America's Most Critical Journal since 1999
by Starr Sackstein, MJE and concerned city school teacher _______ With new initiatives changing like hygienic people change their undergarments, little success can be expected from education. “No Child Left Behind” was put in place to ensure that all stu... More »
By Dan Geddes Gossip is a form of legal tender, a social coinage we enjoy spending or saving as we would any other form of currency. To hear gossip is like finding coins in the street. “I can use this later,” you may think as someone tells you something, ... More »
By Dan Geddes This winter Amsterdam’s canals froze over for the first time since 1997. The ice was deemed safe enough to skate on, and so crowds of people found their ways down to the frozen surface of the canals to skate or just look around. Many people sta... More »
by Dan Geddes Like many Amsterdam residents, my family does not have a back garden, and so during warm summer days, when we wish to be outdoors, we head to the Westerpark, only a few minutes away by bicycle. The Westerpark is the smallest of the parks near t... More »
by Dan Geddes They say you can get the best apple-pie in Amsterdam on Saturday at the little café on the Noordermarkt. I get mine smothered with plenty of slagroom (whipped cream) to dunk the last pieces of piecrust in, and a cappuccino. Apple-pie is but on... More »
Not German. That’s the first thing they tell you, in the Dutch language books and everywhere else. Well, it’s really not. Linguists even date Dutch as the older of the two languages, though with a common ancestor. But there is still some bitterness... More »
by Dan Geddes When you think of Holland, the bicycle stands right up there with dikes, windmills, cheese and wooden shoes. It’s very flat here of course, so hills are almost nowhere an issue. Bridges represent the steepest vertical challenge. Many peop... More »
by Dan Geddes A friend once told me that was Amsterdam was the greatest place on earth, “except for the weather. When you find yourself on the Kalverstraat on a cold, rainy day, you might wonder what you are doing here.” There are many great things... More »
Years ago, back when Al Gore invented the Internet, grammar began to ebb with the tide of changing times. One foot inside the grave, in imminent danger of falling into the same hole as Latin and Yiddish, our beloved friend suddenly found itself subdued by th... More »
Our society should consider TV watching to be a guilty pleasure, but it really doesn’t. Although educators bemoan the TV time spent by our children, and moral crusaders scold Hollywood for sex and violence, these critics of television are generally regarded ... More »
Despite expectations that the Presidential election debates would serve as the substantive part of the election campaign, the three debates between Al Gore and George W. Bush were only another shallow bit of show biz, only slightly more confrontational than a ... More »
by Dan Geddes 15 March 2000 Converting shopping malls into prisons is a cost-effective way to create prison space to house America’s growing population of non-violent criminal offenders. America has an undisputed need for prison space, as we keep more than t... More »