And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them (Luke 2:7 NIV)

“She wrapped him in cloths.” Literally, he was wrapped in strips of cloth to kept him warm. The old King James translation uses the memorable phrase “swaddling clothes.” It’s still practiced in some countries today.

Did he cry? Do you think he cried? When you think of the manger and the child, do you imagine him crying?

Mary put diapers on God.

The mention of a manger is where we get the idea he was born in a stable. Often, stables were caves, with feeding troughs for animals.. mangers. It was probably dark and dirty. This is not the way the messiah was expected to appear. How often our expectations and God’s reality are not in sync. How often he appears in unexpected places.

Stephen Goforth

December 22, 2018

Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished. -Og Mandino

December 22, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

December 19, 2018

Information overload is nothing new

December 19, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

The ever-expanding array of digital material can leave you feeling overwhelmed, constantly interrupted, unable to concentrate or worried that you are missing out or falling behind. No wonder some people are quitting social media, observing “digital sabbaths” when they unplug from the internet for a day, or buying old-fashioned mobile phones in an effort to avoid being swamped.

This phenomenon may seem quintessentially modern, but it dates back centuries, as Ann Blair of Harvard University observes in “Too Much to Know”, a history of information overload. Half a millennium ago, the printing press was to blame. “Is there anywhere on Earth exempt from these swarms of new books?” moaned Erasmus in 1525. New titles were appearing in such abundance, thousands every year. How could anyone figure out which ones were worth reading? Overwhelmed scholars across Europe worried that good ideas were being lost amid the deluge.

Figuring out book reviews, indexes and the rest took several centuries, so we shouldn’t expect an immediate solution. In the meantime we must endure information overload: the feeling that arises in the space of time between a sudden increase in the flow of information and the development of the tools to enable us to cope with it.

Tom Standage writing in 1843 magazine

December 18, 2018

The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands. -Alexandra Penney

December 18, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

December 18, 2018

Articles of Interest - Dec 17

December 18, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

***TECHNOLOGY

‘Deepfake’ technology can now create completely real-looking human faces BigThink

Taylor Swift used facial recognition to track her stalkers at a concert Quartz

Morgan Stanley's Numbers on Flying Cars: $2.9 Trillion, 20 Years Bloomberg

The rise of the internet and a new age of authoritarianism Harpers

The Growing Gulf Between Silicon Valley and Washington The Atlantic

Google says it won’t sell face recognition for now—but it will be hard to slow its use MIT Technology Review

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

Microsoft launches its Clarity web analytics tool for A/B testing sites The Next Web

Magazines and the iPad Bloomberg

The downfall of digital media (podcast) Columbia Journalism Review

How Companies Like Bored Panda, REI, and Vox Are Growing Their Organic Reach on Social Media Buffer

New media hit stumbling block, scaring away some investors Washington Post

***JOURNALISM

Time's 2018 'Person of the Year' is killed and imprisoned journalists NBC News

The Best of Nonprofit News 2018 Institute for Nonprofit News Institute for Nonprofit News

Beyond 800 words: What user testing taught me about writing news for young people BBC News Lab

'They don't care': Facebook factchecking in disarray as journalists push to cut ties The Guardian

New Report Finds That More Than 250 Journalists Were Jailed For Their Work in 2018 NPR

ProPublica Picks 14 Newsrooms and Investigative Projects for Year 2 of Its Local Reporting Network Propublica

Best News Bloopers of 2018 News Be Funny

Journalists perpetuate myth about suicide during winter holidays Journalists Resources

Access to police records is an issue all across the country Muck Rock

What happens when the third-party tools journalists rely on are shut down? Poynter

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Local Newspaper Closures Come With Hefty Price Tag For Residents NPR

How to understand different reader types and drive each type to subscribe American Press Institute

Jessica Starr, Fox 2 meteorologist, commits suicide at age 35 New York Post

***FAKE NEWS

Troll Factory Contributes To Russia's Worldwide Interference NPR

How Whatsapp fuels fake news and violence in india Wired

How do you make fact-checking viral? Make it look like misinformation Poynter

How Russian trolls used meme warfare to divide America Wired

***BIG DATA & AI

Kevin Kelly talks about the brain, the mind, what it takes to make AI Gigaom

Machine learning firm win a Homeland Sec contract to develop predictive models to let computers predict who might be a terrorist The Intercept

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook exposed 6.8 million users' photos to cap off a terrible 2018 Wired

We asked 19 fact-checkers what they think of their partnership with Facebook Poynter

Social media is ruining our minds—it also might save them Wired

***PRIVACY & SECURITY

Homeland Security will let computers predict who might be a terrorist on your plane — just don’t ask how it works The Intercept

Mapping Service Accidentally Locates Secret Military Bases Popular Mechanics

***INTERNET

Google's top searches in 2018 Engadget

How Google’s Autotype Contradicts Orwell’s Advice The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Most Googled 'Should I?' Question Of Each State In 2018, Mapped Digg

YouTube ‘Rewind’ was supposed to celebrate 2018: It’s now the most disliked video in the site’s history Washington Post

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Seeking the Best is a Trap Becoming (my blog)

The quest for the best: a psychologist explains why it makes us miserable Vox

***WRITING & READING

How Emily Dickinson Writes A Poem Nerdwriter1

How the CIA Helped Shape the Creative Writing Scene in America Open Culture

***LANGUAGE

Jane Austen’s Subtly Subversive Linguistics Daily Jstor

'Justice' Is Merriam-Webster's 2018 Word Of The Year NPR

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

Santas of color, once met with controversy, now in high demand MPR

***FREE SPEECH

Report: 9 in 10 American colleges restrict free speech The Fire

LA College settles Lawsuit after Student Barred from handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution on Campus City News Service

***LEGAL ISSUES

Tribute Bands - Are They Legal? Music Think Tan

Paramount Defeats 'Wolf of Wall Street' Libel Suit From Stratton Oakmont Alum Hollywood Reporter

Katie Couric Wins Appeal Against Gun Rights Group Arguing Documentary Was Defamatory Hollywood Reporter

