I’ve really resisted starting a blog. There are so many out there already. Who has time to read them all? I’m not an avid blog reader myself. We all spend so much time at the computer already, and I find myself eager to get done with my screen business so I can get back to reading my book. Truth to tell, I read only one blog regularly. Every morning when I fire up my computer, there is Diane...
Looking Back I’ve mentioned before that I usually start my day by reading Diane Ravitch’s blog, one of the few that...
This is going to sound like a kvetch, but it’s not intended that way. Please believe me. Last week I posted a piece about the list of words and phrases that are now taboo in all government documents and publications. I said that I found this one of the more distressing atrocities among the many that the administration has perpetrated in a few short weeks. Controlling language is a shortcut to...
We begin with Enola Gay. You probably know the story already, but here’s a recap for those who don’t. Enola Gay was the name of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Its refurbished body is on display at the Smithsonian and is back in the news thanks to the comically misdirected effort to purge government records and documents of words deemed “offensive” for whatever reason. As a...
Retirees vary widely in their approaches to life after work, so I’m not going to demean them by making one-size-fits-all pronouncements about the demographic of which I am a proud member. But there definitely exists a sub-group from which you hear a litany of complaints along these lines. “How is it that ever since I retired, I don’t have enough time for anything?” There’s no question that my...
Our lives have been A Tale of Three Cities. I will confess that one of them is more a region than a city, but I can’t resist the literary frame Mr. Dickens has gifted me with for today’s musings. I’ve been thinking about this three-headed Medusa ever since we returned from a long weekend visit to Houston where we lived for 13 years. The other two are New Hampshire which captures in its wide sweep...