Christopher Hitchens died this week

The world lost an irreplaceable writer when Christopher Hitchens finally lost his battle with cancer this week. Only 62 when he died, Hitch wrote books, essays, articles, and was still churning out content in the weeks leading up to his death. The love has been pouring out of the media, particularly the publications he wrote for like Vanity Fair, Atlantic, and Slate.

 His Slate editor did a lovely round-up of some of his best stuff through the years, including his scathing obituary of Jerry Falwell. (It's incredible; here's the first line: "The discovery of the carcass of Jerry Falwell on the floor of an obscure office in Virginia has almost zero significance, except perhaps for two categories of the species labeled 'credulous idiot.'") And don't miss Hitch's instructions on how to make tea. (John Lennon and Yoko Ono did it wrong, apparently.)

But my favorite is this list of the 15 most memorable things to come out of his pen. He was an incredibly smart, concise writer. Some of the shorter favorites:

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

"If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox."

And, of course,

"The four most overrated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics."

We'll miss you, Hitch.

The problem with standardized testing

First of all, there are many problems, too many to list in this blog post. But if you feel like getting up in arms today about standardized testing (why not?), read this article in today's Washington Post. A school board member -- a successful, wealthy adult -- took his state's 10th grade standardized test. He failed miserably, casting light on the specific problem of practical usage in these tests. What possible value could these questions (and therefore these test results) have for predicting aptitude, intelligence, or future success? Here's an excerpt from an email he wrote to the author of the article:

“If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had. 

“It makes no sense to me that a test with the potential for shaping a student’s entire future has so little apparent relevance to adult, real-world functioning. Who decided the kind of questions and their level of difficulty? Using what criteria? To whom did they have to defend their decisions? As subject-matter specialists, how qualified were they to make general judgments about the needs of this state’s children in a future they can’t possibly predict? Who set the pass-fail 'cut score'? How?”

“I can’t escape the conclusion that decisions about the [state test] in particular and standardized tests in general are being made by individuals who lack perspective and aren’t really accountable.”

In a nutshell:

I don't know the answer. But while "standardized testing" has become an evil word in American education, we continue to use it, flaws and all. And the problem intensifies lower down in the socioeconomic food chain. At this point, you'd better hope you're a monkey.

Medill Dean John Lavine Steps Down

Medill Dean John Lavine is leaving behind some unfinished business.

Medill Dean John Lavine sent an email today to the Medill alumni listserv announcing he's stepping down from his post next August.

He doesn't really offer a reason other than focusing on other initiatives and spending more time with his wife. That's certainly possible, though of course it's curious that he's leaving the program at this point in the transition from pre-Lavine to a realization of his magnum opus, the "Medill 2020" plan (of which I'm admittedly not always a fan).

In fact, Dean Lavine mentions in the letter that "we've accomplished far more than was envisioned in our Medill 2020 plan." I'm not really sure what that means, but I would point out that it's only 2011, so maybe an itemized list of what we've actually accomplished (besides RenameGate) might shed some light on the depth of water we've been treading the last few years. And of course, this amplifies the question of where we'll go from here. A lot depends, I suppose, on who is chosen to succeed him.

We wait with bated breath. The letter is pasted below.

-----

from John Lavine
to MEDILLALUMS@listserv.it.northwestern.edu
date Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 9:05 AM
subject Future Plans -- A Note to the Medill Community


Dear Colleagues and Members of the Medill Community,

Six years ago, President Bienen and Provost Dumas asked if I would lead the implementation of a new strategy for Medill. In the years that followed, we have joined together to deepen the quality of our curricula, provide our students with the best educational opportunities in the country and strengthen and diversify our offerings and resources.

Now, I’m writing to tell you that I have shared with President Schapiro and Provost Linzer my decision to step down as Medill's Dean on August 31, 2012. I do so knowing we have a faculty, staff and curricula no other school can match.

When I became dean, journalism and marketing communications were being roiled by a digital tsunami, and soon thereafter, by one of the worst economic downturns in a century. In the midst of these difficult circumstances, we adopted unprecedented curricular change. Northwestern supported our plan with the addition of more faculty and staff with new skills, knowledge, and experience than at any time in Medill’s history.

