Life Animated, Reaching My Autistic Son Through Disney, NYTimes.com: What an amazing story. I read a lot and often skim to the end after a certain point. No skimming on this one. I was so amazed by this story, I think I may buy the book, Life Animated, when it comes out. As one friend noted: “No sidekick gets left behind.” Wonderful.
Owen, with his reliance from an early age on myth and fable, each carrying the clarity of black and white, good and evil, inverts this pyramid. He starts with the moral — beauty lies within, be true to yourself, love conquers all — and tests them in a world colored by shades of gray. It’s the sidekicks who help him navigate that eternal debate, as they often do for the heroes in their movies.
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When Owen was 3, his comprehension of spoken words collapsed. That’s clear from every test. But now it seems that as he watched each Disney movie again and again, he was collecting and logging sounds and rhythms, multitrack. Speech, of course, has its own subtle musicality; most of us, focusing on the words and their meanings, don’t hear it. But that’s all he heard for years, words as intonation and cadence, their meanings inscrutable. It was like someone memorizing an Akira Kurosawa movie without knowing Japanese. Then it seems he was slowly learning Japanese — or, rather, spoken English — by using the exaggerated facial expressions of the animated characters, the situations they were in, the way they interacted to help define all those mysterious sounds. That’s what we start to assume; after all, that’s the way babies learn to speak. But this is slightly different because of the way he committed these vast swaths of source material, dozens of Disney movies, to memory. These are stored sounds we can now help him contextualize, with jumping, twirling, sweating, joyous expression, as we just managed with “The Jungle Book.”
So begin the basement sessions. During daylight, we go about our lives. Walt rides his bike to school each morning, back home each afternoon. Cornelia manages the house, the bills, the overloaded schedules of the kids. I am editing and writing for The Journal, putting on my suit and subwaying to the bureau.
kith/kin, amenity kits: He trekked east, then he trekked west … this time CLT to IAD to KWI, then KWI to FRA to CLT … It still amazes me how far you can go in a day. And there are perks of having a spouse who travels internationally for business: 5 days, 3 airlines, one nice hotel with 52 hours on the ground … I get 4 “amenity” kits!
Jesus in the Perfect Storm by the Rt Revd Prof Dr. N. T. Wright, TMBS, Lent: So we are studying NT Wright’s Simply Jesus. As i prepared for class, I found this sermon and enjoyed how it brought the text into Lent …
Who knows what might happen if one of you – ten of you – fifty of you – were to go through this Holy Week praying humbly for the powerful fresh wind of God to blow into that combination of cultural pressure and personal aspiration, so that you might share in the sufferings of the Messiah and come through into the new life he longs to give you? Who knows what God’s power and God’s glory will look like when they steal upon tomorrow’s world from an unexpected angle? If the Son of God is now King of the world, what will that kingdom look like in this next generation?
via Jesus in the Perfect Storm by the Rt Revd Prof Dr. N. T. Wright.
5 Reasons Why Every Woman Needs a Girls Weekend | Abby Draper: I have the best Girl Weekend group ever!
While spending time with your significant other, children if applicable, colleagues and acquaintances is wonderful and important, every woman needs a good “girls weekend” every so often, at any age. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or elaborate, but a simple few days away from the norm with some women you trust is a special kind of cleanse, especially when you’re going through a tough time.via 5 Reasons Why Every Woman Needs a Girls Weekend | Abby Draper.
El Camino de Santiago, bucket list: It’s on my bucket list.
It is hard to walk a 500-mile pilgrimage trail without thinking about religion.
via Being Catholic: For a Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime? – Busted Halo.
Food picked up just a few seconds after being dropped is less likely to contain bacteria than if it is left for longer periods of time, according to new research. The findings suggest there may be some scientific basis to the ‘5 second rule’ — the urban myth about it being fine to eat food that has only had contact with the floor for five seconds or less. The study, undertaken by final year biology students monitored the transfer of the common bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus from a variety of indoor floor types (carpet, laminate and tiled surfaces) to toast, pasta, biscuit and a sticky sweet when contact was made from 3 to 30 seconds.
via Dropped your toast? Five-second food rule exists, new research suggests — ScienceDaily.
iPod-Based Magic Tricks, TEDTalks:
via ▶ Marco Tempest: The magic of truth and lies (and iPods) – YouTube.
What if deception is in the eye of the beholder? And what if lies can help us tell the truth? Watch this video and enter into the multimedia world of magician Marco Tempest. Then decide for yourself.
via WATCH: These iPod-Based Magic Tricks Are SO. MUCH. FUN | TEDTalks.
DST, memes: My house …
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry on What the Sahara Desert Teaches Us About the Meaning of Life | Brain Pickings: I am glad that they make almost every high school student studying French read this in French, it is one of my favorites.
In December of 1940, a little more than two years before he created The Little Prince on American soil and four years before he disappeared over North Africa never to return, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry began writing Letter to a Hostage (public library) while waiting in Portugal for admission into the United States, having just escaped his war-torn French homeland — a poignant meditation on the atrocities the World War was inflicting at the scale of the human soul, exploring questions of identity, belonging, empathy, and the life of the spirit amidst death.
