Archive for January, 2006

Pattie’s Pop Culture Obsessions

Posted January 29, 2006 By Pattie Gillett

I’ll admit, this topic of this post is ripped off from a similar blog at Bravotv.com (which is, in itself, one of my current obsessions). This list is a random collection of stuff I’m fascinated with these days. As Dave will attest, when something fascinates me, the people around me have no other choice than […]

Capital Concerns

Posted January 27, 2006 By Dave Thomer

In my American Thinkers class we were discussing the Declaration of Independence, as I was preparing my lecture notes I was struck by a thought: Don’t the citizens of Washington, D.C. have cause for rebelling against the government? The Constitution gives Congress absolute final power over the District of Columbia, yet D.C. has no voting […]

Like They Knew I Was Coming

Posted January 23, 2006 By Dave Thomer

I know there are some folks who were irked when VH1 Classic expanded its playlist to include songs from the early 90s. (I think their rule went from “must be from the 80s or earlier” to “must be at least ten years old.”) But me, I don’t mind at all. While trying to get Alex […]

Blogging Dewey: Art and Aesthetics

Posted January 20, 2006 By Dave Thomer

Couple of Dewey citations with an artistic theme in the blogosphere this week: Alex Starace at Professor Yeti mentions Art as Experience as part of a discussion of how art can communication vital emotional and contextual information that can’t be boiled down to mere facts. It’s a very interesting piece, although I kinda wish there […]

Blogging Dewey: Education Talk

Posted January 19, 2006 By Dave Thomer

With the start of a new academic semester, it seems a lot of education students are reading, talking, and blogging about Dewey. Here’s a sampling of some comments: Senorita Teacher wonders whether the Deweyan idea of “starting where the child is” can be effective at higher grade levels. Shannon at My Life Becoming a Teacher […]

What’s Old Is New Again. Sorta.

Posted January 18, 2006 By Dave Thomer

I’ve begun pulling essays from the original HTML version of the site and both incarnations of the forums and putting them into WordPress with timestamps that reflect their original dating. When I’m done this should make it far less cumbersome to explore the content we’ve accumulated over the last five years. When I’m done, I’ll […]

The Truthiness Hurts

Posted January 13, 2006 By Dave Thomer

Stephen Colbert may well be my new journalistic hero. His “The Word” segment on The Colbert Report is almost always a funny and intelligent commentary on current affairs, never more so than on his first episode where he coined the word “truthiness” – or at least a new meaning for it. The American Dialect Society […]

Blogosphere Brainstorming

Posted January 12, 2006 By Dave Thomer

While I try to get myself sufficiently up to speed to make some longer posts here, let me link to a couple of blogs that are brainstorming some policy ideas for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania where I’ve tried to chip in to the conversation: Young Philly Politics has a discussion of how a major investment in […]

Blogging Dewey – 1-11-06 Roundup

Posted January 11, 2006 By Dave Thomer

Some short hits today: At the Wind Farm, Chris makes an analogy between the Alito confirmation hearings and Dewey’s Experience and Education. It’s an interesting post, although I wonder how Alito would feel about being used as an example to back up Dewey. I also think Chris may be a bit hasty in lumping Dewey […]

Borderline Conflict

Posted January 7, 2006 By Dave Thomer

When I opened up the local section of yesterday’s Inquirer, I was struck by the juxtaposition of two stories. One dealt with the recent erection of a cell phone tower right near the border of two townships. Neighbors in the township adjacent to the tower are a bit irked that the tower was constructed without […]