I’m married into a teaching family. My wife took up teaching as a second career, and has spent the last decade teaching in various New York City and Westchester County middle and high schools of widely different conditions of wealth, quality and ambition. Two of her uncles were teachers, two of her cousins are school …
News we could use later this year: STEVE’S LAST GIFT! Jobs’ Final Invention Solves Nation’s Unemployment Crisis! New iJobs Device Pays People to Sit and Twiddle Their Thumbs! SLUGFEST! Ex-Comedian Sinbad Latest to Grab Lead for Republican Nomination Overtakes Garth, the Capital One Viking; Romney Holds Steady at 25% IT’S A MOCKERY! Kim Kardashian Denounces …
As has become our custom, here is a wholly individual, utterly personal, completely idiosyncratic list of the top 11 whatevers of 2011. 11. THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLE On a freezing night last winter, a group of us took a limo to Woodstock to see the great Levon Helm and his amazing band in concert in Levon’s …
Cathy, Tim, Greg, Susan, Jo, Dave, Ginny and I hit Town Hall on Saturday evening to attend a taping of the radio show Prairie Home Companion. We enjoyed Garrison Keillor‘s low key, folksy, whimsical fun, and his guests Gillian Welch, Joel Grey and especially Itzhak Perlman (with a very fine Klezmer orchestra!) were a treat. …
Masses of skaters enjoy a temporary rink in Bryant Park.
Ah, the traditional Tannenbaum, surrounded by tourists and the traditional pomp of the urban sidewalks. Greg and Susan Schmidt and Ginny and I took in the sights before meeting more of the gang. Kind of fun, despite the constant buffeting of humanity on the hoof.
Yesterday I finally took myself out of the running to become the last person in the greater metropolitan area to visit the High Line, the terrific elevated urban park built on the elevated rail bed that runs through Chelsea on Manhattan’s far west side. I will now add my puny voice to the great chorus …
This is a picture of Ray Lewis, a retired Philadelphia Police Department captain, being arrested with other Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park last week. Lewis was carrying signs a pair of signs urging New York City cops to join the protests. “NYPD Don’t Be Wall Street Mercenaries,” one read. Lewis was highly critical …
Three cheers for David Brooks, who earlier this week used his column in The New York Times to speak up against the torrents of sanctimoniousness and self-righteousness that followed the revelations about child abuse at Penn State. “First came the atrocity, then came the vanity,” wrote Brooks. “The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been …