Klassikal Musik for Kids (video)

Comedy and classical music? Only on KUSC (Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles)

Tiger moms, listen up. A number of years ago, Richard Perlmutter was toying with the idea of creating lyrics set to masterpieces of classical music when one day, while humming Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the phrase "Beethoven's Wig is very big" popped into his head.



"It really resonated with my objectives because the words fit perfectly with the first eight notes of the symphony," recalls Perlmutter. "Besides, the wig is sort of like a mascot for classical music."







After dressing up the entire first movement with lyrics that are charged with "laugh out loud" humor that tickles funny bones of all ages, he turned to works of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, and other musical heavyweights.



Eventually, his muse led him to a studio where he created a groundbreaking recording, backed up by full symphony orchestra and four opera singers.







Perlmutter's first album, "Beethoven's Wig: Sing Along Symphonies," was released in 2002. Within a week of its debut, he was featured on NPR's All Things Considered, followed by an appearance on NBC's Today Show.



The album shot to the top of Amazon's Bestseller List, holding the #1 position on both the Amazon classical and children's music sales charts for four months. Over the next year, Beethoven's Wig received 15 national awards including a GRAMMY nomination for Best Musical Album for Children. (kmozart.com)



How to Parent (according to Tiger Mom)

• Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior - WSJ.com
  Not helpful? You can block online.wsj.com results when you're signed in to search.online.wsj.com
• You +1'd this publicly. Undo

  Chua's daughter Sophia explains what life is really with her "Tiger Mom," an Asian father's gift: Permission to fail. Ms. Amy Chua (Mother Dearest) answers...
• Tiger Mom: Amy Chua Parenting Memoir Raises American Fears...
• You +1'd this publicly. Undo

  Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother author Amy Chua's proudly politically incorrect account of raising her children.
• Tiger Mothers: Raising Children the Chinese Way : NPR
• You +1'd this publicly. Undo

  Amy Chua, a professor of law at Yale, has written her first memoir about raising children the "Chinese way" -- with strict rules and expectations.
• TIGER MOM WINS: daughter gets into BOTH Harvard and Yale
• You +1'd this publicly. Undo

  The "Tiger Mom" who infuriated "American" mothers by ridiculing their lax parenting skills has another notch in her belt in the great parenting...
• Amazon.com: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
• Classical radio LA: KUSC.org (podcast)
• Can you eat these (supernatural) carrots?
  
  
• Tiger Mom Amy Chua says her controversial book is no parenting...

Videos on Tiger Mothering on ABC News

Lama lectures Justin Bieber (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

Michael the Monk (Ven. Lobsang Yeshe), a teacher and translator at the Tara Institute in East Brighton, has a message for pop idol and child actor Justin Bieber. I love your music and charisma. You have great potential. So please set a good example and steer clear of drugs. And watch out when you turn 18 because that's the time of greatest temptation.

Thank goodness cherub has separated from his adult girlfriend, Selena Gomez. It always seemed like a stunt -- public displays of affection, just like his releasing a song with a rapper or trying to wrap himself. The public image has to generate controversy if the Bieber brand is to make money.

Avril Lavigne's strange shape-shifting teeth

The Child-Meditation Miracle

Gwynne Watkins (thedailybeast.com)

Can a 3-year-old really reach a Zen-like state -- or is it just a good way to shut him up? Growing ranks of parents and gurus say meditation calms crazy kids.

It could be said Amdo -- a sweet, calm, and curious boy who lives in Brooklyn with his mother Jae -- has been meditating since before he learned to walk.

As a toddler, he was fascinated by his mother’s meditation practice and began to crawl into her lap and sit with her when she meditated in the mornings. Jae, a book conservator who’s been practicing Soto Zen meditation as a discipline for four years, soon begun giving Amdo gentle guidance on the principles of meditation, which he’s already applying to his life.

“I tell him, 'Feel what it feels like to feel a tingle in your fingertips,'” says Jae. “It’s not a technique, but you have to be really still [to do it]. There was one time when I was really agitated, and spontaneously Amdo was like, ‘Mom, feel your fingertips!’”

One psychologist says that while “not all kids will be able to do meditation,” she’s found that “many kids” can “learn meditative breathing techniques that will help them regulate and not lose control.”

Merriam-Webster defines the act of meditating [which is simply a handy catchall Western translation for various Eastern words for different kinds of practices that cultivate good qualities: bhavana, jhaneti (developing tranquil-absorption, states called jhanas or zen), kammatthana (field of work), anussati (contemplation or recollection), sati (mindfulness) and sampajanna (clear comprehension)] as “to focus one’s thoughts on, reflect on, or ponder over.”

This means that the definition of the opposite of meditation might be: “to be a toddler.” But some parents are embracing the idea that meditation can calm their rambunctious young children. For holistically-minded moms and dads, it’s like a dose of spiritual Ritalin.

Not everyone buys it. Deepak Chopra, a household name in American gurus, writes on his website that “there’s no hard and fast rule” for meditation readiness. But he names “8 or 10 years of age” as the earliest conceivable moment.

[The Buddha said 7-years-old, which Christianity and Catholicism later latched onto as the age of accountability and reason. To validate this number, the Buddha ordained his 7-year-old son Rahula as the first child novice-monk and made a rule that no one any younger could be ordained.]

Youngsters have limited capacity for extreme concentration, body awareness, or understanding the abstract concepts (visualization, loving-kindness) associated with some meditation practices.

Parents apparently have a different visualization: serene, sedate children who learn to love... More

The most famous child meditator Buddha Boy

• Rebellious kids: A Faith of Their Own: Stability and Change in the Religiosity of America’s Adolescents
• Losing My Religion? Baylor University religion survey
  

Neo-Nazi father murdered by 10 year old son

White supremacist Jeff Hall (with bullhorn) at an anti-illegal immigration rally in Riverside (Brian Levin/Cal State San Bernardino).

Neo-Nazi father murder: Did a violent life lead to a violent death at the hands of his 10-year-old?

(SCPR.org) For the next month, psychiatrists will evaluate a 10-year-old Riverside, California boy accused of murdering his neo-Nazi father.

Authorities say the young boy confessed to the killing during an interview with detectives.

The father was Jeff Hall, the leader of a local white supremacist group. His son had been steeped in his violent, neo-Nazi rhetoric. But there could have been a more basic motive: an attempt to stop beatings in the Hall home.

• Photojournalist captures neo-Nazi's final moments

Authorities say that early on May 1, the boy took a loaded revolver from his parents’ bedroom, crept downstairs where his father was dozing on a sofa, and fired a single shot that killed him.

Court documents say the boy told a detective that he shot his dad to stop him from beating him and his stepmother.

“When we’re talking about a juvenile, especially one that is this young, we take into account the understanding that a 10-year old may not have the same ability to comprehend what his actions have done than an 18-year-old and so forth," said Riverside County prosecutor Ambrosio Rodriguez.

The boy had been thrown out of public school, apparently for his violent tendencies. Those tendencies, and the murder, might be the product of the father’s violent lifestyle. Jeff Hall led the West Coast chapter of the National Socialist Movement, an international neo-Nazi group, and Rodriguez expects the group's hate-filled cause to be part of the case. More

"Nazis" in the News

Danish director Lars Von Trier as Kirsten Dunst worries about her future at the Cannes Film Festival for "Melancholia" (Story at nypost.com)