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Nov
25
The Jill Initiative
Filed Under Politics | 6 Comments
Yesterday, I read a quote on Susan Mernit’s blog about how women are buying tech stuff after clicking to it from this link on Brewed Fresh Daily. I didn’t click on anything else.
Today, I stole the Business Week magazine from my parents, which they’d taken from the garbage of a friend of theirs who was cleaning out stuff. (Jeff Hess – can you recycle laptop fodder that way? And sand, Jeff – how do I bring a laptop down to the beach and sit in one of those chairs that lets the water lap at your legs while you watch your kids cavort in the waves and you read the newspaper?)
Where was I? Oh yeah. Women and techie stuff.
So I’m reading the Business Week while standing up eating and watching my kids eat (sitting down) when I see it – The Jill Initiative. (The article isn’t actually called that, but it’s what struck me as most relevant.)
Best Buy has caught on to the women’s digital mind-set, too, launching its “Jill Initiative” to focus on what women want. “Jill,” according to the retailer, is a time-pressured suburban mom who prefers shopping at Target Corp. (TGT ), because of its focus on style, over, say, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ). In the past year, Best Buy relaunched 60 stores, changing their look with pastel colors rather than the chain’s traditional dark-blue and yellow scheme to create a more soothing experience. Personal shopping advisers whisk mostly female shoppers around the stores, steering clear of tech jargon. “The language of bits and bytes is a thing of the past,” says Ketchum’s Rand. A Best Buy salesperson doesn’t talk megapixels but instead asks if a digital camera is primarily for still photos or soccer games and if buyers plan to print their own photos.
Finally, I’m entitled to an identity crisis.
And why Jill? Why not Lisa? Or Karen? Or Amy? Way more popular names than Jill at the time I was born. Although I think Jill means “nice” when you look it up.
We latent baby boomers can’t get no respect, I tell ya.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:39 pm November 25th, 2005 in Politics | 6 Comments
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Nov
25
The Jill Initiative
Filed Under Politics | 6 Comments
Yesterday, I read a quote on Susan Mernit’s blog about how women are buying tech stuff after clicking to it from this link on Brewed Fresh Daily. I didn’t click on anything else.
Today, I stole the Business Week magazine from my parents, which they’d taken from the garbage of a friend of theirs who was cleaning out stuff. (Jeff Hess – can you recycle laptop fodder that way? And sand, Jeff – how do I bring a laptop down to the beach and sit in one of those chairs that lets the water lap at your legs while you watch your kids cavort in the waves and you read the newspaper?)
Where was I? Oh yeah. Women and techie stuff.
So I’m reading the Business Week while standing up eating and watching my kids eat (sitting down) when I see it – The Jill Initiative. (The article isn’t actually called that, but it’s what struck me as most relevant.)
Best Buy has caught on to the women’s digital mind-set, too, launching its “Jill Initiative” to focus on what women want. “Jill,” according to the retailer, is a time-pressured suburban mom who prefers shopping at Target Corp. (TGT ), because of its focus on style, over, say, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ). In the past year, Best Buy relaunched 60 stores, changing their look with pastel colors rather than the chain’s traditional dark-blue and yellow scheme to create a more soothing experience. Personal shopping advisers whisk mostly female shoppers around the stores, steering clear of tech jargon. “The language of bits and bytes is a thing of the past,” says Ketchum’s Rand. A Best Buy salesperson doesn’t talk megapixels but instead asks if a digital camera is primarily for still photos or soccer games and if buyers plan to print their own photos.
Finally, I’m entitled to an identity crisis.
And why Jill? Why not Lisa? Or Karen? Or Amy? Way more popular names than Jill at the time I was born. Although I think Jill means “nice” when you look it up.
We latent baby boomers can’t get no respect, I tell ya.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:39 pm November 25th, 2005 in Politics | 6 Comments
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Nov
25
The Jill Initiative
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
Yesterday, I read a quote on Susan Mernit’s blog about how women are buying tech stuff after clicking to it from this link on Brewed Fresh Daily. I didn’t click on anything else.
Today, I stole the Business Week magazine from my parents, which they’d taken from the garbage of a friend of theirs who was cleaning out stuff. (Jeff Hess – can you recycle laptop fodder that way? And sand, Jeff – how do I bring a laptop down to the beach and sit in one of those chairs that lets the water lap at your legs while you watch your kids cavort in the waves and you read the newspaper?)
Where was I? Oh yeah. Women and techie stuff.
So I’m reading the Business Week while standing up eating and watching my kids eat (sitting down) when I see it – The Jill Initiative. (The article isn’t actually called that, but it’s what struck me as most relevant.)
