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Narnia Lesson Plans: Activities Related to the Musical (based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) — Jerz’s Literacy Weblog

I just posted the latest musical theater education packet, written by my wife, as she aims to make the most of our home-schooled children’s participation in Stage Right Greensburg’s student theater production.

1.10) Narnia, once a utopia or paradise, has become a sad, cold dystopia under the Witch’s rule.

Read & discuss other examples of [...]

Culture | Ethics | Government | Journalism | Media

A Case Study in Local News Futility

An analytical piece dissecting a woefully inaccurate local TV news segment.

This isn’t to say that people aren’t still being arrested for recording cops in public—in Pennsylvania or elsewhere—or that cops aren’t still threatening people who attempt to record them with cell phones or other devices. In fact, in spite of those court rulings, a [...]

Culture | Design | Government | Modding | Politics | Writing

Why Iceland Should Be in the News But Is Not

I wonder what kind of a government we would have, if laws were written as collaborative Wikis. Looks like Iceland’s new constitution came close.

To write the new constitution, the people of Iceland elected twenty-five citizens from among 522 adults not belonging to any political party but recommended by at least thirty citizens. This document [...]

Culture | Current_Events | Ethics | Government | Journalism

Covering Crime and Justice

For my journalism class, I have already created some fake press releases and other documents and created a scenario that simulates how a student reporter might cover an incident involving a member of the campus. If you’ve been following the news, you’ll know that there’s been a real-world incident. I’ve been freshening up what I [...]

Culture | Current_Events | Design | Government | History | Humanities | Religion

Girls equal in British throne succession

While teaching Richard II in a Shakespeare class, I had to get up to speed on the rules and customs of succession, as Shakespeare knew them, so that my students and I could understand and explore the political issues that Elizabethan audiences would find in the play. News from England today bears word of some [...]

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Our Blogs, Ourselves

[J]ournals ceased being a means of communication a long time ago – more than 20 years ago for sure. New research would be unveiled in seminars, circulated as NBER Working Papers, long before anything showed up in a journal. Whole literatures could flourish, mature, and grow decadent before the first article got properly published…. The [...]

Business | Culture | Ethics | Government | Rhetoric

Anti-Telemarketing Script | UCAN

Before you start answering questions from a telephone solicitor, you must “qualify” the company as a potential prospect for a law suit. If, during the introductory pitch, the telemarketer indicates that they are working for a non-profit firm, or a survey company, hang up immediately. They are not subject to the law and are a [...]

Culture | Education | Ethics | Government | Politics | Rhetoric

Micheal Flaherty: The Latest Crime Wave—Sending Your Child to a Better School – WSJ.com

Even when I mentally adjust for the alarmist rhetoric, I find this truly frightenting. What a pathetic use of resources… what a painful sign that our public schools are failiing, when they circle the wagons like this and villify their neighbnors, in an attempt to keep their local systems afloat. Other school districts use services [...]

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Johnstown, PA. High School Cancels Play Due To Islamic Setting

Kismet is set in ancient Baghdad, a time historians call “The Islamic Golden Age.” Johnstown is in western Pennsylvania.

“Flight 93 flew right over our heads,” school Superintendent Thomas Fleming Jr. explains.

United Airlines Flight 93, of course, plowed into the ground nearby on Sept. 11, 2001, after the hijackers were overpowered by the passengers [...]

Cyberculture | Ethics | Government | Media | Rhetoric | Weirdness

With historic losses looming, Postal Service launches new ad campaign – The Washington Post

And this is, apparently, the best they could come up with? FUD works when you have the advantage of power, or numbers… or, apparently, a still-hefty taxpayer-backed budget. “A refrigerator has never been hacked,” an announcer says in the first message as an actress pins a paper bill to her fridge.

In the other ad, [...]