Category: Argument

Yes, This New York County Actually Used the Crazy Spider Voting Sticker Design That You Saw Online

A round “I voted” sticker shows a childish drawing of a green-legged spider figure with a smiling human head. The face is in shades of purple with big red eyes and multicolor teeth.
~ letstalklibrary4001 ~ Leave a comment

Image credit: CNN

News giant CNN publishes a detailed report about an “I voted” sticker that is being distributed in a medium-sized county in New York. Wait. This is newsworthy?! Really? “I voted” stickers are usually the most yawn-inducing bits of civic display imaginable. Well, not this time, and not in Ulster County, New York, where the winning entry in a county-wide contest shows a childish drawing of a brightly colored monster with insect legs and a scary human face that says “I voted.” CNN reporter Zoe Sottile filed this report in November 2022.

Continue reading “Yes, This New York County Actually Used the Crazy Spider Voting Sticker Design That You Saw Online” →

How and Why Do Consumers Access News on Social Media?

Two cell phones side by side, one showing a screen grab from the Guardian’s “Fake or for Real” feature, the other showing a screen grab of a Washington Post TikTok.
~ letstalklibrary4001 ~ Leave a comment

Image credit: Reuters Institute

It’s not news that fewer people than ever get their news from newspapers. Many people, particularly younger ones, use social media to stay informed of events. But how many people? Who are they? Which platforms do they use? And why have these become the sources of choice? Good questions, right? Political science professor Simge Andı researched them extensively; her detailed report was published in June 2021 by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Continue reading “How and Why Do Consumers Access News on Social Media?” →

Baldo Cartoon: Text Punctuation

Cartoon in which a young man is appalled that his father uses a period in a text message; the young man’s companion agrees.
~ letstalklibrary4001 ~ Leave a comment

Have you noticed that texting styles vary a lot between generations? [Insert eyeroll emoji.] Silly question. Of course you have. There are many cultural factors that contribute to style variation in texting, and age/generation is certainly one of them. When you notice it, is it amusing? Annoying? Endearing? In this August 2021 Baldo cartoon strip, the youthful main character reacts with horror to a text from his dad. Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos’ strip has appeared in numerous daily newspapers in the US for more than 20 years. Its humor is principally centered around family life, and like many other daily strips, the characters never age.

Continue reading “Baldo Cartoon: Text Punctuation” →

Am I Wrong to Judge People for Talking to Me in Emoji?

A cartoonish drawing of an emoji-style person, shown from the chest up, arms crossed with hands raised, surrounded by six smaller emojis.
~ letstalklibrary4001 ~ Leave a comment

Image credit: Jan Siemen

Advice columns are a consistently popular media feature, and there are many types—advice about romance, pet care, money management, workplace relationships, and more. Wired, a magazine that covers assorted aspects of cybertechnology, publishes an advice column about—what else—technology. In this September 2022 column, Meghan O’Gieblyn (writing under the pen name “Cloud”) addresses a rather snotty question about emoji, and her response may surprise you.

Continue reading “Am I Wrong to Judge People for Talking to Me in Emoji?” →

The History of American Landscape Painting Is Not Pretty

The first panel of a graphic essay shows the artist sitting on a rock in the desert. The text written across the sky says “I went to the desert, and I had a realization. (My apologies, clichés abound, but this really did happen.)” Elements of the image are labeled “light bulb,” “desert sunset,” and “tumbleweed, skull, etc.”
~ letstalklibrary4001 ~ Leave a comment

Image credit: Hyperallergic

Have you given any thought this week to landscape painting? No? To be honest, neither have we. But Steven Weinberg, a New York-based artist, children’s book author, and B&B owner, is passionate about landscape painting and its importance to both history and environmentalism. He explains it all in this November 2022 graphic essay on Hyperallergic, an online magazine. (Please note: a little background in US history will be very helpful to you here. We suggest you look up the names he mentions, but we’ll give you a little head start on one important concept. “Manifest destiny” was a 19th century belief that supported and justified the westward expansion of US territories and settlement by people of European descent at the expense of the native people who already occupied and made their homes on those lands.)

Continue reading “The History of American Landscape Painting Is Not Pretty” →

Nobel Prize Lecture 2021

Maria Ressa is delivering her Nobel Prize Lecture and making an emphatic gesture.
~ letstalklibrary4001 ~ Leave a comment

Image credit: Rappler

Maria Ressa, in her 2021 Nobel Peace Prize lecture, states it bluntly and succinctly: “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy.” Ressa has a rare ability to acknowledge and expose the horrors of the world and still inspire optimism; her address is a call to action, a call to conscience. We’ve excerpted it for you here. You can also read a transcript/translation of her complete speech on these sites: Rappler.com (in English or Filipino) or NobelPrize.org (in English, Russian, or Norwegian). 

Continue reading “Nobel Prize Lecture 2021” →

How to Fix Social Media

An open laptop leans against an old-style radio atop a table.
~ letstalklibrary4001 ~ Leave a comment

Social media, what a hot mess! Still, hard to imagine the world these days without them. They’re immensely useful in so many ways, and in just as many ways, they can be tremendously harmful. What can we—as individuals and as a society—do to reduce the damage that social media can cause while boosting their helpfulness? Best-selling author Nicholas Carr, whose work focuses on technology, economics, and culture, details his plan for resolving major social media problems in this Fall 2021 essay from the New Atlantis.

Continue reading “How to Fix Social Media” →