It has been quite an odyssey. Together we’ve accomplished far more than was envisioned in our Medill 2020 plan. Along the way, we’ve faced and overcome major challenges, as well as some controversies; when you undertake seismic change, both are inevitable.

What counts is the progress we’ve made, the foundation for the future that we’ve built, and the validation of what we’ve done from external sources -- including leaders of the industries we serve and the unprecedented evaluation last spring from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. Our faculty and curricula lead the country. Despite the tough economy, employers here and abroad seek out our graduates, and Northwestern University Qatar, our undergraduate school in Doha, is about to graduate its first class.

You are terrific colleagues. I treasure the opportunity to have worked with you, and I’m excited about completing the big projects we have before us this coming year.

When I step down, I will focus on an initiative that is also close to my heart -- examining how the media can determine if people are truly informed by the content they provide, and seeking out new ways for the news media to remain viable. I’ll have more to share about this work in the future.

I will also spend more time with my wonderful wife, Meryl. As busy as we’ve both been in our careers – and as much as she has been central to all that I’ve done in my professional life – now, more than ever, we cherish having more personal time together.

Warm regards,

John

Stephen Colbert at Northwestern last weekend

Northwestern alum Stephen Colbert gave the commencement address to the class of 2011 in Evanston last weekend. There are many, many great pull-quotes...

"[Northwestern] represents humanity at its best. And on Dillo Day, it represents humanity at its worst...today evidently armadillos are honored by drinking Four Loko out of a supersoaker while dancing to the New Pornographers in a drunken mosh pit filled mostly with National Merit finalists."

And it gets better. Totally worth the 20 minutes, I promise.

And if you can't get enough, check out this feature on Colbert from the winter 2010 Northwestern Magazine.

Go 'Cats!

Medill: The Last J-School Standing

This word cloud was created by running Medill's 2008 online course descriptions through Wordle.
See more here.

If you're at all familiar with this blog or the melodramatic happenings at my alma mater, Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism et al, then you've likely formed some opinion of whether a marketing program belongs under the same roof as a journalism program. (Hint: It doesn't.) This week, The Nation's Michael Tracey wrote a 2,000-word piece of despair that places Medill in the center of the downfall of the journalism school (referred to by the affected as "j-school"). He covers a lot of ground, but he makes a few key points: 1) marketing and journalism are "profoundly antithetical enterprises," and their blending in education is not good for the reputation or credibility of journalism; 2) as a leading j-school, Medill's seismic shift spells trouble for the future of all j-schools; and 3) j-schools aren't necessary and we should just do away with them altogether.

(I highly suggest that you read the original article in order to fully appreciate my rage. Look, I'll even give you the link again! Click here!)

Okay, so from the outset, I'll reiterate Tracey's first point, the discomfort with combining marketing and journalism education. Medill has been shoving the two together under the direction of Dean John Lavine, who hit the ground running in 2006 with proposal after proposal that seemed destined to turn Medill into an arm of the Kellogg School of Management. In a symbolic birthing ritual, this spring faculty voted 38-5 to approve a name change from "Medill School of Journalism" to "Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications." (Ugh, it hurts to type.) It's simply a bad idea; just because both journalism and PR/marketing deal with language doesn't mean that they should be lumped together. Tracey quotes director of the Yale Journalism Initiative, Mark Oppenheimer: “We should all be a little concerned that the same schools that teach people to see through bogus claims are also the same schools teaching students how to perpetuate bogus claims.” Right on, totally agreed, no argument here.

The thing that makes me so queasy is that journalism is supposed to be about truth. It's free, it's honorable, it's necessary to functioning society. It is a check on power, a protector of our right to free speech. I loved calling myself a journalist because it made me feel like part of something exciting and cutting-edge and noble. But marketing is about sales. It's about tricking people. It's about convincing consumers they need the newest iPhone, or that a company is socially conscious, or even that this charity is more worthy of your money than another charity. It's about manipulation and persuasion -- a version of the truth, maybe, but not truth. Given, not all journalism is going to clear that bar (hi Bill), but it's at least supposed to try. So that's why everyone (who isn't John Lavine or the 37 other faculty members who voted for the name change) thinks this unholy marriage is a terrible move.

