Slate consistently strikes me as one of the most engaging magazines around, including print. This week they’ve done a great series on College Week – a series of articles on higher ed. One of the sub-topics is a series of brief essays by academics on how they’d improve higher ed. The best are Steven Pinker (always fascinating, no exception here), Alan Wolfe (he touches on why morality should be central, something I’ve talked about on this blog), Georgia Nugent (morality, again). Elsewhere in College Week, there’s a good kicker on college journalists which humored me as I run the paper at my high school; an interesting list of the first books that famous intellectuals/stars fell in love with; students ranking professors online. Finally, there’s a piece on the pervasive nature of laptops and wi-fi in the classroom, and all the associated distractions. Most of my blog posts during the week are done while I’m in class – there are a lot of boring moments! A couple days ago I exchanged emails with a teacher where, after emailing him, I jokingly said "What else am I going to do in class?" He responded: "I dunno, maybe take notes, or some dumb conformist shit like that?" Indeed.
Elsewhere on Slate…The Explainer tells us how to create your own town. This is something I’ve always wanted to do – create some town in the midwest when I’m 60 years old. You know, a tight-knit community of like 60 citizens.