Simone Weil said, “Nothing is so beautiful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy as the good; no desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. But with fantasy it's the other way around. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied, intriguing, attractive, and full of charm.”

The media strikingly bear out Simone Weil’s contention. In their offerings it’s almost invariably Eros rather than Agape that provides all the excitement. Success and celebrity rather than a broken and contrite heart that are made to seem desirable.

Good and evil, after all, constitute the essential theme of our mortal existence. In this sense, they may be compared to the positive and negative points which generates an electric current; transpose the points, and the current fails, the lights go out, darkness falls and all is confusion.

So it is with us. The transposition of good and evil in the world of fantasy created by the media leaves us with no sense of any moral order in the universe, and without this, no order whatsoever, social, political, economic or any other, is ultimately attainable.

Malcolm Muggeridge

(in a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in 1978)

January 07, 2017

Bridging the Generation Gap with Reading

January 07, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

And then one day, she asked him what he was reading. He had just started “The Hunger Games,” a series of dystopian young-adult novels by Suzanne Collins. The grandmother decided to read the first volume so that she could talk about it with her grandson the next time they chatted on the phone. She didn’t know what to expect, but she found herself hooked from the first pages, in which Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister’s place in the annual battle-to-the-death among a select group of teens.

The book helped this grandmother cut through the superficialities of phone chat and engage her grandson on the most important questions that humans face about survival and destruction and loyalty and betrayal and good and evil, and about politics as well. Now her grandson couldn’t wait to talk to her when she called—to tell her where he was, to find out where she was and to speculate about what would happen next.

Will Schwalbe, Books for Living

January 09, 2017

articles of interest - Jan 9

January 09, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

***SOCIAL MEDIA

The best Social Media Conferences to attend in 2017 HootSuit

Telling Facebook you've changed your phone number – the weird T&Cs you've unwittingly signed up to The Guardian

The Desire to Live-Stream Violence The Atlantic

Using Social Media, Students Aspire To Become 'Influencers' NPR

Vine app will shut down and become Vine Camera on January 17th The Verge

Study: Half of American Internet Users Have Been Harassed or Abused Online MediaShift

So Who's Behind all Those Snarky Tweets from Windy's Washington Post

***CODING & SOFTWARE

This Video Explains How GitHub Works As Simply As Possible Life Hacker

List of companies using the free programming language R ListenData

***TECHNOLOGY

Computers have got much better at translation, voice recognition and speech synthesis But they still don’t understand the meaning of language Economist

The quest to create animals with human organs has a long history – and it is now becoming a reality BBC

How voice technology is transforming computing Economist

***BIG DATA & STATISTICS

10 simple rules for effective statistical practice Data Science Central

Willing to try Javascript for Machine Learning? Here are some useful libraries KD Nuggets

Battling the Tyranny of Big Data: When an algorithm tells us what to do but we know it is wrong Bloomberg

The 10 Coolest Big Data Products Of 2016 CRN

A video about how Bayesian inference works Flowing Data

How to create a Best-Fitting regression model? Data Science Central

5 expensive myths about Apache Hadoop News Factor

Machine Learning Algorithms: A Concise Technical Overview LinkedIn

***ART & DESIGN

What UX Designers Can Learn from Psychology Prototyprio

***PRODUCING MEDIA

Hacks, tips and tricks for mobile journalists Journalism.co.uk

How to Go Live: Facebook Live Streaming for News Publishers Video Strategist

***JOURNALISM

The Debate Over Whether Journalists Should Call Donald Trump’s False Statements ‘Lies’ Is a Red Herring New York Mag

Lies, Journalism and Objectivity New York Times

As Journalism Becomes Even More Dangerous, Newsrooms Must Address Psychological Trauma PBS MediaShift

Does nonpartisan journalism have a future? (opinion) The Conversation

Why Meryl Streep wants you to support the Committee to Protect Journalists Daily Dot

Washington Post to Create Rapid Response Investigative Team Washington Post

***FAKE NEWS

Fake news? That’s a very old story Washington Post

Higher ed takes on fake news epidemic Education Dive

Hoaxy Visualizes the Spread of Online News (Hoaxy is a new tool created as an antidote to the spread of fake news) Chronicle of Higher Ed

