“PEN America today released new documentation of public school book bans for the full 2023-2024 school year, recording 10,046 instances of books banned nationwide, a dramatic 200 percent rise over the previous school year. Since 2021, the free expression organization has counted close to 16,000 instances of book bans in public schools.” “Nineteen Minutes by… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Education
Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts 490,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use
Open Culture: “The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put online 492,000 high-resolution images of artistic works. Even better, the museum has placed the vast majority of these images into the public domain, meaning they can be downloaded directly from the museum’s website for non-commercial use. When you browse the Met collection and find an image… Continue Reading
ProPublica’s Coverage of the Election Issues That Matter to Voters
With just days to go before Election Day, political coverage is everywhere. ProPublica avoids horse race coverage of the election, instead deeply exploring issues that voters care about, like immigration, abortion, health care, the economy, extremism and education. Continue Reading
Introducing ChatGPT search
OpenAI: “ChatGPT can now search the web in a much better way than before. You can get fast, timely answers with links to relevant web sources, which you would have previously needed to go to a search engine for. This blends the benefits of a natural language interface with the value of up-to-date sports scores,… Continue Reading
Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record
Internet Archives Blogs: “In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history. The rise of streaming platforms and temporary licensing agreements means that sound recordings, books, films, and other cultural artifacts that used to be owned in physical form, are now at… Continue Reading
Librarians Face a Crisis of Violence and Abuse
The New York Times [unpaywalled] – As libraries become public stages for social problems – homelessness, drug use, mental health – the people who work there are burning out: “…Like Mr. [Mychal] Threets. [a supervisor at the Fairfield Civic Center Library in Solano County, Calif], librarians around the country are struggling to reconcile their desire… Continue Reading
Hear Edgar Allan Poe’s Horror Stories Read by Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, James Earl Jones, & Others
Open Culture: “Here on Halloween of 2024, we have a greater variety of scary stories — and arguably, a much scarier variety of scarier stories — to choose from than ever before. But whatever their relevance to the specific lives we may live and the specific dreads we may feel today, how many such current… Continue Reading
What is Causing Our Epidemic of Loneliness and How Can We Fix It?
Harvard Graduate School of Education – Researchers share what Americans have to say about social disconnection and potential solutions – “U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy placed a spotlight on America’s problem with loneliness when he declared the issue an epidemic last year. Murthy explained, in a letter that introduced an urgent advisory, that loneliness is… Continue Reading
Your Vote Is Safe
TIME: “As Nov. 5 approaches, former president Donald Trump has left little room for doubt about his intentions. He will almost certainly declare victory on election night, as the votes are still being counted. He may turn out to be right. But if Vice President Kamala Harris wins, Trump will reject the result as corrupt… Continue Reading
Compulsory Voting’s American History
137 Harv. L. Rev. 1138 – “Voter turnout was higher in the 2020 U.S. presidential election than it had been in 120 years. Nearly sixty-seven percent of citizens over eighteen voted that November, exceeding rates that hovered around sixty percent in the twenty-first century and never broke sixty percent from 1972 to 2000. Some pundits… Continue Reading
A gigantic chart that explains absolutely everything
This chart is an overview of Meaningness and Time: the past, present, and future of culture, society, and our selves. It shows how the modes of meaningness manifest in many aspects of life. Some people find this sort of systematic presentation helpful; others do not. Skip it if you are one of those who don’t.… Continue Reading
World’s largest gravesite collection
Find A Grave: Find the graves of ancestors, create virtual memorials or add photos, virtual flowers and a note to a loved one’s memorial. Search or browse cemeteries and grave records for every-day and famous people from around the world. Slate – My Weekends With the Dead – “In 2017, I decided to solve a… Continue Reading
