Learn to Expect

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Learn to expect, not to doubt. In so doing you bring everything into the realm of possibility. This does not mean that by believing you are necessarily going to get everything you want or think you want. Perhaps that would not be good for you. When you put your trust in God, He guides your mind so that you do not want things that are not good for you or that are inharmonious with God’s will. But it does definitely mean that when you learn to believe, then that which has seemingly been impossible moves into the area of the possible. Every great thing at last becomes for you a possibility. 

Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking

Articles of interest about journalism, fakes, social media & more - March 15

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***COVID 19

Why We Can’t Make Vaccine Doses Any Faster

***JOURNALISM

When writing about race, abuse follows. Especially for journalists of color and women

How Yahoo News reached 1 million followers on TikTok in 1 year 

Journalists face record levels of persecution globally

News deserts and weak ethics laws allow corruption to run rampant in SC

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Most local papers are gasping for life, and if they die it will be their readers who lose the most

Less than a third of the world’s top editors at major outlets are women

America rebalances its post-Trump news diet 

BuzzFeed Announces Deep Cuts To HuffPost Staff After Acquisition

Donald Trump Loses Libel Suit Against N.Y. Times

***FREE SPEECH

Des Moines reporter's acquittal lauded as victory for press freedom

How the Russian government accidentally blocked its own websites 

***WRITING & READING 

List of Plagiarism Resources

Rod Serling talks to college students about the craft of writing

***FAKES, FRAUDS & SCAMS

They’re worried their mom is becoming a conspiracy theorist. She thinks they’re the ones living in a fantasy world ($)

How to stop robocalls: Every way we know to block the annoying scam phone calls 

Challenging anyone who spreads falsehoods is an important part of respecting the truth in both science and the wider world 

I went down the ‘rabbit hole’ to debunk misinformation – here’s what I learned

Russian intelligence reportedly used fake news sites to spread misinformation about coronavirus vaccines

***DEEP FAKES

Pa. woman created ‘deepfake’ videos to force rivals off daughter’s cheerleading squad: police

Slick Tom Cruise Deepfakes Signal That Near Flawless Forgeries May Be Here      

***COVID MISINFORMATION

YouTube removed 30,000 videos with COVID misinformation

QAnon groups switches focus to attacks on coronavirus vaccines

***SOCIAL MEDIA  

Hootsuite's Social Media Image

He got Facebook hooked on AI. Now he can't fix its misinformation addiction

How Different Are Americans’ Facebook Feeds?

Instagram led users to Covid misinformation amid pandemic – report 

Texas Wants to Ban Facebook and Twitter ... From Banning 

***PRIVACY & SECURITY 

Microsoft Confident Exchange Hack Is State-Sponsored Operation

Here's what we know so far about the massive Microsoft Exchange hack

Former Facebook insiders explain why FB is making such a big fuss over Apple's upcoming privacy change

***LANGUAGE

Meet the people fighting to keep a language alive online

***BOOKS & LITERATURE

50 Very Bad Book Covers for Literary Classics 

Want to borrow that e-book from the library? Sorry, Amazon won’t let you.

***POETRY

Why kids need poetry in their lives, and how to spark their interest in it

Margaret Atwood pens poetry for new songs about violence against women

How can I be useful to you?

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I used to ask my patients, "How can I help you? " But that kind of question makes them Humpty Dumpty, waiting around on the pavement to be put back together again. And it makes me the kings horses and the kings men, ultimately powerless to fix another person. I’ve changed my question. Now I say, "How can I be useful to you?" How can I support you as you take responsibility for yourself?  

Auschwitz survivor Edith Eva Eger in her book The Choice

Articles of Interest about higher ed - March 14

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 ***COVID-19

How worried should we be about COVID variants?

