Communication, no matter how open, transparent and disciplined, will always break down at some point. Conflicts are ultimately unavoidable, and feelings will always be hurt.

And the only thing that can save you and your partner, that can cushion you both to the hard landing of human fallibility, is an unerring respect for one another, the fact that you hold each other in high esteem, believe in one another — often more than you each believe in yourselves — and trust that your partner is doing his/her best with what they’ve got.

Without that bedrock of respect underneath you, you will doubt each other’s intentions. You will judge their choices and encroach on their independence. You will feel the need to hide things from one another for fear of criticism. And this is when the cracks in the edifice begin to appear.

You must also respect yourself. Because without that self-respect, you will not feel worthy of the respect afforded by your partner. You will be unwilling to accept it and you will find ways to undermine it. You will constantly feel the need to compensate and prove yourself worthy of love, which will just backfire.

Respect for your partner and respect for yourself are intertwined. As a reader named Olov put it, “Respect yourself and your wife. Never talk badly to or about her. If you don’t respect your wife, you don’t respect yourself. You chose her – live up to that choice.”

Mark Manson writing in Business Insider

February 24, 2019

Connecting the Dots

February 24, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. -Steve Jobs (born Feb. 24, 1955)

February 23, 2019

You were born an original. Don't die a copy. -John Mason

February 23, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

February 22, 2019

Treat Failure like a Scientist

February 22, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

When a scientist runs an experiment, there are all sorts of results that could happen. Some results are positive and some are negative, but all of them are data points. Each result is a piece of data that can ultimately lead to an answer.

And that’s exactly how a scientist treats failure: as another data point.

This is much different than how society often talks about failure. For most of us, failure feels like an indication of who we are as a person.

Failing a test means you’re not smart enough. Failing to get fit means you’re undesirable. Failing in business means you don’t have what it takes. Failing at art means you’re not creative. And so on.

But for the scientist, a negative result is not an indication that they are a bad scientist. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Proving a hypothesis wrong is often just as useful as proving it right because you learned something along the way.

Your failures are simply data points that can help lead you to the right answer.

James Clear

February 21, 2019

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? -Mary Oliver

February 21, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

February 19, 2019

An expert on human blind spots gives advice on how to think

February 19, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

A lot of the issues or problems we get into, we get into because we’re doing it all by ourselves. We’re relying on ourselves. We’re making decisions as our own island, if you will. And if we consult, chat, schmooze with other people, often we learn things or get different perspectives that can be quite helpful.

An active social life, active social bonds, in many different ways tends to be something that’s healthy for people. Social bonds can also be informationally healthy as well. So that’s more on a top, more abstract level, if you will. That is, don’t try to do it yourself. Doing it yourself is when you get into trouble.

David Dunning quoted in Vox

February 19, 2019

Articles of Interest - week of Feb 18

February 19, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

***BIG DATA & AI

IBM's AI loses debate to a human Cnet

Update on that study of p-hacking Stat Modeling

7 things we’ve learned about computer algorithms Pew Research Center

“Someone who has malicious intent would be able to generate high-quality fake news” with this the AI text generator Wired

Major predictive policing algorithm is fundamentally flawed Motherboard

A look under the hood of an automated fake-news detection system MIT

Mirrorworld is all around us already—this marriage of the virtual and the physical may spark the next big tach platform Wired

Some ideas on how to make use of Kaggle to get the data science ball rolling Toward Data Science

***TECHNOLOGY

16% of US adults now own smartwatches Tech Crunch

How Should Self-Driving Cars Choose Who Not to Kill? Medium

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook’s Future Is Private Groups, for Better and Worse Bloomberg

Why Mark Zuckerberg's Writing Style Erodes Our Trust in Facebook The Blog of Slab

The Tinder algorithm, explained Vox

Teenage journalists memorialize hundreds of gun-violence victims Columbia Journalism Review

***MOBILE

US iPhone users spent, on average, $79 on apps last year, up 36% from 2017 Tech Crunch

