Author: Mr. Lakhaney

TOK Teacher

When You ‘Literally Can’t Even’ Understand Your Teenager

June 10, 2015

“Adolescent slang has evolved a clever defense mechanism against the threat of the search engine. Teenagers have always used words to obscure their most sensitive subjects: He’s a total babe, but he sweats this ditz who gets blazed every day after school. Now the most creative linguistic innovations elide the discussion topic entirely. ‘I can’t even’ is a confession interrupted. A close relative of ‘I can’t even’ is the keysmash, a string of actual gibberish — asdf;lkl, maybe — meant to signal that the typist has become so excited that she has lost control of her fingers. Or consider ‘Your fave could never,’ a gleeful taunt meaning roughly ‘Your favorite [actor] could never [pull off the beach ensemble modeled by my favorite actor, Darren Criss, over which I am literally dying right now].’ A reader can only decipher its meaning if she has been briefed on the speaker’s celebrity allegiances and is plugged into the web’s breakneck gossip cycle. The modern revelation doubles as a warning: Reveal less.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/magazine/when-you-literally-cant-even-understand-your-teenager.html

When It’s O.K. to Pay for a Story

June 9, 2015

“Modern news media organizations must develop new codes of ethics that embrace the best of the Internet’s potential for citizen journalism and information sharing. They should not rule out paying sources, but it should happen rarely and be transparent when it does. The guiding idea is not just what’s in the public interest, but what serves democracy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/opinion/when-its-ok-to-pay-for-a-story.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region

Before Pantone Color Chips, There Was This 300-Year-Old Book

May 31, 2015

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Not quite how I would use this for TOK but it’s really really cool.

“This one-of-a-kind book was created to demonstrate how watercolors could be manipulated to change shade when different measurements of water were added to the mixture. The concept of mixing one’s own colors as a primer on color theory will surely be familiar to any first-semester art student, but Boogert’s example is notable for its thoroughness — he filled approximately 800 pages with every example imaginable.”

http://www.refinery29.com/original-pantone-color-book

6 Books Everyone (Including Your English Teacher) Got Wrong

May 31, 2015

This list and accompanying words raise some interesting questions about artistic interpretation. Does an artist have exclusive domain over the “correct” interpretation of his art work? If Fahrenheit 451 is commonly interpreted as a book about censorship and its author, Ray Bradbury, says its a book about the dangers of television, does that mean that everyone who disagrees with him is wrong? Once the artwork is created, what relationship does the artist have to it? The assumption in this article is that the author’s intent matters even if people interpret the work differently and that somehow disagreeing with the author’s own intention makes you wrong. Interesting read overall.

“With most every classic novel comes some outlandish interpretations. Some people have wild fringe theories about Harry Potter as an allegory for young gay love and Lord of the Rings being about WWII and the atom bomb. But some of these laughably wrong interpretations stick. In fact, you were taught some of them in school …”

http://www.cracked.com/article_18787_6-books-everyone-including-your-english-teacher-got-wrong.html?sr_source=lift_facebook&utm_source=simplereach&utm_medium=FB&utm_campaign=simplereach052015

Is It Offensive to Say ‘Old Testament’?

May 29, 2015

“The respected rabbi James Rudin has written, ‘I abhor the term Old Testament,’ because it suggests’Judaism has been replaced by Christianity and that the New Testament is superior to the Old Testament.”

“Is he right? Is ‘Old Testament’ an abhorrent and offensive phrase? I don’t think so. The phrase ‘Old Testament’ is not ideal. Yet, it is better than any of the alternatives.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-evan-moffic/is-it-offensive-to-say-ol_b_7456408.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

Peter Singer: On Animal Rights and Human Rights

May 27, 2015

“Speciesism is an attitude of bias against a being because of the species to which it belongs. Typically, humans show speciesism when they give less weight to the interests of nonhuman animals than they give to the similar interests of human beings. Note the requirement that the interests in question be ‘similar.’ It’s not speciesism to say that normal humans have an interest in continuing to live that is different from the interests that nonhuman animals have.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/peter-singer-on-speciesism-and-racism/

Finally, an Answer to the Minimum Wage Question

May 27, 2015

How can we prove anything in the human sciences when it is virtually impossible to run reproduceable experiments the way you can in the natural sciences? Every so often a “natural experiment” presents itself and we can come to conclusions about truths in fields such as economics. The problems of economics are present in fields throughout the human sciences for the same reasons. Below is an article that discusses the issue the effects of raising the minimum wage.

“In statistics, ‘identification’ just means separating two groups in order to tell if a treatment works. You give Group A the pill and you give Group B a placebo, and you see if Group A does better than Group B. In laboratory experiments this is usually possible to do. In the real world, it’s a lot harder — you have to wait for a policy to bring about a difference between two areas that are roughly comparable.”

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-27/finally-an-answer-to-the-old-minimum-wage-question?cmpid=yhoo

Even Taylor Swift’s Mom Got That ‘Blank Space’ Lyric Wrong — Here’s Why

May 27, 2015

“There’s actually a science behind all your mis-perceived song lyrics — it’s a phenomenon called mondegreens and it happens all the time.

“Some Swift fans think the song’s line ‘got a long list of ex-lovers’ is actually ‘all the lonely Starbucks lovers’ including, apparently, her mom.”

https://www.yahoo.com/health/even-taylor-swifts-mom-got-that-blank-119948277022.html

Should Authors Shun or Cooperate With Chinese Censors?

May 27, 2015

“A report by the PEN American Center, which found some books were expurgated by Chinese censors without the authors even knowing it, called on those who want their works published in the lucrative Chinese market to be vigilant, and recommended a set of principles in dealing with publishers.

“But each author may approach the problem differently. How should Western authors and artists deal with Chinese government censorship? Accept or negotiate changes, or decline to have their work published at all?”