As the COVID-19 Delta variant spreads faster in the United States, my new state, Missouri, has been hit hard and as of today is heading towards a new peak in new cases and hospitalizations, largely because the state’s vaccination rate (~50%) is among the lowest in the country. This, along with the CDC’s new guidance…
Category: Ideas
Animal Welfare and Sentient Life
My wife has been making fun of the care and concern I have demonstrating for our new dog by calling me “obsessed.” Am I obsessed? To be honest, probably a little. Two weeks into caring for this particular dog, I have been surprised by how much love, care, and responsibility I feel for her. More…
Superheroes and the State
I wasn’t especially into comic books as a kid, but I’ve been a voracious consumer of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies and television. In 2011, I was struck by a piece of dialogue from Captain America: The First Avenger that seemed to reveal the regressive state-focused politics at the heart of the film. In fact,…
40 Days of Writing
Today I complete 40 days of writing over the course of two calendar months, and I’ve managed to maintain discipline and consistency throughout this period of time, despite a couple of brief interruptions to my schedule of writing 500-800 words a day, five days a week. I reflected on the 10th day that the real…
Teaching Media Literacy
Every year in the course of my teaching I discover that students have been duped by a conspiracy theory or misinformation, typically through social media. From 9/11 conspiracy theories to QAnon and #SaveTheChildren people are susceptible to misinformation and disinformation that alters their relationship to reality. The explosive rise of the internet and various social…
Afghanistan Withdrawal
“We have been at war for your entire life,” I told my classes of mostly 16-year old students a couple of years ago in a unit focused on American involvement in the Middle East. Most of them weren’t that surprised. The truth, at least according to Andrew Bacevich in America’s War for the Greater Middle…
Dogs in American Culture
I’ve been thinking about animal consciousness and suffering even more than usual lately in light of the fact that my wife and I adopted a shelter dog last Friday that we’ve named Bwana. I’ve long expressed my ambivalance about dog ownership, even though I love dogs. They demand a lot of care and attention, their…
Adolescent Development and Technology
Back when I was doing my Masters in Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I took a couple of classes in adolescent psychology. At the time, I didn’t find them all that useful, as many of the interesting and useful insights were duplicated in a wonderful class in the learning sciences which was…
Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence
Identifying and defining intelligence is a challenge since there are so many ways in which humans, animals, and artificial creations display intelligence. Although some academics have made the case that standardized tests like the SAT measure intelligence reasonably well, they notably avoid trying to define intelligence at all. Certainly, the SAT measures a specific sort…
Our Children
It is no great surprise that humans care for their children over all others, but the deeply human need to care for “our children” over the children of a community or a society presents some significant challenges for policymakers and those interested in improving social, economic and educational outcomes for children who grow up in…