Ask a Grown Man: Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert did a "Ask a Grown" segment for Rookie Magazine. In it, he gives advice on talking to your dad about sex, how to let boys know you don't like misogynistic jokes, and how to tell if someone likes you (and therefore, in turn, how to let someone know you like them). Check it out:



For reals - we could all stand to be a little less selfish and bring a little more cookies.

Two DC Colleges to Get Over Half their Power from Solar

This is super awesome news: G.W. University, American University, and GWU Hospital are teaming up to buy over half their power from three new solar farms in North Carolina. The farms will be completed in 2015, which means that sweet, clean energy will start rolling in soon enough. You can read more about the agreement at ThinkProgress.

Shonda Rhimes, "My Dreams Can Suck It"

Shonda Rhimes gave a killer graduation speech at Dartmouth this year. Below is the video (the speech starts at 1:41:20 unless you just randomly want to watch all of Dartmouth graduation), and here is the speech in full text mode.



The Toni Morrison part is my favorite. If not achieving my dreams means achieving something even better and more "me" than my dreams (and involves meeting Shonda Rhimes or Toni Morrison), I will be very satisfied.

Stanford to Divest its Endowment of Coal

Stanford University has officially announced it will divest from its $18.7 billion endowment of coal companies, becoming the first major university to do so. Divestment is a powerful and effective tool to bring change. If more universities follow suit, it will send a strong message to these companies that they need to get in the clean energy business or go out business.

[via Gawker]

J.K. Rowling's Excellent 2008 Commencement Speech

Alyssa Rosenberg has a great write-up of what makes an excellent commencement speech, and she highlights this wonderful one from J.K. Rowling. Her article, and of course Ms. Rowling's speech, are both worth the read for recent grads and not-so-recent grads alike.

Jennifer Lee of "Frozen" Delivers Graduation Speech

Jennifer Lee, writer and director of the I think now fifth-highest-grossing-movie, Frozen, gave a commencement address to UNC a few weeks ago. Here it is:



Solid advice!

[via HuffPo]

"What Teachers Make" by Taylor Mali

Here's an awesome slam poem by Taylor Mali called "What Teachers Make" illustrated in comic form by Zen Pencils (you can see it big there):

and spoken here:



This really hit home for me. I loved LOVED loved my teachers growing up. I really feel for Mr. Mali here and appreciate how dedicated he is to the profession. It does "make a GD difference."

Getting your MRSMBA Degree?

Some confusing data out of Vanderbilt University suggests that women from elite ("snooty") universities work less than women from non-elite ("regular") universities. What's the deal? Do these women, possibly more likely to have been born into privilege, decide to continue to live in luxury off their parents' or spouses' money? Effectively earning their 21st century MRS degree? Or are they making work work for them, by choosing positions that allow them flexible hours and a more leisurely lifestyle because they'd rather spend more time travelling the world or taking care of their kids? Or are they getting pushed out of their jobs by latent sexism, and get too frustrated to press through? Choosing instead to focus on other pursuits? And what's the difference between the women from the elites who decide to work full-time vs those who do not (aside from kids)? Or is this research full of bull (and admittedly, I have not read the entire paper so it very well might be - or it might be the most insightful and well-researched paper in years. I have no idea!)

Ideas?

[via Neatorama]

Happy Back to School Day! (But not for me!)

Awww, school. I do love learning, but I don't miss the hazing.



Also, they could have totally picked a longer clip from V-Mars (and skipped Glee entirely), come on!

[via Neatorama]

Neil Gaiman's Make Good Art Makes a Good Comic

Zen Pencils published a great condensed, comic version of Neil Gaiman's recent graduation speech, with the tagline "Make good art." 

Read the the full version here. It's short, funny, and sweet in a twisted kind of way.

[via Neatorama]

Who Sat at Your Table?

We all remember the middle and high school cafeteria and your table reflecting your popularity, social circle, etc. My high school wasn't much different, except it was all girls and by junior and senior year most in the upper socio-economic stratospheres (and those who were friends with them) ate off-campus. Anyway, the idea's the same - you eat with your friends, and your friends are "like" you.

I always remember in high school we had this Race Relations club where we'd talk about self-segregation and how important it was for us not to close ourselves off to other people even in places like the cafeteria. This didn't really stop the behavior, but it at least acknowledged it. It turns out we were right. This new study confirms that when you sit with people who have diverse backgrounds, you are more likely to think of your campus as a racially positive environment, much more so than if you do not sit with people of diverse backgrounds.

Anecdotally, I agree. In high school, I had a lot of good friends who came from different backgrounds than my own, and we all hung out and ate together, but at my (very white) college I hardly made any friends who weren't white with wealthy parents. Plus, I could only afford the meal plan the first year. The lack of racial diversity, and the self-segregation (on both sides, I'm sure) was disheartening to say the least.

