Saturday, August 15, 2026
Noam is 16 today.
. . .
Usually, I develop my blog close to real time. In other words, if something happens or I learn of it on Tuesday, I will write about it on Tuesday or Wednesday. I am making an exception for two articles that appeared in the New York Times on Thursday, August 13th. I chose to delay for two reasons: 1) I had already packed in a lot for the week; 2) I wanted to think a bit. The articles are:
Should Letting Children Play Alone Outside Be a Crime?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/
To Improve Student Mental Health, University of Michigan Eases Grading https://www.nytimes.com/2026/
The connection is obvious to me. How are we raising our kids? I read these stories, just as I experience most things in life, through the lens of my own upbringing and education. See Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia (1929). My first 13 years were spent in Brooklyn, in a working class/lower middle class neighborhood, in a household of modest means. Ironically, the neighborhood had a major Mafia presence, which made it safe for us locals. Although I was an indifferent student, my success on standardized tests helped me along.
Outside of school and the home, the world of the neighborhood children, including me and my brother, was entirely self-governing. It centered almost entirely on the large schoolyard across the street from our home. Very little of importance occurred outside the schoolyard. We definitely were not bundled into cars and taken to another venue.
The rules of the games that we played and our general code of conduct were internalized from an early age. While there was certainly a cultural divide between the Italian kids and the Jewish kids (that's all there was), there was no dispute at the practical level. When is a ball fair or foul? Who's got next? When must you win by two points?
The article on children's play speaks of supervision, independence and neglect. Certainly, our dictionaries contained these terms, but they had no connection to our daily lives as children. The article says that "stranger danger" is now a factor in parent-child relations, emerging from the tragic case of Etan Patz in 1979, long after my childhood. "When the missing children’s movement first began to attract public attention during the mid-1980s, figures as high as 50,000 abductions per year in the United States were initially reported. Professional researchers, however, countered that such statistics were greatly overstated and that more accurate figures were between 70 and 600 abductions per year."
https://www.ebsco.com/
The toothpaste will never be returned to my tube, I understand, but my experience offers a way to measure the world today.
One area that has had no need, in my view, to squeeze the tube is higher education. Higher can't and shouldn't mean easier. What I learned from Greek tragedies, without going to the movies, is that Adversity Builds Character or at least it affords us the opportunity to build character whether we like it or not. The world does not get friendlier or less challenging as we move through it. It is reasonable to expect just the opposite.
Making the first year of college a sort of rest stop on the road to academic achievement is precisely the wrong way to develop mature, competent individuals. I don't know about medical school, but law school almost has it right. Performance in 1L, the first year, controls much of your destiny. The key elements of law - contracts, torts, criminal law, civil procedure, property and constitutional law - are typically front loaded on the 1L menu.
Taking time to acclimate to the demands of your new environment will not win cases or clients.
Monday, August 17, 2026
Miles Davis released Kind of Blue on August 17, 1959. It should be a national holiday.
To Improve Student Mental Health, University of Michigan Eases Grading https://www.nytimes.com/2026/
The connection is obvious to me. How are we raising our kids? I read these stories, just as I experience most things in life, through the lens of my own upbringing and education. See Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia (1929). My first 13 years were spent in Brooklyn, in a working class/lower middle class neighborhood, in a household of modest means. Ironically, the neighborhood had a major Mafia presence, which made it safe for us locals. Although I was an indifferent student, my success on standardized tests helped me along.
Outside of school and the home, the world of the neighborhood children, including me and my brother, was entirely self-governing. It centered almost entirely on the large schoolyard across the street from our home. Very little of importance occurred outside the schoolyard. We definitely were not bundled into cars and taken to another venue.
The rules of the games that we played and our general code of conduct were internalized from an early age. While there was certainly a cultural divide between the Italian kids and the Jewish kids (that's all there was), there was no dispute at the practical level. When is a ball fair or foul? Who's got next? When must you win by two points?