Does it matter which one I get? Comparing the three COVID-19 vaccines

How America’s Vaccine System Makes People With Health Problems Fight for a Place in Line ($)

***HIGHER ED & COVID

UC Davis offers students money to not travel during spring break

Here’s how colleges are working to reduce outbreaks

Duke University orders students to stay-in-place until March 21 following uptick in COVID-19 cases

Hundreds of rowdy revelers throw out-of-control street party near University of Colorado, Boulder, campus  

San Diego State University plans to offer in-person commencement this spring

***HIGHER ED & POLITICS

Biden's Covid relief won't shield many public colleges from pandemic's blow  

The stimulus bill is set to give nearly $40 billion to higher education—here’s where that money will go

***LAYOFFS & CUTS

Layoffs at Ithaca College are forcing people out of academia (and out of town)

Michigan’s Kettering University will end 5 programs 

University of Tennessee Health Science Center lays off 70

***COLLEGE FINANCES 

COVID-19 pandemic worsens financial distress for private liberal arts colleges

Chegg CEO: ‘25% of colleges could go out of business’

U.S. Colleges’ Mind-Blowing Cost Of Tuition (infographic)

 ***HIGHER ED  

Google's new certificate programs and a new feature of Google Search designed to help job seekers everywhere

Hackers Target University of Texas at El Paso

Southern New Hampshire Acquires Coding Boot Camp Kenzie Academ

Colleges continue losing undergraduate enrollment this spring, even as graduate enrollment climbs

***ACCREDITATION

Colleges Are Fleeing a Troubled Accreditor. Can They Find a New One?

Wheeling University placed on probation by Higher Learning Commission

***HIGHER ED IN COURT 

Supreme Court rules 8-1 in favor of students who sued Georgia Gwinnett College over restrictive speech policies

Supreme Court keeps ex-students' lawsuit alive in college speech zone case

Federal Court Dismisses Tuition Refund Lawsuits in Rhode Island

Former Berkeley law student sues UC over immigration error that cost him ‘dream job’

DePaul sued over facial recognition tech used for online test proctoring

***TEACHING

Coursera IPO filing reveals a company successfully monetizing MOOCs

Schools Are Abandoning Invasive Proctoring Software After Student Backlash

***ACADEMIC LIFE  

Faculty and Staff Often Don’t Trust One Another. How Do We Fix That?

New Nonpartisan Faculty Group Will Promote and Defend Free Speech, Academic Freedom

***ADMINISTRATORS

Calls increase for Oregon State president to resign over handling of sexual harassment claims

University of Scranton’s President dies from ALS complications

A new president takes the reins at University of Dallas

***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS  

College of the Ozarks says its athletics program is ending its relationship with the NAIA

Anti-LGBTQ sign at Calvin University sparks students speaking out, silent sit-in protest

Cornel West returns to Union Theological Seminary after Harvard tenure dispute

California Baptist women's basketball team has perfect record but won't make NCAA Tournament

Samford University trustees elect Beck Taylor as new president

Science and Creationism in Serious Colleges ($)

Wesley Theological Seminary wants to tap into the school's most valuable asset — its land

***RESEARCH

Re-engineering Scholarly Journal Publishing

Tips about dealing with the scientific literature

Separating out Predatory publishers from the Legitimate ones

The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science

***STUDENT LIFE 

Pandemic spurs increase in depression among college students

NLRB withdraws rules to quash graduate students’ right to organize as employees ($)

AP study: Nearly 90% of esports scholarships going to men

University of Tampa students revolt to throw their own graduation

Student suspensions are shaking up the University of Vermont campus

Is This the End of the Romance Between Chinese Students and American Colleges?

2 Middle Tennessee State students arrested on theft and forgery charges, accused of stealing $114K from university

College Students Are Still Paying for Services, Buildings That Remain Off Limits

The Lost Year: What the Pandemic Cost Teenagers

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

After reports of lap dances, lewd texts, University of South Carolina bungled sex harassment claims, women say

Eight ways colleges, like LSU, shield sexual assaults from the public

Biden directs fresh review of Title IX rule on campus sexual assault

***RACIAL ISSUES ON CAMPUS 

University of Texas backs down from trying to force student athletes to Stand for “The Eyes of Texas”

UT Austin finds no racist intent behind 'Eyes of Texas' alma mater that football players protested

Three Alabama professors on leave over racially insensitive Halloween pictures

Georgetown law professor under fire for comments about Black students' performance

The Prose and Poetry of Change

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The principal prose skill is finding your own voice. It is discovering how to be present in the experience of listening. It is listening deeply and experiencing just as deeply. There are prose elements to leading and living.

