Column by Kevin Qualls, Professor of mass communications The Internet is slow today (Tuesday). Interacting with colleagues and students in the very same building is frustrated because somehow, somewhere a fragile fiber optic cable was broken. We depend on web-based applications for almost everything. Teaching and learning, getting a prescription refilled, filing taxes and even making a phone Read More
“Eight completely serious reasons you should pee in the shower today.” “15 times Rand Paul had a better hair day than you.” “Fritz the adorable dog who can’t catch.” These are all headlines from a website called, “Distractify.” All of them are accompanied by an attention-grabbing photo. You don’t have to go to the website Read More
The Clint Eastwood-directed feature film “American Sniper” set industry box office records in its opening days. Millions watched this dramatized biography about Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. In the last scene, Kyle was murdered. The film depicted the hero that Chris Kyle was. It then closed with his senseless death Read More
The world seems to make less sense every day. Strange things are going on everywhere. This is not about UFOs, ESP or Bigfoot. It’s things more incredible than that. We are living in a Bizarro World. I submit the following into evidence. On the very same day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the Read More
Sometimes the system works. This is one of those times, thanks to United States District Judge Andrew Hanen. Political science classes have a case study unfolding before them. Hopefully, media will report it objectively. Judge Hanen’s preliminary injunction on the President’s Executive Order regarding immigration is a manifestation of the most basic of constitutional principles: Read More
This is the sweet spot. When the classroom experience becomes more than rudimentary instruction. Something happens just about this time of the semester. Classes are not merely taught; they are conducted. And that is exhilarating. It means that students are conversant about things they did not even know only a few weeks ago. It goes Read More
There’s a rhetorical question so often repeated that it has the patina of philosophy. It’s a paradigm in which people are categorized as either seeing a proverbial glass as half-empty or half-full. The idea is that an individual is predominately optimistic or pessimistic. Things are getting better or things are getting worse. This question is Read More
Yes, the title is misspelled. That’s to make it special. Set it apart. Like all of us want to be: distinguished. There are lots of shortcuts to distinction: ink, piercings, clicking the “thumbs-up likey” thing on Facebook. Our attitudes, interests and opinions combine to make us the distinct individuals that we are. I know some people Read More