***PRIVACY & SECURITY

Welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism The Guardian

Electric scooter reportedly vulnerable to hijacking hack Cnet

***PRODUCING MEDIA

The best WordPress hosting 2019 Tech Radar

***INTERNET

Ads 'slows down' browsing speeds BBC

How badly is Google Books search broken, and why? Sapping Attention

***EMAIL

No, You Can’t Ignore Email: It’s Rude New York Times

Think I’ve Identified Email’s Fundamental Flaw The Cut

“Are you available for a quick task?” – Keep an eye out for the latest phishing scam hitting inboxes TechRadar

***JOURNALISM

A Crackdown On Journalism In The Philippines NPR

Journalists Can't Now Use A Database Of People's Phone Numbers And Addresses Buzzfeed News

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

The New York Times quietly paused its Snapchat channel Digiday

Media Layoffs Hit Peak Since 2009 Great Recession The Wrap

Findings from our national study on reinventing local TV News Storybench

Newsrooms are finally focusing on loyalty over pageviews: Here’s how to actually measure it Poynter

***FAKE NEWS

An Apocalyptic Preacher And QAnon Followers Made A Fake Pope Francis Quote Go Viral Buzzfeed News

Most Canadians trust media, but a similar share worry about fake news being weaponized: survey Global News

Russian Trolls Promoted Anti-Vaccination Propaganda That May Have Caused Measles Outbreak Researcher Claims Newsweek

Why Misinformation Is About Who You Trust, Not What You Think Nautil.us

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was seen in public Monday: Conspiracy theorists still insist she’s dead Washington Post

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Surviving the brain-dissolving internet Becoming (my blog)

Treat Failure Like a Scientist James Clear Blog

I’d like to tell you about the life-changing magic of not getting rid of things Washington Post

What’s all this fuss about “digital detox” — and does it really work? Recode

There's A Gap Between Perception And Reality When It Comes To Learning NPR

***WRITING & READING

The Newest Way To Check Out Library Books In Houston? Vending Machines Houston Public Media Houston Public Media

The Hardest Part of Writing Is Restarting Chronicle of Higher Education Chronicle of Higher Ed

5-Year-Old Logan Brinson Couldn't Find a Library Near Him—So He Opened One Himself Mental Floss

Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction The Paris Review

***LANGUAGE

Slang by state: Words only locals know USA Today

American parents say their children are speaking in British accent after watching too much Peppa Pig iTV

***LITERATURE

Tolkien’s World: An Exhibition Transports Us to Middle-earth New York Times

How an Italian Writer’s Imaginary Garden Became a Place of Literary Pilgrimage Atlas Obscura

***GENDER

The Women Who Contributed to Science but Were Buried in Footnotes The Atlantic

Three female students file class-action lawsuit against Yale University to allow women to join all-male fraternities USA Today

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

Ted Danson once wore blackface to roast Whoopi Goldberg, and it’s striking to read the coverage of that now Slate

11-year-old arrested after refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Bay News 9

After Black Student Is Kept Out of Class Discussion, NYU School Acknowledges ‘Institutional Racism’ Chronicle of Higher Ed

US border agency sued for detaining two Spanish speakers BBC

When Fred Rogers and Francois Clemmons Broke Down Race Barriers on a Historic Episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (1969) Open Culture

***FREE SPEECH

10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech: 2019 (including Liberty University) The FIRE

What is ‘auditing,’ and why did a YouTuber get shot for doing it? Washington Post

Another Politician Probably Violated the First Amendment By Blocking a Constituent on Twitter Technology & Marketing Law Blog

Federal Judge Thinks The Best Fix For An Accidentally Unsealed Court Doc Is Prior Restraint TechDirt

***LEGAL ISSUES

Fortnite's Appropriation Issue Isn't About Copyright Law, It's About Ethics Waypoint

CNN, Dish Fight This Question in Court: Is The Weather Channel a News Network? Hollywood Reporter

Copyrighting a dance step? Between a Hard (Milly) Rock and a Copyright Office The 1709 Blog

***RELIGION

I was hospitalized for depression. Faith helped me remember how to live Washington Post

Producer of ‘Silent Scream’ anti-abortion film dies Miami Herald

Founder Of Harvest Bible Chapel Fired For Misconduct And ‘Highly Inappropriate Comments’ Chicago CBS

