Evaluating student evaluations
The Times has an article about professors who are seeking more frequent feedback from their students. A BU professor, Muhammad Zaman, asks for ratings from his students every other week and charts the results.
Month: March 2012
A very cautious guess about the spike in autism
The CDC yesterday released a study showing that autism rates have spiked. 1 in 88 kids are affected. What the hell is going on? People have speculated about possible environmental cause, as the president of Autism Speaks seemed (arguably) to… Continue Reading
On giving (other) parents the stinkeye
So, lots of parents like to tell other people how to parent. Including me. But I’d like to remind myself and others that perhaps one should judge not, whether or not ye get judged. The whole story is not apparent.… Continue Reading
Why I won’t be voting for Rick Santorum
I’ll admit that the title of this post is a little bit disingenuous for a few reasons. First of all, I would vote for a shaved ape before I voted for Rick Santorum, and I made my decision about him… Continue Reading
I don’t know what your healthcare costs
… and I’ll bet your doctor doesn’t, either. Okay, that’s is a bit of an overstatement. I know what my little bit of my patients’ healthcare costs are. I know what my practice charges for office visits and vaccines and… Continue Reading
Selling stuff to kids
Mark Bittman has an opinion blog post deriding the ability of food corporations to direct advertising to children. (An aside: how sad is it that Bittman has moved from the Minimalist column to opinion writing? His Minimalist column was a… Continue Reading
The angelicization of the developmentally disabled
A point came up in the comments thread of my post on the Ashley treatment that I wanted to expand on a bit — talking about the developmentally disabled as “angels” of one sort or another. The parents of Ashley… Continue Reading
Semi-stupid Tuesday questions, Vincent Price edition
This week’s question was inspired by a recent post over at brother-blog Mindless Diversions. Once an indefatigable fan of the horror movie genre, Jaybird describes being put off them entirely by two movies he found deeply unsettling — “Event Horizon”… Continue Reading
Atheists, Don’t Unite!
I’m an atheist, so there’s no one to whom I can pray to save me from the smugness of some of my fellow atheists. Apparently, some atheists held a rally over the weekend. You know, for atheists’ rights. Or something.… Continue Reading
Project Runway All Stars: an appropriately “meh” finale
I already compared Project Runway All Stars to a less appealing menu item in my first post on the series, and so it would be lamentably uncreative to use the same comparison when summing up the finale. However, that feeling… Continue Reading