All Over Rover: From Academy Awards to the Academy

LaShawn Barber talks about parental primacy when it comes to educating our children who believe it's not "cool to be smart". I'd like to point out that it isn't just in the black community that this phenomenon inhibits potential. Great, positive story!

Go check out the world's oldest blogger: Olive Riley. Amazing! Thanks to beloved liberal reader Khelly for the link.

Jeff Goldstein writes about internet anonymity. Evidently, a community college professor was outed. When is it fair to blow a blogger's cover? I think I agree with him. He speaks of cyberterrorism:

To extend the cyberterrorist analogy a bit further: if you don’t want to sign onto the Geneva Convention or follow its dictates? Then I don’t feel any obligation to recognize the protections you claim it provides when it suits your needs to. Which is not to say that I won’t do so. Just that I am not required, by any moral calculus, to do so—and so you violate the terms of the framework at your own risk.

The internet shouldn't be a more dangerous place to do business than the real world, but anonymity makes for wildness. Like the old west, I believe that many of the most interesting and challenging intellectual endeavors and opportunity are happening on the internet. The egalitarian nature and the ability to communicate with experts and to receive their opinions is exciting. But there is also a barbaric quality to some internet bloggers and posters where crass, base discourse gets mistaken for cunning, bold argument. It is neither. I do believe time will temper some of the more uncivil tongues. At least I hope it will. The internet isn't a mindless connection of bits and bytes. There are people on the other end. I wish everyone could remember this.

Betsy likes the movie Amazing Grace for what it teaches about politics and slavery.

Speaking of movies......... And for an Oscar result that surprises absolutely no one, An Inconvenient Truth wins for Best Documentary. I would be surprised with any other result. Happily, though, Martin Scorsese
finally wins an Oscar. He's certainly deserving. And didn't Helen Mirren look absolutely gorgeous? She is the very definition of aging gracefully. I wish J-Lo and Nicole Kidman would take a hint. A taut face looks weird. It will look weirder as the women get older. Doesn't anyone want to express their emotions anymore? It seems that expression would be a job requirement for actors, but whatever. And one more note: Jack Nicholson looks perpetually like the child with his hand in the cookie jar. We should all enjoy our career so much. He seems so ebullient and like he's keeping a secret. His lack of affectation and and sweet enthusiasm makes for fun watching. I do like him with some hair though. Gah!

Wishing you a great week!