Tracey actually goes off a bit on Dean Lavine, and I felt myself turning into a member of the choir. "Amen," I thought when he recounted the bit of drama a few years ago when an undergrad caught Dean Lavine using unattributed (and very likely false) quotations from students in praise of a Lavine-esque course titled "Advertising: Building Brand Image." It was embarrassing for all involved, and it made Medill look stupid, and I still haven't really forgiven Dean Lavine for that. It was inexcusable.

But I get what he's trying to do. I appreciate that Dean Lavine wants to make sure our $200,000 education is worth it, so he's trying to teach the business aspects of journalism too. How to market your story and yourself to a particular audience. How to manipulate people into reading. It's misguided, but I can see why he thinks that marketing and journalism go hand in hand. But that sort of thing just feels so slimy to a crowd that's being taught to be fiercely objective. We should be talking about paragraph structure and contextual analysis, not branding and pull-quotes.

After fleshing out all the reasons why j-school shouldn't house a marketing program and inflicting some violence on Dean Lavine's reputation, Tracey goes on the offensive against the entire concept of j-school. It's true: you don't need a license to be a journalist. A lot of people who work in the field didn't study journalism, and a lot of people who did study journalism found jobs in other industries. So what's the point? Tracey asks. Anyone can be a journalist, so take that time you're spending "learning" journalism and use it to study other things -- arts, science, whatever you're passionate about. Your proficiency in those passions -- not your knowledge of the inverted pyramid and search-engine optimization -- will make you a good journalist.

I agree that journalists should not be hollow shells resembling people, but active and contributing members of society. Of course we should study other things and become experts in other areas; that's why most people go to j-school, to learn how to tell the stories that interested them in the first place. Some grew up in squalor and dedicate their career to social change journalism; others love numbers and have read the Wall Street Journal cover to cover every day since the age of 11. To each their own. And yes, anyone can be a journalist in the sense that anyone can write words and publish them, usually on the Internet. (Hi mom!)

But Tracey takes an ill-advised leap in suggesting we get rid of j-school altogether. His argument: "Think about the social function of the journalism major. Overtly or not, it creates an implicit regulatory structure, endowing journalism students with the right to manage the university’s newspaper by virtue of their participation in important seminars on media ethics and interview techniques. Conversely, non-journalism students are left with the impression that reporting is best reserved for those who've been formally trained to do it."

To me this is so clear-cut: People who are trained to do something are generally better at it than people who aren't trained to do that thing. You become a better musician by learning about music, you become a better racecar driver by learning about racing, and you become a better journalist by learning about journalism. You don't need a license to practice, but throwing out the entire discipline would be absurd. It suggests that the entire corpus of knowledge -- the history, the ethics of reporting, the art of interviewing and dealing with sensitive subjects, the methods of research, the resources available -- is useless and can be replicated easily without formal training. This would be devolution, a step backward for a discipline that is already so desperately fractured and bleeding. Not to mention it's a slap in the face to me and everyone who majored in journalism, at Medill or elsewhere. I understand that journalism need not be regulated with a gateway fee of a specialized degree, but let's not forget that the specialized degree still has value.

Okay, look. I went to journalism school to learn how to write like a journalist. As luck would have it, the Medill wind shifted as soon as I arrived. Dean Lavine took over at the end of my freshman year from Loren Ghiglione (whose name I had JUST learned how to pronounce, goddammit), and we launched into three years of identity confusion as Dean Lavine tried to basically merge Medill with the Kellogg School of Management. Or at least that's what it felt like. My History and Issues of Journalism course -- a cornerstone of the program -- was reimagined and tag-teamed by three professors in a huge auditorium. We had assigned seats and they actually took attendance -- in a classroom of 150+ students, the entire Medill freshman class. It was a ridiculous exercise and I remember nothing except watching a movie about Edward Murrow.

