June 18th, 2010 | General, Popular Culture, visual arts
So far I have successfully resisted the bait dangled by all the reality shows. Tribal hostilities, The Donald’s flunky-wannabees, housewives, litters of children, none of these strikes me as entertainment. BRAVO got me, though, with “The Next Great Artist.” I might...
June 16th, 2010 | Friends, General, Travel
One can only hope that the arrest of Joran van der Sloot means that Natalee Holloway’s family will be allowed the grace of burying whatever remains of her body. The events in Peru that marked the 5th anniversary of Natalee’s disappearance have consumed the media. The...
May 22nd, 2010 | Education, General, Society at Large
As Michael Birnbaum writes in today’s Washington Post, “The Texas state school board gave final approval Friday to controversial social studies standards that minimize the separation of church and state and say that America is not a democracy but a ‘constitutional...
May 17th, 2010 | General, the world and Mother Nature
Heavens, but the bluebirds are dumb. We love our little azure bits of bliss, and go to great lengths to provide them with their favorite flavors of suet. They flutter berylline around the feeders, uncertain how to cling and unwilling to reach through the mesh to the...
May 13th, 2010 | Education, General
No effort to accommodate an individual student goes unpunished. It’s true. A student when informed that the midterm will be on the first day back from Spring Break says that she will not be back from Switzerland yet. When a time for a make-up exam is scheduled, her...
March 13th, 2010 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, General
Yesterday’s moisting turned into today’s steady downpour—a good thing as I need to correct essays and grade quizzes. In the woods, a muddy stream undulates through the woods, hanging a sharp left to pass under the fallen tree that provided deer shelter during the...