Appeals court rules that secret OxyContin documents must be released Stat News

Donald Trump, Wedding Crasher, Ends Up Being Bad Copyright News for Esquire.com Hollywood Reporter

***CRIME

Shooting Victims Face Lifelong Disabilities, Financial Burdens, Newspaper Finds NPR

Report: Half of US adults have immediate family member who has been in jail or prison CNN

***RELIGION

Max Lucado Reveals Past Sexual Abuse at Evangelical #MeToo Summit Christianity Today

The Return of Paganism New York Times

Evangelical Author Rethinks his Book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” NPR

Christianity Today's 2019 Book Awards Christianity Today

Judge sides with religious groups in ObamaCare birth control mandate fight The Hill

At Trump's hotel, spiritual warriors pray for the president in his 'darkest hour' Religion News Service

***MEGACHURCHES

Minister accused of stealing $800,000 from Houston's First Baptist Church ABC-13

Former elders, pastors, and staffers from Chicago’s Harvest Bible Chapel accuse the church of financial mismanagement and a culture of deception and intimidation World Magazine

Houston pastor on $200K Lamborghini gift Houston Chronicle

***THE BIBLE

Meme Confuses Lincoln’s Bible With A Quran Fact Check

Slave Bible From The 1800s Omitted Key Passages That Could Incite Rebellion NPR

***GOOD NEWS

California woman and her dog reunite after Camp Fire evacuation CNN

Teens Surprised Their Professor After She Told Them The Holidays Are Difficult For Her BuzzFeed News

DNA Test Helps Mother Reunite With Daughter She Thought Died Nearly 70 Years Ago New York Times

***ART & DESIGN

We made our own artificial intelligence art (and so can you) Wired

The world's best cities for street art Afar

The 75 best book covers of 2018 according to book cover designers LitHub

***MUSIC

Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' becomes most-streamed song of the 20th century Entertainment Weekly

Our Favorite Songs of 2018 The New Yorker

The 51 Best Albums of 2018 Spin

'Blurred Lines' suit against Robin Thicke, Pharrell ends in $5 million judgment CNN

Vladimir Putin Makes Moves To Control Rap Music In Russia Huffington Post

Beyoncé, Kendrick, Cardi, and more: The Year in Good Music News 2018 Pitchfork

How Music Can Awaken Patients with Alzheimer’s and Dementia Open Culture

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Ex-Baylor frat president indicted on 4 counts of sex assault won't go to prison CNN

What Went Wrong in a University Harassment Investigation — and How Officials Are Trying to Fix It Chronicle of Higher Ed

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

How the IRS Was Gutted ProPublica

More Americans are making no weekly purchases with cash Pew Research

How Many Hours Americans Need to Work to Pay Their Mortgage How Much

***ENVIRONMENT

New studies suggest coral reefs are more resilient than previously thought Royal Society Publishing

Five years of record warmth intensify Arctic's transformation Nature

The state of climate change coverage: An analysis Columbia Journalism Review

***HEALTH

Questions About Treatments For Pregnant Women Arise From Study NPR

Sleeping too much can be just as damaging to your health as having too little MarketWatch

A clash between modern lifestyles and circadian rhythms can lead to the development of obesity and breast cancer, USC scientist says USC

Exercise Wins: Fit Seniors Can Have Hearts That Look 30 Years Younger NPR

Rare brain-eating amoebas killed Seattle woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water Seattle Times

Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its Baby Powder Reuters

***HEALTH & DIET

Scant Evidence Behind the Advice About Salt New York Times

What Is Behind the Spread of a Mysterious Allergy to Meat? The Guardian

***VACCINES

Newly elected Tennessee Rep. Mark Green says he'll question vaccines NBC News

Was a Scientist Jailed After Discovering a Deadly Virus Delivered Through Vaccines? Snopes

Scientists find more evidence that Alzheimer's can be passed to new patients via the transmission of "sticky" proteins under particular, but rare, conditions Nature

How personalized medicine is transforming your health care National Geographic

***TRAVEL

These Are The Hottest Travel Destinations for 2019, According to Airbnb Thrillist

A U.S. Transit Atlas That Ranks the Best (and Worst) Cities for Bus and Rail CityLab

***FOOD

What's lurking in your stadium food? ESPN

***FAMILY

Researchers found one way that long-term marriages get happier Quartz

Rediscovering My Daughter Through Instagram New York Times

Why shaming your children on social media may make things worse The Conversation

Most parents – and many non-parents – don’t expect to have kids in the future Pew Research

***ANIMALS

Rare white reindeer calf spotted on camera in Norway BBC

A City in Spain Plans to Exile 5,000 Pigeons New York Times

***SCIENCE

Scientists identify vast underground ecosystem containing billions of micro-organisms The Guardian

Blood Splatter: How a Dubious Forensic Science Spread Like a Virus Propublica

***PSYCHOLOGY

What it’s like to live with a chronic urge to die Huffington Post

The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology Aeon

***HISTORY

Histomap: Visualizing the 4,000 Year History of Global Power Visual Capitalist

Showering Has a Dark, Violent History The Atlantic

America returns treasured church bells it stole during the Philippine-American war New York Times

***ETHICS

Amid ethics outcry, should journals publish the ‘CRISPR babies’ paper? Stat News

You can donate your wedding dress to a person in need New York Times

***RESEARCH

EPA science adviser allowed industry group to edit journal article Science Magazine

Lessons learnt on transparency, scientific process and publication ethics: The short story of a long journey to get into the public domain unpublished data, methodological flaws and bias of the Cochrane HPV vaccines review BMJ

China introduces ‘social’ punishments for scientific misconduct Nature

Independent bodies – not universities – should investigate suspicions of scientific misconduct (opinion) Horizons

Solving the fake news problem in science: : A “citation refuting a report is counted the same way as one supporting it” Stat News

It is getting harder to publish in prestigious journals if you haven’t already Science Magazine

