As per usual, existential questions related to the history field have bubbled to the surface on Twitter. I’ve got two of them to discuss in this post. They appeared on Twitter within a week of each other and though they were posted separately by different people, they speak to each other. The first existential question was raised by applied math professor Chad Topaz. I know Chad personally because he was my daughter’s advisor at Macalester…
I just finished reading a novel by Alena Graedon called “The Word Exchange.” The basic plot is that technology, both in the form of handheld devices called “Memes” and a wearable called “Nautilus,” causes what is called a word flu, wherein people start substituting regular words with nonsense words. For some, the flu, which also causes other physical symptoms, is deadly, or it may cause a permanent “silencing” of individuals. Of course, corporate greed and…
Fergus Falls and Der Spiegel The town of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, recently had to publicly correct the historic record. A reporter from Der Spiegel spent several weeks in the town in order to write a story focusing on the politics of rural America. Turns out he made up a lot of the story, giving a skewed view of the city and its residents. Michele Anderson and Jake Krohn provided a correction via their article on…