Tag: Reading.am

📺 "The Good Doctor" Islands: Part Two | ABC

Watched "The Good Doctor" Islands: Part Two from ABC
Directed by Cherie Nowlan. With Freddie Highmore, Nicholas Gonzalez, Antonia Thomas, Chuku Modu. The twins suffer complications from their surgery forcing the team at San Jose Boneventure Hospital to make a life-changing decision. Meanwhile, Dr. Shaun Murphy returns to the hospital after his trip with Lea and decides he needs a more permanent change and gives Dr. Aaron Glassman his two weeks' notice.

I’m finding it harder and harder to want to keep up with this series. I like many of the actors, but the ones I like the best are seemingly given the least screen time. The characters here just aren’t as solid as those from previous series like House, and the “cases” aren’t really interesting or dramatic enough to bother with. Rejoining conjoined twins just after separating them? Really?!

It took me 3 tries to finally make it through this episode.

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📺 “Madam Secretary” Thin Ice | CBS

Watched "Madam Secretary" Thin Ice from CBS
Directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá. With Téa Leoni, Tim Daly, Keith Carradine, Patina Miller. While the Secretary attends a summit intended to resolve territorial claims on the North Pole, an activist group detonates a bomb, and Russia is behind it. Henry helps a student through a hard decision.
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📺 “Madam Secretary” Night Watch | CBS

Watched "Madam Secretary" Night Watch from CBS
Directed by Rob J. Greenlea. With Téa Leoni, Tim Daly, Keith Carradine, Patina Miller. Elizabeth and the cabinet must brace for fallout after President Dalton announces a retaliatory nuclear strike on a nation that has launched missiles at the US.

Interesting subject matter that doesn’t directly impinge on current administration policy, except it subtly does…
I pray for the deep state.

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📺 “Modern Family” Clash of Swords | ABC

Watched "Modern Family" Clash of Swords from ABC
Directed by James Alan Hensz. With Ed O'Neill, Sofía Vergara, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell. In the Season 9 finale, Mitchell sneaks out to "Hero-Con" with fanboy Phil, dressed as their favorite characters from the show "Clash of Swords." It's great until Phil commits the ultimate fan faux pas. In a clash of another kind, Gloria's dinosaur party for Joe is ruined when her nemesis, Dr. Donna Duncan, upstages her with a far bigger and better party right next door.
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📺 Royal wedding: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle marry at Windsor Castle | CBS

Watched Royal wedding: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle marry at Windsor Castle from cbsnews.com
Prince Charles walked Meghan Markle down the aisle for the American actress to take vows of marriage with Prince Harry

I taped this last night and am watching all six hours (sans advertising) this afternoon.

CBS coverage was alright despite the fact that they seemed to be getting information either wrong or fixing it after the fact. It makes me wonder if the royal press office was releasing details contemporaneously? In particular they really botched the coverage of the designer of the dress.

I would have appreciated more details on the royals and the culture aspect rather than the heavy emphasis on American-based actors. I think I learned more in the Lifetime-esque movies I saw last weekend than I did in the huge amount of fill time CBS seemed to waste here. They did a vaguely decent job of situating the action at least. Another missing piece here was some reasonable chemistry among the primary team that seemed to be lacking in the reportage–they spent just a bit too much time speaking over each other than I would expect on this level of coverage.

I would have appreciated one or two different key images in the chyron as the same engagement image for 3 hours did seem a bit much.

I did love the fact that 2 billion people were able to see some merging of cultures that wouldn’t otherwise be seen in decades or centuries past. The fact that MLK was quoted in a British wedding was fantastic.

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📺 “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” Iran Deal | HBO

Watched "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" Iran Deal from HBO
'Iran Deal' is the worst deal of all time in Donald Trump's Eyes. But John Oliver Explains Why It Is Better Than No Deal. Because this deal strictly forbade Iran to develop any sort of nuclear weapons. And all of their declared nuclear sites have close monitoring, as well as any suspected site could be monitored within 24 days of the request. The sad part is, top advisers of Trump administration are also against the deal. That is why John prepared a new ad with catheter cowboy to explain the matter to Trump and scheduled it on his favorite Sean Hannity's show.

This would be funny if it weren’t so painfully true. The idea of placing ads on Hannity is pretty intriguing though.

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📺 “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” Corporate Taxes | HBO

Watched "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" Corporate Taxes from HBO
Directed by Paul Pennolino. With David Kaye, John Oliver. John Oliver talks about the Corporate Taxes. He gives examples of how big corporation always tries to evade taxes. They are using the loop holes in American tax system. He also expressed his doubts about the promises were made by the new tax plan. He used the unfruitful past experience of tax holiday to support his claim.
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👓 How to Join Our Podcast Club | New York Times

Read How to Join Our Podcast Club by Samantha HenigSamantha Henig (nytimes.com)
It’s like a book club, but for on-demand audio.

This ironic quote from the piece sticks out to me:

Podcast listening can be harder to crack. There are so many shows! How do you find the ones you’ll like? And once you’ve found a show, where do you start: with the most recent episode? At the beginning? Some specific gem of an episode buried deep in the back catalog?

