I’m kind of shocked by the following study about the teaching methods breakdown between men and women:

 

I don’t know how to interpret this, people. Either men don’t know how to teach or they don’t know how to answer such surveys. But seriously, it can’t be that men collectively are so much worse at teaching than women. Then what is happening? How come that the only areas in teaching where men outnumber women are the most detrimental practices of all, curve grading and teacher-centered lecturing?

Every once in a while, I decide to give the mainstream print media another chance to impress me. And every single time this experiment ends five minutes after it begins with me hurling the newspaper or magazine at the wall in annoyance.

Today this happened again. I thought it would make sense to read the November issue of Harper’s Magazine because the cover looked interesting. Of course, as early as page five, I discovered two very stupid statements. In the very first one, a journalist is trying to convince himself that he is more relevant to the reading public than bloggers:

While bloggers and tweeters are important, they simply do not have the resources to compete with a newspaper.

This guy must have fallen asleep twenty years ago and has just awakened to regale us all with this idiocy. Hopefully, he will be going back to sleep right after this. Of course, only a rare individual blogger can compete with a newspaper. Collectively, however, bloggers, tweeters, Facebookers and Co are a huge force. More and more people trust us over the intensely corrupt and inane NYTimes and WashPo. If you don;t agree, the please tell me, when was the last time that one of these newspapers surprised you or made you think?

But wait, this is nothing compared to what I read immediately after. One of the magazine’s readers sent in the following comment about Barack Obama that the magazine considered important enough to publish:

This son of a single mother [Obama] learned a woman’s way of negotiating – a fundamentally cooperative approach dependent upon good faith, without posturing or making strict demands.

I find these stupid patriarchal stereotypes kind of scary when they are delivered with this single-minded, unthinking earnestness. If you think the author of this bizarrely stupid and offensive statement is some silly teenager, think again. This comes from a Professor Emerita at UCLA. We all know that UCLA has gone down the drain but who could have guessed things were that bad?

Well, I guess Harper’s fulfilled its objective of keeping me informed. It revealed to me that print media are even more hopeless than I thought and that UCLA has become a very weird place.

A former Evangelical realizes that her belief that the anti-choice movement is actually about saving fetuses was completely misguided.

And yet another phenomenally stupid sentence: “Which is why algorithms, exactly like fascism, work perfectly, with a sense of seemingly unstoppable inevitability, right up until the point they don’t.”

“You should take note of this first, easy lesson: if no one ever seems right for you, and then the one person who does seem right doesn’t want you, then the problem isn’t the person, the problem is you.” Yes. Many times yes.

Shred your vagina to pieces and gain access to a new identity club! I warn you, people, this is scary shit.

“Is the president of the United States not allowed to say God bless the United States of America because he holds office and needs to support the separation of church and state?” Unfortunately, he is, indeed, allowed to make a mockery of the Constitution and shit on the heads of citizens to placate insane religious fanatics. There is no need to promote the same barbarity in Canada, as the linked blogger advocates we do.

I agree with this blogger completely in that these constant attempts to blame the technology for one’s incapacity to teach are annoying.

A beautiful revenge a blogger took on a troll. This will happen to everybody who harasses academic bloggers online. Remember, we are academics. this means we are smart and we will get you if you try to annoy us.

Very good advice on how to write job application letters.

“A regular routine isn’t limiting to creativity. It’s freeing because it conserves your energy to make the important decisions related to your creative life.” A very good post on decision fatigue that made a lot of sense to me.

“Hospitals – guided by ideological recommendations and arbitrary (as opposed to evidence-based) targets to reduce caesarean rates – are pushing NORMAL birth at all costs. Story after story we hear about caesareans not carried out on time, risks of a trial of labour not properly explained or recognised by staff, and mothers and babies dying or suffering as a direct result.” This is true. Doctors and especially the nasty, uneducated, money-hungry, woman-hating doulas do all they can to dissuade women from having C-sections. And the results are sometimes tragic.

Romney’s campaign is already looking for a way to explain why he will lose.

In the meantime, “President Obama is now better than a 4-in-5 favorite to win the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast. His chances of winning it increased to 83.7 percent on Friday.”

One of the funniest examples of left-wing hysteria I have seen in a long time. Apocalyptic fear-mongering at its best. This is why I keep reminding everybody that psychological hygiene should be practiced regularly or you will end up like this guy.