But similarly, there are poetry elements. Poetry is what illuminates your life. Poetry is what fills the small silences. Poetry is what brings you to meaning. Poetry is what touches the small fibers of who you are.

If you live a life of pure prose, you will live a linear and an effective but not an illuminus life. But if you can some how merge poetry and prose, you have the potential as a person and as a professional to be remarkable.

Roger Fransecky

Articles of interest about religion - March 10

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***THE VIRUS                

Why it's so hard to sign up for vaccinations online

Vaccine-skeptical Trump country poses challenge to immunization push

Fully vaccinated people can gather without masks, CDC says

Employees at Texas Mexican restaurant says customers threatened to call ICE on them for mask mandate

***RELIGION & THE VIRUS 

Atheists are more likely to get vaccinated, survey finds

COVID-19 one year later: The way it has changed worshiping our faiths

Christian Groups Resist Johnson & Johnson Vaccine For Using Abortion-Derived Cells

New surveys connect the dots between politics, race, religion and vaccination 

***RELIGION 

The Wasting of the Evangelical Mind (opinion) 

Why Christians Who Speak Jesus’ Language Can’t Agree on Their Name 

An evangelical scientist on reconciling her religion and the realities of climate change ($)

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

In America, evangelicalism has become as much a political as a religious identity 

Trump Prophet Enraged His Followers by Apologizing. Now He’s Shutting Down His Ministry

***RELIGION & THE LAW 

The Supreme Court’s new decision about evangelical preachers on campus, explained 

$20 million suit says Bay Area Catholic school forced boys out for 'blackface' that was actually acne medication

***DENOMINATIONS

Appeals court decision allows sex abuse lawsuit against Southern Baptist Paul Pressler to proceed  

United Methodist conservatives detail plans for a breakaway

***CATHOLIC

A deaf priest is now serving as chaplain at Gallaudet University

In Pope Francis, Biden Has A Potential Ally — Who Shares The Same Catholic Detractors  

Narrowing Enrollment Pipeline Pressures Roman Catholic Colleges 

***RELIGIOUS SCANDAL  

New Orleans deacon/ lawyer arrested and charged with allegations of sexual battery with a juvenile

Ravi Zacharias’s Ministry Plans Name Change, Calls for More Victims to Come Forward

***RELIGION & LGBTQ ISSUES

LGBTQ rights bill ignites debate over religious liberty

Major Evangelical Adoption Agency Will Now Serve Gay Parents Nationwide

***CHRISTIAN CELEBRITIES

Bible teacher Beth Moore, splitting with Lifeway, says, 'I am no longer a Southern Baptist'

Korn’s Brian ‘Head’ Welch ‘went too far’ with Christianity

Died: Larry Crabb, Christian Counselor

The Self and beyond

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We must help the individual to discover how commitments may be made without surrendering individuality. We must help him to understand and resist any impulse he may have to flee the responsibility of individual choice by mindless submission to a Cause or Movement.

In short, he must recognize the hazard of having no commitments beyond the self and the hazard of commitments that imperil the self.

John Gardner, Self-Renewal

Articles of interest about journalism, social media, conspiracy theories & more - March 7

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***COVID-19

There's No Point in Vaccine Shopping

One Year Into the Pandemic, How Are Health Reporters Doing?  

What Do Vaccine Efficacy Numbers Actually Mean?

Hospitals Struggle To Steer Clear Of Counterfeit Masks 

To selfie or not to selfie? Why the joy of getting vaccinated is drawing backlash

Dallas County could reach herd immunity by summer — but that doesn’t mean things will be back to normal

***JOURNALISM

Most women journalists in history haven’t been ‘notable’ enough for Wikipedia. We’re changing that.