But Medill does do some things right. The liberal arts education I received at Northwestern was top-notch; most of my peers had a second major (mine was in political science) and we all took courses in art, philosophy, math, science, economics, literature, and so forth. My journalism classes that actually focused on journalism -- literary journalism, magazine writing, law and ethics, and so forth -- blew my mind and forced me to think about the world in a whole new way. I completed two journalism internships, one at an extra-small investigate reporting operation and another at a large consumer technology publication. I got both the breadth and the depth of education that Tracey pines for, and I got it at Medill. You can teach journalism. I know because I was taught journalism. What's much harder to teach is writing, but that's a whole 'nother blog post.

I'm hoping against hope that Medill is going through some sort of teenage phase, but I can't help but feel glum about the future of my alma mater. Like many of my peers, I am not on the journalism track -- but it did directly funnel me in the direction I'm going now as I pursue creative writing. I have friends who work for newspapers and TV stations and magazines, and we still carry on ridiculously nerdy conversations about headlines and AP Style and industry gossip. A piece of me is a journalist, will always be a journalist, and that piece will inform every encounter I have with culture and society and language. For that I thank Medill, and I can do nothing but lament Dean Lavine's agenda and hope it doesn't turn my school into a disgrace.

How to have a discussion

It's kind of pathetic how often "discussion" reverts to "screaming match," particularly when the two sides are so committed to their positions that they'll ignore evidence that contradicts that position in order to preserve it. (Case in point, Congress.)

Below is a nice outline. Let's take note of it, shall we, Mr. O'Reilly?

(click to enlarge)

Putting the fucksaw to bed

The most entertaining (and irrelevant) image to come up when Googling "fucksaw."

The best piece to come out of this fucksaw ordeal was published today in The Awl, written by a former student of Professor Bailey's. Beyond putting this whole stupid thing in perspective, author Joseph Bernstein illustrates why Professor Bailey is to be commended instead of punished.

In fact, my gut reaction to this controversy was to support the professor's decision -- in the name of openness and honesty, in the pursuit of learning -- and now I've pinpointed why: Professor Bailey engages with both his students and the material. He seems to value discovery, no matter the auxiliary (and less important) costs. I loved my time at Northwestern but I realized after I graduated that I spent a lot of time only half-listening, and therefore half-learning. I don't blame anyone -- myself, my professors -- but it's sad to realize that I may have lost opportunities to really transform myself. Graduate school has been a wake-up call in that regard, as I'm sure my increasingly impassioned posts on education in this forum have indicated.

Also, President Schapiro (that's Morty to you) released a nice statement today that happened to mention NUMBALUM President Samir Mayekar. And so this strange circuit, an unholy alliance of Human Sexuality and NUMB, comes full circle, and with a happy ending. (Guffaw.)

Now let's see how long it takes for "fucksaw" to get old. I'm putting my money on retirement around the same time as #tigerblood. At least, let's hope.

--

UPDATE, March 8, 9:16 a.m. - Can't resist one final word from a sex journalist who interviewed the guest speakers at the center of the controversy.

--

UPDATE, March 8, 1:52 p.m. - I mean. I just. I don't know.

Band camp jokes never anticipated this

What a lovely, wholesome photo!

This blog is called Context, and I chose that name deliberately. I think the key to writing, and therefore learning, is understanding the context of a situation. Often misjudgments, misunderstandings and mistakes can be attributed to a lack of contextual consideration.

This week's Northwestern "fucksaw" story is about as good an example as I can conjure.

The background: A much-loved but incredibly controversial large lecture class, Human Sexuality, draws students from all areas of Northwestern because of its promise of titillation mixed with education. It's one of the most candid forums on campus, and the class is intended to provide an environment for discussing even the most taboo sexual topics, from fetishes to the mechanics of an orgasm. I had friends that would discuss the material outside of class, and there was valid educational benefit in the many shocking in-class experiences. (And a lot of snickering.)

On Tuesday the Daily Northwestern reported that a few people were taken aback at a recent live demonstration of a female orgasm in an optional, after-class session. In the process of a Q&A, a guest speaker asked the professor if she might demonstrate, live and in full view, female ejaculation. The professor gave permission, the students were treated to an eyeful, and a woman got off. Other such sessions have featured Q&A's with sex workers and convicted sex offenders, and minutes prior the class watched a graphic video taken of the inside of a woman's vagina. So in context, the spectacle wasn't exactly out of left field.

