The point of modern propaganda
/The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth. -Former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Articles of interest about journalism, fakes, social media & more - Nov 27
/***THE VIRUS
Their Teeth Fell Out. Was It Another Covid-19 Consequence? ($)
Evidence Builds That an Early Mutation Made the Pandemic Harder to Stop ($)
Oxford Covid vaccine hit 90% success rate thanks to dosing error
***JOURNALISM
Will journalists be considered front-line workers for COVID-19 vaccines?
Five Things I Learned Writing for a Newspaper
COVID-19 cases are increasing while interest in COVID-19 news drops
Journalists are facing threats, even in metro Phoenix (opinion)
The moral argument for diversity in newsrooms is also a business argument — and you need both
***OAN
YouTube temporarily suspends, demonetizes OANN
OAN Is So Dangerous Because It Looks Like a Real News Channel
An OAN Host Has Been Helping Rudy With Trump’s Legal Efforts
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
It’s time to hold editors accountable for harassed news workers
Apple is reducing the cut it takes from most news publishers’ subscriptions
Journalists face volatile media landscape
NYT and WaPo digital subscriptions tripled since 2016
BuzzFeed set to acquire HuffPost
***WRITING & READING
Oxford English Dictionary couldn't pick just one 'word of the year' for 2020
Malcolm X Biography Wins National Book Award
ViacomCBS sells Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House for $2 billion
2020 National Book Awards winners announced
***FAKES & FRAUDS
Our parents warned us the internet would break our brains. It broke theirs instead
Designed to Deceive: Do These People Look Real to You? ($)
How Taiwan is Beating Political Disinformation
Jupyter trojan: Newly discovered malware stealthily steals usernames and passwords
What Happened to the Deepfake Threat to the Election?
Debunking claims of election rigging (video)
China’s ‘paper mills’ are grinding out fake scientific research at an alarming rate
***SOCIAL MEDIA
Parler, the “free speech” Twitter wannabe, explained
Snapchat launches a TikTok-like feed called Spotlight, kick-started by paying creators
Social media companies all starting to look the same
Instagram cautiously considers paying publishers
How social media made us isolated, scared, and tribal
***PRIVACY & SECURITY
Citizens are turning face recognition on unidentified police
‘The cameras are always on’: Student surveillance and privacy protection in the age of e-learning
Citizens are turning face recognition on unidentified police
***LITERATURE
Unseen JRR Tolkien essays on Middle-earth coming in 2021
***POETRY
China Disappeared my professor. It can’t silence his poetry
Happy 100th anniversary to the poem that every writer needs to know
Kwame Alexander Offers New Poems On Race And Hope As 'Psalms And Balms' For The Soul
We are going to have a president who quotes poetry
Abolishing God
/Sometimes a nation abolishes God, but fortunately, God is more tolerant.
The Power of Labels
/Most patients take too much responsibility for the wrong things, and not enough responsibility for those things about which they can do something. Furthermore, on the positive side, the naming (of their condition) helps the patient feel allied with a vast movement which is "science"; and, also, he is not isolated any more since all kinds of other people have the same problem that he has. The naming assures him that he therapist has an interest in him and is willing to act as his guide through purgatory. Naming the problem is tantamount to the therapist's saying, "Your problem can be known, it has causes; you can stand outside and look at it."
But the greatest danger in the therapeutic process lies right here: that the naming for the patient will be used not as a aid for change, but as a substitute for it. He may stand off and get a temporary security by diagnosis, labels, talking about symptoms, and then be relieved of the necessity of using will in action and in loving. This plays into the hands of modern man's central defense, namely intellectualizing- using words as substitutes for feelings and experience. The word skates always on the edge of the danger of covering up the daimonic as well as disclosing it.
