Took the whole day off and spent part of it making #greebles with #Blender3D because reasons.
Jane Elliott’s “National Brotherhood Week” Lesson
Imagine a world…
A Conversation with Dennis Jerz, Actor — WAOB Audio Theatre
In August, 2000 I was blogging about poetry, presidential wordplay, home-schooling, online learning, and a search engine you may have heard about.
In August 2000, I was blogging about Top 10 Tips for Writing Poetry (which I’ve updated over the years and is the most popular page on my site today) Richard Lederer’s presidential wordplay (“I predict that at the end of the campaign. Gore will be bushed and Bush will be gored. Then we’ll have either…
2020, In One Photo. (“Come join us!”)
Long-Haulers Are Redefining COVID-19
Our understanding of COVID-19 has accreted around the idea that it kills a few and is “mild” for the rest. That caricature was sketched before the new coronavirus even had a name; instead of shifting in the light of fresh data, it calcified. It affected the questions scientists sought to ask, the stories journalists sought…
Ready to teach another set of students what research is (and what it isn’t).
Another very rough day. Students are cheerful and patient, obviously happy to be here.
Another very rough day. Students are cheerful and patient, obviously happy to be here. I can barely understand what the students right in front of me are saying. (It’s not about volume… the problem is I can’t see their lips moving; I do have an appointment with an audiologist Friday.) I long for the days…
Ratified 100 years ago today, the 19th Amendment, proposed by Illinois Republican James R. Mann, granted women the right to vote.
I survived my first day teaching in a masked, hybrid classroom.
I survived the first day teaching in a masked classroom. As I expected, I had a very difficult time hearing my students. I felt awkward taking up the first class talking about myself, but I told them I’ve recently been diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder. My ears can pick up the sounds of their…
Death Comes for the Microbot — Flash Fiction by Aimee Picchi
Bee walked on six spindly legs to the spot where Spider had stopped moving. Bee, whose job was to record the doings of the lab, had been across the room, but its video feed had captured the moment. The tiny arachnid-shaped bot had been monitoring the bio-nanobot colonies when it teetered and fell, alone. “Can…
If you think I’m wrong that the media fairly covered the Cannon Hinnant murder, but you’re still reading, then I welcome you.
Plenty of news organizations have reported on the tragic case of a white boy who was murdered while riding his bicycle. One must ignore easily verifiable opposing evidence to claim that “the media” are universally ignoring this story. It’s even more unhinged to latch upon the conspiracy theory that the reason for this (non-existent) lack…
Name-calling and ad hominem attacks don’t provide anyone with reasons to change their mind.
Not doing well. As usual.
Eric Bentley, Critic Who Preferred Brecht to Broadway, Dies at 103
One of the few harsh critics of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, which premiered 70 years ago. Mr. Bentley, who was also a playwright, was an early champion of modern European drama in the 1940s but had little use for American plays. Source: Eric Bentley, Critic Who Preferred Brecht to Broadway, Dies at 103
‘This is no longer a debate’: Florida sheriff bans deputies, visitors from wearing masks
On Tuesday, as Florida set a daily record for covid-19 deaths, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods prohibited his deputies from wearing masks at work. His order, which also applies to visitors to the sheriff’s office, carves out an exception for officers in some locations, including hospitals, and when dealing with people who are high-risk or…
Don’t call it “social distancing” or you just might get a polite correction from the administration. These are *physical* distancing markers on the quad.
What are ‘Judeo-Christian values’? Analyzing a divisive term
block of American society. But for critics of how the term is used today, Judeo-Christian is vague, historically flawed and even inflammatory. These opposing views reflect a deep rift in American society and illuminate very different fundamental political beliefs.
“This is a term defined by exclusion,” said Shalom Goldman, a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, arguing that the term is often used to reject secular values and Muslims.
“It’s essentially saying our values are not the values of the Enlightenment or the Constitution, but instead our values are the values of the Bible,” he said.
Rabbi Jack Moline, president of the Washington-based Interfaith Alliance, called the term a “generalization” and said it is one “Christians in particular use to put a patina of universality on a certain Christian culture in the United States.”