Quickly checking in to say that life has been pretty busy so I haven’t had much time to journal here.
I have been decluttering my house and you can see the minutiae here at House and Hold.
Yesterday Liam and I talked for over an hour on superheroes. Someone in his dorm had this Civil War graphic novel series. Because of a disaster with a battle against a villain, the government wants all superheroes to register their “true identities” and possibly have some kind of official superhero training so that no more tragic accidents happen. Living here in California, couldn’t help thinking of the occasional homeschool crises where people start talking about accountability for homeschoolers and increased supervision. Anyway, interesting topic, no easy answers. Some rooftop talk here, because after all, as the article points out, where else do superheroes talk to each other?
In the context of the discussion I showed him Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron (the link is to an analysis with an embedded link to the story itself which was very short). Sandra Dodd discusses the story in the context of unschooling at Thinking Sticks: Fairness.
Then we watched Liam’s college DVD — every year the graduating class at his colllege tends to make a movie, sometimes more than one. This was a lot of fun.
One more thing you notice about superheroes — how almost universally forebearing they are. Only the super-villains try to get power for themselves, rule the world or cash out on their powers. Or sometimes they are out for revenge. Very interesting psychologically how consistent this mythology is. There are some flawed superheroes that get caught up in these traps but the fact that it is a temptation is very clear.
OK, I know — get a life! ;-)
