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Saturday, June 28, 2008

May still be a little time to Catch this

Can you please post this info. on your website? The Southern California Catholic Home Educator's Conference (SCCHE) Conference & Curriculum Fair is this Saturday, June 28, 2008. We will be offerning a TEEN TRACK for teens, entering grade 9 and above. I have just updated the information for the teen track and included it in a flyer. The conference and teen track are open to all, although they are Catholic based. That being said, we encourage all to attend. We offer a free curriculum fair and the Introduction to Homeschooling talk is also free. We will have some wonderful speakers and vendors and they can be seen at the website at: www.scchehomepage.com.

Thank you for your consideration.

Blessings,
Theresa Rugel-The
SCCHE committee
www.scchehomepage.com


Please see attached flyer for updated and detailed information
on The Southern California Catholic Home Educator's (SCCHE) Conference
& Curriculum Fair's Teen Track. Also come by the Information booth
at the conference to get info. on our upcoming summer activities for teens,
including beach days and movie nights (high school alumni from the
last couple of years are also invited to some of our functions, including
movie night, sponsored by Inland Empire Catholic Homeschoolers.)


God bless you,
Theresa Rugel-The, SCCHE committee

www.scchehomepage.com

Catholic Homeschooling Teens:
Where DOES Faith, Family and Education Meet IN YOUR LIFE?

This year The Southern California Catholic Home Educator's
Conference and Curriculum Fair is very pleased to offer a
time just for the teens.


Come join us for Food, Fun, and Fellowship!


Take some time this summer to meet or reconnect with
other Catholic Homeschooling teens.

For only $10.00 you can plan on spending time in praise and
worship, in adoration and of course "just hanging" with other
Homeschoolers.

And the best part; Lunch is included!

Don't miss out, sign up now! (Be sure to open attached flyer, as it has all the updated info.)

Thursday, June 26, 2008

What Do You Think?








E-Group of the Day



I am figuring it out now so I should be more consistent. Networking is important. There are many Homeschoolers out there. Hook up with the one that suits your family needs.

HAPPY HOMESCHOOLING!

Attic Theater - July 1st through July 4th

What a great thing to find in my inbox today. I truly hope that many people will come out and show their support.


Dear Friends, We'd like to invite you to our production of the Neil Simon comedy 'Brighton Beach Memoirs,' by the Upper Story Young People's Theater Company. It a 'Pay what you can' special price for homeschoolers, so everyone can come! Tender and inspiring, the cast ranges in ages from 10-20. Get a history lesson and theater in one outing! Now taking confirmed reservations for Tuesday July 1 and Thursday July 3 at 7:30pm and July 4 matinee at 1:30. At the Attic Theater 5429 W. Washington Blvd. (just off the 10 freeway, near Fairfax). Please see attached flyer and please RSVP to this email (martinepz@hotmail.com)

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Monday, June 23, 2008

Higher Education Widget

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Barack Obama - Education

Garden Grove: Used Curriculum Sale

Village Bible Academy, Garden Grove
June 28, 9:00 to noon
12671 Buaro Street
Garden Grove, CA 92840

If you want to be a seller, the fee is $10.00 for 1/2 table, set up in the gymnasium. If you want to shop & buy, just come!

Sellers need to call Shelly Best 714-636-0649 - or e-mail to: shelly@iwordministries.com - or or call cell # 562-841-6020. This will ensure a table is already set up for you when you get there at 8:30 a.m. to set up.
Come and buy my stuff!!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Father's Day

Myspace Comments - Happy Fathers Day

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Westchester Library Teen Summer Reading Contest

Read your way around the world with a “Passport to
Reading”. Collect stamps for a chance to win prizes. From
June 24 to August 19 for ages 11 and up.

Go online and check out the Westchester Library Teens -
Summer Reading Contest. Every Monday from June 23 to August
11 a new blog will be posted. Your comment on the blog is
your entry for the week. Blog address is:
http:\\westchesterteens.blogspot.com. The drawing for the
winner will take place at the finale.

