I’ve been on Seton Hill’s summer reading committee for the past couple years. (My suggestion a couple years ago of Little Brother did not make it, and I was rooting for another colleague’s recent suggestion of Ender’s Game. This year we considered The Kite Runner and The Last Lecture, but rejected them as downers. So…
“We’re trying to detect a crime before it has occurred.” OK, roll the sci-fi thriller “Minority Report,” in which Tom Cruise and other “pre-crime” cops use psychic visions to arrest murderers before they kill. Or maybe “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” a George Clooney comedy inspired by real military experiments with supposedly psychic soldiers.…
Frank Rich takes TV journalism to task for fumbling its coverage of the Times Square bombing attempt. It seems the Big Media bigwigs were too busy at the White House Correspondents Dinner… so the media stars were covering their own schmoozefest, rather than real news. That MSNBC couldn’t be bothered to interrupt its two-hour coverage…
The Crackberry-addict-in-chief warns graduates about a bunch of different, non-Crackberry gadgets, that are bad, apparently because they aren’t Crackberries. “With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than…
It is dangerous to use local weather events (such as a heavy or light winter) to make judgments about global climate. With that caveat, I’m blogging the following because I’ve noted a shift in the online discussion about “global warming,” or the more general “climate change”. This essay does a good job exploring the events…
Google just got slightly less evil in my eyes. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at…
It’s a spoof, but it’s well-researched and contains plenty of insight. Similar:Had a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block partyShakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggestsPater Noster Passenger ElevatorsNotes on Teaching August Wilson's Pittsburgh CycleAP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t…
You can mute the sound during the annoying advertisement. The delivery of this segment is as good as the premise, but as you can tell from the picture, Palin gets her chance in front of the bongos, too. Similar:Pater Noster Passenger ElevatorsAP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its…
In Pensylvania, homeshool kids have to take standardized tests every few years (at grades 3, 5, and 8). When he took the grade 5 exams last year, Peter did very well in all subjects, including math, though he 1) often says he hates math and 2) wastes a lot of time not doing math (staring…
From the explanation of a map showing differences in press freedom around the world. We recognize cultural differences, diverse national interests, and varying levels of economic development. Yet Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions…
Remember, remember, the ninth of November. “Anyone standing shortly before eight at the Brandenburg Gate would have thought it an absurd dream that there would be a crowd of people on top of the Wall four hours later.” Reuters / Washington Post Similar:Shakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggestsAP wins…
These numbers are a bit sad. So let’s see. Assuming their number is right — 160 billion divided by 1 million. Does that mean the stimulus costs taxpayers $160,000 per job? Jared Bernstein, chief economist and senior economic advisor to the vice president, called that “calculator abuse.” He said the cost per job was actually…
In California, the governor’s office reacts to hearing of a vulgar message hidden vertically in the first row of letters in this gubernatorial veto. As The Swamp puts it: “My goodness. What a coincidence,” a shocked, shocked Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear is quoted by the Associated Press as saying. “I suppose when you do so…
I am not too happy about the way wild conclusions drawn from this self-published research periodically pop up in the media. Kudos to Liberman, from Language Log, who tries (yet again) to explain. The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness The best way to describe this, I think, would be to say something like: In the…
Kanye West has tried to apologize twice, once on his blog and once on Jay Leno. He blew it both times. In each case he referred to having stolen Taylor’s moment. West doesn’t understand that what he did was wrong, threatening and self-centered. He simply acknowledged that his completely narcissistic behavior cut into another celebrity’s…
OMG! The prez is in ur internet, killin ur freedomz! The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the…
People on the road can turn an LOL into a great big O-M-G. — Katie Couric, advocating a “designated texter.” Similar:Pater Noster Passenger ElevatorsAP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its jou…This morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage of crowds circling a mosque in Mecca. For m…More than…
A good overview of a genre I’ve been following from the beginning. I sometimes wonder why references to political cartoons aren’t more common in discussions of games about current events. At any rate, the article begins by mentioning the importance of Flash, the 9/11 attacks, and Gonzalo Frasca’s thought-provoking response, September 12th. Water Cooler Games,…
Cardin’s Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies. Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements. Advertising and…
[My own thoughts will appear in brackets. I regularly assign Rose’s essay, “I Just Wanna be Average” to my freshman writing students. He considers the editorial a valuable form of public writing, and teaches graduate classes that ask students to use their specialized subject knowledge to produce editorials of value to the broader community.] Bringing…