The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Author: mongreldogs

  • Review: Interface

    Interface
    by Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George
    (c) 1994
    Bantam Dell

    InstaRating: 3.5 out of 5
    An experimental biochip is implanted in a governor of Illinois after he suffers a massive stroke. Its stated purpose is to repair the connections in his brain, giving him access to speech and motor skills again. Unknown to many, the chip also gives him access to up-to-the-second live polling data, making him an unstoppable Presidential candidate. But more than that — the chip gives a shadowy network of power-brokers access to him — making him their perfect candidate…

    Lots of spoilers follow.

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  • Politics and Teaching

    So, Election Day has come and gone. I took time to talk about it in each of my classes today — and yes, I know I teach physics; more on that later — and I thought I’d ruminate some here. Full disclaimer: I am a lifelong Democrat who had been reasonably certain they’d find a way to screw it up yet again. (Who knew they could make Kerry disappear?) And I am ecstatic over the triumph of the Democrats in both the House and the Senate. But this isn’t a victory lap. It’s about politics and teaching.
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  • *ping*

    Just a stay-alive post to indicate that I’m still around, though unable to write about teaching because, ironically, I am too busy teaching.

  • Running the Race (My speech given as Distinguished Faculty recipient)

    I have had the honor of being named as the Hun School’s first recipient of a new Distinguished Faculty Endowed Chair. One of the prices is that, today, I had to give a speech at the first-ever Convocation. Since some people have asked, and since I have an ego the size of Montana, I decided to put it up on the Web — to wit, right here on Mongrel Dogs.
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  • From 2001 October 7: I Want to Speak Now

    2001 October 7:

    I want to speak now.

    I have wanted to speak since September 11. The words would not come. The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was, almost literally, unthinkable. And language is the substrate of thought. Scholars have often claimed that what you cannot say, you cannot think. I have learned, a little, that the opposite is true.

    The terrorists committed crimes on so many levels, it staggers the mind: on the global and personal level; publicly and intimately; on the field of history and transcending history. One more can be added to their list of offenses: They took away our voice. For too many days we as a people lost our voice. We were silent in shock or quiet from deference. We remained still because we had lost our confidence, our unspoken faith in a world that rewarded virtue and understood human frailties. We had our universe of discourse, our common cultural dictionary, ripped from us violently and tossed upon the dustbin of history.

    I want to speak now.
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  • And the Sky Swept Clear of Angels : 9/11, 5 Years, and Lost Worlds

    Though exiled to the swamps of New Jersey, I am a native New Yorker; and so this date arrives every year like a punch in the gut. I no longer think of the attacks every day, but it took 18 months before that ceased. When I do think of them, I am immediately transported back to the moments the Towers fell, and I am nearly overcome again by shock and grief. The victims at the Pentagon and on Flight 93, and their families, deserve our respect and our sympathy; but for me, 9/11 was and is and will always be about an attack on my city — the most primal fear of the civilized human.

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  • The Dignity of Labor

    Today we celebrate Labor Day for approximately the 119th time. A teacher friend of mine calls Labor Day less a holiday than a stay of execution, especially since we begin in earnest the day after. And for years people have made the joke that we celebrate labor by taking a day off from doing any. But it’s a good time to reflect on the role of labor in society.
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  • Just pointing the way…

    … to a webcomic (“xkcd“) that I just stumbled across. It’s kinda odd but has the occasional math/science bent that endears it to me. (“Dr. Elizabeth? I accidentally took the Fourier transform of my cat” or “Schroedinger’s Comic“) It also has a flash of geek-inspired sentimentality (“My normal approach is useless here.“) that tugs at my own well-buried heart strings.

    It’s worth a look, in my opinion.

  • Uncle Pennybags a Socialist?

    I’m really not a fan of the me-too blog, which just strings together links to the original thoughts of other. But I saw this on Cosmic Variance and thought it was brilliant, so here we go: “Lessons from Monopoly“. It’s an interesting analysis of the socio-economic implications of the Parker Brothers game. As seems to be the case (in my opinion) every time critical thinking is applied to the underpinnings of our economy, it turns out to be a good argument against the current winner-take-all capitalism worship which infects this nation.

  • Another chime in the death knell of the Republic

    The end of a democracy comes when participants start gaming the rules to ensure particular outcomes, rather than following the rules and allowing voters an honest chance to influence government. We have reached and, I would say, starting wading across that Rubicon.

    Today, another madness has been added to the sad litany of rules-gaming and partisan manipulation.

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