If I were a pedant (which of course I’m not), I would feel compelled to articulate four pet peeves related to Daylight Saving Time: Some people—I’m thinking of you, Ethel—call it Daylight Savings Time! (Apparently it has something to do… Read More ›
Life
Pete remembers Woody.
Please don’t say “Pete who?” or “Woody who?” I hope you know who the title refers to. The original version of this wonderful memorial came out nearly seven years ago as an LP; the CD version was released nine years… Read More ›
“Scientific discoveries are never given the names of their actual discoverers.”
When I teach cryptography, my students learn that the Caesar Cipher wasn’t actually invented by Julius Caesar, that the Playfair Cipher wasn’t created by Lyon Playfair, that the Vigenère Cipher is wrongly attributed to Blaise de Vigenère, and so forth…. Read More ›
Did the ancestors of today’s Middle Easterners come from Africa?
Of course they did, you reply. But not so fast! There has, of course, been a lot of interest lately in tracing one’s DNA to find out one’s individual ancestry. But I haven’t seen much about the results of doing… Read More ›
Parachutes, by Kelly Yang
Helicopter parents. Tiger moms. Parachutes. What do all these metaphors have in common? If you’ve taught in a suburb like Weston—or in an elite private school—you may know the answer. I certainly knew about helicopter parents, having experienced altogether too… Read More ›
Morning glories!
Morning glories for a glorious morning after the storm has passed!
Fake news? Or not? Jigsaw puzzles improve cognitive functioning in seniors!
Not high-school seniors. Not college seniors. Seniors as in senior citizens—old people—like me. We all know (don’t we?) that solving crossword puzzles and playing games like Scrabble can supposedly help stave off Alzheimer’s by keeping the left side of the… Read More ›
“They Might be Linguists.” Linguists—not giants???
You all do know the band They Might Be Giants (TMBG), don’t you? But you might not know my personal connection with them. The connection is that John Flansburgh and John Linnell, founders of TMBG from Lincoln, MA, were students… Read More ›
Remember the ’60s and the ’70s? WBCN and the American Revolution
The ’60s and the the ’70s were formative years for many of us. A must-see film recently illuminated these decades through the lens of the story of WBCN, a.k.a. The American Revolution. Perhaps I need to point out a couple… Read More ›
No, it’s not Lupin. It’s Hannah LeBaron’s Adventure Cats!
Some say you can’t train a cat. My former student Hannah LeBaron and her cat Lily beg to differ. Go read the interview with them on the Community Cats podcast! Apparently Hannah is now an influencer on social media—or so… Read More ›
William loves to watch television!
William had to get really, really close to the TV so that he could enjoy watching the promo of The Last Pig:
Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain, By Shankar Vedantam (and Bill Mesler)
Podcast listeners are—or certainly should be—familiar with Hidden Brain, a fascinating podcast filled with lots of interesting info. Useful Delusions, as you might guess from the subtitle, The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain, is Vedantam’s distillation of ideas… Read More ›
Your neighbors have a right to shoot off fireworks, don’t they?
Well, no. Aside from being illegal in Massachusetts, they are dangerous and traumatic everywhere. This satirical episode of the always great Breaking Cat News captures all the issues, especially if you read the fine print:
Punching down or punching up?
“Why do we have to have a Black History Month?” whined one of my less favorite Weston students in February of 2016. “Why don’t we have a White History Month?” “Because,” I replied without taking time to think, “every month… Read More ›
Vincent and William
Keeping a watchful eye out for intruders, Vincent guards his brother William as he sleeps:
There was violence in Congress! (Hard to believe, I know—but true…)
Hyper-partisanship in the halls of Congress is nothing new. But at least we don’t have physical violence there anymore. Not today, at any rate. Are you listening, Mitch? Joanne B. Freeman has written an outstanding history book, The Field of… Read More ›
All Other Nights
About 80% historical fiction and 20% chick lit—that’s my very rough estimate of the nature of this novel by Dara Horn. And it won’t surprise you that I enjoyed the 80% much more than the 20%. There are, of course,… Read More ›
They both have samples of my DNA. Why do they disagree about my ancestry?
My ancestry, says ancestry.com, is 100% Ashkenazy Jewish! No, says CRI Genetics, it’s 66.1% Ashkenazy Jewish! So who’s right? It’s always a good idea to ask for a second opinion. I trusted ancestry.com, which is respected and has a well-known… Read More ›
O chess pieces, what are your names (in 79 languages)? And what did my dad have to do with it?
Chess, of course, is endlessly fascinating. For some reason, however, I no longer play chess. I never became good at it, even though my dad started me on it at an early age. Chess meant a lot to him because… Read More ›
So, Classics, which is it? Are you Latin + Greek? Or are you Racism + White Supremacy?
I started thinking about college, as one does in certain families, when I was in eighth grade. I had no idea where I wanted to go, but I was pretty sure that I would want to major in Classics. What… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 