Saturday, December 29th, 2007
Henry Cate of WhyHomeschool is holding a contest to create a cool graphic for the Carnival of Homeschooling. For more information and the details of the entries, click here.
Meantime, here’s what I did:
I used Adobe Photoshop and the image conveys a message: that homeschooling allows us parents to have the freedom to guide and help our children become “whole”, and that is why I chose the round shape to represent “wholeness”. The tent represents the carnival and it is lighted because in it is a child learning from his home desk. The yellow color symbolizes “sunshine” learning experiences at home — joy, energy and intellect! Gold represents the precious time and wisdom that parents are able to give to their children. Blue symbolizes faith, truth and knowledge: something that many institutions of learning have forgotten to focus their efforts on.
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Friday, November 30th, 2007
In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it “Christmas” and went to church; the Jews called it “Hanukkah” and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!’ - Dave Barry
People are always divided with regards to the celebration of Christmas season. For some, it is a matter of ensuring that everyone in America has the freedom to practice their own religion (or no religion) and to keep the government out of religion. For some, it is a matter of seasonal sensitivity.
America has grown more diverse and many people get offended when someone shows expressions of love, joy, peace, or greets them “Merry Christmas” wishes. So, the traditional greeting was replaced by “Happy Holidays” and many Christmas trees are now called either Holiday trees or Family trees. Even in the schools, holiday decorations have been banned and teachers are prohibited to say “Christmas”.
The fact that atheists view Christmas with disdain is not astonishing, since they’ve attempted to remove the phrase “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God we trust” from U.S. currency, as well as Ten Commandments displays from numerous publicly owned places. But today, most Americans think Christ is fading from the Christmas picture. Christmas has simply become a season of shopping, not for other people but mostly for themselves.
Since in the 1820’s to the 1840’s when sweet shops in New York City started having Christmas sales and many stores began to advertise themselves as Santa Claus’ headquarters, Christmas has always been a holiday celebrated carelessly. So sacred is the American holiday-shopping season that Franklin Roosevelt officially moved Thanksgiving one week earlier to give retailers an edge.
Since then the commercial holiday officially begins with a mad shopping spree on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Many stores open early (even at four o’clock in the morning) so people can have more time to spend money, which they always do. Christmas is certainly the biggest shopping season of the year, with almost sacred significance in U.S. culture.
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Thursday, November 8th, 2007
God has been kicked out of our public schools since 1963 when our Supreme Court sided with the ACLU and Madelyn Murray O’Hair and made prayer illegal in the schools. Since then, many of our public schools throughout the country have eradicated everything that pertains to faith. In most states today, teachers cannot tell the students what is right and what is wrong. Society has agreed that the students develop their own set of moral values and should be respected on what they believe.
Starting in Pre-Kindergarten, homosexuals are invited into the schools to talk with the students. It is okay to talk about homosexuality, abortion, evolution and paganism but it is not okay to talk about goodness and faith.
Do you know that America murders 1.6 million babies every year? America is becoming a rich pagan country that hands out condoms (and contraceptive patches) for free and calls their Christmas tree a holiday tree! Soon, Americans don’t have to celebrate Christmas at all.
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