Erin O'Connor quips about another
July 28, 2003
Erin O'Connor quips about another college tenure lawsuit, "You can't make this stuff up." She's right.
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Erin O'Connor quips about another college tenure lawsuit, "You can't make this stuff up." She's right.
Stephen King says, "I'm convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing." His book, On Writing, is entertaining and useful.
Baby Boomers are the biggest supporters of the war in Iraq.
Four stories from the not-always-accurate but often-interesting NY Times (free registration required):
Folks are now IM-ing each other in Net-equipped classrooms. Asset or liability?
Michael Boskin's recent discovery about the federal deficit seems to be wrong.
I half-jokingly remaked to my colleagues that our business school should have an entire course devoted to Wal-Mart. Other business schools are getting close.
When I went to graduate school in southern CA, Trader Joe's was already a legend. Apparently they are doing very well. They need to open a store in North Raleigh.
Interesting attempt to show that blogs are not messing up Google.
For all your spam-fighting needs: Spamotomy.
Robert Cringely thinks he has the answer for the music business.
Next month the U. of Chicago Press issues the 15th edition of Manual of Style. They keep condensing and deleting stuff, but it still comes in at 956 pages.
Funny article: "New Poll Shows Correlation is Causation." Especially this:
"It is really a mandate from the people." commented one pundit who wished to remain anonymous. "It says that The American People are sick and tired of the scientific mumbo-jumbo that they keep trying to shove down our throats, and want some clear rules about what to believe. Now that correlation implies causation, not only is everything easier to understand, it also shows that even Science must answer to the will of John and Jane Q. Public."
(Link via EconoPundit.)
Brilliant little essay on the (mis)teaching of high school English. "We are nurturing generations of people who do not read for pleasure and who are unable to sort out bias and point of view when reading the newspaper. . . . Somewhere along the line I gave it all up in favor of short stories, editorials, and deconstructing advertising. Anything to do with language that I thought a citizen, consumer, and culture glutton might eat, I tried to bring in to the classroom. . . . Much of the material used in high school English curriculums is simply not age appropriate for most students. Let's get realistic. Let's get real. Let's help students read for the real world out there. The real world does not demand of us a working knowledge of Gulliver's Travels, even though a few students might enjoy knowing where Yahoo came from."
I would add that in my experience high school and college English courses are taught very strangely. Most introductory courses--say, in physics or history or economics--are taught differently than advanced courses. They are taught as if the students in them are not going to be specialists. English, on the other hand, always seems to be taught as if all the students were senior English majors at Ivy League schools.