In ‘his’ blog, Jefferson lays out his visionary thoughts on education
By Donna Krache, CNN
(CNN) Scholar, inventor, statesman, author of the Declaration of Independence … blogger?
Only in recent years has the third president of the United States added that achievement to his many credits.
To mark the 250th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s completion of studies at the College of William and Mary, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation decided it was time to take his views on education into the blogosphere.
My View: Don’t ban social media from schools
By Steve Nicholls, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Steve Nicholls is the author of Social Media in Business. He is a social media strategist hired by business executives to teach them how to implement a winning social media strategy into their organization.
The New York Education Department recently stated that in the first 11 months of 2011 there were 69 cases…
WELL FOUGHT
Well fought might well be
The highest compliment
Anyone can bestow upon another.
To accept the challenge
Not to mime but to learn,
For this challenge remains the purest endeavor.
If we but accept the responsibility
Bestowed upon us by the divine
To pick up the gauntlet dropped at our feet.
Our minds need the exercise at all levels
For knowledge and wisdom
Can never be too shallow nor deep.
Some fall by the side
As understanding is not their forte
And their fears belie their course with dangers fraught.
But for those who pick up the challenge
To approach their fears with knowledge
Shall be rewarded in the end with the words
‘Well fought’.
MY LIGHT
What to do
What is thy will
As I study and brood
The question’s there still
Where should I go
Your guidance I need
Must be careful I know
As your hands guide this deed
Should I cast care aside
And in faith go my way
My fate in your hands abide
For concerning your will I’ve no say
Your slave am I
With no right to speak
But I breathe a sigh
As viewing the future I seek
So to do your will
I have no choice
Though I’m ignorant still
And without a voice
I’ll continue the way
And if it be right
Then as I pray
You’ll be my light
Enemy Revealed
I saw the Chimera last night.
Seductive and pleasing to the eye.
Then it was revealed to me behind the veil;
Fat bloated and ugly it was.
A feaster of souls, it was ripe and plump,
Ready for the eternal flame.
It was many armed like the Kraken;
With only the tips penetrating into this reality.
Each tip taking on a different appearance,
To appeal to the various prides of man.
It was an obscenity for such beauty
To be attached to such a loathsome trunk.
Yet, how true to its nature.
To be pleasing here and maybe a distraction there,
All seeming so innocent.
Yes, I’ve seen one of my enemies,
And now I know what to be on guard against.
HONOR
What is this thing called honor?
Is it not rooted deep in trust?
Or was it merely just a concept:
Through generations turned to dust?
Why was it held so high?
Where none could reach if spirit’s weak.
Held only where the pure in heart,
Could find if they would seek.
Why do people who hold it dear
Seem so out of place?
Everywhere they’re treated harshly
And seem to vanish without a trace.
The deceitful, however, will regard
Those with honor with disgrace,
But seem to know without a doubt
That they’re the ones out of place.
THE SERPENT
Man in his ignorance believes what he sees and naught else. He plays and toys with the unspeakable; never suspecting what awaits beyond the shade. He sees peace and ignores the tribulation, believing himself out of reach.
The serpent, however, awaits the moment most opportune. While man peacefully smells the flowers and praises himself, his foe, the serpent, waits in the rough, just out of sight.
A master of tactics, he watches for the man who wanders from the path. It’s when the man feels safest that it happens.
The serpent strikes. The victims’ feeble thrashing attracts no attention.
After the serpent consumes his prey he is all too soon seeking the next.
Through the Veil
This is not my world,
Everything here is strange.
Have I passed through the veil?
How did everything change?
Where now is my world?
How did I cross to here?
Was I replaced by another?
What of she, whom I held so dear?
Perhaps this occurrence is common,
As with others, this time with me.
Trapping one and then another,
Slipping beyond, ne’er to be free.
Wandering alone in an alien environ,
Longing for my home to see.
My desire is for that, which was,
As emptiness engulfs me.
Hostility and pain to those as I,
Beset upon as by a beast.
Never again to receive rest,
Missing always my angel of the east.
But the time will come,
Or so it is I pray.
My love will whisper in my ear,
Time to wake, for dawning is the day.
SOJOURNER
I am the bird with no feet, no place have I to rest, no inheritance for me to claim. My place is in service to those whom fate has blessed with position.
But hold, what manner of blessing is that; to have your life squandered on luxuries and softness?
To hear the continual tittering of voices, to be deprived of their own time. Never to know the honor of a life well spent; hard and short as it may be. For is it not the brand burning twice as bright that lasts but half as long?
Is it not the warrior rather than the noble who learns to die? Whereby is able to live a life fuller and richer in honor? Is it not the servitude rather than nobility that our divine providence is most likely to smile upon?
How much greater, then, is the servant?
