Links! Dueling, homemaking, homeschooling, but most especially, Terrible Poetry

If you go to no other link on this list, you have to go here, and check out Chip MacGregor's Bad Poetry Contest.  Here's his description of the annual event:

For those not in the know, we deal with books and publishing 51 weeks out of the year, answering questions and offering insights to writers and those interested in the world of publishing. But one week out of the year (my birthday week), we set aside the topic of publishing in order to share something much deeper... much more meaningful... and very stupid. In the old British tradition of offering something falsely deep yet with a veneer of thoughtfulness, we hold a Bad Poetry Contest. Each year the readers send in truly horrible poetry, then a team of experts (me...and sometimes Mike, if he's sober and I can convince him to help) offers a thorough evaluation of each piece ("That sucks... but this sucks worse."). Eventually we come up with a winner, who is presented with a truly fabulous Grand Prize. One year it was a 45 record of Neil Diamond singing "I Am, I Said" (which contains these deep thoughts: "I am, i said, to no one there, and no one heard at all not even the chair." Wow. Sing to me, Neil.) Another year it was a very special book that had been sent to me in hopes of finding representation: Does God Speak Through Cats? You see the theme here? We go for a mood of deepfulness and reflectivosity. And YOU need to participate. 

Moving on to real reflection: free advice may be worth what you pay for it, but this seems to be an exception to the rule.

And here is more in that sensible, gracious vein.

Finally, Lars Walker has a post on dueling as an economic phenomenon:

". . . imagine you're a gentleman who sometimes needs a short-term loan, and your only source of credit is to borrow from another gentleman. 

Now, imagine that someone publicly calls you a liar.

He is attacking your trustworthiness, the only collateral you possess. If word gets around that you're not a man of your word, who will lend you ten pounds, when you need to buy seed in the spring?

We still use the saying, “His word is his bond.” In this situation, that's more than a metaphor. It's quite literally true."

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there!

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell