This site will remain up, but all new content will be added at the new home!

- Rob Shearer

OK, admittedly it’s laughably unscientific.

And yet… It’s at least worth pausing a moment to contemplate.

557,000+ people have registered a vote over the past 5 days. And 60% of them have voted for John McCain.

I still think Obama wins DC and MA.

- Rob Shearer (aka RedHatRob)

I think the two best are Washington (published in 2004), and We the People, which just came out this month.

When Washington Crossed the Delaware is subtitled “A Wintertime Story for Young Patriots.” With a clear, direct narrative, Ms. Cheney sets the scene of the beleaguered American army which had been driven from New York and forced to retreat through New Jersey into Pennsylvania. She talks about how desperately the Americans needed a victory – in order to give everyone some hope that they could eventually defeat the British. She mentions Tom Paine, who marched with the American army as they retreated through New Jersey and includes the famous line he composed on the march, “These are the times that try men’s souls. . .”

The paintings that accompany Ms. Cheney’s text are wonderful. The illustrator was able to visit the site of the crossing, consult with local historians and witness a winter re-enactment of the crossing. The attention to detail shows. You can feel the cold. Your eye is involuntarily drawn to the figure of Washington, warming himself by a fire on the New Jersey shore of the river.

After the army is assembled, you can see Washington’s impatience and determination as they set out towards the Hessians soldiers who have occupied Trenton. He had hoped to attack before sunup, but now would be attacking shortly after dawn. The narrative mentions that both 19-year-old Captain Alexander Hamilton, and 18-year-old Lieutenant James Monroe took part in the crossing and the attack on Trenton. Monroe was badly wounded leading a charge against the Hessians, when they managed to get two of their cannon into operation. Hamilton went on to be a signer of the US Constitution and served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Washington. Monroe would be elected our fifth President in 1808.

Following the surrender of the Hessians at Trenton, Washington continued his offensive by launching an attack on the British regulars a few miles northeast of Trenton at Princeton. In that battle, Washington personally rallied his troops and led them to within thirty yards of the British lines. It is miraculous that he survived the volleys of musket fire, but when the British line broke, he joined in the pursuit.

The twin victories at Trenton and Princeton lifted the spirits of the Continental Army and patriots throughout the colonies. For the first time, the American army had defeated British regulars (and German mercenaries) on the field of battle. There would be many more battles and several years of trials, but the character and commitment of General Washington were brilliantly displayed.

Perhaps the best part of this book is that although it is pitched towards elementary students, the story will appeal just as much to older students. First graders will be captivated by the full-page color illustrations and enjoy having the text read to them. Third/Fourth graders will probably be able to read it for themselves. Each two-page spread includes a quotation from an eyewitness/participant in the battle.

When Washington Crossed the Delaware
is a hardback, 40 pages, and is available for $16.95, directly from Greenleaf Press.

- Rob Shearer, Publisher
Greenleaf Press

PS: You have to love the picture of Lynn Cheney with a group of students on the back cover!

PPS: I’ll have a complete review of We the People in another newsletter.

It’s grimly amusing sometimes to watch people who do not know much about religious faith in general, and about Christianity in particular, instructing their intellectual inferiors in the meaning of terms like “fundamentalist” and “conservative” and “liberal”.  It’s as if a bright Labrador Retriever were to deliver opinions on the Doorknob Principle, or the Origin of Food.

- Anthony Essolen, in the Mere Comments section of Touchstone Magazine

Valerie and her husband Bruce have six children, and more than twenty years homeschooling experience.

Reading Made Easy is a complete, phonics-based guide that is both easy-to-use, and effective. The focus is not just on the mechanics of reading (although those are competently and efficiently covered), but on kindling a love for reading.

“Reading Made Easy combines the best of sound phonics mechanics with a contagious love of reading. I only wish this valuable tool had been available when I began homeschooling. Affordable, scripted, east-to-use and effective; what more could anyone want? Reading Made Easy is a wonderful tool for anyone who wants to impart to children not only the information of ‘how’ we read but also the inspiration of ‘why’ we read.”
- Jane Claire Lambert, author of Five in a Row

• Phonics based
  
• 108 easy lessons
  
• 3 lessons per week
  
• Less than 30 minutes per day
  
• Fully scripted
  
• Christian content
  
• Original stories and poems
  
• Introduction to capitalization and punctuation
  
• Hands-on activites
  
• Writing and drawing activities
  

One of Cathy Duffy’s 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum!

Now available from Greenleaf Press, the new publisher (ISBN=1-882514-70-X). Paperback, 512 pages, $49.95.