For aspiring journalists from low-income backgrounds, systemic industry barriers compound from the start.

In pandemic, rural papers show how journalists are essential workers

In 'exceedingly rare' case, Iowa journalist is one of few still facing charges from reporting on summer protests

News deserts and weak ethics laws allow corruption to run rampant in SC

Want to know if your news organization reflects your community? Do a source audit. Here’s how.

Newsrooms Revisit Old Stories To Offer A 'Fresh Start'

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Sinclair Broadcast Group Announces Cuts 5% Of Workforce Due To Impact Of Covid-19

News organizations that want journalists to engage with their audience may be setting them up for abuse

Toxic work environments at student newspapers are a direct result of the journalism industry (opinion)

The Newsstands of the Future Will Have No Newspapers

***STUDENT JOURNALISM

What's the best advice you've ever received in journalism? 

Why Small Towns Need Student Journalists

How student journalists can find mentorship without working in physical newsrooms 

***WRITING & READING

How to avoid jargon when writing about a technical product

Publishing’s New Power Club is reckoning with race 

Microsoft Word will soon let you transform your documents into PowerPoint presentations 

What grammar rule do you find yourself getting wrong no matter how many times you look it up? (Twitter thread)

***PLAGIARISM

Monash University academic article retracted over plagiarism of a student’s work 

Iowa State student paper Editorial Board member fired for plagiarism

***VACCINE MISINFORMATION

The media plays a crucial role in battling vaccine misinformation. But here’s what not to do. ($)

Twitter cracks down on Covid vaccine misinformation 

***DEEP FAKES

Here’s How Worried You Should Be About Those Tom Cruise Deepfakes

Deepfake videos of Tom Cruise show the technology's threat to society is very real  

***CONSPIRACY THEORIES 

How the party of Lincoln became the party of Alex Jones

Experts In Cult Deprogramming Step In To Help Believers In Conspiracy Theories

As fractures emerge among Proud Boys, experts warn of a shift toward extremist violence

***QANON

Fox News host Tucker Carlson calls QAnon followers 'gentle' patriots

Support for QAnon is hard to measure — and polls may overestimate it

This Small Town Shows How QAnon Is Quietly Going Mainstream

Disinformation experts aren’t happy about the trailer for HBO’s QAnon series

QAnon and conspiracy theories are taking hold in churches. Pastors are fighting back  

***SOCIAL MEDIA 

Twitter is testing an 'undo' option after sending tweets

Facebook launches BARS, a TikTok-like app for creating and sharing raps

The Empty Religions of Instagram: How did influencers become our moral authorities? ($)

Sleep problems associated with smartphone addiction

How social media and video conferencing is changing sign language

Doomscrolling can steal hours of your time -- here's how to take it back

Turntable.fm is back from the dead — and now there are two 

***CLUBHOUSE  

The buzzy chat room app Clubhouse is filled with navel-gazing. Will the virtual hangout spot be useful post-lockdown?

Addicted to Clubhouse? These apps will make it even better

Clubhouse gives people who missed TikTok a chance to become influencers 

Clubhouse Is Recording Your Conversations. That’s Not Even Its Worst Privacy Problem

***SECURITY 

How to poison the data that Big Tech uses to surveil you

Chinese Hacking Spree Hit an ‘Astronomical’ Number of Victims 

More than 20,000 US organizations compromised through Microsoft flaw

This dangerous ransomware is using a new trick to encrypt your network

***PRIVACY  

How to stop your emails from being tracked

Judge in Google case disturbed that even ‘incognito’ users are tracked

China Wants Your Data — And May Already Have It  

TikTok Consumer Privacy Class Settlement Includes $92M Payout

***STUDENT MEDIA

Student Journalist Sues College, Alleging First Amendment Violation

Now students, community are pushing to rename it  Two journalism students uncover evidence that a school district was named after a member of the Ku Klux Klan

Reflections on a year of reporting on college journalism education 

***LANGUAGE 

The language of 'Minari' feels to me like coming home

***LITERATURE

Is it Fair Use to Reproduce Out-of-Print Seuss?

