Read-Think-b4-u-Write

What first attracted me to this article entitled "Novelist Cormac McCarthy Gives Writing Advice to Scientists … and Anyone Who Wants to Write Clear, Compelling Prose" was STEM - the bane of any English professor. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) is the current trend in public education, pushing aside the arts for technology. But STEM should really be changed to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) because while some may believe that the Arts are just a supercilious area of study that no one really needs, that is just false. Rhetoric is taught in the Arts and everyone needs to know how to argue properly, especially scientists. If not, how are you ever going to prove your hypothesis or spot a fallacy in your problem? So what does that have to to with Cormac McCarthy? McCarthy loves science and scientists. The writer of such novels as No Country for Old Men, Blood Meridian, and The Road has   "Since the 1990s, maintai...

I love maps. Ever since I was a kid, I would stare at them and think about what places like Copperopolis, Toad Suck, and Santa Claus look like. I mean does Santa live in Santa Claus, Indiana? I think not, but he probably doesn't live in Chicken, Alaska either....and somehow that brings me to Roman roads visualized as a subway map. Here's the great thing about this project it was done by a college student just like you. Well, not exactly like you, but Sasha Trubetskoy is an undergrad at U. Chicago, and he created a "subway-style diagram of the major Roman roads, based on the Empire of ca. 125 AD." Open Culture has provided a few links to larger maps for your viewing pleasure. Trubetskov says "no sane Roman would use only roads where sea travel is available. Sailing was much cheaper and faster – a combination of horse and sailboat would get you from Rome to Byzantium in about 25 days, Rome to Carthage in 4-5 days." He also notes that money and time ...