Bieber Bielebers’ Belligerence
Jazz musician Esperanza Spalding won the Grammy for Best New Artist on Sunday night. (If you’re like me, you said, “Esperanza Who?“) Almost immediately, the 26-year-old Portland, Ore., native faced the wrath of tweens and teens who believe 16-year-old Justin Bieber should have won the title. Spalding’s Wikipedia page was hacked, and she was virtually […]
A Digital Aid to Confession
Need help knowing what your sins are, or when to confess them? There’s an app for that. Inspired by the pope’s 2010 World Communications Address, which encouraged using new media to serve Catholics and God’s Word, Little iApps has released “Confession: A Roman Catholic App.” News reports say the app is sanctioned by the Catholic […]
Did It Happen That Way? (And Does It Matter?)
According to most Oscar prognosticators, this year’s race to the Academy Awards Best Picture statuette may be a two-horse affair between The King’s Speech and The Social Network. Both are based on true stories. The question is just how true both adaptations are. Writer Christopher Hitchens, for example, claims in a recent Slate article that […]
Balancing Your Digital Kids
A friend of mine tells me his 3-year-old loves to play computer games. He shares that fact with equal parts pride, alarm and shock that she can navigate some of them better than he can. He’s not alone. According to a new survey, 61% of American children between age 2 and 5 can play such […]
Aflockalypse Now
Nope, that headline is not my own witty turn of phrase. (I wish.) It’s been floating around the media for the last few weeks—ever since thousands of birds mysteriously died and fell out of the sky over various U.S. states, as well as several other countries including Italy, Sweden, China and Chile. We’ve seen reports […]
A Coffee by Any Other Name—and Even No Name
There are several things that I don’t cross: pit bulls, grouchy neighbors and the early-morning lineup of people at Starbucks. The latter haven’t had their caffeine yet. Starbucks will turn 40 this year. As an anniversary promotion that will “carry this iconic brand across markets and into the future,” it will ax the verbiage from […]
Bieber Fever Redlines
This just in, ripped from the week’s headlines: “Justin Bieber is more influential than Barack Obama and Dalai Lama.” Yeah, I had to question that statement at first, too. So let me qualify: It’s in terms of social media sway, according to the online media company, Klout. Klout founder Joe Fernandez wanted a way to […]
Hail to the Chief … of Social Media
With 550 million members and counting, Facebook has enough people to be the world’s third largest country. And if you doubt the site’s influence over communication and behavior, an Oxygen Media study found that about 33% of women aged 18-34 check Facebook right after they wake up in the morning—even before they use the bathroom. […]
Do We Want Cheese With Our Whine?
For more than 20 years, my father had osteoarthritis in both hips. It slowed him down, caused constant pain and frustrated him greatly—you could tell at times by the look on his face. But I never heard him talk about it, let alone complain. Ever. I did not inherit the gene for silence. And if […]
Enough About Me, What Do You Think of Me?
Ah, the DSM. Or, for the less initiated, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, otherwise known as the psychiatrist’s bible of mental disorders. It sat on the bookshelves of several former roommates who were either medical students or psychologists. And because I would read a bread bag if nothing else were around, I gave the old […]