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Nathaniel's VOD Essay 2008

[VOD Gallery Index]

Voice of Democracy

Some of the benefits which the youth of today's America possess are given to them only through the service and sacrifice of Americans in the military. Freedom, peace, and giving back are such benefits.
Our veterans serve and fight for the very thing that the fathers of our nation did. Freedom is something that man craves, and even stronger is the desire for religious freedom. The men of the colonies of America fought for freedom from England. To what end did they desire such? It was for a place with religious liberty and for a place better to raise their children, and for them to raise children of their own in a country free for them to serve God and enjoy Him, not just a random uprising for the sake of pointless revolution. Slavery was abolished in our country following the sacrifice of many lives in the Civil War. Americans currently fight to ensure the freedom of Middle Eastern nations from terrible regimes. Americans serve so that the children of the oppressed may have freedom. It is not just Americans that America fights for.
Had not our men served, would we now be the United Colonies of England? Would we all be forced to be in the Anglican church, not allowed religious liberty? Would the colonization of America have been slower, the harvest of such rich resources put on hold? Would Russia and China have made conquest into America? We cannot be sure of all such futures, but there are some things in history we can be sure of, such as an attack against America from Nazi Germany; such as huge chunk of America being under French control. We can be sure that if no action was taken against Japan, they most certainly would have further assaulted America. To let such things pass would be a watchmen opening the gates to the enemy, allowing them free reign to pillage and murder.
But we did not, and hopefully do not do such things so that youth can sit idle. We did it to give them freedom and peace, so that they could continue building such a country as we have today. We do it so that our youth may have an education, may have a career, may learn and appreciate art, may bless others, and may live a full and fruitful life. We do it to combat those who would take away such freedoms.
The service of America's veterans also benefits youth in another way; that they themselves may serve. Our youth will learn selflessness by giving to their country in this way, and even in giving to other countries, as young people of our military do at this very time. We may look up from our occupations, see and serve others, and remember why our fathers gave their service. America has been blessed greatly by God, and is it too much to be thankful for His grace?
It is altogether too common, and too easy in the minds of the young to forget the stories of their fathers, to not give a thought to their history, and to stumble blithely on. Freedom is not a right. Freedom is a gift. As a catchphrase for the war in the Middle East says, "Freedom is not free." It is without our history, and without our heritage that we crumble. It is my hope that the service and sacrifice of America's veterans will open the eyes of our youth. I hope that they will truly see what our fathers fought for and what we fight for now; it is not our fallen and corrupt and democracy. It is love. If the youth of our once great land would learn to love their brothers in Christian sociability, and make such a great sacrifice as those who have served our country, I hope that we would seek the forgiveness of the God we have violated, and that our beloved homeland would be spared.

laying WikiProv to rest

It is PAN Day again, our three year anniversary! I was reminded when I opened Sunbird while working on this post, and remembered I wanted to finally make this post today. So here it is.

WikiProv never did get a proper shoving off, so I've decided to finally do it. What WikiProv looked like was a hierarchy of folders containing WordPerfect documents, pictures, freeware, and the whatnot. And of course, there was the PAN archive, which I guess I could upload and link to. I don't really feel like uploading all of WikiProv, and some of it is actually illegal to upload, I think. So, here is the final WikiProv, a collection of links to replace the original and finally satisfy you.

I'll sort it by folders in the root folder and give you descriptions of the old folder followed by the current stuff.

Christ
Let's see… there wasn't really much to this folder… here's some current good stuff for you:
Need Him - an evangelistic site, companion to the telephone number, 1.888.NEEDHIM
The Point - the blog of the Breakpoint radio program, hosted by Mark Earley
Just Another Blog in the Wheel - Pastor Steve Schlissel's blog; be prepared for fire. In other words, really really good stuff.
JP's Mind - the blog of Pastor John Piper a certain JP… *not* John Piper
a broken mold - Matthew and I's blog… we started it this year, and we are NOT afraid to break the mold

freeware
This folder had freeware tools and games.
Best Free Software for Windows - if you need a free program for Windows, here is a list I recommend checking out. It is compiled by a guy on a forum of which I am a member.
The Maximus Decim USB drivers - This one was actually in the original WikiProv. I include it because it may, by some chance, still be useful. This little package was awesome when I used it. I suppose any of you who used a flash drive with your Windows 98 computer remember having to install drivers first. Install this package and it should cover any USB storage device you can through at it. As I remember, you still have to get each new device to use the driver, but still a lot less painless and a lot more flexible.
Download.com games - a good place to check out for free games and demos
Google - Yep. Use your search engine. It works wonders.

