Yesterday Peter and I went to see 9 new short plays at our favorite Bay Area theatre, The Pear. We both love seeing new original work, but the current state of the arts left me in some trepidation. Often, new staged works seem to be chosen merely to impress the producer’s peers, not a more…
Month: April 2007
The Hacienda Spring Fling
The biggest fundraiser for Neil’s school is their annual Spring Fling, which combines a Walk-a-thon with a silent auction. This year, the theme was pirates, and after Neil walked enough laps to score a pirate bandana, Kelly snagged it and put it on. Here she is doing her best to deliver a piraty snarl: In…
The Fancy Nancy Party
Kelly’s book obsession and my need to get out of the house means that we are going to a lot of storytimes these days: libraries, book stores, even upscale baby clothes stores: if someone’s going to be reading a book out loud, we’re there. So far, however, the best storytime, hands on, is the one…
How A Private School Made Us Face Our Personal Prejudice
I’ve been frustrated with Neil’s public school education this year, so Peter suggested I look at a few private schools. We can’t really afford private school, but we can look, like starving people looking into a restaurant. I was particularly impressed and intrigued by a new, small private secondary school in Sunnyvale, and the headmaster…
Critical Manners
I originally intended to write about the destruction wreaked at the last Critical Mass bicycling rally in San Francisco last month. As an urban bicyclist who has lived and worked in San Francisco, I understand the anger and frustration on both sides. I have actually never biked in downtown San Francisco, but it’s a yukky…
The Mystery of the Questionable Statistic
A few weeks ago I mentioned my doubts as to the veracity of a statistic posted on my son’s classroom door, namely “The US produces 50% of the world’s garbage.” But I was relying on my gut instinct; I figured with a little effort, I should be able to find out for sure whether it…
Happy Arbor Day!
I was surprised to realize, via a homeschooling site, that Earth Day used to be Arbor Day. And oddly the tradition of Arbor Day–to plant a tree–is and was more environmentally proactive than say, buying carbon offsets. Earth Day involves a lot of whining and chest-pounding about how mankind is damaging the environment, the importance…
Criminal Mom Update
Last year, I wrote about my son’s school’s new asinine policy to require all volunteers to be fingerprinted and get a background check by both local and federal authorities, at the volunteer’s expense, in money, convenience, and time. Joanne Jacobs, an education writer and blogger, as well as a few other blogs, linked to the…
Don’t Call Me Carol
One of my pet peeves is when people call me Carol. I don’t mind being addressed by any of the variants of Carolyn, such as Caroline, Karolin, or Carolina, but Carol is a completely different name. Carol is the feminine version of the male name Carroll; Carolyn is the feminine of Charles, which is my…
Libertarians, Progressives and a Reactionary
I just finished reading Peter Hitchens’ “The Abolition of Britain,” and I’m cherrypicking articles to read from the May/June 2007 issue of Mother Jones, and the May 2007 issue of Reason. By many accounts, I should be shredding at least one of them with impassioned rage, but the fact is, I found all of them worth reading, and I can recommend them to anyone who agrees with their opinions, and maybe in particular to those who don’t.