***RELIGION OUTSIDE THE U.S.

Missionaries and nurses trapped in Haiti as protests sweep country CNN

Once a majority, Protestants now account for fewer than a third of Germans Pew Research Center

***RELIGION & SEXUAL ABUSE

Southern Baptist seminary chief regrets embrace of religious leader accused of hiding sex abuse Courier-Journal

More than 100 Southern Baptist youth pastors convicted or charged in sex crimes Houston Chronicle

***RELIGION & CELEBRITIES

Evangelicals claim Justin Bieber, but he won’t claim them Washington Examiner

Hillsong: Is this celeb-filled, Instagram-friendly church the new face of evangelicalism? NBC News

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

A law beloved by evangelicals could stand in the way of Trump’s wall Yahoo News

Wyoming Senate rejects death penalty repeal, one senator citing Jesus' crucifixion as her rationale The Week

***GOOD NEWS

UPS driver’s instincts lead to rescue of elderly man Fox 8

CNY Taco Bell worker writes a feel-good message in each take-out order; customers love it Syracuse.com

Inmates help police rescue Florida baby accidentally locked in car USA Today

Doctors Said His Daughter Might Never Walk (video) Digg

***MUSIC

"Rest in Vinyl” - A Company Will Press Your Ashes into a Working Vinyl Album The Vintage News

***FILM

A Peerless ‘War and Peace’ Film Is Restored to Its Former Glory New York Times

Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Crackpot Theories’ on How Moviegoing Has Changed The Atlantic

‘Office Space’ Turns 20 Variety

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

How the growth and evolution of the over-the-air tv home fits into today’s viewing landscape Nielsen

eSports Joins the Big Leagues Goldman Sachs

***JOBS: FREELANCING

Where to pitch, based on data from the website, Who Pays Writers? Columbia Journalism Review

What do freelance writers make? Storybench

Why Freelancing Creates Anxiety About Money The Cut

***SOCIAL ISSUES

Climate Change Still Seen as the Top Global Threat, but Cyberattacks a Rising Concern Pew Research Center

America’s gun problem, explained in 5 facts Vox

Facebook's security team tracks posts and keeps a possible threat list CNBC

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

What Happens To A Small Town After Walmart Leaves It (video) PBS

The GDP Of Each State, Matched To An Equivalent Country Digg

The Biggest Economic Divides Aren’t Regional—They’re Local New York Times

A record 7 million Americans are three months late on their car payments, revealing what could be cracks in the U.S. economy CityLab

***ENVIRONMENT

Bold Plan? Replace the Border Wall with an Energy–Water Corridor Scientific American

From marine biology to gallery walls: At Lux, artist Courtney Mattison draws attention to the fragility of our oceans Union-Tribune

Key West bans sunscreens that harm coral reefs CNN

Why polar bears invaded a Russian village The Verge

Massive starfish die-off tied to warming seas Axios

This Scary Map Shows How Climate Change Will Transform Your City Wired

Scientist who resisted censorship of climate report lost her job Reveal News

***HEALTH: PREVENTION

Sneezed-In Tissues For Sale (video) Stephen Colbert

Children are using an unhealthy amount of toothpaste, CDC warns USA Today

Poor sleep could clog your arteries. A mouse study shows how that might happen Science Magazine

***HEALTH: VACCINES

Facebook under pressure to halt rise of anti-vaccination groups The Guardian

Anti-vaxxers are spreading conspiracy theories on Facebook, and the company is struggling to stop them Washington Post

In anti-vaccine rant, wife of top Trump aide says it's time to 'bring back our childhood diseases' The Week

***TRAVEL

Where Not to Travel in 2019, or Ever: Another take on the Christian Missionary who tried to Sentinelese (opinion) The Walrus

***FOOD

The official fast food French fry power rankings LA Times

***RELATIONSHIPS

About 40% of American couples now meet each other online Quartz

Sharing Netflix, Spotify Accounts After Couples Break Up NPR

Dating App Scams Vox

The Cities With the Most Singles Citylab

8 facts about love and marriage in America Pew Research Center

***SCIENCE

How Many Creationists Are There in America? Scientific American Blog Network

Ph.D. Student Breaks Down Electron Physics Into A Swinging Musical NPR

Does scientist immigration harm US science? An examination of the knowledge spillover channel ScienceDirect

