The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for August 2006

Teaching Children Not To Quit

by 4 Comments

betterfatherstuff

One of the things that I love about my blog is that it is indeed an online journal. It is a place that provides me with a snapshot of moments of my life. I especially enjoy reading about my children and the experiences that we have shared together.

I have had the chance to document my son’s love for Scooby-Doo as well as his blasphemous belief that Scrappy Doo is cool. I recounted some of my daughter’s antics, my son’s religious questions and discussed some things that I want to teach my children.

I love my children. Each day I look forward to seeing them. I love the look they give me when I give them their blessing. I get so much out of that. There is nothing like feeling those little arms wrapped around my neck and hearing “I love you daddy.” I get choked up just thinking about it.

And it is because of this burning unconditional love for them that I am able to deal with some of the harder things in life with a smile. With beautiful kids like this, how can I not. This brings me to the topic of the post, teaching children not to quit. It really is a continuation of my post Teaching Children To Lose Gracefully.

The reality is that life is not fair and at times it can be quite hard. One of my responsibilities as a parent is to help them gain coping skills. They have to learn how to fail. They have to learn what to do when their best effort does not produce the result that they want and how to learn from these experiences.

It is hard lesson to learn and I cannot say that I have any magic formula. But I have been working with son on helping him learn that failure is not a license to give up. It is a reminder that whatever we were doing was not working and it is time to find a new angle. To make it more interesting I have tried to help him look at this as being a game.

I think he gets it. I intentionally am not letting him beat me at all of the games that we play. Sometimes I beat him. He still doesn’t like losing, but he realizes that he will not lose every time. I rather suspect that it won’t be all that long before I have to try hard not to lose. His mind works so quickly.

My daughter is a little too young to get too deeply involved with this, but I am not sure that I am going to have to talk to her about this. She adores her big brother and is forever trying to imitate him. As I watch her chase him around the house I see such determination. She is tough.

I suppose that the real point of this post is just to say again how much I love my children. What a joy, what a blessing. I am so very thankful for them.

Zionist Jedi Tricks

by Leave a Comment

Palestinian military forces were befuddled this morning when they were confronted by the world famous but seldom scence “Zionist Jedi Tricks.”

In the picture above a man finds that the Zionist control of the force is indeed strong.

Ok, time for a confession I wanted to make some sort of Foghorn Leghorn joke but I just couldn’t come up with one. Oh well.

An Inspriational Father

by 4 Comments

Ezzie tipped me off to this story. Here is a clip of the story and a video to go with it. Wow.

Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars–all in the same day.

Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much–except save his life.’

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Is Dangerous

by 5 Comments

There is no question in my mind that this man is a very dangerous individual. Memri has a transcript of a speech he gave last week.

I am going to cite the end of it:

“If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender.”

This may be a lot of rhetoric and bluster, but with leaders like this I like to play it safe. He is a dangerous man. Iran isn’t playing games and if the world doesn’t wake up it will be to our detriment.

Iranian Cartoon Exhibition Opens

by Leave a Comment

Solomonia has the story about the opening of the Iranian Cartoon Exhibition. For those of you who are too lazy (and you know who you are) here is a link to the Memri story from Solomonia and an excerpt from the transcript.

“Following are excerpts from a news report on an exhibition of Holocaust cartoons in Tehran, which aired on the Iranian News Channel (IRINN) on August 17, 2006.

Reporter: As the war in South Lebanon comes to an end, the Holocaust cartoon exhibition is held. It is attended by artists from 61 countries all over the world. The exhibition, held at the Museum of Palestine Contemporary Art, presents 204 works of art. The Holocaust issue, the international circles’ ignoring of the truth, and the injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people are the main topics dealt with by the artists.

[…]

Mas’oud Shoja’I, exhibition curator: We have received 1,193 works from 61 countries. This proves that people throughout the world, and cartoonists in particular, know how to distinguish between the oppressor and the oppressed.

Reporter: In the time that elapsed between the announcement and the opening of the exhibition, Zionist circles severely attacked the Holocaust exhibition website twice. The exhibition’s management received thousands of threatening e-mails and offers to money to prevent the exhibition, but to no avail. Nothing could prevent the exhibition.

[…]

The participation of renowned cartoonists, such as the Australian Louis Pelder (sic), Carlos Latuff from Brazil, and Ekton (sic) from Turkey, shows that the presentation of the Holocaust issue has been very significant and effective.

[…]

Holocaust – the collective burning of people alive – was mentioned twice in the course of history. The first was in Yemen, in the time between the prophecies of Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad. Back then, many Christians were burned alive, at the king’s decree, because they refused to renounce Christianity and become Jews. After World War II, claims about a holocaust were raised for the second time in history. This was nothing but a myth – a myth about the killing of six million Jews. Elham Gouran, IRINN.”