Love this article. For once, the comments are almost as good as the essay. I’m just surprised that there aren’t more references to the painful ways people refer to the past:

1. that’s history now.
2. back in the day.
3. way back in the day.
4. in olden times.
5. In times gone by

(I’ll think of more as the day goes on)

I liked this article a lot; I love the idea that a small, liberal arts college can have a coach who creates a program where “…with about 500 men at Haverford, Tom has to get 1 percent of the male student body to be among the country’s best 50 runners. That’s insane.”

For teachers, though, I’ll use these comments as a starting point for a discussion:

“I was one of those far from exceptional high school runners who arrived at Haverford and was swept along by the program and Tom’s teachings,” said J. B. Haglund, who as a senior in 2001-2 won the Division III championship in cross-country, 5,000 and 10,000 meters. “I remember one day seeing Marcus O’Sullivan on the track doing a Tom workout, and I remember that Tom spent as much time working with the slowest kid on our team that day as he did with Marcus.

“Whoever you are, if you want to come and work hard, Tom has time for you. He says this over and over: ‘The team is only as strong as the commitment of the least-accomplished person on the team.’ ”

The full letter is here.

Favorite paragraphs:

Since she learned to walk, my daughter and I have regularly taken outings together to the Kingsessing Branch of the Free Library. I cherish my memories of intimate walks as we hold hands walking Westward, often commenting on the late afternoon sun as it approached the horizon. We share information about our days, remember the stories contained in the books the we are returning and talk about the type of books we’d like to find at the library. Always, my three year old daughter has her own library card grasped in the hand that is not holding mine.

If our local library branch is to close, there is no doubt in my mind that her access to books will be limited as a result. We will not constantly have new titles to choose from when we sit down to read on rainy weekend afternoons or before bedtime because there is no way that we will be able to travel as frequently to the next closest branch which is more than fifteen blocks away. Even with a financial crisis in our city, there is no reason that my daughter should be denied local, easy access to all that libraries offer. This is a future that contradicts my own experience of growing up as a library patron and saddens me as I think about all of the young kids and adults who eagerly enter libraries across the city searching for knowledge, inspiration, and sanctuary.

As a high school teacher, I am acutely aware of the fact that many of my students have very complicated lives and work very hard to complete the complex assignments and projects that are part of my classes. Teaching in this city, I have always felt comfortable with the belief that all of my students have adequate access to technology and information because none of them live very far from a branch library. If branches are to close this will all change and I imagine numerous situations where it will legitimately not be possible for these teenagers to be able to make it to a public library during open hours. For the first time in my teaching career, some of my students will have legitimate excuses as to why they couldn’t complete the research for a project or get a book that I recommended to them.

“I was born in 1941. That was the year they bombed Pearl Harbor. I’ve been living in darkness ever since. It looks like things are going to change now.”

Article here.

Yeah, we made a lot of noise when the Phillies won but last night was unbelievable. Folks banging pots and pans, folks singing, folks holding their car horns while driving about.

It continued until after 2 AM.

There is a new America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not. The new America is the sum of many small changes — a new subdivision here, a new school there, a new industry where there had been swampland — changes that add up to a broad transformation of our lives. Our task is to guide these changes. For, though change is inevitable, change for the better is a full-time job.

–Adlai E. Stevenson II, speech delivered in Miami, Florida, September 8, 1956.

From Scott Horton’s exceptional blog.

Casting Daddy’s ballot, 9:05 AM, November 4, 2008, St. Frances De Sales church basement:

Bob Dylan’s reply, ca. 1967, to reporter Michael Iachetta:

“What I’ve been doin’ mostly is seein’ only a few close friends, readin’ little about the outside world, porin’ over books you never heard of, thinkin’ about where I’m goin’, and why am I runnin’, and am I mixed up too much, and what am I knowin’, and what am I givin’, and what am I takin’. And mainly what I’ve been doin’ is workin’ on gettin’ better and makin’ better music, which is what my life is all about.”

cited in Anthony Scaduto, Dylan: An Intimate Biography, (NY: Signet Classics, 1971), 285.

So Ed Rendell and Michael Nutter have already called this week…that’s cool.

But Jimmy Rollins just called to invite me to hear Joe Biden speak tomorrow.

That’s more like it.

Via Gail Collins:

I believe we have met them before. They are the men and women who get up at a town hall meeting after the candidate had just made a 20-minute opening speech about his/her plans for health care reform, and say: “What I want to know is, what are you going to do about medical costs?”