Rollo May, Love & Will
The side of desire
/When there’s a muddled message, you don’t err on the side of safety. You err on the side of desire. -Maria Konnikova, quoted in The Atlantic
Articles of interest about higher ed - Nov 23
/***THE VIRUS
Puzzling, often debilitating after-effects plaguing COVID-19 "long-haulers"
COVID Symptoms Usually Appear in This Order, Study Finds
Nurses, doctors use social media to plead for public to take COVID-19 seriously as cases surge
***HIGHER ED & THE VIRUS
Coronavirus cases on college campuses spike, linked to parties
Contact Tracers Are On Front Lines Of Fight Against COVID-19 On Campus
Many colleges are now announcing new shifts to online learning
***THE VIRUS AT SPECIFIC SCHOOLS
University of Alabama considers requiring all staff, students to return to campus in January
Innovative coronavirus testing let Duke keep its doors open
University of Wyoming to move classes online starting Monday
Columbia University bans 70 students for Covid-19 travel violations
As coronavirus cases surge, Cal Poly students head home
***LAYOFFS & FURLOUGHS
Layoffs could continue during second phase of cuts, George Washington University officials say
New Mexico State University delivers update on budgeting and potential employee cuts
Marquette University employees protest potential layoffs amid COVID-19 pandemic
The lowest-paid workers in higher education are suffering the highest job losses ($)
University job losses mirror pain of unequal recession ($)
***COLLEGE FINANCES
College Temporarily Suspends Employee Retirement Contributions
Virginia Tech loses $60 million as pandemic hits budget
Is College Worth It? Decoding New Approaches to Calculating ROI
Top USF faculty question budget cuts. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
***HIGHER ED & POLITICS
What Jill Biden’s Dissertation Reveals About Her Approach to Higher Education
Biden wants to scrap Betsy DeVos' rules on sexual assault in schools. It won't be easy.
Biden’s Education Department Will Move Fast to Reverse Betsy DeVos’s Policies
***HIGHER ED
Many colleges and universities not returning to class after Thanksgiving
University of Arizona plans to acquire Ashford University moves forward
***HUMANITIES
Humanities tell us we were made for times like these
***TEACHING
Homework Is Bad, Research Confirms
***ONLINE CHEATING
Colleges Say They Don’t Need Exam Surveillance Tools to Stop Cheating
How Do I Deal With Cheating in the Age of Zoom? ($)
Students Have To Jump Through Absurd Hoops To Use Exam Monitoring Software
Students rebel over remote test monitoring during the pandemic ($)
Student surveillance and online proctoring
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Academic Senate Votes to Censure Eugenics Professor at California State University, East Bay
Faculty pandemic stress is now chronic
Virginia professor resigns after Facebook post calls Biden supporters 'anti-Christian'
Dear Professor, how honest are you?
***ADMINISTRATORS
Larry Dietz to retire as Illinois State University president in June
Deep Budget and Program Cuts Roil Guilford
State college board announces new president for Jackson State University
TCC Provost Madeline Pumariega named president of Miami
***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to take up Gordon College discrimination suit
Fewer International Students at Christian Colleges
What Poetry Taught Wheaton’s New Provost About Leadership
Facebook post by Virginia Wesleyan dean asks Biden voters to “unfriend” him, causes an uproar at university
Developer shows plans for Moody Bible property
336 quarantine at Indiana Wesleyan
Following end of federal oversight, a Catholic University will no longer recognize faculty union
Surfing course at Point Loma Nazarene University
***RESEARCH
Biomedical observations are often misrepresented in the scientific literature
The expert crowd review solution
Only 24% of the 266 Carnegie R1 and R2 Universities had publicly available authorship policies
Researcher photoshops his name onto a Nature Communications paper
Journals flag concerns in three dozen papers by nutrition researchers
Pharmaceutical advertising biases media reports on drug safety
Author blames “multitasking dementia” for duplicated cancer paper
***STUDENT LIFE
Report: Student Satisfaction Down, but They Still Plan to Enroll
Harvard graduate students demand a ban on Trump officials, Then the pushback began
Many college students adhere to COVID rules, but some are 'reckless' and 'irresponsible'
College kids are going hungry — states can help
Academics, video game makers team up in rare collaboration
***STUDENTS & THANKSGIVING
College students urged not to travel home for Thanksgiving amid COVID-19
How Can My College Student Come Home Safely for Thanksgiving?
Indiana officials emphasize caution for students headed home
***STUDENT APPLICATIONS
College applicants are down, especially among low-income students, Common App says
Pandemic pushes steep drop in foreign college students
***FREE SPEECH
GOP student group's tweets don't violate university policy, Iowa State says
Why Charges Against Protesters Are Being Dismissed by the Thousand
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
LSU mishandled sexual misconduct complaints against students, including top athletes
***RACIAL ISSUES ON CAMPUS
A Maryland college honors the lives of enslaved people
California State University faculty, administrators remain at odds over ethnic studies requirement
Appeals Court Rules Harvard Can Use Race-Based ‘Tips’ During Admissions Process
UC Berkeley removed the names of 'racist' figures from two of its buildings
Alexandria turns Controversy into Opportunity by Teaching the history of Confederate Namesakes
Self-renewal & great conviction
/The self-renewing person is highly motivated. The walls that hem us in as we grow older forms channels of least resistance. If we stay in the channels, all is easy. To get out requires some extra drive, enthusiasm or energy.
