I was talking about Wikipedia, and he launched into a rant about its failings. In particular, he complained about the several inaccuracies in an article about a topic with which he was deeply familiar. “So,” I asked, “did you fix them?” “No,” he responded, “I don’t have time for that kind of thing.” Talk about…
The poets made all the words, and therefore language is the archives of history, and, if we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolizes…
Ten presidents and chancellors of prominent research universities, in a report written with the American Council on Education and released Thursday, called for innovations such as giving young academics more time during child-rearing years to complete research before being put up for tenure. —Study Calls for Tenure Flexibility (AP/My Way) See the PDF exectuive summary of…
Many students having difficulty understanding Shakespeare would be surprised to learn that he wrote in modern English. But, as can be seen in the earlier example of the Lord’s Prayer, Elizabethan English has much more in common with our language today than it does with the language of Chaucer. Many familiar words and phrases were…
Playwright Arthur Miller, the creator of The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, has died at the age of 89. —American playwright [Arthur] Miller dies (BBC) Thanks for sending me the sad news, Rosemary. I wrote on All My Sons and Death of a Salesman in my dissertation-turned-book. Similar:Our family has seen David Whalen in the…
NASA — Last year was the fourth warmest year on average for our planet since the late 1800s, according to NASA scientists. To determine if the Earth is warming or cooling, scientists look at average temperatures. To get an “average” temperature, scientists take the warmest and the coolest temperatures in a day, and calculate the…
James Guckert, who reported from the White House for the Talon News Service under the name “Jeff Gannon,” announced he was quitting the business “in consideration of the welfare of me and my family.” —White House reporter’s credentials questioned (CNN) Hmm… I interned at a radio station where one of the news reporters went by a…
What is Tenure? (The Good Morning Show — KFAB) This morning at about 8:40, I spent about 12 minutes as a telephone guest on a morning talk show on KFAB in Nebraska, where I was brought in to provide context for the Ward Churchill controversy at the University of Colorado. My role was to explain tenure.…
You arrive for your interview at the most posh hotel in town, where you’re met by the local chapter of Plutocrats R Us — millionaire alumni, billionaire builders, all dropping by on their private jets to meet you. Their female companions, dripping diamonds, whisk your wife off to fashionista spas — while you are wined…
While Churchill has been reviled outside academe, many professors — even those who find his views revolting — have defended him, saying that for a public university to dismiss a tenured professor for his writings would violate the First Amendment and erode the principles of academic freedom. So the debate over Churchill’s research may have…
Many thanks for responding to my brief survey. My name is Ashley Holmes, and I am conducting some descriptive research as part of my M.A. thesis in composition under the direction of Dr. Chris Anson at NC State University. Most of my work has involved collecting and describing cases of blogs used for the teaching…
I used to love routines, particularly the way they allowed life’s more mundane aspects to slip into the background, removed from conscious decision making. Before becoming a dad, my mornings began with a predictable sequence. Coffee. Bagels. NPR. But with a newborn, routines are constantly at risk. You put your hand to her little forehead.…
If you’re designing a website aimed at teenagers, you’d better not make the text too small. That’s not because teens have bad eyes, but because teenagers tend to lean back in their chairs when they’re at their computers. That advice and much more about how websites for teens should be different from those for adults…
I just don’t know what it is about Jerz and Britney. Maybe he is the president of her fan club and he has to donwplay their connection in class because it just would get weird if we knew he loved her like we all do. I mean come on people the world wants to know.…
An overwhelming majority of the students who entered college and the workforce during the past three years said in the survey that, knowing what they know now, they would have worked harder and applied themselves more in high school. More than three-quarters of all graduates not in college (77 percent) and nearly two-thirds of those…
In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the eponymous subject keeps his youthful looks while the vagaries of age are visited upon his portrait in the attic. Now a digital version of Wilde’s idea is being developed to show you what you will look like in five years’ time if you take no exercise,…
Population decline is by no means restricted to the industrial world. Remarkably, the sharp rise in American fertility rates at the height of the baby boom — 3.8 children per woman — was substantially above Third World fertility rates today. From East Asia to the Middle East to Mexico, countries once fabled for their high…
THE words of Pope John Paul II’s Angelus blessing today were “probably recorded” after his voice faltered when he started to deliver the traditional blessing from his hospital window, Italian media reported. —Pope’s blessing ‘probably recorded’ (The Austrailian) Insert your “Ashely Simpson hoedown” reference here. Similar:Flying Saucer IronyAmusingWhat to Do With a B.A. in English?Some good…
There was a little turtle. He lived in a box. He swam in a puddle. He climbed on the rocks. He snapped at a mosquito. He snapped at a flea. He snapped at a minnow. And he snapped at me. He caught the mosquito. He caught the flea. He caught the minnow. But he didn’t…
But political conservatives who read the story were convinced the judge must be a liberal activist intent on being politically correct. On the other hand, liberals said the judge and neighbor must be conservatives, who tend to see “terrorists behind every bush and on every porch,” even in a quiet rural neighborhood just south of…