For college students and their parents

Useful stuff from Lisa Belkin at the New York Times’ Motherlode Blog: Checklists for Parents of College Students.

I’m inordinately happy to see that in a comment on this Times piece, a fellow prof — Kara, no last name — has mentioned my post How to e-mail a professor. Kara also offers some good advice:

I would encourage all students to communicate with their professors in person as much as possible, and to ask for help when they need it. This sounds like it should be obvious, but I’m amazed that many students don’t realize that their professors are more than glad to meet with them. I think many of us turn to email to communicate because of the convenience, but I’ve found that even a short 5 minute conversation with a student can make an enormous difference in their experience in a class.

What Kara says — “This sounds like it should be obvious” — is true of so much of the advice that college students can benefit from hearing. It’s not obvious, that is, until someone says it.

A related post
How to talk to a professor

Reading Rainbow ends

After twenty-six years, Reading Rainbow is ending. NPR interviewed John Grant of Buffalo’s WNED, which produced the show:

The show’s run is ending, Grant explains, because no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show’s broadcast rights.

Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.

Grant says that PBS, CPB and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read — but that’s not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do.

“Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read,” Grant says. “You know, the love of reading — [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read.”

My most vivid Reading Rainbow memories: LeVar Burton working the grill at Rosie’s Diner (in Little Ferry, New Jersey) and learning the mambo with Jackie Rio. Our whole family thought that Jackie and LeVar liked each other. Really liked each other. Like-liked each other. Lighthearted reverie aside, I feel real sorrow at the loss of Reading Rainbow.

Here, from a happier day, is LeVar singing the show’s theme:

LeVar Burton sings “Reading Rainbow” at Diggnation LA (YouTube)

Marcia Lebow (1919–2009)

From a beautifully written obituary for an extraordinary person:

Marcia was a person of strong passions — for music, family and friends —and strong convictions. The English language was not only her great joy, but an armada to be deployed at will.

Years ago in Boston, I knew Marcia very slightly, by way of her friendship with Elaine. Marcia had twice the energy and enthusiasm of people half her age. And her stories — imagine someone telling you about the time she went to visit Ira Gershwin. Yes, that Ira Gershwin. That was Marcia Lebow.

Marcia Wilson Lebow (Los Angeles Times)

Search committee at work

An academic search committee at work:

At first the candidate’s own list of questions felt refreshing, but soon became counter-productive to the interview process. His spirit of inquiry masked an indifference to time constraints and a passive-aggressive need to dominate the conversation. As another candidate cooled his heels, the request for him to conclude his thoughts on the ideal society scarcely registered as we wondered if, then began to wish that, someone would spike his drink.

Read more from the evaluations of imaginary search committees:

Belagir M. Synkina, Unsuitable candidates (Times Higher Education)

A related post
Mozart and tenure

Going to the meeting

Elaine and I went tonight to a “town hall meeting” on health care given by Congressman Tim Johnson (R, Illinois-15). It was a disappointing experience. Of the allotted sixty minutes, ten were lost waiting for Rep. Johnson to arrive. Nine were given over to introductory remarks. Rep. Johnson’s talking points in those remarks and thereafter remained consistent: we have the best health care system in the world (whoops and cheers); a public option is “socialized medicine” (whoops and cheers); it is time for people to “reclaim,” “take back” the government (more whoops, more cheers).

A public option, one audience member pointed out, is a prelude to, yes, communism. And speaking of things Russian, Rep. Johnson confessed to being troubled by the presence of an energy czar in the Obama administration. Johnson evidently has forgotten that czars are what communism did away with. But he has also forgotten that an energy czar was in place as far back as Richard Nixon’s administration.

I heard no clear arguments as to how to make health care more affordable in the absence of a public option. And as Elaine discovered, searching for health care on Johnson’s web page brings up the following:


[Click for a larger view.]

What most bothered me in Rep. Johnson’s remarks: his sneering references to President Obama, whom he twice called “our esteemed leader,” to general laughter. If that’s how he talks about the president in public, I can only imagine what he says in private.

Related reading
Lorem ipsum (Wikipedia article)

Orange Crate Art, a Google Reader pick

I just saw that my blog is one of Mark Frauenfelder’s picks for Google Reader. Mark is a founder and editor of Boing Boing (“A Directory of Wonderful Things”). Thanks, Mark!

(The BOING! BOING in the previous post: serendipity.)

A riddle

My son Ben created this page years and years ago in second grade. It appeared in a hors commerce edition, 2F Riddles, which I discovered while poking around in the family archives. I’ve reproduced this page with Ben’s permission. As he says, he still has plenty of “2F pride.” Thanks, Ben!

(Yes, it says Boing Boing.)

That shirt is [not] blue

[August 25, 2009.]

The color stylists at Hi-Lo Amalgamated are on strike.

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts

A back-to-school post

Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia And Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guam, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Palestinian Territory, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Virgin Islands:

Yes, all the world over, people want to know how to write e-mails to professors. Thus they come to a 2005 post on Orange Crate Art, How to e-mail a professor. The numbers rise big-time when semesters begin and end.

In June, I began looking at my StatCounter info to collect the locations of readers coming to that post. Hence the list above. I’m amazed, still, always, at the way the Internet erases distance across space and time. (It’s the world of tomorrow!) And I’m happy that my 2005 post continues to help faculty and students improve the quality of life online.

Okay, back to school.

You know you’re really an English major of a certain age when . . .

. . . you immediately recognize T.S. Eliot’s Complete Poems and Plays: 1909–1950 (1971) on the bookshelf behind the interviewees on MSNBC’s Hardball. That’s my copy, which I bought from the Book-of-the-Month Club as an earnest undergrad, and MSNBC’s copy, “as seen on TV,” perhaps also from the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Pop quiz: Why did English majors of a certain age join the Book-of-the-Month Club? What book were they looking to get?

[Photographs resized with ImageWell.]