Best Buy has caught on to the women’s digital mind-set, too, launching its “Jill Initiative” to focus on what women want. “Jill,” according to the retailer, is a time-pressured suburban mom who prefers shopping at Target Corp. (TGT ), because of its focus on style, over, say, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ). In the past year, Best Buy relaunched 60 stores, changing their look with pastel colors rather than the chain’s traditional dark-blue and yellow scheme to create a more soothing experience. Personal shopping advisers whisk mostly female shoppers around the stores, steering clear of tech jargon. “The language of bits and bytes is a thing of the past,” says Ketchum’s Rand. A Best Buy salesperson doesn’t talk megapixels but instead asks if a digital camera is primarily for still photos or soccer games and if buyers plan to print their own photos.
Finally, I’m entitled to an identity crisis.
And why Jill? Why not Lisa? Or Karen? Or Amy? Way more popular names than Jill at the time I was born. Although I think Jill means “nice” when you look it up.
We latent baby boomers can’t get no respect, I tell ya.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:39 pm November 25th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
24
A Life of Magical Living
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How many Thanksgivings can you remember?
I remember the one when I went to Florida alone for the wedding of a friend during law school. And the guy I was dating at the time didn’t come with me.
I remember being in Israel for one, but I don’t recall what I did.
I remember going home for it during college a lot and going out with my girlfriends.
And, since I’ve been married, I’ve come to Florida a few times with our kids.
These memories exist alongside pictures formed by my real life presence at as well as my repeated viewing of photographs of my mother, my Nana and my Aunt Irma wielding large knives over a defenseless, 30 pound turkey, year after year.
My mother, the cook more so than the Jew, hosted Thanksgiving every year for decades. My Aunt, the Jew more so than the cook, hosted Passover every year for decades. Then we went to college, my Nana and Papa died and my brothers and cousins spread out across the U.S.
Florida is an odd place to be for winter holidays if you’re from the East Coast and used to snows that cause planes to crash into bridges and sink into rivers. To see white lights twisted around signs year-round because the condo owners want to draw attention to their vacancies. Or just because they, like so many others, forgot to take down the lights after Jan. 1.
But this year, there is less traffic. The wait at a restaurant is only 60-90 minutes instead of two hours or more, even when you arrive at 6pm. There is no critical mass of shoppers filling up the parking lots and denying retirees the best spaces.
Many people haven’t come back since Wilma. But every time I think of that, I think about New Orleans and how residents here must think about New Orleans every day too. Because even with the damaged foliage and the still boarded up windows and frames of sliding doors and five foot high piles of tiles to be re-grouted to roofs and signs that swing in the breeze, people can live here. And they can’t live in New Orleans, many parts of New Orleans.
I read Connie Schultz’s column about the hospice worker who returned to the Ninth Ward with a mother and her son. The pressure crushed my heart as I imagined what she must have seen and felt.
What are former residents, displaced residents of New Orleans giving thanks for today? I don’t know, though I can speculate. And God bless them for being able to find objects of thanks. They will, I’m sure they will. And they’ll cry a lot today too, I’m sure. If not outwardly, then within.
Joan Didion’s newest book, The Year of Magical Thinking, doesn’t, on its face, have a lot to do with thanks. But as a reader of it, its making me think of thanks. Didion wrote it full of pain and memories and despair and grief. It chronicles a most horrible time in her life – the months following the death of her husband of more than 40 years, and the year before the year during which her only child, a daughter, died. The book was in production when that child died, this past August.
This book isn’t for everyone. And many people I know have looked at me askance when I’ve said I’m reading it. I’m forty pages from the end. I’ve been staying up late, and getting up early to read it.
Didion writes like she thinks and somewhat like she talks. I heard her on Diane Rehm within the last couple of weeks, though after I bought the book (which I did after reading the NYT Book Review of it, written by Robert Pinsky).
In the book, she details confusion and efforts to live in other periods of her life, so as to suppress the current time that involves pain and unpleasantness and harsh realities: her daughter’s continued illness, her husband’s absence, the torture of wondering how things would be if she’d done any one thing or a bunch of things differently.
I share those thought processes – I find myself employing such thought processes – regularly. And although not one tear has yet left my lids as I’ve read this book, it wouldn’t surprise me if one or more did. Because I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who thinks and sees this way.
What makes this book so relevant to me today, on Thanksgiving, is that reading it now – at age 43, with my children and husband and parents around me, in good health, getting along, trying to relax – and reading it before anything – Wilma or accidents or cancer or disagreements or selfishness – returns to the realm of possibilities in life (because somehow those realities seems suspended here, in a place that is November 24th but without snow or knives diving into turkey and therefore surreal still when placed next to my other memories of this holiday), has allowed me to appreciate and give thanks. Didion repeats a line that reflects a failure to give adequate appreciation. I’ve read the repetitions just this morning.
And I’m the kind of person who thinks that it’s fate that I would come to those passages – about not appreciating enough – on Thanksgiving, by design, though not intelligent design, of course.
And so, I’m thankful for Joan Didion having been able to write that book. And me reading it and reinforcing for me on this day to be thankful and to appreciate and work to appreciate every day what I have, what I’ve earned, what’s given to me, what I witness.
