Worth Reading or Visiting

“Literacy Privilege: How I learned to check mine instead of making fun of people’s grammar on the Internet” by Painting the Grey Area. This is definitely worth a read. The writer speaks very clearly about the need to stop policing others’ grammar on the internet, pointing to issues of privilege and ignorant assumptions. Her points are all valid and worthwhile and I’ve mentioned this post before  in a similar discussion about the merits and pitfalls of grammar use and abuse. Much of the editing/proofreading work I do, however, is academic, and this does require the sort of language that is undeniably of a privileged sort; this is what is suitable for its audience. It’s not fair, and it may be changing, today’s academic writing has to be a more “elite” (if that’s the right word) English.

“The Riddle of Rape-by-Deception and the Myth of Sexual Autonomy” By Jed Rubenfeld, Yale Law Review. Professor Rubenfeld argues that rape-by-deception is inadequate and that sexual autonomy is a myth that should not be used as the foundation for defining rape, then argues that self-possession is a better foundation for legally defining rape while still admitting that this conception also has its limitations. He includes history and background on the concepts behind rape (including “traditional” notions of women’s “purity” and other ideas) to thoroughly explain his ideas.

“Survey Suggests Politicians Overstate Public’s Desire for Vocational View of Higher Education” from Inside Higher Ed.  “But an even larger majority – 89 percent — agreed that “college should be where students learn the ability to think critically by studying a rich curriculum that includes history, art and literature, government, economics and philosophy.” And two-thirds supported the idea that colleges should play a significant role in teaching young people to be more socially concerned and responsible.”

Worth Reading or Visiting

Who Owns Sherlock Holmes?

“How the Humanities Compute in the Classroom” from The Chronicle of Higher Education. A few schools are creating “digital humanities” programs that bring together computer skills such as programming, database creation and management, and new and emerging technologies with traditional studies of the classics. This is an opportunity I wish I’d had. Short list of resources for teaching digital humanities follows the article.

“Quantifying the Continued Relevance of America’s Public Libraries” from Library Journal. A Pew Research Center study asked a very small sampling of Americans about how much they and their communities use and value their public libraries. The response was overwhelming: A great deal, on both counts. The author of this article says that this information needs to get into the hands and minds of policy and budget makers. He’s right. My only qualm with this article is that the Pew survey only asked 6,224 people, which doesn’t seem like nearly enough.

“Who Owns Sherlock Holmes?” from The Economist. A federal judge issued a ruling earlier this week reinforcing that Sherlock Holmes … remains part of the public domain.” All but ten of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes stories were published before 1923, and all but those ten are in public domain. The remaining ten remain the property of the Doyle estate and those wishing to use those stories must pay the estate. Economist article gives a good summary of the facts of the case and current and past/relevant copyright issues.

“What Happens to all the Salt We Dump on the Roads?” from Smithsonian Magazine. I grew up in northern Iowa, went to grad school near Cleveland, and live in the Twin Cities (Minnesota), and every year our roads are salted more than an order of McDonald’s fries, so I’ve wondered about this for a long time. Consequences can include saltiness of drinking water (though because it takes so much, this is quite rare), decreased water flow, desert conditions in runoff areas, and increased roadkill when deer and other animals lick the salt off the sides of the roads.

International Criminal Law MOOC

I completed my first MOOC this evening, International Criminal Law with Michael Scharf of Case Western Reserve University.  I know there are strong opinions out there both ways on the validity, usefulness, of MOOCs, and I would like at some time to put together a list of some of those opinions and articulate one of my own based on my own experience, but now is not the time for that.

I will say just for now, though, that I enjoyed the class, learned quite a bit (though I suspect since I did not put in the effort I should have that much of it will be gone by the end of the year), and plan to take more of these classes.