Oct 18 2012
Thursday News: Dumb senate questions; Claire Felicie’s pictoral study; Amazon’s WhisperCast
Actual U.S. Senate Debate Question: “Have You Read Fifty Shades Of Grey?” – “This was a real question posed to Kirsten Gillibrand and Wendy Long, two women running for U.S. senate in New York, during their only debate.” Oh America. What is wrong with you? Buzzfeed
Amazon Launches New Tool to Help Schools Manage Their Kindle Collections – One of the biggest publishing fights will be over the hearts and minds of students. Pearson just bought EmbanetCompass, a company that helps colleges and universities to move their academic courses online. Barnes & Noble divested its college program into the new company it formed with Microsoft. But Amazon isn’t going down quietly. It has launched a new program called WhisperCast which allows one IT administrator to control and launch hundreds of Kindles and Kindle tablets from a single webpage. It’s enterprise for your Kindle. The Digital Reader
Claire Felicie’s photographs Marines’ faces before, during, and after Afghanistan. – Claire Felicie documented the facial changes in several Dutch Marines to test whether the experience can be seen in their faces. Only 12 months have passed from the first photo to the last. Of all of them, I thought the second set looked like the person had changed the most. If you look a presidents’ pictures, though, it is easy to see the toll the office has taken on the individuals. Slate
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Oct 18, 2012 @ 05:26:43
The Fifty Shades question I would expect in a Saturday Night Live sketch, but their REAL debate? Egads!
Oct 18, 2012 @ 08:08:40
Really? Forget about taxes or unemployment or social welfare programs we in America care about whether or not you get hot when a guy spanks a woman. After all, you’re just women, it’s not like your Senate votes are actually counted or anything. *ugh*
Oct 18, 2012 @ 08:42:51
I’m all for lighthearted questions to give everyone a laugh, but that was pretty lame. I like one of the comments on the buzzfeed: “Cause that’s an important issue that will decide MY vote, said no woman ever.” I’m also glad that the candidate said no because you know someone would have said something incredibly stupid and irrelevant (moreso than the the question was) if she’d said yes.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 09:28:16
Ugh! I just cringed watching that. And what made it worse was that it was the female moderator that asked the question, and after both candidates said no they hadn’t read it she had to laugh and say “oh me either” or words to that effect. REALLY? You think this is appropriate for a U.S. Senate debate? With everything going on in the U.S. and the world today that was the best use of time in the debate? If a man had asked that he would have been (correctly) crucified in the press.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 11:38:01
Kills me. I can’t imagine two men getting the same question.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 12:18:08
OTOH, “What was the last book you read and what did you get out of it?” might make for a really interesting debate question.
If nothing else, it might serve to demonstrate basic literacy and reading comprehension. :-)
Oct 18, 2012 @ 12:59:10
@Leah Hultenschmidt: That was my first thought when I read about that.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 16:59:32
@hapax: Agreed, assuming you got an honest answer. Which my jaded side thinks is unlikely. They’d probably just name a book that played well with focus groups.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 17:21:34
On par with the “boxers or briefs” question, although that wasn’t posed by a moderator during a debate.