Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Yesterday I took an electric leaf blower and blew out a layer of dead leaves, broken sticks, moldy mulch, and all the detritus of a too long winter out into the yards, then carted it away to the top of a hill and into the woods. It made way for us to plant flowers and …
“As writers and historians – one Jewish, one Catholic – we both find ourselves able to remember the crackle of burning pages and wonder at the beauty in the chapel. It’s in this duality – the messiness of real people who lived in the past – that we found the bright ages, illuminating our own …
Thanksgiving is coming and our traditions have changed. My brother’s kids are grown and they have their own things to do. My father is unlikely to leave the house. My mother is now three years’ gone, as of yesterday. My sister and I agree that intensive all-day cooking is really not what we’re going to …
When I was in graduate school, I spent three semesters in medieval historiography seminars in which the work was to weekly read a book, then write a book review, then distribute your book review and other published book reviews to the class. In this way we would educate each other about the foundational work in …
I recently discovered a computer directory containing 749 recipes written, organized, annotated, and collected by my late mom.  Somewhere there are expanding files and written recipes, though not all of them made it through all the moves. Still, I have these, and in them I can hear her voice. This dish is named after an Iranian …
MAC & CHEESE Ã la Mom My sister sent me an email asking if I knew how our mom made mac & cheese, because her daughter was suddenly craving it. It was a standard dish my mom made, especially around holidays. So typed in “macaroni” into a search of an old hard drive of hers …
Over the last month, I’ve been tracking a collection of lawsuits applying disability civil rights laws to mask mandates, specifically to overturn BANS on mask mandates as violating IDEA, ADA, and Section 504 in various ways. The differences matter for many reasons, but in part because IDEA has an “exhaustion” rule intended to preclude disabled …
Yesterday morning, I sat in my office at home and answered email, helped draft an essay, had a meeting with graduate students, and smelled cigarette smoke, as if someone in the next room had smoked perhaps an hour ago. I coughed, not because I had to cough, but because the smell of cigarettes tells me …
Earlier this week, the ACLU and Disability Rights South Carolina announced they are suing the state over a law that bans school districts from requiring masks. Read the press release here. Read the complaint here. **** Yesterday, The Nation published my article on the core argument here, as expressed by two earlier lawsuits, one in …
Today’s latest piece at CNN comes from a simple observation, but not one I’ve seen made often: This is actually the third school year impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. And it doesn’t feel like we have a real plan. Throughout, I’ve been pushing (in various essays, tweets, calls with school admin, and more) for educational …