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
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  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...
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  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
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  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
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  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

Discipline? Mind Your Own Business! (video)

Today In The Park (MSN Lifestyle Video); Wisdom Quarterly (text)

New mom Lauren gets unwelcome parenting advice from someone she meets at the park (Aug. '11). Being a mindful parent is hard unless you are practicing mindfulness, in which case it just naturally rubs off on kids. But will others notice? Might they think they "know better"?



Having a baby is... yada yada yada. We've all heard it. It changed my life. It was the greatest moment ever when s/he was born. Everyone is sick to death hearing about it. Then comes the tough part, actually raising the bodhisattva...without a white pony.



Destined for enlightenment, born to me? I'm not always sure those go together. But assuming they do, there's Buddhist discipline and money management. In Buddhism monastics get it ready-made as the Vinaya. But the closest thing to a Householder's Discipline comes from the advice to Sigala sutra.

• Siddhartha's early childhood (rootinstitute.com)
• "The Buddha's Lost Children" (Zeitgeist Films)
  
  

BUSTED: Taking Down Lemonade Stand Kids

The US has a list of Americans that the country can now murder abroad if they are fraternizing with any group labelled a "terrorist" organization. Paul Craig Roberts says it is another sign the US has become a police state (RussiaToday).

Police are ramping up their nationwide crackdown on illegal lemonade stand enterprises. "We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, of what the lemonade was made with," says Midway, GA police chief.

No crime is too small to pick at, even if the real motive for enforcing it is something altogether different. Selling milk in its natural state? SWAT operation. Collecting cans to make ends meet in a flawed economy intent on seeing more and more Americans destitute? Prison time. Crime, protesting, volunteering? Police will not stand for it.



Military "service" (to ensure corporate free trade worldwide), TSA, riot policing (to ensure domestic docility), night watchperson guarding -- if you can find an opening. Has the USA become a police state already?

(Police State III)

• VIDEO: London police deployed ahead of carnival
• Street fighting rages in Tripoli after Gaddafi
• Mass. State Police shutdown 12-year-old’s green tea stand
• Children sexually abused on Pakistan's streets
• Republicans cut taxes for wealthy, raise everyone elses?
• 3 girls busted for illegal lemonade stand
  July 15, 2011 – Three girls trying to raise money to go to a waterpark thought that a lemonade stand would do the trick. But then they met the long arm of the...
• $500 ticket issued for illegal lemonade stand
• June 18, 2011 – Kids say the ordeal has taught them an important lesson.
• Girl with "illegal" lemonade stand earns $1,838
  Aug 10, 2010 – Ore. Girl, 7, Nearly Fined For Not Having a Food Permit; Makes Enough to Take Mother to Disneyland.
• 3 arrested on Capitol grounds for illegal lemonade stand
• Aug. 21, 2011 – Selling lemonade is not a crime, but selling it on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol is, which is why, police say, three people were arrested Saturday...
• Montgomery County changes stance on lemonade stand

Having a baby is NOT the pinnacle of one's life

Clem Bastow (The Sydney Morning Herald National Times, June 21, 2011)
"I just lack the desire. In fact, I find the idea of pregnancy quite abject."

Choosing to remain childless gets far too much bad PR.
The strangest thing happened the other day: while I was reading the newspapers online, my computer started to make baby noises. Coos and giggles erupted from the speakers. With each tab opened, more babies' voices sprung forth, until a sonic waterfall of ga-ga-ga surrounded me.

It turned out to be an auto-playing advertisement, but that didn't stop me rushing to silence my computer in a panic. Babies have always made me nervous, because I'm one of those people who doesn't particularly want one.

As my 20s have run themselves out, the line of questioning from extended family members has shifted from "Are you seeing anyone?" to "And what about kids?" I'm 29 today and I expect the urgency with which the question is delivered to only increase once next year's birthday rolls around. More