"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
I decided to become a Daily Kos diarist (or, as my conservative friends will say, a minion of the Great Orange Satan). I started with a diary entry about the confiscation and banning of books in the Tucson Unified School District, put together from two recent posts here on Paul’s Thing (here and here). Only […]
This morning we took our dogs to the veterinary clinic at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.* Schatzi goes in every January for a checkup and shots as required. We took Maxie too, so that both our girls will be on the same schedule from here on out. Of course we’ve cared for Schatzi since she was […]
Some of my Facebook friends have been drinking the Koolaid: When it comes to Joe Paterno, I’m with Nancy Nall: whatever he may have achieved in life, when assistant coach McQueary came to him and told him what Jerry Sandusky was doing to a boy in the locker room, JoePa failed the test of character. […]
Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary recently wrote a column titled “Not All College Majors Are Created Equal.” You can click the link and read the whole thing, but if you’re in a hurry, the first few lines say it all: I have this game I play when I meet college students. “What’s your major?” I […]
Two days ago I wrote about the cancellation of Mexican American and Native American Studies classes in Tucson high schools, and the large-scale book banning that followed. Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) officials confiscated books and other materials used in the cancelled classes, boxed them, and shipped them to a storage facility. Local, national, and […]
Three years ago I visited the Barrett-Jackson auto auction in Scottsdale, Arizona. I figured it’s been long enough, so yesterday I drove up again, this time with my friend Ed. It was a long day: two-and-a-half-hours on the freeway going and coming; another four or five hours tramping around the tent city at Barrett-Jackson, ogling […]
In May 2010 Arizona banned the teaching of ethnic studies in the state’s public school classrooms, specifically targeting Mexican-American and Native American studies. The new law forbid elementary and secondary schools to conduct classes “designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group” or that advocated “the overthrow of the United States government” and “resentment […]
I love the jet fighters of the 1950s. Built for speed, sleek and swept-back, they were the embodiment of the fantasy planes of comic book superheroes. The North American F-107, an orphan fighter-bomber abandoned by the USAF, embodies the go-fast exuberance of the period. The F-107 began life in 1953 at North American Aviation as a drawing-board […]