Who doesn’t love a musical?

See above for Joss Whedon’s online musical called ‘Dr. Horribles’ Sing Along Blog’ – really funny and well-done. I can’t download the new Flash, so I went to Youtube, but you can watch on the Dr. Horrible website.

The week in news

There is so much going on right now, with the swine flu, the American reporter sentenced for treason in Iran, to name just a few, take a few minutes and inform yourself about about something you may not have known that much about. You can check out the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, to name a few.

Hobbits did exist!

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28hobbit.html?_r=1&8dpc

Ideas Worth Spreading

http://www.ted.com/talks

Interesting (some famous, some just pretty cool) doing  short talks on things that matter to them – life lessons, the state of education, the world, the economy, etc. Enjoy!

Oh, and a funny video on “antisocial smartphone users”:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/renny_gleeson_on_antisocial_phone_tricks.html

Inherited “Zippiness” – take a look

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102169531&sc=nl&cc=es-20090417

A psychologist talks about the “well-meaning, bad parent”

An interesting interview and book excerpt. I picked it because it seemed to relate to all the talk we’ve had about the future, technology, and moral values. I believe the author talks about cell phones a bit.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102831737&sc=nl&cc=es-20090417

Some (slight) changes to weekly assignments

Because many of you are finding interesting pieces to comment on that I am not directly aware of – i.e. pictures of the week you found off of the Time website – please cite the work at the bottom of your page. If it is appropriate, you can incorporate the information into your short paper, as well.  Check out the following sight to get help (This is the Purdue Owl website, btw):

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09 

For example:

Slagle, Antonia. “Some slight changes to weekly assignments.” Hidden

(INDENT HERE) Intellectuals.  18 April 2009. WordPress blog. April  2009.   

   (INDENT HERE)  https://room34.wordpress.com/wpadmin/postnew.php.

NPR Sports page – week of April 13th

http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1055

writing about satire

Hello all. I would like to make some suggestions about writing about satire (i.e. The Teenage Affluenza video or articles from The Onion). Read it, take some notes – what is the piece poking  fun at?  Is it just for making a point, or is it trying bring about change? What are some of the strategies the writer/creator is using to make the point?  Do you “get it” ? In other words, can you relate to the target of the piece? And, does it work? The Teenage Affluenza piece may be funny and true, but it may be a little heavy-handed and thus not quite make the point. Onion pieces are generally funny, and it’s easy to miss the point because the writers tend to use seemingly improbably situations and exaggeration to make a point.

Videos from space

In light of this week’s sad news, I was looking for something a little inspirational. Check out the videos from space. If you need a little lift, check out the time lapse video from space. Pretty awesome:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10210