And not least of all the gorgeous beautiful sun under which I will now rest and play and laugh with my family. And hope that those are memories they will remember one Thanksgiving Day in the future.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:08 pm November 24th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
24
A Life of Magical Living
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
How many Thanksgivings can you remember?
I remember the one when I went to Florida alone for the wedding of a friend during law school. And the guy I was dating at the time didn’t come with me.
I remember being in Israel for one, but I don’t recall what I did.
I remember going home for it during college a lot and going out with my girlfriends.
And, since I’ve been married, I’ve come to Florida a few times with our kids.
These memories exist alongside pictures formed by my real life presence at as well as my repeated viewing of photographs of my mother, my Nana and my Aunt Irma wielding large knives over a defenseless, 30 pound turkey, year after year.
My mother, the cook more so than the Jew, hosted Thanksgiving every year for decades. My Aunt, the Jew more so than the cook, hosted Passover every year for decades. Then we went to college, my Nana and Papa died and my brothers and cousins spread out across the U.S.
Florida is an odd place to be for winter holidays if you’re from the East Coast and used to snows that cause planes to crash into bridges and sink into rivers. To see white lights twisted around signs year-round because the condo owners want to draw attention to their vacancies. Or just because they, like so many others, forgot to take down the lights after Jan. 1.
But this year, there is less traffic. The wait at a restaurant is only 60-90 minutes instead of two hours or more, even when you arrive at 6pm. There is no critical mass of shoppers filling up the parking lots and denying retirees the best spaces.
Many people haven’t come back since Wilma. But every time I think of that, I think about New Orleans and how residents here must think about New Orleans every day too. Because even with the damaged foliage and the still boarded up windows and frames of sliding doors and five foot high piles of tiles to be re-grouted to roofs and signs that swing in the breeze, people can live here. And they can’t live in New Orleans, many parts of New Orleans.
I read Connie Schultz’s column about the hospice worker who returned to the Ninth Ward with a mother and her son. The pressure crushed my heart as I imagined what she must have seen and felt.
What are former residents, displaced residents of New Orleans giving thanks for today? I don’t know, though I can speculate. And God bless them for being able to find objects of thanks. They will, I’m sure they will. And they’ll cry a lot today too, I’m sure. If not outwardly, then within.
Joan Didion’s newest book, The Year of Magical Thinking, doesn’t, on its face, have a lot to do with thanks. But as a reader of it, its making me think of thanks. Didion wrote it full of pain and memories and despair and grief. It chronicles a most horrible time in her life – the months following the death of her husband of more than 40 years, and the year before the year during which her only child, a daughter, died. The book was in production when that child died, this past August.
This book isn’t for everyone. And many people I know have looked at me askance when I’ve said I’m reading it. I’m forty pages from the end. I’ve been staying up late, and getting up early to read it.
Didion writes like she thinks and somewhat like she talks. I heard her on Diane Rehm within the last couple of weeks, though after I bought the book (which I did after reading the NYT Book Review of it, written by Robert Pinsky).
In the book, she details confusion and efforts to live in other periods of her life, so as to suppress the current time that involves pain and unpleasantness and harsh realities: her daughter’s continued illness, her husband’s absence, the torture of wondering how things would be if she’d done any one thing or a bunch of things differently.
I share those thought processes – I find myself employing such thought processes – regularly. And although not one tear has yet left my lids as I’ve read this book, it wouldn’t surprise me if one or more did. Because I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who thinks and sees this way.
What makes this book so relevant to me today, on Thanksgiving, is that reading it now – at age 43, with my children and husband and parents around me, in good health, getting along, trying to relax – and reading it before anything – Wilma or accidents or cancer or disagreements or selfishness – returns to the realm of possibilities in life (because somehow those realities seems suspended here, in a place that is November 24th but without snow or knives diving into turkey and therefore surreal still when placed next to my other memories of this holiday), has allowed me to appreciate and give thanks. Didion repeats a line that reflects a failure to give adequate appreciation. I’ve read the repetitions just this morning.
And I’m the kind of person who thinks that it’s fate that I would come to those passages – about not appreciating enough – on Thanksgiving, by design, though not intelligent design, of course.
And so, I’m thankful for Joan Didion having been able to write that book. And me reading it and reinforcing for me on this day to be thankful and to appreciate and work to appreciate every day what I have, what I’ve earned, what’s given to me, what I witness.
And not least of all the gorgeous beautiful sun under which I will now rest and play and laugh with my family. And hope that those are memories they will remember one Thanksgiving Day in the future.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:08 pm November 24th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
24
A Life of Magical Living
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
How many Thanksgivings can you remember?
I remember the one when I went to Florida alone for the wedding of a friend during law school. And the guy I was dating at the time didn’t come with me.
I remember being in Israel for one, but I don’t recall what I did.
I remember going home for it during college a lot and going out with my girlfriends.
And, since I’ve been married, I’ve come to Florida a few times with our kids.
These memories exist alongside pictures formed by my real life presence at as well as my repeated viewing of photographs of my mother, my Nana and my Aunt Irma wielding large knives over a defenseless, 30 pound turkey, year after year.
