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On NPR, a high school senior talked about how his “support for the 2nd amendment” had not changed after the death of his sister at the hands of a gunman a year before. I wondered about that capacity for changing my mind. My personal experience suggests that people are foolish to place faith in guns…
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From my favorite opinionated “Margaret and Helen”: via Abortion is not a dirty word and Planned Parenthood isn’t a McDonald’s and the GOP can go F**K itself
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She said she’d gotten into the program because she was from a Brahmin family and had gone to Scripps. “He’s sorry now,” she told me. “I’m not what he expected, and now he won’t even talk to me.” The young woman had relocated thousands of miles from home for the program, but realized all too…
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When white people complain about “reverse racism”, it’s generally because they have been badly treated by a person of color. “I’m not arguing that racism doesn’t exist, it’s more obvious than ever now. My statement is regarding reverse racism, which some people argue doesn’t exist.”—on Facebook I would agree with those “some people.” Set aside…
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People are arguing again about DSL. They are talking about it in Congress. We went to bed late on Sunday night, hoping to trick our bodies into more quickly accepting the time shift to Daylight Saving Time. I had set my watch forward before going to bed on Saturday and Gary was still…
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The author had my attention from the hilarious introduction to his memoir, Between Panic and Desire. I recognize the world he describes. Unlike his parents, my father never left; it was my grandparents who all divorced, some remarrying, some not. But while he was not yet 6 years old during the Bay of Pigs, I was…
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The other day a relative posted a meme with hideous and clearly inaccurate images and information. Further investigation revealed the creator of the meme was a Danish neo-Nazi spouting appalling anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant and other hate messages. I can’t help wondering if his profile is a fake Russian bot spreading discord and disinformation. As a…
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My first teaching job was at Forest Ridge a school of the Sacred Heart, an elite Catholic girls’ prep school in Bellevue, Washington. Sr. Bunny Flick hired me in 1976 to teach 6-12th grade Art part-time. She was eager to see her students both challenged and supported in their education. At the same time, she…
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Friends tend to express surprise that we still receive DVDs from Netflix. Perhaps “surprise” is not the word I mean. Shocked? Dismayed? Nevertheless (a favorite word), we enjoy movies, the local theater is chilly and has sticky floors, and some films never get here. And then we find them on DVD, sometimes long after they…
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from 19 April 2013 in The Humanist This afternoon a student passed me, grinning. She’d just visited the eastern-most toilet stall in the “senior” bathroom. The room is decrepit, the soap dispenser is often empty, and the stall doors don’t latch. But on the inside of one door is a hand-written message: “Smile, you’re beautiful.” I’ll…
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