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How ‘The Simpsons’ Predicted Trump 0
- Politics
- March 21, 2016
On March 19, 2000, The Simpsons alluded to a future Donald Trump presidency in an episode titled “Bart to the Future.” Newsday puts it thus: “Bart sees his future in a vision where his band plays a gig for popcorn shrimp and Lisa becomes the first ‘straight female’ president of the United States. In a clip
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Academics are Horribly Unprofessional… Here’s Why 0
- Education
- March 21, 2016
In a recent article for The Chronicle of Higher Education Rob Jenkins asks, “Why Are Some Academics So Unprofessional?”. One might well ask the same about any other profession, of course; doubtless many of you could give examples. But it does seem worse in academia, and that suggests a lesson both important and easily absorbed.
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A History Joke 0
- Education
- March 21, 2016
Question: How many historians does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: There is a great deal of debate on this issue. Up until the mid-20th century, the accepted answer was ‘one’: and this Whiggish narrative underpinned a number of works that celebrated electrification and the march of progress in light-bulb changing. Beginning in
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5 ‘Lincoln’ Quotes Old Abe Never Said 1
- History
- March 21, 2016
If you’ve visited Ford’s Theatre, you’ve likely seen the 34-foot tower of books on Abraham Lincoln. The tower, designed to symbolize that the final word on America’s 16th president will never be written, was constructed with some 6,800 books – just a fraction of the 15,000 titles written on Lincoln. (An admitted Lincolnphile, my personal
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How Johann Sebastian Bach Taught His Students 0
- Culture
- March 21, 2016
March 21st marks the birthday of one of the greatest composers of all time: Johann Sebastian Bach. Beyond being a great composer, Bach was also a great teacher who raised many pupils to be masters of their craft. According to Bach’s first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Bach’s success as a teacher resulted in part from
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Should We Clone a T-Rex?0
- Science
- March 21, 2016
The unearthing of a pregnant, 68 million year-old Tyrannosaurus rex in Montana reportedly has the potential to yield the holy grail of paleontological discoveries: T-Rex DNA. The specimen, says North Carolina State University paleontologist Lindsay Zanno, contains medullary bone, a tissue that develops only in pregnant females near the creature’s egg-laying phase. The presence of
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