Essential elements for high-impact scientific writing Nature

New NASA Mission Will Create Maps of the Sky Like Never Before Popular Mechanics

***NEUROSCIENCE

Depression speeds aging in the brain, a new study shows Quartz

How the Brain Creates a Timeline of the Past Quanta Magazine

***PHILOSOPHY

Why so many men online love to use “logic” to win an argument, and then disappear before they can find out they're wrong (opinion) The Outline

Google Translate is a manifestation of Wittgenstein’s theory of language Quartz

A global history of philosophy (podcast) BBC

***PRODUCTIVITY

Emotional burnout is fueled by envy The Outline

***HISTORY

How the US has hidden its empire The Guardian

A majority of Americans in every state except Vermont would fail a test based on the questions in the U.S. citizenship test Axios

***RESEARCH

Editorial Independence and Journal Ownership in the Age of Open Science The Scholarly Kitchen

Be cautious, skeptical with comprehensive reviews of evidence Association of Health Care Journalists Health Journalism

Study suggests that making reviewers’ reports freely readable doesn’t compromise peer-review process Nature

Replication is on the Rise Arnold Ventures

Major medical journals don’t follow their own rules for reporting results from clinical trials Science Magazine

The Fraud Finder: A conversation with Elisabeth Bik The Last Word On Nothing

***STUDENT MEDIA

As student journalists, how do you report on rape allegations? Pretty much the same way you report on anything else Dynamics of Writing

Student journalists hold power to account, with fewer protections Columbia Journalism Review

Loyola’s Media Policy is designed to hinder student reporting (opinion) Loyola Phoenix

Loyola Student Newspaper Accuses University of 'Trump' Tactics, Dodging Reporters NBC Chicago

***STUDENT LIFE

Historic black church pays off loans of Howard University students The Hill

Tobacco use is soaring among U.S. kids, driven by e-cigarettes Axios

College grads expect to earn $60,000 in their first job—here's how much they actually make CNBC

***ACADEMIC LIFE

College fires longtime professor of English when he asked too many questions about accreditation Inside Higher Ed

Is Email Making Professors Stupid? It used to simplify crucial tasks. Now it’s strangling scholars’ ability to think Chronicle of Higher Ed

Lessons learned from the Wright State strike: professors Inside Higher Ed

***ACADEMICS & PLAGIARISM

Current Policy, Past Investigations Offer Window Into Harvard’s Next Steps In Abramson Plagiarism Case The Harvard Crimson

Correcting the scholarly record for research integrity: In the aftermath of plagiarism: Accountability in Research Tandfonline

***HIGHER ED

A Guide to the Changing Number of U.S. Universities US News

Judge says University of Texas at Austin can't revoke a former student's Ph.D. on its own, outside a court of law Inside Higher Ed

Mega-Universities Are On the Rise: They Could Reshape Higher Ed as We Know It Chronicle of Higher Ed

***HUMANITIES

Study documents economic gains from liberal arts education Inside Higher Ed

7 Things You Can Do With Your Humanities Degree Thrive Global

***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

Louisiana College quits CCCU over LGBT policy Baptist Message

Why Bob Jones University hosted a gender and sexuality conference Greenville Online

Azusa Pacific University: Is a Faculty Purge Imminent? (opinion) Rewire

February 18, 2019

Surviving the brain-dissolving internet

February 18, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

I’ve been a technology journalist for nearly 20 years and a tech devotee even longer. Over that time, I’ve been obsessed with how the digital experience scrambles how we make sense of the real world.

Technology may have liberated us from the old gatekeepers, but it also created a culture of choose-your-own-fact niches, elevated conspiracy thinking to the center of public consciousness and brought the incessant nightmare of high-school-clique drama to every human endeavor. It also skewed our experience of daily reality.

Objectively, the world today is better than ever, but the digital world inevitably makes everyone feel worse. It isn’t just the substance of daily news that unmoors you, but also the speed and volume and oversaturated fakery of it all.

And so, to survive the brain-dissolving internet, I turned to meditation.