How Dr. Seuss Responded to Critics Who Called Out His Racism

***POETRY

Black Spirituals as Poetry and Resistance ($)  

Four Poets Reflect on the Role of Poetry In Challenging Times

NBA star Zion Williamson Gives Flowers To His Teacher And Explains His Love For Poetry

Articles of interest about higher ed - March 6

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*** COVID-19

Illinois family grieving loss attributed to ‘COVID psychosis’

Experts explain what you should and shouldn't do if you're fully vaccinated

How to Deal with Crushing Vaccine FOMO

***HIGHER ED & COVID

Colleges That Require Virus-Screening Tech Struggle to Say Whether It Works ($) 

At least two Southeast Texas colleges will still require masks on campus 

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley apologizes after undocumented migrants refused vaccine

The Cost of Insuring Colleges Continues to Rise. And Covid’s Not the Reason. ($)  

COVID-19 vaccines given to hundreds of University of Illinois employees who weren’t yet eligible, including coaches and instructors

***HIGHER ED & POLITICS

Accreditor may lose access to federal money after approving college without students rebuked

Colorado group aims to give colleges, universities a voice

***LAYOFFS & FURLOUGHS 

Group protests Marquette layoffs, calls for worker reinstatement

***COLLEGE FINANCES 

Becker College in jeopardy of closing

Why Haven’t More Colleges Closed?

 ***HIGHER ED  

A New Report on the Future of Higher Education

A ‘gobsmacking number’ of students in need aren’t applying to college. Are we missing 'an entire generation'?

***HUMANITIES  

I was a liberal arts major. Education is about more than jobs

***HIGHER ED IN COURT 

Morehouse student denied access to program because of HIV status, lawsuit says

Auburn University professors suing over management of Econ department

UT Austin student suing school over spring 2020 tuition

Lawsuit alleges employment discrimination at the University of Cincinnati

***TEACHING   

Okay, let me just share my screen… ah, nope. okay, you’re looking at my savings account

3 Lessons From Teaching A Course On UX Design

***ACADEMIC LIFE  

Workaholic academics need to stop taking pride in their burnout

John Carroll University fundamentally alters tenure -- to the point that professors say it and academic freedom no longer exist  

U of Florida suspends professors blamed in student's suicide

Ferris State professor fired following investigation after tweeting racial slurs

***ADMINISTRATORS 

Lawrence University names first Black president

President Marjorie Hass to depart Rhodes College

Big Ten Presidents try to prevent public from seeing emails about return-to-school & COVID  

Northwestern University President to step down next year

A College President Worried About the Risks of Dorm Isolation. So He Moved In

College president back and forth with paper over whereabouts of CFO

St. Bonaventure's 21st president, dies of COVID

Second interim president named at Guilford College to replace recently named first interim president 

Scientist named president of University of Chicago

***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS  

Mass top court says Gordon College professor not a 'minister'

Virginia GOP rules out statewide convention at single venue after visit to Liberty University

These Christian Colleges Are Taking On Today’s Hot-Button Social Issues

Bob Jones University drops mask requirement in classrooms

President of The Master’s University and Seminary resigns

Rally to Support Southwest Baptist University Professors Draws Crowd in Front of School 

***RESEARCH

The Use and Abuse of Science

What happened when a group of sleuths flagged more than 30 papers with errors?

Science journals rush to publish pandemic research but many have weak analysis, unsupported claims, & meaningless insight  

There are no resources to inform researchers about  the publication culture of a research group before joining

JAMA journal retracts, replaces paper linking nonionizing radiation to ADHD  

Meet the postdoc who says he’s been trying to retract his own paper since 2016  

***STUDENT LIFE 

Will Universities take away the flexibility they have given to disabled students when the move back in person?

