Vocal-cord issues have always been around, says Dr. Zeitels, but singers used to keep them secret. Nowadays, “the minute somebody is not going to go on, it’s all over the internet. Fifteen years ago, that didn’t happen. People would cancel the show in Kansas, but you didn’t know about it in New York.” As a result, singers today are more willing to acknowledge when vocal injuries have occurred, and feel less shame about admitting it.
Academics Want You to Read Their Work for Free
The latest effort is taking shape in the cognitive-science community, where a group of researchers are petitioning the publishing giant Elsevier to lower fees to publish open-access papers in Cognition, a well-regarded journal.
.. Elsevier, Springer, and Taylor & Francis have all reported profit margins around 35 percent, more than Facebook (27 percent) or the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the largest bank in the world (29 percent).
.. In 2012, more than 12,000 researchers vowed to boycott Elsevier for supporting the Research Works Act (RWA), a bill that would have made it illegal for federal grants to require grantees to publish the work in open-access journals.
The End of Small Talk
Why did being with a stranger so often mean we couldn’t immediately talk about meaningful things?
.. I would have been very uncomfortable if a man had pushed me in this way into “deep” talk (and I would have felt pushed indeed) in the early stages of getting-to-know-you. It seems to me this is a way of forcing intimacy before I have any idea if I want that level of closeness with someone. Some women may love it but I shuddered when I read about it…
The Age of Small Terror
Some young adults have separated from their parents but they have not developed an independent self of their own. In order to escape the terror of their own formlessness or insignificance, a few commit to some fanatical belief system. They perform some horrific act they believe will give their life shape, meaning and glory.
.. The surge of anti-liberalism has meant one of the most important political fissures is now between those who support an open society and those who support a closed society. Back in the 1990s, openness and the withering of borders was all the rage, but now parts of the left embrace closed trade policies and parts of the right embrace closed cultural and migration policies.