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Can the news be saved?: 2017’s emerging media outlets face just as many challenges as old media Salon

Why did the Los Angeles Times take so long to run an investigation? (there are questions also about its editorial decision-making) The Guardian

Tronc If You Want to Save Journalism Bloomberg

Medium lays off a third of its staff as it searches for a new business model The Verge

Why Medium Failed to Disrupt the MediaBloomberg

'The underbelly of the internet': How content ad networks fund fake news Digiday

***STUDENT MEDIA

Report: US College Newspapers Assailed for Negative Stories Voice of America

A college newspaper takes the right stand Delaware Online

These Local Freshmen Saved Their College Newspaper from Going Out of Print Honolulu Mag

***PERSONAL GROWTH

to be creative Becoming (my site)

Why Focusing on Yourself Helps You Get Over Someone Else Life Hacker

***GRAMMAR

Which is preferable, "If only it were," or "if only it was"? Chronicle of Higher Ed

***WRITING& READING

Portrait of the Artist as a Case Study Chronicle of Higher Ed

Trump pick Monica Crowley plagiarized multiple sources in 2012 book CNN

***LANGUAGE

Survey looks at foreign language programs' response to decade-old call to transform teaching Inside Higher Ed

2016’s grim words of the year Economist

***LITERATURE

Danger ahead: Collapse of Southern literature? Charlotte Observer

Author Discusses his new book on the State of the Classics Inside Higher Ed

How China uses Shakespeare to promote its own bard Economist

***GENDER ISSUES

'National Geographic' Tackles Changing Gender Norms Worldwide NPR

The Benefits of Gender Balance in a System’s Presidential Offices Chronicle of Higher Ed

***RACIAL ISSUES

Can We Really Measure Implicit Bias? Maybe Not Chronicle of Higher Ed

***SCIENCE

Using evolutionary dynamics and game theory to understand personal relations MIT News

***HEALTH

Japanese white-collar workers are already being replaced by artificial intelligence in Medical Insurance Co. Quartz

Today’s new drugs come through the pipeline no faster than 20 years ago, report finds Stat News

Diagnosing illness by smell: A prototype device to detect the scent of disease Economist

Obama vs. Trump: 5 ways they clash — or don’t — on health and science Stat News

The AI effort to crack biology, accelerate drug discovery, & upend clinical care Economist

Can data analytics aid in end-of-life care decisions? Managed Health Care

Lies, Damned Lies, and P Values: the number of "positive" but wrong medical studies may be higher than you think MedPage Today

***FREE SPEECH

Anger at a cop killer, a plea for clemency, and a fight over free expression at American U Washington Post

U.S. Supreme Court will not examine tech industry legal shield Reuters

A Lawyer Rewrote Instagrams Terms of Use in "Plain English" so kids would know their Privacy Rights Denver Post

***LEGAL ISSUES

'Star Trek' Fan Film Dispute Goes to Jury Trial in Big Ruling Hollywood Reporter

What law firms and law departments should know about Machine Learning algorithms Inside Counsel

***PSYCHOLOGY

Mariah Carey Feeds the Schadenfreude Cycle The Atlantic

What happens when narcissists become parents Washington Post

There’s a Problem With a Bunch of Psychology Textbooks New York Magazine

A Unified Theory of Mental Illness: How Everything from Addiction to Depression Can Be Explained by the Concept of “Capture” in Psychology Open Culture

***PHILOSOPHY

Why We Need to Teach Kids Philosophy & Safeguard Society from Authoritarian Control in Education, Philosophy, Politics Open Culture

***ETHICS

'Facebook Live' torture video raises ethical questions for social media giant CNN

***RELIGION

A Memoir Of Taking Christianity 'To The Extreme' NPR

The Curious Case of Christians and Alcohol (opinion) HeartSupport

Carrie Underwood faces backlash after performance at evangelical event Rolling Stone

Marvin Gorman, Assembly of God televangelist brought down by Jimmy Swaggart, dies at 83 NOLA

