Children's Books, Children's CDs

Many thanks to Shep for providing a link to a list of children's books one of his friends plans to write some day. You have to scroll down to the 5/27/02 entry to read it. It put a smile on my face and immediately reminded me of the books with titles like "Everyone Farts." I guess they're semi-considered artistic since you can buy them in the gift store at Albright-Knox Art Museum in Buffalo.

A piece of good news: the new album by They Might Be Giants, No!, is number one of the children's music charts. I think that's sooo cool. Of course I own the album. I'm thinking of getting it for one of my friends who just had a kid since I know she won't tolerate Barney the Purple Dinosaur (I don't know why parents allow that stuff in their house!).

I Pledge Allegiance..

Oh boy. Here's a topic that's hot, so naturally I'm going to jump on that bandwagon (is that like jumping shark?). My opinion on all of this is that it's rediculous to ban the pledge. I think they should have amended it. I've never been hot on all this "god" stuff, much less the "one nation under god." So take it out. *nods* As I mentioned in comments on Matt's blog, it wasn't in the original that was written by a Mount Morris, NY. It was added in the 1950s, which makes me wonder if it coincided with the period of McCarthyism. I wish I could find the article that was in Smithsonian magazine awhile ago that went into some depth the history of the pledge. Interesting stuff. One tidbit: the pledge originally included a salute that was similar to a Nazi-salute, so people stopped doing it after WWII. A couple schools in the south or midwest continued to do the salute for awhile until they were chastised (or ordered not to do so.. can't remember). Oh, bit of irony: even though I'm not all into god, I used to lead my high school in the pledge during announcements nearly every morning of my senior year. I think that's where the announcement advisor made some sort of observance that it's more correct to say "..one nation under god" all in one sentence rather than break it up ("one nation..*pause* under god"). Something about the phrase not running smoothly. Funny stuff.