Once again, as happens every year about this time, the calendar has rolled over to February. Once again, as happens every year about this time, some people (usually, though not always, people of color) start doing things to commemorate Black History Month. And, once again, as happens every year about this time, skeptical souls start […]
A long overdue separation [Rerun Sunday]
I got an email from the nice folks at Mitsubishi Motors today about “Important Windshield Wiper Tips.” I appreciate that Mitsubishi wants to keep me safe on the roads. Honest, I do. Though I’m not sure that they need to send me a special email full of tips to make this happen . . . […]
Push off [Rerun Sunday]
[I’ve already forgotten where I first read this tip — and since my efforts to backtrack to it by googling around are only helping me find dozens of seemingly independent versions of the same advice, I’m not going to worry as much as I might about a hat-tip the “original” source here. I send apologies […]
Name that status: The rules [Rerun Sunday]
If you’re my Facebook friend, you have probably noticed that I don’t use some of the site’s main features in the way that they were intended to be used. And while it’s been a while since I’ve toyed with Facebook’s check-ins, for several years I’ve held pretty steady to my routine of using my status […]
How to plagiarize well (tips for my undergraduates) [Rerun Sunday]
Ideally, of course, this tip could be summed up in four simple words: Just Don’t Do It. But you know that already. The syllabus tells you not to do so. Pretty much every instructor you’ve ever had since high school has told you not to do so. And yet, in spite of all that, you […]
The joys of online noise [Rerun Sunday]
Facebook gets a lot of abuse. And it’s earned most of it. They routinely make privacy an opt-in feature, and then compound that problem by making it hard for people to find the right settings to change if they do, in fact, want to opt in. They mine our friends’ profiles for pix and prose […]
More found haiku (more grad seminar reading) [Rerun Sunday]
must have money and a room of one’s own if she is to write fiction — Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own You can find a brief explanation of “Rerun Sunday” here. The post above originally appeared on 26 January 2012.
Found haiku of the day (grad seminar reading edition) [Rerun Sunday]
to uphold basic human justice you must do so for everyone – Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual, p. 93 [And I know I’m sorta cheatin’ the syllable count in the last line a bit, but no one really enunciates that second E in “everyone,” do they?] You can find a brief explanation of “Rerun […]
Lies we tell our students [Rerun Sunday]
It’s the start of another semester, so I thought it would be a good time to share what has become a standard part of my Day One spiel for my undergrads. I’ve taken to giving some version of this, no matter what the course actually is, partially because Day One is a good time for […]
La plus ça change . . . [Rerun Sunday]
Going through some old magazines that should have been clipped and recycled long ago, I found the following tidbit (time-sensitive details omitted for effect): The public, as usual, is in a fog. If the [political party] and the media cooperate, the fog won’t be lifted until [. . . .] after [the President’s] reelection, [when] […]