Now that I'm in the working world, I feel like my colleagues come from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, which is great, but the vast majority are still white. I hope someday that changes. I'd really like to sit at the diverse kids' table again.

[via Gawker]

Funny Summaries of Literary Classics

I'm not sure why the arbitrary numbers (58 classics summed up in 33 words or less) but MTV's Clutch Blog list is pretty hilarious. I really enjoyed "The Scarlet Letter" - "Ho's gonna ho. Hater's gonna hate." As true today as when it was written.

[post via Mental Floss]

Stephen Colbert's Northwestern Graduation Speech

Stephen Colbert went to Northwestern (like my sister!), and for his 25th anniversary of his (almost) graduation, he gave this very inspiring, very funny speech.

Amy Poehler's Graduation Speech

I don't totally understand why Amy Poehler would speak at Harvard when she went to Boston College (Maybe she owed a Parks and Rec writer/exec a favor? Or maybe they gave her favorite charity a ton of money?), but she gives a great speech. Still inspiring even after you've already graduated!

It's true. You can't do it alone. Especially when you need people to laugh at your jokes to know you're doing them right.

Everything is a Remix: Part Two

This blog post is a remix of a blog post I just read at Neatorama which posted this video: Everything is a Remix: Part Two: Movies.

Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

The video is great. I love it because it's essentially a film studies paper in short video form. I especially love it because it reminds me that I love movies much more than I love football, so I really should get over the Steelers' oh-so-close-how-could-they-not-call-that-pass-interference-and-how-could-they-allow-so-many-turnovers defeat earlier tonight. Ugh! But yes, movies are wonderful and I should get back to writing mine.

My only criticism is that I wish it was a bit longer and involved more analysis of why we borrow so heavily and why that's ok - not just that it exists. If I had presented this to one of my film professors, she most certainly would say - great examples, but what do they mean?

So, Kirby, what do they mean? I hope to hear the answer in Part Three, due in Spring of this year.

Looking Back, Pixelated!

In another bit of nostalgia, here's a funny video from College Humor about forgotten video games from the 1980s.

Much pixelated fun ensues...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

[Thanks, Neatorama!]

Why I Haven't Blogged: Or, Snowed in, in Dallas

This is the easiest way of explaining why I haven't blogged in a while:

The big blizzard of 0'10 shut down all the airports on the Eastern seaboard, so my flight for Monday was changed to Thursday. Since I don't like to blog while on vaca (and by that I mean vay-cay as in vacation, not as in the Spanish word for cow), it meant that instead of not blogging for a week, I didn't blog for about two weeks. Nuts!

Anyway, I'm back and I've got a LOT of blogging to make up for before 2011 is upon us, so get ready for a barrage of posts tomorrow.

Hope you all had a happy holiday and got to take at least a few days off! I know I did!

[You can learn more about the film here. It's based on Dziga Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera" which I studied back in film school! Don't tell anyone, but I like this one better. Though that could just be because I don't have to write a paper on the theory behind it. Also, Roger Ebert thinks it should be nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Film of 2010. "Idiot with a Tripod", that is, not "Man with a Movie Camera," which I think might be a little late to qualify.]

The Scholar Your Scholar Could Read Like

For cool nerds everywhere.

Happy Bloomsday, Everybody!

Reading Ulysses was probably one of the smartest choices I ever made, if an incomprehensible one. Just like the book!

I suggest that everyone read this great work of literature and feat of words that usually don't make sense together but somehow in this they do in a weird way that you can only learn in a classroom or insubstantially by reading Cliff notes and I did both and think I understand about 77% of it and I only say 77% because it is my favorite number but the actual percentage probably hovers around 35% but then how do you really measure reading comprehension in a book where an entire chapter takes place in a bathtub as a man considers what to do with his erection.

Seriously, though, it's a great book. Read it in a classroom setting and you will have your mind blown.

Why I Don't Miss College

While most of my "Class Notes: Alumni Updates!" email was filled with people I don't know doing cool things like working in Papua New Guinea to promote conservation or graduating from Harvard with a Masters in Education, there was also this guy:

"[Anonymous Jerk Face] has moved back to Bogota, Colombia. He is working as a business analyst for a Dutch chain of supermarkets with a presence in ten different Colombian cities. He finds the work to be both interesting and varied. As a former member of the Columbia golf team, Philippe likes to play a round of golf as often as possible to maintain his level."

The key words here are: business analyst, Dutch chain of supermarkets, interesting and varied, golf team, round of golf, and - most of all - maintain his level.

Seriously, who goes to Bogota to be a tool? Although, admittedly, you can probably be a tool for so much cheaper there than in New York. Plus, much more easily accessible cocaine.