It is so refreshing to see these lovely young ladies share beliefs in God, the Bible, large families, modesty, charity, service, purity in courtship, and respect for older people. Kudos to them for writing such a faith-promoting book. 

Broken Promises . . . to yourself

Today’s classic book for Thursday is The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo. What an eye-opener! This is stuff I never learned in school. I am not ready to throw out my five dollar bills as a Lincoln-hater, but I sure won’t be hanging up the three foot tall picture of the guy that someone gave to me in my homeschooling room. I don’t hate Lincoln, but I don’t revere him like I was taught to do so as a child, after reading this book. I think he was misled and then misled the nation. I learned that Lincoln was the political heir of Hamilton. If you know anything about Hamilton you know that he was for centralized government. Lincoln wanted that as well. What that looked like in his day was three things: a national bank, the tariff, and internal improvements (think railroads). Lincoln inherited these ideas as part of the Republican party. The Republicans took up the vision of centralized government when the Whigs died out, and the Whigs carried on Hamilton’s legacy.

As far as the abolition of slavery, Lincoln could take it or leave it according to how it fit into his political agenda. I was also saddened to learn that he supported Sherman’s total war in the south with the attack on civilians. Somehow I never picked up on that in 5th, 7th, or 10th grade US History. That’s a whole story in and of itself. I don’t know if I would go so far as to be so negative about Lincoln as the author does, I would have to do more research to say that Lincoln was a liar, but Lincoln definitely changed American government by centralizing power when he suspended the writ of habeus corpus during the war. I encourage everyone to read this book because most of us have only heard how glorious Lincoln was and that he could do no wrong. He did many things that caused America to enter a “third founding of America”  that was no longer based on self-government of “we the people.” You can view the download over here, scroll down the page to “The Three Foundings of America.” Stephen Pratt, author of the download, endorses this book I have pictured above.

Here is an interview with the author that he recently did on The Tom Woods show, for President’s Day. Scroll down the page and find the phrase, “On Lincoln’s Birthday, Tell the Truth – February 12, 2014″ and listen in!

photo credit: tomwoodsradio.com

If you want to hear about some presidents that really deserve honor for President’s Day, besides George Washington, listen to the interview on the same page next to this guy’s picture that I am showing below. His name is Ivan Eland, and he wrote a book endorsed by Stephen Pratt called  Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty.

Here is one of their latest videos as they appeared on Fox News this week to promote the Duggar girls’ new book, Growing Up Duggar.

Here is a video about these beautiful girls. They are a wonderful example of the power of family to create such amazing young women! Thank you for being such shining examples of virtue!

I’m pretty sure that Jessa is engaged and that they will announce it on the first show of the next season of the Duggars realty show 19 Kids and Counting. Notice how she is hiding her left hand? We will have to wait and see on April 1!

Today’s tip for homeschooling is to simulate a lawsuit. You will learn a lot from doing this: logical thinking, persuasive skills, how to construct an argument, and the art of thinking on your feet. Your kids probably already think they know how to argue but this simulation will polish those skills! Every year, across the nation, youth get to do this very thing with the mock trial program. Junior high and senior high teams compete at a local level, with the top winning teams moving on to the state championship and then the state winners go to the national championship. If you have kids younger than age 12, you can practice with simple lawsuits drawn from fairy tales, written into scripts found here, just scroll down the page to the “Elementary Mock Trials.”

If you have older kids, consider checking out the National Mock Trial program, with your state’s corresponding web site. Since I am familiar with the Utah Mock Trial program, I will post a link to its web site right here.

If you are a homeschooler, you can form a team in your community with other homeschoolers. My son’s team, pictured above, just finished their first two matches and they are moving on to the next level. Yay! This is child #3 to be involved with the event. My two older kids did it and loved it too. The two older kids did it with their Statesmanship Club, and now child #3 belongs to a team made up of from his homeschool speech and debate class. Around our house, February is not the month of basketball, with the succeeding March madness, it’s the month for getting ready for mock trial with the March mock trail competitions. It’s a great program, because there is nothing like a simulation to get you thinking! Long live mock trials!

This is one of the best picture books I’ve ever read! It’s Fiona’s Luck, a fun picture book with an Irish theme, by author Teresa Bateman. It is a darling story about a girl who outwits a king who is trying to horde the leprechauns’ luck. Teresa is a children’s librarian turned author. She grew up in a big family and loved to read and tell stories. She went to BYU-Idaho and BYU-Provo. I love people who can write stories that have me wondering at the turn of every page, how it’s going to turn out.  Here are some of her other books…

This one is about a leprechaun who lives in peace and quiet, until a noisy neighbor builds a home above his underground home. How will they live together in peace?

This is a cute one about a minstrel who must win a pot of gold to win a girl’s heart. I don’t like the pictures or the story as much as Fiona’s Luck, but it’s still good.

OK, now on to other picture books relating to St. Patrick’s Day, by other authors.

I haven’t read this one yet, but it looks good simply because it has one of my favorite illustrators, P.J. Lynch. I will be getting it this week to read to the littles for bedtime.

Below I have pictured more that I haven’t read yet, but they look inviting.

The title of the one pictured just above is The Story of the Ireland. I couldn’t get the image bigger, sorry. It is full of jokes, stories, and little tidbits of history about Ireland. Sounds fun!

This presentation here that Elder Neil L. Andersen gave at Roots Tech 2014 is so cool! He shares the story of his daughter doing family history research with her children and a friend. Then he involves his grandson, a techie, who reminds me of my missionary son, to share a new tool for doing research, Puzzilla. This is what I’ve dreamed of! It allows you to see family tree collateral lines really easily! Now you can more easily find your cousins! “I’m gonna find my cousins!…whoa, whoa, I’m gonna find my cousins!”

Watch the “Find Your Cousins” song here, sung by a distant cousin of my children, Micah Rindlisbacher.