One of the most timelessly moving sections of the book, both for its stand-alone wisdom and for its evident legacy as a sandbox for the ideas the beloved author later included in The Little Prince — home, solitude, the stars, the sustenance of the spirit — is the second chapter, written while Saint-Exupéry was traveling aboard the crowded ship that took him from Lisbon to New York
39 Test Answers That Are 100% Wrong But Totally Genius At The Same Time, LOL:
These students should get full marks for creativity alone!
via 39 Test Answers That Are 100% Wrong But Totally Genius At The Same Time..
Charlotte police use dirt bikes to catch criminals, Time Warner Cable News: I saw my first one just the other day!
CHARLOTTE — Criminals now have one less place to hide in Charlotte. Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department are now using new dirt motorcycles to patrol woods and walking trails in several patrol divisions in Charlotte.
Steele Creek Division Commander Captain Allan Rutledge says his division is currently utilizing two bikes. He says criminals are using wooded areas to allude police. He says since the bikes have been put in use he’s noticed difference.
“The officers picked up the bikes one day when they were first available and 30 minutes later than made their first arrest,” said Rutledge. “They were actually on the way back from the location where they picked the motorcycles up to our division office where they made an arrest for drugs.”
The bikes have been in use for more than a month. Captain Rutledge says more bikes will be purchased in the near future.
via Charlotte police use dirt bikes to catch criminals – Time Warner Cable News.
Art and Human Rights, Anna Deavere Smith, Robert McDuffie, Grace Cathedral – Calendar Detail: A labyrinth friend posted another link to Grace Cathedral’s page (the home of the US’s most famous labyrinth and Lauren Artress, the labyrinth movement’s advocate in the modern era) … So I clicked on it and was excited to see Camille McDuffie’s husband Robert McDuffie featured in this recent event. So two of my world’s intersect once again.
Art and Human Rights
Guests: Anna Deavere Smith and Robert McDuffie
Interlocutor: The Very Rev. Dr. Jane Shaw
via Grace Cathedral – Calendar Detail.
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The Forum: a Conversation with Anna Deavere Smith & Robert McDuffie
Sunday, Mar 9 9:30a to 10:30a
Grace Cathedral
San Francisco, CA
Join the Very Rev. Dr. Jane Shaw, Dean of Grace Cathedral, for The Forum with actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith and renowned violinist Robert McDuffie for a conversation on art and human rights within the context of their performance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter From Birmingham Jail. The Forum is a series of lively conversations about art, faith, ethics and the issues of our day with renowned special guests.
Parker J. Palmer, David Ray’s Thanks Robert Frost:
I ran across this poem the other day, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It’s a poem about how we relate to the past—a question that’s relevant at any age, not least when you’re old enough to have more past than future!
The past isn’t fixed and frozen in place. Instead, its meaning changes as life unfolds. I once lost a job. At the time, it felt as if I had come to the end of the road. But after a while, I was able to see how that loss helped guide me toward my true life-work. Losing that job was a blessing, not a curse.
I’ve made many mistakes and often failed to live up to my aspirations, but I don’t need to look back with regret. Instead, I can see all of my mess-ups as humus or compost for the growing I needed to do.
I love the fact that the word “humus” is related to “humility.” The good I do today may well have its roots in something not-so-good I did in the past. Knowing that takes me beyond both the sinkhole of regret and the hot-air balloon of pride.
Regret shuts life down. Humility opens it up. So Robert Frost was right. We CAN have hope for the past as well as the future!
via Parker J. Palmer.
pi day, 10 Pies for Pi Day | Mental Floss: I think pi day is a fun way to introduce kids to math concepts. When did you first hear of pi day? It was when my oldest was in elementary school, late 1990s. So what smart fun teacher thought this up? Love pi day … so pi day 2015 will be epic.
Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 (or 3/14 in the month/day date format), since 3, 1, and 4 are the three most significant digits of π in the decimal form. In 2009, the United States House of Representatives supported the designation of Pi Day.[2]
Pi Approximation Day is observed on July 22 (or 22/7 in the day/month date format), since the fraction 22⁄7 is a common approximation of π.[3]
The earliest known official or large-scale celebration of Pi Day was organized by Larry Shaw in 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium,[4] where Shaw worked as a physicist,[5] with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, then consuming fruit pies.[6] The Exploratorium continues to hold Pi Day celebrations.[7]
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Pi Day has been observed in many ways, including eating pie, throwing pies and discussing the significance of the number π.[1] Some schools hold competitions as to which student can recall Pi to the highest number of decimal places.[11][12]
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has often mailed its application decision letters to prospective students for delivery on Pi Day.[13] Starting in 2012, MIT has announced it will post those decisions (privately) online on Pi Day at exactly 6:28 pm, which they have called “Tau Time”, to honor the rival numbers Pi and Tau equally.[14][15]
The town of Princeton, New Jersey, hosts numerous events in a combined celebration of Pi Day and Albert Einstein’s birthday, which is also March 14.[16] Einstein lived in Princeton for more than twenty years while working at the Institute for Advanced Study. In addition to pie eating and recitation contests, there is an annual Einstein look-alike contest.[17]
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Today is March 14th, often notated as 3-14, so it is Pi Day! It’s a day set aside to pay homage to the ratio of a circle to its diameter. The traditional way to celebrate is to eat a pie. Or bake one. Here are some wonderful Pi Day pies you might try.
via 10 Pies for Pi Day | Mental Floss.
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via WETA.
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Well, in the U.S. anyway…
via George Takei.
recommendations, restaurants, Charlotte: Stagioni | Four Seasons of Food | Italian Family Style | Charlotte North Carolina.
Dennard's Clipping Service 
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