What I'm reading...

Colleges Sweat Out Admissions This Year

As colleges weigh this year’s round of applications, high school seniors are not the only anxious ones.

Riding the Rails

SOMEWHERE on the west side of Illinois, the Amish men broke out a deck of Skip-Bo cards and I joined them as the cafe car attendant, using an iPod and a set of portable speakers, broadcast Eckhart Tolle, author of “A New Earth,” discoursing on the virtues of stillness.

When Everyone’s a Friend, Is Anything Private?

FACEBOOK has a chief privacy officer, but I doubt that the position will exist 10 years from now. That’s not because Facebook is hell-bent on stripping away privacy protections, but because the popularity of Facebook and other social networking sites has promoted the sharing of all things personal, dissolving the line that separates the private from the public.

Writing for a living: a joy or a chore?

Colm Tóibín claims he does not enjoy writing very much. Do other authors share his view?

The Myth of Rampant Teenage Promiscuity

Have American teenagers gone wild?

Obama on Spot as Rulings Aid Gay Partners

WASHINGTON — Just seven weeks into office, President Obama is being forced to confront one of the most sensitive social and political issues of the day: whether the government must provide health insurance benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.

Here's What I'm Reading, How About You?

Many Plans to Curtail Use of Plastic Bags, but Not Much Action

SEATTLE — Last summer, city officials here became the first in the nation to approve a fee on paper and plastic shopping bags in many retail stores. The 20-cent charge was intended to reduce pollution by encouraging reusable bags.

In the Open at Last, a Secret All Women Share

Seldom can a book stretch to accommodate both its author’s and its publisher’s fondest hopes: that it be original yet universal, artistic yet practical, and likely to sell briskly for centuries to come.

The I’s Have It

WHEN President Obama speaks before Congress and the nation tonight, he will be facing some of his toughest critics.

After Abuse, Changes in the Brain

For years, psychiatrists have known that children who are abused or neglected run a high risk of developing mental problems later in life, from anxiety and depression to substance abuse and suicide.

The 3 R’s? A Fourth Is Crucial, Too: Recess

The best way to improve children’s performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it.

For Wednesday, 2/11

Lots to talk about:

1. In-class writing conferences: to simplify the sign-up process, we're going to pass on the wiki idea that we discussed in class today and just use our google group. To sign up for a writing conference for next week, follow these steps:

1. Log into our google group.
2. Click on "Pages."
3. Click on "Conferences (10/16).
4. Click on "Edit this Page."
4. Read and add your name, where necessary.
5. Click on "Save and Publish."
6. IMPORTANT: You have now updated the page. On the next page, google groups asks if you want to "Let the group know about this page." The answer is NO. Please click the button that says "Skip This." And you are done.

This is the process that we will use for conference sign-ups each week. 

2. For this Wednesday, we'll be looking at two student papers (first drafts): Ben's and Katie's (thanks you guys! please remember to get me your drafts by midnight on 2/10). We'll devote 1/2 our class time to a discussion of Ben and Katie's papers and the other half to the news. 

3. Please read the following for Wednesday's class:

a. On Sunday, 2/8, there was an expose called Peanut Case Shows Holes in Safety Net on the peanut industry and the recent outbreak in bad peanuts and peanut butter. Please read the article and view the photos.

b. Connected with the piece on peanut butter, there is an interesting piece which explores the question Do We Need a Department of Food? The Editors of the Times asked a series of experts to weigh in on this question. Please read all of these short opinion pieces.

c. This piece, My Children Made Me Do It, is a meditation on a concept (a model of the kind of essay you might right). The concept is "an inheritance."

d. This piece, You Try to Live on 500K in This Town, should give us all pause at how "the other half lives."

e. And, finally, a piece which makes an argument, in this case, about gays in the military: An About-Face on Gay Troops.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/magazine/01Moms-t.html?em

The article is in the NY Times. 

1/26

Folks, 

From time to time I'll send out emails asking you to take a look at articles. Here are a few that struck me as I read through the paper this week. Please read a few of them before class tomorrow. You can also access these links via my blog: 

http://progressivelyprofressing.blogspot.com/

Obama’s Order Is Likely to Tighten Auto Standards

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/us/politics/26calif.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

An important issue facing the next president will be global warming. According to this article, 20% of carbon that effects global warming comes from cars. The article spells out an important development in the attempt to insist that cars get better gas mileage.

Green-Light Specials, Now at Wal-Mart

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/business/25walmart.html?pagewanted=1&em

Wal Mart has done an about-face and is now balancing their concern with "always the lowest price, always" with a concern for the environment. Read about about their about-face (as a result of media-pressure).

Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-obama.html?pagewanted=1&em

If you haven't read it yet, it's really worth a read.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall/

This is a photo essay in which the blogger speaks with three photographers about their favorite images from the 8 years of the Bush presidency. If you're interested in images, photography, this is a long piece, but an interesting read.

A Win for Free Speech Online (Editorial)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/opinion/27tue2.html?th&emc=th

It appears that the internet will remain uncensored (for now...)

What Life Asks of Us (Columnist David Brooks)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/opinion/27brooks.html?th&emc=th

Brooks is one of my favorite columnists--in this column he calls into question a belief which we, Americans, have so internalized we're no longer even aware it is one of our central beliefs: individualism.

Ron Pitt: The nature of ‘critical inquiry’ in the academy (Ron Pitt, guest columnist)

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_pitt26_01-26-09_AQD1O87_v12.3a8be0a.html

Our new Vice President of Academic Affairs, Ron Pitt, explains what critical thinking means.

Presidential Speeches and Words:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/17/washington/20090117_ADDRESSES.html

Poem from Inauguration

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-poem.html?8bu&emc=bub2

Barack Obama's Prose Style:

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/barack-obamas-prose-style/?em

Obama's Inaugural Speech

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-obama.html?em

Credit Cards and Colleges

Colleges Profit as Banks Market Credit Cards to Students

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/business/01student.html?pagewanted=1

EAST LANSING, Mich. — When Ryan T. Muneio was tailgating with his parents at a Michigan State football game this fall, he noticed a big tent emblazoned with a Bank of America logo. Inside, bank representatives were offering free T-shirts and other merchandise to those who applied for credit cards and other banking products.

On Stupidity

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/08/2008080101c.htm?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public," said H.L. Mencken in the era of Babbitt and the Scopes "monkey" trial. Several generations later, one might speculate that no publisher has ever lost money with a book accusing Americans — particularly young ones — of being stupid.

Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i04/04b01001.htm?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

When Jakob Nielsen, a Web researcher, tested 232 people for how they read pages on screens, a curious disposition emerged. Dubbed by The New York Times "the guru of Web page 'usability,'" Nielsen has gauged user habits and screen experiences for years, charting people's online navigations and aims, using eye-tracking tools to map how vision moves and rests. In this study, he found that people took in hundreds of pages "in a pattern that's very different from what you learned in school." It looks like a capital letter F. At the top, users read all the way across, but as they proceed their descent quickens and horizontal sight contracts, with a slowdown around the middle of the page. Near the bottom, eyes move almost vertically, the lower-right corner of the page largely ignored. It happens quickly, too. "F for fast," Nielsen wrote in a column. "That's how users read your precious content."