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.
With extra days planned in Vilnius for no other reason than that Captain Ramius had spoken so highly of the city and a cheaper plane ticket to Poland if I waited, I had originally planned to spend five nights in the Lithuanian capital. While I absolutely enjoyed the city, a fellow traveler spoke highly of coastal Klaipeda and a tour...
My entire knowledge of the Baltic states before I arrived in Tallinn could be summed up as follows: I knew the captain of the Soviet submarine in The Hunt for Red October had fished in the rivers near Vilnius when he was a boy, I knew that one of the cities would be having a medieval festival when I arrived, and I had some knowledge from...
Typically, I offer just a short review at the end of my Seven Essential Quotes reviews of books, but this book was so infuriating and so interesting that I thought I’d offer some context for the quotes I’ve selected. Hillbilly Elegy has become one of those books that’s used to explain poverty in America because it fits...
I’m fundamentally a coward when it comes to the threat of physical violence. With my last fight occurring at the age of fourteen, I shy away from any situation that seems potentially hazardous. When I travel, I’m especially cautious, always mentally preparing for the need to escape a dangerous situation should one arise. Today, on a...
While it’s still a bit surprising that there is a flight leaving Helena at 6:00 p.m., tonight marks the beginning of my long set of flights and layovers to my first real destination during my summer trip, Helsinki. A couple of quick overnights in Seattle and Paris down, I’ll spend four days in Finland before moving to the...
collection of interesting reads to provoke thought and provide fodder for conversation.
This is the itinerary for my July 2017 trip which will involve visits to Helsinki, the Baltics, Poland, and Paris, culminating with seeing U2 in concert in Paris.
Yet today, the “acting white” criticism that was once occasionally used by racist whites has been adopted by some black schoolchildren. That is the central mystery that this book addresses: what happened between the nineteenth century and today? The answer, I believe, springs from the complex history of desegregation. Although...
Critics charged that Bloomberg was overstating the numbers of teachers who scored low on tests. Michael Di Carlo of the Albert Shanker Institute looked for the sources of this assertion and found that about 30 percent of teachers who graduated from college in 1992– 1993 were in the bottom quartile, and only 40.9 percent were from the top...