The Liar’s Dividend suggests that in addition to fueling the flames of falsehoods, the debunking efforts actually legitimize the debate over the veracity. This creates smoke and fans suspicions among at least some in the audience that there might well be something true about the claim. That’s the “dividend” paid to the perpetrator of…
My daughter who sometimes does things will be singing & swinging August 16 – 25 with @frontporchtheatricals
Even though I wrote about some of Eugene O’Neil’s earlier plays in my dissertation, I had never seen or even read this play before. I knew the basic subject matter but didn’t know the details. All the actors did a great job and the production values were top notch, as I expect from Quantum.
A great professional experience for her.
As those familiar with the liberal arts know, in antiquity there were seven such arts. Three formed the trivium of the humanities: rhetoric, grammar, and logic. And four formed the quadrivium of the sciences: music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. The assertion was this was the knowledge one required to participate as a citizen, as a…
If I ever share something that turns out to be disinformation, please let me know. WASHINGTON (AP) — The Kremlin is turning to unwitting Americans and commercial public relations firms in Russia to spread disinformation about the U.S. presidential race, top intelligence officials said Monday, detailing the latest efforts by America’s adversaries to shape public…
I’ve roughed out earthen embankments for the city walls. I know there was at some point a moat but this is more than enough accuracy for now. #blender3d #medievalyork #mysteryplay
How can you tell if a space alien is a friend or an enemy? One spaceman has that decision to make in Tom Godwin’s “Cry from a Far Planet.” Listen to Dennis Jerz read the science fiction classic to discover the answer.
I have a daughter who does things. Here’s what she’ll be starting on next week. @frontporchtheatricals
The cast of comical, quirky characters are most enjoyable. Marigold (Carolyn Jerz) is hilarious as the new age, love child who always sees the best in everybody and everything. Jerz floats, whirls, and glides across the stage. She’s delightful and believable in her role. Her presence on stage brings lightness and spreads joy. —Burgh Vivant
Carolyn Jerz lights up the stage from her first entrance, almost literally. Dressed in bright colors and elaborately coiffed, with her face made up so pale white that it glows (think Björk meets Catherine O’Hara in Beetlejuice), Jerz imbues the role of spiritualist and yoga enthusiast Marigold with an outsider energy that is otherworldly, larger than life,…
Moments after Donald Trump was rushed to safety following a failed assassination attempt at a Saturday night rally, some of his supporters turned toward the press pen with obscenities as they fingered reporters for blame. “This is your fault!” one attendee emphatically yelled, pointing at individual journalists as he approached the fence line separating them from attendees.…
The daughter is in “Very Berry Dead,” a new play which opens this Friday and runs for two weekends in Pittsburgh.
The writer, director, and one of the cast members talk about the play that my daughter Carolyn is getting ready to open Friday. Tickets: https://veryberrydead.bpt.me/
So important to be teaching research skills and critical thinking at a time when powerful people manipulate the public with their lies.
Glenda Morgan does not sound that impressed with Google’s latest promises about AI and education. [T]hus far I am unconvinced that the kinds of tutoring currently offered via AI matches the concept of watching a student’s thought processes and identifying the core issues they aren’t understanding. Instead, AI tutoring today seems to consist of breaking…
When scholars of journalism study the effects of the shrinking press corps, they usually focus on how it hurts civil society. Vast swaths of the country are at risk of becoming “news deserts,” with limited access to reliable local journalism. This state of affairs makes it harder for people to make educated decisions and is…
Over the past couple of years, researchers at Jigsaw, a Google subsidiary that focuses on online politics and polarization, have been studying how Gen Zers digest and metabolize what they see online. The researchers were hoping that their work would provide one of the first in-depth, ethnographic studies of Gen Z’s “information literacy.” But the…
Joel Lipton, 10 years old at the time, wrote to Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz. Fast-forward to this past February, when Lipton and his wife were cleaning out their closet. […] “Dear Joel,” the letter reads. “I think it is more difficult these days to define what makes a good citizen then it has ever been…