After a holiday hiatus, SLACE has returned for the spring semester.
This edition of Sunday Funday is more heartwarming than hilarious. It is one last bit of holiday spirit before beginning again the trials and tribulations of ordinary life.
From everyone at SLACE, we wish you all a happy, healthy and intellectually engaging new year.
Sunday Funday could be exclusively devoted clips from The Daily Show with JonStewart. Ordinarily, I would be hesitant to post Daily Show clips on back to back weeks. However, this week’s clip is too good to miss. Fox New’s Megyn Kelly give “white Chrismas” a strange new meaning, claiming both Jesus and Santa Clause are clearly both white.
Here this how The Daily Show video is described on the Comedy Central website:
Gretchen Carlson issues a manger danger warning, and Megyn Kelly defends Santa Claus’s historically-based Caucasian bona fides.
Sunday Funday: War on Christmas Sarah Palin Redux
Tis the season… for the War on Christmas, or World War C as The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart puts it. This year’s version of the annual War on Christmas is lead by Sarah Palin, who recently wrote a book about Christmas. Palin is supported by long time Christmas warrior Bill O’Reilly. In an interesting turn, Palin and O’Reilly argue that the consumerism is an integral part of the Christmas.
Here this how The Daily Show video is described on the Comedy Central website:
Sarah Palin and Bill O’Reilly rush to Christmas’s defense, despite its not being in any way threatened.
Sunday Funday: Teaching Scientists Social Skills
I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday!
This edition of Sunday Funday is features a short segment from NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday about BioToasters–a public speaking organization for scientists.
Here is how the story began:
About 20 scientists are clustered in a cramped conference room in San Diego, one of the country’s science hubs, but they aren’t there to pore over their latest research. Instead, this is a meeting of BioToasters — a chapter of the public speaking organization Toastmasters, geared specifically toward scientists.
“For a typical scientist, they will spend a lot of time at the bench, so they’re doing a lot of maybe calculations or lab work where they’re not interacting directly from person to person,” says BioToasters President Zackary Prag, a lab equipment sales rep.
But scientists still often need to be able to speak to a crowd: Academics give seminars; pharmaceutical researchers present results; and graduate students defend their work in front of their professors and peers. Prag says it’s important to learn to speak clearly and make small talk.
At a recent meeting, two other Biotoasters were doing just that. New member Gina Salazar gave a presentation on “meeting girls and guys — pickup for smart people.”
Salazar practiced with member Greg Mrachko. “You’re adorable! You really look like Michael J. Fox,” she said to him, as the rest of the club laughed. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Michael J. Fox?” he responded. “Probably because of my new haircut.”
Practicing these social graces leads to better public speaking, and that’s important for a scientist’s career, says Union College physics professor Chad Orzel.
“Part of the way you make a reputation within the field is by giving talks at meetings, and then people see you give the talk and say, ‘Oh, that person gave a really good talk. They must be really smart,’ ” he says.
Orzel says part of a science professor’s job interview is giving an hour-long seminar. “In academia, we’re hiring people who are going to be expected to teach classes as well, so it’s absolutely critical that you be able to give a good talk,” he says
For more public policy related video/audio, be sure to check out the SLACE Archive.
This edition of Sunday Funday is more heartwarming than humorous. It is about a bakery in Los Angeles, the Homeboy Bakery, which turns gang members into productive members of society by giving them jobs and teaching them marketable (legal) skills.
Here is a description of the story from The CBS Sunday Morning Show:
Twenty-five years ago Father Greg Boyle started working with gang members in the poorest parish of Los Angeles. Today, his program, Homeboy Industries – a bakery and cafe employing former gang members – has grown to become one of the largest and most successful gang intervention efforts in the nation. Carter Evans reports.
For more public policy related video/audio, be sure to check out the SLACE Archive.