Category: The Halcyon Days
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Quotes from Current Reading: Generosity (pt. 2)
“The girl’s own parents–the last cosmopolitan Algerians not on a boat somewhere–resolve to leave when the death toll reaches eighty thousand. Then they say ninety. Then one hundred. They’re still there when the deaths reach one thousand a week. They are the victims of that old habit, faith. not religious faith, which they long ago…
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On Writing (with [much] Help) a Declaration to the United Nations
I extend my most sincere thanks to my seven co-collaborators who helped me draft a cogent, articulate declaration establishing students’ equity stake in the United Nations Academic Impact initiative. I never thought I’d be a part of something like this, and although the vicissitudinous nature of the United Nations irks me so, I am proud…
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#LessonsLearned @SWChi
It’s kind of like speed-dating. You’ve got this little window of 10-20 seconds in which you must capture your audience’s attention and engender the ineffable, refulgent glow of potential recognized. You know, to kick that internal monologue: “That, man… THAT idea’s got LEGS!” How’d I get me summa that? Or at least that’s how I…
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A Quote from Current Reading: Generosity by Richard Powers
“From where I sit, the whole human race did something stupid when young–pulled some playful stunt that damages someone. The secret of survival is forgetting. If evolution favored conscience, everything with a backbone would have hanged itself from the ceiling fan eons ago, and invertebrates would once again be running the place.” – Richard Powers,…
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On College, Critical Thought, Cattle, and Baking
I’m not afraid of expressing my misgivings with the “education” I’m receiving at the #4 ranked institution in America. UChicago possesses a certain self-righteous rhetoric pertaining to its general, or Core, curriculum. Founded in the constructivist school of learning theory, the Core’s teaching methodology consists of reading “primary-source” text documents and leading students, like cattle…
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Some Tweets (Consisting of Very Undergraduate Poetry)
http://twitter.com/Jason_Rowley/status/19589929519 http://twitter.com/Jason_Rowley/status/19352955492 http://twitter.com/Jason_Rowley/status/18983393691 http://twitter.com/Jason_Rowley/status/18569074800 http://twitter.com/Jason_Rowley/status/17510080528
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A Couple of Quotes On Which Recently I’ve Leaned
Okay, okay… so four isn’t, strictly speaking, a “couple.” Consider the last two a bonus, or this to be A Couple of A Couple of Quotes… – – – “Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibility.” —Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki – – – “Forget…
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On Snuggling the Wet Blanket
He reframes the elitist argument not as the racist, male-chauvinist one its made out to be by the warm-fuzzy GreenPeace crowd, but, rather as one simply against egalitarianism. Essentially: We aren’t all equal, get over it.
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Introducing Oratorize.
Of many things, the prime one that precluded me from writing on The Halcyon Days is not my college workload (which can be largely shirked and/or explained away) but the fact that I’ve been doing a lot of freelance writing for a couple of websites and fleshing out the skeleton I built for Kairos Praxis.…
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How I learned to stop learning, gush platitude, and get A’s in Critical Thinking courses…
UChicago prides itself on its hard-Core Curriculum. In theory it’s a pretty great idea. Ostensibly, it puts students through a rigorous liberal arts education focused on reading “Great Books” and “Developing a robust set of Critical Evaluative Methods” by which one can—ahem—critically evaluate said texts. Putting aside the fact that this type of education is…