- Rob Shearer, Publisher
Greenleaf Press

	The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron De Steuben and the Making of the American Army I’m about halfway through. VERY good stuff.
	We Are Soldiers Still By Harold G. Moore, Joseph L. Galloway If you read We Were Soldiers Once, And Young, then this is a must read. Follow-up to the account of one of the bloodiest battles of the Viet Nam war – 1st Cav almost over-run and wiped out by N. Vietnamese regulars. Marred by Gen. Moore’s attack in the final chapter on President Bush, but still a great read.
	The Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871 It’s amazing how little we know about what happened in Europe in the 1800s. Completing my own education.
	We the People The Story of the Constitution By Lynne Cheney Just came in today. Looks very good. I’ll be reviewing it for Greenleaf later.
	Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out Created by 108 Renowned Authors and Illustrators Also came in today. Also looks very good
	The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street By Charles Nicholl Fascinating – if you’re interested in Shakespeare. If you’re not, this will seem much ado about very little
	Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginning of the Modern World By Thomas Cahill A great disappointment – How the Irish Saved Civilization is brilliant. This seems contrived and self-indulgent.
	The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher: A Novel By Rob Stennett Brilliant. Outrageously funny. Provocative. What if a realtor joined a church in order to market himself to Christians – knowing that he, himself, is NOT a Christian – and wound up planting his own mega-church?
	The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary By Simon Winchester The OED story is fascinating, in and of itself. Mix in a mysterious retired American military officer who has contributed 1,000′s of quotations and you have a most intriguing story.
	Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945 By Max Hastings We know the story of D-Day, so we think we know the story of how Germany was defeated. The year-long battle was harrowing, terrifying, and apocalyptic in the East. Frightening stories from soldiers & civilians describing what happened at ground level. Well-written
	Triple Cross: How bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI–and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him By Peter Lance The title explains it all. Truly frightening and maddening story about how security in the US was compromised. Shows something of the caliber and planning of Al Qaeda. Well-documented and researched.
	Islam At The Gates: How Christendom Defeated the Ottoman Turks By Diane Moczar This has happened before.
	Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics By Henry Hazlitt Consider the consequences of policy for everyone – and long-term as well short-term. With numerous examples of what goes wrong when you don’t!
	Homeschool: An American History By Milton Gaither From colonial to modern times, with an emphasis on the modern movement – by a Professor of Education who is NOT a homeschooler, but not wholly unsympathetic to the movement. Pretty fair treatment of both secular and religious groups.
	Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be By Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck Cause the Emergent guys are squishy on the Bible, the creeds, and anything that might put them in that embarrassing “Christian” box.
	I Was Vermeer: The Rise and Fall of the Twentieth Century’s Greatest Forger By Frank Wynne Turns out he fooled lots of museums and collectors. And they don’t want to know or find out that their prize possession is a forgery. Scary.
	What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States) By Daniel Walker Howe Serious history. VERY well-written, thorough and comprehensive. If you want to understand the transition from the founders to the Civil War era, there is no better book.
	Climate Change (DK Eyewitness Books) By John Woodward Opposition research.

And that’s what I did on my summer vacation

- Rob Shearer (aka RedHatRob)
Publisher, Greenleaf Press
Director, Schaeffer Study Center

I just received an email from the largest wholesale supplier of books to bookstores across America:

“Ingram Publisher Services stock of Epicenter Press’s biography Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down (Hardcover EAN: 9780979047084—status OP and Trade Paper EAN: 9780980082562—status OSI) has been depleted and all backorders for these titles will be CANCELLED.

Epicenter has signed an agreement with Tyndale House to reprint the title under the new EAN 9781414330501. The Tyndale version of the title will be available through Ingram’s wholesale companies, Ingram Book, Ingram International, Spring Arbor, and Ingram Library Services, so please place your order for the new EAN today.”

The initial stocking order for Ingram is reported to be over 20,000 copies.

Since Ingram’s largest warehouse is about 20 minutes down the road from Greenleaf Press, we’ll be able to get copies as quickly as anyone. If you’d like to order one, you can buy it direct from Greenleaf by clicking here. We ship by a variety of methods, from USPS Media Mail, to UPS Ground and UPS overnight.

Because of our central location, UPS ground delivery (while not guaranteed) is only 2 days for over half of the US states, as you can see from this map:

So, don’t pay for UPS 2-day or 3-day select if you are in the yellow or light brown areas. If you request shipping by UPS Ground, you’ll receive your books just 2 days after we ship it.

- Rob Shearer, Publisher
Greenleaf Press

PS: Sarah is the #1 “Red State” book being tracked by Amazon. Below is a fascinating map comparing the sale of “red” vs. “blue” books by state across the US:

Since large families have become exotic and unusual in our culture, I am going to disclose to the world a little inside secret known only to those richly blessed parents who have more than three children.

