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:A question I find myself thinking all the time.PersonalAnd to think… I had just decided to retire this meme because the last time I used in cla…AcademiaFurnished a random nook in the #neovictorian #steampunk cruiser I'm building. Not ha…PersonalWork / Life Balance: UnlockedI think I must be doing something right …AcademiaBeautiful set. Support the humans…
Similar:Chess tournament final pairing. (He’s currently tied for 2nd.)PersonalA day may come when the strength of the girl fails and she must make more than one trip to…PersonalPreparing for some serious nerd time with the family this summerSet phasers to “nerd”! This summer I’ll…CultureNow that I have polished so many details, I'm working on more…
Similar:Spotted: the North American tree daughter.NatureTalk with us about books! English as a minor or second major @setonhilluniversityAcademiaAugust Wilson Trifecta (Two Trains, Ma Rainey and Fences on the same day)Fences was performed in the backyard of …CultureFoggy April morning on the hill.PersonalA 20 sq cm section of #steampunk #blender3d goodness. #blender3dartAestheticsScience Fair VictoryIn this photo…
Similar:Work / Life Balance: UnlockedI think I must be doing something right …AcademiaMinneapolis protest cleanup: Did you share this meme without fact-checking it? (Don’t spre… A Facebook meme with 52k reactions a…CultureStill shot from a flyover video that's been taking about 3 minutes to render each fra…AestheticsTouch Me Now: York Plays 2025A cast of hundreds…
Similar:Three different sized buildings. Still working on variations for the biggest one. #blender…Three different sized buildings. Still w…AestheticsFDR in AnnieI’ve accepted the role of FDR in the upc…CultureFinished Reading The Chronicles of PrydainWe could hardly stop reading just before…Books"Oliver Twist" is a story of redemption for PICT Classic Theatre.Carolyn started rehearsals for PICT Clas…BooksStage Right's…
Similar:"seriously, the guy has a point" — on the Charging Bull and Fearless Girl ControversyArt conveys significance; however, much …AestheticsAuditioning in Pittsbugh (flanked by shots from recent performances).CultureComputers and Writing workshop on Inform 7. (Happening now. In an asynchronous way.)https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa8nP…AcademiaMy son showed me Seven Samurai. I had never seen it before. Amazing!I’m going to have…
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:Through the Looking Glass #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 3, Episode 19) Sisko Must Rescue … Rewatching ST:DS9 The…
Similar:Sondra's Garden: Butterfly Release Honors Dr. Lettrich (Seton Hill University)”Every good lesson plan has a culminatin…AcademiaYork Corpus Christi Pageant, Toronto, June 7I’ll be in Toronto next week to observe …AcademiaSafety is a good thing.PersonalWhy ‘Cats’ the Movie Fails So FlamboyantlyI can’t seem to get into superhero movie…AestheticsLate night set construction for The Miracle Worker.ArtEnjoying a…
Similar:Daughter made a Rainbow Loom Marty McFly. Note vest jacket and hover board.PersonalNew Renaissance Theatre Company's The Merry Wives of Windsor (in rep with The Tempest…PersonalOuttakes from “Once on This Island” promohttps://youtu.be/QlMJuogD9to AmusingLast event of a busy day downtown. #AgathieChristie #murderontheorientexpressAestheticsFeeding a Neighbor's LambsA neighbor invited us over to help feed …AmusingThese buildings are so…
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…