How art and craft can boost reproducibility Nature

***HIGHER ED

Fallout from on-campus tragedies and athletic program controversies prompts donors to circle the wagons -- or flee Inside Higher Ed

Facing Enrollment Declines, Colleges Seek Out New, Creative Ways To Make Money NPR

***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

Azusa Pacific University board members resign amid LGBTQ policy turmoil San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Southern Baptist Convention’s flagship seminary details its racist, slave-owning past in stark report Washington Post

Catholic U. fires professor for relationship with subordinate Washington Post

Council for Christian Colleges and Universities & the NAE back LGBT Rights in Order to Protect Religious Freedom PJ Media

Bridging the gulf between conservative Christian colleges and the arts Christian Century

***LIBERAL ARTS

How Can Colleges Help Liberal-Arts Majors Enter the Job Market? Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Liberal Arts May Not Survive the 21st Century The Atlantic

***TEACHING

Teaching the Students We Have, Not the Students We Wish We Had Chronicle of Higher Ed

How 2 Professors Use a ‘Grade Insurance’ Project to Motivate Students Chronicle of Higher Ed

How to Help a Student in a Mental-Health Crisis Chronicle of Higher Ed

***STUDENT MEDIA

Ganging Up on a Student Journalist? Inside Higher Ed

Faculty groups respond to censure issue: A “troubling disregard for the First Amendment” on the university’s part Times Daily

***STUDENT LIFE

What Straight-A Students Get Wrong (opinion) New York Times

Does It Matter Where You Go to College? The Atlantic

Trump administration held back report revealing bank charged high fees to students Politico

Researchers find an easy way to improve high school students' grades: Let them sleep in Science Mag

Sleepless No More In Seattle — Later School Start Time Pays Off For Teens NPR

***STUDENTS & DRUGS

Binge drinking among US high schoolers hit a record low in 2018 Quartz

Teen Vaping Soared In 2018 NPR

***ACADEMIC LIFE

University of Illinois professor fired for falsifying data in grant applications Chicago Tribune

Illinois Regulators Are Investigating a Psychiatrist Whose Research With Children Was Marred by Misconduct Propublica

Scientists are leaving academic work at unprecedented rate Inside Higher Ed

University of Illinois professor fired for falsifying data in grant applications Chicago Tribune

Professor sent mercenaries to save her student from ISIS The local

Man charged with beating instructors at community college KARE 11

December 17, 2018

Seeking the Best is a Trap

December 17, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

We have this sense that there is an objective best, and in virtually no area of life is that true. It’s not even that, “Well, there’s the best for me, and then there’s the best for you.” It isn’t even clear that there is a best for me. There’s a whole set of things that are probably more or less equivalent.

If you have this mindset that says, “I have to get the best,” it’s so hard to figure out what that is that you end up looking in panic around you at what other people are choosing as a way to help you figure out what is the best. I think it’s partly because they are struggling to define the best, and they can’t do it on their own, so they’re madly checking out other people’s decisions as a way of figuring out what really is the best. It’s extremely destructive.

Barry Schwartz quoted in Vox

December 15, 2018

To be manifestly loved

December 15, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

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

December 13, 2018

dead inside

December 13, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

Think about what it will be like when you are old, when you approach death. When you have already died inside or will your mind be alive with new ideas that are unmistakably around?

Ken Bain

December 12, 2018

Writing your Own Eulogy

December 12, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

A visualization technique that asks people to write their own eulogy. It’s a technique that Daniel Harkavy, CEO and executive coach at Building Champions and co-author of Living Forward, has been teaching executives for over 20 years.

Harkavy’s tip is to write your eulogy first as if your funeral was today and everything you’ve accomplished so far was all you ever would. “Picture your memorial service as if it were being held right now. Your casket is sitting center stage, and as you look down the center aisle you see the first three rows, usually reserved for those with whom we were closest. Who’s sitting there for you?” he asks. “Most likely your family and dearest friends. Now keep looking down the aisle, and now you’re looking at rows 10 through 20. Who’s sitting there? Probably acquaintances, clients, customers. What did you give to the people in these rows?”

Harkavy says when he walks clients through this exercise during his speaking engagements, they usually all say the same thing: “We gave them our best!” He then asks them what they gave to the people sitting in rows one through three–and their answers usually amount to “We gave them our leftovers.” In other words, their work-life balance is out of whack.

“When you go to write your eulogy, you need to be brutally honest. Don’t pull any punches. You want to really feel this,” Harkavy says. “What would those closest to you say about who you were, how you lived, and what you had to give them, and why would they say that?”

Michael Grothaus writing in Fast Company

December 10, 2018

Articles of Interest - Dec 10

December 10, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

***JOURNALISM

The top 25 news photos of 2018 The Atlantic

Get rid of the content no one reads: Offer surprises and “candy” and other tricks for retaining subscribers Harvard’s Nieman Lab

'Killed for speaking the truth': nine journalists murdered in 2018 The Guardian

From a Myanmar jail, a children’s book about the power of journalism Columbia Journalism Review Columbia Journalism Review

A Capital Gazette photographer had a powerful rebuttal to “enemies of the people” Washington Post

Podcasts Are Getting Newsier. Here Are 8 New Ones Worth a Listen New York Times

Interviewing white-collar criminals: 6 tips from Harvard Business School’s Eugene Soltes Journalism Resources

A Future With Less News: The possibilities and limits of journalism in the digital era New Republic

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Thomson Reuters will cut 3,200 jobs by 2020 CNN

It's Almost Impossible to Be a Mom in Television News For female television reporters, the decision to have kids can be a career-ending one The Atlantic

How two traditional competitors are working together to grow audience Better News

How many of us pay for online news? Reuters

At NPR, an army of temps resents a workplace full of anxiety and insecurity Washington Post

***TEACHING JOURNALISM

China study abroad trip proceeds as planned despite journalist arrests Daily Nebraskan

My advice for aspiring explainer journalists Vox

***FAKE NEWS

How Does Misinformation Spread Online? Psychology Today

The War on Truth Spreads Democratically elected leaders borrow from the anti-press playbook of dictators and tyrants (opinion) New York Times

