Don Pogreba is a current writer and retired teacher of English, Social Studies and Debate, and a loyal, if often sad, fan of the San Diego Padres and Portland Timbers. When he is not traveling, he is working on his classroom web site or dreaming about another adventure.
The Unabomber Couldn’t Kill David Gelernter. Now Gelernter Supports Donald Trump.–Gelernter still hasn’t given up on the internet—though, like any sane person, he thinks that children shouldn’t be exposed to it too often or too much. “The average kid doesn’t even know one tenth of the books in the school library,” he scoffed. “He...
Good teachers create little oases for themselves, while others who are less well prepared adopt approaches that are ineffective or even sometimes harmful. Some seek knowledge that is not readily available to them; others batten down the hatches and eventually become impermeable to better ideas. Schools are vulnerable to vendors selling...
A collection of interesting reads to provoke thought and provide fodder for conversation.
One of the real pleasures of solo travel is that a solo traveler can perhaps more easily decide to, say, go to a cheeseburger joint on his last night in Paris instead of seeking out more elevated cuisine. When that cheeseburger joint is located in a cool, quiet neighborhood and is ranked #6 among the 14,446 restaurants in Paris...
By failing to recognize that we now live with the severe, enduring effects of de jure segregation, we avoid confronting our constitutional obligation to reverse it. If I am right that we continue to have de jure segregation, then desegregation is not just a desirable policy; it is a constitutional as well as a moral obligation that we...
Since then, the idea that there had ever been a post-racial moment has come to seem naive, even desperately so. Once the embodiment of hope, Obama leaves office publicly regretting his inability to reconcile the country’s polarization. At the same time, Donald Trump focuses the anxieties loosed by white vulnerability—an inchoate...
Four years ago, on a tour to see the interior of a dormant volcano in Iceland, I met a couple from Poland. After they expressed their admiration for Montana (I believe Legends of the Fall was their film touchstone), I mentioned that I wanted to visit Poland someday. The two men from Krakow told me that I absolutely should, but that there...
The trigger for white rage, inevitably, is black advancement. It is not the mere presence of black people that is the problem; rather, it is blackness with ambition, with drive, with purpose, with aspirations, and with demands for full and equal citizenship. It is blackness that refuses to accept subjugation, to give up. A formidable...
A few weeks off for European travel that has basically kept me from much Internet reading, but I hope you enjoy these interesting links.