Welcome to Monday’s News on the March – The week that was in my digital world.
Article at BBC – Future:
There are many ways of categorising someone’s linguistic skills, but the concept of fluency is hard to define..
Daniel Morgan, head of learning development at the Shenker Institutes of English – a popular chain of English schools in Italy – says that fluency actually refers to how “smoothly” and “efficiently” a second language (L2) speaker can speak on “a range of topics in real time”. While fluency may denote a degree of proficiency, it does not automatically imply accuracy – the ability to produce grammatically correct sentences – nor does it imply grammatical range (read more).
Article by Louise Mackey at Scéal Milis :
Although she enjoyed a career as a successful writer in New York during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, Brennan was almost completely unknown in her native Ireland. Her work was never published here during her lifetime and it was only in the last decade or so that she began to be widely read in her home country.
The revived interest in Brennan’s work was initially sparked by an article published in The Irish Times in 1998 by Fintan O’Toole entitled “Maeve Brennan: No fairy tale ending.” (Read more)
Article at Foolish Baseball:
In this video, I talk about foreign-born baseball pioneers like Roberto Clemente & Gift Ngoepe. I also talk about the inverse, meaning American baseball players in Japan and American baseball players in Korea like Dennis Sarfate and Eric Thames. I also talk about Carter Stewart Japan, and how strong leagues lead to NPB attendance that rivals our own.
On the subject of baseball in the United States, I talk about baseball’s unwritten rules and the decline of MLB.
Another subject I talk about is Cubans in MLB like Yasiel Puig. Yasiel Puig Cuba story of defection is a scary one that represents the dangers Cuban MLB players face. (Watch all)
Article at FISHBOWLS:
One of Hemingway’s literary mentors Gertrude Stein uttered the now famous phrase to him in conversation in her studio apartment in Paris.
“That’s what you all are,” she said to him. “All of you young people who have served in the war. You are a lost generation.”
Hemingway asked why that is.
“You have no respect for anything,” she replied. “You drink yourselves to death.” (Read More)
Article at Intellectual Shaman:
It’s horrible being the third wheel and even worse when you go to Lovers’ Lane with your friends and their girlfriends. I bought an expensive cigar and some fine scotch to enjoy during my evening. I’d walk the tracks at night and hope a train might run me down. Of course, these were only melancholy thoughts, but my self-pity was comforting. It was one of those nights, blacker than black. I’m talkin so black you can’t see your hand in front of your face. (Read More)
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
On the baseball one…the thing he neglected to mention is American youth football is WAY down also because of the facts they are finding about long term damage…parents are saying no. Many sports are dropping. A kid now doesn’t play all sports….they concentrate on one…which I think is bad…they should play all if they are good.
He was right in the part where he said that travel ball costs so much. When I was young it was 12 games a year…now it’s 40-70 in some places which is crazy.
I haven’t seen the video for a week or so, but yes it would seem obvious that participation in American youth football has depleted for reasons pertaining to long term brain damage. Did he not mention that???
I agree with you regarding it being bad that kids aren’t enjoying more sports.
Yes, I couldn’t imagine how steep those costs are of travel ball these days. It’s almost a given in any sport these days that unless a kid earns a scholarship, the family has to gamble a lot of money on their talent. The same is here in Colombia, perhaps more so here regarding Soccer (or football as its known here). To get my son playing in a good club I have to shell out minimum $70US dollars a month and that is here in Colombia!
Yes it’s funny Soccer has drawn kids from the other sports but…America hasn’t much interest in the sport at a professional sport. I don’t understand that because they play it as kids.
Bailey never had the desire to play football…the coach wanted him to play at 4 and 5 years old…I told him no. I’m glad I did after learning what I did.
I love that baseball is thriving around the world. Japan has always loved baseball and the Dominican has also…of course they can play year around…a huge advantage.
Yeh, soccer is a huge junior sport in America (and Australia), but it hasn’t taken off although you have your own league.
I also would like to see Baseball thrive internationally. There are a few Colombian stars in the MLB (Quintana etc), but noone knows about them in Colombia except on the northern coast and of course in Venezuela.
Once they are finished as a kid…they drop the game…plus kids have so many options to do now…those video games play a big role
Venezuela does have a few….and stars like Miguel Cabrera
Well video game participants are now bigger earners than Sports participants. Who would have thought that would happen? Rogan was right when he said that ‘virtual reality’ will become so attractive and life-like that people will turn to it more than they do their ‘actual lives’. That’s a given. I don’t see that far-way off.
I know I’ve heard about that. I can see that also with the virtual…it would be cool in measures but people will start living in that more than their natural lives like you said.
I enjoyed the article about Maeve Brennan; of course she wouldn’t have been very popular in Ireland if she wrote about turmoil, loneliness and regret in the Irish household just when they were spinning a vision for themselves about the importance of family, women staying at home, and all that conservative stuff. How sad. Well, at least she’s surfacing into the light now.
I also thought Gertrude Stein’s comment was a little severe and non-empathetic to Hemmingway about “the lost generation” not respecting anything and drinking themselves to death. The only way she could make that statement with any amount of actual honesty and genuineness would be if SHE fought in a war, came back, and forced herself not to be calloused, depressed, and not bury herself in a bottle. No one knew about PTSD back then or any of that, so…she was coming from a blind spot of ignorance. But until you walk in someone else’s moccasins, can you really come to such a blanket summary of behavior? In my opinion, people who survive wars, I’m amazed they can get out of bed each day, much less retain the level of *respect* they might have once had, after slogging through blood and guts and surviving the murderous horror of war.
The author of that Brennan article mentioned to me in the comments that Brennan may have been one of the inspirations for Truman Capote’s Tiffany. It wouldn’t surprise me based on what I read about her. I’m glad you enjoyed the article as well.
I couldn’t agree with you more regarding the Lost Generation – ‘until you climb into his skin and walk around in it’ as Atticus Finch once said.
Ah, Tiffany, huh….? Interesting!