Dialogue
Yesterday I had a doctor’s appointment, and while I was sitting in the waiting room I was reading on my cellphone. An elderly man (more elderly than I am, anyway) was sitting across from me. He had a walker and … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Me, myself, and I
Presidents’ Day poetry
[NOTE: Today is Presidents’ Day, and this is a repeat of a previous post.] I’m not that old, but pedagogical practices in my youth seem absolutely archaic compared to whatever passes for education these days. For starters, we had Washington’s … Continue reading →
The missing “J”
For most of my life I never had any interest in genealogy, although I did have an interest in family stories. And it was the family story of a long-lost great-uncle, a mystery I wanted to solve, that propelled me … Continue reading →
An ode to the 1980s
For me, the 1980s are somewhat of a blur, because I spent them having a baby and then raising that baby and intermittently working part-time. I was exhausted much of the time, and not really part of the zeitgeist. Which … Continue reading →
Thinking of going on a cruise?
Ed Driscoll reports on what it’s like in this age of still-existent COVID restrictions. I’m certainly not racing out to do it. And yet, for a short time right before COVID I was thinking of trying it. One of the … Continue reading →
Dreaming about blogging; on doxxing donors
Lately there have been so many events that cry out for in-depth analysis that I often feel overwhelmed, and I think I’d feel that way even if my task was limited to reading about them – forget about trying to … Continue reading →
On the ugliness of the German language
[NOTE: This post was inspired by a discussion in the comments in this thread.] I don’t speak German at all except for a few words. In fact, foreign languages aren’t my forte, although I’m sensitive to sounds. Until a few … Continue reading →
Why, what a surprise! Inflation is worse than expected
You probably already have noticed it in your daily life, but the latest figures on inflation are not good at all: Inflation has now hit the highest rate in 40 years, jumping 7.5 percent since last February, the biggest year-over-year … Continue reading →
Distrusting health officials: what was the turning point?
I think this was indeed a pivotal moment that made the situation starkly clear: the exact moment my trust in our public heath experts began to erode was in June 2020 when they said “racism is a public health issue … Continue reading →
Christa Ludwig disagrees with Leonard Bernstein about tempo
I had no idea why YouTube decided I would like this video called “Vocalist Disagrees With Bernstein’s Tempo.” But they recommended it, and I idly clicked on it and watched it: “It doesn’t matter; who can hear the words anyway?” … Continue reading →
Taking time
I often decide on a topic for a post that I think I’ll be able to toss off quickly, and find that it grows and grows and grows. Once I’ve written some of it, though, I figure that I put … Continue reading →
Racism, that difficult word
Commenter “Ray”asks: The Oxford English Dictionary dates the word racism to 1935, and defines it thus: “The theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race.” Unless you believe the blank slate theory, what’s to disagree with? One … Continue reading →