The fad is backed by reams of scientific research showing the benefits of mindfulness for your physical and mental health — how even short-term stints improve your attention span and your ability to focus, your memory, and other cognitive functions.

Farhad Manjoo writing in the New York Times

February 16, 2019

Daily Rituals

February 16, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

Here’s the true secret of life: We mostly do everything over and over. In the morning, we let the dogs out, make coffee, read the paper, help whoever is around get ready for the day. We do our work. In the afternoon, if we have left, we come home, put down our keys and satchels, let the dogs out, take off constrictive clothing, make a drink or put water on for tea, toast the leftover bit of scone. I love ritual and repetition. Without them, I would be a balloon with a slow leak.

Daily rituals, especially walks, even forced marches around the neighborhood, and schedules, whether work or meals with non-awful people, can be the knots you hold on to when you’ve run out of rope.

Anne Lamott, Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair

February 15, 2019

face and explore

February 15, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

We have to face and explore directly our inner restlessness, our mixed feelings towards others, and our deep-seated suspicions about the absence of God. -Henri J. M. Nouwen

February 14, 2019

A one-way ticket to a toxic relationship

February 14, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

Many people are addicted to the ups and downs of romantic love. They are in it for the feels, so to speak. And when the feels run out, so do they. Many people get into a relationship as a way to compensate for something they lack or hate within themselves. This is a one-way ticket to a toxic relationship because it makes your love conditional — you will love your partner as long as they help you feel better about yourself. You will give to them as long as they give to you. You will make them happy as long as they make you happy. This conditionality prevents any true, deep-level intimacy from emerging and chains the relationship to the bucking throes of each person’s internal dramas.

Mark Manson

February 13, 2019

Moral Hypocrisy

February 13, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

It pays to be wary of those who are the quickest and loudest in condemning the moral failings of others – the chances are that moral preachers are as guilty themselves, but take a far lighter view of their own transgressions. In one study, researchers found that people rated the exact same selfish behaviour (giving themselves the quicker and easier of two experimental tasks on offer) as being far less fair when perpetuated by others. Similarly, there is a long-studied phenomenon known as actor-observer asymmetry, which in part describes our tendency to attribute other people’s bad deeds, such as our partner’s infidelities, to their character, while attributing the same deeds performed by ourselves to the situation at hand. These self-serving double standards could even explain the common feeling that incivility is on the increase – recent research shows that we view the same acts of rudeness far more harshly when they are committed by strangers than by our friends or ourselves.

Christian Jarrett writing in The British Psychological Society’s Research Digest

February 12, 2019

The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason he made so many of them. - Abraham Lincoln (born Feb. 12, 1809)

February 12, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

February 11, 2019

Articles of Interest - Feb 11

February 11, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

***TECHNOLOGY

Scientists connect a human brain and 'rat cyborg' brain together CNET

The Fortnite Marshmello event represents something different by many orders of magnitude Wired

The future of lawn care? This Dallas company's robots mow the yard for you WFAA

***SOCIAL MEDIA

15 Instagram Feeds That Help Make the World More Wondrous Atlas Obscura

How Many Hashtags Should I Use On Instagram In 2019? This Is What The Experts Recommend Bustle

An early Facebook investor throws up his hands: We’ve been ‘Zucked’ Washington Post

Twitter discloses daily active user count for first time Axios

Snapchat, no longer bleeding users, tests Android app redesign Mashable

***MOBILE

How does photography (& taking selfies) affect you? We tried to find out (video) Wired

All 230 New Emojis for 2019 (video) Emojipedia

***JOURNALISM

Mass. legislator proposes government commission to examine journalism industry Boston Globe

The Rise of the Robot Reporter New York Times

Craigslist founder donates $15 million for journalism ethics San Francisco Gate

Former 'NYT' Executive Editor Jill Abramson Responds To Plagiarism Allegations NPR

Did A Robot Write This? How AI Is Impacting Journalism Forbes

Lessons for Journalists from conflict mediation training The Whole Story

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Which platforms are driving more traffic to news websites? Harvard’s Nieman Lab

Amid Layoffs, McClatchy News CEO Got a $900,000 Bonus in 2017 Miami New Times

The alternative to your dying local paper is written by one person, a robot, and you Recode

