Reflections on Life
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What do they mean No Child Left Behind is bad?
We’re failing the global education race. Is it unreasonable to ask that not only should all children be educated to a minimal level but that all children be pushed to their maximum level?
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Home Farm Experiment
I’ve long thought that using modern-day victory gardensto counter food shortages from abrupt climate change events or other crises, would run full-tilt into a wall of ignorance that just didn’t exist in the early 20th century. A courageous idiot from Brooklyn decided to prove my point. As he reported in New York Magazine, Manny Howard decided in March to…
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My friend started a blog. What does she WANT?
My friends were so supportive when I started a blog (probably happy that I’d stop telling them about the crazy things I read and think about). They’d sometimes even log on and read my pearls. (Usually in front of me just to show that they had looked at it.) Sometimes they’d even call me up to…
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How to Host A Carnival
Several posts are flying around my head but the most urgent is based on a comment in this week’s Carnival of Family Life by next week’s hostess Little Mummy– she’s understandably nervous at hosting her first carnival. Hosting is fun and easy (we all write don’t we?) but takes a lot of time. If you…
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Carnival of Family Life – June 25 2007
Thank you for the sixty wonderful submissions. Â I’d had a little trouble thinking of interesting things to say lately and you’ve given me weeks of things to respond to. If your links not quite right let me know and I’ll fix it – I had a 30 second crash and lost posts in the middle.…
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Ethanol in Gas
My environmental posts come from a lot of research into scientific papers. This doesn’t. (I’ll research it later, but if anyone has a clue, I’d love to know about it.)  I’ve been driving in NYC lately. This doesn’t usually give me blinding headaches. NYC has had ethanol in it’s gas for a long time but now…
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Reunion Smalltalk – How Will You Survive Global Warmng
Time flies at this time of year . . . finals, graduations, weddings, reunions. I had the pleasure of attending my college reunion. One of the real pleasures of attending a reunion of geeks and geekettes is the lack of pre-reunion angst. As I happily stressed over my daughter’s graduation outfit we continually tripped over…
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Time for Auction Item Reminder Letter
You’re having a school auction but you’ve decided to take it easy now that you’ve booked the place and the band? Not quite yet. Â Before everyone scatters to the four winds send out a gentle announcement – Let people know the date. Remind people you will be asking for item donations and that summer travels…
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Physics and the School Play
Taking Pictures at School I attended a school play a few days ago to take pictures for a friend. Conditions were perfect. I’d gotten there early enough to get a slightly off-center shot of the stage, far enough back to get everything in my wide screen shots and close enough to zoom. The stage was…
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Telemarketers, Scammers or Political Operatives?
Since March hordes of people have been getting calls recorded in Spanish on their cell phones. Those that played along were either told that they reached a wrong number or that they’d won a contest. One caller reportedly was able to keep an operator on the line for 20 minutes feeding her phony credit card numbers…
Got any book recommendations?