How Martin Luther has shaped Germany for half a millennium: The 500th anniversary of the 95 theses finds a country as moralistic as ever The Economist

The future of evangelicalism in America Religious News Service

***RELIGION & POLITICS

The New Congress Is 91% Christian. That’s Barely Budged Since 1961 New York Times

Faith on the Hill: The religious composition of the 115th Congress Pew Research Center

Evangelicals should be deeply troubled by Donald Trump’s attempt to mainstream heresy (opinion) Washington Post

***HIGHER ED

Average College Degree Pays off by age 34 CNN

When Colleges Rely on Adjuncts, Where Does the Money Go? Inside Higher Ed

Claudio Sanchez Predictions For What Will Happen In Education In 2017 NPR

***ONLINE CLASSES

280 Free MOOCs Getting Started in January Open Culture

Trainwreck: The Teach to One Math Experiment in Mountain View, CA Is a Cautionary Tale About the Perils of Digital Math Education Open Culture

***HUMANITIES /STEM

Why STEM Majors Need the Humanities Chronicle of Higher Ed

***TEACHING

What Technology Addiction Means for Educators MyStudent Voice

We Know What Works in Teaching Composition Chronicle of Higher Ed

How Can We Minimize Grade Challenges? Chronicle of Higher Ed

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Claiming Your Right to Say No to Writing a Letter of Recommendation Chronicle of Higher Ed

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

In Letter to College Presidents, Biden Urges Continued Fight Against Sexual Assault Chronicle of Higher Ed

How Publicity Might Sway Reporting of Campus Sexual Assaults Chronicle of Higher Ed

Few Colleges Use Controversial Sexual Misconduct policy adopted by Stanford Inside Higher Ed

January 07, 2017

making ideas safe

January 07, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

The university is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.

Clark Kerr

January 07, 2017

She lost everything

January 07, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

Those flames are shooting out of what was once my kitchen

Exactly one week after I moved out of my Atlanta apartment and drove to another state with all my belongings, the woman who took over my lease called me. She had lost all her everything in a massive fire that morning. The apartment was in an old house--which burned to the ground.

I didn't really believe her. I thought she was exaggerating. Until I spoke to my former landlord and saw a video posted online by one of the Atlanta TV stations. Flames could be seen shooting out of my kitchen window. There were shots of dazed tenants standing in the street watching firefighters snuff the smoldering remains.

The fire started directly below where I used to sleep. Would I have been awake at six in the morning when it started? The woman who took my spot just happened to be awake at that early hour and got out before the blaze took everything she had—except for what she had in her hands.

If I had stayed another week in Atlanta, what would I have picked up as I rushed out of the house? And if I had been there and not woke up when smoke filled the apartment—was I ready for the end of my life?

Stephen Goforth

January 06, 2017

to live in freedom

January 06, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

To live in freedom, one must grow used to a life full of agitation, change, and danger.

Alexis de Tocqueville

January 06, 2017

False Guilt

January 06, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

Real guilt is a conviction over wrong, a belief about actions. False guilt is only a feeling of goodness or badness, not attached to specific acts. Don't honor false guilt by giving it a place in your life it doesn't deserve.

Stephen Goforth

January 04, 2017

struggling through things

January 04, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

When children aren’t given the space to struggle through things on their own, they don’t learn to problem solve very well.

January 02, 2017

articles of interest - Jan 2

January 02, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

***TECHNOLOGY

Police seek Amazon Echo data in murder case Engadget

China’s Already Tested CRISPR on A Human, and the U.S. Is Next BigThink

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them ProPulica

***PRODUCING MEDIA

The State of Video in 2016: Social Video, Mobile Video, Heavy Competition Media Shift

***PERSONAL GROWTH

“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?” Becoming (my site)

How Do You Keep From Getting Bored? Researchers Have An Answer NPR

The Science of Willpower: 15 Tips for Making Your New Year’s Resolutions Last from Dr. Kelly McGonigal Open Culture