My mother, the cook more so than the Jew, hosted Thanksgiving every year for decades. My Aunt, the Jew more so than the cook, hosted Passover every year for decades. Then we went to college, my Nana and Papa died and my brothers and cousins spread out across the U.S.
Florida is an odd place to be for winter holidays if you’re from the East Coast and used to snows that cause planes to crash into bridges and sink into rivers. To see white lights twisted around signs year-round because the condo owners want to draw attention to their vacancies. Or just because they, like so many others, forgot to take down the lights after Jan. 1.
But this year, there is less traffic. The wait at a restaurant is only 60-90 minutes instead of two hours or more, even when you arrive at 6pm. There is no critical mass of shoppers filling up the parking lots and denying retirees the best spaces.
Many people haven’t come back since Wilma. But every time I think of that, I think about New Orleans and how residents here must think about New Orleans every day too. Because even with the damaged foliage and the still boarded up windows and frames of sliding doors and five foot high piles of tiles to be re-grouted to roofs and signs that swing in the breeze, people can live here. And they can’t live in New Orleans, many parts of New Orleans.
I read Connie Schultz’s column about the hospice worker who returned to the Ninth Ward with a mother and her son. The pressure crushed my heart as I imagined what she must have seen and felt.
What are former residents, displaced residents of New Orleans giving thanks for today? I don’t know, though I can speculate. And God bless them for being able to find objects of thanks. They will, I’m sure they will. And they’ll cry a lot today too, I’m sure. If not outwardly, then within.
Joan Didion’s newest book, The Year of Magical Thinking, doesn’t, on its face, have a lot to do with thanks. But as a reader of it, its making me think of thanks. Didion wrote it full of pain and memories and despair and grief. It chronicles a most horrible time in her life – the months following the death of her husband of more than 40 years, and the year before the year during which her only child, a daughter, died. The book was in production when that child died, this past August.
This book isn’t for everyone. And many people I know have looked at me askance when I’ve said I’m reading it. I’m forty pages from the end. I’ve been staying up late, and getting up early to read it.
Didion writes like she thinks and somewhat like she talks. I heard her on Diane Rehm within the last couple of weeks, though after I bought the book (which I did after reading the NYT Book Review of it, written by Robert Pinsky).
In the book, she details confusion and efforts to live in other periods of her life, so as to suppress the current time that involves pain and unpleasantness and harsh realities: her daughter’s continued illness, her husband’s absence, the torture of wondering how things would be if she’d done any one thing or a bunch of things differently.
I share those thought processes – I find myself employing such thought processes – regularly. And although not one tear has yet left my lids as I’ve read this book, it wouldn’t surprise me if one or more did. Because I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who thinks and sees this way.
What makes this book so relevant to me today, on Thanksgiving, is that reading it now – at age 43, with my children and husband and parents around me, in good health, getting along, trying to relax – and reading it before anything – Wilma or accidents or cancer or disagreements or selfishness – returns to the realm of possibilities in life (because somehow those realities seems suspended here, in a place that is November 24th but without snow or knives diving into turkey and therefore surreal still when placed next to my other memories of this holiday), has allowed me to appreciate and give thanks. Didion repeats a line that reflects a failure to give adequate appreciation. I’ve read the repetitions just this morning.
And I’m the kind of person who thinks that it’s fate that I would come to those passages – about not appreciating enough – on Thanksgiving, by design, though not intelligent design, of course.
And so, I’m thankful for Joan Didion having been able to write that book. And me reading it and reinforcing for me on this day to be thankful and to appreciate and work to appreciate every day what I have, what I’ve earned, what’s given to me, what I witness.
And not least of all the gorgeous beautiful sun under which I will now rest and play and laugh with my family. And hope that those are memories they will remember one Thanksgiving Day in the future.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:08 am November 24th, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
23
Spread the silliness
Filed Under Politics | 8 Comments
I watched Ellen the talk show – well, I listened to Ellen – this morning while working out. Have you ever noticed how horrific the voice to text translators are for close-captioned tv? One channel took nearly a minute to type out Dubrovnic. And the amount of typos is worse than my lousy 24 words a minute with five errors.
The best thing the translators do? Flash the warnings that you can never understand during prescription drug commercials because they’re being said too quickly. God forbid you miss that warning about having heart attacks and dying from a prescription drug side-effect.
I have to hand it to Ellen – she had me laughing. I’ve always enjoyed Ellen DeGeneres – from years and years ago. Judy Tenuta is another female comedian that gets me going. The delivery as well as the words. Heck, even Let’s Get Small still makes me laugh, even if I’m just hearing it in my head. I remember that during the night before I left for a year of volunteer work in Israel, my best high school friend came over and stayed up with me until 4am listening to every single favorite LP of mine, because I could only take cassettes with me and could only carry so many of those. We drank wine, sat on the floor of my bedroom with headphones on and LMAO’d until we fell asleep.
