Many years ago, when I first heard that the National Governor’s Association was collaborating on a set of common curriculum standards for all states, I thought it was pretty good idea.  At the time,… Read full post »

In February, I wrote a blog entitled, “Afraid of Your Child’s Math Textbook?  You Should Be.” The focus of the blog was the appalling practices I’ve witnessed in textbook publishing over the last several… Read full post »

Photo credit: The  Jewish Journal  

Last week, a few days before the beginning of Passover, three teens from Northridge California have admitted to setting out in the middle of the night to torment a girl they’ve been accused of bullying at the high school they all attend… Read full post »

I had to laugh this morning when I saw a news report that officials at the New York City Department of Education are forbidding certain topics on their state-wide English, science, math, and social-studies exams, exams for which they are soliciting bids from testing companies to ove… Read full post »

The other day a colleague announced that he’d just purchased $100 in “quick picks” for that night’s Mega Millions.  He rubbed his palms together and remarked with a giddy smile that he was feeling lucky.     

“You believe in good l… Read full post »

There may be a reason you can’t figure out some of those math problems in your son or daughter’s math text and it might have nothing at all to do with you. That math homework you're trying to help your child muddle through might include problems with no possible… Read full post »

As I often do while at work, today I streamed Michael Graham’s live afternoon talk show on WTKK (an FM talk-radio station in Boston) from my computer.  I’ve listened to Graham for years. I don’t always agree with him, but I do find Graham’s ability to form… Read full post »

Let me state first that I was brought up Catholic.  And though I am no longer a practicing Catholic, I’m offended by the level of Rick Santorum’s vitriol toward gays in general and gay rights in particular.  And it’s pretty hard for me to feel offended on be… Read full post »

I was getting ready to post another blog, one more lighthearted than the last that received so much attention and inspired some great dialogue (thank you!). But then I heard on the news that marines were videotaped urinating on the dead corpses of alleged Taliban insurgents and I felt compell… Read full post »

Two women, a mother and a daughter, are both diagnosed with cancer.  The daughter, a young mother of four children, is found to have an aggressive form of breast cancer. Throughout her ordeal with surgery, chemo, and radiation—the fatigue and nausea, the infections and wracking pai… Read full post »

I never used to pay much attention to the New Year, never understood the sense behind the celebration, the ball-dropping, the ad nauseum newscasts of year-end reflections.  Just another day off, really.  The only feeling the new year used to inspire was a vague sense of relief that… Read full post »

Christmas blues.   A common phenomenon according to most psychiatrists, as well as all the articles about “surviving” the holidays highlighted on the covers of most women’s magazines each year from September through December.  And the number one source of most… Read full post »

 They’re back, the bell ringers with their Salvation Army kettles, taking their posts at supermarkets, department stores, and scores of other public venues that make them essentially unavoidable during the holiday season. Don’t get me wrong—I believe in good works and v… Read full post »

I live in the Northeast, where much has been publicized about our recent and rare October Nor’easter, a snowstorm that left many towns with over ten inches of the heavy wet stuff. Predictions of widespread outages were made days before the storm arrived, mostly due to the fact that… Read full post »

My husband received a letter the other day notifying him of a class reunion to be held next May, unusually efficient for a class reunion that is eight months away.  The letter is sitting on his desk and is something I know he’s thinking about.  Which means there&… Read full post »

Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist who often appears on FOX news and other media outlets, recently posted a warning to parents advising them not to allow their children to watch “Dancing With the Stars”… Read full post »

 I don’t understand some people’s fascination with collecting, and this goes for pretty much anything—dolls, spoons, seashells, snow globes, and so forth. This could be due to the fact that I find no purpose, no sense to most collections. Or perhaps my issue goes deeper… Read full post »

I wasn’t going to write anything for 9/11, partly because there is so little sense that can be disseminated from the events that makes worthwhile reading, and what can be said about that day has already been said in thousands of different ways.  But mainly, my hesitance to write is… Read full post »

The town my husband and I live in was predominantly farmland in the early part of the 20^th century, hundreds of acres sprawling with growth and sustenance. But then farming became a losing proposition and, over the last several decades, much of the land has been sold to… Read full post »

I spend much of the summer months in a family cottage on Cape Cod. We call it “The Compound,” a playful allusion to the Kennedy clan’s retreat in nearby Hyannis, because the land is made up of for four buildings on one plot of land. Like all the cottages around me,… Read full post »

Chronic sense: “The obsessive need to find sense and order in a world without much of either.”

I’ve probably been an editor for most of my life, long before it became an accidental career path. Editing is a natural fit for someone who must align pictures that are askew, brush… Read full post »