Kick off the Summer Reading Program with a creative one:
Decorate a Visor. You will receive one visor to be
decorated anyway you want. Be creative, show the world the
real you are when you take it with you to wear on your
vacations. (June 24 @ 2:00)

Get your passport stamped in Japan with Taiko Drumming.
Enjoy this hands-on experience while you learn about
Japanese culture and the Taiko drum. (July 8 @ 2:00)

Next, get your passport ready for the Caribbean! This
Multicultural Dance program will teach dances from Cuba,
Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Brazil. (July 29 @ 1:30)

FINALE. How good are your hunting skills? How well do you
know your library? This is your chance to find out in the
First Annual Library Scavenger Hunt. Open you eyes and look
for all those little things you didn’t know we had!
(August 19 @ 2:00)

Winners of the blog contest and the passport contest will be
announced at the Finale.

Get your passports starting June 24 and get reading!

For more information contact me at the library. Hope to see
you there!

Kathy Lindemann
Teen Librarian
Westchester-Loyola Village Branch
7114 W. Manchester
Los Angeles, CA 90045
(310) 348-1095
klindem@lapl.org

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Here is another Mailbox Offering

I have had no previous dealings with these people so if you have and want to share feedback, please do

I am writing to request your assistance in alerting home schoolers of a very
special, upcoming seminar program for students.

Many people ask us how young people can effectively obtain a sound
understanding of and appreciation for the ideas of individual liberty,
personal responsibility, the rule of law, and free and virtuous societies.

Begun more than ten years ago, our 2008 Challenge of Liberty Summer Seminars
for Students engage, inspire, and equip students with the principles,
worldview and critical thinking skills so essential to prepare them for the
world they will soon enter.

We believe that homeschoolers might be especially interested in our Summer
Seminars program, with two seminar week-long programs available this year.
http://www.independent.org/students/seminars/

A limited number of full and partial scholarships are also available, and
those interested in obtaining such financial assistance should inquire
immediately.

We would be most grateful for your alerting homeschoolers of the Seminars as
soon as possible.

Thank you for your kind assistance.

Best regards,

David

David J. Theroux
Founder and President
The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA 95621-1428
510-632-1366 Phone
510-568-6040 Fax
DTheroux@independent.org

Friday, June 6, 2008

Sharing My Working Off the Pounds Playlist - It's Been Awhile


Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Last Night History was made

What a great real-life way to teach and discuss American History, US Government, Etc. We watched as a family.

Congratulations Mr. Barack Obama (very impressed with his classy speech)

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

It May be Hard to believe but...

Sunday, June 1, 2008

We have a 2008 Graduate in the Home!!!

As I mention on one of the other blogs I contribute to, this year we have a graduate which has made me more than a bit interested in the various commencement addresses given. I've been posting some of them there but thought I would share this with this blog. It is John F. Kennedy's commencement address at American University in 1963. This address and a great deal of others is found at humanity.org

John F. Kennedy

"President Anderson, members of the faculty, board of trustees, distinguished guests, my old colleague, Senator Bob Byrd, who has earned his degree through many years of attending night law school, while I am earning mine in the next 30 minutes, ladies and gentlemen:

"It is with great pride that I participate in this ceremony of the American University, sponsored by the Methodist Church, founded by Bishop John Fletcher Hurst, and first opened by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. This is a young and growing university, but it has already fulfilled Bishop Hurst's enlightened hope for the study of history and public affairs in a city devoted to the making of history and the conduct of the public's business. By sponsoring this institution of higher learning for all who wish to learn, whatever their color or their creed, the Methodists of this area and the Nation deserve the Nations thanks, and I commend all those who are today graduating.

"Professor Woodrow Wilson once said that every man sent out from a university should be a man of this nation as well as a man of his time, and I am confident that the men and women who carry the honor of graduating

from this institution will continue to give from their lives, from their talents, a high measure of pubic service and public support.

"'There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university,' wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities - and his words are equally true today. He did not refer to spires and towers, to campus greens and ivied walls. He admired the splendid beauty of the university, he said, because it was 'a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.'

"I have therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived - yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.

"What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

"I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generation yet unborn.

"Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles - which can only destroy and never create - is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

"I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war - and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

"Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament - and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude - as individuals and as a Nation - for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward - by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.

"First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable - that mankind is doomed - that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

"We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade - therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be a big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable - and we believe they can do it again.

"I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream . I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.

"Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace - based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions - on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace - no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process - a way of solving problems.

"With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor - it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

"So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.

"Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and incredible claims - such as the allegation that 'American imperialist circles are preparing to unleash different types of wars...that there is a very real threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet Union...[and that] the political aims of the American imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries...[and]to achieve world domination...by means of aggressive wars.'

