Ambleside Online Currrent Events

Options for keeping up with current events: news sources and news blogs.

NEWS SOURCES

World Magazine, an excellent weekly newsmagazine written from a Christian worldview. This is by far our best recommendation in this category. A subscription to World is a worthwhile curriculum expenditure for high school students. While the other reading selections in this Year teach students to understand the past, this is the best tool currently available for preparing a student to comprehend and interpret the age they live in. Although having the magazine in print is recommended, World is also available online for those who prefer it that way or want a 'budget' form of the magazine. http://www.worldmag.com has many of the weekly articles and departments online

Chuck Colson's Breakpoint - Subscribe to receive the text of his daily radio feature via email. Brief and thought provoking.

The World and I - A fantastic monthly publication of The Washington Times for 'serious readers,' now available only as an online publication (which makes it fully searchable, including all archives!). Subscription access is $36 per year at present writing, and gives subscribers access to all W&I archives of past issues, as well as all their current online publications. Superb for family current events reading and cultural awareness studies (as always, please proofread for inappropriate content).

AO/HEO is no longer recommending The Drudge Report; daily entries are increasingly and disturbingly non-family-friendly.

The Washington Times, or The New York Post

NewsMax, Another source for daily news.

Crosswalk - Daily news from a religious source, allows you to subscribe to the Current News Summary and Feature Story.

The White House website publishes the full texts of all the President's speeches, including his weekly radio address, and the entire website can be read in Spanish for foreign language practice. There are also wonderful photo essays here. [WARNING: DO NOT type ".org" nor ".com" for the White House address as this will take you to an extremely inappropriate website.]

A source for tracking all Congressional bills: THOMAS (after Thomas Jefferson)
Includes the Congressional Record and full text of all legislation from the 101st Congress (1989) to the present, summaries of legislation back to the 94th Congress (1974) as well as additional historical information, a great search engine, and links to other useful sites.

Powerline - An exciting new venture in news publishing.

National Review Online

Virtue Magazine - a biweekly webzine featuring a group of homeschooling teens writing on current issues. Very interesting idea.

(Advisory note: I think we should read a few articles/issues and consider linking them from the HEO years -- they take submissions, and who knows, some HEO scholars may find it a good place to publish stuff.)

BLOG SUGGESTIONS

Web blogs are an important new media form. News is being reported there, in some cases, faster and more accurately than other, older media forms. Students should learn about them, find one they trust, and check is regularly. However, we recommend that parents first become familiar with blogs and visit the one(s) their children will frequent. We suggest several blogs here, but parents should know that not every message on these blogs will be 'child-friendly' and there will sometimes be advertising images in questionable taste. Also, most blogs link to a multitude of other blogs and sites, so parents should be aware of that as well.

Parents should visit the blogs for a while themselves to get a feel for the maturity level before recommending them to their kids. Comments left on even 'safe' blogs can sometimes be hostile and offensive. It can be good for students to see some real life examples of how people's theology and worldview affects how they deal with others. World's blog is particularly useful in that there are some really astute Christians there who often show great models for how Christians should handle non-believers and such. so parents will need to decide which blogs are appropriate for their student.

Powerline - An exciting new venture in news publishing; right-wing

Michelle Malkin - Occasionally, Michelle will post some of the letters she gets that are rather hateful, vulgar, and racist - to prove the point that such response exists. So reading a blog like hers can be rather eye-opening for students. Right-wing

Hugh Hewitt - journalist and radio talk show host; right-wing

Captain's Quarters - right-wing

Mudville Gazette, primarily, but not exclusively, military related news and posts; right-wing

Austin Bay - center-right-wing

Chrenkoff - immigrated to Australia from communist Poland in 1988; right-wing

The Corner - The National Review's blog; right-wing

Jay Rosen- left-wing journalist

Matthew Yglesias- very left-wing

Gates of Vienna - one of the best, and one of the hardest to read, as it puts a spotlight on militant Islam and the abuse of women under Islam. Important reading; right-wing

Adam Yoshida, Canadian, right-wing

The Blahg - left, left, left host of the Carnival of Canadian bloggers (tends to feature rough language)

World Magazine's blog - right-wing

Dr. George Grant - of King's Meadow Study Center, reformed theology and classical education; right-wing

Instapundit - the blog of Glenn Reynolds, a Tennessee lawyer; middle of the road (although he is pro-choice), short posts, easy to read quickly; center-right-wing