Category Archives: Social Media and Interesting Technology

Shaking up Poetry

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Poetry Foundation iPhone appGive your iPhone a shake and explore the vagaries of love: its joys, passions, doubts, disappointments, insecurities, and finally the grief it too often brings. Or maybe when you have to spend just a little too much time home for the holidays, you’ll want to deliberately line up “boredom” and “family,” and read what comes up, both to kill time and to remind yourself that you are not the only one bored by your family.  You can combine subjects and emotions deliberately, or you can “spin” the wheels and see what comes up.  There are so many combinations to explore, it seems like you’ll never run out.

I’m talking about a new iPhone app from the Poetry Foundation called, quite simply, “Poetry”.  It makes exploring poetry fun. What I’ve been talking about above is a feature that lines up emotions and topics such as love, nature, family, work and play to give you a list of poems relevant to the combination. The poems are from different eras, but all are fairly short and accessible. And even if you don’t like poetry, I bet you are at least a little curious to read what well regarded, “serious” poets have to say about disappointment or blame and family or, even better, disappointment and love. That’s the stuff of standup comedy, not poetry, right?

This could be anything, for example: “Is the dog feeling better?” In keeping with teen dating advice #4: Have an emergency code for help that will enable your teen to let you know they are suffering from ED. viagra pill price is their right hand and greatly helps them. Before you take this levitra australia prices medicine make sure that you are not facing any abnormal health conditions using before this medicine. People with allergic reaction viagra 20mg india supplementprofessors.com are at more risk of side-effects. Hence the physician advised to consume this herbal pill daily two times for three to four months. viagra the pill Continue reading →

Video Game Developed in Casablanca Will Premier Tomorrow at E3

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Ubisoft LogoA short item in the May 30 – June 5 edition of Jeune Afrique notes that the French software company Ubisoft will reveal a new video game conceived and developed entirely in Casablanca, Morocco at the 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) which starts tomorrow in Los Angeles and continues until the 17th.

The article in Jeune Afrique is not specific about which game it is, but the press release on Ubisoft’s web site reports that at least three games will be exhibited at the Ubisoft booth.

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Academic Freedom Media Review, June 5-11

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Academic Freedom Media Review
June 5 – 11, 2010
Compiled by Scholars at Risk
 
China defends internet censorship
Michael Bristow, BBC News, 6/10
 
Marquette Settles With Woman Whose Job Offer Was Revoked /
Inside Higher Ed, 6/10

Paper on Psychopaths, Delayed by Legal Threat, Finally Published /
John Travis, Science, 6/10
 
Faith and Freedom
Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, 6/9
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Up on the Ridge Tour

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from L to R Travis Linville, Hayes Carll and Bonnie Whitmore at the Music Hall

On May 7 I went to a concert I was expecting to leave feeling lukewarm about. Hayes Carll was opening for Dierks Bentley and the Traveling McCoury’s. I’m a fan of Hayes Carll and I really went to see him, so let me start with that. He’s an artist that’s often placed in that tradition that’s epitomized by the Texas singer/songwriter like Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle and that now counts among Hayes’s peers the likes of Ryan Bingham, Bruce Robison and others. In fact you hear a lot of influences in his music from Kris Kristoferson, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens and Willie Nelson, to Bob Dylan and David “Honey Boy” Edwards and the Delta Blues. I don’t know that he would list all these, but I hear them. Continue reading →

A Tool for Global Activism and a Puzzling Question

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I’ve recently learned of a new site, the Boycott Toolkit, which is a user based tool for organizing consumer based protests.  Organized according to issue, the site both provides links to companies to boycott and producers to support, providing direct links to information for both.  It is an impressive tool, maintained by a user community.

I must say, though, that in this age of global, corporate capitalism, I am often puzzled by how one orchestrates and effective boycott.  We live in an era in which big, multinational corporations own dozens of companies which in turn control dozens of brands.  And brands are now a commodity in themselves,  licensed to companies that have no relation to the product originally associate with it.  If Coca-Cola manufactured or controlled every product that is sold bearing its logo with legal license to do so, it would have to have to have business in virtually every industry available, from clothing to toys and sports equipment.

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Google Doodles: Umm Kulthum, Jan Amos Komensky and Others You Never Saw.