***TECHNOLOGY

Your smartphone's AI algorithms could tell if you are depressed MIT Technology Review

New Scam Apps Take Advantage of iPhone Touch ID Wired

***BIG DATA & AI

Plunging into AI? Not a good idea Zdnet

Google's artificial intelligence program, DeepMind, wins competition to predict how complex proteins fold themselves into 3D shapes The Guardian

The latest AI-enhanced gadget you're using is probably not actually 'intelligent' Poynter

***SOCIAL MEDIA

LinkedIn Learning Opens Its Platform (Slightly) Ed Surge

The Psychological Toll of Becoming an Instagram Influencer Medium

Social media outpaces print newspapers in the U.S. as a news source Pew Research Center

***FACEBOOK

Here’s How Facebook’s Local News Algorithm Change Led To The Worst Riots Paris Has Seen In 50 Years BuzzFeed News

Facebook Emails Show Its Real Mission: Making Money and Crushing Competition New York Times

Facebook must decide: Is it for the mob or for democracy? (opinion) Monday Note

***PRODUCING MEDIA

The Best Podcasts of 2018 New Yorker

The 11 best documentaries of 2018 Vox

***INTERNET

Google's Autocomplete Suggestions For Questions About Every State, Mapped Digg

Poll: Smartphones are winning the internet Axios

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Study: after 75 years the most fulfilling lives had one thing in common Becoming (my blog)

How an 18th-century priest gave us the tools to make better decisions: The world is a complicated place and Bayes’ theorem can help us navigate it Vox

A Harvard study tracked two groups of men over 75 years and those with the most fulfilling lives had one thing in common Fast Company

***WRITING & READING

The best-selling fiction novels of the last 100 years LitHub

Writing has ‘got to be weird before it gets good,’ says Casey Gerald PBS

Is Listening to a Book the Same Thing as Reading It? New York Times

7 Essential Tools to Improve Your Business Writing Skills The Frisky

***GRAMMAR

Scholars Talk Writing: Hyphens, Oxford Commas, and Pronoun Preferences (sub. req’d) The Chronicle of Higher Education

One in ten British adults don’t know when to use ‘their’, ‘there’ and ‘they’re’ The Sun

Twitter responds to the Smocking Gun incident TIME

***LANGUAGE

Who decides what words mean Bound by rules, yet constantly changing, language might be the ultimate self-regulating system, with nobody in charge Aeaon

How We Ask Questions Matters The Chronicle of Higher Education

George H.W. Bush, Language Guy The Chronicle of Higher Education

***LITERATURE

Should Studying Literature Be Fun? Chronicle of Higher Education

The Bookshelf shares a video homage to literature Quill and Quire

Why the Hell Are We Still Reading Ernest Hemingway? The Daily Beast

***GENDER

The Woman Who Outruns the Men, 200 Miles at a Time New York Times

This journalist created a system to make sure more female experts got on air Poynter

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

Campuses are seeing a Surge of Anti-Semitic Incidents Inside Higher Ed

Students at Columbia University interrupted Comedian deeming his jokes too offensive Inside Higher Ed

Veterans Affairs’ diversity chief was told not to condemn white nationalists Washington Post

Nursing while black The Tennessean

***CRIME

Confidential informants are supposed to keep their work confidential. These two didn't USA Today

This map shows where in the US cyber crime costs people the most CNBC

Florida schools cover up crimes: Rapes, guns and more Sun Sentinel

***PRIVACY & SECURITY

Sorry, your data can still be identified even if it’s anonymized Fast Company

***RELIGION

Fundamental Baptist church pastors cover up sex abuse, rape Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Wiccans Outnumber Presbyterians in the US Christian Post

25 Questions about Hanukkah, Answered! Mental Floss

6 things a Texas pastor learned from traveling with a group of migrants CNN

Book charting decline of white Christian America wins Grawemeyer Award in Religion The Presbyterian Outlook

Under pressure, Museum of the Bible moves charismatic Christian conference off-site Religion News Service

Christian Activist who burned LBGTQ books from library charged with misdemeanor Sioux City Journal

Nuns improperly took as much as $500,000 from Torrance Catholic school Press Telegram

ATF: There have been 5 attacks on Jehovah's Witnesses in Washington state this year CNN

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Southern Baptist pastor turned aspiring congressman embroiled in Election Fraud Controversy: Mark Harris owes $53K to man at center of allegations CNN

***GOOD NEWS

9-year-old gets Colorado town to end ban on snowball fights ABC 13

Homeless man turns in $17,000 cash he found outside local food bank The News Tribune

Luxembourg to become first country to make all public transport free The Guardian

UPS driver takes home shelter dog who hopped into his truck The DoDo

California nurse adopts baby left at his hospital The Week magazine

Nurse overhears conversation: Decides to donate a kidney to a woman she'd never met Chicago Tribune

FIU student defies odds, walks across stage for his diploma Local 10

***ART & DESIGN

Why we all take the same travel photos Wired

Walmart Acquires Art & Décor Retailer Art.com Tech Crunch

The Best Art of 2018 New York Times

***MUSIC

The Best Music Of 2018 (all female) NPR

Spotify’s Most Streamed Artists are all Male Mashable

The 12 Days of Christmas: the story behind the holiday’s most annoying carol Vox

How J.R.R. Tolkien Influenced Classic Rock & Metal (video)

The Strange History of Smooth Jazz: The Music We All Know and Love … to Hate (video)

***FILM

The American Film Institute releases annual list of its Top 10 movies Entertainment Weekly

NPR's Favorite Movies Of 2018 NPR

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

Media pivots away from advertising Axios

***ARTICLES ABOUT JOBS

482 hiring managers looked at nearly 20,000 résumés and found the classic advice to limit your résumé to one page might be wrong after all Business Insider

Telemundo Stations Launch ‘University’ to Staff Newsrooms Broadcasting & Cable

How to advocate for yourself in the newsroom The Ground Truth Project

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

Ranking the most charitable states in the country Thrillist

Start-Ups Aren't Cool Anymore: It’s harder for Millennials to thrive as entrepreneurs now The Atlantic

