Bully-free zone? Not necessarily

Many schools have signs on their doors proclaiming them to be Bully-Free Zones. I have even seen such signs alongside the road as I’ve driven past school driveways.
They indicate the schools are at least thinking about the problem. Unfortunately, they do not really indicate the schools have solved the problem.
Most people, in general discussion, immediately [...]

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Sexting: skinny dipping for the digital age

Time was, I am told, when teenagers would occasionally gather at the local swimming hole, shuck their duds, and jump in the creek. I’m thinking, as I write this from my advancing chronological vantage, that most of the participants turned out OK. They re-donned their duds and became doctors, lawyers, and farmers.
Unfortunately, for most of [...]

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Get outside and play

A popular children’s television cartoon features a boy-cow named Otis, with udders. About a year ago, there was a movie about bees, and the boy bees left the hive in search of pollen for honey.
In rural Adams County, I’m guessing most kids pretty much know how to tell a bull from a cow, and probably [...]

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The Key to Afghanistan

We are about to withdraw our soldiers from Iraq — and send them to Afghanistan. They are needed there, Cong. Todd Platts, said Wednesday, to help knock down a Taliban resurgence in the southern part of the country.
“In the short term, we may see more casualties,” Platts said. “In the long term, it will result [...]

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Electricity is like water, wire like a hose

I was reminded this week of a lesson my grandfather taught me about electricity a large number of years ago. Grandpa had retired from the Massachusetts Transit Authority, where he had been responsible for keeping the electricity running to the streetcars. (In San Francisco, New Orleans and many movies, they are known as trolley cars.)
I [...]

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Seeking Sakai

In Fall 2007, I was privileged to write about P.O. Box 1142, an ultra-secret World War II interrogation site near Washington, D.C. One of the most significant factors in the story, other than it had been kept secret more than 60 years, was that it’s methods involved treating the enemy with respect and friendship.
Herewith, another [...]

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21st Century Pen Pals

I am on Facebook, one of the better known “social web sites.” Users of Facebook get to designate certain people as “friends.” Mostly it is simply a place to leave each other messages.
My site has remained mostly dormant for the several months I have had it. My real friends generally communicate with me more personally: [...]

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What a way to start the year

The news Wednesday night carried a rather innocuous notice: The U.S. Post Office has asked Congress to allow it to stop delivering mail one day a week.
NBC gave the story a little history. On CBS, there was a simple one-liner.
Neither network mentioned the number of jobs that would be lost when mail delivery drops from [...]

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Most beautiful time of year

I topped Seminary Ridge one day this week and looked down Fairfield Road – through a tunnel of ice sparkling in what sunlight was making it through. It was like entering Narnia.
I think winter is potentially the most beautiful — certainly the most enrapturing — season.
Spring is beautiful, with the hillsides covered in pastels of [...]

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Winter comes to Detroit

As I write this, snowing is falling west of Detroit, in Kalamazoo and Battle Creek and other places snow has not fallen so hard, so early for several years. Road crews are out trying to unslipperyize the roads. In Chicago, Mayor Richard M. Daley is trying to figure out how to plow more snow for [...]

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