To celebrate the New Year, Barbara and I just had dinner at the Ashmont Grill, which offered a special menu for New Year’s Eve. Although we hadn’t really intended this to be a “going out in public” experience — like… Read More ›
Month: December 2006
Somebody Else's Music
I just finished reading Somebody Else’s Music, by Jane Haddam. One of the best in her Gregor Demarkian series, it is distinctly darker than its predecessors. Most interesting to a high-school teacher is its theme of high school as real… Read More ›
An obligation to vote?
Everyone knows about the 2004 decision of the Massachusetts supreme court legalizing gay marriage, and everyone knows that laws banning gay marriage have been passed in many states and are in the pipeline in others, but out-of-staters may not be… Read More ›
Elmira 2006
This year’s trip to Elmira was not nearly as interesting as last year’s.
Poincaré
On NPR’s All Things Considered tonight, there was actually a report about a math problem! To quote science correspondent David Kestenbaum’s report on the Poincaré Conjecture: The journal Science’s “breakthrough of the year” for 2006 is the solution of a… Read More ›
The Lincoln Lawyer
Recently I read The Lincoln Lawyer, by Michael Connelly, on the strength of an enthusiastic review in the Boston Globe last year. I was not disappointed. Maybe the Globe review explained the title, but if so I didn’t remember. Is… Read More ›
Windows Vista
I’m shocked, shocked, to see Microsoft labeled as “imitator, not innovator” in the review of Windows Vista in the New York Times of all places.
Balance or integration?
In many school districts, including Weston, we try to resolve the Math Wars by promoting a balance between skills and concepts. We tend to adopt the party line as promoted by former Education Secretary Richard Riley: We are suffering here… Read More ›
Black Maps
Black Maps, by Peter Spiegelman, is clearly not for just any random reader of mysteries. It combines the loner private eye — traditional in the noir side of the genre — with the much less hot-blooded (and tiny) sub-genre of… Read More ›
The Russo-Japanese War (of the condiments)
My colleague Boris gave me a jar of horseradish mayonnaise imported from Russia. Having enjoyed it on roast beef sandwiches, and even ham sandwiches, I decided to do a comparison with the Japanese equivalent, purchased at Kotobukiya in the Porter… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 