Excited about unregulated firearms coming to Kansas State University’s campus? Well, be sure to thank Representative John Barker and Senator Jacob LaTurner. They refused to let the university campus-carry exemption bills even come up for a vote in the full House and Senate. So, thanks to them, the citizens who voted for them, and to…
[Taps microphone.] Greetings, fellow nerds, fans, and affiliated wanderers! If I may interrupt the daily (hourly?) reports of chaos and pain that saturate your newsfeed, I’ll bring you what I hope is a satisfying report from this year’s Comic-Con. Yes, while the Republican National Convention was busy opening a hellmouth in Cleveland, I was in…
Under the Kansas Board of Regents‘ brave new social media policy, the faculty and staff of Kansas universities must make sure that their speech is harmonious, loyal, and conducive to discipline. So, the Kansas Board of Regents’ Committee for Harmony, Loyalty and Discipline is here to help you monitor speech. Our staff artist, Comrade Warner, has created…
“The object of power is power.” — O’Brien, in George Orwell’s 1984 To support the basic right to freedom of speech and to stand up for academic freedom, faculty, staff, and students from Kansas universities attended today’s Kansas Board of Regents meeting in Topeka, Kansas. The room was packed: standing room only. The Board of Regents…
The Kansas Board of Regents’ new social media policy will require vigilant enforcement. How will we determine when speech is “contrary to the best interests of the employer”? How will we recognize speech that “impairs discipline by superiors or harmony among co-workers”? How can we prevent speech that has a “detrimental impact on close working relationships”? Given…
Kansas State University’s “K-State First” asked me to talk to undergraduates about Ernest Cline‘s Ready Player One (2011), this year’s “First Book,” at a “Beyond the Classroom” event. So, this past Tuesday (Oct. 1st), I did. In case it may be of interest to others, I’m posting my (admittedly somewhat hastily assembled) talk here, along with…
But the braggest thing about the feed, the thing that made it really big, is that it knows everything you want and hope for, sometimes before you even know what those things are. It can tell you how to get them, and help you make buying decisions that are hard. Everything we think and feel…
War is hell. If General Sherman (and, I expect, many others) hadn’t said it first, I suspect Suzanne Collins might have chosen those three words as a subtitle for her Hunger Games trilogy. As its predecessors did, Mockingjay dramatizes the physical and emotional consequences of war. It’s especially adept at displaying the scars invisible to those of…
