Monthly Archives: February 2008

“We’re Americans First”

The first job for the next President is not Iraq and not the economy. I don’t really hear any of the candidates talking to the key priority as forthrightly as I might like, but this is very much how I … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 10 Comments

Snow White, Sacheen Littlefeather and Great Dance Numbers on the Holocaust

Is it just me, or are the Oscars now a real bore due to the efficiency and general good taste of the whole show? I used to watch it with my wife, who really loves the Oscars, and we’d both … Continue reading

Posted in Popular Culture | 1 Comment

Puzzler

1. Hillary Clinton has more political experience than Barack Obama. By claiming this, I take it that she’s claiming her time as First Lady and as the wife of the governor of Arkansas as political experience, since otherwise she has … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 4 Comments

I Wonder…

How long the NY Times has been sitting on this story on John McCain? I’m guessing there will be plenty of talk tomorrow about it.

Posted in Politics | 9 Comments

One-A-Day: Louis Sachar, Holes

I know some people are skeptical about whether you can teach people to write fiction in a conventional classroom. At the very least, I think aspiring writers can benefit by reading marvelous examples of particular kinds of writing or particular … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Popular Culture, The Mixed-Up Bookshelves | 2 Comments

Uncharacteristically Brief Remarks

I’m very pleased by the vote in favor of open-access at Harvard. Not just because of open-access, but because it shows that it’s possible for faculty to choose dramatic changes or reforms in their way of business. I don’t know … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Books, Politics, Swarthmore | 2 Comments

QA Google Books?

In all the debate about Google’s approach to digitization, I haven’t seen much discussion of the quality of the results, though people do talk some about interface issues (the Open Content Alliance design is a lot better for readability and … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Information Technology and Information Literacy | 4 Comments

The Ecosystem of Asychronicity

Every educated person should learn some basic skills for getting information out of online environments, but I would be the first to admit that reading asynchronous, threaded conversations for information is a much more challenging and low-value activity most of … Continue reading

Posted in Information Technology and Information Literacy | 6 Comments

“Most of the Venom”

Shorter Paul Krugman: “Most of the venom is coming from you, brainwashed followers of a personality cult that reminds me of Richard Nixon and George Bush, supporting a guy who some have said is a secret Muslim (not me, of … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 9 Comments

Lifelong Learning (Blog Style)

I’ve been thinking a bit about the use of blogs in courses. With a few exceptions, I don’t know that I see a lot of mileage in compelling students to keep an individual blog themselves. I really enjoyed some of … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Blogging, Information Technology and Information Literacy | 12 Comments