The Secret Life of Bees: A Reflection This year the incoming freshman class was asked to read Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, a coming-of-age novel set in the deep south during the summer of 1964. Faculty, staff, resident assistants, and anyone else who wanted to lead a discussion was given a free…
“I have no idea how to make the plastic milk jug look gay,” Bellisle said. “I don’t want to make him a bottle of water, for obvious reasons. Maybe I’ll use a soy-milk container when I draw the gay jug. Or maybe they’ll let me switch him with the Chicano, this tin can here. I…
The Enlightenment knew what to say about religions, all of them: “Écrasez l?infame!” In the 19th century, the progressive party believed that one of the reasons for European superiority over the benighted regions of Asia and Africa was the conquest of superstition. | Today, credulous doting on Islam is not just an expression of western…
I wish I had the answer. I don’t, but I’ve taken some small steps of my own. First, I will not open e-mail attachments, period, unless I know the item is coming beforehand or have extremely good reasons to believe it’s not carrying an evil payload. If you want me to see a file such…
We hear it echoed in recent debates over the ways professors spend their time. What do we do all that time when we’re not pontificating? Surely it can’t take all that time to write the lectures we deliver. Surely there can’t be that many books in our fields worth reading. The only logical solution that some people can draw…
Hadar, whose age wasn’t available, and DeCrow, 49, went into Hubbards Cave in Glenwood Canyon on the afternoon of Aug. 24 with flashlights but no food or water, said DeCrow’s daughter, Ramiah DeCrow. | Their flashlight batteries died and the pair couldn’t find their way out, the daughter said. —Cave-Exploring Couple Nearly Eaten by Grues (Wired…
I watched my mom — a woman with three Master’s degrees, in library science, comparative literature, and management and public policy; a woman who was fluent in French and German and did her Stanford undergraduate senior thesis on Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger — lose her mind over the course of two years. She was…
Despite the fact that Dr Dennis Jerz professes to be quite knowledgeable in web page design, and in fact has taught classes about it, his own weblog front page suffers from a classic newbie mistake that one would not expect to see on a professional web site. Newbies at web page design often attempt to…
The special efforts made by schools to steer more girls into advanced math and science classes came after powerful advocacy groups embraced the problem. But Gurian and other advocates for boys say they run into resistance from educators who point to males’ success in the workforce as proof that advocacy for boys is unnecessary. |…
The anonymous e-mail offered $5,000 to any vendor capable of promptly delivering a collection of far-fetched gadgets for conducting time travel. Among the mysterious devices sought by the message’s author were an “Acme 5X24 series time transducing capacitor with built-in temporal displacement” and an “AMD Dimensional Warp Generator module containing the GRC79 induction motor.” —Brian…
With great anticipation, I contacted the project manager — let’s call him A.H. — who would copy-edit my manuscript and, I genuinely hoped, find ways to improve it. I had no idea things could go so wrong. as he kept the schedule. … For the book to be published on schedule, I would have needed…
“I moved away bravely because I did not want to be blown up.” –Peter Jerz, age 5, playing “Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter.” Similar:‘Snowplow parents’ may be trapping their childrenThe passing agonies of the everyday are …CultureLiteracy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?A good feature from the New York Times: …BooksJust wrote the first…
—Nerds and Geeks (Kairosnews) Over on KairosNews, blacklily8 playfully taunts editor Charlie, “Can you tell me what the difference is between a geek a nerd? You seem to be the expert!“ I had a minute before heading home for the day, and thus spake Google: http://jargon.watson-net.com/jargon.asp?w=geek http://jargon.watson-net.com/jargon.asp?w=nerd The Jargon Lexicon notes that the word “nerd” probably…
Howard Dantzler stood among a sea of people on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., 40 years ago today. | He was 29 years old then. He had been in the service. He had earned a master’s degree. | But he was not free. —King speech still rings true for retired professor (Tribune-Review) A man looks…
Like most new college students, Carabella will spend the week before the start of classes doing routine tasks that we take for granted: opening a bank account, receiving new checks, using a credit card, and shopping at a grocery store that has a “club card”. She will learn how such simple activities can have major…
[W]ith the Mona Lisa, the Madonna was among only a handful of paintings known to be authentic Leonardo works. | The thieves arrived just before 11am. They were flamboyantly dressed, polite and personable until the moment one of them presented a knife to a woman tour guide who had led them to the Madonna. —…
At around 11 o’clock that morning Lewis departed from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with a a party of eleven men. They arrived shortly after at Bruno’s Island which was a mere 3 miles from Pittsburgh. Once ashore Lewis demonstrated his airgun to the men, while citizens watched. However, one citizen accidentally caused the gun to discharge, sending…
Usually, the bears would come to greet him within a day or two of his arrival, sniffing his scent in the air, nuzzling his footprints and then making contact.|This year, there was nothing. But there were fierce snowstorms and he thought they might be keeping the bears away. He travelled far and wide, looking for…
“[E]excuse me, I just got my sight back last week after being totally blind for 43 years. Could you help me figure out what I am seeing?” — Mike May —Mike’s Journal (Sendero Group) A fascinating excerpt: I found it very distracting to look at people’s faces when I was having a conversation. I can see…
‘What Some Might Call Evil’ This morning I was listening to the local National Public Radio station on the way in to work, and heard a feature filed by a reporter who is travelling with the Pittsburgh Symphony in Salzberg, Germany. The reporter interviewed a member of the orchestra — possibly a violist, though I…