The Daily's story was picked up by the national press -- notably Gawker (complete with follow-up) -- and the story spread like wildfire, quickly distorting into a story about how "a college professor in Chicago* brought in a woman to masturbate in front of his class." People are up in arms, and the story has made every major news outlet -- MSNBC, Fox News, HuffPo, even the AFP wires.

Hang on. Did you click that last one? Go ahead, I'll wait.

Riddle me this: What the fuck is a picture of the marching band doing next to a story about a sexually charged psychology class?

I can only guess that someone in the AFP wire office was looking for a file photo, and instead of going with a saw of some sort (as favored by Fox & HuffPo, among others) or, I don't know, a headshot of Professor Bailey, they chose a symbol of the university -- the Northwestern University Marching Band, to be precise -- and made a lame attempt at relevancy by citing a "live show" experience. The story with the associated NUMB picture has made it into a few nationwide stories, even reaching across the pond. (Note: It made me really, really happy to not find mention of this story on either CNN or the BBC.)

Now, this probably doesn't bother most people, but as both a journalist and the VP-Publicity for the NUMBALUMS (the alumni club for the marching band), I can't help but feel frustrated. It's twofold: Not only does this represent shoddy, slap-it-together visual reporting, but the story itself has been treated as sensation instead of opening up a genuine dialogue about acceptability in classrooms and the value of experiential education. Maybe I'm being snobby or idealistic, but it'd be nice if my coworkers and even my doctor didn't greet me with a "What the hell is going on at Northwestern??" this morning. People see "sex in a classroom" and immediately (and it's to be expected, I suppose) don't bother to get much further into the story. They don't bother with the context because sex and vilification are more fun. I thought Professor Bailey's letter to the Daily was eloquent and stated his position well. That's the debate I'd like to have.

But all anyone can talk about is the fucksaw.

(By the way, did you know that there's a grindcore band called Fucksaw? Their song titles are delightfully themed. Thanks a million, Google search.)

* And despite our campaign to become "Chicago's Big Ten team," this is still incorrect.

--

UPDATE, 4:58 p.m. - Not so much of an update as an "I should have mentioned" that Professor Bailey received "uniformly positive" feedback from the 100 students (out of the 600-person class) present for the demonstration. Morty, on the other hand, seems to be retracting yesterday's statement that the university stands firmly behind Professor Bailey's actions. It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to guess he's getting pressure from donors. Stay strong, Morty! Also welcome to the party, WSJ.

--

UPDATE, March 4, 1:51 p.m. - We made it on the BBC. Best write-up I've seen, actually.

--

UPDATE, March 7, 11:30 a.m. - Read it here.

Seventy-seven percent left behind

Good morning class! First thing's first: Check out this article, published yesterday in the New York Times.

It's not exactly good news.

The idea that only 23 percent of New York City high schoolers graduate "ready" for college is astounding. So immediately the talk turns to raising standards -- but this seems to be a superficial focus on the end result instead of a directed investment of more time and effort into understanding why the education itself isn't working. It puts the burden on teachers and students to slave over what the answers on the tests will be instead of focusing on why so many kids are failing the set standards. We aren't adjusting education to fit their needs; we're attempting to adjust objective expectations to fit a subjective situation.

These findings also call into question how the standards have changed (indeed, the article even suggests the standards will change again in reaction to these findings); quality of the standards aside, how can we hope to measure success objectively if what we're measuring is constantly shifting? We leave ourselves with no foundation, no ground to get our bearings.

The "shock and hesitation" from local officials would almost be laughable if the article didn't go on to suggest that their primary concern is that real estate value will be affected. It says volumes about the importance placed on the (indirect, more lucrative) end result of education as opposed to the actual process.

And this just seems like wishful thinking: "City education officials said the 23 percent college-ready rate was not a fair measure of how the city would do if graduation requirements were raised to a higher standard, because students would work harder to meet that new bar." Um, what are you smoking, and can I please have some? It's like we're saying, "Sure, the kids aren't meeting the lower standards, but if we raise them then they'll snap out of it and get in gear! There's no way it could backfire and in reality push kids further behind by overwhelming them even more." It's like we have no idea what we're doing.

