Welcome…welcome.
Does anyone else wonder why so few guests in interviews say, “You are welcome” in response to a hot or interviewer saying, “Thank you?” My former neighbor and good friend, Michael Krepon, wondered about it one time when we were sitting around watching some sporting even on TV. I’ll write more about Michael and the conversation in a couple of paragraphs.
Please remember that the sale on subscriptions to Special Education Today ends in just about a week.
In this installment of the newsletter for Special Education Today, Dear Readers will find the familiar features of the newsletter: After a photo, an update about the status of the SET community, and a list of recent posts, there will be some reflections.
Photo
When we lived on the side of Tom Mountain, Pat and I had many wonderful neighbors. Among them was our late friend, Micheal Krepon. Here’s a professional photo of Michael.
Michael did not have anything to do with special education or disabilities. I’m writing this remembrance simply because he was a good person.
Michael was a diplomat and a scholar. I mean “diplomat” in the nominal sense, although he was certainly diplomatic too. Anyone who peruses his bio will learn, Michael had a hand in US foreign policy beginning just before the administration of President Jimmy Carter. He helped to deter the development and deployment of horrific weapons, including contributing to negations between nuclear armed countries that were are war. He wrote a lot of books and articles (just check the entries on, say, Google Scholar).
By the time we got to know each other, Michael and Sandra had moved into our neighborhood and were living about a third of a kilometer down our little country lane at the foot of the mountain. He would commute occasionally to work at Stimson in Washington, DC. Michael began teaching at the University of Virginia.
We would get together for dinners and discussions of gardening in the woods on the side of Tom Mountain (mostly Pat and Michael on the last part). He was still traveling to Washington to the Stimson Center (which he helped found), appearing as an analyst on television broadcast news shows, and jetting half way around the world to help with diplomatic negotiations.
Michael and I spent hours talking about peace, a concept we both considered essential to the live of humans on Earth. Michael was more realistic than I; he understood that countries were going to wage war. He worked to prevent them and, especially, to keep conflicts contained.
We also would watch some sports on TV. Pat and I had no reception, but Michael had cable and he knew my allegiances. He would invite to join him to watch basketball and baseball. He was loyal to the Boston professional teams, so you have to imagine me watching his beloved Celtics (who could imagine me hanging out with a Celtics guy?). He would join me for UVA football games.
Status update
SET has ≈ 1260 members. About 8% of those subscribers support SET by paying for their subscriptions. There are folks to thank publicly here.
At top of the list are our three patrons, A very special thanks to Anita A., Kathy M., and Mike G.
A tip of the cap to the wonderful contributing subscribers. Thank you to the very Dear Readers: Angelique W. , Susan O., Ann R., Anna O., Annmarie U., Bev J., Bob P., Clay K., Debbie R., Jackie R., Jan B., Janette B., Jean S., Jen W., Jenni R., Jennifer S., Jim P., Jim S., Joel M., Karmelyn L., Kimberly B., Kimmy L., Kristen McM., Kristin S., Larry M., Linda L., Linda L., Luann D., Luann J., Marilyn F., Mary-Anne L.,, Roberta B., Michael K., Mike N., Nancy C.-W., Paige P., Rob O’N., Roberta B., Sonja de B., Sunil G., Tina C., and Vickie W. Winners!
Thanks to the many who dropped “likes” on posts this week/
This is the 1787 post in the five+ year history of SET. The membership has grown from the ~150 members in the early going to become a substantially larger community that is international. We have no subscribers from Antarctica, but there are readers from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, OZ, and some Pacific Islands. Readers—including parents and teachers, administrators, professors, journalists…even psychologists—are obviously concerned about kids with disabilities, and I hope that SET can provide connections to helpful resources for them.
Thanks to everyone who spreads the word (“shares”). Please continue to do so! Forward. Tweet (X?). Give gift subscriptions. Tell friends! Share posts (including this one) with your connections, both local and worldwide!
Spedlettes
Folks who read only this newsletter miss receiving email about some of the posts mentioned in it. I don’t how that could happen, because I send a lot of messages every week!
This newsletter appears once a week.
In addition to the newsletter for last week, there were four other posts. Here is a list of the posts that appeared last week. All of these were on the public side of the paywall, and will be there for 10 days after their publication (the newsletter will stay on the free side in perpetuity—haha). There are no initials in brackets after items this week; I wrote all of them except one (Paige Pullen’s answers to the Q-and-A about her book, The Canon.
Two subgroups: (a) four spedlettes on the public side and (b) three reserved for paid subscribers.
Public
Special Education Today newsletter 6(7): Would you believe that SET made it through yet another week?
Work site featured in news report: What would a television reporter find to say about a coffee house where individuals with disabilities work?
Paige Pullen on “The Canon” and special education: What can the author of this well-received book about literacy tell us about its connections to our world?
Leucovorin was dispensed more frequently after US officials touted it: What sales of the drug show before and after the US president and Secretary of Health and Human Services discussed it publicly?
For the faithful
Diverse discussions of neurodiversity and diagnostic uncertainty: Do these authorities offer ideas that move us forward?
AI version of the weekly newsletter: Am I obsolete?1
Please remember that one can go directly to Web site, Special Education Today, to see the latest posts. As mentioned previously, we only send email notices about some posts, not all of them. There is a complete archive and an index available there.
Commentary
As noted previously, this is the 1787th issue of SET. That’s something on the order of 6.5 and posts per week for over five years. Of course, not all of them are as inherently valuable as many of the others (see the AI-generated newsletter of this past week, which I consider rather frivolous), but at least some of them have actual value to our community.
The AI-generated post does, however, give me a moment to remind Dear Readers that SET is real—not artificial. There was a period of time in the 2000=2010s when I had a robot aggregating posts from multiple sources (blogs and other original publications). During that time, SET functioned in part as a conduit bringing together news from other sources. I still wrote some original posts at that time, too.
Nowadays, you are only getting the plain poop. So, you can expect to read original work by Mitchell Yell, Paula Martins, Betsy Talbott, John Romig, Mandy Rispoli, Li-Yu-Hung, and David Bateman. Oh, and unvarnished excrement from me, of course. So, stay tuned!
In the meantime, as usual, I encourage readers to take care of each other. Wear your seatbelts. Don’t text and drive. Exercise. Practice patience and compassion. Eat healthily (at least most of the time). And, of course, teach our students well.
JohnL
SET Editor & Founder Guy
Charlottesville
SET should not be confused with a product with the same name that is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades. Despite my appreciation for CEC, this product is not designed to promote that organization, nor does it represent the positions of CEC or imply that CEC approves of the content of SET.
Thank you for sharing about Michael - I enjoyed reading about all that he did. Today is the first day of classes for us; thus, I'm headed off to teach Assessment at 8am. :)
What a nice tribute to your friend, Michael. Thank you for sharing this. Made me smile.