Jane Haddam

So, what can I say?  I’ve been having a very unusual week. Some of it has been very good, really, in spite of Irene–but then, I was one of the luckier people with Irene, because we didn’t lose power.  I did have to go without a phone for about three days, but that’s back now…

I say possibly because Irene isn’t supposed to get to this state until about midnight tonight, so I may be speaking prematurely.  It’s about four o’clock on Saturday afternoon, and all we’ve seen up here so far is a few periods of rain, all short but heavy, and a few periods of minor thunder, also…

Well, today was my first day back at teaching, and all I can say is that it was nowhere near as depressing as I thought it was going to be.  That’s something, of course, and I’m going to hold onto it. In the meantime, Hurrican Irene–which is supposed to be down to a cat 1…

I’ve been looking at the comments over the last couple of days and thinking that you’re all talking past each other. So let me start with a few things. First, I find it very odd that when we talk about testing these days, we talk about using those tests to evaluate teachers. Why? Traditionally, we…

So it’s Sunday, and outside it’s muggy and foggy and depressing.  It feels like I’ve been up forever, but I don’t have music on yet.  Some of the schools start up this week, at the very end of the week, although there seems to be a trend to go back to starting just after Labor…

So, I’m having this very odd day.  I am, for some reason, more “up” than I’ve been for a while–both more awake, and in a better mood.  The awakeness is probably just a function of having slept in a little–I didn’t get up until six!–and the better mood is probably at least in part having…

So.  It’s Sunday morning, and my work for the day is finished, and I have tea.  I should have Bach playing behind me, or Mozart, or that sort of thing, because that’s what I do on Sunday mornings.  That is not happening, right now, because, for some reason known only to itself, the machine on…

Sometimes when the comments go haywire, I’m completely surprised.  Sometimes, I know it even as I’m typing the original post.  Yesterday was one of those second times. So, to be clearer here: I DO NOT want to return to the Fifties. I was just trying to give a clear example of the difference between structural…

I think it’s interesting that, in what comments there were, what I got was:  oh, okay, we should do social programs, and that kind of thing. But I specifically didn’t say social programs–I said that society should be structured in a way that made a decent life possible for the vast majority of people who…

So, back to the original question–some people can fend for themselves, and some people can’t.  What do we do about them? For the moment, I want to put aside the issue of how to define “can’t,” at least in terms of who should get aid. I don’t much like the idea of things like “the…