without Hope
/To live without Hope is to cease to live. - Fyodor Dostoevsky
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Minding the nurture gap
/Upbringing affects opportunity. Upper-middle-class homes are not only richer (with two professional incomes) and more stable; they are also more nurturing. In the 1970s there were practically no class differences in the amount of time that parents spent talking, reading and playing with toddlers. Now the children of college-educated parents receive 50% more of what Robert Putnam calls “Goodnight Moon” time (after a popular book for infants).
(Putnam reports in his book “Our Kids” that) educated parents engage in a non-stop Socratic dialogue with their children, helping them to make up their own minds about right and wrong, true and false, wise and foolish. This is exhausting, so it helps to have a reliable spouse with whom to share the burden, not to mention cleaners, nannies and cash for trips to the theatre.
Working-class parents, who have less spare capacity, are more likely to demand that their kids simply obey them. In the short run this saves time; in the long run it prevents the kids from learning to organise their own lives or think for themselves. Poor parenting is thus a barrier to social mobility, and is becoming more so as the world grows more complex and the rewards for superior cognitive skills increase.
make him mad
/To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad. -Oliver Wendell Holmes
sacrificing the gift
/To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift - Steve Prefontaine
Popular People Live Longer (sort of)
/Dozens of studies reveal that children’s popularity can be measured reliably by age 3, and it remains remarkably stable not just through the next dozen years of primary and secondary education but also across contexts, as they move from community to community and into adulthood.
Yet this same research reveals that there is more than one type of popularity, and most of us may be investing in the wrong kind. Likability reflects kindness, benevolent leadership and selfless, prosocial behavior. Research suggests that this form of popularity offers lifelong advantages, and leads to relationships that confer the greatest health benefits.
Likability is markedly different from status — an ultimately less satisfying form of popularity that reflects visibility, influence, power and prestige. Status can be quantified by social media followers; likability cannot.
Anyone who has been to high school will recognize the distinction — and recall that those high in one category are often low in the other. Research suggests that despite the great temptations to gain status, those who achieve it ultimately experience greater unhappiness and dissatisfaction, while those who are likable have far greater satisfaction and success.
We may be built by evolution to care deeply about popularity, but it’s up to us to choose the nature of the relationships we want with our peers.
Which means that it wouldn’t kill you to step away from Twitter once in a while.
Mitch Prinstein writing in the New York Times
articles of interest - June 12
/***JOURNALISM
The 10 secrets to great journalism hidden away in ‘Master of None’ Poynter
Think your journalism job is hard? Try making a podcast from prison Poynter
Google launches news literacy program Axios
Will your FOIA request succeed? This new machine will tell you Poynter
A new model for high-impact investigative reporting Columbia Journalism Review
After charges of sexism, New York Times changes headline on Katy Tur profile Poynter
Conservatives Despise Fact-checking Industry Washington Post
Without a public editor, The New York Times’ new Reader Center aims to connect with its audience Poynter
***JOURNALISM & LEAKS
Did 'Intercept' Out Its Intelligence Source? NPR
Ethical journalism: what to do - and not to do - with leaked emails The Conversation
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
Growth in mobile news use driven by older adults Pew Research
***FAKE NEWS
Reuters’ new survey suggests that readers are getting (a bit) smarter about verifying breaking news Harvard’s Nieman Lab
In a Fake Fact Era, Schools Teach the ABCs of News Literacy Wired
A Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theorist, a False Tweet and a Runaway Story New York Times
***BIG DATA & STATISTICS
Algorithms might make life fairer if they are well designed-but how can we know whether they are so designed? MIT’s Technology Review
