psychology dector

David Simon , creator and writer of The Wire (HBO, 2002-2008) and Treme (HBO, 2010-2013) , author of the nonfiction crime classics, Homicide:   A Year on the Killing Streets (Houghton Mifflin, 1991) and The Corner:  A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (Broadway, 1997), and former reporter for the Baltimore Sun , can now add cultural critic and riveting public speaker to his resume, although I would argue that his work has always involved sharp and barbed cultural criticism whether in television fiction or in signed pieces of simmering nonfictional journalism.   In every case, in every word, he is a force of nature. My love for his work led me to his blog, The Audacity of Despair , a perverse reworking of Barack Obama’s 2008 memoir and political wax job.   The subtitle is “prose, links and occasional venting,” which about sums up the content.   Simon’s writing is piquant and cutting at times, but he also does a good job, better than most write...

These days, social media (Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc.) seem much more popular than feeds (RSS, Atom). Google claims about the latter that their “usage has declined”. That begs the question: have social media made feeds irrelevant? This blog post answers that question with a firm “no” and explains why. Social media versus feeds Let’s look at the strengths of each of the two. The strengths of social media Social media work well for: High-volume streams of information. In this setting, you don’t care about missing an item. Spreading news items. If you see an item in one of the streams you are following, Twitter et al. make it simple to share it with your followers: you can insert a reference to it into your own stream. That means that news items spread globally, if enough people find them interesting. Communication. I especially find Twitter useful for publicly discussing topics, or for finding out what people think about a given topic. The stengths of feeds T...

Have you published a blog post or a GitHub project? This document gives tips for making your content appealing to link to. They are based on things I noticed while collecting material for the JavaScript Weekly email newsletter. The tips should also make your content more appealing to “normal” readers. Cosmetic tips A few superficial measures for a better first impression: Spelling: Make sure your spelling is OK. Alas, the “.js” suffix is used in many variations. When in doubt, look up the name you are referring to. Names that are very often spelled wrong: JavaScript (not Javascript) Ajax (not AJAX): it’s not a real acronym, see the post where the term was invented Node.js or Node (not NodeJS): this one is more tricky, as there are many variations. Starting with a capital N and ending with “.js” seems the most common way to spell it. Links: Don’t use URL shorteners. They don’t let you see where they are poin...

Photo credit:  Matt Mendelsohn Lately, I’ve been reading Daniel Mendelsohn, a cultural and literary critic.   His books have ample essayistic criticism, but also personal history and metaphor.   He brings sharp, intelligent, and often witty writing that is always insightful and interesting to read. Two particularly interesting pieces I found recently, one written by Mendelsohn himself , and the other, an interview with him posted December 25 th , 2012 at Lambda Literary:   Celebrating Excellence in LGBT Literature Since 1989 , demand careful examination. “A Critic’s Manifesto” posted August 28 th , 2012 on The New Yorker website, gives us both some personal history and Mendelsohn’s view of the role of the critic.   He learned his craft, he tells us, through reading.   Mendelsohn dreamed of being not a novelist or poet, but a critic, and he began his journey on the pages of publications like The New Yorker reading not just literary critiques, but those w...

“…for here there is no place that does not see you.  You must change your life.” (from   "Archaic Torso of Apollo" by Rainer Maria Rilke )                                                                                               For a while now, I’ve wanted to explore some other views in addition to The Teacher’s View .  I’ve taken a lot of freedom on these pages to cover a wide swath of subjects.  Truth is, I have always been more student of life than teacher.  Maybe, back in 2007, I should have called this blog The Student’s View .  We are always learning. What’s done is done, and I enjoy the freedom I’ve had on these pages to explore wherever my mind has wandered.  I expect to keep going with The Teacher’s View wel...

There is the story that to improve or reform education in this country, we must track standardized test scores, fire teachers, spend more money, spend less money, end the layers of bureaucracy, add more administrators, abolish credentials and licenses or make them more difficult to get, issue vouchers and privatize public schools or turn every school into a charter school. There are the hair-brained schemes of idiots and the solid ideas from veteran teachers and people with common sense who know and understand that improving education means challenging students and holding them accountable while teaching like the fate of the world depends on it, because it does. Ethics, morals, values, history, languages, cultures, sciences, mathematics, physical fitness, music, art, acting, theatre arts, writing, poetry, imagination, religion, philosophy, political science, geography, spelling, grammar, literature, ideas—teach it all, teach it all, teach it all . Teach our children well and let God ta...

Every day, it becomes more and more apparent that blogs are the future of publication. The middle man—the magazine, newspaper, or book publisher—is virtually eliminated. Blogs are people speaking to people. Yes, that brings with it some problems like editing and relevance, but I find that reading blogs is like sifting through sand for diamonds. I drop in, read for a while, and if the writing stays fresh and interesting, I hang around. If not, there is always the delete button. I have written in this space about William Michaelian , his poetry books , his Author’s Press Series , and his expansive website. His blog, Recently Banned Literature , offers daily doses of his poetry, ruminations, dreams, recent book acquisitions from local thrift shops, and other “marginalia.” William has amassed quite a following on the internet through blogging and Facebook, giving him a plethora of readers who often interact with his work within their own creations. He posts drawings, art work, and photog...