In many religions, a key problem is that there is enlightenment and there is goodness, and sometimes they don’t live in the same person. Like the guys that attained enlightenment in various Buddhists sects and then embezzled funds or slept around and lied about it. Like the famous evangelists who brought healing into people’s lives and gave them ( Read more... )

OK, so one of the biggest problems I see in our culture is the whole youth and beauty thing. The media has convinced us that young and beautiful (a very specific version of beautiful involving, usually, long, blonde hair for women and a very different version of beautiful, called handsome, and involving athleticism and defined pecs, for men) is ( Read more... )

When I saw “Freedom Writers,” I thought it was going to be one more of those kung fu white teacher saves kids of color movies. Then Ms. G. (I am also Ms. G.) had the kids do that exercise where they stood on a line if they’d lost one, two, three etc. friends or family members to violence. Now I do those kinds of things and get those kinds of ( Read more... )

I’m reading a book about Buddhism (by Lucinda Green) in which the Buddhist precepts are presented in positive language. Like, “Don’t kill” becomes “Honor life.” The five precepts are the vows that lay people can take. I’m definitely not nun material, so lay people’s vows are the ones I took. I’m so far out at the edge of tradition that I took ( Read more... )

We’ve been selling stuff lately to pay the bills. Grandmothers’ candlesticks and jewelry are apparently not solid silver or gold so we still have them ( Read more... )

You would think that a 58-year-old woman wouldn’t be expected to go to work during her vacation and pack books and files in boxes and carry them to her car, and then lug them down empty hallways to her new classroom. The arthritis is bad today. It’s 98 degrees. People are always talking about teachers having so much vacation ( Read more... )

I think everyone who graduates from high school should know how to change the oil in a car, (or whatever the electric version of upkeep might be in the future.) I think they should also be able to change diapers, balance a checking account and read the Wall Street Journal so they can figure out what the scoundrels are up to. They should be able ( Read more... )

Paradox: When someone observes something, the something is affected by the observation. We can’t observe one another without changing one another. Law of physics. So if you are watching me “teach,” dear student, you change me. You change history if I am teaching history. You change mathematics if I am teaching mathematics. You change me. ( Read more... )

Santana died. It was three months after she graduated from high school. No drugs, no accident, no anger or carelessness. Died in her sleep. Unknown heart problem ( Read more... )

Starting to write again. Will post as it gets written.