Artificial intelligence will put spies out of work, too Chicago Tribune
Experts predict when artificial intelligence will exceed human performance MIT’s Technology Review
What’s driving big data into the cloud, and what are the benefits? Inside Big Data
Machine learning comes to Google Sheets, boosting data visualization for users Tech Republic
NGA, NRO, NSA joining DoD In Silicon Valley Breaking Defense
***SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook Live adds closed captioning for deaf and hard of hearing USA Today
Discourse Theory as Explained by Memes Medium
Skype gets Snapchat treatment Makeover Mashable
***PRODUCING MEDIA
The Lowdown on Livestreaming Platforms Video Strategist
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Somewhere between boredom and anxiety Becoming (my blog)
***GRAMMAR
The A.V. Club copyedited “Predisent” Trump’s lawyer, and the results were not good AV Club
A Word, Please: To stay a while or awhile, that is the question LA Times
Hyphens can be tricky, but they need not drive you crazy The Economist
***WRITING & READING
John Grisham’s Do’s and Don’ts for Writing Popular Fiction New York Times
How to Write Like James Comey Life Hacker
American Writers Museum is just a dead writers’ society Chicago Reader
Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover—Judge It by Its First Page Life Hacker
***LANGUAGE
The Science of Thingummyjigs (and Other Words on the Tip of Your Tongue) Jstor
Discourse Theory as Explained by Memes Medium
***LITERATURE
In Nobel speech, Bob Dylan reminds us reading can be fun Charlotte Observer
Allen Ginsberg’s Howl Manuscripts Now Digitized & Put Online, Revealing the Beat Poet’s Creative Process Open Culture
Stop calling Amazon's new thing with books a 'bookstore' Mashable
***GENDER
Advocates Warn that cuts to the office of Civil Right Would Further Slow Resolution of Backlogged Title IX Cases Inside Higher Ed
***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES
Interracial Marriages Face Pushback 50 Years After Loving NPR
When the patient is racist, how should the doctor respond? (opinion) Stat News
***FREE SPEECH
The New Censorship on Campus (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Trump’s Twitter Blocking May Violate First Amendment Wired
Is there a First Amendment right to follow President Trump’s Twitter account? The Conversation
Two-day auction planned for campus assets of Nazarene Bible College The Gazeette
***LEGAL ISSUES
Three Significant ways the Emoji revolution will impact the Law SSRN
How your ugly booking photos (and Tiger’s) became a commodity for cops, hustlers and journalists The Marshall Project
***TECHNOLOGY
Civilian Drones The Economist
Helping blind people navigate: A new way to assist those with poor eyesight The Economist
***RELIGION
'The Shack' Director Defends Portraying God as Black Woman, Says Bible Was Written Allegorically Christian Post
Christians faced widespread harassment in 2015, but mostly in Christian-majority countries Pew Research
Is It Hateful To Believe In Hell? Bernie Sanders' Questions Prompt Backlash NPR
Trump to evangelicals: We're 'under siege,' will be stronger Associated Press
The party registration of religious leaders New York Times
Southern Baptists Embrace Gender-Inclusive Language in the Bible The Atlantic
How Billy Graham Mainstreamed Evangelicals The Daily Beast
Fired gay music director loses lawsuit against church, archdiocese Daily Herald
***MUSIC
Bob Dylan 2016 Nobel Lecture in Literature
***FILM
How Hollywood Came to Fear and Loathe Rotten Tomatoes Vanity Fair
How Filmmakers Captured a Daring Escape From ISIS Territory National Geographic
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
Snapchat's Growth Dips As Competitive Pressures Mount Media Post
You can now buy Snapchat video ads straight from the company’s website Recode
Trending Down: Newspaper, Mag Revenues Slip Again Media Post
The Illusion of Measuring What Customers Want – Jobs to be Done JTBD.into
***SCIENCE
It’s time for universities to crack down on fake science publishers and the academics who use them, legal experts say Ottawa Citizen
Why we can't trust academic journals to tell the scientific truth The Guardian
Quantum mechanics, relativity theory and the nature of time: Time may be fuzzy. If so, the idea of causality may be in trouble The Economist
***HEALTH
The opioid crisis changed how doctors think about pain Vox
