I’ve begun to consider the possibility that my brain does manage to wrap itself around these evolutionary shifts in digital technology without extreme difficulty. Which in turn suggests that perhaps this recurrent process helps to keep my brain active and young (or, more precisely, youth-like) by pushing me to learn new skills, to replace old habits with new or revised ones, and in one way or another to get some exercise for the mind. In short, I’ve begun to weigh the mental-health benefits of living la vida digital, with its steady reconfiguring of my neural pathways. […]
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Follow me on Mastodon:
@adcoleman@hcommons.social
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Sigmund Freud, who visited this country only once, in 1909, famously declared, “America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.” The jury’s still out on that. But the nation’s first Black president winning a second term despite a collapsed economy isn’t the stuff of dreams. It’s absolutely real; and, to whatever extent photographs still function as evidence today, we have the pictures to prove it. […] The film trailer Innocence of Muslims has faded from the headlines. Yet this laughably inept, cut-rate production, bankrolled and otherwise enabled by the evangelical right in the U.S., represents the one set of images that emerged during the election cycle that promises to remain active (even if in a lower-profile way) in the post-election, post-inauguration political environment. […] One reason I value Omar Willey’s assessment of my writing, along with George Slade’s, is that both manifest substantial skills as writers themselves. Also, they both have a long-term involvement with photography that provides a perspective on my project as a critic which I find valuable as feedback, and which differentiates their observations from those of younger judges, no matter how insightful. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014All content of this publication is © copyright 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 by A. D. Coleman unless otherwise noted. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without prior written permission. All photos copyright by the individual photographers. "Fair use" allows quotation of excerpts of textual material from this site for educational and other noncommercial purposes.
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Say Goodbye to Lake Wobegon U. (1)
Having witnessed this “northward drift” of grades as a teacher in both undergraduate and graduate liberal-arts programs over the past four decades, I can testify that it’s very real. And I’m willing to wager that, if social promotion ever get traced to its origins in higher education, we will learn that it began in college-level studio art programs, and, even more specifically, in college-level photo programs, circa 1965. […]