Recent Articles

Destroying Public Education in California

August 07, 2009 16:53

So let's say you're in charge of one of the most successful university systems in the country. Your state is in a budget crisis, held hostage by a small but strategically vocal minority that are so against taxation (while their "free market" has caused the crisis) that they'd rather see the entire...

Finally back!

June 23, 2009 19:06

I went to visit my parents for a week to attend my nephew's high school graduation and to be exploited for free child care. For some reason, the entire week I could not access Blogger. I could access blogspot blogs, but not the "create a new post" homepage. Weird. And frustrating. I did watch a...

Things that make you feel old.

June 15, 2009 18:37

My nephew is graduating from high school on Wednesday.

My relationship with illicit substances.

June 11, 2009 16:13

I don't drink coffee every day. One cup can work if I'm not too exhausted (I have been known to drink it like warm milk and feel like a nap), two cups make me jittery but awake for a few hours, three cups give me arrhythmia and clammy hands and I can't sleep later that night. I can't drink...

Culture Clash

June 11, 2009 15:53

One giant organization (The United States) attempts to reform the insular organizational culture of another (GM).:But it will be up to the federal government, which will own a majority of General Motors when it emerges from bankruptcy, to tackle what is perhaps the most difficult challenge in...

Stay away, Belle

June 09, 2009 17:01

This is exactly like the type of movie that would have appealed to my 20 year old self, yet I have the vague feeling that I should stay away from its twee sense of superiority:Verona’s question may or may not be disingenuous, but the answer provided by “Away We Go,” the slack little road comedy in...

Joyce Carol Oates on Salinger's Love Letters

June 08, 2009 07:02

And on intimacy in the public sphere, in general:The Hawthornes' devotion to each other, and to the idealized image of each other they presented to the world, would seem to be a powerful rebuke of the debased and exploitative nature of intimacy in our time, in which lovers routinely betray each...

the ups and downs of married life

June 08, 2009 05:30

If you didn't cry (or sob uncontrollably, in my case) at the wordless montage of a happy marriage punctuated by sadness and unfulfilled promises set to Michael Giacchino's song "Married Life" in Up, you sir/madam, have no heart.I loved the movie and alternately laughed and cried and felt grateful...

sociability index

June 05, 2009 20:21

Progress: last night I went to a dinner party hosted by a friend in which I made more friends. And it'll be a semi-regular thing, because she wants to start up a semi-weekly support group for her friends taking the bar. What a lovely idea. Since I'm not doing anything super stressful this summer...

Cheapness Studies, the blog

June 04, 2009 21:30

A new interdisciplinary blog by me, Miss Self-Important, and Phoebe Maltz! We all have introductory posts up. Because nothing conquers blog exhaustion like starting another blog. Check it out!