The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Month: June 2006

  • Superman: Meh of Steel

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    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    Last night I went to see Superman Returns by accident, sort of. (I went to see Cars but it wasn’t playing — curse you and your occasionally-inaccurate schedules, Yahoo! Movies!) Having slogged all the way out to the theater, and having expectations that I’d see this sooner or later, I bought a ticket to Bryan…

  • The Constitution, the Flag, and Fire

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    by

    mongreldogs
    in ,

    OK, nominally this blog is supposedly about education. But school’s out, I don’t have any urgent education-think to lay out there, and there are other issues that speak to me. Today it’s about the so-called “flag burning amendment”. For those who object to political content bleeding into “neutral” areas, I’ll quarantine it behind a “Read…

  • The Rule of Law in Libraries

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    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    I saw this piece on slashdot. It’s about a librarian (Michele Reuty) who is coming under fire for — gasp! — insisting that police follow the laws of New Jersey and obtain a warrant before rifling through the records of a public library. Despite following the policies of the library and, you know, the law,…

  • Mainstream acceptance — woo hoo!

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    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    Well, I went away to Vermont for four days and nearly missed the telltale sign that my blog is Out There in cyberspace. That’s right, I got my first spam comment yesterday morning. I must be on somebody’s radar… 🙂 Interestingly enough I was wondering if having comment moderation turned on was overkill. Guess that’s…

  • Why “Mongrel Dogs”?

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    by

    mongreldogs
    in ,

    First of all, as noted on the About page, the title of this blog comes from a Dylan song, “My Back Pages”, specifically In a soldier’s stance I aim my hands At the mongrel dogs who teach Fearing not I become my enemy In the moment that I preach I like the euphony of the…

  • Should the Net be like railroads or the interstates?

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    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    There’s a pretty decent explanation of the social history underlying the fight for Net Neutrality. This is going to be a big fight, and the author creates a useful narrative to understand it. As a teacher, I could wish for somewhat better editing and prose, but hey, it’s the summer and I’m off the clock.…

  • Snow Day

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    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    Not really — not in mid-June in New Jersey — but I’m still learning WordPress and wanted to try uploading a picture. If I’ve done everything correctly, there should be a thumbnail image above, which links to the full image. This one happens to have been taken from the Russell portico roof on 2003 December…

  • Old proof but rediscovered

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    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    I had to dig this out for a slashdot debate and remembered that I’m reasonably proud of it. It only relates to teaching in that I wrote it up as a handout for my AP Physics class. The basic idea is, it has been asserted that allowing an ice cube to melt in a cup…

  • Advice to New Teachers

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    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    This is actually an ancient-of-days thing I wrote many many moons ago for a friend of mine who was beginning his teaching career. But even seven years later I think I have the same general opinion, so I’m offering it up mostly unedited. Also, I want to try out multi-screen posting. 🙂 -=-BhpG This is…

  • Shameless self-promotion

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    by

    mongreldogs
    in

    Who am I, what gives me the gumption to write this, and why should you care what I say about education? Fair questions all. Let’s start with the last one first. Why should you care? I could offer up genealogies or testimonials or credentials (see below) — heck, this being education, I probably should offer…