Journalists play a vital role in a democracy. That sometimes includes serving the public by publishing facts and analysis that powerful people would rather stay secret. The free press matters. #heros

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Finished the girl's 10th grade homeschool evaluation with PA Homeschoolers Susan Richman.

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You Can Smell Trump’s Fear

Like all successful demagogues, Trump has a talent for identifying scapegoats. It is not hyperbole to say that he speaks of Latino immigrants in much the same way that European monsters once spoke of Jews. It is equally foolish, however, to look past a sign that all is not well in Trumpland and that the…

The girl told me to post this with the caption, “The Addams Family Goes to the Big League.”

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On the way to closing night of "Orphans."

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The spoils.

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Chess tournament final pairing. (He’s currently tied for 2nd.)

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Image: A man reads a newspaper on a subway car.

Americans grapple with recognizing facts in news stories: Pew survey

The more you identify with a particular point of view, the harder it is to recognize the difference between facts and opinions, and the easier it becomes to accept as “fact” an opinion that aligns with and affirms your world view. This is not something that only the “Liberal Elite Media” or the “Deplorable Right”…

Why liberal arts and the humanities are as important as engineering

We learned that though a degree made a big difference in the success of an entrepreneur, the field it was in and the school that it was from were not significant factors. YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki, for instance, majored in history and literature; Slack founder Stewart Butterfield in English; Airbnb founder Brian Chesky in the…

A tiny crying toddler and Donald J. Trump share the cover of the July 2 Time Magazine.

The crying Honduran girl on the cover of Time was not separated from her mother, father says

The original was a stunning image, which has been used to criticize ICE’s policy of separating children from parents attempting to immigrate at the border — a policy which Trump says he dislikes. The animated version of the Time cover makes it clear that this is a composite picture, though of course the emotional power…

Trump, halting his own policy: “I didn’t like sight of families being separated.”

No fake news here. This is why journalism matters. It wasn’t the moral consequences of his own immigration crackdown that caused Trump to act — it was “the sight of” those consequences. What happens to those families after they have been detained for over 20 days remains to be seen. Very glad to hear that…

Summer project: learning the Unity gaming engine.

One bedtime about 11 years ago, my 5yo daughter did not want to go to bed, so she asked me to tell her a story. Not to read one from a book — but to make one up for her. She and her brother would often spend time on long car rides telling stories together.…

My Father’s Day adventure included replacing the family gaming computer (a 2011 Mac Mini… don’t judge)

One of the benefits of working at Seton Hill is they provide me with a MacBook Air and an iPad. I turn them in every few years for an upgrade. The computer the kids use for gaming is a Mac Mini that I bought in 2011, with a virtual machine that runs Windows. It has served…

Cartoon showing an artist drawing a caricature of U.S. president Donald Trump, while an arm wearing a business suit uses an eraser to rub out the artwork.

I Was Fired for Making Fun of Trump

After 25 years as the editorial cartoonist for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I was fired on Thursday. I blame Donald Trump. Well, sort of. I should’ve seen it coming. When I had lunch with my new boss a few months ago, he informed me that the paper’s publisher believed that the editorial cartoonist was akin to…

Uneasy Lies the Head — Tyrant: Shakespeare on Power

John Stubbs reviews Stephen Grenblatt’s Tyrant: Shakespeare on Power The psychology and spectacle of villainy and the intoxicating nature of power clearly preoccupied Shakespeare. The grandeur, amoral freedom of action and sheer theatrical potential of tyrants must have moved and excited him. The case of a confirmed murderous dictator, after all, especially one with the…

Small child propped on her elbows, using laptop computer.

Kids Whose Parents Limit Screen Time Do Worse in College, New Study Shows

“Parents normally set these rules to promote their children’s scholastic development and to make sure that they invest enough time in schoolwork. But that evidently can also backfire,” commented Hargittai. But why exactly? The study can’t say definitively, but I emailed Hargattai to see what hypotheses she might have. “One possibility would be that such…

Email from a student: "I stumbled upon a letter of recommendation that you wrote for me in 2006, and I wanted to send you a quick thank you! Upon entering your classroom all those years ago, I was very intimidated. Upon leaving, I was inspired. Reading your kind words about me all these years later mean so very much.”

A former student contacted me to share her thoughts.

A few years ago, I told myself I would start making a bigger deal about such things. It’s too easy to obsess over the students who don’t care, don’t like how I teach X, stopped submitting the assignments, didn’t apply my feedback, etc. I do wish I could get more students to feel grateful before…

Such A Good Feeling: The Affectionate Documentary ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’

My son and I saw “Won’t You Be Ny Neighbor” at a special showing in Greensburg (not far from Fred Rodgers’ hometown of Latrobe). My daughter performed PICT’s Jane Eyre in the Fred Rogers Studio at WQED (where part of the floor is still painted like the path in the Neighborhood of Make Believe. …

Meet the guys who tape Trump’s papers back together

I tell this old newsroom tale to my students: An angry editor sees a cub reporter coming into work. “I sent you to cover a concert,” says the editor. “Why didn’t you file the story?” The cub reporter says, “The concert hall burned down.” Sometimes the story you set out to cover is not the…

The girl is intrigued by the plot twists in _The Mayor of Casterbridge_.

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