblings sometimes ?
When my kid complained about bullying in school and the teachers thought she should just get over it, I told them that she couldn't get any practice at home like other kids b/c she is an only child. :)
I thought they abolished it mostly, because it might damage the little darlings' self-esteem.
Sheesh. You'd think everybody would want to know how things work. Even if you never did any of your own plumbing, electrical, mechanical, etc., at least you'd be less likely to get cheated.
He's probably the best essayist in English of the 2nd half of the 20th century.
They're still teaching auto mechanics somehow. Community college dual enrollment, or something. "Career training."
There are advantages to that :-).
MWith Whitman there is very little counter-argument though. There aren't a lot of scholars these days who argue that he didn't harbor romantic attractions to other men.
That's my point. It was romantic, not sexual.
To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, the love affair between Walt Whitman and Walt Whitman is one of the great romantic love stories of all time . . .
She's well aware of that :)
He could really put words together, though, in his distinctive way.
He would be horrified at the state Camden NJ is in these days, though.
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