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…
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…
“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…
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…
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. …
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…
Similar:Seeing A Wrinkle in Time. @prime_stagePersonalMore split-screen actinghttp://youtu.be/EGgeZWskEs8DesignI love my students enough to teach them the difference between passive voice and past tens…If a goggles-for-brains Lego character c…EducationAnother section of a #steampunk control panel, made in #blender3d for a personal project. …AestheticsBehind the bar in the officers' pub, from the #steampunk bedtime stories I used…
Similar:Lintels and chimneys for low-poly buildings in a #medievaltheater simulation project. #mys…Lintels and chimneys for low-poly buildi…PersonalIn November 1999, I was blogging about books, camomile tea and Skylon 4, the death of Star…In November 1999, I was blogging about …CyberculturePfully Pfizered and pfeeling pfine so pfar. Current_EventsIf Wishes Were Horses (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1,…
Similar:Enjoying the “Science of Pixar” 3d computer modeling and storytelling exhibit with my son….Enjoying the “Science of Pixar” 3d compu…Personal13: The Musical Promohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40MbeApiX…CultureFigured out how to configure my iPad as an external monitor for my laptop. Much more effic…CybercultureHere's how Maria amuses herself on the ride home from dress rehearsal. #WestSideStoryPersonalCarolyn's "waiter with wobbly stack…
Similar:FDR in AnnieI’ve accepted the role of FDR in the upc…CultureComputers and Writing 2020 Funding Request: SubmittedMy contributions this year are a worksho…AcademiaIf you like bloody, singing, punning demons you will love this show.If you like bloody, singing, punning dem…AmusingI baked pools of light into the wallpaper, so I can quickly suggest background lighting, s…AestheticsFrozen…
Similar:Here's to the grim-based photojournalist who saved my bacon ~35 years ago Here’s to you, grim-faced photojournal…AcademiaI'm down to a king and two pawns but my son likes playing until he crushes me.PersonalThe girl is rehearsing for Hello DollyPersonalUnion siege cannon, printing press, and "From Slavery to Freedom" were the highl…PersonalGo not to the elves…
Similar:Worked a short day today, and it shows. Tomorrow is another day!PersonalChildren of Eden (Stage Right, April 2014)My wife and I in Biblical costumes for C…CultureHow To Gain or Lose 30 Minutes of Life Every DayIf you smoke two cigarettes, you lose 30…DesignFigured out how to configure my iPad as an external monitor for my…
Context matters. Good journalists should go out of their way to avoid creating a mistaken impression. Fox News apologized Tuesday after receiving a torrent of criticism over the network’s use of photos of various players for the Philadelphia Eagles kneeling in prayer, creating the misleading impression that they were demonstrating during the national anthem. The…
He could have built, you know, a junkyard mechanic droid, or a general manual labor droid, or a Bitcoin-mining droid, or a freedom-fighter droid? No, he builds a fussy butler. The silliness of this just hit me. Similar:Another 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dart #relaxing #aestheti…AestheticsIs Babylon 5 secretly the most influential…
Similar:Being a dad-nerd means finding new ways to play.https://youtu.be/-c6IirtwFawAestheticsAt the chess club holiday party. Peter looks forward to his Wednesday…GamesCarolyn featured on Steel City News for The Nutcracker The credit at 0:30 should read “Caro…AestheticsDetailed Articulation of Feet in Unity3DI’m following a lot of tutorials, and co…AestheticsThank you, anonymous donor of Mardi Gras candy.Okay, on…
Similar:SportsWorks Adventure at the Carnegie Science CenterI confess that I have never been all tha…CultureI am a dog and I am a good boy and I am prepping my Spring courses.AcademiaPerspective | After a stunning news conference, there’s a newly crucial job for the Americ… I have always taken a neutral stan…CultureYeah natural born creative…
This story offers evidence to challenge the stereotype that under employed humanities majors are stuck working in service jobs years after graduation. STEM jobs are indeed the most marketable, but a recent study found that after five years, business, health professions, education and psychology make up far more of the underemployed graduates than English or…
Facebook is discontinuing the “trending” list. After the employees hired by Facebook to curate the trending news items were found to bury news they didn’t like, Facebook fired them all and tried to automate the process. If it matters to you whether their bias was liberal or conservative you can look it up, but my…
As an American studying in Toronto during the Clinton administration, I encountered some non-negligible anti-American bias. I learned to pronounce the last letter of the alphabet “zed” when I was spelling my name. When I sang “ahh-men” in a church choir, the music director stopped the rehearsal to express his surprise that I hadn’t sung…
Don’t blame “the media” for using this photo, often identified as immigrant children separated from their parents and placed in a cage. I saw this image in my social media feed numerous times over the weekend; it wasn’t journalists who kept sharing it, it was random people (and probably a non-trivial number of bots) on…