Am I wrong? Am I overlooking something? Assuming that we like the fact that education is free and available to all in this country, this "new" problem raises the old questions that are central to the education debate: How can we manage American education by setting objective standards in a completely subjective situation? What kind of test can be a probing and comprehensive evaluation of a student's understanding of subject matter? If we can't rely on standardized testing, how do we know kids in the Bronx and Houston and Nashville are getting the same quality of education as kids in LA County and Iowa City and Youngstown? A bar is necessary; how and where do we set it, and then how do we get as many kids over it as possible?

There are far more questions than answers. But one thing is certain: Students aren't failing. The schools are.

--
UPDATE, 2:09 pm: My teaching writing professor sent this article out to our class a few days ago, but I didn't read it until after composing this post. I'm only just beginning to understand how far-reaching the context of this debate is, but I'll be really interested to see what -- if anything -- happens July 28-31 in Washington, DC. And I'm bookmarking John Taylor Gatto's 2008 essay for some light bedtime reading later this week.

Strike a chord; don't pound the keys

In high school I started watching re-runs of The West Wing and dreaming about working in the White House. Specifically, I wanted to be either Press Secretary CJ Cregg or speechwriter Sam Seaborn or, most of all, head speechwriter Toby Ziegler. No one plays a tortured writer quite like Richard Schiff. (For the record, I would have also settled for dating Sam Seaborn. Rob Lowe in his prime, people.)

I'd never before seen speechwriting celebrated as an art apart from any other; this scene in particular is iconic in my mind:

In college I double-majored in journalism and political science, always thinking in the back of my mind of speechwriting but never actually attempting it. I spent a summer interning in the Washington, D.C. office of Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka, working on the Hill during the day and traipsing back to my West End sublet and devouring two or three West Wing episodes a night. Obviously reality didn't have much in common with my favorite TV show, but it was an incredible summer and I came away with a deeper appreciation for the complexities of working in government, particularly in communications.

Yesterday President Obama gave a speech in Tucson at the memorial for the victims of the shooting last Saturday. He's getting praise for it all over the place, and for good reason: It's a really, really phenomenal piece of writing. If you haven't seen it, read the transcript here or watch below:

The speech is emotional but balanced. It is precise and focused and does not take advantage of the situation. Most of all, it's sincere. This is the best speech of Obama's presidency thus far.

I'm a little embarrassed that I don't know more about Obama's speechwriters beyond the fact that a 29-year-old whippersnapper leads the team. Jon Favreau (no, not that one) started as a Kerry intern in 2004 and, six years later, is Obama's Director of Speechwriting. Talk about making me and everyone else under 30 look bad.

Besides an incident last summer wherein Favreau was photographed playing beer pong shirtless (the horror!), he's received mostly positive reviews under the current administration. Favreau was on the Time 100 list and also got some love from GQ and Vanity Fair.

(By the way, Favreau is not the youngest head speechwriter the White House has seen: That would be James Fallows, who wrote for Jimmy Carter in the '80s and has since established himself as a total badass with a pen, writing for the Atlantic Monthly and pumping out top-notch books like nobody's business.)

It's inspiring to see this caliber of writing coming from the very top of the government communication machine. It makes me want to be a part of politics again, a part of bringing eloquence to a national forum which is too often dominated by trying to out-scream the other guy. Of this speech, I think Toby Ziegler would be proud.

Post-Election Haze

This blog is not political, and that's the way I'd like to keep it. Therefore I have little to say about the results of yesterday's midterm elections except to mention that I cast my first ballot ever -- yay! (I even did my homework on the minor races, though I still don't know what the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioners do, exactly.)

I'd also like to direct you to this blog, written by a pair of hilarious octogenarians. Talk about street cred: surviving the Great Depression, WWII, Vietnam, disco, the transformation of the two-party system, and Vanilla Ice and then launching yourself onto the blogosphere. I hope I write like that -- clear, eloquent, and in touch with reality -- when I'm in my eighties and capable of wielding almost a century of experience. My favorite passage by Helen Philpot, to entice you to make the jump:

"Folks, from where I sit, we’ve never had it so good. One less war. Most of the TARP money paid back and another Great Depression avoided. Unemployment numbers are shitty – yes - BUT imagine how bad it would be if Republicans had done away with unemployment benefits like they wanted. And as someone who has Medicare, I can assure you that government-run healthcare isn’t Obamacare, it’s common-decency-care.

