Here’s the new “Austrian Spin on The Three Little Pigs,” via the Mises Blog.

And here’s my more modest attempt from a few years ago.

This is the third Hebrew Bible course I’ve listened to. (The first two were from Modern Scholar and the Teaching Company, respectively.) This is the first one to teach me more than Asimov’s Guide to the Bible did.

I’m very unhappy to learn that all three of these books are out of print.

I’ve posted many times about Asimov’s Guide to the Bible.

I’m now very much enjoying Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare.

I’ve just ordered a used copy of Asimov’s Guide to Science.

It’s starting to seem to me as if I could build much of a classical homeschooling curriculum out of these three books.

I regularly want to give them as gifts.

How can they be out of print?

From Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook:

Although some educators had been complaining about writing scores for decades, it was the mushroom cloud of business e-mail at the end of the 1990s that sparked the greatest change. Almost overnight, corporate America switched from telecommunication to written communication and, in the process, discovered how many CEOs, CFOs, and mid-level executives couldn’t string ten words together in a coherent sentence. Corporations were suddenly spending almost $3 billion a year to teach college-educated employees how to write, but the crisis was so deep it was often a case of “the blind leading the blind,” like this request to an online writing consultant:

i need help i am writing a essay on writing i work for this company and my boss want me to help improve the workers writing skills can yall help me with some information thank you.[34]

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[34] Sam Dillon, “What Corporate America Cannot Build: A Sentence,” New York Times, December 7, 2004, p. A23.

My parents recently visited and left some relics of my youth. One look at this drawing sent my mind back in time.

Almost 40 years ago, it wasn’t enough for government to tell me about the evils of smoking, they also coerced me into sharing private family information — that my father smoked — in order to serve the agenda of the state.

Mind you, my father knew the dangers of smoking. Everyone did (and does). Nevertheless, after a hard day of work, my father had to face me — his smirking, deputized son — and my silly artwork and misspelled message.

At some time in our past, the state succeeded in elevating its education above all other institutions — the family included. By doing so, the state created the situation where it alone could indoctrinate the youth, and parents wouldn’t even raise a concern.

Yesterday it was smoking. Today it’s the environment. Tomorrow, who knows.

Whoever controls the minds of the youth controls the future.

“[In] Lincoln, Rhode Island … they cancelled the district spelling bee because only one child would win, leaving all the others behind, thus violating the intent of No Child Left Behind — or, as they might say in Lincoln, no child gets ahead.”

(Jim Trelease, The Read-Aloud Handbook, citing “P.C. Watch,” New York Times, Education, April 24, 2005, p. 7)

Reminds me of The Incredibles:

Dash: “Dad says our powers make us special!”

Mom: “Everyone’s special, Dash.”

Dash, muttering: “Which is another way of saying that nobody is.”

Please check out my friend Carolyn’s wonderful blog post about how a color-matching activity turned into a discussion on the fine points of property theory.

“Instead of walking and talking about the names of different flowers, etc. that we picked up, we ended up having to talk a lot about private property.”