Top Ten Things That Intellectuals Do
10. have some projects that require persistence and sustained effort
9. reify and abstract; dissolve and create categories
8. metaphorize; re-imagine ordinary things in extraordinary ways
7. do something new every day; be surprised
6. socialize; argue, joke and have fun with people
5. teach; learning and teaching are projections of each other
4. travel
3. listen
2. write
And the number one thing that intellectuals do is:
1. READ
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
In case you need a quiet word with me,
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (MingW32)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=
=Yq91
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
which is identical to my indexed MIT Server public KeyId 503987BF
Thursday, October 15, 2015
This is how to have a presidential debate
Tired of questions that sandbag and incite rather than hit the crucial policy issues?
Tired of presenters chasing their own ratings rather than the social contract?
Play Political Pursuit instead
Begin with a large pool of potential questions solicited from the public at large. Of these, 300 or so questions are selected, chosen for breadth, relevancy and popularity by an independent non-partisan group or groups such as the League of Women Voters.
These final selected pool questions are published at least two weeks before the debate so that both the public and the candidates may prepare as well as they wish before the evening of the debate.
The debate itself is conducted in a straightforward manner:
Each candidate has one minute to introduce themselves and to frame their candidacy.
Each candidate then selects from an urn of 300 balls a question number, which they have one minute to address or to rebut the previous answer of another candidate, or to respond in any other way they wish. The listeners and pundits of course may refer to their notes regarding this indexed question asked by a presenter to the candidate whose turn it is to be in the spotlight.
After the minute, the next candidate selects a new random question and so on.
The debate ends after a predetermined number of full rounds giving each candidate the same opportunity to speak.
Finally, each candidate has one minute to sum up and recapitulate their position.
This format has the advantages of being fair to each candidate, giving each the same amount of time to speak. It has the advantage of including those questions deemed most relevant to the public and gives obscure or heretofore unknown issues the possibility of being asked, not just what the presenters think is important in the current news cycle.
No candidate will be hit with a presenter's argumentative, biased, or unexpected question. And, since they will not be sandbagged with a previously unknown or argumentative question, candidates will not have to prepare a set of side-stepping general "answers" that basically ignore the question at hand. The public will know that the candidate had time to prepare and will judge accordingly.
Each candidate may prepare cribs as much or as little from the potential pool, which has the admirable side-effect of being a kind of test-prep for the candidate and their staff for the Presidency and is the ultimate focus group for issues important to the electorate.
This benefit accrues to the public as well as they see the breadth and quality of the pool that will in itself constitute a short course of our democratic republic. Pundits can also pre-fact check.
Overall, publishing the pool ahead of time will raise the level of political discourse in our entire country among all its citizens.
Most importantly, anyone--including non-citizens or minors--may submit a potential pool question with the final pool selected by a non-partisan group from among those submitted by the public. The group does not need to select banal, irrelevant, non-civil, repetitive, unnecessarily technical, or even, well, boring questions to be among the final debate pool.
The excitement of a lottery but without the faux drama of the presenters fomenting discord--while no more "debate" than the entertainment reality show that is palmed off now, it will be a meet-and-greet, but with real meat. Political Pursuit.
Tired of presenters chasing their own ratings rather than the social contract?
Play Political Pursuit instead
Begin with a large pool of potential questions solicited from the public at large. Of these, 300 or so questions are selected, chosen for breadth, relevancy and popularity by an independent non-partisan group or groups such as the League of Women Voters.
These final selected pool questions are published at least two weeks before the debate so that both the public and the candidates may prepare as well as they wish before the evening of the debate.
The debate itself is conducted in a straightforward manner:
Each candidate has one minute to introduce themselves and to frame their candidacy.
Each candidate then selects from an urn of 300 balls a question number, which they have one minute to address or to rebut the previous answer of another candidate, or to respond in any other way they wish. The listeners and pundits of course may refer to their notes regarding this indexed question asked by a presenter to the candidate whose turn it is to be in the spotlight.
After the minute, the next candidate selects a new random question and so on.
The debate ends after a predetermined number of full rounds giving each candidate the same opportunity to speak.
Finally, each candidate has one minute to sum up and recapitulate their position.
This format has the advantages of being fair to each candidate, giving each the same amount of time to speak. It has the advantage of including those questions deemed most relevant to the public and gives obscure or heretofore unknown issues the possibility of being asked, not just what the presenters think is important in the current news cycle.
No candidate will be hit with a presenter's argumentative, biased, or unexpected question. And, since they will not be sandbagged with a previously unknown or argumentative question, candidates will not have to prepare a set of side-stepping general "answers" that basically ignore the question at hand. The public will know that the candidate had time to prepare and will judge accordingly.
Each candidate may prepare cribs as much or as little from the potential pool, which has the admirable side-effect of being a kind of test-prep for the candidate and their staff for the Presidency and is the ultimate focus group for issues important to the electorate.
This benefit accrues to the public as well as they see the breadth and quality of the pool that will in itself constitute a short course of our democratic republic. Pundits can also pre-fact check.
Overall, publishing the pool ahead of time will raise the level of political discourse in our entire country among all its citizens.
Most importantly, anyone--including non-citizens or minors--may submit a potential pool question with the final pool selected by a non-partisan group from among those submitted by the public. The group does not need to select banal, irrelevant, non-civil, repetitive, unnecessarily technical, or even, well, boring questions to be among the final debate pool.
The excitement of a lottery but without the faux drama of the presenters fomenting discord--while no more "debate" than the entertainment reality show that is palmed off now, it will be a meet-and-greet, but with real meat. Political Pursuit.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Popular internet news sources as curated by the New York Times on October 1, 2015
Derived and transformed from http://nyti.ms/1KNTKSX
http://al.com
http://bbc.com
http://bleacherreport.com
http://bostonglobe.com
http://boston.com
http://businessinsider.com
http://buzzfeed.com
http://cbsnews.com
http://chicagotribune.com
http://chron.com
http://cnet.com
http://cnn.com
http://dailymail.co.uk
http://dallasnews.com
http://elitedaily.com
http://engadget.com
http://examiner.com
http://foxnews.com
http://freep.com
http://gawker.com
http://huffingtonpost.com
http://independent.co.uk
http://latimes.com
http://mashable.com
http://mic.com
http://mirror.co.uk
http://mlive.com
http://msn.com
http://nbcnews.com
http://news.yahoo.com
http://nj.com
http://npr.org
http://nydailynews.com
http://nypost.com
http://nytimes.com
http://salon.com
http://sfgate.com
http://slate.com
http://techcrunch.com
http://telegraph.co.uk
http://theatlantic.com
http://theblaze.com
http://thedailybeast.com
http://theguardian.com
http://time.com
http://upworthy.com
http://usatoday.com
http://usnews.com
http://vice.com
http://vox.com
http://washingtonpost.com
http://al.com
http://bbc.com
http://bleacherreport.com
http://bostonglobe.com
http://boston.com
http://businessinsider.com
http://buzzfeed.com
http://cbsnews.com
http://chicagotribune.com
http://chron.com
http://cnet.com
http://cnn.com
http://dailymail.co.uk
http://dallasnews.com
http://elitedaily.com
http://engadget.com
http://examiner.com
http://foxnews.com
http://freep.com
http://gawker.com
http://huffingtonpost.com
http://independent.co.uk
http://latimes.com
http://mashable.com
http://mic.com
http://mirror.co.uk
http://mlive.com
http://msn.com
http://nbcnews.com
http://news.yahoo.com
http://nj.com
http://npr.org
http://nydailynews.com
http://nypost.com
http://nytimes.com
http://salon.com
http://sfgate.com
http://slate.com
http://techcrunch.com
http://telegraph.co.uk
http://theatlantic.com
http://theblaze.com
http://thedailybeast.com
http://theguardian.com
http://time.com
http://upworthy.com
http://usatoday.com
http://usnews.com
http://vice.com
http://vox.com
http://washingtonpost.com
Sunday, September 27, 2015
But who will speak for the iPhones? Siri, I guess.
In response to prompt
Stop Googling. Let’s Talk.
Grady Ward
New York City
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
The power of instantly using a smart device to pin down the arrant fact at the time is is needed rather than l'esprit d'escalier has not only is making us better educated and socially coherent but an entirely new variety of sapiens, an augmented variety of human vastly more powerful in an information age than those without the technology at hand.
But "sapiens" means wisdom, which is more than a wreath of facts and is also the mulling and thoughtful simmering that Ms. Turkle is commending.
Reflection guided by facts. I am looking forward to the reconciliation.