Herz for . . .

Dear Principal:

I thought about my interaction with the student. I don’t consider myself a racist person—though I have been told in this city that a white person is definitionally racist. I admit there was an element of judgment in my remark(s). I expect that a person who chooses to be in America and take advantage of the gifts we offer make an effort to learn the dominant language in America.

This is the message I would relay to the parent if given the opportunity. Your are welcome to pass it along:

Mine is not an uncommon or extraordinary expectation. If you want to best serve your daughter, you might want to advise her that she will run up against plenty of people who think like me in the world. Whether you judge that to be right or wrong, it is the reality, and it is better we hew ourselves to reality than to try to bend reality.

The ability to communicate carries with it power and the pass to many of the better things in this world. It is the ability to woo, to calm, to describe, to enroll, to disarm, to gracefully distance, to alter, to move the world. The pen is mightier than the sword, but only if those around us understand what we are saying.

If you want your child to have power and influence in this world, if you want her to be able to deescalate, to defend, to make others laugh, motivate or move them, to elegantly extract herself, or insinuate herself, you will call on her to be a master of our language.

You will take her on a field trip to any of the tony neighborhoods not so far from Bridgeport and let her know that what separates her from this is simply her mastery of language and her desire to learn.

Maybe she should take from her interaction with me the message that she should take on bettering herself. Three new words a day would be more than a thousand a year. Ten a day would start closing any gap really quickly.

She was in a biology class, just learning that vocabulary would bring her power, and I can’t really get to that with my broken Spanish if she can’t communicate in English.

Grok broke it down for me thus:

In the US, vocabulary size for native English-speaking high school graduates (typically age 18) is most commonly estimated at around 13,000–15,000 word families or base words. (Word families/lemmas group related forms like “run/running/ran” as one; full word counts are higher but less commonly used for these estimates.) This is passive/receptive vocabulary (words recognized/understood), not just active use in speech.

• “Educated adult (high school)” is often cited at ~15,000 base words.
• Broader adult ranges (including college-educated) are typically 20,000–35,000 words, with some large-scale studies reporting medians of ~42,000 lemmas by age 20 (growing to ~48,000 by age 60).
• Vocabulary correlates strongly with education level: university graduates are often estimated at ~23,000 base words.

Distribution follows a roughly bell-shaped (normal) curve with significant individual variation. Factors like reading habits, home environment, and school quality drive the spread. Here is an estimated bell curve for US high school graduates (mean ~15,000 base words/word families; standard deviation ~3,000, consistent with observed spreads in vocabulary test data where 5th–95th percentiles span thousands of words):

• Roughly 68% of HS graduates fall within ~12,000–18,000 words (±1 SD).
• The full range is wide: lower end ~10,000 or below; higher end 20,000+ (especially strong readers or those headed to college).

Bridgeport, CT vs. its more affluent neighbors (e.g., Westport, Darien, Greenwich, Fairfield): There are no publicly available city-specific vocabulary size studies, but the gap is expected to be substantial (likely several thousand words on average, even among high school graduates) due to large differences in educational attainment, school quality, reading proficiency, and socioeconomic status (SES)—all of which strongly predict vocabulary.

• Educational attainment (adults 25+): Bridgeport has lower high school completion (~76–78%) and much lower bachelor’s+ rates (~19–23%). Affluent neighbors like Westport (~98% HS+, ~78–79% bachelor’s+) and Darien (~86% bachelor’s+) are among the highest in the state and nation.
• School performance: Bridgeport district reading proficiency is low (~21–23%); graduation rates ~74%. Westport/Darien/Staples High School area schools are top-ranked statewide with ~99% graduation, far higher proficiency, and much stronger SAT/college readiness.
• SES context: Bridgeport has higher poverty and lower median income than its wealthy suburbs. Early childhood “word gaps” by SES (low-SES children hear far fewer words and start school with smaller vocabularies) persist and widen through adolescence, especially with differences in reading exposure and school quality.

A typical Bridgeport HS graduate would likely fall toward the lower half of the national bell curve (e.g., closer to 10,000–13,000 words), while one from an affluent neighbor would trend toward the upper half or college-graduate levels (18,000+). The exact difference varies by individual, but aggregate data on reading/education gaps suggest a meaningful disparity that affects long-term outcomes like college/career readiness.

These are averages and estimates—individual vocabulary depends heavily on personal reading, conversation, and curiosity far more than zip code alone. For the most current local education data, check the US Census ACS or Connecticut EdSight reports.

Yours Truly,

David R. Herz

Seen on Facebook:

I grew up thinking no one in my family died in The Holocaust - in which 60% of all European Jews were murdered.
I was wrong.…

Well heck, you don't have to remember because we're gearing up to do it again. National Socialists, Democratic Socialists: “I am not anti-Jewish, I am just anti-Israel” said no anti-Semite ever. I was not a Nazi. Unfortunately “Never Again!” is now.