How To Recognize The Signs Of A Toxic Work Environment (infographic) Daily Infographic

***ENVIRONMENT

Researchers find plastic particles in every sea turtle tested for study Axios

Carbon emissions rise again in 2018, new report finds Axios

***HEALTH

In Minneapolis-St. Paul, the nation’s healthiest urban region, almost everyone lives within a 10-minute walk of a good public park. Shouldn’t we all? New York Times

Giving Patients a Voice in Their Mental Health Care Before They’re Too Ill to Have a Say New York Times

A shot-in-the-dark email leads to a century-old family treasure — and hope of cracking a deadly flu’s secret Stat News

41 Percent of Americans Do Not Intend to Get a Flu Shot this Season National Opinion Research Center

Cushioned shoes aren't good for your feet BigThink

***HEALTH & TECHNOLOGY

1st baby born using uterus transplanted from deceased donor KUTV

***FOOD

Dollar General tries to make healthy food more accessible CNN

***PARENTS

Stay-at-Home Mom says Judge left her feeling bullied: “I don’t care about your children” Sacramento Bee

Guatemalan father denied temporary visa to attend 13-year-old daughter’s funeral after she was murdered in the US Newsweek

How Incarcerated Parents Are Losing Their Children Forever The Marshall Project

Couple endures emotional crime in bizarre botched adoption Orange County Register

***CHILDREN

First data from massive NIH study shows effects of screen time on kids Axios

Teaching kids to code: I’m a developer and I think it doesn’t actually teach important skills Slate

***ANIMALS

Dog waited weeks for owners at home burned in Camp fire Press Democrat

Twitch and Izzy with unusual condition wobble their way into your heart Freep

Police officer rescues chicken from shed fire New York Daily News

Origins Of The Top Dog Names Of 2018: Pop Culture, Brunch, And Baby Names NPR

***PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology’s Replication Crisis Has Made The Field Better FiveThirtyEight

***NEUROSCIENCE

Neuroscientist: we are always hallucinating The Atlantic

How does chemo brain work? One cancer drug might interfere with brain signaling Science Magazine

***PHILOSOPHY

A Russian city is embroiled in protests over Immanuel Kant Quartz

***HISTORY

Plague linked to the mysterious decline of Europe’s first farmers Nature

The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul From the Revolution to the Civil War The Week magazine

***ETHICS

Why Are Scientists So Upset About the First Crispr Babies? New York Times

How to know if you’re an ethical leader Fast Company

***RESEARCH

A look at how four institutions responded to scientific misconduct Science and Public Policy

Tips from seven academics on how to do a good peer review (sub req’d) Times Higher Education

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Phil now has an entry on reproducibility Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

***HIGHER ED

In Unusual Letter, Democratic Senators Ask ‘U.S. News’ to Change Emphasis of College Rankings Chronicle of Higher Education

Brightwood College announces sudden closure amid accreditation, financial turmoil 10 News

Moody’s Gives Higher Ed a Negative Outlook, Again Chronicle of Higher Education

Actually, Academe Never Was All That Great (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Education

Small private colleges are shrinking and struggling The Texas Monitor

50 Colleges Hit With ADA Lawsuits Inside Higher Ed

***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

Disgraced Ole Miss coach expected to be next Liberty U head coach College Football Talk

Northwestern College vice president chosen to lead Christian Canadian university Northwestern College

Ex-Wheaton College student pleads guilty to theft for stealing classmates' technology Daily Herald

Four fires under investigation at Wheaton College Boston Globe

Northwest Christian University athlete arrested on suspicion of rape Register-Guard

Azusa Pacific Trustees Resign, Citing Objections Inside Higher Ed

***LIBERAL ARTS

One Way to Set Up Liberal-Arts Majors for Success: Focus on Skills The Chronicle of Higher Education

What a Liberal Arts College Is and What You Should Know US News

Humanities and STEM as Overlapping Circles Inside Higher Ed

Lies About the Humanities — and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (sub. req’d) Chronicle of Higher Education

***TEACHING

How College Faculty Can Beat the Cheat Ed Surge

How One University Uses ‘Sneaky Learning’ to Help Students Develop Good Study Habits Chronicle of Higher Education

A Teacher Was Fired For Refusing To Use A Transgender Student’s Preferred Pronoun BuzzFeed News

Another Study Debunks the idea of Learning Styles eLearning Inisde

***STUDENT MEDIA

The Student Press Law Center issues a Censorship Alert over an Arkansas Student Newspaper Student Press Law Center

Media adviser in Alabama being ousted after students post story upsetting provost Student Press Law Center

***STUDENT LIFE

Millennials experience work-disrupting anxiety at twice the US average rate Quartz

Millennials Didn’t Kill the Economy. The Economy Killed Millennials The Atlantic

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Writing and Teaching With a Terminal Illness Chronicle of Higher Education

The Expensive Superficiality of M.F.A Programs: They exist to train aspiring artists in how to sound sophisticated — not how to create art Chronicle of Higher Education

American higher education has always had some profoundly serious flaws, so let’s stop pining for an idealized past and work on a better future Chronicle of Higher Education

Are numbers of doctorates awarded finally starting to reflect the poor academic job market? Inside Higher Ed

December 10, 2018

Study: after 75 years the most fulfilling lives had one thing in common

December 10, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

For over 75 years, Harvard’s Grant and Glueck study has tracked the physical and emotional well-being of two populations: 456 poor men growing up in Boston from 1939 to 2014 (the Grant Study), and 268 male graduates from Harvard’s classes of 1939-1944 (the Glueck study).

Due to the length of the research period, this has required multiple generations of researchers. Since before WWII, they’ve diligently analyzed blood samples, conducted brain scans (once they became available), and pored over self-reported surveys, as well as actual interactions with these men, to compile the findings.

The conclusion? According to Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one thing surpasses all the rest in terms of importance: “The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period. ”Not how much is in your 401(k). Not how many conferences you spoke at–or keynoted. Not how many blog posts you wrote or how many followers you had or how many tech companies you worked for or how much power you wielded there or how much you vested at each.

