Roz Chast and Alison Bechdel memoirs

Wills, DNRs, power of attorney, mobility issues, all of the problems that we all spend our lives trying to avoid thinking about and planning for come out in this beautiful memoir If you’re over 50, you absolutely have to read this.

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Drash of Rivaleah Imber Safdar

“Whether or not you are Jewish, sometime in your life you must have felt that feeling of not belonging, or not feeling welcome. Maybe it was your first day at your new school, or you just got hired for a new job and everyone there knows everyone else, except for you. “

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Bullying and your kids in the San Francisco Unified School District

Sadly, I have come to learn more than I want to about how bullying complaints are handled in the San Francisco Unified School District. Because kids begin committing suicide as young as ten years old due to bullying, you probably need to start paying attention to it sooner than you think. The most important thing…

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Yes, to do lists are awful. But what’s better?

Late last week I read this article “To-do lists don’t work” published on the Harvard Business Review by Daniel Markowitz.  Markowitz’s thesis is that todo lists don’t work because they leave too much of the prioritization of tasks to the “last minute mind”. In other words you have a moment, you look at your list,…

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Military service of my grandfather, Jack Watson.

[You can read Jack’s obituary here. -Shabbir] Jack had a sizable military career, starting in World War 2 and running through 1965 when he finally retired as a Senior Master Sergeant of the Air Force. His whole military life he had been attached to Bomber squadrons. First the 305th Bomb Group at the end of…

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Grieving over the victims of the Newtown, CT shooting

If you follow me on Facebook, you may have noticed that I haven't had anything to say about gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, CT shooting.  In fact, I haven't had much to say at all on the topic.  It isn't the case that I have been "waiting for a more appropriate time".…

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Why I’m giving my favorite gloves away

These are my favorite gloves. Sarah knitted them, and they're fingerless/thumbless, so you actually can do useful things with your hands. I'm giving them away (with Sarah's permission) to La Casa de las Madres so they can be gifted to a woman in their shelter system who has lost everything in order to save her…

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