A note on what is to follow. I quit Facebook earlier today and gave some thought to what would be the least ostentatious way to continue to share links. I settled on posting a collection of links to my blog rather than sending out individual links through email. With some luck this will also cause me to write here somewhat more often. The format may change periodically as I tinker with it, but without further ado:
1. Grammar, a Victim in the Office – An article about the decline in grammar in the workplace in the Wallstreet Journal.
2. Grammar is dead, Long live Grammar Nerds – A flawed, but supposedly humorous article in the Atlantic Wire on the same topic.
3. Helene Hegemann: ‘There’s no such thing as originality, just authenticity’ – An interview with Helen Hegemann, the German author of Axolotl Roadkill who was critically acclaimed until accusations of plagiarism came in. She defends her use of the plagiarized material by denying originality–an issue that I think about often and an argument I am sympathetic to.
4. Kim Kardashian: How did she become a threat to western civilisation? – Commentary about a British schoolteacher who has been praised for her speech denouncing the obsession with celebrities (particularly the overly sexualized ones).
5. Why Zoo’s Kim Kardashian Cover is Wrong – An op-ed by the author of the speech that covers the relevant points.
6. Some Books are More Equal Than Others – an op-ed that argues that except when people are first learning how to read, choice of summer reading material for students (and all reading material to some extent) does matter a great deal. She particularly states that while some students will happily and relatively easily read fiction on their own, others will make greater gains in comprehension and vocabulary by reading non-fiction rather than fiction.
7. Old Vs Young – an op-ed that uses the upcoming Presidential election to help argue the point that the generational gap in the United States today is greater than at any point since the 1960s.
8. The Accelerating Pace of Change for its own Sake – a blog post from Publick Occurrences I did share on Facebook before jumping ship. It addresses the envisioned changes in higher education.
Noodlings 