No, the biggest predictor of your happiness and fulfillment overall in life is, basically, love.

“It’s not just the number of friends you have, and it’s not whether or not you’re in a committed relationship,” says Waldinger. “It’s the quality of your close relationships that matters.”

Melanie Curtin writing in Fast Company

December 09, 2018

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift -Steve Prefontaine

December 09, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

December 07, 2018

fighting the good fight

December 07, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting. – ee cummings

December 05, 2018

Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. -Walt Disney (born Dec. 5, 1901)

December 05, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

December 04, 2018

Articles of Interest - Dec. 3

December 04, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

***JOURNALISM

Americans Still Prefer Watching to Reading the News – and Mostly Still Through Television Pew Research

The red couch experiments: Early lessons in pop-up fact-checking Nieman Journalism Lab

In Yemen, Lavish Meals for Few, Starvation for Many and a Dilemma for Reporters New York Times

Journalism and journalism students are experiencing a ‘Trump Bump’ (opinion) Tampa Bay Times

Canada’s Supreme Court Ruling likely to have a Chilling Effect on Journalism Vice

Pro tips from scholars for journalists (and vice versa) Journalists Resources

In defense of documentaries as journalism Columbia Journalism Review

Kentucky newspaper wins public records lawsuit, but what will actually be released is uncertain Muck Rock

More than two dozen journalists worldwide have been killed by members of organized crime since the start of 2017 New York Times

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

How recasting the “online producer” job helped the Miami Herald focus on audience and mission Better News

Freelancer Rate Database Contently

Where the death of local news hits hardest Axios

Why ‘news for millennials’ media plays never panned out Digiday

***FAKE NEWS

Misinformation bots, smarter than we thought Axios

The godfather of fake news BBC News

An Anti-Vaxxer’s New Crusade Propublica

Facebook Should Enlist Its Users to Clean Up Fake News (opinion) Bloomberg

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Instagram 'Close Friends': What It Is and How to Use It Wired

Twitter has banned misgendering or "deadnaming" transgender people the Verge

“What Are Those?” Meme Creator Young Busco Has Died, According To Reports BuzzFeed News

The Infinite Lifespan of Memes Wired

Tumblr Moves To Ban All 'Adult Content' — Here's Why That Matters Digg

Critics Say YouTube Hasn't Done Enough To Crack Down On Extremist Content NPR

Inside TikTok, the premier app for firefighters who enjoy lip-syncing to ‘Baby Shark’ Washington Post

***PRODUCING MEDIA

A guide to recording spatial audio for 360-degree video NPR

***THE INTERNET

The Friendship That Made Google Huge Coding together at the same computer, Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat changed the course of the company—and the Internet The New Yorker

New report suggests Latin America will lag in internet growth Axios

***TECHNOLOGY

Rogue Scientist Says Another Crispr Pregnancy Is Underway Wired

Google to shut down Hangouts in 2020 Axios

The CRISPR Baby Scandal Gets Worse by the Day The alleged creation of the world's first gene-edited infants was full of technical errors and ethical blunders The Atlantic

***BIG DATA & AI

Amazon Says the same machine learning courses that it uses to teach its own engineers will be offered for free Tech Crunch

A Bayesian linear regression in R for time series forecasting Towards Data Science

The Surprising Power of Small Data: More information isn’t necessarily better in health care or business Stanford

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

Nexstar To Buy Tribune Media For $4.1 Billion, Creates Giant TV Station Group Media Post

Sunset magazine, a California icon, struggles amid declining ad sales and management missteps LA Times

***PERSONAL GROWTH

The rise of the professional “influencer” Becoming (my blog)

How vividly imagining your own death can help your next career move Fast Company

***WRITING & READING

Ben Yagoda Crunches the Contractions Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LANGUAGE

‘That Walk Was a Bear!’ Is ‘Bear’ Slang in That Sentence? Chronicle of Higher Education

The World’s Most Efficient Languages The Atlantic

***LITERATURE

The 10 Best Books of 2018 The editors of The Times Book Review choose the best fiction and nonfiction titles this year New York Times

NPR’s Guide to 2018 Great Books NPR

***GENDER

Global report on gender violence says women most likely to be killed by intimate partners or family members Axios

Smart dress shows how often women are groped at clubs Quartzy

Inside the All-Female Trek to the North Pole Wired

America’s sexist obsession with what women politicians wear, explained Vox

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

Teaching while black: white professor calls security on black adjunct The Commonwealth Times

Swastikas spray-painted on walls of Jewish professor at Columbia Washington Post

Analysis on the diversity of magazine covers from 2012-2018 Ceros

***LEGAL ISSUES

Everything You Wanted to Know About Emojis and the Law Technology & Marketing Law Blog

***CRIME

The police departments who destroy rape kits before testing them CNN

NJ.com's ground-breaking look at police force Poynter

***RELIGION

Killing Of American Missionary Ignites Debate Over How To Evangelize NPR

Do missionaries help or harm? BBC

This Pastor Is Melting Purity Rings Into A Golden Vagina Sculpture Huffington Post

Kenny Marks, CCM star of the '80s and '90s Dies Cross Rythms

Brawl forces Church to Briefly shutdown Christmas Display KJRH

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Members of both parties find meaning in family but differ when it comes to faith Pew Research

***GOOD NEWS

Twitter users help reunite friends who met on vacation 12 years ago Teen Vogue

97-year-old New Jersey woman has served on every Election Day since 1939 NBC News

Vietnam War veteran meets stranger whose Christmas card lifted his spirits CBS News

San Diego man donates $1 million to California school devastated by fire NBC Los Angeles

A Texas cotton farmer is battling cancer and couldn't harvest his crop. So his neighbors did it for him CNN

Hundreds pack funeral for Vietnam veteran they did not know after viral obituary post MSNBC

He opened his motel to families hit by flooding: Now he's a full-service good Samaritan CBS

