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 the premiere of a play based on the life of a Holocaust survivor who ended up as a …PersonalJury Duty UpdateI’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-…GovernmentClues (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 14) Data's faslehoods nonpluss and Pic…Rewatching ST:TNG After the crew blac…EmpathyThe boy approved of the WWII historical fiction Dunkirk. CultureAdventure | T.M. CampGreat…
Similar:I accidentally did too much DuoLingo. I don't want to advance to the harder league. Come o…EducationI am very happy for these folks, who spent 20 or so years tweaking an insanely complex, co… AwesomeA picture of puffy white clouds floating in a blue skyAestheticsThank you, 1993 Dennis, for documenting this low-resolution (the background image…
Similar:Opening night. Support local artists in your community!PersonalDaughter is in 2 theatrical productions opening this weekendThe daughter plays Laertes in Seton Hill…BooksVisiting Ft Ligonier #sevenyearswar #history #localhistoryPersonalNerd-buddies”He likes Lord of the Rings, Star Wars *…BooksThe girl rehearsing as Babette in Stage Right's Beauty and the BeastCarolyn rehearses with Nick Lenz. Her sh…Current_EventsFallout Monopoly with the…
Similar:Can you really say you’ve designed #neovictorian uniforms for a fantasy #steampunk cruiser…AestheticsScrooge Is My BrotherMy daughter delivered the opening “Marle…CultureCarolyn, Easter 2017 PersonalLighting makes a difference. The officers' pub from the interplanetary cruiser #steampunk … AestheticsGet Hands-on Writing Experience.AcademiaFeeling Like an Impostor at 49I reminded my Shakespeare students that …Academia
Similar:Summer Theater Camp Photos: "Patrice" in "13" My 11yo performed the part of “Patrice…Current_EventsShe doesn't have keys or a phone or an ID. Why does my tween need a purse?To stash her Lemonheads and Smarties. ht…AmusingUntil next term, I have zero more unmarked assignments. #fistpumpUntil next term, I have zero more unmark…AcademiaThe lighting doesn't really…
Similar:My son (black) has captured better pieces, but my brother (white) has a better position. C… Personal#PPTPlaytime adaptation of The Merchant of Venice.Top — nonverbal addition with Jessica an…DramaYour second attempt at modeling #medievalyork fortifications in #blender3d will be better …Your second attempt at modeling #medieva…AestheticsSo peaceful and majestic. Another outing with my son.PersonalSo long, Newsweek…
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:Sweaters from Rover?From Awful Library Books. For more schad…BooksThe Sword of Kahless #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode…
Similar:My parents holding a picture of the family I took with my first SLR camera in 1987.PersonalAnnie 2012 with Annie 2017. Annie 2012 with her Warbucks. "Together at last. Together …PersonalGreen / mahogany variation of the vibe I'm working on for a fantasy #steampunk #blend…PersonalToday I didn't save the world, but I did help a…
Similar:"I'm a geek. Deal with it." –my 11yo daughter. #geekgirlproblemsAmusingImaginary vs Real Office SpaceHere’s a fantasy workspace, that I built…AcademiaThe spoils.PersonalUnmarked assignments in my queue: 0This app, which sports a little red noti…AcademiaThe only snow alert you'll ever need.AmusingChildren of Eden (Stage Right, April 2014)My wife and I in Biblical costumes for C…Culture
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…