Perhaps the New York Times could simply start with making the RSS feeds for their podcasts easily discover-able?! Why are they hiding this simple piece of functionality? I just spent 20 minutes doing some reasonably serious web gymnastics to extract the RSS feed for Caliphate out of the iTunes feed using a JSON request tactic. Why can’t the podcast’s main page have or advertise the raw RSS feed?!

Corey Doctorow complained of this type of growing issue on the web recently in a short tweetstorm as well:

How hard is it to add the following simple line to the header of their generally beautiful and functional Caliphate page?
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Caliphate" href="https://rss.art19.com/caliphate” />
They’ve got so many advanced resources, yet somehow they’re missing some of the simplest and best supported web technology that goes back more than a decade.

By the way, that link https://rss.art19.com/caliphate is the correct one for the RSS feed of the show by the way, in case others are searching for it.

If anyone needs a one-click button to subscribe to the series in their favorite feed reader, I’ve set up a SubToMe button on the follow post I made for the podcast.

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📺 "Madam Secretary" Protocol | CBS

Watched "Madam Secretary" Protocol from CBS
Directed by Charlotte Brändström. With Téa Leoni, Tim Daly, Keith Carradine, Patina Miller. When terrorists threaten to cause a flood in the Middle East that could kill millions of people, Elizabeth's hopes of getting a neighboring country to close the dam fade after the government suddenly goes dark during a coup. Also, Stevie is tasked with finding Russell an activity that will help manage his stress.
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👓 The Future of Publishing | LitFest Pasadena

RSVPed Unable to Attend The Future of Publishing
The Future of Publishing
May 19 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Six small presses with a wide range of specialties—fiction, children’s books, literature in translation, poetry, cookbooks—talk about the challenges and opportunities in book publishing in the near future, and how they’re looking to innovate and look beyond the corporate Big Five publishing model.

Featured Guests: Neela Banerjee, Kaya Press; Ariana Stein, Lil Libros; Ross Ufberg, New Vessel; Tobi Harper, Red Hen Press; Julia Callahan, Rare Bird Books; Colleen Dunn Bates, Prospect Park – Moderator

Wishing I hadn’t gotten myself committed on Saturday to go to Knott’s Berry Farm so I could attend this in the afternoon.

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👓 What Communities Are We Building? A Discussion With Drs. Jessie Daniels and David Golumbia | Tressie McMillan Cottom

Read What Communities Are We Building? A Discussion With Drs. Jessie Daniels and David Golumbia by Tressie McMillan Cottom (Medium)
This semester our sociology honor society, Alpha Kappa Delta, had the great fortune to hear from Dr. Jessie Daniels. Jessie is a…

Sadly, like the prior article I read, there just isn’t much here in the way of content.

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👓 Whose Speech? More From Our Chat With Jessie Daniels | Tressie McMillan Cottom

Read Whose Speech? More From Our Chat With Jessie Daniels by Tressie McMillan Cottom (Medium)
As previously mentioned, the Sociology students at VCU recently benefitted from a chance to hear from Jessie Daniels. Our informal…

This post was so sparse in information I’m not quite sure what Dr. Cottom was trying to communicate here. The post does have some well produced (and very short) snippets from the talk, but other than knowing that a talk occurred and vaguely what it was about, all the value stemming from it seems to be missing to me in this post.

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👓 GOP lawmaker says rocks falling into ocean to blame for rising sea levels | TheHill

Read GOP lawmaker says rocks falling into ocean to blame for rising sea levels (TheHill)
A Republican lawmaker on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee said Thursday that rocks from the White Cliffs of Dover and the California coastline, as well as silt from rivers tumbling into the ocean, are contributing to high sea levels globally. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) made the comment during a hearing on technology and the changing climate, which largely turned into a Q&A on the basics of climate research.

The headline was just so sadly painful to me that I couldn’t resist reading. Unfortunately, reading didn’t help things…

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🎧 ‘The Daily’: Gina Haspel and the Shadow of Torture | New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: Gina Haspel and the Shadow of Torture by Michael Barbaro from nytimes.com

The Central Intelligence Agency is waging an unusual campaign to make Gina Haspel its next leader, despite her polarizing past. Why do officers see her most controversial quality as her greatest asset?

On today’s episode:

• Adam Goldman, a reporter who covers the intelligence community for The Times.

• John Bennett, a former chief of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service who retired in 2013.

Background reading:

• Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee for C.I.A. director, is expected to face tough questions at a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday about her involvement in torture and secret prisons after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

• Ms. Haspel offered to withdraw her nomination last week amid concerns that her role in the brutal interrogation of a Qaeda suspect in Thailand would scuttle her confirmation.

Apparently there’s a broader story to be told about Haspel than the one that’s been circulating recently. Perhaps she’s not as pro-torture as previously indicated?

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👓 What is “Critical Pedagogy”? | W. Ian O’Byrne

Read What is “Critical Pedagogy”? by W. Ian O'Byrne (W. Ian O'Byrne)
In an earlier post, I presented an overview of the literature on critical literacy and how it informs my perspectives on my work, research, and thinking. This was motivated by discussions in which colleagues and students indicate that they know/understand critical literacy, and then go on to equate it with critical evaluation. I think the two are linked, but to me critical literacy is much broader, and (IMHO) much more important.

The cynic in me sees the headline and wants to respond “All students’ reactions to their teachers.”

There is some interesting history and background to come back and read some references here.

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