Anonymous 'Santa Claus' Surprises Customers by Paying Off All Layaway Items at Vermont Walmart People

Sinatra the blue-eyed Brooklyn husky's mysterious journey and miraculous reunion ABC News

***REALLY?!

Couple Forced to Prove that New Mexico is a state while applying for a marriage license Las Cruces Sun News

Grandfather banned from US holiday after accidentally ticking 'terrorist' box on visa form The Independent

Accused maple syrup bandits fly through Canadian Town during police chase Calgary Sun

A homeless man found rare artwork from Disney's 'Bambi' in a trash bin. When it sold for $3,700, the seller tracked him down to split the proceeds CNN

Women Sue After Breaking Into Theme Park And Hurting Themselves WBTW

The 40 Most Insane Things That Happened In Florida In 2018 BuzzFeed News

Grandma mistakenly booked into all-male jail, staff thought she was transgender WWLP

American Airlines passenger left in wheelchair overnight at airport after flight was canceled Fox-17

***ART & DESIGN

I spent 15 years sanding and grinding mussel shells to create my sculptures. Then I was diagnosed with heavy-metal poisoning Toronto Life

Google is Building Digital Art Gallaries you can Step Into Tech Crunch

***IMAGES

National Geographic's 100 best images of the year National Geographic

Reuters' best pictures from 2018 Reuters

***MUSIC

Neuroscience says listening to this song reduces anxiety by up to 65% Fast Company

Can you teach AI to dance? YR.media

***FILM

Watch 99 Movies Free Online Courtesy of YouTube & MGM: Rocky, The Terminator, Four Weddings and a Funeral & More Open Culture

This is the most influential film of all time MarketWatch

***STUDENT MEDIA

A High School Newspaper Was Suspended For Publishing An Investigation Into Football Players’ Transfers BuzzFeed News

Liberty University students create independent news outlet News Advance

***STUDENT LIFE

More millennials now live in suburbs than in cities CNBC

Graduate School Is Terrible for People's Mental Health The Atlantic

Millennials are killing countless industries — but the Fed says it's mostly just because they're poor San Francisco Gate

Teens Say Social Media Isn’t As Bad For Them As You Might Think BuzzFeed News

Pot is edging out alcohol and cigarettes as the teenage drug of choice Pacific Standard

Is a smartphone a necessity for college students today? Inside Higher Ed

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Student made social media threat to kill FAU professor, cops say Sun-Sentinel

Judge: UM deprived professor of due process in disciplinary case Michigan Live

***SOCIAL ISSUES

Why US life expectancy is falling, in three charts Quartz

40 years ago, this journalist survived the Jonestown massacre: He warns it could happen again Washington Post

What the dip in US life expectancy is really about—inequality: While poor Americans are dying earlier, the rich are enjoying unprecedented longevity Vox

My mom’s suicide changed everything: Here’s how I found hope again USA Today

The American abortion rate is at an all-time low Vox

More than one-in-ten U.S. parents are also caring for an adult Pew Research

***BORDER ISSUES

What we know about illegal immigration from Mexico Pew Research

Families Are Still Being Separated at the Border, Months After “Zero Tolerance” Was Reversed Propublica

BuzzFeed gave six kids traveling in the migrant caravan cameras to document what life looks like for them BuzzFeed News

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

Pension Plans For Millions Of Americans Are On The Brink Of Collapse NPR

Competition Is Dying, and Taking Capitalism With It (opinion) Bloomberg

Americans Value Equality at Work More Than Equality at Home New York Times

***ENVIRONMENT

The new arctic frontier: As the ice melts, U.S. prepares for possible threats from Russia and China Washington Post

Climate change strike: thousands of school students protest across Australia The Guardian

The World's Largest Ocean Cleanup Has Officially Begun Forbes

Only vehicles producing zero emissions will be allowed to drive freely in downtown Madrid The Guardian

In California’s Fertile Valley, Industry and Agriculture Hang Heavy in the Air Undark

***HEALTH

Interactive map shows how many years breathing dirty air takes off your life Air Quality Life Index

The science is clear: dirty farm water is making us sick Wired

What’s in 5-hour energy shots? 17 ingredients: 16 of them are basically useless Mel Magazine

FDA’s ‘flawed’ device pathway persists with industry backing Associated Press

Investigation: Lives Lost Amid ER Violations Web-MD

Intermittent fasting is no better than conventional dieting for weight loss, new study finds The Conversation

***HEALTH & SLEEP

Why We Sleep, and Why We Often Can’t New Yorker

Why screen time can disrupt sleep Salk

Why Hospitals Should Let You Sleep New York Times

***HEALTH & KIDS

Docs Say Kids With Concussions Don't Have To Stay In The Dark For Days NPR

Number Of U.S. Kids Who Don't Have Health Insurance Is On The Rise NPR

***TRAVEL

Want to Escape Modern Life? Try a Weekend in a Prison Cell The Atlantic

Mic’s best places to travel interactive Mic

The Best Things to Do in 25 of America’s Most Fun Cities Thrillist

***FOOD & DRINK

The Hidden Struggle to Save the Coffee Industry From Disaster Medium

The Best Craft Brewery in Every State Thrillist

Sainsbury's to stock edible insects on shelves in a UK first The Guardian

52 of the World’s Most Out-There Myths About Food Atlas Obscura

***CHILDREN

These Are the Most Popular Baby Names of 2018 Fatherly

ADHD Diagnosis Is More Common For Youngest Students In Class NPR

The "homework gap": 12 million schoolchildren lack internet Axios

New Harvard Study Shows the Dangers of Early School Enrollment Foundation for Economic Education Fee.org

The best new perks for working parents Quartz

***CHILDREN & SCREEN TIME

New inequality trend: how parents approach screen time Axios

Should You Make Your Kids Wait Until High School for a Cell Phone? Life Hacker

***ANIMALS

The Insect Apocalypse Is Here New York Times

***SCIENCE

New Quantum Paradox Clarifies Where Our Views of Reality Go Wrong Quanta Magazine

