Men in Hats, or, I'm Glad I Don't Teach Composition Anymore

Although Curious George and Brokeback Mountain share many similarities, they also share many differences. Both involve men in hats, but the meaning of the hat changes. —Men in Hats, or, I’m Glad I Don’t Teach Composition Anymore ( Confessions of a Community College Dean) Similar:Advice for My Conservative StudentsA professor who had been a conservative …AcademiaUpdating…

Infamous Email Writers Aren't Always Killing Their Careers After All

“I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that this kind of behavior is naturally rewarded,” cautions Paul Argenti, professor of corporate communication at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. “But it does lead to success in some realms.” And those realms can include the legal profession, sales teams, trading floors, entrepreneurial endeavors — in other words, the…

Within and Without

[E]ach time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him…

Pick Up That Can

—Pick Up That Can (Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman) A comic strip using visuals created with the Half-Life 2 engine. Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.My years of watching MacGyver definitely…AcademiaThings Past #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 8) Odo confronts his reputation as a…Rewatching ST:DS9 Sisko, Dax, Odo and…AmusingThirty Years Ago, the…

So *this* is what we're doing for Valentine's Day?

—So *this* is what we’re doing for Valentine’s Day? (CTRL+ALT_DEL) Okay, it’s a few days late, but it’s very sweet, in a geeky, retro way. Similar:Culture Desk: My Life in PencilsDevotees of the Blackwing had been payin…AestheticsStar Wars' Original, Scum-Caked BrillianceThe B-movie shoddiness of actors and aes…AestheticsAmbiguous language in journalism: Monkey Pox and Camel Privates Amazing…

Literacy Limps Into the Kill Zone

The very nature of e-mail (which, along with first cousins IM and text messaging, is an undeniably handy means of chatting) encourages sloppy “penmanship,” as it were. Its speed and informality sing a siren song of incompetent communication, a virtual hooker beckoning to the drunken sailor as he staggers along the wharf. But it’s not…

What's On Your Office Door?

—What’s On Your Office Door? (Pedablogue) Left to right: Pittsburgh goes blog wild! I’m not featured in this article, but my blog is one of the many that’s aggregated on this site. Rules Grammar Change and School ‘Fine’ U.S. Teens Report Grad Student Deconstructs Take-out Menu On the door itself — just the institutional nameplate, a…

A Win-Win-Win Situation

Tell your professors face to face every time you will be gone, I urged the baseball team, and express your eagerness to make up any missed work. Even more important, when you?re in class, show the professor that you are there to learn. Just as you know how to position yourselves on the diamond, learn…

The nesting of clauses that lay in the sentence that Cheney said

Why is Cheney snowcloning ‘The House That Jack Built’? —Benjamin Zimmer —The nesting of clauses that lay in the sentence that Cheney said (Lanugage Log) Similar:A Classicist Goes to Work in Silicon ValleyKristina Chew writes about what her frie…AcademiaIn August, 2001 I was blogging about… Broken Links and Poor Information Ar…AestheticsDuke stops assigning numeric values to…

Babylon 5's Katsulas Dies

Andreas Katsulas, the character actor known to SF fans as G’Kar on Babylon 5 and a familiar face from Star Trek and other SF&F TV shows, died Feb. 13 of lung cancer in Los Angeles, his agent, Donna Massetti, confirmed to SCI FI Wire. He was 59. —Babylon 5’s Katsulas Dies (SciFi.com) This man brought an…

Who Gets In? The key to admission remains a mystery

“Along with the Sphinx, the DaVinci code and Easter Island, college admissions is one of the world’s great mysteries,” said Mary Beth Kurilko, associate director of undergraduate admissions at Temple University. “I see it in the faces of the parents who hover around their children during our information sessions. They’re listening for it, leaning forward…

Dick Cheney Quail Hunt Game

—Dick Cheney Quail Hunt Game File this under “What took you so long?” Similar:Scammer tricks YouTuber who exposes scams to delete his anti-scammer channelThis one is hard to unpack, and painful …Current_EventsThe Sword of Kahless #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 9) Kor invites Worf and Dax…Rewatching ST:DS9 Kor (the charismatic …AmusingSaints and Poets, Maybe…