Wheatlands News

My sons went to a number of schools. In England and in South Africa, in Pretoria and Cape Town, private and government, traditional and art-centred. They all had one thing in common: they were designed in various ways to stifle creativity and lateral thinking. I remember attending parent-teacher meetings where time and again I was told "he asks too many questions" and each time it left me despairing for the future. Why is it that we take young, enquiring minds and stuff them into uniform boxes? Why can't teachers understand that it is the individuals who dared to ask "why" and "what if" and "why not" that brought us out of the caves, and will bring us into a brighter future if we let them. Maybe that's why, even in adulthood, creativity is looked at as something strange. Creative, lateral thinkers seem to take the role of medieval court jesters. Society likes to have a few of them around, but they must stay in their rigidly prescribed pla...

I saw this on Ohfortheloveofblog and thought it was fun. Hope I don't get tracked down by the copyright police (but the picture was also taken by a Lynne. Spelled right too!) INSTRUCTIONS: 1 - Go to wikipedia. Hit “random... Read More”or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Special:Random The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2 - Go to Random Quotations or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. 3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. 4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together. (It's album art, so make the picture square) 5 - TAG the friends you want to join in. Consider yourself tagged.

"Adam Fier recently sold his home, got rid of his car and pulled his twin 6-year-old girls out of elementary school in Montgomery County. He and his wife packed the family's belongings and moved to New Zealand -- a place they had never visited or seen before, and where they have no family or professional connections. Among the top reasons: global warming." This from a story in the Washington Post yesterday. As one of his reasons for the move, he says that one of his daughters "will still be alive in 100 years" (which implies great longevity...) and he wants them to live in a place that provides the best quality of life. I remember when I moved temporarily to New Zealand with my first husband in 1980, people were choosing to live there because it was the best place to be in case of a nuclear war between the US and USSR. Its interesting what makes people move. I believe the itchy feet of the migrants are something that is genetically wired into many of our DNA. T...

Pad onderhoud = road maintenance Beginning in the fourth century, the clock made us into time-keepers, then time-savers, then time-servers,” wrote Neil Postman, a man described by Wikipedia as an "American author, media theorist and cultural critic". “In the process, we’ve learned irreverence toward the sun and seasons, for in a world made up of seconds and minutes, the authority of nature is superseded." I've spent the last few weeks thinking about time and planning for the future. Looking for new opportunities and deciding what is worth hanging onto. And, this past week in the unexpected pleasure of a few days and nights in the centre of Cape Town, noticing all the clocks in the city (and wishing I hadn't left my camera in the hotel room) and listening to them all chiming out of sync through the nights. I remember reading Jung's Memories, Dreams and Reflections when I was 17 and being totally offended by his refusal to allow his wife to have any time saving...