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Yesterday was the birthday of the great Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, at least as far as records in her home province indicate.  The 30th of December is also cited sometimes, but Google took notice yesterday and marked the occasion with a Google Doodle on the Egyptian version of their site.  Given her significance in Egyptian culture, indeed Arab culture as a whole, the tribute is appropriate.  Indeed, she probably ranks among the best known and most loved singers the world has ever know.

I dare say, however, that few in America that are not of Arab descent have ever heard of Umm Kulthum.  I certainly hadn’t until I was introduced to her by Middle Eastern television. To me that begs a question.  Google Doodles are a learning opportunity, as the are accompanied by links to whatever the image represents.  Of course Google wins points my honoring this great diva in Egypt and it also does its part in keeping her memory alive for a younger generation that, like young people all over the world, is becoming used to shorter pop songs, accompanied by slick video images.

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Global Connections and Exchange Program Combines Technology and In-Person Exchanges

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Midlothian High School Exchange

Midlothian High School students planted trees in honor of their guests. | photo courtesy of Jamie Schlais Barnes

Here’s an interesting item from Midlothian Exchange, a local paper in Midlothian, in Chesterfield County, Virginia and a part of the Richmond Metropolitan Area.

Two weeks ago, three men walked into Midlothian High School looking for a better understanding of American culture. Ten days later, they left having changed their own perceptions of U.S. citizens and their students’ perceptions of Arabic culture. Their challenge and that of the students at Midlothian High School is to continue spreading what they learned.

Abdulwahab Albaadani, a teacher at Ibn Majed in Sanaa, Yemen, Amine Slimani, a teacher from the Secondary School of Nedroma in Nedroma, Algeria and his pupil, Mohamed Belmeliami, traveled to the U.S. as a culmination of nearly a year’s worth of video conferencing, cultural lessons, and web logging with social studies classes at Midlothian High School…

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Comparing Global Medias

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Today, via Geeky Mom Laura Blankenship, I discovered an article in TechCrunch, about a site that lines up the front page of CNN or other news sites with those of Al Jazeera, France 24, BBC, NPR, or several others, so that visitors may compare for themselves the differences between the stories covered, from which perspectives, to what degree of detail and whether or not it is through first hand reporting or some other source. Unfortunately, CNN seldom compares favorably, hence the URL for the site, http://wtfcnn.com/.

Sadly, the disaster which is cable news in this country is, in large part, media giving the people what they want and not, as some would believe, some vast elitist conspiracy to keep the masses hypnotized by mindless infotainment so they are distracted which they go about undermining the foundation of our society. If you need evidence of that, compare an hour of the domestic feed of CNN in the US to an hour of the feed on CNN International. The network caters to its international audience not just with an hour of news the focuses on international subjects, but with broadcasts that are more serious in tone, and that devote much less time to entertainment and puff pieces.
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Here we go again!

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A new attack ad targeting three Democratic senators and one Republican criticizes “hidden taxes on … pensions and retirement accounts” in the financial regulation legislation being considered by Congress, and urges the senators to “vote against this phony financial reform.”

The ad gives a false impression. The Senate bill doesn’t contain the tax mentioned in the ad.

(It) is the work of a less-than-transparent group calling itself “Stop Too Big To Fail,” which says its $1.6 million ad buy is targeting senators in Nevada, Virginia and Missouri (Sens. Harry Reid, Mark Warner, Claire McCaskill and Kit Bond).

So begins a April 23, 2010 posting from Fact Check.org…
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Higher Education, Technology, and the Job Market in Morocco… and the USA

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King Fahd School of Translation

I was in Morocco last week for two events relating to the the role of the university in preparing graduating students for the evolving job market in this country. The first was the annual April seminar at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies. This year it focused on higher education and the job market and delved into some important issues. I found developments at Abdelmalek Essadi University particularly exciting because I have something of a relationship with that institution. I taught at the King Fahd School of Translation for 2 1/2 years which is a branch of the university, and because a close friends used to teach there.

The universities in Morocco have much more autonomy than they did when I was there, and it appears that the Abdelmalek Essadi, which has campuses in both Tetouan and Tangier, is one of the institutions that has taken greatest advantages of this.  It’s outgoing President, Mohammed Bennounna, has done much to transform the institution into one that is responsive to the rapidly changing economic and social realities of contemporary Morocco.  Representatives of the private sector at the seminar seemed quite impressed with what has been done, so it seems that the reform is, in fact, movement in the right direction.

Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane

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