Line breaks are really, really important
I’m sure that whoever wrote this headline had no idea how it would look on my web browser, but if this were a print headline, I’d say the design was awful.
Remember Me (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 5) Dr. Crusher vs The Universe
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. When people start disappearing from the Enterprise without a trace, only Dr. Crusher remembers them. Some cringeworthy lines (e.g. “If there’s nothing wrong with me, maybe there’s something wrong with the universe”) still earn a facepalm, but I really enjoyed Gates McFadden as she Shatners her way through increasingly…
Drumming Kid Is Epic. That Is All.
How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled
“I remember the first meeting where I actually told a city council that it was costing more to recycle than it was to dispose of the same material as garbage,” she says, “and it was like heresy had been spoken in the room: You’re lying. This is gold. We take the time to clean it,…
IN-ZOOM (A world-premiere 10-minute play)
A very current short play by Bill Irwin. Very creative use of Zoom as a performance space. I didn’t expect it also to cover so much else. Very touching.
Frazetta’s “A Princess of Mars” painting sells for $1.2 million at auction
I’ve read about 11 of the Edger Rice Burroughs John Carter / Barsoom series. When my kids were small, I would spend an hour or more at bedtime, reading to them and then turning off the lights and leading a steampunk adventure that lasted for years. I drew lots of pulp adventure details right from…
Suddenly Human (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 4) Picard Bonds with Human Teen Raised by Aliens
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break The Federation faces war with the Talarians over a culture-shocked teenager who sees Picard as a father figure. The Enterprise detects faint life signs on a damaged Talarian ship. Of course they can’t just beam the injured directly to sickbay; they must first send an away team to wave…
Being a deaf lipreader during a pandemic means increased social anxiety
Even social events are a minefield. The more people there are, the more spread out everyone is. My excellent lipreading skills can’t surmount distance. I also find myself avoiding things I used to enjoy, like going to stores by myself. I don’t want to worry about one-way conversations.
“Adfl etgjw ilserj mjikas!” That’s what everyone will sound like, if I can hear them at all.
What’s a deaf person to do, at least until face shields become de rigueur?
Former Setonian editor-in-chief Amanda Cochran visits my journalism class to discuss her career path, from the SHU blogosphere in 2003 to NYU, CBS News in Manhattan and KPRC in Houston. (Last Wednesday.)
Meme alleging Trump said “Africans Are Lazy, Good at Sex, Theft” is a hoax
I’ve seen this meme shared by several FB friends in the past few days. It’s clearly a hoax. It was created by someone who wasn’t trained as a journalist. The body of the story doesn’t even include the quotes that are mentioned in the headline. (The head says Trump said “Africans are lazy,” but in…
In September, 2000, I was blogging about PICK UP AX, Bellamy’s Looking Backward, WB Yeats, Jupiter Communications, and why Flash Animations Suck
In September 2000, I was blogging about The nerdy, 3-person 1990 play PICK UP AX The full text of Edward Bellamy’s Utopian fantasy Looking Backward (written in 1888, set in September 2000) The papers of William Butler Yeats (donated by his son to the National Library of Ireland) An elitist press release from Jupiter Communications…
I just installed the “Old Layout for Facebook” plugin for Chrome.
I just installed the “Old Layout for Facebook” plugin for Chrome. Now I can continue to be annoyed by the Facebook I’m used to.
Brothers (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 3) Awkward Android Family Reunion
Rewatching ST:TNG after taking a break for 20 years. Data sees firsthand how he’s a chip off the old block, and almost gets emotional about a new chip on his shoulder (or thereabouts). The B-plot about a brother-on-brother prank features children who are believably childish, in that they aren’t wise beyond their years, or prodigies,…
The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down for no good reason
Stunning. The Stars and Stripes is much more important than any local monument. Even for those of us who are all too wearily familiar with President Donald Trump’s disdain for journalists, his administration’s latest attack on the free press is a bit of a jaw-dropper. In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an…
How hate and misinformation go viral: A case study of a Trump retweet
On Sunday night, President Donald Trump retweeted a video of a violent incident on a New York City subway platform. The video shows a Black man pushing a white woman into a train car and is captioned “Black Lives Matter / Antifa.” The problem? It is over a year old and has nothing to do with either Black Lives Matter or Antifa. It, in fact, shows the actions of a mentally ill man with no known ties to either group.
The Duolingo owl is proud of me.
No, Running Online Classes Isn’t Cheaper
A good response to the myth that the labor of an online instructor is less valuable than the labor of an in-person instructor. Most of a college’s budget is labor. When a physical campus moves to online teaching, it doesn’t save much labor at all. Grading an online student’s paper takes the same amount of…
Story Pitch: How writers present an article idea to a busy editor
I hoped this slide would appeal to my students as I taught them about pitching a news story.
Family ( #StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 2) Picard Retreats to Family Vineyard
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. Still recovering from his ordeal with the Borg, Picard visits his brother at the Picard family vineyard. In the village of his boyhood, Picard’s roadside encounter with his nephew Rene is just perfect, as are the domestic scenes with his warm sister-in-law Marie and his brittle, jealous older brother…