And if it's not in your face, it's in the queer ideology (Chairman Mao would be so proud) that has infected almost every part of our system, that seeks to undermine humanity, goodness and G-d. It's in every “crisis” used to curtail another right, it comes in through our own suicidal empathy.

I am sorry for your pain, but I am also sorry that it wasn't real to you until it came this close to home.

Feel sorry too for every Jew that married out, that chose not to have kids to save the planet, or remain ever Peter Pan, who celebrated every form of deviance other than what the Torah requires, who waited until it was too late.

Feel angry at all the dumb-ass Jews who gave us every damned wrong headed idea. As Orwell warned “There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.” So often a Jew is the “intelligent person.”

If you want to honor their memory, if you want to save what is left, then be not silent. I invite you to dedicate a song/​presentation/​production/​creation for each of the people who died on October 7, then maybe another for each killing pit, if you can count them, then each camp or detention center, and if that isn't enough, one for each day the killing camps were open. That should probably carry you to the end of your career. If it doesn't cry a tear for every one of the 48,844 terror attacks just since 9/11.

Sorry, I think I am in a little bit of a mood.

Seen on Facebook:

It's January 26, 2026 and October 7, 2023 is finally over.

David Herz

You are so wrong. It started again on January 1 in New York City. Hamas is still running Gaza on the other side of the yellow line. The world's hate for us is still brimming over.

it's a corpse. We brought home a corpse that would still be a living carefree Israeli if the military and security services had their eyes on the ball instead of looking at how to protect turf (and probably embarrass Bibi), if the left hadn't gone ape-shit about basic judicial reforms, with military saying they wouldn't show up to fight for this state).

We have a terrorist running Syria, and domestic terrorists organizing against their own government.

Or if you are right, how about we disband CSS and have a sing-a-long with our “religion of peace” Muslim brothers. I guess we can stop counting terrorist attacks because there won't be any more. https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Today's thought to someone else I share with you:

the prompt:

Thank you, David, for all of that, as I wasn't aware of any of that.
And my heart and soul are shaken by what happened in Australia. When will the world wake up to Islam???

About Australia, I am not surprised, but then maybe I’ve seen much of this already:

• I have a neighbor in Israel who lost his sister’s family to a stabbing attack.
• I have a teacher who lost a son to an attack at a synagogue in Israel.
• I have a friend whose son has permanent brain damage from another attack.
• I have another in a wheelchair, another without half a leg below the knee.
• There have been 48,616 deadly terror attacks since 9/11: https://thereligionofpeace.com/

I have been training myself to not see crisis in the world. Calling a circumstance a crisis is just an excuse for the imposition of interventions that are not properly thought through, only to take a little more freedom, until the next crisis.

I was in Israel October 7. One of my sons was a soldier in the heat of those battles. Many of the kids I saw grow up are also soldiers. Many of my neighbors spent much of the last few years in reserve duty.

I see people who hurt, but I don’t like the narrative that “the world is on fire.” No one has a big enough extinguisher for that. Rather, the world has shown its hidden face.

This too is the hand of G-d. Maybe he is giving us a gift, a path to prevent the next “Never Again.”

And I get that heart and soul can shake from this. Thank you for the thought. And let us hope that the gift is a little more clarity and motivation moving forward.

All my Best,

David R. Herz

Local Republicans Curiously Free of Allegations of Vote Stealing and Impersonation of Public Officials

In a shocking development, research uncovers no allegations of voter manipulation, fraud, or impersonation of public officials amongst Republican challengers for local office in Bridgeport.

“I know these people, the Republican contenders,” says candidate David Herz, who is up against Alfredo Castillo in the 136th. Herz says “We just don’t think it adds ‘street cred’ to get arrested or make ourselves the targets of criminal investigations.”

He adds that blue cities just don’t equate with prosperity. It’s as clear to him as two plus two not equaling five (suggesting he’s read Orwell and learned a lesson or two), and XY genotypes not being girls (he also claims a science background).

“You don’t become a cultural center by trying to become a cultural center,” Herz maintains, alluding to the various attempts of our local politicians to put lipstick on a pig: murals on empty buildings, art shows of the ‘World on Fire.’ “These fires were set by our blue politicians and they have been fanning the flames for sixty odd years.”

“Culture follows industry and wealth creation. Our job is to make of ourselves a hub of industry, it is to educate our children at the highest levels, which can only be done if we encourage and embrace the traditional family structures that have always been the backbones of thriving communities.”

“Stop stealing. Stop blaming. Stop begging for handouts from the state and federal governments.” Herz maintains that people will pick themselves up and make a better world for themselves if that is what is incentivized.

He urges the people Bridgeport to give his colleagues and him a chance.