Life

Former students

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Now that I’ve been teaching in Weston for almost ten years, I seem to be running into a surprising number of former students of mine (from Lincoln-Sudbury, but now through other connections). Weston isn’t exactly far from either Lincoln or… Read More ›

Vote for John Bonifaz

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Massachusetts voters: I know that nobody pays much attention to the election for Secretary of State (officially, of course, known as Secretary of the Commonwealth in Massachusetts), but don’t just vote automatically for the incumbent! Cast your vote for John… Read More ›

Suddenly a new car

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Our trusty Ford Escort station wagon, which was relatively cheap but reliable, finally stopped being either and just died. When you have a nine-year-old car and you’re faced with a $1000 estimate for repairs, you have to decide whether it’s… Read More ›

End of hiatus!

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Finally back from a blog hiatus of almost three months! I am very much looking forward to the new vesion of Blogger, which will permit labels on posts to denote categories. This feature will help viewers who are interested in… Read More ›

Art Show

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Yesterday afternoon, Barbara and I attended the third annual art exhibition, “At Home with the Arts,” at The Boston Home, a nursing home for adults with advanced MS. Didn’t buy anything, but there were a number of works we liked…. Read More ›

W

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Can this really be true? George W. Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover who has no Jews in his cabinet at all and has appointed no Jews to the Federal bench. — Professor Sherman L. Cohn, Georgetown University… Read More ›

Birkenstocks

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According to movie director Jason Reitman: Nothing says “I want to tell you how to live your life” more than Birkenstocks.

George Bush, student of English

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One of my students is having great difficulty understanding the abstract ideas of additive and multiplicative inverses and identities, especially in the context of matrix algebra. Finally he’s so frustrated that he exclaims, “I feel like George Bush in an… Read More ›

The Harvard Coup

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No, that’s not a typo. I don’t mean the Harvard Coop; I’m referring to the forced resignation of Harvard President Larry Summers, which Alan Dershowitz rightly calls a coup. Definitely read Dershowitz’s column! I do have a certain bias in… Read More ›

Bill Gates Redux

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We don’t have to like Bill Gates, and we certainly don’t have to like Microsoft, but we do have to admit that Gates has changed. He’s making an impact by doing fine work as a philanthropist, and occasionally he’s even… Read More ›

The Year of the Dog

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You may have heard that dogs have masters but cats have staff. It’s true. Even though Barbara and I are privileged to share our house with five cats — well, actually six at the moment, since we have temporary custody… Read More ›

Getting things done

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For several months now, I’ve been determined to implement some version of David Allen’s compelling Getting Thing Done. His book by that title was one of those rare self-help books that immediately grabbed my attention and thoroughly convinced me that… Read More ›

Who buys lottery tickets?

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Try doing a Google search on the pair of phrases “lottery tickets” “tax on the poor”; you’ll find surprisingly few hits. Change poor to stupid and you’ll collect a few more hits, but still only 507 (at this moment). I’ve… Read More ›

Dadaism lives

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As reported on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday this morning, we will be observing International Dadaism Month for a short month consisting of only 13 days: 4 February, 1 April, 28 March, 15 July, 2 August, 7 August, 16 August, 26… Read More ›