This article from Politico poses some interesting questions. The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe. The real question is why so many people are playing. The answer has more to do with media psychology than with practical politics. Journalists, for instance, have become partners with the Clinton…
So I’m sitting at Julie’s place, right, having some rather delicious cherry M&Ms (which my momma could alphabetize in her belly!), when she pops up this blog by Dennis Jerz wherein I spy this quote, in response to Jeff Rice: So students who can only remix don’t get practice thinking critically about culture — and…
Microsoft researchers discuss Blews, which is a horrible title for a promising new tool that sorts blogosphere chatter according to the red/blue political shift, and also identifies the emotional intensity of the response. Our current visualization shows the count of liberal inlinks to a news article as a blue “wing” on the left, and the…
How broadcast journalism is flawed in such a fundamental way that its utility as a tool for informing viewers is almost nil. (Steve Salerno, Skeptic) The mythical Red State/Blue State paradigm is just one of the more telling indications of a general disability the media exhibit in working with data. A cluster of random events…
Lindsay Waters, Inside Higher Ed: [T]he first step to re-establishing the essay as the standard in humanistic writing is to reinvigorate the sentences we write, so that, when one reads an essay, one feels it. One feels it the way one tastes — and here I’m going global — a good curry. It really sets…
Times Online: In December 2005 a study in the journal Nature offered the observation that the circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean, which sustains the Gulf Stream, had weakened by up to 30 per cent over the previous few decades. This figure and its juxtapositioning alongside the melodrama of films such as The Day after…
Great satire from The Onion. [W]hat kind of pathetic loser would actually enjoy something that’s so incredibly not among my personal preferences? Not me, that’s for sure. Maybe my standards are too high, but if you like any of the hundreds upon hundreds of things that are too multifaceted for my attention span, you should…
Gravitation: an autobiographical video game. I’m sick right now, or I’d give a better description. Not quite as emotional for me as the same designer’s Passage, but another short game that illustrates the possibility of packing games with an emotional argument.
Chronicle (subscription) Each year Ms. O’Connell, a former dean of admissions at McDaniel College, in Maryland, gives between 35 and 40 presentations, during which she urges parents to stay calm despite the “scary headlines” they have seen in newspapers. Ms. O’Connell often tries to reassure students by telling them that if they have conducted a…
Krages.com (PDF) In the event you are threatened with detention or asked to surrender your film, asking the following questions can help ensure that you will have the evidence to enforce your legal rights: What is the person’s name? Who is their employer? Are you free to leave? If not, how do they intend to…
Bennett Gordon, Science and Technology blog (Utne Reader): Every diorama in the Home School Science Fair, which took place inside a shopping mall in Roseville, Minnesota, had a biblical quote attached to it. A young woman whose project involved teaching her dog how to run circles between her legs decorated the words: “If you love…
Grand Text Auto introduced me to the excellent indie mini-game Passage. Play it. It takes a few minutes to download and about 5 minutes to play. I’m misty-eyed. Play it!
ABC News: In the comic, Dilbert asks, “Why does it seem as if most of the decisions in my workplace are made by drunken lemurs?” “I wanted to try to boost the morale for the employees,” Steward said. His bosses, however, didn’t find the joke so funny. They didn’t like the implication that they were…
Elia Powers, Inside Higher Ed: What plays into coverage of violence, both on campus and elsewhere? The answer, most experts agree, is a confluence of factors. The obvious starting point — and one that media analysts say weighs heavily on the minds of editors in all tragedies, not just school shootings — tends to be…
Frighteningly sad story from a San Diego TV station. For 17 years Corcoran taught high school for the Oceanside School District. Relying on teacher’s assistants for help and oral lesson plans, he said he did a great job at teaching his students. “What I did was I created an oral and visual environment. There wasn’t…
From the AP: Danish police said Tuesday they have arrested three people suspected of plotting to kill one of the 12 cartoonists behind the Prophet Muhammad drawings that sparked a deadly uproar in the Muslim world two years ago.
Random thoughts are exactly what they are, random! Anyone can say random words. It does Have favorable results. His attempts to woo — But never all the way — toward the cliff Conform to something so unlike yourself The other points are pretty valid. It’s A place to jot down information as Questions. For example:…
I took a little break from evaluating a close reading assignment in order to look into the online chatter about George W. Bush’s interpretation of a painting called “A Charge to Keep.” Bush hung it on his wall because he identifies with the guy out in front, whom he sees as leading a tough climb…
Frontline (PBS). This quote is from one of the producers, Caitlin McNally. There’s not a whole lot there that’s new to me, but it looks like the show will be good introduction to the subject. The majority of teenagers we talked to expressed good-natured exasperation that their parents “didn’t know how to work a computer”…
A close professional contact who regularly takes on student interns shared this list of guidelines, which she has found necessary to include when orienting a new intern to the routine of office work. Although the site is a non-profit educational organization, and thus the environment is more relaxed and forgiving than it might be in…