This is the last day off before I implement my more measured schedule for the summer.

Bruce Springsteen is singing "Spirit in the Night" on my lovely laptop and I’m wondering why more people don’t use Winamp instead of itunes. It plays probably twice as many formats as itunes and doesn’t hide all your music files away somewhere inaccessable and unreadable by humans.

On my Mac I use Itunes for most of the songs, but if I want to hear something in .wma or .flac I use Cog.

Been playing WoW and Pokemon: Diamond back and forth the past couple of days, and studying some Japanese in the meantime.

Just read a great article from the Boston Review, which is why I wanted to post actually. I love writing around figures, meaning both people and figures in the rhetorical sense.  In a way, we understand "other people" through and as rhetorical figures.  So starting with two contemporary figures, Pete Seeger and William F. Buckley, Jr., is a brilliant way to discuss the 1930s-1950s communist party movement in the United States.  Great read, pretty much made my day.

Possible speech assignment: Have students choose 2 contemporaneous figures and then prepare a speech about their relationship to the politics, culture and popular movements of the time.  The list of figures could be provided, or students could suggest figures. I think I’ll make a list and then let the students suggest alternatives that aren’t on the list if they want to do them.

Should we allow sports figures or the inevitable Biggie/Tupac request?  I’m undecided, but open to the idea.