Many students are hesitant to discuss controversial topics in the classroom during Fall 2020 semester    

VCU student found dead, fraternity suspended

'I felt immeasurably stuck': High school seniors face college acceptances, rejections alone

Study finds no link between gender and physics course performance

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Independent investigation finds that LSU routinely mishandled allegations of sexual misconduct

'Institutional betrayal': Law firm faults OSU's Alexander for Title IX issues at LSU 

Campus assault victims in limbo as Biden seeks to undo Trump reforms

Lawsuit says University of Nebraska-Lincoln did not act to stop a professor from sexually harassing student

***RACIAL ISSUES ON CAMPUS 

Statue by Nazi-era artist removed from Bay Area college campus

Emails reveal Texas alumni threatening to stop donations unless song with racist ties is played at football games 

Penalizing Black hair in the name of academic success is undeniably racist, unfounded, and against the law

Predominantly white colleges tackle racism, diversity, equity and inclusion

The Willingness to be Misunderstood

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Invention requires a long-term willingness to be misunderstood. You do something that you genuinely believe in, that you have conviction about, but for a long period of time, well-meaning people may criticize that effort … if you really have conviction that they’re not right, you need to have that long-term willingness to be misunderstood. It’s a key part of invention.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder

Method over Goals

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Little by little, preoccupation with method, technique and procedure gains a subtle dominance over the whole process of goal seeking. How it is done becomes more important than whether it is done. Means triumph over ends. Form triumphs over spirit.

Method is enthroned. Men become prisoners of their procedures, and organizations that were designed to achieve some goal become obstacles in the path to that goal.

A concern for “how to do it” is healthy and necessary. The fact that it often leads to an empty worship of method is just one of the dangers with which we have to live. Every human activity, no matter how ennobling or constructive or healthy, involves hazards. The flower of competence carries the seeds of rigidity just as the flower of virtue carries the seeds of complacency. “There is a road to hell,” said John Bunyan, “even from the gates of heaven.”

John Gardner, Self-Renewal

Data Science articles from Feb 2021

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The military is pinning high hopes on a program using machine learning for real-time decision-making so that unmanned systems form better “mesh” networks

What will make a data science CV attractive—and separate yourself from the wannabes

At artificial-intelligence conferences, researchers are increasingly alarmed by what they see 

Neural nets yield clues to how brains learn thanks to (yes) backpropagation

Double federal R&D spending for AI each year until it hits $32B: NSC rec on AI to Congress

DoD moves to limit AI-sprawl for better coordination among projects

New machine learning theory raises questions about the very nature of science 

Scaling regression inputs by dividing by two standard deviations

Researchers claim algorithm can determine the basic emotional state of a person by wireless signals

Graph neural networks are set to become an important feature of artificial intelligence

A machine learning framework that exploits the variability of resistive memory devices

In order to implement a Markov chain--a class of Bayesian machine-learning algorithms

Health and Human Services issues a guide for its artificial intelligence strategy

Learning data analytics before stepping into data science

Microsoft Excel becomes a programming language

How Much Math Do You Actually Need For Data Science?

Synthetic data offers a way out of privacy risks and bias issues for artificial intelligence

Building neural networks from scratch with Python and math. Step-by-step implementation & coding samples

Paradigm Shifts

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Steven Covey offers a moving example in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as to how context can change our outlook. Covey was riding the subway when a man and his children boarded the car. The kids were loud and rowdy, throwing things and disturbing everyone in the car. The man seemed oblivious.

It was very disturbing and yet the man sitting next to me did nothing. It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive as to let children run wild like that do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little more?

The man lifted his gaze and said softly, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died. I don't know what to think and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either."

Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw things differently, I thought differently, I felt differently. My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man’s pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely.

While this change of perspective could be momentary, it doesn't have to be. We are continually faced with decisions about how we will approach life's circumstances.

Remember that piece of music you heard that suddenly lifted your spirit and changed your whole outlook in the middle of the day? Do you remember that pleasant smell that took you back in time to fond memories? Remember when you exited a movie theater seeing an exhilarating film, inspired to change the world? Imagine putting your feet to those sentiments.

If change is possible, that puts the responsibility on our shoulders to make it happen. It's a thought that's downright scary—and motivating.

Stephen Goforth