Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 38

• “Why haven’t I ever been to Petra?”

  By ljd42 on January 6, 2021

  

  That’s what I kept asking myself as I was watching the PBS Nova episode Petra, Lost City of Stone, which I somehow missed when it first aired six years ago. This amazing archaeological site in Jordan competes in quality with… Read More ›

• Should the passive voice be avoided? And what’s wrong with Strunk? And what about White, while we’re at it?

  By ljd42 on January 5, 2021

  

  The bill was signed by the president. The bill remained on the president’s desk for five days. Mistakes were made. All three of those sentences are in the passive voice, right? Actually, wrong. Only the first and third are. So… Read More ›

• A belated New Years Eve feast from Ashmont Grill

  By ljd42 on January 4, 2021

  

  Yes, it was three days late, but it was worth the wait! Barbara and I ordered a huge take-out feast from our favorite restaurant, the Ashmont Grill. It will take us another three days to eat it all. The four… Read More ›

• How many of you are there?

  By ljd42 on January 3, 2021

  

  “There’s only one of me!” you protest. But that’s not what I mean. Co-host of the Unorthodox podcast Mark Oppenheimer discovered (unsurprisingly) that there are others who share his name, and that got me wondering: How many Larry Davidsons are… Read More ›

• Harvard, Homosexuality, and the Shaping of American Culture

  By ljd42 on January 2, 2021

  

  The title of this post is actually only the subtitle of the book, as you can see in the image of the cover. But “Harvard, Homosexuality, and the Shaping of American Culture” is more specific than the book’s main title,… Read More ›

• Ring the bells that still can ring: the right song for today (Anthem).

  By ljd42 on December 31, 2020

  Yes, Leonard Cohen wrote this back in 1992, and performed it in 2008 — but it’s the song we need today as we close out 2020.  

• Amazon’s user reviews: Can you trust them? Will ReviewMeta help?

  By ljd42 on December 30, 2020

  

  I am awed by the author’s skills in writing this gripping first novel that takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of all the top museums in Europe. How seriously do you take a review that starts like that? Do… Read More ›

• The Murder List

  By ljd42 on December 29, 2020

  

  Barbara says I’m supposed to have heard of Hank Phillippi Ryan. Apparently she’s well-known as both a mystery writer and an investigative reporter on Boston television. Although I hadn’t heard of her before, I went ahead and read (actually “listened to”… Read More ›

• Why are you still here?

  By ljd42 on December 27, 2020

  

  A positive — dare I say uplifting? — story about Zoom learning as we close out annus horribilis 2020! From Patrick Honner: It was the last day of school in 2020 and my students were in breakout rooms finishing up a… Read More ›

• Does every language have an alphabet? What about abjads and abugidas — not to mention syllabaries?

  By ljd42 on December 26, 2020

  

  Is there such a thing as the Hebrew alphabet? How about the Japanese alphabet? Or the Hindi? “Of course,” you reply. “At least I know there’s a Hebrew alphabet. It has letters like מ, which means ‘m,’ and it’s written… Read More ›

• “Jewish Kid Born on Christmas Day Talking Blues”

  By ljd42 on December 25, 2020

  Continuing with this year’s Christmas theme, we have “Jewish Kid Born on Christmas Day Talking Blues“ by Sally Fingerett, best known as one of the Four Bitchin’ Babes:    

• Necessity by Jo Walton: Plato, Socrates, religion, aliens, and spaceships!

  By ljd42 on December 24, 2020

  

  It’s always sad to get to the last page of the last volume of a much-loved trilogy. Jo Walton’s Thessaly trilogy consists of three novels (what a surprise), the first two of which I reviewed previously in these pages. Here… Read More ›

• Dr. Fauci recalls taking ancient Greek, Latin, and philosophy…

  By ljd42 on December 23, 2020

  

  My cousin Mike Laskey interviewed Dr. Fauci on a podcast! Among other important things, we learn that Dr. Fauci was most heavily influenced by his college courses in Greek, Latin, and philosophy. As you can surmise from his public persona,… Read More ›

• The true history of the birth of Jesus (plus some related remarks about 10th grade and the irreverent reverend)

  By ljd42 on December 21, 2020

  

  Raise your hand if you have personal knowledge of the true story of the Nativity. OK, most of us were not there at the time, Connie Willis to the contrary notwithstanding, so we have to rely on the words of… Read More ›

• “Christmas with your Jewish Boyfriend”

  By ljd42 on December 20, 2020

  This goes out to a surprising number of couples I know. (I could have sent it to Barbara before we got married, but not now, as husband ≠ boyfriend.) I heard it on the Unorthodox podcast a little over a… Read More ›

• Who reads poetry anyway?

  By ljd42 on December 19, 2020

  

  Most likely you expect that I’m going to answer the question in the title by saying “Not me. I don’t read poetry.” If you’re a pedant — or if you believe that I am — you expect that I’ll say… Read More ›

• Keeping warm

  By ljd42 on December 18, 2020

  

  Skinny little Vincent keeps warm by curling up with his fat, furry, and much larger sister, Mollie:

• The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book

  By ljd42 on December 17, 2020

  

  I just wish this book had been published 20 years ago! Alex Bellos has compiled an amazing collection of language-related puzzles in the Language Lover’s Puzzle Book, released a few month ago in the UK and more recently elsewhere in the English-speaking… Read More ›

• A Christmas Song for 2020

  By ljd42 on December 15, 2020

  

  For a variety of reasons there are almost no Christmas songs that I Iike. But I can recommend a new one that I heard yesterday — a song that was specially written for the year 2020: Don’t Wait For Me… Read More ›

• When will I ever use this in real life? (No one ever “solves for x”! (Or do they?))

  By ljd42 on December 14, 2020

  

  As I wrote eight years ago, it seems that I discuss this topic every couple of years. But there’s always a new reason to do so. Here is the 2020 reason, expressed in this cartoon: What we have here is a… Read More ›

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