A single paragraph published nearly 40 years ago contributed to the opioid epidemic. What can we learn from this? Health News Review
***PSYCHOLOGY
Jane Brody promoting the pseudoscience of Barbara Fredrickson in the New York Times PLOS
The Chatbot Therapist Will See You Now Wired
Beauty sleep is a real thing, research shows BBC
Remembering the Murder You Didn’t Commit The New Yorker
***PHILOSOPHY
The 18th century Comes Alive in Harvard's 'Philosophy Chamber' Boston Globe
***CRITICAL THINKING
Facts Alone Won’t Convince People To Vaccinate Their Kids FiveThirtyEight
***ETHICS
When is a leak ethical? The Conversation
***HIGHER ED
Our college students are changing. Why aren’t our higher education policies? (opinion) Washington Post
University of Michigan campus gun ban upheld by Court of Appeals Michigan Live
Private college tuition is rising faster than inflation .... again USA Today
Jerry Falwell Jr. says he will be part of a Trump education initiative Politico
Baylor provost Jones resigns after one year in the role Waco Tribune
***TEACHING
Engaging Students Through Tests Chronicle of Higher Ed
Student asks court to force poetry professor to give her an A Stevens Point Journal
New study: Students at most risk may be those least well served by online education Inside Higher Ed
How to Use Facebook’s CrowdTangle in the Classroom PBS Media Shift
Facebook Testing Features that Lets Users Teach online Courses Inside Higher Ed
***RESEARCH
Do ResearchGate Scores create ghost academic reputations? Springer
A new tool “checks that the data sets underlying published studies are made freely available” Nature
Reverse Engineering JCR’s Self-Citation and Citation Stacking Thresholds Scholarly Kitchen
***STUDENT MEDIA
Inside Odyssey: The Decline of a College Media Empire Fortune
You Don’t Have to Major in Computer Science to Do It as a Career MIT Tech Review
***STUDENT LIFE
Inside the Meme Thread, a Growing Forum for College Students Nationwide Chronicle of Higher Ed
We should thank millennials for ruining these terrible products New York Post
Getting to Know.. Millennials Bloomberg
For Students Going Overseas, an ‘America First’ Presidency Complicates Their Studies Chronicle of Higher Ed
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Portrait of Faculty Mental Health Inside Higher Ed
Prof: a violation of academic freedom to cancel a course that includes material on his university’s recent fake-classes scandal Chronicle of Higher Ed
American University of Beirut Prof (with two U.S. graduate degrees) is refused U.S. admission to present at a San Diego conference Inside Higher Ed
Coming to terms with mental health and academic failures New York Times
Rutgers Philosophy Prof Accused of Raping a Disabled Man gets Conviction Overturned Inside Higher Ed
basic as breathing
/To be manifestly loved, to be openly admired are human needs as basic as breathing. Why, then, wanting them so much ourselves, do we deny them so often to others?
Arthur Gordon
Somewhere between boredom and anxiety
/A comfortable routine can turn on us, leaving our creativity stifled, dulling us to other possibilities. We become lethargic, sleepwalking through life. Boredom soon nips at our heels.
At the other end of the experience spectrum, we have bungee-jumping thrill seekers. Tired of sexual escapades and rock climbing, they sometimes self-medicate to starve off boredom. Drugs can stimulate many feelings: euphoria, depression, anxiety, even fear. But none induce boredom (though some, like cocaine, can leave the user with a devastating boredom, after the drug has done its thing). Sex, food, drugs, and gambling each stimulate the same dopamine reward pathway in the brain.
Psychologists tell us the cure for chronic tedium is not high-sensation thrills. Somewhere between boredom and anxiety there is a sweet spot called flow. It's an optimal level of arousal. As Dr. Richard Friedman writes:
Flow happens when a person’s skills and talent perfectly match the challenge of an activity: playing in the zone, where there is total and un-self-conscious absorption in the activity. Make the task too challenging and anxiety results; make it too easy and boredom emerges. Flow get to the heart of fun. It’s not hard to see why the enforced tranquility of a Caribbean vacation could be a dreadful bore for a workaholic but bliss for a couch potato: temperament, as well as talent, have to match the activity or there is trouble in paradise.