Everyone has noted the abundant resources of energy that seem available to those who enjoy what they are doing or find meaning in what they are doing. Self-renewing people know that if they have no great conviction about what they are doing they had better find something that they can have great conviction about. All of us cannot spend all of our time pursuing or deepest convictions. But all of us, either in our careers or as part-time activities, should be doing something about which we care deeply.
John Gardner, Self-Renewal
Never too Late
/It is never too late to be what you might have been. -George Eliot (born Nov. 22, 1819)
Reframing
/Reframe the other side’s accusations as opportunities to talk about problems.
A cloud of Atoms
/If (my wife) 'is not,' then she never was. I mistook a cloud of atoms for a person. There aren't, and never were, any people. Death only reveals the vacuity that was always there. What we call the living are simply those who have not yet been unmasked. All equally bankrupt, but some not yet declared. But this must be nonsense; vacuity revealed to whom? Bankruptcy declared to whom? To other boxes of fireworks or clouds of atoms. I will never believe — more strictly I can't believe — that one set of physical events could be, or make, a mistake about other sets.
CS Lewis, A Grief Observed
The limits of reason
/Reason is not omni-competent.
Articles of interest about religion (and the virus) - Nov 19
/***THE VIRUS
Lockdowns could be avoided if 95% of people wore masks, says WHO
Covid-19 Expert: Americans Will Start Dying in ER Waiting Rooms
The Coronavirus Is Airborne Indoors. But We’re Still Scrubbing Surfaces. ($)
38 percent of Americans planning on having Thanksgiving dinner with 10 or more people
Coronavirus invades men’s reproductive organs, can affect their fertility
'Breakthrough finding' reveals why certain Covid-19 patients die
Is it safe to eat at outdoor restaurants with tents and barriers?
***RELIGION & THE VIRUS
Televangelist who blamed COVID-19 on premarital sex dies from virus
***RELIGION AND POLITICS
In 2018, Worldwide Government Restrictions on Religion Reach Highest Level in More Than a Decade
How Biden swung the religious vote
Family split over son’s support of Trump politics threatens Billy Graham’s legacy
Evangelicals in Midwest who ditched Trump cost him the election, early data suggests
Trump wins white evangelicals, Catholics split
Sekulow-run Christian charities steered $65M to the Trump lawyer and his family
***EVANGELICAL CHANGES
Why the Partisan Divide? The U.S. Is Becoming More Secular—and More Religious
Trump has changed the way evangelical Christians think about the apocalypse
The Evangelical Reckoning Begins ($)
Why Evangelicals Aren't What They Used to Be
Christian Conservatives Respond to Trump’s Loss and Look Ahead
***CATHOLIC
Sainted too soon? Vatican report fast John Paul II in harsh new light
Catholics divided as bishops examine Biden’s abortion stance
***MEGACHURCHES
US Megachurches Are Getting Bigger and Thinking Smaller
Bigger Than Its Pastor: What Hillsong's Post-Carl Lentz Future Looks Like
L.A. megachurch pastor mocks pandemic health orders, even as church members fall ill
***RELIGION
Sony acquires faith-based streaming service
Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, as E-mailed by Your Passive-Aggressive Co-Worker
When praise is a detriment to learning
/Certain kinds of verbal praise can be detrimental to learning. Young children who constantly hear “person” praise (“you’re so smart to do this well”) as opposed to “task” praise (“you did that well”) are more likely to believe that intelligence is fixed rather than expandable with hard work. When they subsequently face setbacks after receiving person praise, their views of intelligence can cause them to develop a sense of helplessness (“I’m not as smart as I once thought I was”).
When researchers asked these children to describe what made them feel smart, they talked about tasks they found easy, that required little effort, and they could do before anyone else without making mistakes. In contrast, their peers who they thought they got smarter by trying harder and learning new things said they felt intelligent when they didn’t understand something, tried really hard, and then go it, or figured out something new.
In other words, the children with the fixed view of intelligence and a sense of helplessness felt smart only when they avoided those activities most likely to help them learn – struggling, grappling, and making mistakes.
