Catching Up With Some Great Blogs I Love To Read

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If there's a theme in the blogs I follow most, it's that their owners tend to use stream of consciousness when choosing topics. They are never bored and never boring. Here's a small sample :-)

"Through The Eyes Of A Gold Star Mom" is the amazing, hope-and-love-filled story of Amy Galvez, whose son died for Freedom in Iraq. Marine Cpl Adam Galvez served in Iraq with Ethan, and I've written of him before.

Amy's latest post says "It's My Turn to Make Adam Proud". She and 3 other Gold Star mothers have been invited by the organization FUTURE to go to Baghdad and Northern Iraq this autumn on a joint humanitarian mission with Iraqi women, preparing a structure to assure the defenseless are not abandoned and can still look forward to a joyful future when our troops are
no longer there to protect them.

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Mom in High Heels is playing "Random Thoughts Tuesday" (ok fine, she WAS playing it two days ago when I wrote this sentence) and she cracked me up by singing "There's a hole in the bottom of the sea" (and yes we do feel guilty and sincerely apologize to all our friends along the Gulf who know it isn't funny yet, we are very sorry but we could not help ourselfs).... ~ there's a flea on the hair on the wart on the frog on the knot on the log ~

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I was wondering the other day whether schools still use SRA, when a favorite blogger, Leslie aka Alice the Camel (she's quoted on my sidebar), who's been on hiatus for forEVER announced a new blog she's doing: "Public Education 1010". The blog is frank and wry and challenging. Prepare to think when you read there.

Anyway, the first post I read was on "Uncreative reading", showing how Reading Mastery (of which SRA is a component) is still proving wildly effective.

I LOVED SRA when I was in grade school. I would work so hard to finish early enough to get to go to the SRA station. Even for a good reader like me it was useful. The best part of it was that all the different levels were in there so everyone in class could use the same full set, we just
used different pieces of the array.

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I've been a fan of "Dr Mabuse's" The Kraalspace blog for years now. She's a hoot, and bakes a prize-winning apple pie. Her latest post "Reciprocity", announces that for the second time in 2 years, the President and Prime Minister exchanged gifts.

Our President's naive staff finally got taken in hand by someone somewhere with sense and gave new British PM David Cameron a proper state gift of a painting by the historically important and highly respected American artist Ed Ruscha, a father of Pop Art, who pioneered iconic typographical art and produced this sixty years ago. His work sells for Million$.

The British, on the other hand, ever mindful of nuance, with a finely tuned sense of history and attention to detail, achieved true antithesis when Mr Cameron presented the Obamas with a painting by "Ben Eine, a relatively unknown south London graffiti artist who has three convictions for criminal damage..."

And she subtitles it ... well, you gotta go see. I'm still laughing.

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And last but not least, Pat over at And so It Goes In Shreveport is bravely blogging along, keeping her chin up, despite her mom being in the hospital demanding cigarettes and Better Crossword Puzzles. Well, she did break down and drown her sorrows in butter and grits and bacon and diet Coke, but she's back with news of The Awesome Bobby Jindal, and of another, non-metaphorical, storm a'comin'.

Oh, and go to your store and plead for Gulf Shrimp - she says the shrimp haven't been affected so we can feast AND do Good For The Gulf at the same time! Remember: Friends Don't Let Friends Eat Imported Shrimp!

PS I'll post the recipe for the Mexicanish Shrimp Cocktail tomorrow. :-)