Stephen Goforth
To achieve great things
/To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time. -Leonard Bernstein
hamburgers cause traffic accidents
/Most people who die in car crashes have eaten a hamburger less than a week before the tragic event cuts their lives short. Does this mean eating hamburgers cause traffic accidents? Nope. A connection between the two events has to be established before you can unfurl and plant the “cause and effect” flag.
That's why, when it comes to medical issues, there needs to be numerous studies pointing in the same direction. Studies with mixed results suggest there could be other causes at work besides the one we are investigating.
Consider this: Rich people may live longer because they have access to better health care. Do they live longer because they are rich? Well, sort of. That's what gives them access to the better health care.
The whole cause/effect thing gets especially confusing when things happen around the same time frame. We have a natural desire to tie them together with a big bow. Remember the saying about “trouble coming in threes”? When we begin looking for groups of three, we tend to remember those times when our hypothesis was confirmed. We think it’s true because we don’t notice or simply discount situations when life didn’t fit with our triplet theory.
Stephen Goforth
those who turn back
/Those who turn back know only the ordeal, but they who persevere remember the adventure.
- Milo L. Arnold
the world is a comedy
/This world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.
-Horace Walpole
think about
/Think about what it will be like when you are old, when you approach death. Will you have already died inside or will your mind be alive with new ideas that are unmistakably around? -Ken Bain
articles of interest - June 5
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
How To Network On Instagram DM Medium
Snapchat for Old People PBS Media Shift
Snapchat opens the floodgates to bad ads Digiday
***LEGAL ISSUES
Court Says Facebook Can Block Parents From Deceased Teen’s Account Vocativ
***TECHNOLOGY
Mary Meeker’s 2017 internet trends report: All the slides, plus analysis Recode
***JOURNALISM
The government is spying on journalists to find leakers New York Post
The problem with data journalism is politics (opinion) PBS Media Shift
A Pro-Trump Writer Just Sued A Fusion Reporter For Accusing Her Of Making A "White Supremacist" Gesture BuzzFeed News
121 Right-leaning advocacy group wants its $115K back from UT journalism professor Knox News
Circulation, revenue fall for US newspapers overall Pew Research
How to report on algorithms even if you’re not a data whiz Columbia Journalism Review
Newseum chief fears for future of journalism The Guardian
The AP Stylebook now includes new guidelines on data (requesting it, scraping it, reporting on it, and publishing it) Harvard’s Nieman Lab
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
Online news outlets employing more women than print, TV Columbia Journalism Review
***FAKE NEWS
Facebook Shareholders Are Not Happy With How It’s Handling Fake News Washington Post
Craig From Craigslist Takes Role in Fighting Fake News The Ringer
***GRAMMAR
The Most Common Words That People Don't Know How To Spell In Every State Digg
After Months of Trolling Trump Merriam Webster has no words about Covfefe Washington Post
***WRITING & READING
Want to be a better writer? Try letting a robot tell you what to do Quzrtz
***GENDER
Some of the top political science journals are biased against women. Here’s the evidence Washington Post
***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES
College Access Index Shows Shrinking Levels Of Economic Diversity NPR
Students demand firing of Evergreen State professor, Supporters say he’s the one upholding principles of equity and free speech Inside Higher Ed
***DISABILITIES
Airbnb guests who disclose a disability are less likely to be approved for a room and more likely to be outright rejected New York Times
***FREE SPEECH
Interview With NC Student Whose School Canceled the Yearbook Because of Her Donald Trump Senior Quote The National Coalition Against Censorship
Trump Supporters Accuse Liberal Communities Of Hostility Towards Free Speech NPR
***BIG DATA & STATISTICS
Machine learning comes to Google Sheets, boosting data visualization for users Tech Republic
