1. Our avatars, our projected selves — A Jezebel bit about how men respond to female avatars, and a discussion of racism and sexism in Second Life. Rather predictable, but still something to talk about. One blogger inaccurately cites another writer’s claim that 40 percent of the folks come to SL looking for sexual activity. The writer corrects the mistake; a more accurate number would be closer to 15 percent.  Sorry, I call BS on that. If you have to purchase genitals for your avatar, you can bet there’s lots of sexual content to do with that purchase.

2. Seven answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense — A difficult read, and even more difficult to restate. That’s part of the problem with this controversy. The contrarians suffer from conspiracy theory-itis, as the article rightly observes. You cannot disprove a conspiracy theory to any supporter’s satisfaction. Witness Orly Taitz. This science is too complicated to follow for either the mythical “man on the street” who might have doubts, or the open-minded listener who might be skeptical of Fox News talking points. A student in my class pointed out that scrutinizing credibility is the only way to determine the legitimacy of knowledge anymore. Yet, we have dozens of well respected, top-notch scientists, scientific organizations, and research saying that global warming is a fact, and we have millions of unconvinced folks staring in the face of that research and saying, “Gosh, it’s cold. So much for global warming.”

3. Fox New: Protecting your Children from the Liberal College Menace (Gawker) — Funny critique of a Tucker Carlson/Fox’s anti-liberal rant. One of the comments said it best: “Well, the obvious solution is sending your home-schooled kids to home-college.” Lulz.

4. 6 insane coincidences you wont’ believe actually happened — Fun stuff.

5.  Tim Wise on the word nigger/nigga — Tim Wise is smart, and he nails race issues admirably. In this YouTube clip, he explains why white people shouldn’t use “the N-word.” It’s probably one of the best, most teachable explanations.

6. NYU Business School Professor has Mastered the Art of Email Flaming — Beautiful, on so many levels. The slip-n-slide of the education customer/provider in the email exchange is quite amusing. Even though I wholly oppose this BS, I secretly wish I had the guts to do this to an occasional student. Also, the comment rewriting the email in Mamet style is spot on.

7. BBC Commercial — hysterical. We would never have a commercial like this here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.