I watch very little television, so this was a real vacation treat – to watch a weekday morning talk show that actually entertained and distracted me so that I didn’t know how long I’d been on the dreaded treadmill. (It’s beautiful outside but I’m just not a jogger or runner. I tend to cry when I run.)
Since many people are traveling this week, what are your top five musicians with whom you like to sing when you’re driving? You know – outloud, off key, grimacing singing?
1. Neil Diamond (Sweet Caroline)
2. The Carpenters
3. The Police
4. Pat Benatar
5. Bonnie Raitt
Mind you, these aren’t necessarily my favorite musicians, but they have great sing-a-long songs.
.
Everyone who reads this post, considered yourself tagged. And safe travels
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:09 pm November 23rd, 2005 in Politics | 8 Comments
Print This Post
Nov
23
Spread the silliness
Filed Under Politics | 8 Comments
I watched Ellen the talk show – well, I listened to Ellen – this morning while working out. Have you ever noticed how horrific the voice to text translators are for close-captioned tv? One channel took nearly a minute to type out Dubrovnic. And the amount of typos is worse than my lousy 24 words a minute with five errors.
The best thing the translators do? Flash the warnings that you can never understand during prescription drug commercials because they’re being said too quickly. God forbid you miss that warning about having heart attacks and dying from a prescription drug side-effect.
I have to hand it to Ellen – she had me laughing. I’ve always enjoyed Ellen DeGeneres – from years and years ago. Judy Tenuta is another female comedian that gets me going. The delivery as well as the words. Heck, even Let’s Get Small still makes me laugh, even if I’m just hearing it in my head. I remember that during the night before I left for a year of volunteer work in Israel, my best high school friend came over and stayed up with me until 4am listening to every single favorite LP of mine, because I could only take cassettes with me and could only carry so many of those. We drank wine, sat on the floor of my bedroom with headphones on and LMAO’d until we fell asleep.
I watch very little television, so this was a real vacation treat – to watch a weekday morning talk show that actually entertained and distracted me so that I didn’t know how long I’d been on the dreaded treadmill. (It’s beautiful outside but I’m just not a jogger or runner. I tend to cry when I run.)
Since many people are traveling this week, what are your top five musicians with whom you like to sing when you’re driving? You know – outloud, off key, grimacing singing?
1. Neil Diamond (Sweet Caroline)
2. The Carpenters
3. The Police
4. Pat Benatar
5. Bonnie Raitt
Mind you, these aren’t necessarily my favorite musicians, but they have great sing-a-long songs.
.
Everyone who reads this post, considered yourself tagged. And safe travels
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:09 pm November 23rd, 2005 in Politics | 8 Comments
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Nov
23
Spread the silliness
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
I watched Ellen the talk show – well, I listened to Ellen – this morning while working out. Have you ever noticed how horrific the voice to text translators are for close-captioned tv? One channel took nearly a minute to type out Dubrovnic. And the amount of typos is worse than my lousy 24 words a minute with five errors.
The best thing the translators do? Flash the warnings that you can never understand during prescription drug commercials because they’re being said too quickly. God forbid you miss that warning about having heart attacks and dying from a prescription drug side-effect.
I have to hand it to Ellen – she had me laughing. I’ve always enjoyed Ellen DeGeneres – from years and years ago. Judy Tenuta is another female comedian that gets me going. The delivery as well as the words. Heck, even Let’s Get Small still makes me laugh, even if I’m just hearing it in my head. I remember that during the night before I left for a year of volunteer work in Israel, my best high school friend came over and stayed up with me until 4am listening to every single favorite LP of mine, because I could only take cassettes with me and could only carry so many of those. We drank wine, sat on the floor of my bedroom with headphones on and LMAO’d until we fell asleep.
I watch very little television, so this was a real vacation treat – to watch a weekday morning talk show that actually entertained and distracted me so that I didn’t know how long I’d been on the dreaded treadmill. (It’s beautiful outside but I’m just not a jogger or runner. I tend to cry when I run.)
Since many people are traveling this week, what are your top five musicians with whom you like to sing when you’re driving? You know – outloud, off key, grimacing singing?
1. Neil Diamond (Sweet Caroline)
2. The Carpenters
3. The Police
4. Pat Benatar
5. Bonnie Raitt
Mind you, these aren’t necessarily my favorite musicians, but they have great sing-a-long songs.
.
Everyone who reads this post, considered yourself tagged. And safe travels
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:09 am November 23rd, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
22
Received the following email today from the NYT Letters Editor re: my letter to the editor, posted on the blog here, which I titled in the email’s subject line as Ann Hurlbert: come live with me and my profoundly gifted child for a different view of the Prodigy Puzzle.
Thanks for writing.
We hope to include you in the magazine letters column of Dec. 4. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.
Ellen Van Beuren
Letters Editor
The New York Times Magazine
ellen AT nytimes DOT com
You never know, but I’ll check it out online the day before, when the Mag content is usually posted.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:39 pm November 22nd, 2005 in Politics | 1 Comment
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Nov
22
Received the following email today from the NYT Letters Editor re: my letter to the editor, posted on the blog here, which I titled in the email’s subject line as Ann Hurlbert: come live with me and my profoundly gifted child for a different view of the Prodigy Puzzle.
Thanks for writing.
We hope to include you in the magazine letters column of Dec. 4. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.
Ellen Van Beuren
Letters Editor
The New York Times Magazine
ellen AT nytimes DOT com
You never know, but I’ll check it out online the day before, when the Mag content is usually posted.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:39 pm November 22nd, 2005 in Politics | 1 Comment
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Nov
22
Stealing from the old
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I think I’m stealing someone’s wireless right now and although I’m not stopping, I don’t feel great about it. But, like I said, I’m not stopping – I’m just typing and reading and commenting really fast.
Nice weather, worked out this morning for the first time in…I can’t admit it. Husband brought me coffee! Now I know I’m on vacation (just kidding, dear).
Damage assessment: a lot but nothing like N.O. Palm fronds frowning, sink holes sunk, tiles off the roof, glass still on the ground, and garbage nestled in every corner, thrown there by the wind.
Come back, snow birds, come back.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:12 pm November 22nd, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
22
Someone cares?
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Received the following email today from the NYT Letters Editor re: my letter to the editor, posted on the blog here, which I titled in the email’s subject line as Ann Hurlbert: come live with me and my profoundly gifted child for a different view of the Prodigy Puzzle.
Thanks for writing.
We hope to include you in the magazine letters column of Dec. 4. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.
Ellen Van Beuren
Letters Editor
The New York Times Magazine
ellen AT nytimes DOT com
You never know, but I’ll check it out online the day before, when the Mag content is usually posted.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:39 pm November 22nd, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
22
Stealing from the old
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I think I’m stealing someone’s wireless right now and although I’m not stopping, I don’t feel great about it. But, like I said, I’m not stopping – I’m just typing and reading and commenting really fast.
Nice weather, worked out this morning for the first time in…I can’t admit it. Husband brought me coffee! Now I know I’m on vacation (just kidding, dear).
Damage assessment: a lot but nothing like N.O. Palm fronds frowning, sink holes sunk, tiles off the roof, glass still on the ground, and garbage nestled in every corner, thrown there by the wind.
Come back, snow birds, come back.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:12 pm November 22nd, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
22
Stealing from the old
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I think I’m stealing someone’s wireless right now and although I’m not stopping, I don’t feel great about it. But, like I said, I’m not stopping – I’m just typing and reading and commenting really fast.
Nice weather, worked out this morning for the first time in…I can’t admit it. Husband brought me coffee! Now I know I’m on vacation (just kidding, dear).
Damage assessment: a lot but nothing like N.O. Palm fronds frowning, sink holes sunk, tiles off the roof, glass still on the ground, and garbage nestled in every corner, thrown there by the wind.
Come back, snow birds, come back.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:12 am November 22nd, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
21
The No SpongeBob Zone
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
Only in a country nominally led by George Bush could you be in a place called The President’s Club and wind up in a glass-encased echo chamber that shows 24 hours of SpongeBob SquarePants.
This is the honor Continental has bestowed upon my husband for the ridiculously high number of miles he’s traveled this year: the alleged privilege of lounging in an enclave with defrosted Lender’s bagels and unsalted butter (they ran out of the regular stuff by 8:15am). What a snob, I know.
(And, okay, I could change the channel or turn off the tube but then I’d have to let the kids dive into their plane-ware – intended to keep them occupied during the flight. Pacing, it’s all about pacing, and so I want to hold off on pulling out the stops.)
Sigh. At least I’ve got free wireless. Even though the signal keeps going out. AND…I’m not the businessman at the counter behooving the receptionist to help him change a flight: he bought himself an 8pm flight, instead of an 8am flight, and is just realizing it now, having come to the airport thinking that he had an 8am flight.
Boohoo? Think I’ll keep that reserved for now.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:31 pm November 21st, 2005 in Politics | 2 Comments
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Nov
21
The No SpongeBob Zone
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
Only in a country nominally led by George Bush could you be in a place called The President’s Club and wind up in a glass-encased echo chamber that shows 24 hours of SpongeBob SquarePants.
This is the honor Continental has bestowed upon my husband for the ridiculously high number of miles he’s traveled this year: the alleged privilege of lounging in an enclave with defrosted Lender’s bagels and unsalted butter (they ran out of the regular stuff by 8:15am). What a snob, I know.
(And, okay, I could change the channel or turn off the tube but then I’d have to let the kids dive into their plane-ware – intended to keep them occupied during the flight. Pacing, it’s all about pacing, and so I want to hold off on pulling out the stops.)
Sigh. At least I’ve got free wireless. Even though the signal keeps going out. AND…I’m not the businessman at the counter behooving the receptionist to help him change a flight: he bought himself an 8pm flight, instead of an 8am flight, and is just realizing it now, having come to the airport thinking that he had an 8am flight.