NGA, NRO, NSA joining DoD In Silicon Valley Breaking Defense
The New Yorker offers a “practical guide” on “How to Call B.S. on Big Data” The New Yorker
An academic paper surveys the recent advances in big learning with Bayesian methods National Science Review
Google Sheets now uses Machine Learning to help you visualize your data Tech Crunch
Similarities between quantum Machine Learning algorithms and their classical counterparts Phys.org
***RELIGION
Supreme Court exempts church-affiliated hospitals from pension law Reuters
BuzzFeed Shines a Light on the Shortcomings of Christian Health Insurance Providers BuzzFeed News
Gay man says church members beat, choked him for hours to expel ‘homosexual demons Washington Post
Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world Pew Research
Wendell Burton, Actor and Megachurch Minister, Dies at 69 New York Times
Largest Methodist Congregation in Mississippi Withdraws Denomination Christian Post
$2 million jury award to Trinity Broadcasting founder’s granddaughter My News LA
***ART & DESIGN
This site expertly pairs fonts using machine learning The Next Web
A workflow enabled by powerful artificial intelligence technologies Photo District News
Artists May Have Different Brains (More Grey Matter) Than the Rest of Us, According to a Recent Scientific Study Open Culture
***MUSIC
Sgt. Pepper's' At 50: Why The Beatles' Masterpiece Can't Be Replicated NPR
Using Music And Rhythm To Develop Grammar NPR
The History of Punk Rock in 200 Tracks: An 11-Hour Playlist Takes You From 1965 to 2016 Open Culture
***SCIENCE
Scientific integrity: dropping points EuroScientist Journal
Crispr’s Next Big Debate: How Messy Is Too Messy? Wired
20,000 Endangered Archaeological Sites Now Catalogued in a New Online Database Open Culture
***HEALTH
Babies’ face scans detect exposure to low amounts of alcohol in utero Stat News
***PSYCHOLOGY
Popular People Live Longer New York Times
Personality traits don’t simply affect your outlook on life, but the way you perceive reality Quartz
***NEUROSCIENCE
Primates Recognize Faces Instantly Using Specialized Neurons NPR
***SOCIOLOGY
Blame The Top 20 Percent, Not The 1 Percent, Author Argues NPR
***RESEARCH
Evaluating research ethics: Study finds most universities lack best practices in NSF-mandated research integrity plans West Virginia University
Fake science publisher accepts (again) a paper already exposed as 'pile of dung' Ottawa Citizen
The Reproducibility Of Research And The Misinterpretation Of P Values bioRxiv The Economist
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Let go of your bitterness and desire for retaliation Becoming (my blog)
How the Self-Esteem Craze Took Over America New York Mag
***HIGHER ED
These Campus Inquisitions Must Stop: the recent ugliness at Evergreen State College (opinion) New York Times
Leaked Trump Rule: Any Religious Employer Can Opt Out of Contraception Coverage “including Christian colleges” Christianity Today
***HUMANITIES /STEM
Humanities Majors Drop but trends at community colleges may cheer advocates for the liberal arts Inside Higher Ed
***TEACHING
No, Student Evaluations Aren’t “Worthless” Chronicle of Higher Ed
***STUDENT MEDIA
Kate Snow Sees ‘a Direct Line’ Between Cornell’s Off-Campus Radio, Her Career NBC News
***STUDENT LIFE
It probably doesn't matter where you went to college — here's why Business Insider
How First-Generation Students See College (The New York Times asked several first-generation students who are campus journalists to interview their first-generation classmates about challenges they've faced) New York Times
Are esports the next major league sport? The Conversation
Shifting Incomes for Young People Flowing Data
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Why Academic Freedom Should Be Covered at Freshman Orientation Chronicle of Higher Ed
getting it done
/There's usually an inverse proportion between how much something is on your mind and how much it's getting done. -David Allen
Let it Go
/You've suffered unjustly. Passed over for the promotion. Mistreated by a spouse. Disrespected by a co-worker, fellow student, or even a member of your church.
Perhaps you lie in bed at night imagining detailed conversations with someone who's wronged you. You daydream about getting back at them. You conspire, hoping to discover ways to embarrass those who've treated you unfairly.
