Category: issues

“Student attendance at major college football games is declining across the country. By how much varies greatly at each institution, but a recent Wall Street Journal analysis of turnstile data at 50 public colleges with top football programs found that average student attendance is down more than 7 percent since 2009.”

“Me experiences” are different from “bigger-than-me experiences.” Me experiences are about voice; they help students express themselves. The underlying question they begin with is, “What do I have to say?” BTM experiences are about insight; they start with, “What don’t I know?” Voice comes after reflection.

“If the concept of censorship is extended to everything, it means nothing. It should not be trivialized.”

“Leaders from the Rosenbach and the Free Library of Philadelphia – the two merged in 2013 – are not surprised to see the Sendak material leaving. In visits with him in his last years, Rosenbach staffers heard him talk more and more about a museum and study center devoted to his life and work.”

“Is a teacher who can’t afford to live in the city any more or less worthy than an artist? We need to adopt a more holistic approach and think beyond class and occupation. We need to work in partnership with colleagues from every sector.”

Don Draper, Tony Soprano, Walter White – “Each of these tragic exemplars of ‘adulthood’ is destroyed exactly because of his failure to behave like an adult. … In the main they are frauds who merely assume the trappings of ‘adulthood’ in order to participate in a society that would reject them if it knew the truth. … It’s not to do with having ‘killed off all the grown-ups’ as [A.O.] Scott has it: quite the contrary. It’s adulthood defined for the audience by its very absence on the screen.”

Andrew O’Hehir: “Well, if [A.O.] Scott gets to play frustrated English professor in his article, I get to play former college Marxist in mine … There really is something beneath his ‘death of adulthood’ premise, whether or not you like the prejudicial phrase. But to coin a phrase: It’s the economy, stupid.”

“We are starting to see a schism as more and more AAA games are becoming worse from a critical standpoint while becoming better from a less critical, more general perspective.”

Last week, Mark Shenton wrote in passing “There are plenty of budding actors, writers, directors and even critics (though no jobs for the latter), …” To which journalist Matt Trueman responded, “Mark, saying no jobs for young critics does a disservice to young critics making a living from their writing.” Well, disservice or no, here’s Shenton’s response.