This TV News Anchor Says Her Boss Called Her Natural Hair Too "Unprofessional" For Broadcast Buzzfeed News

***FAKE NEWS

Facebook adds new fact-checking partner Axios

Study: Americans care less about the source of a particular news story, than whether the headline aligns with their political view SSRN

Peering under the hood of fake-news detectors MIT Technology Review

***PRIVACY & SECURITY

Extension will detect your unsafe passwords Wired

Big Telecom Sold Highly Sensitive Customer GPS Data Typically Used for 911 Calls Motherboard

***PRODUCING MEDIA

Is it time for every publisher to “pivot to podcasts”? What’s News in Publishing

LinkedIn Debuts LinkedIn Live, a new video broadcast Service Tech Crunch

***INTERNET

Each State’s Most-Googled Relationship Question Century Link Quote

What happens when you try to live without the big five (Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple) Subtraction

Russia Is Considering An Experiment To Disconnect From The Internet NPR

***BIG DATA & AI

MIT Tech: machine learning is now witnessing a downfall Analytics Insights

Startups help companies track their competition with spy satellites Seattle Times

Python code completion gets an assist from machine learning—the system is designed to go beyond the conventional auto-suggest algorithms found in IDEs Infoworld

Top 10 Machine Learning Programming Languages Analytics Insights

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Do you understand a thing or only its definition? Becoming (my blog)

How To Sound Smart CollegeHumor

3 simple habits that can protect your brain from cognitive decline Fast Company

***WRITING & READING

The Atlas of Endangered Alphabets: A Free Online Atlas That Helps Preserve Writing Systems That May Soon Disappear Open Culture

A Patron Returned a Book to a Maryland Library Nearly 75 Years After It Was Due Mental Floss

***LANGUAGE

A College Lost Its Languages One by One. Can 3 Professors Save Spanish? Chronicle of Higher Ed

Entertainment Studios Will Launch Spanish-Language Weather Channel In 2020 Deadline

***LITERATURE

T.S.Eliot's Cat The Daily Star

J.D. Salinger’s Family To Publish Trove Of Secret Works The Guardian

McDonald’s Happy Meals Now Come With Roald Dahl Books Instead of Toys in New Zealand Mental Floss

Welcome to the Bold and Blocky Instagram Era of Book Covers Vulture

The 50 Best One-Star Amazon Reviews of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury Literary Hub

***GENDER

Rules for who can compete as a female athlete are based on a flawed scientific foundation,” and a paper behind them should be retracted, says a new study Springer

Over a Third of Generation Z Knows a Non-Binary Person The Daily Beast

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

When school dress codes depend on the color of your skin Washington Post

A class of Black 6th grade students recreated famous book covers for Black History Month Hello Giggles

Black Farmers Once Comprised 14% Of America's Farmers. Today, It's Less Than 2%. What Happened? Digg

The Conversation the Press Isn’t Having: Even when people of color do very American things, they still aren’t seen as being members of American culture (opinion) The Atlantic

***BLACKFACE

Photos of blackface, KKK robes and nooses lurk alongside portraits in old college yearbooks Washington Post

VCU and predecessors yearbooks show racist imagery as late as 1989, students held “Slave Sale” fundraiser Commonwealth Times (VCU student newspaper)

More Anger Over Blackface Yearbook Photos Inside Higher Ed

About a third of Americans say blackface in a Halloween costume is acceptable at least sometimes Pew Research Center

The complicated, always racist history of blackface Vox

***FREE SPEECH

Boy, 10, takes knee during pledge of allegiance at NC city council meeting WMCA-TV

Michigan RAs told not to remove racist or other offensive language from dormitory doors: Officials say they can't suppress free expression Inside Higher Ed

When Colleges Confine Free Speech to a ‘Zone,’ It Isn’t Free ACLU

***LEGAL ISSUES

Wave of concussion lawsuits to test NCAA's liability Associated Press

Too Many Graduates at some Law Schools Fail to pass the Bar USA Today

What’s New With Emoji Law? Technology & Marketing Law Blog

***CRIME

Why Thieves Target Gun Stores The New Yorker

Cab driver prevents 87-year-old grandmother from sending thousands of dollars in gift cards to scammer pretending to be her grandson locked up in jail Boston CBS

