Quality interweb mischief from Jared Bridges
Jared Bridges ~ Volume XVIII ~ Away from the web I have been for a while; Yet fear not my dear friends, cease not to smile; While words around here have been waning in style; I’ve returned to you now, with links by the pile! At his insightful Crunchy Con blog, Rod Dreher recounts a telling experience … Read more
If you haven’t yet read the German Der Spiegel interview with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, go read it now. If it’s not enough to make you reconsider your summer vacation to Tehran this year, I don’t know what is. After speculating on whether or not he’ll attend the World Cup or watch it on TV … Read more
I had never heard of it until last week, but when I was told that watching the 1991 documentary “The Dancing Outlaw” would change my life, I was skeptical. After seeing it this weekend, my life will never be the same. The fact that is that Jesco White, the last of the mountain dancers, is … Read more
I’ve never been a big fan of Cliffs Notes. Though the publisher calls their product “trustworthy study guides,” we all know what they’re used for 99 percent of the time. They encourage laziness, illiteracy, and all the other bad things your high school English teacher warned you about. There was one occasion, however, that I … Read more
Part of the trouble with reading six or seven books at a time is that some really good works get set aside as I “sneak a peek” at other volumes, which in turn get cast aside in favor of other titles, and so on — it’s quite the vicious cycle. Call it attention deficit disorder, … Read more
Evil is most fearsome when it is encompassed in a person, and few persons throughout history have encompassed evil as well as Adolf Hitler. It is hard for most people to even conceive of someone like Hitler, but imagine trying to play him in a movie. When it comes to tyrants, most films go overboard … Read more
It’s not often that a novel undergoes such scrutiny as has Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. Debunking the wildly popular thriller has become a virtual industry unto itself, and not without warrant. Brown’s fictional account of a “search for truth” was designed to push the buttons and step on the toes of the faithful. Controversy … Read more
A couple of years ago, I noted a photo essay that explored the “ghost town” that is now Chernobyl, Ukraine. It is a haunting, disturbing essay, and should be revisited today, the 20th anniversary of the disaster. Even more disturbing, is this photo essay that chronicles victims of the accident. It is difficult to watch … Read more
Three years ago today, April 25, 2003, I began this blog. Judging by the proliferation of blogging since that time, I’d guess that blogs three years old or older occupy a small slice of the pie. Remember the old standard of dog years, where seven or so dog years equaled one “human” year? Well, here’s … Read more
Teachers & Teaching: Part II
On every university campus, there exist certain professors who, at the very mention of their names, cause students to cringe with fear. At the University of Tennessee, Dr. Von Trapp* was one of these professors. Students who had survived his Western Civilization class told tales about him to other students much like the ones Marines tell of Parris Island: “I’ve been through Von Trapp’s Western Civ. class. It doesn’t get much worse than that.”