Julie Golick posted the following observations to Facebook in 2018. In response to several requests, she then made the post shareable by all . Every year, I run into a discussion about how Christmas isn’t REALLY religious anymore and about… Read More ›
According to Wikipedia, film noir comprises “stylish crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations.” So, what then is Jewish Noir? Moving the medium from film to short stories, we get a series (two books so far) edited by… Read More ›
A great article in The Spectator teaches us the history of language in Ukraine in the context of the rest of the history of the country. Author Norman Davies is remarkably thorough and thankfully straightforward, teaching us a lot in… Read More ›
If you are from either the New York or the Philadelphia area—and if you are of a certain age—you will fondly remember the Horn & Hardart Automat. And now there is a wonderful documentary about it, simply titled The Automat,… Read More ›
Well, at least I beat Steph Solis. But she’ll probably remind me that “it’s not a competition” if she ever sees this. So here’s the situation. Axios Boston posted a link to a site where you can test yourself by… Read More ›
Take a look at the mural, designed and painted by a high-school student for the Child and Adolescent Health Center at Grant Middle School in Grant, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids: I’m sure you can see the Satanic messages…. Read More ›
Knowing the facts is not the same thing as seeing them all put together in a single two-hour documentary. Yes, we all know the story of Trump’s attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021, and we may even know the surrounding… Read More ›
“Harvard’s run by millionaires,Yale is run by booze,Cornell’s run by farmers’ sons,Columbia is run by Jews. Give a cheer for Baxter Street,another one for Pell,and when the little sheenies die,their souls go straight to Hell.” [Popular song at Ivy League… Read More ›
My friends tell me that I am an incurable optimist. That’s OK. I don’t want to be cured. I want to remain an optimist; I’m happier that way. As Eric Idle sang in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, you should… Read More ›
Probably this debate is esoteric enough for you. But let’s see. We start with a remark by Scott Aaronson on his Shtetl-Optimized Blog: Last month, you’ll recall, Steve [Pinker} and I debated the implications of scaling AI models such as GPT-3 and… Read More ›
My older niece is named Hannah. My younger niece is named Aviva. My older great-niece is named Eve. And now, as of last night, my younger great-niece is named Ada. Aha! Do you detect a pattern?
This is not the only Twilight Zone episode that one never forgets. At least it’s not the only one that I never forgot, and it seems more and more relevant every year, especially this summer. I first saw it when… Read More ›
Northeastern University professor Dan Kennedy is always worth reading. And also worth listening to—on Beat the Press with Emily Rooney and other shows. For my just-concluded Quantitative Reasoning class at the Crimson Summer Academy I wish we had had time… Read More ›
Yesterday we conducted a mock election to determine my students’ favorite musical artists using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). The purpose was to let them experience RCV first-hand by going through a simulation. I think it accomplished that goal. What most… Read More ›
Not that I’m worried or anything…I’m sure that the quality of my health care will continue to be just as good, now that the non-profit medical practice I have used for half a century has been acquired by a for-profit… Read More ›
My former Weston High School student, Julia Métraux, has published a really interesting article about the reclaiming of Yiddish by queer Jews. As you know, I’ve written several posts that mention Yiddish, most recently one about the Yiddish-German connection. You… Read More ›
…where they scare cats and dogs, trigger PTSD in war veterans, and are illegal.
“My mom used to tell me that most men do not like brainy women,” writes well-known mathematician Tanya Khovanova. Well-known in certain circles, anyway. Female, Russian-American, Jewish—there are a lot of possible identity issues here. I’ve written about Khovanova twice… Read More ›
First, here’s a sign inside the entrance to the Wegmans in Medford: Yes, I know that it’s purely for commercial purposes, but it still makes me feel welcome. On the other hand, here is a pair of street signs in… Read More ›
You do listen to Morning Edition, don’t you? You do appreciate teachers, don’t you? (Unlike Ron DeSantis and his ilk.) I am so glad that I am semi-retired, so I don’t have to cope with the all-too-common lack of appreciation… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 