The First Duty (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 19) Cadet Wesley’s Academy Crisis

Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise is en route to Earth so that Picard can give the commencement address at Starfleet Academy, when word arrives that Cadet Crusher has survived an accident that killed another student. When we last saw Wesley (s5e6 “The Game“), he was cheerful and well-adjusted; however, Picard and Dr. Crusher are surprised he…

The Skin of Our Teeth Panel Discussion (Seton Hill University, October 2021; Carolyn Jerz, moderator)

Similar:Journalism isn’t dying. But it’s changing WAY faster than most people understand.Think of journalism as falling into thre…BusinessBad Writing Costs Businesses BillionsThis is thinkpiece rehtoric rather than …AcademiaElly Noble Reflects on Stage Right's New "Snow White"What’s it like on your first day rehears…CultureDon’t patronize older adults by calling them ‘the elderly’In English grammar, we use…

Missouri governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website • Missouri Independent

I’m shocked… shocked that a reporter published a newsworthy story about a rookie cyber-blunder made by a powerful government agency. A reporter viewed the HTML code (a one-click process on many web browsers) and noticed that the social security numbers of school teachers and administrators were embedded in web pages served up by Missouri’s department…

Shatner’s live, extemporaneous post-touchdown monologue on mortality was better than Kirk’s death scene

After returning to Earth in Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin private spacecraft, Shatner is delivering an extemporaneous monologue about viewing Mother Earth and reflecting on death. “I hope I never recover from this,” he says, of the emotions he experienced. Much better than Kirk’s death scene in Star Trek: Generations. Someone (I was listening, not watching……

If I don’t design the sign for the pub on my #steampunk space cruiser, who will? #priorities

Similar:Google Favors Good Reporting, Not Liberal Views: StudyIt’s a logical fallacy to suggest that w…CultureOminous Darkness Descending On Webpage Portends Grim Age Of Autoplaying Ad To ComeFortune’s fool, I wagered I would be spa…AmusingInteresting use of A.I. in a radiology journalMedical doctors and scholars Raneem Bade…AcademiaWe Had No Idea What Alexander Graham Bell Sounded Like.…

Cause and Effect (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 18) time loop. Ka-boom. The Enterprise is trapped in a

Rewatching ST:TNG A smart, character-driven story that follows the crew of the Enterprise-D through a short time loop (about a year before Bill Murray did something similar in “Groundhog Day”). After a chaotic teaser that ends with the Enterprise-D blowing to smithereens, we get a routine Captain’s Log, a relaxed poker game where Crusher impressively…

The Outcast (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 17) Genderless civilization oppresses deviance

Rewatching ST:TNG Members of a genderless civilization (portrayed by female actors with bowl haircuts and dour expressions) seek help from the Federation after one of their shuttles disappears in a Space Thing. The fact that Picard’s opening log goes out of its way to identify the J’Naii as “an adrogynous race” is a pretty obvious…

The sped-up culture that delivers that novel to your doorstep overnight is the same culture that deprives you of the time to read it.

This ambiguity—fiction as virtue and vice—sheds light on a larger truth about all the components of Amazon’s administration of literary life just enumerated: as state of the art as they may be, they are to some degree self-contradictory, or at least conflicted. For instance, if what fiction most essentially is for us is a volume…

MisSpelled: Premiering Oct 1

In this podcast series, I voice a mage whose thirst for power leads him down surprising paths. A fully voiced fantasy/comedy audio series, with original music and sound effects. From WAOB Audio Theatre. We recorded much of this before the pandemic, and I have only heard a rough cut of the first scene. (I created…

Ethics (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 16) Leaky cargo barrel-1, Worf-0.

Rewatching ST:TNG Worf is paralyzed in a freak cargo bay accident. When visiting neurospecialist Dr. Russell suggests an experimental “genetronic replication” therapy, Dr. Crusher fears the risk is too great. A very composed Worf deals with his injury by asking Riker to assist him in a suicide ritual. Worf’s young son Alexander doesn’t share his…

In journalism, the speech is more important than any speaker. (Put newsworthy quotes first. The name of the speaker can wait.)

Similar:The Alot is Better Than You at EverythingThere is no Englilsh word “alot.” That i…AmusingWhen F. Scott Fitzgerald Judged Gatsby By Its Cover With a big Hollywood movie now in th…AestheticsA study in breaking news headlines.For the UK Guardian, the news is the wor…CultureThe Curtains Were Blue: In Which I Fix Another Meme. Above is…