“It started as a routine downtown patrol. An officer cruised a sports bar, then went behind the bar to rinse off his hands and looked up as a fight broke out in the crowd. As it grew, tavern employees intervened, trying to muscle the combatants outta the bar. The officer helped, and even in the…
“The arrogance of technology companies knows no bounds. Consider the Terms of Service at a new company called Mailblocks, which says it’ll block spam (unsolicited commerical e-mail) for you, for a price that includes not just money but also the right to send you commercial e-mail.” Note: Dan Gillmor has posted an update/correction from Mailblocks:…
“Gemini Elementary School teacher Stacy Stinson told school officials she gave assistance to her fifth-grade students on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, citing the extreme pressure teachers and students are under to perform well on the test.” —Teacher admits helping students on FCAT Florida Today) When teachers cheat to help their students (and thus protect…
A rather sobering response to a hard-working teacher’s request for advice for how she can increase her teaching evaluation scores:“Simplest of all, you can give higher grades, which do correlate with student ratings. You can use more hand gestures, modulate your voice more, and walk while you talk. Students give higher evaluations to teachers who…
“Today, tens of thousands of underused computers, neglected Internet modems and turned-off TV sets gather dust in classrooms. Meanwhile, many teachers continue to rely on fill-in-the-blank workbooks, overhead projectors, chalkboards and 50-minute lectures. Electronic technology has revolutionized 21st-century work, but not 21st-century learning….Students seldom used modern, interactive instructional software. I did see teachers get e-mail…
“They file real-time reports with equipment that is a fraction of the cost and size of conventional, shoulder-mounted cameras and other gear. They file primarily for the Web, with images they’ve edited themselves at the scene, and occassionally contribute to television. | The technology has resulted in streaming video from the most remote places on…
“Students rarely post the default away message that comes with the [instant messenger] program. (“I am away from my computer right now,” for example, comes with AOL Instant Messenger, the program of choice on college campuses.) Instead, they create their own, transforming the away message into a kind of personal bulletin board available to anyone…
“It was Milton’s Satan and Dante’s Inferno that made them two of the most powerful Christian artists of all time. Because they understood evil and did not shrink from it, their depictions of goodness had power. In order to be redemptive, art has to convince us there is something real from which we need redeeming.…
Waking Ned Divine is a charming movie about a tiny Irish community that schemes to support a plot involving impersonating the dead winner of a lottery. While surfing around to find context for a posting on Richard Rorty, I came across this surprising article by Crystal Downing. Here’s an exerpt: “Rorty’s neopragmatic ethic is grounded…
“You do not have to be very conservative to find him startling… How could anyone, for instance, seriously hold, as Rorty has, that “truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with,” or that “no area of culture, and no period of history, gets Reality more right than any other”? Is it really possible…
“What’s wrong with Google? Well, it’s boastful. It can’t keep itself from telling you how inconceivably fast it is. Ask it for information on Chinese archaeology and it compiles 29,400 links, adding: ‘search took 0.14 seconds.’ Please, not so pushy, Google. Sometimes I don’t feel like being reminded that Google both thinks and acts faster…
“Coalition Forces are prepared and well trained to defend themselves against chemical weapon attacks. | Your comrades and innocent Iraqi people will be victims if Saddam uses chemical weapons.” PsyOps leaflet —Leaflets Dropped 23 March 2003Information Warfare Site) And here’s an amusing satirical piece on The Wacky Iraqi: “United States Changes its Name to ‘Coalition’.”…
“My mother started keeping the list when I started the first grade. My school asked parents to keep track of what books we read as part of its reading program. She kept the list until 1977 and I’ve kept the list since I was in the fifth grade.” Eric W. Leuliette —What Have I Read…
?For many Americans, French‘smustard IS Americana. It‘sall about baseball, hot dogs, family and fun,? says Elliot Penner, president of French‘smustard. Via Dave Barry. —In Case You Were Boycotting French’s Mustard…Press Release) It’s amazing that people have time for stupid stuff like this, when there are far more important things to worry about. Similar:Conflict Strategies for…
“It’s not about us, and never was. We just run an amateur news and commentary website, and sell bumper stickers to try to make ends meet (which they never do). Being “disallowed” by Google was only a minor inconvenience for us.|For a lot of people, though, it would be a much bigger problem. And it…
“Whatever anyone may say about weapons of mass destruction, or about Saddam’s savage brutality to his own people, the reason Bush can now get away with his war is that a sufficient number of Americans, including, apparently, Bush himself, see it as revenge for 9/11. This is worse than bizarre. It is pure racism and/or…
“Of course I had read reports that Iraqis hated Saddam Hussein, but this was the real thing. Someone had explained it to me face to face. I told a few journalists who I knew. They said that this sort of thing often happened – spontaneous, emotional, and secretive outbursts imploring visitors to free them from…
I’ve been cut off from the Internet almost all week, sadly reduced to switching between CNN and FOX to get differing views of the war. That’s nothing like what I’ve gotten in the last few hours I’ve been skimming the blogosphere. CNN and FOX never comment on each other. On FOX, Ollie North’s account of…
“If he starts reporting US soldiers are raping civilians and noone else reports it his authenticity becomes an issue, but so far, he’s only given plain reports of what it’s like being in Bagdad during bombing. If that’s propaganda, I think I’ll take it.” Jill Walker offers a good summary of war-related blogging links. —The…