English studies after Sept 11: What’s the point? “The theoretical models that have dominated English and the related disciplines in the last two decades are especially effective tools (along with the institutional factors that have always existed) for creating demoralization.” Lisa Ruddick —The Near Enemy of the Humanities is Professionalism (Chronicle) Similar:What You Get When…
What if David Mamet rewrote 2001: A Space Oddysey? (Warning: offensive language.) Bowman: It’s just… how do I say this. These dead crewmembers. Hal: I don’t follow you. Bowman: These crewmembers here that were in cryogenic suspension. That are now dead. Hal: Oh yes. That was self-defense. Bowman: Hal, look at me. What am I,…
You may have heard news stories trumpeting a great scientific breakthrough in the controversial practice of cloning human beings. Some critics claim that reporters, looking for easy stories to publish after a holiday weekend, put too much faith in a company’s press release. —Experts Rip Cloning ‘Story’ (Wired) Similar:Journalists Prefer "Said"Journalists prefer the neutral “said”…
Everyone’s, like, using it all the time, but David Grambs is all, like, “What price is literate, listenable English paying for its increasing currency?” —The Like Virus (Vocabula Review) Similar:Flannery O'Connor: "I am in a state of shock"There’s often a moment in a lit class wh…BooksNo, Dr. Seuss is not being "banned" or "censored" –…
“[S]hort and pithy, bumper stickers are a literary genre ideally suited to hurried Americans who may nevertheless feel morally obligated to express opinions… They allow us to state the thesis without the supporting paragraphs…” Tina Bennett-Kastor —Bumper Bites (Vocabula Review) Similar:York Corpus Christi Play Simulator Screencast (PSim 2.1; D.G. Jerz)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwNv1lx3…AcademiaColossal Cave: The Board Game by…
“Under the guise of protecting private property, a series of new laws and regulations are dismantling the very architecture that made the Internet a framework for global innovation.” Lawrence Lessig —The Internet Under Siege (Foreign Policy Magazine) Similar:Capitalists Tell Facebook They've Had EnoughIt started as a murmur of dissent, but o…BusinessMicrosoft Research Launches Code Hunt…
“Seldom mentioned, hardly ever seen, exactly the kind of movie that, yes, a fertilizer salesman named Hal P. Warren would decide to make, one fine summer in 1966.” (Manos available on DVD!) —Manos: The Hands of FateReviewed by Mimosa) Similar:For the Cause #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 22) Eddington and Odo suspect Sisk…Rewatching ST:DS9…
“Before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, anxiety-related disorders cost the U.S. $42 billion a year in medical and work-related losses. Now mental health professionals can only make educated estimates of how many more of us will be affected in the near future…” —9/11: The Psychological Aftermath (Scientific American) Similar:All…
“Most of the puzzles in Puzzle World fall into the Put-Together, Take-apart, Interlocking or Impossible Object categories because this is where most of the high-quality handcrafting takes place.” —Puzzle WorldJohn Rausch) Similar:What Borges Learned from CervantesBorges reinvented Don Quixote as a playf…BooksRespect the Text: Teaching Textual Primacy to Non-English MajorsIn the past, I have used…
(rec.humor.funny) [random joke] “Is this a burger which I see before me, The soft bun in my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I eat thee not, and yet I want thee still.” Gregory Lam —MacDonald’s Soliloquy Similar:Encyclopedia Smithsonian: Star-Spangled Banner and the War of 1812 When he saw “by the dawn’s early light…AestheticsMy #AugustWilson…
“The likes of my colleagues no longer thought of this new tongue as an alien one, into which they translated thoughts originally composed in a more familiar idiom. They had become native speakers.” Deborah Cameron —The Tyranny of Nicespeak (New Statesman) Similar:Fun and Games with Samuel Beckett and Pict.Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting For Godot …CultureI love…
“Under every scenario used in the study, the winning margin remains less than 500 votes out of almost 6 million cast.” —Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush (Washington Post) Similar:If You Ever Find a Link to ThoughtCatalog, I'm Begging You Not to Click It Here’s a thought… nothing you can …BusinessFrisbee is a brand name,…
“So who is this mysterious kingmaker who changed the world from her shadowy government bureaucracy? Has she seen any good movies lately? Is her marriage happy? America wants to know. America needs to know!” —Official Terry LePore Ballot Designer Fan Page Similar:Perspective | After a stunning news conference, there’s a newly crucial job for the…
A lake. A salt mine. An oil drilling rig. A lack of communication. You figure it out. —Peaceful Lake Peigneur Turned into Maelstrom Similar:Getting a little bit better with each #blender3D scene I render.AestheticsWhat My Classroom Looks Like During Today's Video Journalism Workshop Within one minute of being placed in…AcademiaToiletries for a steampunk villain who…
Coca-Cola spent $750,000 to develop a procedure to serve carbonated beverages in space. Pepsi filmed a $5 million commercial aboard Mir. And then there’s “Final Frontier Beef Jerky.” —A Brief History of Space MarketingSpace.com) Similar:The Period, Our Simplest Punctuation Mark, Has Become a Sign of AngerYou text your girlfriend: “I know we mad…Cyberculture‘Hunger Games’ to…
Hmm. Jakob Nielsen writes a column with a headline that implies you are being inhumane if you don’t make your web pages accessible to the disabled. Jakob Nielsen‘s company is selling a 148-page report on making web pages accessible to the disabled. Coincidence? (Nielsen is smart. He’s doing good deeds. He’s giving away lots of…
“Everything, everything, everything boils down to the heart, and poetry is a vehicle of clarity, an articulate and strong voice screaming through the static and white noise.” -Frank Matagrano, a poet featured on Jan Carroll’s poetry weblog. —And Now It’s Dark: Three poets talk about poetry after September 11, 2001 Similar:You come very close to successfully…
“Corporate English obscures reality by excluding people.” While this article is marked as “commentary,” I find it ethically unsound for its author to suggest that magazine writers should intentionally insert biased language that promotes a pro-union / anti-business point of view, on the grounds that “corporate English commonly portrays economic processes as if they just…
Novell releases a survey showing that British companies lose billions annually due to spam. Guess who sells a product that helps companies filter out spam? “Surveys are a time-honoured PR tactic for getting coverage in hard-to-reach publications.” —Junk Mail Costs Lives (The Register) Similar:Journalism: Muzzle your biases. Seek out diverse but credible sources. You’ll be…
“[L]anguage is often under-estimated, under-valued, and under-funded. How many times have we seen companies import bland, cheap information instead of hiring talented, knowledgeable writers to write fresh, original, interesting content?” Julia Hayden —Language: The Ultimate User InterfaceA List Apart) Similar:Student: “Just wanted to let you know that your class has benefited me outside of just…