"Even though the United States spends more per pupil than any other developed nation, we compare poorly with other developed countries because our achievement in reading, science, and math has remained stagnant over the last 30 years. Although our per-pupil spending is relatively high, it masks a serious funding gap outside the classroom. In ( Read more... )

"And it's not just food that determines the tone and tenor of my anal conversation."

"The abandoned quarries are still there on the outskirts, deep squares and oblongs cut down into the rock as if whole buildings had been lifted out of them, leaving the empty shapes of themselves behind. I sometimes picture the entire town rising out of the shallow prehistoric ocean, unfolding like a sea anemone or the fingers of a rubber glove ( Read more... )

"In this age of marriage mania, I miss not just the vigorous public and community discussions but the visionary impulses that fueled the early movement. Why aren't we having demanding and intelligent debates over whether we want to fight for marriage or something similar to, say, the French pacte civil de solidarité - which essentially gives ( Read more... )

How simple it is to see
that we can only be happy now,
and there will never be a time
when it is not now.

~Gerald Jampolsky

I don't know which takes more courage:
surviving a lifelong endurance test
because you once made a promise
or breaking free,
disrupting all your world.

~Anne Tyler

That's life. If nothing else, its life. It's real, and sometimes it fuckin' hurts, but it's sort of all we have.