they say that was the day deBoer’s heart truly died
Alright, I give up. Throwing in the old towel. I’ve had a good run. I’ll be at the bar if you need me.
Continue reading →Month: August 2014
what do you want to subsidize?
1. Given the economics of current professional online journalism and commentary, blanket condemnations of what is conventionally called clickbait are essentially arguments that paid online writing should contract substantially. You don’t have to like clickbait and SEO stuff– I don’t– but if there’s gonna be such a thing as professional writers whose work appears online, […]
Continue reading →a proud, indecorous tradition
I wanted to be sure to share this remarkable letter from Natalie Zernon Davis, an emeritus professor of history from Princeton, in protest of the firing of Steven Salaita for his criticisms of Israeli actions in Gaza. She writes in part, I write you as an admirer of the remarkable achievements of the historians, literary […]
Continue reading →a few thoughts on internet conformity
So a study came out saying that social media causes conformity. 1. I actually almost avoided talking about this story, because it would seem to play too much to my biases, and that’s always boring. 2. I’ve seen people complaining (on social media, naturally) that this study can’t possibly be right because they see plenty […]
Continue reading →Israel and the privilege of being non-partisan
So since I’m talking about the Atlantic‘s biases: today Jeffrey Goldberg, the credulous Iraq war shill, contributed more to his long history of attacking critics of Israel by equating such criticism with anti-Semitism. Indeed, even by Goldberg’s incredibly low standards, this is pretty ugly: many protesters are challenging Israel’s very right to exist, not its policies in […]
Continue reading →The Atlantic is the The National Review is The Nation
I could go through this Graeme Wood piece on Minvera, the latest in the hoary old industry of disruptive innovators disruptively innovating in education, and offer my rebuttals. Wood is so hopelessly infatuated with the Silicon Valley hero-libertarian narrative that he doesn’t even begin to question the company or its Ayn Rand-dweeb founder, Ben Nelson. […]
Continue reading →programming note
Hey gang, I’m writing to let you all know that I’ll be blogging for Andrew Sullivan while he’s on vacation next week. Feel free to come and check it out, starting Monday morning. I’m excited.
Continue reading →the subtle approach in the age of clickbait
my letter to Phyllis Wise, Chancellor at UIUC
Dear Dr. Wise, I am writing to ask that you please reconsider the decision made by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to rescind an offer of employment to Dr. Steve Salaita. As an academic and a public writer, I am deeply disturbed by the consequences for intellectual and academic freedom when scholars are judged […]
Continue reading →sometimes they’ll just show you the strings
Here’s The New Republic‘s Hillary Kelly, ostensibly talking about how you shouldn’t say you’re from the city when you’re really from the suburbs, and really about how Hillary Kelly is a cool and interesting person, and therefore also about how Hillary Kelly feels like she has to sell everybody on the idea that she’s a cool […]
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