Digital Skulduggery & more
A few days ago I mentioned that as a professor invested in critical thinking -- that is, in difficult thinking -- I have become increasingly disillusioned with the traditional student paper. Just as the only thing a standardized test measures is how well you can take a standardized test, the only thing a student essay… Continue reading What’s Wrong With Writing Essays
I've been a teacher of one sort or another for nearly 15 years, first as a high school teacher and now, after the grueling experience of graduate school, a university professor. Should I admit that most of this time I had no philosophy guiding my teaching? It’s not that I thought that I didn’t need… Continue reading What is Critical Thinking?
While it seems like Web 2.0 outfits are dying left and right and venture capital for dot coms has all but dried up, I've noticed that there is still a market in Web 2.0 events: demos, expos, workshops, summits, conferences and so on, with tickets running $200/head. There may be no money in perpetually beta… Continue reading Southern States Web Expo and Exchange
I am glad to see that Facebook relented and reverted back to its old Terms of Service. Having had my likeness used without my permission (you know who you are, Kirk Cameron), my songs stolen from me repeatedly (yes, I'm looking at you Beyoncé), and even movie ideas ripped off (see below), I was appalled… Continue reading Facebook, Intellectual Property, and Why am I not richer than I am?
I must be desperate for content. I spent some time last week fulfilling my "25 Random Things" Facebook viral meme obligations. I am reposting that list here, for the benefit of those three readers of mine who are not yet on Facebook. And to make it look like I've written twice as much as I… Continue reading 25 Random Things about Me (Breakfast Edition)
Meeting Notes Originally uploaded by samplereality I don't recall what was said at the meeting, but something about chickens sure made a big impression on me.
A friend wondered aloud why psychics always seemed to be women. It's not a question I had ever considered, but it made sense once I paused to think about all the psychics I had ever seen in pop culture. They were all women. The archetype for me is the gypsy fortuneteller in "The Wolf Man,"… Continue reading What Can Psychics Tell Us about the Present?
Here's a CFP for conference panel on Don DeLillo and Play that I'm organizing: CFP: Don DeLillo and Play Sponsored by the Don DeLillo Society 2009 American Literature Association Conference Boston, Massachusetts, May 21-24, 2009 The groundbreaking work of Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois suggests that play and games are a fundamental part of life,… Continue reading CFP: Don DeLillo and Play
Eric Andersen, The Tin Angel, Philadelphia, March 1999 Some concerts I remember only who went with me. Some concerts I forget because of who went with me. This show was neither, simply a moving performance I saw with some friends from grad school who are more or less out of my life, though not in… Continue reading Long Live Rock: Eric Andersen
The Black Cat, Washington, D.C., September or October 1998 I've been doing this concert series on and off for two years now, and a chance encounter with a bootleg recording of Elliott Smith performing John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" at the Black Cat club cracked open a forgotten memory, a forgotten concert. In 1998 I saw… Continue reading Long Live Rock: Elliott Smith
I've already been hearing the same sentiment from my liberal and progressive friends that I heard in 2000 and again in 2004: they're going to want to move to Canada if McCain wins the 2008 presidential election. So I got to wondering, where would right-wing conservatives and fundamentalists want to move if Obama wins the… Continue reading Where do Republicans want to move if Obama wins?
I'm sure there's already a million of these on the intertubes this morning, but here's my word cloud for Palin's Republican convention speech. I like the few key words that seem to be falling off or floating away from the main mass of words. See the full-size image or the original Wordle creation of the… Continue reading Word Cloud for Palin’s Convention Speech
I'm not sure why I started reading for pleasure two separate novels on the eve of the new semester, but I did. Maybe I'm trying to squeeze a few more drops of summer out of the first week of classes, before my reading for work grows too heavy. First up is Hari Kunzru's Transmission. The… Continue reading Kunzru’s Transmission and Gaiman’s Coraline
Finally, my disjointed knowledge of graphic novels and science fiction paid off. Or at least saved me a dime. Summit Coffee, my local coffee shop, has a daily trivia question, which gets you a ten cent discount if you get it right. If it's local trivia or sports trivia, I'm a lost cause. But every… Continue reading Graphic Novels Saved Me a Dime
Looking for something the wonderful German critic Walter Benjamin says in Illuminations about the cheapening of experience in a mass mediated world, I came across this haunting reflection that describes the world as my great-grandparents must have seen it, in the years after the horrific brutality of the Great War: A generation that had gone… Continue reading Torrents and Explosions We Now Take for Granted