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:Sold out closing performance. Support the arts in your community!Sold out closing performance. Support th…PersonalAmazing show. Young lovers, a witty (but often stupid) servant, speeches, rants, exaggerat… PersonalUnmarked assignments. As more keeps coming in, can I reduce that number each day, without …PersonalLearning How to Love My Daughter Image description: A teen girl in a …CultureA…
Similar:We love us some Sherlock any way we can get it.PersonalA picture of puffy white clouds floating in a blue skyAestheticsWhy scientists should care about artMy artsy daughter loves stories about sc…ArtForgotten closet box: powder blue summer suit with a crisp 1990 $10 bill in the pocket and…The chunky laptop seems to boot and the…
Similar:Okay yes, this affirmation does matter to me and it will go into my annual review for next…Marked 832 AP English essays in a week o…AcademiaMy son showed me #PacificRim.My son showed me #PacificRim. Liked the …CybercultureThe Fantasticks (Oct 18-27)PersonalShrek: The Musical (Nov 22-24; Stage Right! Greensburg)Come see me as the Captain of the Guard,…Current_EventsMore…
Similar:A professor examines why her students seem to act so helpless (essay)This essay on college students acting he…AcademiaYou can be a Trek fan without loving TOS. But if we think tolerance and empathy are good t…I was born in 1968 and grew up with reru…CultureA day may come when the strength of the girl fails…
Similar:Summer Theater Camp Photos: "Patrice" in "13" My 11yo performed the part of “Patrice…Current_EventsNarrating "A Christmas Carol" for WAOB Audio Theatre. (The four episodes will be released …DramaA familiar performer choreographed and dances the "Canaan Days" tango in Stage Right's Jos…AestheticsPics from Thursday's dress rehearsal of Shrek: The Musical. This weekend only! @stage…PersonalLoved part 1…
Similar:Journalism students guiltily ignoring the "no electronic devices" note in the program duri…That moment when you see a dozen or more…AcademiaFull Bloom opens next weekend. Tickets 724-527-5777.PersonalLA Photographer Fired for Digitally Altering News Photo”On Monday, March 31, the Los Angeles Ti…Ethicsthe history of computer games: from 'pong' to 'pac-man'”in the beginning, there was nothing. we…Cyberculture9…
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:What's a namber? (archived)Update, December 2024: Sadly, the “what’…CybercultureThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – About the game30th…
Similar:"Godspell" is sure to entertain audiences of all ages and faithsThat’s me in the white shirt, with a tie…CultureDrinking milk and using the #WaybackMachine to fix broken links in a 10-year-old blog post…PersonalIt’s that time again.PersonalA performance, two auditions and a cast party. #busyweekendPersonalMuch Ado About Nothing (Beatrice is my literary crush.)PersonalMoonBot (from the family…
Similar:I am slightly ahead of the boy. Rare.PersonalCrash site and Tower of Voices. Well worth the side trip on the way back from a weekend gi…Flight 93 crash site and Tower of Voices…CultureUPDATE: BREAKING: 'Star Wars' Returns — 'Episode 7' Slated For 2015 And More Movies Plann…The moment in Attack of the Clones when …BusinessDaughter…
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…