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Dager: Seeing high prices through rose-colored glasses
Published 10/24/2012 at 5:15 p.m. 0 comments
My mom took me to the optometrist when I was 8 years old. The optometrist told my mom, "Either she can't see or she wants glasses."
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Dager: Anti-bullying month a good idea that won't work
Published 10/10/2012 at 2:45 p.m. 13 comments
When I picked up my younger daughter from middle school that day, she had a "funny" story to tell. She was walking in the hallway and a girl purposely kicked her in the back of the leg. It was funny ...
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Dager: Don't discount parents who are oldies but goodies
Published 9/26/2012 at 1:32 p.m. 1 comment
My grandmother told me that she was an "old maid" when she gave birth to my dad. She was 28. This was in 1936, when it was common for women to get married at 18 and start having kids right ...
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Dager: Sharing a war story not always the best choice
Published 9/12/2012 at 2:17 p.m. 2 comments
I've always thought it was a cruel rite of passage for first-time pregnant women to be subjected to other mothers' labor-and-delivery horror stories. I'm pretty sure the scaring is unintentional, but I don't know why women do that to each ...
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Dager: Time to strut your priceless stuff out the front door
Published 8/29/2012 at 3:33 p.m. 2 comments
There's a famous George Carlin routine in which the late comic talks about our love of "stuff." "That's the whole meaning of life, isn't it?" he said. "Trying to find a place for your stuff." Over our 27-year marriage, my ...
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Dager: There's no shame in erring on the side of silliness
Published 8/15/2012 at 2:07 p.m. 0 comments
My husband was a little concerned when he got the letter. He read it to me, and then I looked at it and said, "You better call your rep and make sure this isn't a scam."
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Dager: The fallacy behind Warhol's 15 minutes of fame claim
Published 8/1/2012 at 3:38 p.m. 1 comment
Shortly after the movie theater shooting in Colorado, I was listening to a radio show host who opined that the shooter was in it for the fame. He likened the shooter to Charles Manson, a guy whose name and crimes ...
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Dager: Weaving your way through college to a career
Published 7/4/2012 at 3:00 p.m. 0 comments
When I was a kid, there was a long-running joke about going to college to major in "basket weaving." This was meant to insult those who didn't earn college degrees that were considered of value in terms of a career.
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Dager: Ain't no cure for the summertime noise
Published 6/6/2012 at 4:44 p.m. 3 comments
The weather is warming up and that means one thing: noise. Lots of it. Sorry to be such a curmudgeon and not wax romantic about barbecues, soirees, luaus and other events that are supposed to be all about summertime fun, ...
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Dager: Your spelling really does matter
Published 5/23/2012 at 3:50 p.m. 8 comments
Ten years ago, when my older daughter was in middle school, I wrote a column about a teacher who misspelled a word in a homework assignment.
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Dager: Closing up shop on America's department stores
Published 5/9/2012 at 2:53 p.m. 0 comments
According to Bill Bryson's book "Made in America: An Informal History of the English "language of the United States," the first department store was Marble Dry-Goods Palace, which opened in 1846 in New York.
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Dager: Big Brother is watching what you eat and drink
Published 4/11/2012 at 4:40 p.m. 22 comments
More than a decade ago, I received an assignment to write a feature story about school cafeteria food. I did the interviews and turned in what I thought was a pretty good, upbeat article. Shortly after that, the editor called ...
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Dager: Small betrayal of trust creates decades of hurt
Published 3/28/2012 at 4:32 p.m. 0 comments
One scandal after another is hitting the headlines. Nope, it's not the usual suspects: actors, athletes and politicians. These are teachers — educators — getting arrested for alleged crimes. Some are from the Los Angeles Unified School District, where I ...
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Dager: Medical exams don't stand the test of time
Published 2/29/2012 at 4:25 p.m. 3 comments
It's become almost cliché to say that if men could have babies, birth control would be cheaper, more reliable, easier to get, have fewer side effects, etc.
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Dager: Speaking up for all baby boomers — literally
Published 2/15/2012 at 3:33 p.m. 0 comments
I first realized I had a problem when I accompanied my daughter, then in high school, to the school library to pay for a textbook she'd lost. The librarian asked for her student identification number. My daughter quietly slurred what ...
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