I was horrified to see that, in order to opt out of pre-approved credit mailings, the bottom-feeders known as Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion expect us suckers to type our SSN and birthdate into an online form, which we then are expected to print out and mail. I tried typing “000-00-MYOB” and “000-00-0000” into the…
I am intrigued by the possibility that Miley Cyrus’s alleged “performance” at VMA was intended as a criticism of the pro-date-rape sentiment of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” but I suspect we’re just witnessing the latest celebrity breakdown. Here’s a mommyblogger who calls it as she sees it. Yes, this is what happens when you constantly…
#geekgirlproblems
While I’d rather see a reminder that we need to know the rules of formal writing, so that we can choose to ignore them deliberately, otherwise this author makes a good case for the value of poetry. (Great training for the art of writing engaging headlines and story leads.) (See also “Poetry Writing Tips.”) Poetry…
Death is universal, so one day I’ll face these decisions. I just asked my tween to put down her Legos and my teen to put down his algebra, so I could tell them that when I’m dead, I don’t want them to pay for a fancy coffin, or cushions, or an open casket. I told…
Being a word-oriented thinker, I don’t have much interest in emoji icons. I dislike it when an autocorrect turns a traditional sideways smiley into an icon. My daughter, who at age 11 is too young for a Facebook account, sometimes uses my Facebook account to chat with her slightly-older teen friends, which means that when…
RT @Laroquod: @DennisJerz If #Blakes7 turns out to be a show you need Xbox/Win8 to watch legally (as per rumour), that’s a sad irony for a show abt rebels.
Lots of links, lots of repeated key words, and multiple postings of a press release to different sites, are all red flags to Google under the new rules. Such actions are viewed by Google as blatant attempts to trick its algorithm into ranking a site higher than its allotted position. Yet these have all become…
This “Histomap,” created by John B. Sparks, was first printed by Rand McNally in 1931…. This giant, ambitious chart fit neatly with a trend in nonfiction book publishing of the 1920s and 1930s: the “outline,” in which large subjects (the history of the world! every school of philosophy! all of modern physics!) were distilled into…
Most of the time, I religiously avoiid watching TV news; however, every 2 years, right before I teach my “News Writing” class, I refamiliarize myself with what a large percentage of my students will think of when they hear the word “news.” (I listen to NPR for context, check the Drudge Report for hype, and…
What if the most underrated skill in school is thinking? I know, that sounds crazy. But how often do we tell kids what they are going to learn, tell them what to make, tell them what tool to use, tell them when to finish, tell them what questions to find the answers to. What if…
The University College London (UCL) Centre for Digital Humanities–in collaboration with 4Humanities–has created a new The Humanities Matter! infographic with statistics and arguments for the humanities in high-impact visual form. Countering clichéd, factually ungrounded criticisms, The Humanities Matter! draws on published statistics and a crowdsourced poll to give a shout out to the humanities in…
Just 23 percent of charter students scored proficient in language arts, compared with 31 percent in public schools overall. That’s a greater gap than had shown up in last year’s exams. In math, charter schools beat the public school average in each of the past two years — but not this year. On the new…
Morgan “Supersize Me” Spurlock spoke at Seton HIll in 2005 about the social damage caused by fast-food culture. (Morgan Spurlock autographed my hamburger wrapper.) The following article approaches the issue from another perspective. I, for one, scrupulously avoid buying a drink or fries, and always order a burger and salad from the McD’s value menu.…
At a certain point, the transit papers will get so complex that you will, inevitably, start making a lot of mistakes. This can become a serious problem as every incorrectly reviewed passport will deduct more and more cash from your pay at the end of the day. With your family’s lives on the line and…
I used to say that PowerPoint slideshows were the fan-fold-paper computer banners of the 1990s.
If I ever over-react to a tweet, I hope the tweeter is as understanding as Hilary Sargent. Politico’s Ben White changed his Twitter profile photo yesterday to a new photo, which showed him kind of smirking (or something). A week or two ago I yelled at Business Insider for not including Ben White in some…
To summarize the findings: because they didn’t teach to the test, the professors who instilled the deepest learning in their students came out looking the worst in terms of student evaluations and initial exam performance. To me, these results were staggering, and I don’t say that lightly. Bottom line? Student evaluations are of questionable value.…
The idea that generations of Shakespeare scholars got it all wrong appeals to the Saturday morning “kids rule!” ethos, where the kids smirk into the camera, adult authorities are easily duped, and the bad guys foreclosing on the pizza parlor can be thwarted by dumping a bucket of water on their legal documents.
This one is #3, “Man Lurking by Fence.” 19 Book Cover Clichés.