qcounty.com
Benicia Herald Article
http://www.qcounty.com/BeniciaPatch/2010/AModestPropsal/AModestProposal.html
Musings essential and frivolous. Published on 10/19/2010 by. You're probably thinking that I stole the title from Jonathan Swift. Nonetheless, even if I did steal the title, my proposal to solve Benicia's financial woes truly is modest and completely - might I suggest decidedly and inarguably? In line with the new American movement to return power to the people and reverence to our Constitution: Dissolve city government, the police and fire departments and the schools. If your family is the average size ...
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The Metonymic Voting Life
http://www.qcounty.com/BeniciaHerald/2007/Columns/Society/MetonymicVotingLife.html
Musings essential and frivolous. The Metonymic Voting Life. Published in the Benicia Herald. On Sunday, October 28, 2007. Well, you get these postcards, too. You know what I'm talking about. We're supposed to associate the smiling face with the picture and maybe read the text, but probably not since words usually read flat on saturated vistas. You can imagine how shocked I was - if you got this card, I bet you were too - when I turned the vicious eagle on its face and discovered not a way to save money, ...
qcounty.com
Unfortunate Initial Conditions
http://www.qcounty.com/BeniciaHerald/2007/Columns/Society/UnfortunateInitialConditions.html
Musings essential and frivolous. Published in the Benicia Herald. On Sunday, September 30, 2007. A couple weeks ago my wife and I were spending the weekend on Steamboat Slough in the Delta at a quiet spot under the trees where water flowed coolly just a few steps away, where the sun, breeze, temperature and humidity combined to create a place as close to heaven as one can possibly find on earth - if one isn’t living in Hawaii, that is - so the day should have been perfect. Late at night I catch them, Jef...
qcounty.com
Benicia Patch Article
http://www.qcounty.com/BeniciaPatch/2010/GettingSmallThingsWrite/GettingSmallThingsWrite.html
Musings essential and frivolous. Getting Small Things Write. Published on 9/21/2010 by. But then the papers start coming in and the grading begins. Since it takes me about 15 minutes to grade one paper, a little less if the paper’s great, a little more if the paper’s not so great, and each of my 100 students writes about eight essays, some of which are rewrites, I spend about 8 x 100 x 15 minutes = 12,000 minutes grading papers during the semester. Could it really be that much time? Chihuahuas. But t...
qcounty.com
Benicia Patch Article
http://www.qcounty.com/BeniciaPatch/2010/IckySpeaksUpForTeachers/IckySpeaksUpForTeachers.html
Musings essential and frivolous. Icky Speaks Up For Teachers. Published on 10/7/2010 by. Continued from last week. He's carrying a bag of papers, looking like a bum who's been rummaging through dumpsters all night with his stained pants, unbuttoned shirt and uncombed hair, his eyes red and glasses so smudged that I'm surprised he was able to drive here. I ask, moving my chair back for fear the smell will be unbearable. I say, pushing my latté across the table to him. I'm shaking my head now. What's t...
qcounty.com
Capitalism in a Box
http://www.qcounty.com/BeniciaHerald/2007/Columns/Society/CaptialismInABox.html
Musings essential and frivolous. Capitalism in a Box. Published in the Benicia Herald. On Sunday, October 14, 2007. On April 25, 2002 Benjamin Barber. Kekst Professor of Civil Society at the University of Maryland. I wrote a column about his ideas at the time, and this week revisit that column to acquaint you with Barber's claim that a just society, which is the most effective society when fighting terrorism, requires that capitalism be constrained by a democratic box. Even if you want to invest in socia...
qcounty.com
To Change Or Not To Change
http://www.qcounty.com/BeniciaHerald/2007/Columns/Philosophy/ToChangeOrNotToChange.html
Musings essential and frivolous. To Change Or Not To Change. Published in the Benicia Herald. On Sunday, September 9, 2007. Maya Strausberg's leaving the Herald reminds me of this column I wrote in 2001 about change. At the time a friend asked me if I had been high when writing it. He didn't say high on what, but if he meant high on the possibility of an ever-changing life until the day of death, then I surely was flying sky high. To change or not to change? That is the question. We imagine, perhaps when...
qcounty.com
Semester Riff
http://www.qcounty.com/BeniciaHerald/2007/Columns/Education/SemesterRiff.html
Musings essential and frivolous. Published in the Benicia Herald. On Sunday, September 16, 2007. Well, not exactly vanished. It wasn't as though aliens from another galaxy had snatched him away though the effect on the college was about the same. They knew where he was, which wasn't where they thought he was going to be, since he was an adjunct instructor who had finally secured a coveted permanent position. Congratulations and good luck to him, I thought, as I read the email. For a week or two Kepler an...
qcounty.com
RSVP Ethics
http://www.qcounty.com/BeniciaHerald/2007/Columns/Society/RSVPEthics.html
Musings essential and frivolous. Published in the Benicia Herald. On Sunday, August 5, 2007. As I wrote last week, missing from our discussion of complex social problems is a shared ethical language. While we can easily invoke homilies such as the golden rule - treat others as you would have them treat you - and the Declaration of Independence's rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, these shared aphorisms are more often debate stoppers than tools we can use to facilitate discussion. In ot...
