President Bush made a simple but unfortunate mis-statment on Thursday that will haunt him in the press and on late-night T.V. talk shows for weeks to come. But what he said is not near as amazing as the blatant twists put on it by big news media to make it even more direct and daunting…
A movie trailer for Halo 2 that flashed “www.ilovebees.com” for a split second led the curious to a beekeeping site that seemed to have been hijacked by a sentient virus. Puzzles at the site are so intricate that they must be solved by people working together at ARG sites like www.unfiction.com. For example, sets of…
I know I’m not alone in committing identity theft against my imaginary selves. Since no studies exist, I took an informal poll involving 50 friends and colleagues and, although I admit it’s not very scientific, it was revealing. More than half of respondents admitted they invent some or all of the information they provide to…
John Paul wants to make “the Holy See’s solicitude felt in the world of sports,” the Vatican said. The pontiff has given the weeks-old department its marching orders. Among the directives, the Vatican said, is fostering a “sports culture which promotes a vision of sports activity as a means of integral personal growth and as…
Now teens and twenty-somethings generally do not set a fixed time and place for a meeting. Rather, they initially agree on a general time and place (Shibuya, Saturday late afternoon), and exchange approximately 5 to 15 messages that progressively narrow in on a precise time and place, two or more points eventually converging in a…
CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries. CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. CONVENT, n. A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to meditate upon the vice of idleness. CYNIC, n. A…
Two years later, the children were brought back to the laboratory and were given a number of tests of academic achievement that included a test of mathematical achievement. What O’Neill found was that those children who scored highly on the mathematics test had also scored highly on certain measures of their storytelling ability two years…
Powers said he realized the love affair, which began in 1979 when his brother introduced him to the first Van Halen album, was over Saturday. While preparing spaghetti at his home, Powers chose silence over a TV On The Radio album his friend had burned him. “Last week, my buddy went to see this band,…
Maybe there was some legitimacy to banning some of the books on the list. Maybe there were lines that should not be crossed or limits that should not be tested. And so we would read the books and identify the lines and come away with a better understanding of censorship and book banning. But, when…
So I fill my answers with more disclaimers about how my schedule is very flexible and how we’re always available for an afternoon here or there. Then I rob Monday night to pay for Monday’s trip to the zoo with a playmate and her mom. Or more accurately, I rob January, nearly killing myself trying…
Heinz Kerry said I attempted to “trap” her. To defend her intemperance, she publicly impugned my personal and professional integrity. On national television the woman who herself raised the specter of McCarthyism with her unexplained remarks insinuated I was engaging in the same tactic…. “I hope you burn in hell,” read one e-mail. “You’re a…
We knew modern memory cards were durable, but had no idea they would be quite so tough… They were dipped into cola, put through a washing machine, dunked in coffee, trampled by a skateboard, run over by a child’s toy car and given to a six-year-old boy to destroy. Perhaps surprisingly, all the cards survived…
“We have to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics,” she said. Morning television shows broadcast the remarks. When a reporter from a conservative Pennsylvania newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, pressed Heinz Kerry what she had meant by “un-American” she said repeatedly, “No, I…
Vacation Blog Pause (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’ll be on a little family vacation until August 1. My access to the Internet will be sporadic at best. Feel free to chat among yourselves while I am away. And enjoy the postings from “buup114” and the other spam that will doubtless collect in my absence. Similar:Did you put…
It’s not just the dainty pressing of keys we’re talking about, and none of those pansy wrist pads are involved. We’re talking real, blood-circulating, bone-strengthening snapping on the machine. We’re talking about the sweep and thump of the carriage after each line, the bing of the bell adding a little music. We’re talking exercise not…
Traditional Methods are Tools, Too (PILOT Reflections) One often hears that computers and other online instruction methods are only tools, and that they should complement, rather than replace, traditional methods of instruction. But aren’t traditional instructional approaches also tools? I just finished a week of teaching a Vacation Bible School, and I absolutely love sitting on…
Teaching the Gifted Student (PILOT Reflections) I was a little surprised to find “gifted students” on the list of subjects to discuss in an accessibility and inclusion workshop. On the one hand, gifted students are a joy. They do the readings. They participate in class. They ask thoughtful questions. On the other hand, gifted students can…
Teaching Students with Psychiatric Disabilities (PILOT Reflections) When I was a grad student teaching a freshman writing class, a student wearing a leather jacket and miniskirt put her fishnet-stocking-clad leg up on the table and blew spit bubbles through her front teeth, popping them with her finger while talking to me about her assignment. Maybe that…
Dyslexia in Freshman Composition Courses (PILOT Reflections) While Seton Hill does offer an Honors section of "Seminar in Thinking and Writing" (the two-semester freshman comp and "welcome to college life" course), its other students of various abilities are mainstreamed. Students take a test during orientation, and may be placed in a one-credit lab course or a…
Varying Instructional Methods (PILOT Reflections) I wonder if I’d do a better job varying my instructional techniques if every college classroom came equipped with a first-grader to act as an early-warning system, ready to flop over on the carpet and moan at the first sign of boredom. I love writing workshop days because there’s usually little…