“The Wave” is back — this time it’s not a high school experiment — The One America wave was posted all over Twitter this Sunday after the former president spoke at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. The pictures that evening were posted by disgusted reporters who realized that the attendees were told to raise their right hand (only) and put up one finger. It…

“I would surely be fired if I taught the material I was so committed to teach”…aka: the truth — UPDATE TO STORY: Many readers are confused by the title’s premise that I would indeed be fired. Truth be told, I never for a moment thought my colleagues were correct — cynical, but wrong. …

And what can be done? — As a veteran of 32 high school campaigns, I have ‘Teacher Dreams.’ I am told that a great many teachers have similar ‘dreams’. Usually, I am back in a classroom or at a high school event like a pep rally floating in strange, surreal dreams. I find myself trying to…

Historians often remind us (because we clearly need reminding) that once there was ‘A Greatest Generation.’ The men and woman of all races and creeds took to the South Pacific Seas, the Normandy Beaches and the White Cliffs of Dover to dismantle murderous regimes. But there was so much more…

Reina‘s True Story of Abandonment and Resilience. — It’s the first day of a new school year, and as usual, I am butchering the students’ names in my 11th-grade American Literature class. The students are forgiving. I’m jovial. To remember 130 or more names, I associate them with something memorable, like a song. “Hey, you’re “April Come She…

History Repeats itself with Vladimir Putin playing Hitler — Last evening November 12, 2023, I decided to watch the third episode of All the Light You Cannot See. It is the episodic TV adaption of Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning historical fiction novel that captures the Nazi invasion of France as told through the eyes of the blind — Marie…

It’s Madness to Consider Trump Fit for Any Office — This is just a refresher course for those of you out there who might be reading about the polls that indicate that Trump is leading or close to the margin of error (aptly named) for a second term in the Oval Office. A word about polls: some of you who…

What’s a Voter to Do? — Mark Twain wrote in his autobiography, “If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.” And those times are upon us. From the behavior of the candidates running for the presidency on the Republican side, the so-called “debates” have…

Steve Inskeep’s “Differ We Must” Focuses on Listening “On January 6, 2021, then-US Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) told Jordan to get away from her because ‘You f*ck*ng did this!’ ‘Yesterday, in a speech at the University of Minnesota, Cheney explained: ‘Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned…