Shannon Costello

My latest class is forcing me to bone up on my American History…I just finished a middle school level book on this particular war.
1) I understand better why the state flag is prominently dispayed underneath — but just barely — the American flag in the state of Texas.
2) [...]

The last class meeting was today, during final exam week. We ate chicken and rice and brownies and chips and were all required to give an informal talk about our projects. Nobody wanted to be there. When the professor stepped out of the room one girl reminded everyone not to talk for [...]

I might summarize research as taught to me in high school by saying that it is an organizational tool, a series of steps resulting in a completed paper: find sources dealing with the selected topic, gather information (painstakingly documenting all the while), and spit the information back out in the form of a carefully cited [...]

Polaroid pictures left the camera as a pale green quickly covered with faint dark patches. After a time the subject was discernable. Later still, the picture would be completely developed in full-color detail.
Pale green would perhaps best describe the color our our nervous systems when the restaurant we entered last [...]

I know exactly where I am, yet find myself bewildered.
I understand the language, yet cannot comprehend my environment.
I am surrounded by that which used to have meaning but does so no longer. Brand names, names of places and streets, wordless road signs clearly intended to communicate important information — all [...]

While reading A Traveller’s History of Spain, I came across the following phrase: Tierras sin hombres, hombres sin tierra.
Only 3 words: tierra, which is “land”, sin, “without”, and hombres, “men”, all of which add up to my fairly straightforward translation of “Land without men, men without land”.
Now for [...]

I was disturbed upon learning of Alan Greenspan’s retirement plans. I’ve often thought he was smarter than anyone else in government — could we possibly do without him?
After listening to large portions of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings I am perfectly convinced that John Roberts is an unusual combination of intelligence [...]

I’m guessing there were at least two dozen Coopers buried in front of Christ Church in Cooperstown.
What really bowled us over were the graves of the 5 children who never lived past two years. One lived for only 17 days. They were all children of Ann Cooper, James Fenimore Cooper’s [...]