Somewhere out there, somebody is working really hard to come up with a meme to blame this on the lying America-hating fake news media.

Front page of the Miami Herald newspaper, with two headlines circled: “Florida schools ordered to reopen in August” and “Miami-Dade restaurants, gyms closing to fight COVID surge” Similar:Why Do So Many People on YouTube Sound the Same?So it turns out the “YouTube voice” is j…CultureNASA: No, The Eclipse Won't Blind Pets I once heard a…

No, Trump’s tweet about “Heritage, History, and Greatness” is not a quote from a speech Hitler gave in 1939

Trump really did tweet “This is a battle to save the Heritage, History, and Greatness of our Country!” Plugging those words into Google Translate yields “Dies ist ein Kampf um die Rettung des Erbes, der Geschichte und der Größe unseres Landes!” I could be wrong, but I think Größe in German just means “physical size,”…

And to think… I had just decided to retire this meme because the last time I used in class, the students didn’t get it.

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Summer photos of the daughter.

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The Declaration of Independence

I recorded a recitation of the Declaration of Independence for WAOB Audio Theatre last year. They’ve released a remastered version. Similar:Short Reports: How to Write Routine Professional DocumentsNew graphic. First step in touching up m…BusinessThe Sentence That Knocked Down the Berlin Wall (But Almost Didn’t)Words that defined Ronald Reagan’s presi…CultureHenry Bemis waited his whole life…

For God’s sake John, sit down!

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Journalists who are doing their job by reporting fairly on a controversial topic often get attacked from both sides. 

Americans can fairly and legitimately differ on important values. Freedom or security? Peace or justice? Which short-term sacrifices are worth making, for which long-term benefits?

Most readers will nod along with whatever parts of a story affirm their values. A significant number will reject any story — even one that’s carefully sourced and fact-checked — if it challenges their world view. (“So biased!” “Fake news!”)

Whenever even the fairest-minded journalists tackle a high-stakes story involving groups with different levels of access to wealth, education, healthcare and personal security, any honest story they publish is going to make someone upset.

Ménage à Troi (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 24) Lwaxana, Ferengi, Chess, and Poetry

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. The teaser features Picard fibbing awkwardly to evade Troi’s mother Lwaxana, nicely setting up a later scene when he woos her with snatches of Shakespeare and Tennyson — first clumsily, then enthusiastically, as part of a ruse designed to… oh, nevermind why. Seeing Picard save the day with love poetry…

Both Sides in Journalism

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I never have time to create materials like this during the academic year. Brand new handout. Easily 10 hours of work. Hoping to post one a week.

AP Style follows the standard English practice of capitalizing proper nouns. They stayed with Uncle John at Gracious Living Inn on the shore of Grenada Lake while on vacation in the South. Capitalize the names of particular people, places or things. (Proper nouns.)  In the above example, “shore” and “vacation” are common nouns. They stayed with my uncle at a hotel on the south end of a peaceful lake.…

Oh that sweet, sweet feeling of progress.

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Capitalists Tell Facebook They’ve Had Enough

It started as a murmur of dissent, but over the weekend the campaign to persuade brands to boycott Facebook ads for the month of July turned into a major crisis for the social media giant. It began badly on Friday when Unilever, one of the world’s biggest advertisers, announced it was joining the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, which had already been backed by Verizon, Patagonia, and Ben and Jerry’s.

After a pretty crappy day, I found shreds of joy in this clip of socially distanced salsa.

In my discipline, teaching small seminars typically depends on students sharing their weaknesses and vulnerabilities in pairs and small groups, gradually building trust while the teacher moves through the room, listening and joining in and backing away as appropriate. Masked students who are 6 feet away from each other will have to shout their failures…