The flood of news coverage about the suicide of Phoebe Prince has set me to thinking about what makes kids into bullies. My children attend JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School. Students at all academic levels are admitted to the school. JCDS is less concerned about intellect than about whether the student, and his or… Read More »
Many of you have probably heard by now about the Kentucky-bound US. Airways Express flight that was diverted last week when the flight crew was alarmed by a Jewish teenager putting on tefillin (New York Times).
January 26, 2010 John Holiver, President St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center 736 Cambridge Street Brighton, MA 02135 Dear Mr. Holiver, My wife, A… Kamens, was treated in your emergency room (ER) early in the morning on Sunday, January 17. The doctor who treated her told her to seek follow-up care with her primary care physician (PCP),… Read More »
[You can read the whole series of Honda Village postings here.] January 22, 2010 Ray Ciccolo Village Automotive Group 75 North Beacon Street Allston, MA 02134-1912 Dear Mr. Ciccolo, Once again, I find myself sending you a M.G.L. Chapter 93a letter because of Honda Village’s deceptive trade practices. In June 2009, Honda Village started sending… Read More »
Last November, I posted on my blog a copy of a letter which I faxed to Congressman Robert Wexler, in which I chastised him for giving my email address (which I gave him when I made a donation to his campaign, so that he could send me a receipt) to another politician’s campaign and demanded… Read More »
I want to be able to switch easily between my computer speakers and headset. Apparently, that’s easier said than done. Some motherboards shut off audio output in back automatically when you plug something into the front. Alas, my ASUS motherboard doesn’t do that. Even if it did, that wouldn’t be “easily” — I don’t want… Read More »
(Simulblogged at universalhub.com.) The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a convoluted(*) unemployment insurance system, under which employers are required to make various quarterly and annual filings and quarterly payments involving at least two different state agencies. This system is administered by the Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA), who decided to replace their old, paper-based system with… Read More »
I first asked Frank Shaw at Vanguard Realty in Brighton, MA to stop sending me junk mail in January 2008, through a contact form on his Web site. He ignored me. More junk mail arrived in late March, so I asked him again, this time using both the form and a phone call. He sent… Read More »
In today’s Boston Herald: Learn from Israel Monday, January 11, 2010 The Israelis do not use racial profiling for airport security (“European response mixed to new U.S. security demands,” Jan. 4). They use profiling, which includes patterns of behavior, coordination of intelligence and sophisticated modeling of which country of origin as but one factor. Interviews… Read More »
I am an email pack-rat. I have saved just about every email message I’ve sent or received at work or at home in the past twenty years (excluding messages sent to public mailing lists). That’s a lot of email, over 400,000 messages. I don’t just do this for the heck of it. I look for… Read More »