“ Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.
November 19, 2009
November 16, 2009
“ The argument by some that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be treated as a warrior and not as a common criminal misses the point. He wants us to treat him as a warrior. But he should, and will, be treated as the common terrorist criminal that he is.
Senator Carl Levin (via soupsoup)
4 days ago
November 10, 2009
The second-best gift would have been a honeymoon to a place with health care
Really?
1 week agoRep. Steve King (R-IA) “skipped his son’s Saturday afternoon wedding in Iowa in favor of the contentious debate over the public insurance option and abortion funding,” Roll Call reports…
King added that voting against the bill was “the best gift I could give my son.”
November 3, 2009
2 weeks ago10 year old shreds the Eddie Van Halen solo in Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” (@chrisdimare)
October 28, 2009
October 22, 2009
October 20, 2009
October 15, 2009
The problem with cable news thinking
1 month agoCable news thinking has nothing to do with fires or with politics. Instead, it amplifies the worst elements of emotional reaction:
- Focus on the urgent instead of the important.
- Vivid emotions and the visuals that go with them as a selector for what’s important.
- Emphasis on noise over thoughtful analysis.
- Unwillingness to reverse course and change one’s mind.
- Xenophobic and jingoistic reactions (fear of outsiders).
- Defense of the status quo encouraged by an audience self-selected to be uniform.
- Things become important merely because others have decided they are important.
- Top down messaging encourages an echo chamber (agree with this edict or change the channel).
- Ill-informed about history and this particular issue.
- Confusing opinion with the truth.
- Revising facts to fit a point of view.
- Unwillingness to review past mistakes in light of history and use those to do better next time.
Bob on television this morning in Louisville talking about our weekly series “This I Believe.
1 month ago
October 2, 2009
The Decline of the English Department
1 month agoDuring the last four decades, a well-publicized shift in what undergraduate students prefer to study has taken place in American higher education. The number of young men and women majoring in English has dropped dramatically; the same is true of philosophy, foreign languages, art history, and kindred fields, including history.
