the nine parts of speech

A great poem for learning about the parts of speech. I wish we’d found this when my kids were little. Not too late now guys…and in time for your own kids 🙂 I found this on the wonderful German Grammar Pod website. (a wonderful resource for revising German grammar)

A noun’s the name of anything

As school or garden, hoop, or swing.

An adjective describes a noun

As great, small, pretty, white, or brown.

Instead of nouns the pronouns sit

You, me, his, hers, this, that or it.

Verbs tell of something being done,

To read, write, count, sing, jump, or run.

An adverb tells how, where or when,

As slowly, badly, there or then.

Three little words you often see

Are articles: a, an, and the.

Conjunctions join words together,

As men and women, wind or weather.

Prepositions link in nouns

As to or on or at the Downs.

The interjection shows surprise,

As ah! How pretty- Oh! how wise.

The whole are called nine parts of speech,

Which reading, writing, speaking teach

Do we really believe…

Watch esp from about 3.45 minutes in

and you are saying…?

Just a comment in an ABCnews article I read this morning about the recent federal budget.

Make of this what you will: [The Labor government] is getting rid of the “dependent spouse tax offset” that in practice allowed men who were rich enough to have kept wives to claim a tax concession – an anachronism that was regressive, discouraged workforce participation and has no place in today’s society and economy.

It’s pretty obvious to me.

Overpopulation is a myth

A realistic look at overpopulation and world resources? I get tired of the too-many-people-in-the-world argument. It’s good to see a counter argument. Check out the overpopulation is a myth website.

What? But couples might have babies soon after they are married?

And they might have them close together and more than the modern average family and…and…and… 

Another link to a post about contraception, specifically the pill. This article specifically looks at the possibility that the pill could cause abortion in one-in-slim-chances cases.

But it’s another one of those sacred cows so whatever you do, don’t talk about it.

Desiring God – for 25 years

What a humble man is John Piper. Praise God for the impact of this book, published 25 years ago.

Watch the video on his website as he talks about it.

how the internet challenges traditional parent-child roles.

When Laura Ingalls Wilder was a girl, she couldn’t wait to be old enough to wear her hair ‘up’. It would show she was a grown woman. This was something she aspired to. <sigh> I’ve noticed for a long time now that women (and men) in our times have reverse aspirations…they dress, style their hair and behave as young as possible. I don’t know if the ‘un-aspiration’ egg of youth toward adulthood came before the ‘reverse-aspiration’ chicken of adults to young, hip and cool, but we’re clearly in a bit of a pickle these days.

This article from Covenant Eyes argues that the older generation have now been completely left behind and due to the ‘advance’ of technology and digital communication, we live in a world where, adults are disappearing, and children hold the power. Parents today strain for glimpses inside the mysterious world of their teenager’s digital life. For the first time in history, teens are able to lock parents out of more than their rooms. It appears adults are getting younger, just not in the way they hoped for.”

It’s worth a look, read and a think. It made my stomach ache a little. It would have made my stomach ache a lot but for the knowledge that God is sovereign.

A comment on the two arguments for and against limiting a child’s freedom with the internet: if we seek to raise children who are counter-cultural (I would suggest that Christian parents should want their children raised counter to our culture; particularly in their ‘thinking’) then we need to think about how that may be achieved.

Groaning for Redemption – Spurgeon

We ourselves . . . Groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8:23
This groaning is common among God’s people: To a greater or lesser extent we all feel it. It is not the groan of murmuring or complaint: It is a note of desire rather than of distress. Having received a deposit, we desire the rest of our portion; we are sighing that our entire manhood, in its trinity of spirit, soul, and body, may be set free from the last trace of the Fall; we long to discard the rags of corruption, weakness, and dishonor and to be clothed with incorruption, immortality, glory—the spiritual body that the Lord Jesus will bestow upon His people.
We long for the manifestation of our adoption as the children of God. “We . . . groan,” but it is “inwardly.” It is not the hypocrite’s groan, by which he would make men believe that he is a saint because he is wretched. Our sighs are sacred things, too holy and too personal for us to broadcast. We keep our longings for our Lord to ourselves. Then the apostle says we “wait,” by which we learn that we are not to be petulant, like Jonah or Elijah when they said, “Let me die”; nor are we to whimper and sigh for the end of life because we are tired of work or wish to escape from our present sufferings till the will of the Lord is done. We are to groan for glorification, but we are to wait patiently for it, knowing that what the Lord appoints is best.
Waiting implies being ready. We are to stand at the door expecting the Beloved to open it and take us away to Himself. This groaning is a test. You can learn a lot about a man by what he groans after. Some men groan after wealth—they worship money; some groan continually under the troubles of life—they are merely impatient. But the man who sighs after God, who is uneasy until he is made like Christ—that is the blessed man. May God help us to groan for the coming of the Lord and the resurrection that He will bring to us

discussing education

<deep breath>

for a very long time I’ve been sitting on a blog post about education. and I’m sitting on it still. only I just watched this youtube video (below) and now I have to post it. one of the reasons I haven’t posted the education post is the time it would take. until uni finishes for the year, I have to focus on that and all the other good things I have to do, involving all the people I love. another reason is that most people can’t comprehend what I mean when I say I don’t like modern schooling. they think I have some old fashioned view or something. or that I think they should talk about creation. or something else. but I actually hate modern schooling. the system sucks. the methodology. and often, the best thing that christians can come up with as an alternative is the factory model, in a ‘nicer’ environment. <sigh>

can I add, that I think school is a VERY good place for christian adults to be, if they are called there.

anyway. for what it’s worth, here is what someone else has said, MUCH of which I agree with.

plastic jesus – recycled

I want you to hear this.  (stolen from Thorsten and Claudia … who undoubtedly stole it from someone else)

What’s the answer?