homework reference material
Contained…. um…. homework reference material. There was a WordPerfect document with the school Homework Philosophy and Guidelines, which was taken from the school policy. Also some material from Microsoft Encarta 2003 intended to help with homework, one doc on bibliographies, one on making speeches. And… I had an idea to collect VOD essays for the inspiration of future writers. Alas, only Matthew's speech from some past year ever made it in. But, we don't have to let it be that way… I introduce to you the Official PAN VOD Gallery! And now, the links…
Wikipedia - The famous user-edited encyclopedia. Yes, teachers may not like you citing it. But, even so, you can check out the References section to see who Wikipedia is citing in the article. You can also take a look at the See also section, which links to related Wikipedia pages. And finally, the External links, linking to pages that are not on Wikipedia.
Citizendium - You may or may not have heard of this project. It's a lot like Wikipedia, but authors are required to give their real name, and articles "in draft" have a disclaimer until the are approved. If you're teacher doesn't trust Wikipedia, this may be a good alternative. Unfortunately, it does not have the vast amount of information Wikipedia has yet, but that will change through the hard work of people like you and me (that is assuming we join).
EasyBib - this site will help you to get your bibliography formatted correctly, and can fill in book information for you from ISBN. You can compile your bibliography, and even save it online, if you create an account, which is free. Pretty sweet tool. See ya, MLA Handbook.
MLA Auto-Generator - a nice Windows program you can use when you don't have internet access to get you bibliography straight in MLA style. Just fill in the fields, press a button, and it spits out a nicely formatted bibliography entry for you. At least I think so… Mr. Buck seems to have issues with its formatting. Supposedly you can enter an ISBN number, and if you're online, it will grab the information for you from that… though I tried it and it couldn't get info for my book. It might have just been that book, I don't really know…

misc
This folder had, miscellaneous stuff in it. Yeah. Like the famous bad day video. And how to make a CD case out of a piece of paper. And a folder called proofread for students to proofread each other's documents. And the Providence Academy computer FAQ, which answered common queries to Matthew, Mr. Buck, and I. And a PAN business card in a WordPerfect file. And a bit about flash drives. And a list of "essential stuff" to check out on WikiProv. Woo-hoo. And I shall not list links, for the very fact that it was a miscellaneous section.

PAN Archive
What more can I say? The original Providence Academy News. In its entirety. Download here. It's not very big (201 KB, around 40 seconds on dial-up), so it shouldn't take too long to download. Then use an archive program, like ZipCentral, or the built in Windows ZIP program, to extract the files and then proceed to enjoy their gooey goodness. If you just want to read the original news file, then click here for the PDF version.

policy
Contained docs regarding WikiProv itself, including the official policy, a Welcome to Wikiprov document, and a statement written by me, in which I declared I didn't "want "raising the bar" to be a cellphone advert only." It's amazing what we find we have said if we look back a few years… anyway, we don't really have much a of a policy anymore, so use your right to freedom of speech if you so wish.

quotes
Here I republished the old PAN quotes section in the WordPerfect doc Old PAN Quotes. A new Quote Central Page was started, which stretched about a page and a half. I ponder starting another one now… what do you think?
Wikiquote - a wiki that collects quotes. I have been there a little, but not much. I would guess they have a huge collection. So, search away, and see what your heroes had to say. Or your enemies. Or your president. The list goes on.

short stories and poems
A collection of short stores and poems. Included some from the original PAN, such as the Grayson Series, the GUM Series (still to be completed), and the #29341 series by Elliot. These series are available in the above mentioned and linked-to PAN Archive. Also present was the beginning of The Secret HAH Files, which I may continue one of these days… I think I actually did start to write a second episode.

tools
A collection of shortcuts to perhaps useful tools on the school computers, such as 7-Zip, Calculator, Check Print Jobs, Freebyte Zip, Internet Explorer 6, Paint, WinZip, and WordPerfect 10. Also contained files for 7-Zip, Freebyte Zip, and a copy of Paint renamed to Iexplore.exe so as to get around the program block in effect on the computers.

wallpaper
This may have actually been the most popular folder in WikiProv, containing photographs from the Robertsons, and pictures I had gathered for the collection. I think I can point you to much better now…
InterfaceLIFT - a website that feature high quality photo work and other picture. Often enough, the stuff on there is quite good. A favorite of mine. Submit your work if you think you're good enough…
WallpaperStock - a website with a good collection of wallpapers. Also, if you see a popular wallpaper and like it, you might find it here.
Wallpaper on deviantART - the wallpaper section in a community of amazing and dedicated artists. Enjoy. You might also enjoy looking around the rest of the site.
Lostine Photography - my photoblog, including the picture from Fort Rock featured in WikiProv, which I still like.

root
This means the WikiProv folder itself, not in any subfolder. Here was located a a shortcut to the "essential stuff" file, a readme stating "WikiProv recently went through some big changes, so if anything is strange, just tell Matthew, Elliot, or Nathaniel and they will fix it Tan Pronto Como Sea Posible (TPCSP[ASAP])." Finally, there was a WALLPAPER NOTICE, which told that there was a report of wallpapers not sticking on students desktops', and which instructed to "talk to Mr. Buck about it, if you really want to bother with it."

Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Please do leave comments.

Rest in peace, WikiProv. And happy PAN Day, everybody.

Official PAN VOD Gallery

This is an index of Voice of Democracy essays by Providence students that are posted on the blog, filed by year. Please single space if you post! And if you're not an admin, just comment or message me and I'll link to your essay post.

2007

Matthew

2008

Nathaniel