Boohoo? Think I’ll keep that reserved for now.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:31 am November 21st, 2005 in Politics | 2 Comments
Print This Post
Nov
21
The No SpongeBob Zone
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
Only in a country nominally led by George Bush could you be in a place called The President’s Club and wind up in a glass-encased echo chamber that shows 24 hours of SpongeBob SquarePants.
This is the honor Continental has bestowed upon my husband for the ridiculously high number of miles he’s traveled this year: the alleged privilege of lounging in an enclave with defrosted Lender’s bagels and unsalted butter (they ran out of the regular stuff by 8:15am). What a snob, I know.
(And, okay, I could change the channel or turn off the tube but then I’d have to let the kids dive into their plane-ware – intended to keep them occupied during the flight. Pacing, it’s all about pacing, and so I want to hold off on pulling out the stops.)
Sigh. At least I’ve got free wireless. Even though the signal keeps going out. AND…I’m not the businessman at the counter behooving the receptionist to help him change a flight: he bought himself an 8pm flight, instead of an 8am flight, and is just realizing it now, having come to the airport thinking that he had an 8am flight.
Boohoo? Think I’ll keep that reserved for now.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:31 am November 21st, 2005 in Politics | Comments Off
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Nov
20
Sent this off this morning, read the article in full with notes last night.
Dear Ms. Hurlbert:
Thank you for your paper’s coverage on very intelligent children.
Unfortunately, you focused on the extreme stories that revolved around talent development and not the ones in between that focus on the families who know better than to showcase their children like prized possessions. I know because my son and my family have faced the challenges of my son’s profound intelligence everyday, since he was about six months old.
To be more fair, you might have mentioned that you can look to any arena – sports, dance, music, beauty – and find talent development that turns kids into competition drones without them even knowing what the point is. And often those children – though not always – are driven by parents, who are driven to compete and win and gain attention.
But when it comes to education, laws like No Child Left Behind make progress (in the form of annual yearly progress, AYP) everything. And yet for gifted kids in public schools, there is rarely a chance for them to make AYP if there isn’t a bona fide gifted program. There isn’t even a subcategory in NCLB that requires measurement of AYP for gifted kids.
So then what must parents do? What should parents do?
They search out programs that keep their child progressing.
You don’t mention this aspect of why some families choose the talent development route you analyze and yet, I believe, it’s the main reason that parents look to the talent development programs. My family has chosen not to do that, but your piece seems to lack this dimension of understanding the parents’ or kids’ motivation for involvement in talent development, and compare families and kids who take that route to those that do not (except for the two cases of the gentlemen who hadn’t been included in the CA study and won Nobel prizes).
Also, you mention the number of children culled by the Davidson Institute (in the hundreds over the years). But you don’t mention that the NAGC estimates that there are at last 3 million children identified as gifted throughout our country. While not all of those three million are profoundly gifted, and even one psychologist told us our child was one in 250,000 and wouldn’t be among peers until he went to MIT (my son is now almost 12), your article would have been more well-rounded itself if you had provided even a sidebar or one paragraph explaining how the needs of those between 150-180 are met, or not met.
I also bristled at your comparison of the Davidson fellowship to a MacArthur genius grant. The candidates for the MacArthur never know that they’re candidates; they toil regardless. The Davidson Institute prospects run a gauntlet to qualify – they aren’t nominated by others and then discussed and finally chosen, and then left to do whatever they want. As you note in your piece, there are strings attached regarding education plans. I do not find these programs comparable in the least.
Finally, I think the biggest disservice your article does, is that you fail to portray these kids as human. Your language choice and scene setups re-inforce the image of these unique individuals as something to be gazed at with furrowed brows and observed. You inject nothing human about these kids into the story. At least, that is the feeling with which I was left after I finished reading your article.
As I noted in the subject line of this email, I invite you to spend a few days or weeks in my home and learn what it means to parent a [profoundly gifted] child who is attending public school. The private schools have molds and say that all their kids are bright, so they don’t hire educators with training in gifted education. The parochial schools (we’re Jewish) provide a curriculum given in a second language but do not cover the secular subjects at the rate or in a quantity commensurate with my son’s abilities, and have no gifted coordinators. I have two other children and if I thought that homeschooling was the only answer, I’d figure out a way to do that.
But so far, we’ve worked with three child psychologist’s outside of our school, two within the school, the entire district’s guidance team and the entire district’s gifted staff, plus the regular classroom teachers. It’s not perfect, and there are weekly if not daily contacts. But overall, my son is doing extremely well in school.
And yet, this is only the educational piece. My son does see life differently, does interpret life differently, does have far more mature attitudes and approaches, with us as well as with his peers. It is a constant, constant element of our family life.