"The Tea Party wants to complain about Obama’s “run-away spending” but the fact is Bush spent billions on wars while Obama has spent billions on an economic stimulus package. Fact. More private sector jobs were created in the last 8 months than in the entire 8 years of the Bush presidency. Fact. The only thing the Republican Party has increased recently is the number of gay teen suicides."

Talk about sassy.

Journalistic Ownership & Rock Band 3

Hardcore, I'm sure.

A somewhat unexpected side effect of working as a journalist is that you come to feel ownership over certain issues, especially those which you spend a lot of time researching and reporting on.

So I felt when I saw this news development, posted on Gizmodo this afternoon: a week from today Rock Band 3 drops, and it's made a huge advance in controller options: one controller features buttons that you play just like a regular guitar, and another is actually a guitar, with pressure sensors under the fingers so the game knows whether you hit the note. What this means is that Rock Band can actually market the idea that the game will teach you how to play a guitar (or at least how to follow along with certain songs).

Of course, being a former PC Mag intern, I was familiar with the idea, to the point where I immediately went and found this story, which I wrote in the spring of 2008. (Because of a PCMag.com redesign, the publish date says January 2009.) I wrote about how games like Guitar Hero have roused interest in rock music, but aren't doing anything to actually teach kids (or somewhat reclusive adults) how to play guitar. My theory was proven when I gave my stepdad with 20 years of experience playing guitar the game for Christmas: He could barely keep up with strumming along at the beginner level at first.

I mentioned in that article a product called Guitar Rising, which had won an award in 2007 and was being developed to be released as just what Rock Band has now: a game into which you can plug in an actual guitar. The Guitar Rising website doesn't seem to have been updated recently, so one can only wonder what happened to the "licensing talks" that were underway when I wrote the article more than two years ago.

This is a super cool development -- using video games to actually teach people a musical instrument is a whole new frontier -- but of course, there's always a flipside, though a minor one. The Gizmodo writer notes, "Harmonix, do you realize that you've got in your powers the ability to make kids learn the songs you want them to? Which is basically shaping the future of music? Use it well, my friends." Everyone will know the Billboard Top 100, but no one may know [insert obscure, largely unknown song that is actually a brilliant piece of music]. But that just may be my wannabe music snobishness talking.

Fun fact: Rock Band 3 will also add a keyboardist to the band. Now people get the chance to butcher those musical lines as well! Wonder if it'll be as effective as teaching drums and guitar now will be?

You can take the girl off campus...

Hey Ma, look, they're still publishing me! Somewhere! As in, the forum page of the student newspaper where I went to college!

Letter to the editor: Northwestern football: We'll bounce back.

Oh. That's pretty cool.

I would like it noted that I did include an apostrophe in my spelling of "'Cats" in the copy that I turned in. The Daily editors are apparently not a fan of correct punctuation. Otherwise I'm honored that they ran my letter; I wrote it as a coping mechanism and in response to a friend's plea to flood the paper with letters in support of the team. Pull it together, guys. Let's go 'Cats, beat the Spartans!

It's Official

Twenty to twenty-five percent of this country is composed of complete and utter imbeciles.

(If you don't feel like following the link, I'm talking about the poll that came out this week indicating that approximately a quarter of American citizens believe Obama is Muslim. I know, right?)

Special shout-out to Newsweek for clarifying the wrongness in their headline. If you can't educate the people, dumb down the material, I always say.

P.S. A Google image search of "Muslim Obama" brings up some really disturbing stuff. Apparently the entire stupid 20-25% of the country is on the 'Net and writing blogs. Here's to hoping this blog is at least in the 74th percentile.

It's a Brave New (Text Messaging) World

I've never been good at talking on the phone. I get distracted easily, or someone calls and it's just not a good time and I forget to call back, or both parties aren't completely engaged and the conversation quickly devolves into a boring, very detailed explanation of what exactly happened to the garden this week.*

There are certain people with whom it's just easier. My family, for instance, or certain friends that are actually able to keep my attention by being interesting. I have more than 200 contacts in my phone, and rarely do I talk (via phone) to more than five of them for more than a minute at a time. Is that a bad thing?

