A Shrewdness of Apes

An Okie teacher banished to the Midwest. "Education is not the filling a bucket but the lighting of a fire."-- William Butler Yeats

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Messing with Google

I find it fascinating how Google directs people to this blog using certain keywords. In the interest of public service, I am here to help guide people who may encounter this blog through the mysteries of the Search Engine Gods:

1. To those of you who came here looking for Pearl Jam lyrics:

Yes, Eddie Vedder can be a great modern poet. The lyrics you seek are
"HEARTS and thoughts they fade, fade away..." not "thoughts and thoughts they fade..." This is from an excellent song entitled Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town. You can access the entire lyrics here. You got to my blog because I posted them here after my father passed away.

2. For those of you who wanted to find out about how the drive for test scores has caused primary grade recess to become the latest casualty in the eduwars, let me just tell you that I think that cancelling recess actually makes it more difficult for some kids to learn. Recess certainly was something that helped me recharge my batteries, back in the day. You would be looking for this post.

3. For those of you looking for an anticipatory set for teaching the book The Lovely Bones, you are in the wrong place. Since I became a mom, I can't read books like that any more. The thought of my child being killed keeps me from finishing the first ten pages. Maybe someday I wil be able to read that book, but right now, no way.

4. For those of you looking for a Fountains of Wayne blog, I would like that too. I very much admire this band, and strongly suggest you get their latest album, which is a collection of rarities entitled Out of State Plates. The post about them appeared here.

5. For those of you looking for the quote, "Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all," let me just say that that's a quote from one of my favorite movies of all time, The Princess Bride. That's from a post I wrote as my dad was dying.

6. For those of you wanting to teach school age kids about Iraq, I say, "Bravo!" Kids HAVE to understand this subject. I wrote about lack of even geographical knowledge about Iraq here.

I sometimes wonder about Google. How in the world do some of our posts end up coming up in searches?

I think I'll do a little experiment. Let's see what happens from this:

Shawn Colvin's new album, These Four Walls, is fabulous.

I think the Tiffany Hall, the woman who killed her pregnant friend --and the friend's three children-- plus the unborn baby in East St. Louis, IL is completely deserving of the death penalty.

I spent the weekend discussing liberation theology and biblical exegesis, and I still managed to enjoy myself.

I am deeply appalled by the lack of funding for US military bases as our brave military personnel obey the dictates of our government and fight overseas. It is their families who will suffer. You cannot fight a war on the cheap. "Support our troops," indeed, is more than a politically expedient sound bite.

Why is it that the some people cynically believe that the more something is repeated, no matter how obviously incorrect it is, the more people will believe it? And why is that sometimes true?

I also like the Bittersweets' new album, The Life You Always Wanted.

I HATE the term "Chick Flick." I am now going to watch some very manly movie with my husband, like The Transporter. But WHY do I watch it? Let's just say that Jason Statham is, ummmm, very easy on the eyes. So everybody wins, right? And just about every movie can be a "chick flick," too, with the right casting. Ahhhhhhh.

Take THAT, Google!

4 Comments:

At 10/2/06, 1:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Random Googling can be quite interesting. I found some really great sites that way...and some not-so-great ones.

I totally agree with you over the term "chick flick" because it often unfairly puts some excellent films into a category that some people (mostly men) won't touch or won't take seriously. (Their loss; they miss out on some really funny or powerful movies that way.) I love movies of all kinds, including action flicks that are aimed more at men than women. One of my hubby's favorites, coincidentally, is The Transporter, although we both like the lead better in the remake of The Italian Job where he played the car theif. (And yes, very easy on the eyes...)

 
At 10/2/06, 8:37 PM, Blogger EHT said...

...and exactly what did you decide about biblical exegesis and liberation theology? Unfortunately I would be hard pressed to find anyone in my circle to discuss this with except for my husband. A great bottle of wine and we can talk about most anything.

 
At 10/3/06, 3:40 PM, Blogger "Ms. Cornelius" said...

Not so sure about the liberation theology-- not the least of which is the Marxism part-- as if! And as an English major, exegesis is right up the old alley....

 
At 10/3/06, 8:30 PM, Blogger Laura(southernxyl) said...

One of our (young) ministers has what I guess is a touch of liberation chic. He says he learned in seminary to approach the Bible to see what it has to say about the poor and oppressed - that is the lens he was taught to use when he looks at it. I think it's a big mistake to approach the Bible with any kind of preconceived lens. I think you have to be prepared to be surprised, shocked, even dismayed if necessary, if you're really going to hear what it has to say.

Did I mention this here before? I've mentioned it somewhere, so if it was here, please forgive me. (I have a birthday later this month and I fear getting old and tedious.) This young minister told us that the parable about the workers in the vineyard, who all got paid the same even though some had worked all day and some only an hour, was about the oppression of the workers who'd worked all day and not been paid more. The problem is that that story begins, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like the man who owned a vineyard." In other words, when we pray the Lord's Prayer, and we say "Thy Kingdom come", we are asking for just that kind of "unfairness" and "oppression". He's young and he has time to straighten this out. I hope he does.

 

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