A recurring theme in world history is the United States dick-slapping Germany: World War I, World War II, “Tear down this wall!” … maybe that’s not the most appropriate metaphor for a women’s soccer match but we’ve been winners all our lives. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! Read more →
June 2015
Love Conquers All . . .
. . . including pleasure, peace, common sense, liberty and self-determination. Read more →
Still Life with Pug
Lacking Presentation
If You Love It So Much, Why Don’t You Marry It?
Men and women can marry each other, men can marry men, women can marry women . . . someday it will be legal to marry the sound of your own voice because some people are really in love with the sound of their own voice. Read more →
Always “Ass…”
Have you ever noticed in your inbox or browser tabs how the word “Association” always gets truncated to “Ass…”? Never “As…” or “Asso…,” always “Ass…” Read more →
e e cummings wishes you a happy fathers day
my father moved through dooms of love through sames of am through haves of give, singing each morning out of each night my father moved through depths of height this motionless forgetful where turned at his glance to shining here; that if (so timid air is firm) under his eyes would stir and squirm newly as from unburied which floats the first who, his april touch drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates woke dreamers to their ghostly roots and should some why completely weep my father’s fingers brought her sleep: vainly no smallest voice might cry for he could feel the mountains grow. Lifting the valleys of the sea my father moved through griefs of joy; praising a forehead called the moon singing desire into begin joy was his song and joy so pure a heart of star by him could steer and pure so now and now so… Read more →
Always Something to Learn
When Pablo Casals was asked at age 93 why he continued to practice the cello three hours a day, he replied, “I’m beginning to notice some improvement.” View image | gettyimages.com Read more →
I Don’t Know How Starbucks Stays in Business
Hi everybody! It’s me, Lightning! On weekend mornings my owner goes to Starbucks and brings back a pup cup of whipped cream for me! Today I noticed on my cup that if I don’t love my pup cup they’ll make me another one for free! “The pup cups are always free,” my owner says. “You don’t have to tell them you didn’t love it to get a free one.” I don’t know how Starbucks stays in business if they’re giving away the most delicious stuff for free. — Lightning Read more →
Congratulations on Your Graduation
Happy Flag Day!
During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress adopts a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white” and that “the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.” The national flag, which became known as the “Stars and Stripes,” was based on the “Grand Union” flag, a banner carried by the Continental Army in 1776 that also consisted of 13 red and white stripes. According to legend, Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross designed the new canton for the Stars and Stripes, which consisted of a circle of 13 stars and a blue background, at the request of General George Washington. Historians have been unable to conclusively prove or disprove this legend. — History.com Read more →
The old ways are passing, and the new ones are yet to arrive. We are in the Open Space between what was and what might become. — Harrison Owen
Teaching Computer Science: The Last Day
On the last day of class, I gave students the code for a partially working Space Invaders game, along with instructions for adding collision detection and completing the implementation. The instructions didn’t leave too much to the imagination because I wanted to give everyone a chance to finish out the year on a successful note. I estimated it to be about a 30-minute activity. It didn’t occur to me that that students would do anything but finish the program and spend whatever time was left over blasting aliens. What they actually did was, they finished the program, tweaked the firing interval so they could shoot faster, changed the speed of the sprites, added more aliens, changed the program to shoot two bullets at a time instead of one, changed the program to shoot five bullets at a time, enabled the aliens to drop bombs, had the game recognize that when… Read more →
Summer Triptych
1. The world is water to these bronzed boys on their surfboards, riding the sexual waves of Maui like so many fearless cowboys, challenging death on bucking broncos of foam. 2. On the beach at Santorini we ate those tiny silverfish grilled straight from the sea, and when the sun went down in the flaming west there was applause from all the sated diners, as if it had done its acrobatic plunge just for them. 3. Swathed from head to toe in seeming veils of muslin, the figure in the Nantucket fog poles along the shoreline on a flat barge. It could be Charon transporting souls across the River Styx, or just another fisherman in a hoodie, trolling for bluefish on the outgoing tide. — Linda Pastan, “Summer Triptych” Read more →
The Bamboo Ceiling
Michael Wang had a 4.67 GPA and a perfect ACT score. He placed first in the state of California at the AMC 12 – a nationwide mathematics competition. He performed with the San Francisco opera company, and sang in a choir that performed at Barack Obama’s first inauguration. He volunteered his free time to tutor underprivileged children. He applied to seven Ivy League schools and was rejected by all seven. I saw recently that a local kid from Fullerton High School here in Orange County was accepted at all eight Ivy League Schools. His name is Fernando Rojas. Here’s another young man, Harold Ekeh, who was also accepted at all eight Ivy League schools: Last year, Kwasi Enin was accepted at all eight Ivy League schools: A study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade examined applicants to top colleges from 1997, when the maximum SAT score was 1600 (today it’s 2400).… Read more →
If Math Was Taught Like Science
Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. — W. B. Yeats, “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” Read more →