Scammer threatens Elderly Couple: Discovers on way to prison one is Ex-CIA and the other a former FBI director WHNT

***REALLY?!

For $20, Wildlife Images will put your ex's name on a salmon and feed it to a bear KTVL

Man Wanted By Police for Selling Fake Super Bowl Tickets to His Own Family (He made nearly $1 million) Fatherly

***RELIGION

How highly religious Americans view evolution depends on how they’re asked about it Pew Research Center

Chris Pratt, Justin Bieber, and the rise of the “cool” Christian celebrity Vox

Cross washed ashore in FL may have floated from NC memorial Miami Herald

The Church With the $6 Billion Portfolio New York Times

Half of Millennial Christians Say It’s Wrong to Evangelize Christianity Today

***RELIGION OUTSIDE THE U.S.

The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers The Guardian

Russia sentences a Jehovah's Witness to 6 years in a penal colony: Human rights groups call the charges a farce CNN

***RELIGION & LGBTQ

United Methodists face vote on LGBTQ issues. Will it rip the church apart? Chicago Tribune

Win for Christian Group at Iowa: Judge says university cannot deny recognition because of antigay rules Inside Higher Ed

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Trump emerges as an unexpected champion in the White House for evangelicals ABC News

When Christian Evangelicals Loved Socialism Jstor

***GOOD NEWS

Five-year-old quadruple amputee set to take on half-marathon after losing all four limbs to meningitis SWNS

My disabled son’s amazing gaming life in the World of Warcraft BBC

When a Newton family welcomed a baby who is deaf, 20 neighbors learned sign language Boston Globe

Father organises heavy metal festival for his music-loving son Mason, who has cerebral palsy My Good Planet

Two hundred strangers attended Holocaust survivor’s funeral Washington Post

This 92-year-old Wayne firefighter has been battling blazes since WWII NorthJersey.com

Snowball fight! Hundreds show up for epic battle at Tacoma park Q-13

***ART & DESIGN

How artists with disabilities are re-imagining art and tech Immerse

The Secret Lives of Color 99% Invisible

10 Insights on the State of Visual Storytelling in 2019 Aetka

***MUSIC

How Focus Music Hacks Your Brain Cheddar

How To Find The Right Musical Instrument For You Infographic

***FILM

11 Facts About Blazing Saddles on Its 45th Anniversary Metal Floss

Steven Soderbergh’s ‘High Flying Bird’ and the Rise of iPhone Films The Ringer

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

20 years, 700 victims: Southern Baptist sexual abuse spreads as leaders resist reforms Houston Chronicle

New Tribes Missions Covered up sexual abuse, say missionary kids NBC News

Leavenworth judge blames children in Kansas sex abuse case The Kansas City Star

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

Why You Should Work Less and Spend More Time on Hobbies Harvard Business Review

How much you'll need to retire at 55 in every state Digg

***FAMILY

Ultimate Guide To Teen Slang For Parents Daily Infographic

***ENVIRONMENT

The magnetic field near the Arctic is acting weird The Verge

Are We Watching the End of the Monarch Butterfly? New York Times

***HEALTH

Higher education won't prevent mental decline, study finds NBC News

Five-year survival rates for nearly all cancers are on the rise Our World in Data

How it feels to be obese The Atlantic

FDA sends warning letters to 17 companies for 'illegally selling' products claiming to treat Alzheimer's CNBC

Hospital Mergers Improve Health? Evidence Shows the Opposite New York Times

***HEALTH & VACCINES

Why measles is back, in five charts Popular Science

Coming of Age Unvaccinated The number of parents seeking exemptions from having their children vaccinated is rising in several states Undark

Hundreds rally to preserve right not to vaccinate children amid measles outbreak WCTV

Measles outbreaks are everywhere: Here's what you need to know Popular Science

***HEALTH TECHNOLOGY

New disease surveillance tool helps detect any human virus Broad Institute

Self-charging pacemakers are powered by patients' heartbeats Engadget

First dexterous hand prosthesis implanted Chalmers

First-ever in-body gene editing of a live patient Associated Press

Defying Parents, A Teen Decides To Get Vaccinated NPR

***TRAVEL

Travel Tips from a Guy Who Travels Kinda Often Subtraction

5 best trips for solo travelers CNN

Southwest's Plan to Launch Flights to Hawaii Could Start a Fare War to the Aloha State Fortune

