teaching: March 2007 Archives

I'm assigning an essay by Thomas de Zengotita to the College Writing class for reading this weekend. It was originally published in Harper's (one of my favorites), and is summarized in a blog called How to Save the World. (The same entry also mentions "Carnival of the Capitalists" and "Warren Buffett pays his taxes," both of interest.)

de Zengotita asserts:

He continues, "Remember that T-shirt from the eighties that said "High on Stress"? It was sort of true and sort of a way to bluff it out and sort of a protest - it had that 'any number of meanings' quality we now prefer to depth. That's because the any-number-of-meanings quality keeps you in motion, but depth asks you to stop."

As I've been thinking about how to continue blogging (a.k.a., how to continue writing), I find inspiration from my students and other writers. (It doesn't hurt that a friend actually confessed to reading my blog once-in-awhile, a secret he has been keeping because he doesn't want me to ask him to become more involved, as if I would ever do such a thing!) Natalie Goldberg encourages us "to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist" (Writing Down the Bones, p. 43).

"Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. We live and die, age beautifully or full of wrinkles. We wake in the morning, buy yellow cheese, and hope we have enough money to pay for it. At the same instant we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all sorrow and all winters we are alive on earth. We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter" (emphasis added, p. 44).

The Association of Internet Researchers had a brief exchange over this BBC story, Fake professor in Wikipedia storm.

The question is whether wikipedia is inherently weak in structure or simply fated to be exploited like any organization by overzealous and/or unscrupulous persons. There is a public/private angle here too, and I'm curious about Kevin's comment about the wikipedia community's attempt to redress the situation.

Homero Gil de Zuniga: Once again Wikipedia raises controversy by the weakness of its very structure. Although I guess that it is the same structure that makes it an attractive global encyclopedia.

Kevin Guidry of mistaken goal: "I would humbly suggest that humans [were] (a) lying and deceiving one another and (b) making poor choices long before Wikipedia or the Internet were invented. The very public manner in which this has been discovered and dealt with is, in my mind, a strength of the system. There are definitely weaknesses and flaws in the system but I'm not sure it's fair to lay them at the feet of Wikipedia as a whole or suggest (without evidence) that this is inherent in or endemic to the system.
But it sure is interesting to watch the community react and attempt
to change the system in response to this challenge!"

Michael Zimmer: "I don't see this as a fundamental flaw with Wikipedia's structure - faked credentials (and improper vetting of them) can plague almost any organization or community:

* Michael Brown at FEMA: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/
0,8599,1103003,00.html
* George O'Leary (football coach): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
George_O%27Leary#Notre_Dame_Controversy
* "Security consultant" posing as Fed Agent to stalk "Brangelina":
http://www.tmz.com/2006/09/14/fake-fed-wanted-to-get-near-brangelina/

And, of course, it was the New Yorker (who has greater resources for
fact-checking) who got fooled here just as much as the Wikipedia
community....""

Any technology seems unfathomable at first. This youtube clip revisits the advent of the book. The clip has garnered such fame it made the television news.

Sortof reminds me of the inspirational quote and illustrative chart emailed today by my good friend, Toad:

"No matter how different we all are from each other, we more or less ride on the same curve (at different speeds though). :)"

(If you want to see the rest of the cartoon, click the datetime stamp below: 8:42 PM)

Meanwhile, our Max Planck post-doc pal sends this reminder that some curves might be disjoint.

My students in College Writing have nearly completed the first essay on identity. Some of them engage time directly, other student authors include or rely on some concept or relation of time with identity only by implication. Most of the authors conceive of identity as an artifact generated or created, conditioned or limited, by the past. A few suggest a role for "the future" in their own identity, but how the future can influence identity in the present needs explanation.

I received the link to this online video clip, Did you know, from two sourcess within the last week: one describes it as "an awesome summary" and the other source calls it "evolutionary information."

The clip is a little more than six minutes' worth of estimates concerning various global conditions intended to provoke - perhaps even mobilize - thought.