Weekend Wonk
Whose Language Is It, Anyway?
Jerome Shea January 5, 2008
A friend sends along an item from the Christian Science Monitor entitled “Reign in those vocal chords.” Uh oh. The English teacher in me feels at once very annoyed and very tired. And it is as bad as I expected. Turns out, the Oxford University Press, in regard to its dictionaries, has decided to …
Cape Cod
Jerome Shea December 29, 2007
I married well. I don’t mean just the Longsuffering Diana, that pearl beyond price. I mean the whole Dinsmore clan that she brought to the marriage with her. A wonderful dowry they have proven to be, generous and witty and convivial. I have known them for more than thirty years now and, like a …
Flannel sheets
Jerome Shea December 24, 2007
Backward, turn backward, O time, in your flight, Make me a child again just for tonight Elizabeth Akers Allen The World’s Greatest Granddaughters came to town this weekend. Their coming is always a glorious upheaval along the lines of a violent meteorological event. The older will jab the doorbell …
Celebs Sounding Off... Sort of.
Jerome Shea December 15, 2007
A few weeks ago, a friend forwarded to me, with tacit endorsement, an essay by Jay Leno that a friend had found on the Internet. I found the jingoistic ideas expressed in it repugnant, but that’s not the point (after all, I disagree with most of what is floating around on the Internet). No, the …
Phantasmagoria: After the Sandia Report
Jerome Shea December 9, 2007
Back around 1989, Gentle Readers, when public education was the topic du jour, a research team under the auspices of the Sandia Corporation, here in Albuquerque, was charged with taking an honest look at our public schools in order to see if they were really as bad as everyone seemed to think. A …
Whipping Boy
Jerome Shea December 1, 2007
I have taught in college for more than 40 years, and the Longsuffering Diana has taught in our public elementary schools for more than 20 years. That’s more than 60 years in the classroom, more than 60 years of frustration and, sometimes, elation. So when I say that we know something about …
Diatribe
Jerome Shea November 9, 2007
Where to start with this Bush crowd? It’s a smorgasbord of shame, a cornucopia of corruption. Where to start? Iraq? Or how about its more focused scandals, like Blackwater’s shootings, Halliburton’s gouging, or Abu Ghraib? Katrina? Signing statements? Neocon designs on Iran? A paralysis sets in: …
Anza-Where? Desert State Park
Jerome Shea November 3, 2007
A couple of weeks ago, Shea hit the road again, back to Southern California on his Fall Break at UNM. (Readers of this space know that SoCal is one of his favorite haunts.) My plan this time was to spend a couple of days in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. But there was time beforehand to hang out …
Age... and Age
Jerome Shea October 27, 2007
“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” (Satchel Paige) There is a wonderful scene early in the movie Men in Black where an elderly, ordinary-looking man has been stricken violently with something. His companion immediately grabs hold of the man’s forehead and yanks his face off. …
Three Score and Ten
Jerome Shea October 14, 2007
“Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.” Ah, youth and age and the awkward in-between. Most of us, the lucky ones (“consider the alternative,” runs the joke), will reach a ripe age.* I have been thinking about age lately, now that I am 65 and counting. I don’t mean that I am …