Help! I may be running out of excuses for not wearing…
Help! I may be running out of excuses for not wearing the rubber-band bracelets my daughter so lovingly crafts for me.
Tom Bissell writes a letter to Niko Bellic about Grand Theft Auto V
I haven’t played GTAV, and probably never will, but that’s just because I have less time for playing games now. Almost everyone I know who loves video games — myself included — is broken in some fundamental way. With their ceaseless activity and risk-reward compulsion loops, games also soothe broken people. This is not a…
The Case Against High-School Sports
“I’ve been in hundreds of classrooms,” says Singleton, who has spent 15 years as a principal and helped turn around other struggling schools. “This was the worst I’ve seen in my career. The kids were in control. The language was filthy. The teachers were not prepared.” By suspending sports, Singleton realized, he could save $150,000…
Snarky Error Message Comments on “the transience of linked information in the internet age”
Arent you glad you didnt cite to this webpage in the Supreme Court Reporter at Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 131 S.Ct. 2729, 2749 n.14 2011. If you had, like Justice Alito did, the original content would have long since disappeared and someone else might have come along and purchased the domain in order to…
In Defense of the Humanities Ph.D.: It’s No Crazier Than Becoming a Journalist
As my own tenure decision loomed, in my darkest moments I consoled myself by noting that, even if I had been denied tenure, I would have spent most of my 20s studying what I love and most of my 30s drawing a steady salary teaching and researching what I loved, along the way managing, by…
Opinion: Don’t link video games with mass shootings
Contrary to Dr. Bushman’s suggestion, violent video games are not a commonality among mass homicide perpetrators. The impression that a link exists is a classic illusory correlation in which society notes the cases that fit and ignores those that don’t. When a shooter is a young male, the news media make a fuss over violent…
An Adjunct’s Death Becomes a Rallying Cry for Many in Academe
Because I blogged Kovalik’s editorial yesterday, it’s only fair that I also publicize an article that includes Duquesne’s side of the story. A university spokeswoman provided a statement in which Duquesne’s chaplain and director of campus ministry, the Rev. Daniel Walsh, says that Ms. Vojtko lived at the university’s Laval House, a building for undergraduates studying to…
Anti-Semitic Times Square Elmo admits to Girl Scout extortion attempt
The headline made me click the link, and the lead made me blog it. (I confess I didn’t actually read the story, because I doubt anything could live up to that kind of an introduction.) A crackpot Times Square performer who was once busted making anti-Semitic slurs while dressed as Elmo admitted Wednesday he tried…
Death of an adjunct
Attention must be paid. Meanwhile, in the past year, her teaching load had been reduced by the university to one class a semester, which meant she was making well below $10,000 a year. With huge out-of-pocket bills from UPMC Mercy for her cancer treatment, Margaret Mary was left in abject penury. She could no longer…
The iPhones of Fall
For Apple, “change” no longer refers to revolution. It refers to fashion. Apple is becoming more like Prada and less like Edison. This has been the case for some time, it was just harder to notice as the iPhone was undergoing large-scale adoption. But in retrospect, Steve Jobs’s keynotes functioned more like catwalks than like…
F-16 pilot was ready to give her life on Sept. 11
She was a rookie in the autumn of 2001, the first female F-16 pilot they’d ever had at the 121st Fighter Squadron of the D.C. Air National Guard. [….] She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93. The day’s fourth hijacked airliner…
Where Are the Women?
Thanks for the suggestion, Nicole. The 4th Estate Project’s study of 2012 election-year coverage found that major U.S. newspapers and TV news programs featured up to seven times as many quotes from men as women. Men’s voices were dominant even in stories on abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood, and women’s rights. The 2013 Status of…
“Daddy, I’m sick of your tears.”
“Daddy, I’m sick of your tears.” –my 11yo, after I misted up reading from Church’s 1897 “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” editorial. Update, Sep 10: In the past few years, as my kids have become active in the arts, I have developed a habit of tearing up during their performances. I will silently…
5 of the Fiercest One-Liners in History
Yes, the Spartans’ one-word response to Philip’s threats was both laconic and bold. Yes, I chortled while making a *hilarious* graphic of the word “If,” set in Laconic, bold type. No, a joke that depends on knowledge of Ancient Greece and Macedonia and modern typography really isn’t all that funny. In 346 B.C, Philip sent…
Explaining Twerking to Your Parents
I still haven’t seen the video, but this event is the pop-culture gift that keeps on giving. Every child dreads this day: sooner or later, your parents will come to you, innocently wide-eyed, to ask you about twerking. How you handle this difficult conversation is extremely important and could have a significant impact on the…
5 Ways to Avoid Being Rude (According to 100-Year-Old Etiquette Rules)
If you are a gentleman, never lower the intellectual standard of your conversation in addressing ladies. Pay them the compliment of seeming to consider them capable of an equal understanding with gentlemen. You will, no doubt, be somewhat surprised to find in how many cases the supposition will be grounded on fact, and in the…
Vincent Connare, Inventor Of ‘The Most Hated Font,’ Defends Himself
A typographic engineer, Connare was working at Microsoft in 1993, when he was asked for his input on a new program’s fonts. “When I loaded the CD a little dog came up. He talked in a speech balloon like you would get in a newspaper cartoon strip, but it was in the system font Times…
Journalism Tips: Newsworthy vs Snoozeworthy
A newsworthy story is recent (rather than stale), rare (rather than common), affects many (rather than few) people, has weighty (rather than trivial) impact, happens nearby (rather than far away), and involves prominent (rather than ordinary) people.
Father copes with toddler son’s cancer by creating ’empathy’ game
Green and Larson both admit that even the most seasoned gamers might be disturbed when they realize they can’t simply “win” this level by battling some final boss or shooting at a group of hungry zombies. But this discomfort is part of the point — by allowing player to fail in a certain sense, they…
What Miley Cyrus Did Was Disgusting — But Not For the Reasons You Think | Anne Theriault
I still have not seen the “performance” but I did find this response to the ensuing slut-shaming to be thought-provoking. I saw many prominent white feminists use their sizeable platforms to defend Miley’s right to rub her ass on Robin Thicke while wearing flesh-coloured bra and panties. I watched as those same people remained embarrassingly…