"Truly, as it was written long ago: 'The wicked flee when no man pursueth.' Yet it is sad to read these Soviet statements - to realize the extent of the gulf between us. But it is also a warning - a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.

"No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements - in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.

"Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation's territory, including nearly two thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland - a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of Chicago.

"Today, should total war ever break out again - no matter how - our two countries would become the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation. All we have built, all we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hours. And even in the cold war, which brings burdens and dangers to so many nations, including this Nation's closest allies - our two countries bear the heaviest burdens. For we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counter weapons.

"In short, both the United Sates and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours - and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.

"So, let us not be blind to our differences - But let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

"Third: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the world as it is, and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different.

"We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communists' interest to agree on a genuine peace. Above all, while defending our own vital interest, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy - or of a collective death-wish for the world.

"To secure these ends, America's weapons are non provocative, carefully controlled, designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.

"For we can seek a relaxation of tension without relaxing our guard. And, for our part, we do not need to use threats to prove that we are resolute. We do not need to jam foreign broadcasts out of fear our faith will be eroded. We are unwilling to impose our system on any unwilling people - but we are willing and able to engage in peaceful competition with any people on earth.

"Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve its financial problems, to make it a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system - a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can finally be abolished.

"At the same time we seek to keep peace inside the non-Communist world, where many nations, all of them our friends, are divided over issues which weaken Western unity, which invite Communist intervention or which threaten to erupt into war. Our efforts in West New Guinea, in the Congo, in the Middle East, and in the Indian subcontinent, have been persistent and patient despite criticism from both sides. We have also tried to set an example for others - by seeking to adjust small but significant differences with our own closest neighbors in Mexico and in Canada.

"Speaking of other nations, I wish to make one point clear. We are bound to many nations by alliances. Those alliances exist because our concern and theirs substantially overlap. Our commitment to defend Western Europe and West Berlin, for example, stands undiminished because of the identity of our vital interests. The United States will make no deal with the Soviet Union at the expense of other nations and other peoples, not merely because they are our partners, but also because their interests and ours converge.

"Our interests converge, however, not only in defending the frontiers of freedom, but in pursuing the paths of peace. It is our hope - and the purpose of allied policies - to convince the Soviet Union that she, too, should let each nation choose its own future, so long as that choice does not interfere with the choices of others. The communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today. For there can be no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering in the self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured.

"This will require a new effort to achieve world law - a new context for world discussions. It will require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves. And increased understanding will require increased contact and communication. One step in this direction is the proposed arrangement for a direct line between Moscow and Washington, to avoid on each side the dangerous delays, misunderstandings, and misreadings of the other's actions which might occur at a time of crisis.

"We have also been talking in Geneva about he other first-step measures of arms control designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and to reduce the risks of accidental war. Our primary long range interest in Geneva, however, is general and complete disarmament - designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms. The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort of this Government since the 1920's. It has been urgently sought by the past three administrations. And however dim the prospects may be today, we intend to continue this effort - to continue it in order that all countries, including our own, can better grasp what the problems and possibilities of disarmament are.

"The one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. it would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security - it would decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole effort or the temptation to give up our insistence on vital and responsible safeguards.

"I am taking this opportunity, therefore, to announce two important decisions in this regard.

"First: Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister Macmillan, and I have agreed that high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow looking toward early agreement on a comprehensive test ban treaty. Our hopes must be tempered with the caution of history - but with our hopes go the hopes of all mankind.

"Second: To make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on the matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. We will not be the first to resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help us achieve it.

"Finally, my fellow Americans let us examine our attitude toward peace and freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our won society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our own lives - as many of you who are graduating today will have a unique opportunity to do, by serving without pay in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed National Service Corps here at home.

"But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because the freedom is incomplete.

"It is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of government - local, state, and national - to provide and protect that freedom for all of our citizens by all means within their authority. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch at all levels, wherever that authority is not now adequate, to make it adequate. And it is the responsibility of all citizens in all sections of this country to respect the right of all others and to respect the law of the land.

"All this is not unrelated to world peace. 'When a man's ways please the Lord,' the Scriptures tell us, 'he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.' And is not peace, the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights - the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation - the right to breathe air as nature provided it - the right of future generation to a healthy existence.

"While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can - if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers - offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.

"The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough - more than enough - of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on - not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace."