Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Subjects decided

The votes are in. This term the final projects will be developed within these four major subject areas: environment, animal rights, medical research, and prison industry. Looks like an interesting mix with lots of issue possibilities.

Now I have to go out and find some articles for our first discussions.

Republican Pants On Fire

Republican Pants On Fire

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Saturday, August 15, 2009

Classes

What was I thinking??

It looked like this semester would be really light on work. After all, I'd lost my COS class and one at Reedley was threatened because of CA's economy. Then I only had one class scheduled by DeVry. Rather than fussing about not having a full schedule, I decided it would be a great time to take a drawing class.

After registering and paying for the class, I learned both Reedley sections would make and DeVry asked me to teach another class. That's great, but it now means I'll be up to my eyeballs in busy this fall. Still, taking a drawing class should enhance not only the classes I teach but also my personal life, so busy seems like a good thing.

I've been having some problems with some of the resources I've been creating for my Reedley classes. I really hate trying to figure out the technical snafus, but the process must go on. Unfortunately, these problems have really slowed my prep, so I won't have everything ready at the beginning of the class.

That's another of those "what were you thinking" things. I never should have decided to completely revise a course so close to the time it had to be taught again. There are always bugs to be worked out when doing a major overhaul, and I do know better. Still...

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Composition of Housekeeping

Audience
- Most loved ones = They forgive when yet another project intrudes before cleaning.
- General visitor = Uh oh. Better dust the sitting room at least. Maybe low lighting would be enough.
- Dinner guests = Better get the stains off all countertops and see if those wicked no-see-um flies can be kept at bay for at least a few hours.
- Overnight guests = Uh... kitchen, bedroom, bathrooms, and shove as much as possible in closets and drawers; close office door.

Purpose
- Go to work = Kick the biggest stuff aside on the way from the bed to the bath to the office.
- Cook = Locate the kitchen and use its phone to dial take out.

Detail
- When does "dust bunny" become the furry crud-ball that consumes Cleveland, TN?
- When do windows become foggy apertures that beckon one to daydream?

Why is it that housecleaning is like a never-ending English 1 class of essay after essay on the same subject???

Okay... enough of this, I need to go finish the kitchen floor.

Eeek!

Classes start in less than two weeks, and I'm still only half done with prep. Looks like I'll be putting in some long hours over the next few days. Fortunately there's a lot of egregiously fallacious reasoning going on, so there's plenty of text to examine in the classes!

Check out Stephen Colbert's lampooning of Orly Taitz. Her arguments against Obama's right to serve as president are nothing short of legendary for their refusal to recognize fact over fiction.



Asked how announcements of Obama's birth could be published in Hawaiian newspapers 48 years before they would be needed to fabricate a US birth for his presidency bid, Taitz had some difficulty explaining... What sort of fallacies are in this clip?