Rave review of a 1995 documentary on the Yugoslavian War called The Death of Yugoslavia.

Despite some criticism about the accuracy of translation, the series would be in my list of top ten documentaries of all time, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It unravels the mechanism of the sordid path of human conflict, from nationalism to genocide, like no other film before or since. It is the film that never was made about the holocaust.

Sounds like a candidate for True Films. All six parts are available on Google Video…start with part one.

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Slideshow of photos of phone sex operators by Phillip Toledano. (via waxy)

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In Brazil, soap operas, and specifically the small families they depicted, might have been a form of birth control, lowering the fertility of the audience:

In 1960, the average Brazilian woman had 6.3 children. By 2000, the fertility rate was down to 2.3. The decline was comparable to China’s, but Brazil didn’t have a one-child policy. In fact, for a while it was even illegal to advertise contraceptives.

Many factors account for the drop in Brazilian fertility, but one recent study identified a factor most people probably wouldn’t consider: soap operas (novelas). Novelas are huge in Brazil, and the network Rede Globo effectively has a monopoly on their production…

Using census data from 1970 to 1991 and data on the entry of Rede Globo into different markets, the researchers found that women living in areas that received Globo’s broadcast signal had significantly lower fertility. (And yes, the study did control for all sorts of factors and addressed the concern that the entry of Globo might have been driven by trends that also contribute to fertility decline. I’ll spare you the gory econometric details.) Additionally, people in areas with Globo’s signal were more likely to name their children after novela characters, suggesting that it was the novelas specifically, and not TV in general, that influenced childbearing.

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Since discovering LiveNewsCameras.com earlier in February, I’ve had the video service in mind as a great example of how lifecasting could be used by professional media agencies.

While the journalists of Fox News Chicago certainly don’t wear cameras to broadcast their lives, a stationary camera showing them at work and reporting on what they see across their national news network feed does give us a heightened sense of connectedness with them. Unlike traditional news channels, you can see them act on questions and tip-offs you send them, so there’s instant feedback.

Andy Roesgen of LiveNewsCameras.com just informed me that they will be officially rolling out a few new features this Friday. This includes a viewers chatroom (replacing their twitter widget) and a news scrollbar so you know what reporters are referring to. I also noticed that the various news channels on their video grid seem to play on the Mac now.

Andy hopes for viewers to check in tomorrow, to help give LiveNewsCameras.com a good stress test. You can also read their blog to know more.

Like the good old television, I sometimes leave the live video streaming site running in the background while I work. It’s when the newscaster mentions something interesting that I’d switch to the site to watch what’s going on.

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I finally received my copy of Neil Postman’s “Teaching as a Subversive Activity” (1969) in awesome condition (thx RoundTowerBooks!) when I noticed the beautiful stamping on the cover…

Look carefully
pretty clever huh?

Howard Rheingold recommended this ancient text over a twitter conversation, where he also linked to a downloadable PDF version (820kb). I later found an abstract of the method advocated in the book, namely Inquiry Education.

Towards inquiry education, authors Postman and Weingartner realized that good learners center their activity on the “dynamic process of inquiry itself, not merely on the end product of static knowledge”.

As such, a teacher adhering to the inquiry method in pedagogy must behave very differently, by having the following characteristics (pp. 34–37):

• They avoid telling students what they “ought to know”.
• They talk to students mostly by questioning, and especially by asking divergent questions.
• They do not accept short, simple answers to questions.
• They encourage students to interact directly with one another, and avoid judging what is said in student interactions.
• They do not summarize students’ discussion.
• They do not plan the exact direction of their lessons in advance, and allow it to develop in response to students’ interests.
• Their lessons pose problems to students.
• They gauge their success by change in students’ inquiry behaviors (with the above characteristics of “good learners” as a goal).

Some of us educators might already be well-aware of learning as “a journey rather than a destination”, so this book certainly helps provide both the motivation and framework for achieving just that with your students. If you’re so inclined, you can get a physical copy for yourself through Amazon.

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  Sono passate ormai piu’ di 24 ore dai risultati elettorali, quindi potrebbe essere utile iniziare a trarre delle conclusioni sulla catastrofe elettorale della Sinistra.

1) Il risultato porta alla luce una realtà nascosta da troppo tempo, la debolezza di Rifondazione (e degli altri partiti di Sx) sul piano organizzativo, debolezza evidentissima ma da nessuno mai affrontata, anzi voluta dal vertice.

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Marco Politi, La Repubblica

L´ombra di Pio IX torna ad affacciarsi in Santa Romana Chiesa. L´improvvisa esaltazione di papa Mastai, indicato da Benedetto XVI come grande pontefice di esemplari virtù, «indomito e coraggioso» combattente contro la secolarizzazione dell´Ottocento, non è l´auspicio migliore per un rasserenarsi delle tensioni tra la società laica e il papato.
Bisogna saper leggere il body-language di Joseph Ratzinger. (more…)

NYC is over. It’s passe. Working class people are leaving, creative people are leaving, even financial sector people are leaving as the EU and Asian markets strengthen. NYC isn’t what it used to be. It’s just going to be a bunch of arrogant guys in overpriced luxury condos.
It’s funny how the decline in Harlem and the Lower East Side almost parallels the gentrification and disneyfication of the city.
Is NYC becoming a glorified gated community?

Gad Lerner, La Repubblica

Ora che la sinistra non vive più la fabbrica come epicentro di un ordine sociale da ribaltare; ora che Piero Fassino rilascia interviste simpatizzanti con il capo azienda Sergio Marchionne subendo il “no” dei lavoratori Fiat alla sua politica; ora che Walter Veltroni condanna come anacronistica “l´invidia sociale”, e lo fa nel capannone dismesso del Lingotto post-industriale: come stupirci se gli operai recidono anche l´ultimo legame simbolico tra gli stabilimenti produttivi e la politica? (more…)

Guido Crainz, La Repubblica

Il faticoso affermarsi e il rapido scomparire della fabbrica dal nostro immaginario collettivo aiuta a comprendere meglio la storia del paese: suggerisce ritardi e pigrizie, speranze e retoriche, e precoci smemoratezze. Ancora nel secondo dopoguerra il suo ruolo non appare sempre centrale: «il lavoratore dei campi - diceva Pio XII - rappresenta ancora l´ordine naturale voluto da Dio», mentre «accade troppo spesso che il capitale muova di qua e di là il lavoro e l´uomo stesso come palle da giuoco». (more…)