Here it is: Caring for the fourth and the fifth child is much easier than caring for the first one, two, or three.

I know this sounds paradoxical, but it’s true, for the simple reason that a large family is a community of care and love. When the fourth and the fifth child arrive, the first three contribute their love to the equation as well.

Did you watch how the Palins’ older children (especially, and endearingly, Piper), helped to take care of their younger brother, Trig?

Sarah and Todd are obviously terrific parents, and they obviously love their children very much.

The larger family is going to be a tremendous asset to Bristol and Levi as well when their blessing arrives early in 2009. The first grandchild will start out with two aunts and two uncles on his Palin side. Levi Johnston has a sister, so add another aunt on dad’s side. They will benefit immensely from being part of a large family.

In the interests of full disclosure, my much younger trophy wife and I have eleven children, and two grand-children – so far. We are richly blessed. Our children are richly blessed. They love each other, look out for each other, and care for each other. Nothing makes dad’s heart swell with pride quite so much as to watch the kids helping each other – from changing a diaper to helping each other with homework.

I have no doubt that the Palin family is much like ours. They obviously love each other. I think they’re going to be fine.

I look forward to watching them celebrate when mom is elected vice-president in November and I look forward to watching them embark on the adventure of four (or more) years in Washington, DC.

- Rob Shearer (aka RedHatRob)

You expect me to watch video coverage provided by the WaPo of the RNC?

HA!

What. Is. Wrong. With. You. People?

I am not a Tennessee redneck. I am not one of those “uneducated, and easily led” fundamentalist Limbaugh-listening ditto-head automatons that you imagine inhabit flyover country. I have an undergraduate degree from Davidson College, and a graduate degree from Stanford U. (I was a classmate of Tony Snow’s at DC). I have worked in both the private sector and the public sector – six years as a city manager in TN. I read voraciously, and am intensely interested in history and politics. May I just say, based on a thorough read of the coverage of the presidential campaigns of the last 3 days:

You.People.Are.Disgraceful!

You have ruined your profession. You have ruined your newspaper. Your continued babbling is only embarrassing yourselves. You are dinosaurs.

Sarah Palin is going to surprise you tonight. And McCain-Palin will thoroughly surprise you in November.

I am looking forward to the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Instead of evacuating New Orleans, we should shut down Washington DC for 6 months and evacuate everyone who works for the federal government and/or the mainstream media. You should all be compelled to spend six months on a farm or in a small town, with an intact middle-class family with kids.

You.Are.Completely.Clueless.

Don’t any of you have wives? or daughters? or mothers?

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

- Rob Shearer
(aka RedHatRob)

BTW, you can watch unedited, live, streaming video of the convention – without having to put up with ANY moonbat commentary, or even commercial interruptions, at this URL: http://www.ustream.tv/rnc/

When the coverage is not live, they are re-broadcasting the speeches and presentations from the previous session. I HIGHLY recommend it. Boycott the MainStream Media.

Before the news about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was barely a few hours old, the hyenas of the left gathered — gleeful and gloating, set to make Bristol’s pregnancy as difficult and stressful as possible.

Every candidate takes a position on the Life issue, establishes himself or herself as either a pro-pro-life or an anti-pro-life. Everyone stakes out a position, but, very few candidates actually walk out those positions in the way the Palins have and are.

So how do Barack Obama and Sarah Palin come across?

Obama on what he would call “inconvenient” life:

Before birth: Abortion. After birth (when abortion fails): Infanticide. Severely handicapped adults like Teri Schiavo: Death by starvation and dehydration.

And yet, citing the Gospel According to Matthew, Obama tells Rick Warren that American’s biggest moral failing is selfishness. “We still don’t abide by that basic precept of Matthew: that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.”

Of course, Obama conveniently redefines “least of these” to mean anything but the pre-born, accidentally newborn, or the handicapped adult.

Palin on what she would never call “inconvenient” life:

“We’ve both been very vocal about being pro-life. We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential.”

Children born with so-called disabilities: “I see a perfect child.”

Pregnant, unmarried children: “Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We are proud of if Bristol’s decision to have her baby,”

Grandchildren conceived outside of marriage: ” . . .and [We are] even prouder to become grandparents.”

The Obama attitude toward babies:

“I’ve got two daughters. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby, I don’t want them punished with an STD.”

In other words, Obama’s position is that an unwanted baby is about as welcome as an STD.

The Palin attitude toward babies:

Whatever the circumstances of a baby’s conception, prenatal development, or birth, babies are beautiful, perfect, and cherished.

To the salivating hyenas of the left, one question: Whose grandchild would you rather be?

- Cyndy Shearer (wife of RedHatRob)