Charty goodness

Yipes! What happened to January?

This map made me giggle. I'd like to see a chart of how Midwesterners see the rest of the U.S. Probably quite similar. Except, the east and west coasts are all uppity and they virtually ignore us. 

Passion + Skill = The Element

I'm reading Sir Ken Robinson's fabulous book "The Element." He defines The Element as the place where your passion and what you're good at meet. That's where we thrive.

His argument: we need to move education from an industrial model to an agricultural one. Like agriculture, education at its best sets up the conditions for flourishing. He also emphasizes that we are all creative. It takes many forms but there isn't a person on this planet who isn't creative in some way.

He is quite funny. In the video below he mentions a policy statement he read which said college begins in Kindergarten. "No it doesn't... Kindergarten begins in Kindergarten."

Here he is at TED.





I love this quote, "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original."

More videos on his web site.

Words viral and epic consigned to college trash | Reuters

Around my workplace, banned words include: computing in the cloud and web 2.0.

Words "viral" and "epic" consigned to college trash
(Reuters) - This story might be epic, and could even go viral, but not if Lake Superior State University has anything to do with it. Just sayin.'

The small college in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, released on Friday its annual list of "banished words" -- terms so overused, misused and hackneyed they deserve to be sent to a permanent linguistic trash can in the year ahead. More.

Nicer New Year?

Andy Borowitz was on NPR yesterday lamenting, with the host, on the nastiness run amok during 2010. Congressional intransigence, name calling and the best of the worst, Pat Robertson blaming Haitians for the earthquake.

Andy is hilarious and his stories in the Borowitz Report are fiction. They're biting but, he doesn't demonize and doesn't scream. Or sound like a crazy person. At least in print.

The host highlighted a recent Borowitz Report, a reflection on the east coast snowstorm: "Pat Robertson: Snow is God's way of punishing Americans who were planning to drive to do something gay." Borowitz said, "it's disturbing how many thought it was a true story."

My wish for 2011: widespread adoption and demonstration of manners.

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