This ad just appeared in my Facebook feed. Clearly fake news!
Life
The surprising truth about Donald Trump
The shocking truth about Donald Trump! The book A Warning (by “Anonymous: a senior Trump administration official”) reveals it. Well, no, it doesn’t. I lied. But I figured that I would start with a lie, in keeping with the subject. Now for the… Read More ›
There’s no such thing as too many books.
More shelf space may not be an option. More shelf space requires more shelving, which in turn requires more bookcases, which in turn require more room. Sigh. I gave a few hundred away just over a year ago, but that… Read More ›
Every vote counts!
How do elections work? Does your vote really count? Could your single vote really make a difference? See below. But first… Regular readers of this blog know that I teach a course every summer to rising tenth-graders where one unit is… Read More ›
Coffee shops with books: A personal connection
As you know, many coffee shops and small restaurants want their customers to feel at home, so they have comfortable chairs and shelves with random books on them. The intent, I suppose, is to create an ambiance like a living… Read More ›
Mollie, Vincent, and… William
Mollie loves her black-and-white brother Vincent. She’s not so sure about her orange brother William:
Are teachers entitled to get Social Security benefits?
“All the money you’ve put into Social Security goes down the drain,” a certain Weston teacher explained to me in 1998. We had been talking about our work histories and future plans. You need to know three facts: Massachusetts public-school teachers… Read More ›
The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia
How does one review an encyclopedia? Look specific things up in it? Dip into it randomly? Read it in order cover-to-cover? I suppose one solution is for us to look up a term that we are familiar with, and then… Read More ›
Forensics? Forensic linguistics?
What does the word “forensic” mean to you? And what on earth could forensic linguistics possibly be? Let’s see what Mr. Google says about “forensic”: relating to or denoting the application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of… Read More ›
High School
“High school is the best time of your life.” That‘s what they say. Whoever they might be. Actually, some people do say that and even mean it. Then there’s the rest of us, those whose lives were much better after high school…. Read More ›
Jed Sutter
I recently attended a small but wonderful exhibit of the paintings of the distinguished local artist Jed Sutter. Reflections is probably my favorite. I love the representation of the reflection, of course (and not just because it’s a geometric concept), but… Read More ›
Seattle 2: The Wedding
As I indicated yesterday, our principal reason for this long weekend in Seattle was to attend the wedding of our niece, Hannah. Although I had worried that I would be overwhelmed by the large number of guests (over a hundred),… Read More ›
Seattle 1: Chihuly
Barbara and I are here in Seattle for our niece’s wedding and a mini-vacation, while Barbara’s sister Brenda house-sits and cat-sits. William appreciates her long fingernails, which are designed for scritching. Anyway, all the details about Seattle will come in… Read More ›
The bathroom is finally finished!
It took nine weeks. First the workmen demolished everything, down to the studs. Then they built a complete new bathroom in the same space. Some fixtures from Kohler and Home Despot, but primarily from our local Norfolk Hardware and Home Center. (Shout-out… Read More ›
Intertwingled/“Hypertext in the Age of Trump”
Hypertext pioneer Mark Bernstein has just published Intertwingled, a collection of nine essays and one short story. No one could ever say that Bernstein is shy about expressing his opinions, so don’t expect some dry attempt at scientific “neutrality.” If you… Read More ›
Mollie and Vincent
Mollie likes to sleep with one eye open, just in case. But she curls up with her brother Vincent, who will always protect her.
Trump’s language — and Obama’s
What do you think about Donald Trump’s use of language? A lot of people criticize it. On the other side there were even people who criticized Obama’s language, so where does the truth lie? Frances Brown, who worked for the… Read More ›
Comic Sans is back in the news.
Oh nos, Comic Sans is back in the news! Three times in the past 20 years I’ve felt compelled to write about the Comic Sans font: in 2005, 2009, and 2016. And here we go again: Of all the things… Read More ›
Do we need to upgrade the Constitution? Plus a parsing problem…
According to my iPhone (see screen shot below), we can do so for only $1.99! Any suggestions? Also, we have this quotation from a Washington Post article: The whistleblower is not white,” one 4chan commenter asserted Thursday, probably misreading a… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 