• Google tries to have it both ways when it comes to geopolitical boundaries. Where does Russia start and where does Ukraine end? That depends on your IP address. They want to tell the truth, but not if it involves pissing off Putin, I guess. If Google is so craven in a situation like this, then we sure are in trouble.

• Holy hell. As oversight fades, schools in southeastern USA are resegregating. This is a jawdroppingly factual article in The Atlantic. Here is a short interpretation with a key excerpt from the article. The bottom line is that if you care about the advances tied to the Civil Rights movement, I recommend knowing what is in this article.

• Simon Leather wrote about what it’s like to be the editor of a journal, as he’s done this quite a bit..

• This is an important post by ZL “Kai” Burington about being trans in science. “The personal stuff is none of your business. But I feel this is important, so I’m breaking the rules… By being visible I am showing other students that they don’t have to feel anxious about their identities. I can be that role model. I can relay my positive experiences. In the words of the Trevor Project, ‘It gets better.’ It is getting better.”

• Meg Duffy has a really important point about a completely outrageous situation with the NSF Waterman award, and big fancy awards in general.

• Here is a nice column in Salon with a title that speaks for itself: “David Foster Wallace was right: Irony is ruining our culture”. The notion that culture can be ruined is short-sighted, but otherwise I thought this was thoughtful. If you’re not yet familiar with David Foster Wallace, please check out this year-old post of mine about him. It has an embedded 23-minute audio which is nothing short of incredible. (By the way, he started out as faculty at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale before going to Pomona College. Two student-oriented teaching campuses.)

• This is a informative interview with the author of Bowling Alone, entitled, “America is moving toward a caste society.” If you’re a scientist prone to amateur sociological interpretations of what’s happening in the US and beyond, you’d love Putnam’s work because it’s so rich with data. (As a non-sociologist, I have found his arguments convincing.)

• When I was in college, the term “divestment” referred to shifting university investments away from companies that did business in apartheid South Africa. Recently my alma mater misspent its political capital “divesting” from assault weapons. Meanwhile, facing the most critical issue facing humankind at the moment, Pitzer College just divested from fossil fuels. Let’s all be like Pitzer.

• Honor codes aren’t what they used to be, or at least what others imagine they used to be like.

• Once again, BuzzHootRoar rocks it with Animals In Spaaaaaaace! (Lordy I sure hope everybody gets that Muppet reference.)

Note: this weekly feature is transitioning to a biweekly feature (meaning in this case: every two weeks). This is a great crop over the last week, but I think I can have a better list by doing it less frequently.

For a link, thanks to Mark Martin.