***FREE SPEECH

‘Free Speech Zones,’ Then and Now The FIRE

The free-speech problem on campus is real. It will ultimately hurt dissidents Vox

***LEGAL ISSUES

DRM vs. Civil Liberties: 2016 in Review Electronic Frontier Foundation

A (rare) faithful reading of FERPA: Court says federal privacy law doesn't penalize one-time release of records Student Press Law Center

DOJ Opens Investigation into Northern Michigan University Self-Harm Policies The FIRE

***ART & DESIGN

20 Free eBooks on Design from O’Reilly Media Open Culture

Mixing Two Photos Together Will Net You Some Surreal Instagram Art Digg

***MUSIC

What Does the World Oldest Surviving Piano Sound Like?: Watch Pianist Give a Performance on a 1720 Cristofori Piano Open Culture

***JOURNALISM

Media in the Age of Algorithms (opinion) O’Reilly Media

***FAKE NEWS

How I Detect Fake News (opinion) O’Reilly Media

The man who studies the spread of ignorance BBC

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

'Profitable' Washington Post adding more than five dozen journalists Politico

Let’s wait for those earnings reports before declaring the resurgence of newspapers, OK? Talking New Media

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Month by Month, 2016 Cemented Science’s Sexual Harassment Problem Wired

Title IX Protects Identities But Can Complicate Justice NPR

***RESEARCH

The world’s favourite lab animal has been found wanting, but there are new twists in the mouse’s tale Economist

***SCIENCE

From Crispr to Zika, Here Are 2016’s Biggest Biology Stories Wired

Fake news invades science and science journalism as well as politics Stat News

A new PhD student learns her first lesson: Certainty doesn’t exist in science Stat News

205 Big Thinkers Answer the Question, “What Scientific Term or Concept Ought to Be More Widely Known?” Open Culture

A simple guide to CRISPR, one of the biggest science stories of 2016 Vox

***HEALTH

Three minutes with Hans Rosling will change your mind about the world Nature

Health issues topped the list of scientific studies reaching wide audiences in 2016 Pew Research

***PSYCHOLOGY

Carrie Fisher Inspires Others To Speak Openly Of Bipolar Disorder NPR

Education or Indoctrination? The Accuracy of Introductory Psychology Textbooks in Covering Controversial Topics and Urban Legends About Psychology Springer

How a 6 year old got locked up on Psych Ward BuzzFeed News

***NEUROSCIENCE

A new brain study sheds light on why it can be so hard to change someone's political beliefs Vox

***PHILOSOPHY

This Simple Philosophical Puzzle Shows How Difficult It Is to Know Something Nautil.us

***ETHICS

CRISPR 'Kill' Switch Could Make Human Gene Editing Safer Live Science

***RELIGION

Trump's election voted No. 1 religion story of 2016 Religion News Association

The Religious-Liberty Showdowns Coming in 2017 The Atlantic

Onetime leader of Tampa megachurch joins Trump inaugural team TampaBay.com

Why I Quit My Job at an Evangelical Missionary School Sojourners

Conservative Christians pan 'prosperity gospel' Trump inaugural preacher Washington Examiner

Mark Zuckerberg says he's not an atheist anymore BongBong

2016 Year in Review: Religion and Politics The Atlantic

***HUMANITIES /STEM

Liberal arts education in the Age of Trump Washington Post

***STUDENT LIFE

U.S. Court Reinstates Ban on College's Mandatory Drug Tests of Students Chronicle of Higher Ed

***CRIME ON CAMPUS

Should students be warned when a classmate is facing criminal charges? Student Press Law Center

***ACADEMIC LIFE

How One Group of Teachers Defended Academic Freedom Jstor

January 01, 2017

we know not

January 01, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

We know what we are, but not what we may be. – Shakespeare

December 31, 2016

finding the time

December 31, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

We find time for anything we really want to do.

December 31, 2016

Change Talk

December 31, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

Sermonizing about goals is change-talk. But it is not growth-talk. Each one has a place and a time, but don't mistake one for the other. We can fool ourselves, thinking we are moving forward into growth.. when really, on the inside, we are idle, going nowhere.

Stephen Goforth