STAN

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity  and grace, making the best of circumstances.—Aristotle   That's Stan Foreman. I found him in the June 2016 alumni magazine from The University of Washington, Columns. Gary recognized him right away. But then yes, I could see it too. Stan is a part of my …

PASS WORD

This isn't where I thought I'd be. Everything is increasingly complex. My husband wanted to buy a copy of a Moody Blues CD that he already owned. Except he wanted the one with the half dozen bonus tracks. He's looked for it in stores. He looked on Amazon and Amazon Marketplace. He found a new copy …

COLLUSION

From The New York Times: "According to the memo, officials laid out a “multipronged rationale” for spying on Mr. Page, including his past interactions with Russian spies, and informed the court of a counterintelligence investigation then underway into the Kremlin’s covert influence campaign. "Mr. Page, a former investment banker based in Moscow, had been on …

MEDIA LITERACY

I used to teach a unit on "media literacy" when I had high school sophomores. We looked at how advertising impacts consumers, the varied uses of propaganda, and the growth of social media. It was as much wanting as information. Media is not designed to be fair. For years, I also forbade juniors from writing …

TREATING DEPRESSION

"Better to be on meds than dead." The psychiatrist was talking about a mutual friend she believed was being improperly medicated. He was depressed and not feeling "right" on his medication, but the alternative was not to be considered. Without medication he was suicidal. The Lancet has published a review of research concerning antidepressants, a meta-analysis, …

“WELL REGULATED”

From yesterday's The New York Times "11 of the Most Dramatic Moments in a Day of Confrontation Over Guns": ‘What is your definition of a well-regulated militia?’ At an intense town hall-style meeting Wednesday night, Diane Wolk Rogers, a history teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., confronted a spokeswoman for the National Rifle …

THE BEES’ DANCE

I know there will be trouble as soon as they begin handing out three-ring binders. I was a public school teacher for twenty-five years and as every new wave of pedagogy sweeps down from above, there is always a white three-ring binder. If I had not released them back into the wild, I would have …

BULLET PROOF BACKPACKS

This morning on the news was a story about bullet proof backpacks. What children will be wearing this next fall? Publisher's Lunch is an industry publication that sends out a daily condensed report for free. Right at the top is an overview of recent sales of manuscripts, categorized by genre and target audience. This morning, under …

E-MARE-GENCY: Everybody to get from street!

The Russian Are Coming, the Russian Are Coming. And these are not the nice ones from that movie who only wanted to return home safely. These Russians had an agenda, false identities, and they saw success. The Russians were here, not only on Facebook and posting lunatic comments almost like Americans, but in person, on …

DELETED

First, I turned off email alerts a few years ago. Then I limited my visits to once a day, then to only a couple times in a week. I tried deactivating my account and found that it spontaneously reactivated because of my use of other websites. It is time to bite the bullet. With some …