Big Sole Blog (BSB)

My cousin. L.C. of Texas (pre-Katrina of New Orleans), shared this funny story on Facebook about a true experience she had in Target. I think her story comments on a technological divide between generations: The strangest thing happened to me this evening. . . . I went to Target to purchase a stationery set and had trouble finding any. So, I asked this twenty-something year-old for assistance.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy On her show today, Sunday, Nov. 18, MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry featured Sean Pica, the executive director of Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison. His organization provides educational services to men and women in four New York state prisons, according to MHP's MSNBC notes. MHP said in the introduction to the

Yes, I, too, heard about J.C. Penney's sale of the disturbing T-shirt for little girls with the slogan, "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me." At BlogHer.com, Shannon L.C. Cate wrote about the controversy expressing the same concern that women and some men all over the Internet voiced as soon as news of the T-shirt broke. The department store has since pulled the

I will be moving this blog away from discussions of politics and race toward something less controversial, mythology perhaps. Something less personal, too, but what I do not know because existence is personal, is it not? Suddenly I am aware of the many reasons a woman should confine her own freedom of speech to the abstract or less threatening and yet even that decision is political. How will I

My aunt in Memphis told me about President Barack Obama surprising students at Booker T. Washington in Memphis, Tenn., on May 16, She said it made her cry. CNN posted a longer video of his surprise visit on YouTube. Obama later spoke at their graduation.

On April 26, 2011, the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus held a rally on the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge to protest Gov. Bobby Jindal's cuts to higher education. The most urgent matter on the minds of the speakers was Jindal's push to merge Southern University of New Orleans with University of New Orleans, SUNO with UNO.The event was hosted by the Southern University

A male student at Riverview High School in Tampa Bay Florida was called out of class to the principal's office because he wore high heel shoes to school, reports Tampa Bay's Fox station. School principal Bob Heilmann decided it was best if the student not where the shoes and told him to take them off. See video below.A teacher notified the school principal and said that the boy’s high heels were

Nietzsche v. Jesus Christ from The Veritas Forum on Vimeo.The video above features Dallas Willard lecturing at Stanford University in 2002 on objective versus subjective constructs. He is comparing and contrasting the teachings of Jesus Christ to those of Nietzsche. From a description from the video's sponsor, the Veritas Forum:"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," Jesus said. "God is dead,"

In some ways this blog is a commonplace book for me, and so, as I am researching closet dramas and their relationship to Plato and the dialectic or dialogue, I'm storing this definition or summary of closet dramas from The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Volume 1. Wikipedia is good starting point, too.

Let me say at the outset that the verses that follow are by Paulo Freire, but in their original form they are presented as prose not poetry in his last book Pedagogy of Freedom, Chapter 3, "Teaching is Not Just Transferring Knoweldge." (The video at the end of this post is one of his last interviews before his death in 1997)As I read this book, I am struck increasingly by how his philosphy had

Related: Linguist John McWhorter: Sanitizing Huckleberry Finn Insults Black PeopleI just read about the exceptional foolishness of a misguided southern publisher. At CNN, a Mark Twain biographer, Ron Powers, calls NewSouth Books' decision to strip the word "nigger" from Mark Twain's classic Huckleberry Finn, "vapid, smiley-faced effrontery ... (that) corrodes the foundations of respect for

I'm using my blog now partly as a commonplace book. Last night I came across this article or series of articles at the New York Times about why criticism matters. Since the one I read discusses in part how the Internet has changed views of audience in fiction and writing, I decided to bookmark it. Stephen Burns writes:While (Alfred) Kazin could complain in 1960 that “the audience doesn’t know

I'm currently reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman, a book that I've been saying I will settle down and read for at least five years now. He entertains with provocative turns of phrase and vivid description as well as compelling character development. His sense of humor is worth a study all by itself. I know I'll do a lot of thinking as I read it and after I finish it.It's 2011, which will be the

Did you recognize the image Clay Duke painted on the wall from the movie V for Vendetta?When I saw this story about the Florida school board shooting yesterday, I got a chill, not just because the video was scary either. I used to cover school board meetings in other parts of the country and sometimes the people coming in to protest budget cuts or ask for school board backing on some project did

Right now on CNN, Joel Burns, an openly-gay council member in Fort Worth, TX, is being interviewed. His emotional appeal made Tuesday night, October 12, at a city council meeting has gone viral. It's posted below the CNN video here in its entirety and was aired earlier today on the network. Burns gave the speech in response to the rash of suicides resulting from bullying in general and

Why I keep paying dues to AuthorsDen is probably worth some reflection; however, until I do that I keep my own words on the bio page: "Life is a winding road of lessons and opportunities. Wear good shoes." Those words are working through my life more than ever right now since I'm in graduate school. About once a week I panic and ask myself, "Why are you doing this? You're too old for grad school

Last night, meaning a few hours ago because it's only 12:22 a.m. right now in the New Orleans area, I watched a PBS episode of NOVA that fascinated me about cuttlefish, Kings of Camouflage. You can watch the whole video online, I've learned. I highly recommend it. The cuttlefish's ability to change the color and texture of its skin is amazing. Sometimes it appears to hypnotize its prey. And