Homeschool Dad Blog

The Apostolate for Family Consecration is offering several products free for download:

• Their 2-volume Family Catechism (lots of cross-referencing with the Catholic Catechism, Vatican II) (Value about $30)
• Their 19-hour, 8-DVD set of videos with Cardinal Francis Arinze instructing the viewer on the Catechism. (Value $65)
• Their 18-hour, 16-CD Set of audio instruction from Cardinal Arinze. (Value $85)

If you’re a fan of Cardinal Arinze, or his podcast, this is a must have! For Catholics in general this is an excellent teaching tool - and thus for Catholic Homeschoolers this is an incredible resource.

If you don’t know Cardinal Arinze, he is the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

You can find all the downloads here.

Using a download manager is highly recommended.

I’ve seen this asked a few times in forums, and I just want to point out two really good reasons why not to put your kids pictures up on the internet.

First is the case of 16-year-old Alison Chang. Her church counselor put a picture of her at a church car wash up on Flickr. Alison was holding a cell phone and making the ‘peace’ sign with her other hand. Virgin Mobile used the picture of Alison in a multi-million dollar ad campaign overseas… and didn’t pay Alison a dime or get her consent. Alison’s mother is now suing Virgin Mobile.

Secondly is the potentially tragic case of Christopher Mineo Jr. - if in fact he ever existed. Well, to be more specific the story about his abduction might be false, but some mother’s child’s picture has been plastered all over the web and forwarded via email over and over again. On Truthorfiction.com, investigators heard a rumor that the email and photo might be part of a domestic dispute - for example, one spouse put up a picture of their child on the internet and claimed he had been kidnapped, so the spouse with custody would be hounded by the general public.

Regardless of what really is going on with the boy who emails refer to as Christopher Mineo Jr., the story points out another malicious use of your children’s pictures. What’s to stop complete strangers from using YOUR photos to claim that your children are actually theirs?

I won’t use my kids’ pictures unless they’ve been published publicly somewhere where I can go back if someone were to challenge me over custody of my kids (bizarre as it sounds). Also, if sharing photo albums on Flickr, I make them private so I know who has access.

Technorati Tags: kids, children, pictures, blog, website

As we don’t often watch TV at home, I only caught news of the death of Steven Curtis Chapman’s five-year-old daughter this weekend. Apparently she was accidentally struck by a car while playing in her driveway.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you give a listen to his latest hit single, “Cinderella” which is quite a tear jerker for any parent - and is only the more sad considering his recent loss of his little princess.

This is really exciting - I’ve been a fan of Switchfoot from their first album and while they have done many movie/TV soundtracks this is rather big for us C.S. Lewis fans.

Just realized Earth Day is tomorrow… have been working on a few designs including this one.