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Category Archives: Online Places

Facebook Gets all Grammatical

As Facebook grows in other languages, we are learning a lot about what the “Facebook Experience” is like for people around the world. One of the first challenges was getting words that are really long in other languages to fit on the screen properly. Recently, we’ve been figuring out how to deal with a new [...]

Posted 25 July 2008 † Ray Watkins § Language § Writing ‡ Comments (0) °

Think Again RPCVs: Robert L. Strauss Revisited

Most Peace Corps volunteer placements will be in soft positions where big steps towards progress are not feasible. I have sent some students into Peace Corps. One gave up after 6 months. The other stayed an extra year and when her project failed because of local government interference it broke her heart.
The idea of bringing [...]

Posted 18 July 2008 † Ray Watkins § Autobiographical § Economics § Professional § Writing ‡ Comments (0) °

The Myth of Multitasking

In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things [...]

Posted 11 July 2008 † Ray Watkins § Autobiographical § Composition § Language § Professional § Writing ‡ Comments (1) °

HNN Poll: 61% of Historians Rate the Bush Presidency Worst

“It would be difficult to identify a President who, facing major international and domestic crises, has failed in both as clearly as President Bush,” concluded one respondent. “His domestic policies,” another noted, “have had the cumulative effect of shoring up a semi-permanent aristocracy of capital that dwarfs the aristocracy of land against which the founding [...]

Posted 04 July 2008 † Ray Watkins § Economics § Language § Professional § War § Writing ‡ Comments (0) °