/ol>Fluorescent light.
 
/ol>Indirect sunlight.
 
/ol>Halogen light.
 
/ol>Incandescent grow light. 

 

In the dark.

 
Under blacklight. The leaves fluoresce red.

 
Same plant under normal light. 

  

WE'VE MOVED The blog has moved here.

GOING OFFLINE FOR A WHILE The inimitable Dean Esmay is helping me to move off the blogger software to MT. As part of this process I need to change hosting companies and possibly the URL. It'll still be cobranchi.com but may be the main page. Regardless, the DNS change will take a couple of days. This page may disappear for a while. Keep checking in, though. I'll be back ASAP.

NOT AN EDU-BLOGGER but Skip Oliva does a fine job of framing the issues surrounding the Bryants case. Definitely worth a click.

A SHARP YOUNG LADY This PA homeschooler won a statewide oratory contest sponsored by a Right-to-Life organization.

Annie said she is not an "in your face" activist, but if the issues of abstinence or abortion come up, "I'm not afraid to say how I feel."

Potential boyfriends know her beliefs from the start. "It helps weed out the good ones from the bad ones."

Good for her (and her 'rents).

LIMBAUGH BACKS BRYANTS Not Rush, but David. I like this close:

[D]espite homeschooling's outstanding academic track record, we can expect persistent opposition from the establishment, sometimes reaching the point of policemen and social workers at homeschoolers' homes threatening to snatch away their children.

But we can also be sure that homeschooling families will continue to resist this oppression. They deserve our support, because they are fighting over the most fundamental rights of a free society: the right to raise and educate children as they see fit. They are carrying the banner of liberty for all of us.

BOO! HISS! Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski has vetoed the "Homeschooling Freedom" bill.

“I am deeply concerned that a system with no monitoring or accountability will allow a small number of children to fall through the cracks and to reach adulthood without receiving the minimal education,” he said.

He forgot to add, "that we provide in the government schools." I'm sure that homeschoolers will remember come next election. We are not many but we are very politically active.

THIS IS NEWS The outgoing president of the LAUSD has blasted the teachers' union as "the greatest obstacle there is to improving the city's educational system." School boards tend to be very sympathetic to the positions of the NEA, so when a school board member takes them on, it should make the union shudder- especially in the largest school district in the country.

"The union exists for a really good reason, and that is the teachers got the wrong end of the stick for decades," she said. "But we now have created the beast we deserve for doing that..."

"The bottom line is there are two things that create power in California -- that's money and votes -- and they have both," she said. "That's fine if you favor their policies, but their policies are not necessarily pro-kid."

Well said.

STAY AT HOME MOMS' (AND DADS') ranks are increasing, according to new census data. Since 1994, the number of kids with one parent home is up 18%.

"This is just another indicator that there's this quiet grass-roots movement" among mothers to return home to raise their children, said Brenda Hunter, a psychologist and author of several books, including "The Power of Mother Love..."

And it's not just mothers of babies who are stepping out of the work force; it's mothers of older children," said Mrs. Hunter, who is member of the Motherhood Project at the Institute for American Values.

"Women know that older children need them around just as much as babies, because of the drugs, sex, the terrible influences that are out there."

This is a bad thing in the eyes of the NOW.

Another explanation is that "unemployment is up and it may be that families that used to have two wage earners may be finding they only have one job," said Leslie Calman, executive vice president of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund.

"It may also be that they weigh the cost of quality child care against their own earnings and decide for a time to stay home," she said, adding that today the fund is starting a "family initiative" program aimed at getting more and better child care, preschool and after-school services.

God forbid that a womyn would choose of her own free will to stay home and raise her children. It can't be. No sane, intelligent womyn would do that!

G-SCHOOL SPORTS A bill introduced in the PA legislature would allow homeschoolers to participate in all extra-curriculars. I wish they'd fix their awful homeschooling law before tackling peripheral issues like this.