Spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed Monday that [US Secretary of State Colin] Powell had indeed appointed [James] Brown to be the first US “secretary of soul and foreign minister of funk” but said the job description for the post had not yet been drawn up. —Powell ‘appoints’ soul legend James Brown to new diplomatic postYahoo/AFP) And…
Think about it — do you really believe that person who says they couldn’t do something because “something came up?” That they couldn’t do their homework because the printer broke? Lame…. These lies will work as excuses because no one believes excuses anyway! And to think, if they are outrageous lies, they will become more…
The increased adoption of blogging, citizen journalism, Flash presentations and the like portend a different season of political coverage than what we’ve seen in the past. These aren’t new developments, but they’ve been used more frequently in the last year by the online-news industry, and will likely be incorporated into upcoming electoral coverage. —Steve Outing…
Unless the population of a state is dispersed evenly in proportion to the size of each county, there is no direct relationship between the physical area of a county and the number of people, registered voters, or votes cast within it. | Which is why I was surprised to see an analyst from a leading…
One only needs to have had a weblog for about five minutes to see the relevance to blogging of Cialdini‘s ideas about how we are persuaded and how we reach decisions — particularly concerning whom one links to or adds to one‘s blogroll. If you’re honest, you’ll recognize that at least some of Cialdini‘s principles…
“We want to find out what your working conditions are, anything that we can do to help you,” Otwell tells the young women at the factory. He speaks in English slowly, for the benefit of an Arabic translator, who then turns to an Arabic-speaking sign-language translator to sign Otwell’s questions to the seamstresses. | The…
“The technology is simple,” said Microsoft Office Research Division Head, Richard Greenwood, “students have been doing it for years. Thanks to the power of Microsoft Word 2004, anybody can turn a five-hundred-word report into a ten-thousand-word masterpiece.” —Word 2004 to Pioneer AutoUnsummarize Feature (BB Spot) Not the best spoof news site, but this article isn’t bad.…
I’m marking blogging portfolios for my Writing for the Internet course. Here are a few gems: “I don’t get any leftovers at school, and I miss that twice-heated home cooked goodness.” — Amy Slade “I’m willing to wager that writing for an online medium is letting me take the easy way out.” — Julie Young…
A solid agreement has been reached between BlogShares founder Seyed Razavi and technologist Jay Campbell — the site is coming back! —Blogshares: Coming Back Soon I figured that a good idea wouldn’t lay dormant for very long. Similar:And the People of the Book of Face Were Deceived “And I looked up and saw a sign,…
OneLook’s reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word. Just type it into the box above and hit the “Find words” button. (Keep it short to…
Citing the prior week’s ABC broadcast of “Living with Michael Jackson,” the controversial Martin Bashir documentary, the school official lodged allegations of “general neglect by mother and sexual abuse by ‘an entertainer,’” according to the summary memo…. [P]ublished reports have indicated that the older boy was taunted by classmates after the documentary aired on ABC’s…
Scientists say measurements taken by the US space agency’s Mars Odyssey craft prove that a human mission could survive on the Martian surface. | Instrument data show radiation around the Red Planet might cause some health problems but is unlikely to be fatal. —Richard Black —Humans ‘could survive Mars visit’ (BBC) Also interesting in this article:…
I hear of and see teachers who write comments on student drafts, sniffily, ?You have reached the maximum number of errors. Rewrite? or ?You don’t have a conclusion here. You need to add one.? The message here is clear as a bell: Your ideas don’t matter. To Hell with your ideas. Your obedience matters, or…
“A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history — with the possible exception of handguns and tequila.” —Christopher Harper Mitch Radcliffe? Ratliff? Computers, handguns and tequila (And That’s The Way It Will Be… News and Information in a Digital World) Found this quote in a paper written by a…
“I worked hard in high school, but they could have worked me harder,” said Belisle, now a sophomore. “Not only was I adjusting to new people, a new place to live and a new city, but I was adjusting to a new way of learning.” | From the U.S. Department of Education to the company…
There are instances when, in the interests of the majority, some censorship may be used for a period of time. Indeed, there is material which virtually everyone would agree should be kept out. Sadistic pornography, incitement to violence against racial or ethnic minorities are just two examples. | But we cannot strive for an information…
“Good job!” doesn’t reassure children; ultimately, it makes them feel less secure. It may even create a vicious circle such that the more we slather on the praise, the more kids seem to need it, so we praise them some more. Sadly, some of these kids will grow into adults who continue to need someone…
Oh the snow outside’s delightful. My stacks of papers to mark are frightful. For the students who want to know: Days to go, days to go, days to go…Stacks and Stacks of Papers to GradeJerz’s Literacy Weblog) Dear Students, The last week of classes is always an emotional time for me. I love you all,…
Dr. Michael Whitlatch, professor of speech and drama, has a review published in the November issue of Choice. His review of “Technology in American Drama, 1920-1950 Soul and Society in the Age of the Machine,” by Dennis Jerz has just been sent to college and university libraries. —Whitlatch Publication (Buena Vista U) Gulp! As I prepare…
I’m not sure I’m artciulating anything new here, but for me, reading some of the “high-profile” blogs feels a little bit like listening to talk radio: a charismatic figure stirs up people’s frustrations and fears by linking to a news article or bit of information. Then a feeding frenzy takes place, with dozens of other…