I read with fascination all the despairing articles about how our children are spending 7 hours a day texting each other from the same room. "Oh no, they'll never develop people skills!" First of all, come on, it's your fault for giving your 10-year-old a cell phone. It's no surprise that teeny boppers everywhere have embraced the 2010 version of passing notes in class. "But," these naysayers complain, "People don't just interact anymore. Communication has been stunted by social media and instant availability. Whatever happened to a good, old-fashioned, Nebraska-style visitin' session? Bring over some pie and let's play Mexican dominoes and talk international politics."

No?

Okay, well, all that is crap. Technology has done amazing things for communication. People may technically (PUN ALERT) be constantly available, but all these alternate routes of communication have ensured that we're only available when we want to be. If you don't want to answer an email for a few hours, that's fine. Turn off your Blackberry and put up an away message. Phone calls -- especially those that could have been dealt more efficiently with a text or email -- interrupt whatever you're doing, whether it's a good time or not.

Of course, sometimes it's a treat to get a phone call. Last night a high school friend that I haven't talked to in a year or two called and we talked for almost an hour. It helps that she doesn't have Facebook** (and I don't even know her email address), so we had a lot to catch up on.

My point is that there's a middle ground between refusing to accept that communication is fundamentally changing and metaphorically burning phone calls at the stake. It's rare but refreshing to read an article that casts this change in the way we communicate in a positive light, but you can count on Wired to lead the way. In writer Clive Thompson's view, phone calls simply aren't an efficient communication method, and it's a good thing that people are spending less time on the phone. His article, published a couple of weeks ago, was an interesting read, and made me feel less guilty about preferring texting over phone calls 90% of the time. It's just more efficient, people.

Check out the article here.

* Let it be known, I'm not a gardener. The fact that my office plant is still alive dumbfounded me until I talked with the lady who cleans my office at night and she told me she watered it regularly. Go figure.
** Hey Hawaii friends -- we gotta get Kanani on Facebook.

Note: I do actually like receiving phone calls. Please call me sometimes.

Quit sullying the name of feminism, Jezebel

I'm sure this will come as a shock, considering that I'm young, liberal and enjoy my news with a dash of sarcasm, but I'm a big fan of the Daily Show, and I was excited to see a new face about a month back when Olivia Munn made her debut as a correspondent. She's apparently got quite the frat-fan-boy following already, having co-hosted a show on G4 since 2006 and not shying away from some pretty base humor. Her mother may cringe, but Munn seems to be willing to do whatever for a laugh, and I can appreciate that.

But the shit hit the fan a couple weeks later when Jezebel -- a women's blog owned by the Gawker network -- published a piece accusing the Daily Show of having a "woman problem." Specifically, that the show doesn't employ enough ladies and fosters a hostile environment for the few that do work there. The Jezebel editors were apparently irked by the addition of Munn to the news show, as her aforementioned antics and natural assets (see below) landed her on the cover of magazines like Maxim and even Playboy (as opposed to, you know, respectable journalism outlets like Cosmo). Jezebel just doesn't see the humor in a popular segment on the G4 show that consists of Munn putting various objects in her mouth. (Which, you know, may be a fair point.)

A thorough read reveals that the Jezebel piece is a joke, and trades on knee-jerk feminism that is dutifully documented by Slate's Emily Gould, a former Gawker editor. (The gist: Splashy, angry-sounding, fist-waving feminist pieces fuel page views...even if the point they're making is stupid or overblown.) What's awesome is how the Daily Show and Olivia Munn have been handling it. The women of the Daily Show published a letter (written to "People Who Don't Work Here") addressing the allegations directly. True to the spirit of the show, the letter is sincere, factual and funny. Munn has a book hitting shelves today, so I'm sure she's not too upset about the media blitz around this story, but she remains cool and hilarious in the interviews she's given. Her second Daily Show segment aired last Thursday, and the Daily Show continues to do what SNL hasn't achieved in years -- be consistently funny. Welcome to the family, Olivia.

Munn's Leia costume caused something of a stir at last year's Comic-Con. I wonder why.