Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wes Fryer

Category: politics

  • Putin and Christian Nationalism

    Whether or not you are a follower of Jesus and publicly profess “Christianity” as your faith, it’s important to pay attention what many “Conservative Christians” have been saying and continue to say about Vladimir Putin and his cultural / political agenda. I want to recommend two recent articles and OpEds on these topics. First, check…

  • 10 Favorite Podcasts (December 2021)

    It’s Christmas Day and 2021 is rapidly drawing to a close, so I’m doing a bit of reflecting on the past year as we look forward to 2022. In this post, I’ll share 10 of my favorite podcasts, which I’ve listened to often in 2021. I LOVE both listening to and creating podcasts, and continue…

  • The Technology Correction and Section 230 Liability Protection

    “The Technology Correction” is something Jason Neiffer (@techsaavyteach) and I talk about frequently on our weekly webshow and podcast, “The EdTech Situation Room” (@edtechSR). This is a term Jason coined for the forthcoming regulation of our powerful technology companies built on the “surveillance capitalism” economic model, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others. Like the GDPR…

  • When We Disagree on Facts

    Here’s a vignette from this morning that highlights  the challenging disconnect in “understanding basic facts” which we face today in our society and culture. I went into the VA clinic this morning for a lab blood draw, for my annual check up. I struck up a conversation with the lab technician, and we talked about…

  • Political Philosophy and Media Literacy Cornerstones

    Propaganda and disinformation can have real, destructive effects in society and government. That is one of many lessons we can draw from the past week in Washington D.C., when we saw large numbers of protesters storm the United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021, in a riot which resulted in deaths, injuries, as well…

  • The Fragility of Democratic Institutions – Memories of Cairo in November 2017

    On November 16, 2017, I had the privilege of dining in my Cairo hotel restaurant with Ahmed Ragheb, a long-time friend of my parents who I first met in 1978 when we lived in Columbus, Mississippi, and my dad was a T-37 squadron commander. Ahmed had an amazing military career in the USAF as a…

  • The Social Dilemma Documentary and YOUR Social Media Privacy Settings

    If you have not yet watched the new Netflix documentary, “The Social Dilemma,” stop reading this post now and immediately go watch it. Or at least commit to watching it as soon as you have a spare 94 minutes. There’s a good reason it’s poised to be the first documentary to ever be the “#1…

  • Media Literacy Conversations About Conspiracies and Culture Wars

    The past two months I’ve been working on a media literacy project with fellow educator and colleague Brian Turnbaugh (@wegotwits) which we have titled, “Conspiracies and Culture Wars.” Tuesday Brian and I shared a 60 minute virtual workshop together about this project and its topics at the Summer Institute on Digital Literacy, and last week…

  • “PlanDemic” Disinformation Teachable Moment During COVID-19

    All of us using the Internet today, regardless of age or past education credentials, need additional media literacy skills in our present age of “information pollution” and the neo-coronavirus pandemic. This past week, large numbers of people on social media shared video links to a purported “documentary” titled “Plandemic” which allegedly reveals “the hidden agenda…

  • The Coronavirus Pandemic and Media Literacy

    We are living into a very interesting chapter of earth history this week. As I type this post on Sunday night, March 8, 2020, the confluence of several political decisions as well as the predictable mathematical results of exponential growth are combining to setup a week which will be filled with alarmist voices in both…