Lieutenant Birnbaum

The Book of the Week is “Lieutenant Birnbaum: A Soldier’s Story:  Growing Up Jewish in America, Liberating the D.P. Camps, and a New Home in Jerusalem” by Meyer Birnbaum, published in 1994.  This is the autobiography of a memorable character. He rose quickly through the ranks of the U.S. Army during WWII, though not without trouble.

In one incident, he was court-martialed for practicing his religion.  Religious law dictated that Birnbaum wear a yarmulke all the time, including meal times.  An Army rule prohibited the wearing of a “hat” while eating. Birnbaum’s  attorney was incompetent, so Birnbaum defended himself at his hearing.  He argued that a phrase in the oath he took upon his military induction indicated that his religion was more important than his patriotism:  ” …to serve God and my country …”  He was acquitted.

Read the book for further adventures of this clever military officer.

Over My Head

The Book of the Week is “Over My Head” by Claudia L. Osborn, published in 2000.  This depressing memoir describes what happened to the author, a medical doctor, after she sustained a severe head injury.  She was, without wearing a helmet, bicycling in the Rocky Mountains with a friend when she was hit by a truck. She did not remember the accident.  The damage done to her brain prevented her from resuming her career. Osborn was referred to New York University’s head trauma program to try to recover her ability to live a normal life.  The program features group therapy.  Read the book to learn the kinds of techniques used to help brain-damaged individuals regain cognitive skills, and how the author fared thereafter.

Bonus Post

I am pleased to announce that Noah Gotbaum and I will be appearing as guests on the CUNY TV show, “Edcast,” to be aired on:

Wednesday, March 23, 10am, 3pm and 11pm

Saturday, March 26, 8pm

and Sunday March 27, 10am.

That’s channel 75 on TimeWarner and Cablevision, and channel 77 on RCN in New York City.

You may recall that my book: “The Education and Deconstruction of Mr. Bloomberg, How the Mayor’s Education and Real Estate Development Policies Affected New Yorkers 2002-2009 Inclusive” is available at Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, among other online stores.

Edcast lasts 30 minutes, but the Mayor’s education reforms have set New York City grade-school students back for decades to come.

There is an easy two-step solution to improving education in this city:

Step 1. Get rid of all of the patronage-hired, pricey “education consultants” that are draining the education budget, and select vendors through competitive bidding. (I mention in my book a mere handful of the countless examples of this exorbitant spending:

Platform Learning, whose fee was a projected $7.6 million for a projected five years, that snowballed into $62 million in three years;

All Kinds of Minds, which fulfilled only 20% of its $10 million contract with the Department of Education;

Cambridge Education, which was paid more than $16 million to measure schools’ usage of data; the personnel commuted from England at this city’s expense;

Accenture was paid $2 million instead of $500,000, which should have gone to the lowest bidder in a nine-company competitive bidding process.)

Step 2. Use the vast quantity of money saved to reduce class sizes, hire experienced teachers, purchase books and supplies, etc.

An Irish Country Childhood

The Book of the Week is “An Irish Country Childhood” by Marrie Walsh, published in 1995.  This is the kind of book on which a movie or TV show (such as Meet Me in St. Louis or Little House on the Prairie) might be based.  It describes the spirit of the times of a particular culture in a certain era; in this case, an agricultural community in County Mayo, Ireland in the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Walsh was born in 1929.  She attended public school where “The teachers were not local and they never mixed socially.  Teaching was a very prestigious job in those days…”  Her maternal grandmother and great aunt attended a Hedgerow School, which evolved during the enforcement of the Penal Laws (1695-1829), a time of oppression of Catholics by Great Britain.  Classes in Irish, Latin and English were held outdoors.  Tuition was in the form of corn or turf.

“Brought up on a daily diet of legends, myths and ghost stories,” Walsh and her many siblings were fascinated by the paranormal.  Various places mentioned in her anecdotes were haunted.  The author’s ancestors thought weasels were actually witches and were therefore scared of them.

The kids performed labor on farms in the community, and received compensation in the form of being taught a song or story, and perhaps some food.  They loved drinking buttermilk, and participated in daring episodes of pinching fruit from the neighbors’ orchards until they got caught.  Read the book to learn more about this and Walsh’s other adventures.