My Own Thoughts

I didn’t realize how much of our lives is “instant” until today, when I hadn’t checked my email in two days. A friend died. Another friend’s dad had a stroke. And my SAT Blogger Challenge scores hadn’t gotten in and I didn’t know it. I feel like I should check my mail every hour and [...]

I began reading Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayles series yesterday after giving up on the hope of finding all of them at a bookstore. I read two of them yesterday. And the background information on two people changes significantly between the two books. In the earlier book Blackie is a father and has a son. [...]

I may have exaggerated a mite. But I didn’t do it on purpose. I told one class that I read about 1300 books a year. I read 3 yesterday, but only 1 today. Some weekend days I read 20 in a day. It seems like that ought to come out to about 4 a day. [...]

If you’ve been writing cards and sending packages to thank our military, you might also want to send a thank you note to the Brits, whose media isn’t being any more supportive than ours. I’ll make it easier for you to cut and paste a label for a Brit in Iraq: British Soldier c/o G1 [...]

I graded 35 or so essays yesterday and today for the Blogger Challenge. Some of them were good. I probably would have given a third of them good grades. One would have made in the high 90s if I were grading for my class. 1- Does that mean my grading has gotten too easy? I [...]

I’m grading essays for the Blogger SAT challenge. After grading five, with high scores! (Would my students be surprised to find that I graded higher than anyone else?), we were sent more SAT examples, along with reasons why the essays were given their numeric reward. One of the things that bothered me about their essay [...]

ArmyWifeToddlerMom mentions this MSNBC article on sex. Well, okay, it’s really about one speaker’s view of sex. He’s a Christian. He’s been to my church and spoken. The article says, “You could be forgiven for thinking “conservative Christian” and “hot sex” are oxymoronic.” The speaker says, “sex is the most wonderful gift God ever gave [...]

Thoughts from a Marine Intel Officer. It’s short, pithy, well-written. Bravest Guy in al-Anbar Province – Any Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD Tech). How’d you like a job that required you to defuse bombs in a hole in the middle of the road that very likely are booby-trapped or connected by wire to a bad [...]

I went to a friend’s graduation today. I might not have made the push to go but she was giving the closing speech. And she did an EXCELLENT job. She was poised, articulate, clear, funny, serious, thoughtful, thought provoking… She has a gift for speechifying. I was very pleased to be there and hear her. [...]

Friday I was sitting at the college listening to an ex-student and another student talk. One of them said that other student is doing okay because “yeah, flunking, but it’s all scholarship, so it’s not like it’s real money.” I bit my tongue so that I would not tell them that they were spending MY [...]

This article may discuss the answer for getting stem cells without used killed babies. Use embryos which were naturally miscarried. Sounds okay to me. What are the problems with it?

Fatten up your hubby. According to Reuter’s, obese men are less fertile.

I find them fascinating so I noted Mirabilis’ “Black Death solved.” Sure enough. A Norwegian researcher has developed a vaccine. Read it here.

My son thinks that all teenagers have sex. I have explained to him that this is not true. But he thinks it is. Why? As far as I know he doesn’t know any teenagers well enough to know if they’re having sex. I think it is because we talk about sex all the time and [...]

The CDC is recommending HIV tests for everyone between the ages of 13 and 64. (Apparently sex stops after 64. Or they only have sex with people who are going to die soon anyway. Or if they do, well, we’ll find out they had HIV when we test their younger partners.)

Captain’s Quarters has a great blog entry on this one. Switzerland’s “right to die” group is now pressing for legislation for chronically depressed people to commit suicide. Update: to be able to commit suicide, not to have to do it. Oops.

Anyone who argues for more than one side of an issue automatically can’t get higher than a 3. I wonder if my paper “argues for more than one side” of a position. I looked at places in which success is determined and how. Both on length to goal and on end point. And then I [...]

The idea of the SAT challenge came from this NYTimes article on SAT essays. You know, they’re not horrible. But they’re not that great either. Essay #2 is weird in discussing what happens in The Great Gatsby. Essay #3 has spelling errors. I’ve been grading essays for college freshmen the last three weeks. I’ve graded [...]

Cognitive Daily offers a challenge. Take an SAT-type essay test in 20 minutes on line and see how you stack up. I did it. Dang I needed another five minutes to review. It ends tonight at midnight, so I just squeaked in.

Happy Catholic got tapped with a meme for honoring a living hero, which she had to undo, but I like the idea. Let me introduce you to a firefighter I met on 9/10/06. He’s a big guy, tall, strong. He’s called “Big Tom” but his name is Louis Thompson. He’s been a firefighter for 38 [...]