I presented a paper today at a conference held jointly at the UM-D campus in Michigan and in Second Life. The conference focused on "Using the Virtual World to Improve Our World," highlighting the Campus of Hope projected developed by faculty and students from the Computer and Information Science Department, with a grant from the Ford Motor ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

No, we’re not in New Orleans this year. And won’t even be celebrating in Dearborn, because I’m out of town on a professional thing ( Read more... )

Every now and then, my mom would look out on a low grey sky (of the sort we’ve been seeing so often in Michigan in the last month) and say “That’s a snow sky ( Read more... )

It’s hard to know what to write now, after a week of such eloquence: from the President, from the Bishop of New Hampshire, from Elizabeth Alexander. (Her poem “Praise Song for the Day” can be found hereEvery day, the news brings amazing news of bold decisive moves by the President (less secrecy, more money for birth control abroad, no torture), ( Read more... )

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama ( Read more... )

Florida? VIRGINIA? Maybe North Carolina? That would be a shade of Carolina blue we never thought to see. They never tire of telling us that "The South will rise again!" Never in their nightmares have they imagined it would look like this ( Read more... )

Something to read while we wait for news.

Yes, they both made me cry.

Avoting-place story from San Francisco.

This writer explains why he didn’t vote for Obama.

Here, have a Kleenex.

8 a.m.
Precinct 17, Dearborn, Michigan.
Fifty people in line at my precinct, ten times as many as I've seen there in 15 year. An hour later, when I'm done (Voter # 129) , there are 60 people in line.

This is what history feels like.


( Read more... )

I'm sure I've posted this before, but it bears repeating. This is from the late Phil Johnson, of WWL-TV ( Read more... )