What's Next?

I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend the rest of my life with than Tom Friedman. That's right, the New York Times columnist whose experience and research offers great--and practical--insight into our nation's future. (Tom: I already know about Mrs. Friedman. I'm just a dreamer. And maybe you don't put your socks in the hamper, which would be a dealbreaker.) Last evening I was surfing the 12 channels I can afford, wondering why I hate TV. Suddenly, there, on C-SPAN, was my favorite columnist, addressing the National Governors' Association. He based his talk on his new book, That Used to Be Us , and he gave the governors, and viewers like me, a lot to think about. Friedman's background includes extensive research on the Middle East, One of his early books is The Lexus and the Olive Tree , followed by The World is Flat and Hot, Flat, and Crowded . He has made a career of looking at technology and its effects on the global world; he also sees issues not ...

Lately, tests are not my friend. After my sleep study, the doctor let me know that I did indeed have sleep apnea, so I'll be going soon to get the adjustments for my "continuous positive airway path," the machine that will become my new nighttime entertainment. If that test was not enough, I gave a test to my freshman writing students last Friday. I guess I am not surprised to find that they can't fix grammar, punctuation, and mechanics in incorrect sentences. I keep trying, and I keep failing to get it into their brains. In five weeks, I won't be able to repair their 12 years' inadequate emphasis on reading and writing, and I feel down about that. I want them to enjoy reading and writing, but it's not going to happen. One of my students is on the football team. He seemed interested when I taught Bloom's taxonomy of learning: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Alfred Bloom created the so-called "ladder of l...

One evening, early in my married life, I invited my Mom to come over for dinner with Herbie and me. I don't remember what I fixed, but when dinner was over, Mom started to help me clear the table. She and Herbie had both worked all day, and I had been home, so I told them to go watch the evening news; I would do the dishes and join them shortly. When I finished up and went to the living room, I found my husband, stretched out on the sofa, sound asleep and snoring heartily. In the recliner chair across from the sofa, my Mom was also asleep and alternately snoring, not breathing, and gasping. Douglas Edwards--or maybe Harry Reasoner--was reading the news on CBS, but no one was listening. I took a chair and watched the rest of the news, then woke my Mom up and sent her home. This anecdote took on new meaning recently when I traveled overnight in the car with my daughter. After the trip she told me I snored, stopped breathing, and gasped. Funny, but I am now the same age my Mom was whe...