I just finished reading Succeeding When You’re Supposed To Fail: The 6 Enduring Principles of High Achievement by Rom Brafman. So much of it deals with issues of parenting and teaching non-traditional students (which I do at the Clemente Course), that I thought I would take some time to summarize the book for myself and…
My latest essay published by Brain, Child Magazine is about why my 10 year old son needs hugs and how I screwed that up: My 10-year-old son can be a train wreck. I know it’s not his fault. His limbs are growing faster than he knows, and his brain is all over the place, from the…
Comic Sans roundup! Ironically, Blogger does not allow me to use the font here. But you know it. Turns out Comic Sans was developed at Microsoft using two of the biggest selling comic books of the late 1980s: The Dark Knight Returns (lettered by John Constanza) and Watchmen (lettered by Dave Gibbons). Here’s the Urban…
Earlier this year, I worked on an excavation in northern Sudan. The most amazing thing we found were a couple of rock-cut rooms in a mortuary temple a hundred yards from the pyramids of the royal cemetery. In the rock-cut rooms, there were columns, and in one of them, capitals of unusual design. My contribution…
I’ve been a regular blogger for the local singing group my family belongs to, the Newton Family Singers. I play guitar and other instruments, too. For that blog, I write about songs — their origin, stories about their composition, arrangement and interpretation. Some of my favorite posts: Seven Bridges Road If I Had a Boat…
Grub Street is a terrific resource for writers in the Boston area — they offer classes, consultations and conferences. They also have a daily blog of writing advice. My contribution was about what I learned from listening to the “Breaking Bad Insider Podcast.” It starts: I’m among the many fans who are eagerly awaiting each…
After Breaking Bad’s last episode’s cliffhanger, I have no idea whether Hank, Gomie or Jesse survives, but I had a sudden flash of insight as to what will happen with Walter White and the Neo-Nazis. My prediction is based half on what is being shown with the characters, and half based on analyzing the narrative…
The July 14, 2013 issue of the Boston Globe Magazine printed this letter: DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION Just a quick note to tell Jack Cheng (Connections, June 23) that he wrenched my attention away from the crossword with his first paragraph: “A 70-year-old man is blocking the base path . . . . As he stumbles, I race toward…
My original title was “The Opposite of Racism is not ‘Race-Blind’” for what it’s worth. Here’s how it starts: Only white people think the opposite of racism is “race-blind.” That was one of the first thoughts that came into my head as I heard about the process of the George Zimmerman’s trial. (Just to be…
My latest contribution to the Boston Globe Magazine came in the Connections column on Sunday June 23, 2013 begins this way: A 70-YEAR-OLD MAN IS BLOCKING THE BASE PATH. He’s clearly in the wrong here, so I shove him forward, and as he stumbles, I race toward second base. Wiffle ball is not to be trifled…
Jack Cheng, PhD 