Let go of your bitterness and desire for retaliation.
Romans 12:19 says, "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: " Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."
It is not your job to exact revenge. That's God's responsibility. And he does not need our help doing it. If you hoard hatred and bitterness toward those who have hurt you, the injury will only deepened and hurt you even more. Those around you will suffer as well. Bitterness is a poison that spills over into our relationships. Don’t allow the people who have hurt you keep on doing so.
Stephen Goforth
and THIS is love
/“In this is love..” or “In this way is seen the true love” (1 John 4:10). God didn’t look down and say, “Boy, I see you love me. I think I’ll love you.” Or “You’re a nice guy, I really like that.”
Instead: You were rebellious, arrogant, self-centered. God said, “I love you.”You ignored him, fought him, were bored with him. God said, “I love you.” You spit in his face, yelled at him, shook your fist.
God said, “I love you.” That’s what John means here.
We see what real love is by looking at what God did. He loved us with a desire to restore us, to make us whole.What separates real love from the pretenders is the aim. Real love aims at spiritual growth.
Stephen Goforth
business ethics
/There is really no such thing as business ethics. There is only personal ethics.
S.Truett Cathy
Trusting Ourselves to Live Without Self-Made Barriers
/My weekend of "sleeping" on the decision of whether to apply for a potentially exciting job evolved into a familiar frenzy of circular, useless thought and internal list-making, as well as reading everything I could get my hands on, including a book one of my journalism professors gave me, titled "Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes," which I have yet to finish for good reason.
I initially plunged into the book, knowing my super-speedy reading skills would yield another "achievement" of having yet another book to bring up at parties or feel particularly good about myself when I can tell others, "Yeah, I've read that," as if some book fairy was waiting on the last page to plant a huge gold star on my forehead for being on the fast track to personal enlightenment. There I go again. Fast as I can. Trying to get to the finish line before anyone knows I'm in the race. But something slowed me down. Something made me stop trying to rush through a book intended to help me enjoy, or at least cope, with life's gentle lulls.
Amid my mental commotion, I managed to pick up another book by Geneen Roth, "Women Food and God." That one was impossible NOT to read in about three hours - again, for good reason. It was a book I needed to read ten years ago. And it led to a few realizations:
The constant drive I feel to keep climbing whatever ladder happens to be in front of me at the moment has a lot to do with the fact that weight loss has somehow programmed to me think that PROGRESS is actually REPAIR for a person I've always been convinced is broken. I'm not skinny enough, so I "fix" myself with a rigid diet. I'm not smart enough, so I digest information at every possible opportunity to seem less inadequate. I haven't accomplished enough, so I keep seeking professional outlets for which to prove to a judgmental world that I'm aware of my shortcomings and want to overcome them.
This self-inflicted rat race has never been about personal growth; it was always about internal repair. And these moments of murky transition scream to my compulsions, saying, "Wait, there is no way that YOU could be good enough to slow down. You've never been good enough. What makes you think you are now? Keep pushing. Keep working. Keep killing yourself to prove you have value. It's the only way."
Any sort of educational, professional or personal structure I've ever maintained in my life was an excuse to keep a cage around Broken Me. I adhere to strict, torturous diets and workout plans because if I don't, Broken Me (who obviously can't be trusted) will screw up and gain weight. I maintain impossibly difficult schedules because Broken Me would waste her life away if left unattended. I've spent my life devaluing everything about myself in order to justify having my own predetermined life track. I've also convinced myself that if I don't spend a life obsessively submerged in all that I love, simply loving it has no value in itself, hence the all-too-predictable desire to jump at the opportunity to apply for the job.
And the truth is, I would love that job. I would learn from it. But, would I grow? My news judgement and management skills would likely improve. I would be able to gain a new type of experience. But, would taking on a position like that enhance my education or serve as yet another comfortable crutch for a girl who convinced herself long ago that she couldn't stand on her own two feet?
Alex McDaniel
security and opportunity
/There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity. -General Douglas MacArthur