bcohen
Posts by this author
August 20, 2009
Old school The Onion re-posted below, from 2002:
"Guns Are Only Deadly If Used For Their Intended Purpose"
By Ted Farner
President, Brothers In Arms U.S.A.
June 12, 2002 | Issue 38â¢22
"As the president of Brothers In Arms U.S.A., the nation's third-largest gun-rights organization, I've heard all…
August 13, 2009
Seed/Scienceblog alum Katherine Sharpe (she of austere head office fame), recently conducted a fascinating experiment in deprivation. There's Lent, of course, the standard bearer of voluntary deprivation. And there are those who give up caffeine, or television, or the internet, or long lists, or…
August 12, 2009
On we go, with the third entry in "Days at the Museum" over at McSweeney's, titled "Mind the Gap." It ran yesterday. It's theme? Beyond relating to a subway conversation, I'd summarize it as being about the gap between what I expected here and what I'm finding.
This is part three of "Days at…
July 28, 2009
Not the best title for a post, and by best, I mean most accurate. If you'd like to get to the bottom of it, though, try this new dispatch over at McSweeney's: "The Elevator to Room 1028." It has elevators. It has intrigue. It has secrecy. It has stacks of books. And it has elevators.
This is…
July 23, 2009
Tim LeCain, a professor at Montana State (in Bozeman) and a talented scholar in environmental history and the history of technology ("envirotech"), has just published Mass Destruction: The Men and Giant Mines that Wired America and Scarred the Planet. Although I've not read it yet, I'm familiar…
July 16, 2009
I haven't been here much, but I did begin a new series over at McSweeney's called "Days at the Museum." It's a limited-run set of dispatches (summer-length, let's say) about research at the Smithsonian and related miscellany. Tuesday was the first one, called "Ronzoni All the Way Down."
This is…
July 14, 2009
Alas, I have a book cover to share for Notes from the Ground! I'm pleased with it. I was even brought to use an exclamation point just there.
It happens, I know it, it happens, people judge these things by their covers. I don't say so to be cutesy or play the cliche. I'm just acknowledging it…
July 2, 2009
I realized of late that I am more a fan of Malcolm Galdwell's reviews than his articles. It's possible I've even poked fun of Gladwellian articles in the past ("I Dream in Malcolm Gladwell"). But oh boy did I enjoy his recent review of Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of a Radical Price.…
July 1, 2009
Among other things, John Stuart Mill wrote about deliberation in a democratic society. It's the philosophy that a strong democracy is one whose members are actively involved in the functioning of that government. This, as opposed to a passive, distanced, and unreflective citizenry. Engagement…
June 25, 2009
The photographer Jade Doskow is capturing and creating images of the once-grand spectacles called World's Fairs. Her photographs do triple duty: they track down those old sites, in cities across the world (from Brussels to Seville, from New York to Spokane, from Paris to Philadelphia); they call…
June 18, 2009
Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm is about a half hour from Charlottesville, give or take. His local prominence preceded the Omnivore's Dilemma bump of '06 and continues on after. Jane Black, the food writer for the Washington Post, wrote last year about the Chipotle franchise's decision to use…
June 16, 2009
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead on this day back in 1904. I'm many hours late noting it.
One favorite passage among many quoted below. Try to commit it to memory.
What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier returning to the range, admire?
Its…
June 10, 2009
A slow June at the Fair (see here for an explanation), but I'm popping in to share what constitutes a different sort of landscape image(s) below. Here's the first:
The Citarum River in Indonesia.
Here we have landscapes of garbage, scenes of environments overwhelmed with waste, with excess, with…
May 13, 2009
I'll be headed to D.C. next week to start a research Fellowship at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (above). This is a signal of transitions in several senses. Not only has the semester ended here (with graduation this Sunday and so far only two students protesting their…
May 12, 2009
Differences tabulated. In columns. And marked by me. I'll start above the fold with an excerpt:
The main distinctions are between a system that tends toward domination and one that strives for harmony; between that which seeks to specialize and that which promotes diversity; between promoting…
May 12, 2009
I guest authored a post for the ineluctable The Education of Oronte Churm, over at Inside Higher Ed. The good Mr. Churm (John Griswold) has guest written for us as well, as with this John and Paul Project post from last year and this one, from two years past, on Hot Funky Love.
But please, by all…
May 7, 2009
Pt. I | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3
---
Part 3 with Martha McCaughey, discussing her book The Caveman Mystique, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-blogger series can be found here.
WF: So how is the use of evolutionary psychology to explain masculine actions not just quackery? Evolutionary…
May 6, 2009
Pt. I | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3
---
Part 2 with Martha McCaughey, discussing her book The Caveman Mystique, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-blogger series can be found here.
WF: How do you see the relationship between the academic fields of gender studies and science studies? And how has…
May 5, 2009
The World's Fair is pleased to offer the following discussion about The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates Over Sex, Violence, and Science (Routledge, 2007), with its author Martha McCaughey. McCaughey is a Professor of Sociology and the Director of Women's Studies at Appalachian State…
April 30, 2009
I hadn't seen this Onion report before -- "Millions and Millions Dead" -- from a decade ago, although I have referred to this report -- "World Death Rate Holding Steady at 100 percent" -- before (in an old post). I am thus forced to repost the graphic about world death rates, but to pair it with…
April 30, 2009
Here's one from the vault. Specifically, an excerpt from Volume III of the Annals of Science, wherein we presented vignettes on auto-experimentation. We'll offer the first two here for starters, one of which is a counter-example.
George Berkeley and tar water
This guy was hooked on tar water.…
April 20, 2009
Or so I was told.
Speaking of ill-conceived arguments, we've been blessed at The World's Fair to host a lively conversation about NASCAR over the past two years. After one provocative query -- isn't burning a lot of fossil fuel bad for the environment?; can you believe they just banned lead in…
April 14, 2009
In a post a few weeks ago, I included links to some current and recently passed legislation on food, food safety, and food labeling. One of them, H.R. 875 -- a bill "To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services" -- has a particular devotion to "…
April 9, 2009
USA Today's Traci Watson includes a nice graphic showing reductions in CO2 emissions during the economic downturn. It's in this story, "Bad economy helps cut CO2 emissions". This trend follows and fits in line with a post a few weeks ago about landfills receiving less trash during the recession. I…
April 9, 2009
A commentary, I think, on the public understanding of basic human decency. Or lack thereof.
Stewart on tyranny, poor memory, and potato day:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Economic Crisis
Political Humor
Or try…
April 9, 2009
"Do you feel protons decaying? Grand Unification may be occurring near your vital organs."
Michael Rottman at The Morning News brings an important public service announcement to the web. By all means, please be encouraged to read it.
If pressed for time, note some of the highlights of the ten…
April 1, 2009
Add this to the list from my prior post: a Locavore app from Enjoymentland, available at the iTunes store. Local agricultural advocates are already using social networking and building virtual marketplaces and identifying market and farm sites nationwide. This feature extends the connection…
March 30, 2009
Just an accounting of the last month of local food, sustainable agriculture, and science/food/safety articles is difficult to produce. Let alone a full understanding of them. One problem with studying the topic is that the proliferation of literature on sustainable ag and its associated elements…
March 20, 2009
Eight choices for the best example of a design flaw.
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
These were forwarded to me by a colleague, who had them forwarded to her by a friend, who, guess what, had them forwarded from somewhere else. I thus do not know their origin. The pictures are either (a) legitimate…