The article on children's play speaks of supervision, independence and neglect. Certainly, our dictionaries contained these terms, but they had no connection to our daily lives as children. The article says that "stranger danger" is now a factor in parent-child relations, emerging from the tragic case of Etan Patz in 1979, long after my childhood. "When the missing children’s movement first began to attract public attention during the mid-1980s, figures as high as 50,000 abductions per year in the United States were initially reported. Professional researchers, however, countered that such statistics were greatly overstated and that more accurate figures were between 70 and 600 abductions per year."
https://www.ebsco.com/
The toothpaste will never be returned to my tube, I understand, but my experience offers a way to measure the world today.
One area that has had no need, in my view, to squeeze the tube is higher education. Higher can't and shouldn't mean easier. What I learned from Greek tragedies, without going to the movies, is that Adversity Builds Character or at least it affords us the opportunity to build character whether we like it or not. The world does not get friendlier or less challenging as we move through it. It is reasonable to expect just the opposite.
Making the first year of college a sort of rest stop on the road to academic achievement is precisely the wrong way to develop mature, competent individuals. I don't know about medical school, but law school almost has it right. Performance in 1L, the first year, controls much of your destiny. The key elements of law - contracts, torts, criminal law, civil procedure, property and constitutional law - are typically front loaded on the 1L menu.
Taking time to acclimate to the demands of your new environment will not win cases or clients.
Monday, August 17, 2026
Miles Davis released Kind of Blue on August 17, 1959. It should be a national holiday.
. . .
This screenshot shows the cost of living in the most expensive U.S. cities versus the national average.
It doesn’t necessarily correlate to the cost of raising a child.
I am surprised that the Holy Land doesn’t lead this list with so many families turning to private schools and expensive extracurricular activities.
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
Here’s a factoid that will probably evoke a “Wow!” Ralph Nader, age 92, does not own a cellphone, a computer or a credit card.
Of course, the following story is a good reason to not own a computer. “Google Just Made It Easier for Campaigns to Send You Fund-Raising Emails”
. . .
I had lunch at Mila Cafe, 694 Columbus Avenue, not named after the kids’ other grandmother. It’s a small place, 18 chairs and 2 stools, almost all occupied at the lunch hour. The top 2/3rds of the walls are painted Columbia University blue. One woman at the counter takes your order and your money and later delivers your food.
The whole menu is presented on 10 small blackboards above eye level. Prices are remarkably reasonable, French toast or pancakes are $9, omelettes with any three ingredients $11. I had a panini, honey turkey, mustard, provolone, lettuce and tomato on a nicely toasted ciabatta ($8.95).
This is a picture of 2/3rds of half a page in today’s New York Times business section. It is headed NOTICE OF NAMES OF PERSONS APPEARING AS OWNERS OF CERTAIN UNCLAIMED PROPEERTY. I think that I counted 141 names. Of course, I looked for me and other familiar names, which was quite difficult considering the complete randomness of the list. While so much of current technology and economic news deals with A.I., could someone have thought to ask for this list in alphabetic order? It might have taken 30 seconds on the outside, saving countless readers from squinting over the names searching for a match. Or, is it better to talk of the life-changing potential of A.I. without putting it to use?
Is that the same Iran that we previously annihilated, destroyed, blown to pieces, obliterated? Or, as the White House press release of March 3, 2025 declared “We’ll Never Tire of Winning Under President Trump.”
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
. . .
Jolibee is a very successful Philippine-based fried chicken chain. It has over 1,700 stores worldwide, but only two in Manhattan. I’ve now been to both, eating a late lunch at 14 East 42nd Street. Perched between the New York Public Library and Grand Central Station, it will always be busy.
Three electronic tablets are available for ordering. It was simple, intuitive even. I had a combo, two pieces of chicken, a biscuit, gravy, mashed potatoes (instead of French fries) and a fountain Diet Coke (no refills) ($12.99). The chicken pieces were thighs, hot from the fryer. One was regular seasoning and one was spicy, genuinely spicy. All good.
Friday, August 21, 2026
Attention: Bob Saginaw, Cousin Jerry L., My Brother, Stony Brook Steve
You are all superior researchers. Please find out who was the first guy (undoubtedly male) to wear his baseball cap backwards and why and is it too late to punish him?
. . .
“President Trump this week promised an ‘economic D-Day’ against Iran, a ‘crushing’ operation to ‘cripple’ Iran.”
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