Is it just me, or is anybody else suspicious of the way the entire mainstream media and both major parties of the US government are characterizing the failure of the bailout bill as a disaster? While I won’t vote for Nader simply because Palin-McCain frightens me too much, his interview with Amy Goodman, below, is [...]

Test-Making 101: A Teacher’s Take Most teachers know that multiple choice tests focusing on facts only are easier for their students to ace than essay tests requiring students to use those facts to analyze a problem and reason their way to a solution. A concrete example would be a map test requiring students to merely [...]

A little ice-breaker after my fear-frozen last post: CollegeHumor.com also found noteworthy Matt Damon’s comments about Palin leading the US government and military. But they had fun with it, bless ‘em. Enjoy (and h/t to Crooks and Liars). See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor. (And on an educational note, if any of [...]

[Update: To learn more about Palin's ties to a disturbingly extreme, theocratic wing of Christianity, see these articles from the Christian website, "Talk to Action: Reclaiming Citizenship, History, and Faith." They substantiate all claims with sources, and are very fair. This article is a good, comprehensive start.] From CNN: A Feature on Palin’s Church: From [...]

[The Unsucky English Gilgamesh series so far: 1: Dangerous Questions ~ 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: Adam and Eve, Backwards ~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards. ~ 6. Gilgamesh and the Birth of the New Man ~ 7. A Goddess Prays 8. The Modern Mischief of [...]

[Rarely in the last 21 months have I let more than two days go by without writing in this space. It's been a full week, though, since my last post. There are a number of reasons, and I just want to explain one of them by telling this story:] ~     ~     ~ New readers might [...]

[The Unsucky English Gilgamesh series so far: 1: Dangerous Questions ~ 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: Adam and Eve, Backwards ~ 4. this post ~ 5. Good and Evil, Nature and the Hero - Backwards ~ 6. Gilgamesh and the Birth of the New Man ~ 7. [...]

[I can't write about Gilgamesh right now. The funeral needs time to recede into the past before things here are stable enough for that type of writing. What I want to write about now is the weirdness of being an American abroad - a "stupid foreigner" - for the last 12 years. Don't worry, it's [...]

I’ve spent the morning telling my little Korean nieces and nephew that their grandmother has “gone to sleep,” while others are telling them she “go into the sky.”  Always the teacher. It makes me think of the end of Gilgamesh. But that’s ten chapters away. Wherever my mother-in-law is, my wife’s family and I agree [...]

[The Unsucky English Gilgamesh series so far: 1: Dangerous Questions ~ 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: this post~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards ~ 5. Good and Evil, Nature and the Hero - Backwards ~ 6. Gilgamesh and the Birth of the New Man ~ 7. [...]