Speaking With The School Board

I went to my town's school board meeting to discuss the situation with our school's teachers being removed based on allegations that teachers provided improper coaching to a small number of students. It was the first time I had ever attended such a meeting and apparently it was unusually crowded. Many people showed up to demonstrate or speak out to support their teachers. The meeting started with tenure and congratulatory announcements to various faculty, including the retirement of our district's wonderful Youth Advocate, Mrs. Low.

Immediately afterwards the floor was opened for guests to speak at the podium, at which point most of the faculty, along with our school's principal left the premises. Right away some fellow parents asked me to speak, and fortunately I had gathered my thoughts earlier in the evening: (You can watch the video from the meeting below.)

MMA Ratings, Moving On

During my five years building and running MMA Ratings I poured a lot of time and energy into it. As time went on, it consumed and ever increasing amount of my time, and even though the site (traffic, audience, profit) was growing, it was not growing at nearly the same rate that the demands were. Ironically my first ever post about MMA was about the UFC's strategy to saturate the market and the potential negative impact it could have. Maybe it was a self fulfilling prophecy for me, though admittedly a lot of the demands on me were based on the type of site I was running.

Unfortunate Allegations of Common Core Corruption

As I've mentioned, when our kids' school implemented the Common Core State Standards, I was optimistic. After the tests were behind us I was very pleased with the way my son's teacher had prepared them, both academically and emotionally. He came home happy that he had a break from homework. His most unpleasant experience with the state testing was after he had completed his tests, having to wait until the allotted time was over. I thought it all was behind us.

Boy Scouts Lift Ban on Gay Youth, But...

I've written before about my challenges with the Boy Scouts discriminatory policies against atheists. As much as this policy bothers me, their discrimination based on sexual orientation has always seemed worse. At least atheism goes against their "Fundamental Principles." Sexual orientation based discrimination requires interpretation of specific beliefs and/or values.

Can Quantum Physics Renew The Quest For Cosmic Consciousness?

Two scientists are proposing this quantum theory of consciousness that the essence of our soul is contained inside structures called microtubules within brain cells and that our experience of consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects in these microtubules.

This theory, which they dubbed orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR), is practically identical to what I used to believe when I was a teenager.

Mother's Day Eat And Run

For Mother's Day we had a delicious brunch at The Beehive. Then we went hiking at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation.

Check out more pictures below:

Ezra's Bar Mitzvah

We went to Baltimore for Ezra's bar mitzvah. It was great to see our family. We had a lot of fun.
                             
More pictures below:

Inner Harbor

While we were in Baltimore for Ezra's bar mitzvah we went walking around the Inner Harbor. Then we went for lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Later we went bowling with the Seegulls.

Check out more pictures below:

Social Media Pet Peeves

The Brian Lehrer Show asked What are your biggest social media pet peeves?

Here are a few of my twitter pet peeves and recommendations, followed by their favorite responses:

Spring Derby 5K

I ran my 3rd 5k with Eason, at the Spring Derby. He did a lot better than he did at last year's derby. This time we accomplished three goals:
1) no stopping
2) no injuries
3) no tears
And he came in ahead of me at 30:30!