Clocks, Clocks and more Clocks

The Rebellion goes on!!!

The day the music lived..........

Conor Malone and Robert came back to Nanny O'Brien's on a Saturday night this summer and on that night the music lived...the old Nanny's lived. The Guiness just tasted better! The battery was low on the IPhone so I didnt get a lot of music but here is a clip that unfortunately had Connor replacing a string. Still you have to love the fiddle!

A word from John Jay

I believe that the idea that the writers of the constitution would be in the Tea Party camp in contemporary American Politics is false. The convention of 1787 came together to reduce the power of the states in favor of a national government. There may have been some discussion about the exact nature of the national government, but there can be little argument, in my view, that they wished to establish a government that would dominate the states. In Federalist #2 John Jay writes:

Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers. It is well worthy of consideration therefore, whether it would conduce more to the interest of the people of America that they should, to all general purposes, be one nation, under one federal government, or that they should divide themselves into separate confederacies, and give to the head of each the same kind of powers which they are advised to place in one national government

I do not believe that Jay, Hamilton or Madison would be at all upset at how thing turned out!

Bills Gates argues University will disappear

BigBlue

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NormAtNite Tops 6000 listeners.......

How did the Apple guy know................

"Apple of My Eye" - an iPhone 4 film from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo.

PG County Blues at the Zoo Bar

Another great night at the Zoo bar after eating Cod Head and several other interesting courses at a Korean Resturant in Alexandria on Duke Street.

Thing 2: Web 2.0 and My $.02 | Stories to Tell

Thing 2: Web 2.0 and My $.02 | Stories to Tell

Marc Prensky talks......

I have been very engaged with the work of Marc Prensky since I read Digital Game Based Learning a few years ago. Here is great interview with Prensky which highlights the core values of his thought over the years. He is much more accomodating to other viewpoints now a days without retreating from his positions. A kinder, smoother Marc........

A remixed Hamlet

Here is link to my friend Stephanie Blog Stories to Tell.

A Yeats Poem

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
by William Butler Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Another Sookey Song from the ZooBar!

Friday Night at the Zoo Bar

On Friday night, driving home from work I decided to call my friend Paddy and see if he wanted to go out and have a few beers. I liked this blog a lot more when Paddy actually contributed to it but he has become rather existential of late, and longs to leave this modern madness for the wilds of Alaska. As much as Paddy talks about 2 foot trout and salmon he still enjoys an imperial pint of Guiness, so we treked off to the Zoo Bar across from the Connecticut Street Zoo in Washington, DC. The Zoo Bar has some of the best blues music that I have ever heard. It harkens back to my college days when I frequented the Bueno Vista Cafe on Hertle Avenue in Buffalo, New York.

The Zoo Bar is a throwback, of that there is no question. It is full of older folks like me who are gray at more than the temples. Those folks however are real characters with genuine life experiences. I tip my hat to Cliff and his lady friend who I met at the bar and engaged in real conversation with.

The second Friday of the Month the Sookey Blues Band fills the Zoo Bar with extraordinary delta blues and coastal rock and roll. I try to get to the Zoo every time they play. I was driving home this Friday but somehow I made it to my stool at the long wooden bar across from the zoo. It was so worth it. Though they seldom play country, SBB banged out a wonderful rendition of Orange Blossom Special which is still ringing in my ears.

Though the sound is not the best (I was too close to the band) here is that song. Friday night I was in "the zone" at the Zoo Bar. Make it out there whenever you can.

History Matters

On another web site (Teachpaperless) I am involved in a discussion that centers around the idea of the internet as our repository of facts and memorization. The discussion centers around whether or not prior knowledge is internal or external. A commenter brought up William Jennings Bryan's 1896 Cross of Gold speech to the Democratic convention. He referred to its bibical allusions and remarked that you could not look those up on the internet unless you knew the bible.

That reminded me of an Declaimatory oratory contest that I was in at Canisius High School in Buffalo, New York where I declaimed Jennings Bryan's speech. Though this recording of the speech by Bryan himself existed in 1968 I never listened to it because I did not know about it or found it in my research on the speech. I found it in 30 seconds with an internet search. That is power. That is why history matters!! Read the speech and listen to the recording. It connects you in ways that memorization cannot.

Tom Dew's Singing away................

My friend and former colleague at STA singing on YouTube.....

Happy St Patricks Day--And a Ted Talk by Jane McGonigal

Wish I was in a pub listening to this right now.....ah for the old Nanny's!!




Here is a wonderful talk by Dr. Jane McGonigal about the power of gaming.

Sookey Blues Band at the Zoo Bar

I love the Sookey Jump Blues Band and the Zoo Bar in Washington DC.



Here is another Zoo Bar regular band, Big Boy Little.



Here is another Big Boy song.



Conrad Oberg at the Zoo Bar