I came across the following list of the “Top Ten Trending Spring Break Destinations.” The folks at Kayak have compiled the list after surveying the number of inquiries made over the past few months to various travel sites. I naturally assumed that most of the destinations would be “beach towns” in Florida, and I was…
McMurtry, Larry. Lonesome Dove. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. One of the most prolific American novelists of the postwar period, Larry McMurtry has explored the history and culture of the West from the frontier era to the current period. He has skillfully spun sequels and prequels from his many of his novels. Thus,…
In the post that I made yesterday to this blog, “Why Is the Future of the University Never a University?,” I included the following observation: “All realms of human endeavor can borrow profitably from other endeavors. The ways in which one industry has responded to an opportunity or an issue can often inspire parallel innovations…
In August 2014, Graeme Wood wrote an article for The Atlantic titled “The Future of College?” The tease under the headline is: “A brash tech entrepreneur thinks he can reinvent higher education by stripping it down to its essence, eliminating lectures and tenure along with football games, ivy-covered buildings, and research libraries. What if he’s…
Writing for New Republic, Blaine Grateman has written a very perceptive review of Kevin Carey’s The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere. Carey is a propagandist for the technocracy, that new class of the ultra-wealthy characterized by its unflinching willingness to promote digital technologies as an unmitigated blessing,…
Several days ago, I did a post on how rising ocean levels will affect Florida. Here is a link to a short but very pointed video on how rising ocean levels will affect the coastlines of southern and eastern Asia: http://www.businessinsider.com/asia-earth-ice-melted-rising-ocean-coastline-china-india-2015-3 I doubt that such forecasting or modeling will be appreciated by those who are…
A group of faculty from across the United States has formed an organization called College Athletes Rights and Empowerment Faculty Coalition (CARE-FC). The group has released a statement. Here are the introductory paragraphs: “The multibillion-dollar college-sport industry is built on the work of an unnamed and unrecognized labor force, the majority of who are racial…
This post has been in my folder of items ready to post for a few days. John Oliver’s extended riff on the topic on tonight’s episode of his weekly HBO show makes it seem timely. The scale of the following chart is somewhat ineffective because the percentage of high school athletes who become professional athletes…
In a variation off of the Today Show’s annual segment “Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?”, which is itself a take-off on the children’s game-book series Where’s Waldo?, Vladimir Putin disappeared from public view for about a week. NBC News almost playfully asked in its headline: “Where in the World is Russian President Vladimir…
As far as I can determine, Digital Learning Day is an invention of Arne Duncan’s Department of Education. Whether appropriately or ironically, or both, it occurred on Friday, March 13. If you go to the section of the Department of Education website devoted to this special day [http://www.digitallearningday.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=11], you will find links to Online Resources,…