Being Offended is the First Step

freespeech, politics, rhetoric 2018.05.07 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Comic Michelle Wolf Responds To Backlash: ‘I’m Glad I Stuck To My Guns’ (npr.org) The legendary British comedian (and bibliophile with unspeakably good taste in novels) Stephen Fry has a famous quote about people saying they’re offended by other people, which comes from a 2005 interview in The Guardian about his researching of his Jewish ancestry. Anyone who’s spent any significant amount of time on social media has probably seen the quote multiple times, and its popularity when it comes to image treatment has made it…

First They Take Our Money

politics, rhetoric, teaching, work 2018.04.30 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Colorado GOP threatens to throw teachers in jail for going on strike (shareblue.com) Want to Be a ‘Volunteer Adjunct’? Southern Illinois U. is Hiring (Chronicle of Higher Education) One of the most annoying and nonsensical arguments that some conservatives make is that left-wingers shouldn’t use anything that they’re opposed to in efforts to further their own ends. These bloviations usually go along the lines of, “Oh, you say you don’t like big corporations? Well, your smartphone was made by a corporation, dur hur hur. If you…

Both Ways, Always

politics, rhetoric, sex 2018.04.23 Sean Shannon 1 Comment

Trump, Putin talked comparative beauty of hookers in phone call (Yahoo!) Trump Just Signed SESTA/FOSTA, a Law Sex Workers Say Will Literally Kill Them (Vice) Whenever you’re trying to sell any piece of writing, you want to market it as being timely for when it will be published. Back when magazines only existed in print versions, this often meant trying to sell winter-based articles in the summer and vice versa (due to long “lead times” between the editorial cycle and publication), and although online publications…

History is Erased by the Winners

politics, rhetoric, teaching 2018.04.16 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Two-Thirds Of Millennials Can’t Say What Auschwitz Is: Study (patch.com) A common trap that many teachers fall into is assuming that when their students get to them, those students will have learned the same things that they’d learned at that particular age or grade level. For some teachers, this is an honest mistake that they’re not even aware that they’re making; others, however, may not particularly care about all the factors involved in why their students aren’t aware of certain issues, because they view every…

Defending the Ground of the Cap and Gown

politics, rhetoric, teaching, work 2018.04.09 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Professors Are Targets In Online Culture Wars; Some Fight Back (wlrn.org) [This blog includes discussion of bullying and a suicide attempt.] Of all my interactions with the worst bully I ever had to deal with in my younger days — and believe me, I had to deal with a lot of bullies back then — two stick out the most. The first was an act of public embarrassment so mortifying that it led me to attempt suicide, right there on campus, after I was finally able to…