***FOOD

8 Foods You've Been Eating All Wrong Metal Floss

Incorrect things We Believed About Food 25 Years Ago (video)

Map Shows the Most Popular Girl Scout Cookie in Each State Fatherly

***ANIMALS

Colorado Runner Kills Mountain Lion In Self-Defense NPR

Scientists Are Totally Rethinking Animal Cognition The Atlantic

***SCIENCE

19 Common Things Science Hasn’t Figured Out Mental Floss

Harvard's top astronomer says an alien ship may be among us Boston.com

For Darwin Day, 6 facts about the evolution debate Pew Research Center

***PSYCHOLOGY

Why keeping secrets may be damaging your mental health Scientific American

The myth of Ted Bundy as a charming guy The Outline

How to Talk to a Friend Struggling With Their Mental Health Life Hacker

Laughter is a uniquely human – and collective – activity Aeon

***PHILOSOPHY

Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life The Week

3 philosophers set up a booth on a street corner – here’s what people asked The Conversation

***HISTORY

The deadly race to the South Pole (video)

***RESEARCH

Call for retraction of 400 scientific papers amid fears organs came from Chinese prisoners The Guardian

Reflections on Citation Mania ACS Energy Letters ACS

NIH asks federal watchdog to investigate 12 allegations related to foreign influence of biomedical research Science Magazine

What is the single major threat to research integrity?” Experts weigh in Clinical Chemistry

***HIGHER ED

Large donation to a small community college changes the outlook on fund-raising by two-year institutions Inside Higher Ed

Most evangelical college students appreciate LGBT people even if trustees don’t (opinion) Religious News Service

***HUMANITIES

Can larger liberal arts colleges learn from the successes and missteps of small art schools? Inside Higher Ed

As STEM majors soar at UW, interest in humanities shrinks — a potentially costly loss Seattle Times

***TEACHING

Should You Allow Laptops in Class? Here’s What the Latest Study Adds to That Debate Chronicle of Higher Ed

College professor tells students that family deaths CANNOT be used as an excuse to miss an exam - and advises them to drop his class if they think a relative MIGHT die that semester Daily Mail

Do Racial Epithets Have Any Place in the Classroom? A Professor’s Suspension Fuels That Debate Chronicle of Higher Ed

***STUDENT LIFE

Towson University police warn of a woman on the loose, looking for a date for her son Baltimore Sun

Teens don't use Facebook, but they can't escape it, either Wired

Colleges tracking online interaction NEWS-5

Here’s Why So Many Americans Feel Cheated By Their Student Loans BuzzFeed News

The Silly Stereotypes That Elite-College Students Have About Other Campuses The Atlantic

The Sexualized Messages Dress Codes are Sending to Students Pudding

Tuition or food? How college kids use food pantries to help food insecurity USA Today

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Tenure is again at risk in Iowa Inside Higher Ed

Why left and right both get the meaning of academic freedom wrong Washington Post

February 08, 2019

Assume They’re Wrong

February 08, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

From military predictions to technological predictions to sports predictions, when experts foretell the future, it’s always safest to assume they’re wrong.

Because they are deeply knowledgeable in a particular field, experts are more prone than others to view the world through a too-narrow lens, assuming that the current trends they understand so well are indicators of what is to come. Their expertise reinforces their confidence in their own analysis, blinding them to contrary data or disconfirming evidence.

As you listen to their smart, persuasive, credible prophecies, just remember: Most of them, most of the time, will be wrong. (You can take my word for it. After all, I’m an expert.)

Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe

February 07, 2019

The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion. -Paulo Coelho

February 07, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

February 06, 2019

Four simple words

February 06, 2019/ Stephen Goforth

During nearly 20 years writing about health, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of top medical experts about how to live well. What I’ve learned from all of them can be summed up in four simple words.

Move. Nourish. Refresh. Connect.

Tara Parker-Pope writing in the New York Times