These children are likely to have “performance goals”. They want to achieve perfection or get the “right” answer to impress other people because they want to appear to be one of the “smart people”. They are afraid of making mistakes. They will often carefully calculate how much they need to achieve to win the proper praise and do no more than that, for fear that they might fail in the eyes of others. Some of these people do excel by some standards, but they still achieve primarily for the sake of that external recognition and fall short of where they might go.
In contrast, students who believe that they can become more intelligent by learning (a “mastery orientation’) often work essentially to increase their own competence (adopting “learning goals”), not to win rewards. They are more likely to take risks in learning, to try harder tasks, and consequently learn more than children who are performance-oriented.
Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do
Most Completely Alive
/It is when we are in transition that we are most completely alive. I have often asked groups of individuals that I am working with to introduce themselves, one to another, referring only to those things that are not changing in their lives.
The results is a soft murmur of voices talking about where they live and how many children they have and what kind of work they do. After everyone has had a few minutes of that, I ask them to reintroduce themselves to each other, speaking this time only of the things that are changing in their lives.
There is usually a moment of nervous laughter, then a little pause, then there is a wave of talk about the gains and losses that they are experiencing. Before a minute has passed, voices are rising and falling. Intonations are full of energy. There is laughter. Hands are moving in gesture.
Without fail, the second introduction is far more alive than the first—even though it is by what is not changing in our lives that we customarily define ourselves or are defined by the academics who want to describe us in terms of the categories we fall into.
If you asked the people who had done the two introductions, most of them would say that they are tied of things changing all the time and that they wish that their lives would settle down. Yet it is when they talk about all the changes that they are most animated and energized.
Actually, it is not the fact of being in transition that most people mind, but rather that they cannot place their experience of being in transition within any larger, meaningful context.
William Bridges, The Way of Transitions
When worry paralyzes
/Worry can literally paralyze us, sapping our energy and strength. People who worry are not merely concerned about their present and future circumstances; they have a mental agenda of the way things must occur. The worrier’s mind is so captivated by what ought or ought not to be, that he can only respond with duress and despair when situations displease him.
Les Carter, Imperative People: Those Who Must Be in Control
The real voyage of discovery
/The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
Articles of interest about journalism, fakes, frauds, and more - Nov 13
/***JOURNALISM
NY Governor Cuomo Signs Anti-SLAPP Law
Ruth Shalit just wrote for the Atlantic. Would readers know it from the byline?
The Brown Institute’s Local News Lab is developing “smart paywalls” for local newsrooms
The Atlantic makes a whopper of a correction to story
ESPN Confirms Future Shut Down of Esports Editorial Operations
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
About 500 people are taking buyouts at Gannett
Nearly 2,800 newspaper companies received paycheck protection loans, and most were under $150K
Gun-toting St. Louis couple sue news photographer over infamous image
***FAKES & FRAUDS
Inside the Bizarre Publishing Ring That Linked 5G to Coronavirus
Why the Hydroxychloroquine Myth Persists
Pre-bunkers have been found to be more effective than debunking
What’s the “greatest” scientific fraud of all time?
Fact-Checked on Facebook and Twitter, Conservatives Switch Their Apps
***ELECTION FRAUD
One America News spreads debunked elections claims
How claims of voter fraud were supercharged by bad science
The Times Called Officials in Every State: No Evidence of Voter Fraud
***QANON
House GOP leader defends newly elected members who have supported QAnon
The QAnon conspiracy theory faces an identity crisis
How QAnon uses satanic rhetoric to set up a narrative of ‘good vs. evil’
Judge: QAnon Conspiracy Theorists Can’t Force YouTube to Carry Their Videos
***FREE SPEECH
Supreme Court throws out First Amendment ruling against Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson
Trademarks and the First Amendment: Litigation Trends
***PRIVACY & SECURITY
Facial recognition used to arrest protestor at Trump bible photo op
FTC Reaches Settlement With Zoom Over Privacy, Security Issues
***LANGUAGE
Paranormal claims and other pseudoscience often bedevil the study of language
Oxford dictionaries change 'sexist' and outdated definitions of the word 'woman'
***LITERATURE
The Meaning of a College Literature Class — During a Pandemic and Always
Five famous doctors in literature
***POETRY
The Poem That Inspired Radical Black Women to Organize
The Poet’s Tree Serves Up Weekly Interviews, Performance, Activities
A poor self-image
/A poor self-image is not to be equated with humility or the mark of a servant. -Charles Swindoll