I wish you had portrayed some of these more human elements of the quandary of being a parent of such a blessed young person and of being that blessed young person himself. And then put the lens on the inadequacies and peculiarities of how parents, struggling to find outlets for these children, search for and find, or don’t find, enrichment that works.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Jill Miller Zimon, JD, MSSA
32099 South Woodland Road
Pepper Pike, OH 44124
216-831-4495
www.jillmillerzimon.com
www.writeslikeshetalks.blogspot.com
Board member of Orange Parents Education Network OPEN, parent networking group for gifted and special needs students
Freelance writer, oped on gifted education published in The Plain Dealer, articles on proficiency testing in Ohio, article on Ohio science standards in application
Columnist and contributing editor, Cleveland Family magazine
Storyteller, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s small schools reform in Ohio (I cover the Euclid high school’s effort)
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:41 pm November 20th, 2005 in Politics | 3 Comments
Print This Post
Nov
20
Sent this off this morning, read the article in full with notes last night.
Dear Ms. Hurlbert:
Thank you for your paper’s coverage on very intelligent children.
Unfortunately, you focused on the extreme stories that revolved around talent development and not the ones in between that focus on the families who know better than to showcase their children like prized possessions. I know because my son and my family have faced the challenges of my son’s profound intelligence everyday, since he was about six months old.
To be more fair, you might have mentioned that you can look to any arena – sports, dance, music, beauty – and find talent development that turns kids into competition drones without them even knowing what the point is. And often those children – though not always – are driven by parents, who are driven to compete and win and gain attention.
But when it comes to education, laws like No Child Left Behind make progress (in the form of annual yearly progress, AYP) everything. And yet for gifted kids in public schools, there is rarely a chance for them to make AYP if there isn’t a bona fide gifted program. There isn’t even a subcategory in NCLB that requires measurement of AYP for gifted kids.
So then what must parents do? What should parents do?
They search out programs that keep their child progressing.
You don’t mention this aspect of why some families choose the talent development route you analyze and yet, I believe, it’s the main reason that parents look to the talent development programs. My family has chosen not to do that, but your piece seems to lack this dimension of understanding the parents’ or kids’ motivation for involvement in talent development, and compare families and kids who take that route to those that do not (except for the two cases of the gentlemen who hadn’t been included in the CA study and won Nobel prizes).
Also, you mention the number of children culled by the Davidson Institute (in the hundreds over the years). But you don’t mention that the NAGC estimates that there are at last 3 million children identified as gifted throughout our country. While not all of those three million are profoundly gifted, and even one psychologist told us our child was one in 250,000 and wouldn’t be among peers until he went to MIT (my son is now almost 12), your article would have been more well-rounded itself if you had provided even a sidebar or one paragraph explaining how the needs of those between 150-180 are met, or not met.
I also bristled at your comparison of the Davidson fellowship to a MacArthur genius grant. The candidates for the MacArthur never know that they’re candidates; they toil regardless. The Davidson Institute prospects run a gauntlet to qualify – they aren’t nominated by others and then discussed and finally chosen, and then left to do whatever they want. As you note in your piece, there are strings attached regarding education plans. I do not find these programs comparable in the least.
Finally, I think the biggest disservice your article does, is that you fail to portray these kids as human. Your language choice and scene setups re-inforce the image of these unique individuals as something to be gazed at with furrowed brows and observed. You inject nothing human about these kids into the story. At least, that is the feeling with which I was left after I finished reading your article.
As I noted in the subject line of this email, I invite you to spend a few days or weeks in my home and learn what it means to parent a [profoundly gifted] child who is attending public school. The private schools have molds and say that all their kids are bright, so they don’t hire educators with training in gifted education. The parochial schools (we’re Jewish) provide a curriculum given in a second language but do not cover the secular subjects at the rate or in a quantity commensurate with my son’s abilities, and have no gifted coordinators. I have two other children and if I thought that homeschooling was the only answer, I’d figure out a way to do that.
But so far, we’ve worked with three child psychologist’s outside of our school, two within the school, the entire district’s guidance team and the entire district’s gifted staff, plus the regular classroom teachers. It’s not perfect, and there are weekly if not daily contacts. But overall, my son is doing extremely well in school.
And yet, this is only the educational piece. My son does see life differently, does interpret life differently, does have far more mature attitudes and approaches, with us as well as with his peers. It is a constant, constant element of our family life.
I wish you had portrayed some of these more human elements of the quandary of being a parent of such a blessed young person and of being that blessed young person himself. And then put the lens on the inadequacies and peculiarities of how parents, struggling to find outlets for these children, search for and find, or don’t find, enrichment that works.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Jill Miller Zimon, JD, MSSA
32099 South Woodland Road
Pepper Pike, OH 44124
216-831-4495
www.jillmillerzimon.com
www.writeslikeshetalks.blogspot.com
Board member of Orange Parents Education Network OPEN, parent networking group for gifted and special needs students
Freelance writer, oped on gifted education published in The Plain Dealer, articles on proficiency testing in Ohio, article on Ohio science standards in application
Columnist and contributing editor, Cleveland Family magazine
Storyteller, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s small schools reform in Ohio (I cover the Euclid high school’s effort)
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:41 am November 20th, 2005 in Politics | 3 Comments
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