Archaeologists Are Looking for Dead Sea Scrolls Inside 2 Newfound Qumran Caves Live Science

***PSYCHOLOGY

Lack of sleep intensifies anger, impairs adaptation to frustrating circumstances Iowa State University

Using imagination to unlearn fear The Naked Scientist

***NEUROSCIENCE

This Is Your Brain on Hate Researchers are studying how white supremacism may rewire people Vice

The Pathology of Prejudice What neuroscience tells us about the persistence of hatred New Republic

Experimental Brain Stimulation Relieved Depression Symptoms In Study NPR

***PHILOSOPHY

An exhaustive, interactive mapping of the history of philosophy Deniz C Önduygu blog

6 essential books on existentialist philosophy Big Think

***ETHICS

My Mother Taught Me to Kill Narratively

Harvard Medical School Dean Weighs In On Ethics Of Gene Editing NPR

The Ethical Pitfalls of the Viral “Best Burger in America” Essay The New Yorker

***RESEARCH

Controversial visiting researcher — heavily criticized as having racist work — sparks pushback Daily Northwestern

New COPE guidelines on publication process manipulation: why they matter Research Integrity and Peer Review

Canadian scholar says he's been 'persecuted' for his research on colleagues who published in predatory journals Inside Higher Ed

The double standard of retractions The Varsity

A look at retractions from Science from 1983 until 2017 Springer

Where are the ethics in academic publishing? Times Higher Education

A suite of automated tools is now available to assist with academic peer review—but humans are still in the driver's seat Nature

***HIGHER ED

What the Rise of the Mega-University Might Mean for the Rest of Us Chronicle of Higher Ed

This "coding bootcamp" is now accredited as a bachelor's program Axios

Why Your HR Officer Is Leaving Chronicle of Higher Ed

UW-Stevens Point Faculty Want Regents To Oust Administrators Wisconsin Public Radio

Why One University Is Handing Out Hockey Pucks to Prepare for an Active Shooter Chronicle of Higher Ed

***HUMANITIES

Why Are Students Ditching the History Major? Chronicle of Higher Ed

In a High-Tech World, Humanities and Other Liberal Arts Are More Essential Than Ever The Daily Beast

***TEACHING

Students Evaluating Teachers Doesn’t Just Hurt Teachers. It Hurts Students Chronicle of Higher Ed

What Is the Purpose of Final Exams, Anyway? Chronicle of Higher Ed

Seniors Think What They’ve Learned Will Help Them Do Their Jobs. Do Employers Agree? Chronicle of Higher Ed

“Transformative” teaching is exhausting. Here are some suggestions on how to lighten the load Chronicle of Higher Ed

December 03, 2018

The Influencers

December 03, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

The internet now means influence can come from anyone, anywhere; it can be visible or invisible, paid for by any power, approaching you any of myriad ways. Influence used to be understood as a top-down phenomenon, with governments, advertisers, donors or other powerful figures holding sway over the masses. These days we understand that the most powerful influences aren’t the distant ones but the most immediate and social — so the powerful tend to exert their influence by pretending to be ordinary people.

Marketers, for instance, work harder and harder to obscure the distinction between ads and real life. The last decade featured the rise of the professional “influencer” — someone paid to use their personal magnetism to promote specific agendas online. Instead of the top-down influence of a commercial or a billboard, these ads are embedded, shared by someone who seems, on some aspirational level, like a peer. The companies paying teenagers to hawk diet tea on Instagram are using the same tactics the Chinese government did when it recruited commenters to post hundreds of millions of pro-Communist Party messages online.

We like to think of our characters as fixed: We have our beliefs and our morals, religions and parties, states and countries, friends and enemies. We are inevitably ourselves — inescapably ourselves. We should be able to resist this kind of manipulation. But a steady stream of social-science studies suggests otherwise, demonstrating again and again how easily social pressures can affect the things we say, believe, do, think, eat. Our anxiety over influence goes back to the same fear Thomas Aquinas had, the same doubt families of alcoholics or cult members have. In the face of powerful influences, how can you locate and hold onto that original, irrefutable spark of self, your free will, your character, even your soul? That’s the fear that the idea of influence lays bare: that you can’t. Or that it might never have existed in the first place.

Annalisa Quinn writing in the New York Times

December 01, 2018

Self-Control can be Contagious

December 01, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

Not only do you tend to hang out with people like yourself, your friends will influence you toward or away from self-control. Even the people you are forced by circumstances to hang out with (like co-workers) have an influence on your behavior.

That's the finding of researchers who asked participants to watch people either select carrot sticks or cookies to eat before taking tests related to self-control (not involving cookies and carrots). Participants who watched someone eat cookies before the tests did not do as well as those who had watched someone decide to eat carrots.

In another test, participants were told to think of a friend with good self-control. This group performed better on a handgrip test (used to measure self-control) than did the participants assigned to think about a friend with weak self-control. Other tests showed similar results.

The conclusion: If you surround yourself with people who make wise choices, you are more likely to do the same. You can boost your self-control simply by networking with other people who reinforce positive behavior (or vise versa). And when you show a lack of self-control, you are probably influencing someone else to do the same.

Details of the study were published by the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

(more info)

Stephen Goforth

November 29, 2018

you can't go back

November 29, 2018/ Stephen Goforth

You can't go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending. –CS Lewis, born November 29, 1898

Becoming

ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire

Unstirred waters lead to stagnation, and stagnation can't support life. -Ron Martoia

Articles of Interest - Dec 24

She Wrapped Him in Swaddling Clothes

Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished. -Og Mandino

The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands. -Alexandra Penney

Articles of Interest - Dec 17

Seeking the Best is a Trap

To be manifestly loved

dead inside

Writing your Own Eulogy

Articles of Interest - Dec 10

Study: after 75 years the most fulfilling lives had one thing in common

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift -Steve Prefontaine

fighting the good fight

Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. -Walt Disney (born Dec. 5, 1901)

Articles of Interest - Dec. 3

Self-Control can be Contagious

you can't go back

Goforth Solutions, LLC