February 2010
“Want what you have. Do what you can. Be who you are.”
—
— Forrest Church (1948-2009), Theologian, Author and Senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City.
(heard in a sermon)
January 2010
At Princeton University, Grumbling About Grade Deflation - NYTimes.com →
nytimes.com
Someone posted this as “timely” to a discussion some fellow educators and non-eduators were having on Facebook. It’s likely to be very provocative for students. What do you think?
Learning my new song
I’ve written this new song, but I haven’t learned it yet.
Those words, coming from some singer-songwriter, always used to make me laugh. It struck me funny that the interviewer would ask the artist to “play us a new song,” and this is often how they would respond. How could one not know one’s own song? I think of these words now because my new teaching schedule has me in a similar situation. I’m not quite sure how best to apportion and organize my time to fit my new week. I think this would be true of any college professor, but is especially true for contingent professors like myself, particularly when bouncing between campuses.
When writing my dissertation, I used to used to be particularly edified by other words from singer-songwriters I heard, typically while riding around in my car, listening to WUMB-FM. I felt a particular kinship with these troubadours, because they talked about the importance of discipline in songwriting, and the necessity of sitting down at the same time every day, just sitting, even if no words came. This is true for all except Bob Franke, who described keeping a notepad by his bed, because songs came to him in dreams. That makes sense to me because I tend to think of him as a prophet, cut from the same cloth as we find in the Hebrew scriptures, especially Jeremiah and Amos.
Other rituals involving radio from that time also include listening to the Writer’s Almanac during that time I wrote, from five to seven every morning before heading out to work. It put me somehow in sacred solidarity with a great community of people, living and dead, who have tried to make sense of this world and our life together. At the heart of it, that’s all I really try to do with my students.
Jan. 31, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
feeds.americanpublicmedia.org
Sunday’s Poem: “Lullaby” by Dawn Potter, from Boy Land & Other Poems. Sunday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Norman Mailer, born in Long Branch, New Jersey (1923). His novel The Naked and the…
BLOODY SUNDAY →
yourirish.com
I remember Bono at the Palladium in NYC in ‘83 (had to pull an all-nighter for an anthro paper due the next day) yelling “This is not a rebel song!”
The events of Bloody Sunday in Derry City would become one of the worst atrocities the city would ever experience. It would also lead to one of the biggest mistakes for the British in their fight to power Northern Ireland during the troubles .Sunday January 30th 1972 started as any other Sunday in Derry but would end with tragedy and a population thrown into a dark backlash of opinion towards the British.
In case you didn’t know U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday is about this day. Very coincidentally, I decided to post this for some reason and then noticed the date. This atrocity took place exactly 38 years ago today.
Click title for link.
From the “Seriously”? Files →
contexts.org
My grad school peeps and a few others will get a laugh from this.
Jurgen Habermas has a Twitter feed. But he’s not following anyone. What kind of communicative action is that!
“Salvation somehow seemed closer — yet we also knew that we could be killed at any moment. The goal was to hang on a little longer. … The fury of the Haitian earthquake, which has taken more than 200,000 lives, teaches us how cruel nature can be to man. The Holocaust, which destroyed a people, teaches us that nature, even in its cruelest moments, is benign in comparison with man when he loses his moral compass and his reason.”
—
— —Samuel Pisar, from an excellent Op-Ed in The New York Times titled “Out of Auschwitz”
Trent Gilliss, online editor
(via speakingoffaith)
Still chilly
Today: Cold with intervals of clouds and sunshine with a high of 23°F
Tonight: Partly cloudy with a low of 16°F
Get details at AccuWeather.com
Moon in Leo, Mars in Cancer on January 30 →
earthsky.org
Our chart shows the eastern sky for around 8 to 9 o’clock tonight. The planet Mars shines brightly above the full- […]
Jan. 30, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
feeds.americanpublicmedia.org
Saturday’s Poem: “Views” by Philip Booth, from Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950-1999. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Gelett Burgess, born in Boston (1866), who went to MIT, taught…
listening to "Greg Brown - Never Shine Sun —rerkaizen" →
blip.fm
Here’s one of the many Greg Brown songs that mention the moon.
listening to "Greg Brown - Wash My Eyes — rerkaizen" →
blip.fm
I was looking for a full moon song & found this old chestnut, a beautiful lullaby.
Save the word "breezy" for summer...
…and tell us to cover exposed skin if we plan to be outside for any length of time.
Today: Very windy; sunshine and colder with a high of 20°F
Tonight: Partly cloudy and breezy with a low of 11°F
Get details at AccuWeather.com
Charlie Cray on Supreme Court election ruling, Mark Weisbrot on Haiti →
fair.org
My favorite question to Weisbrot was “Are you some kind of ghoul?” But he points out some very important issues related to how we (the US) are in Haiti.
Cray gives some very specific perspective on what the SCOTUS decision represents in terms of corporate efforts to garner personhood rights for themselves.
listening to "Michael Franti →
blip.fm
Beyond “the Atlas complex,” I feel particularly supported to day by all of the communities to which I belong.
Mars at opposition - near closest full moon - on January 29 →
earthsky.org
Two major astronomical events fall within 10 hours of each other tonight. First, the planet Mars the world most l […]
Jan. 29, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
feeds.americanpublicmedia.org
Friday’s Poem: “Wednesday” by Dawn Potter, from Boy Land & Other Poems. Friday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of novelist, short-story writer, and poet, Virgil Suárez born in Havana, Cuba…
“Paint on the brush does not guarantee art from the bristle.”
—
- Ambassador Kosh (fictional character on “Babylon 5” TV seriess)
The wind makes it feel cold
Tonight: A snow shower this evening; otherwise, partly cloudy, windy and colder with a low of 16°F
Tomorrow: Mostly sunny, windy and much colder with a high of 17°F
Get details at AccuWeather.com
two mommies? no problem →
contexts.org
Same-sex couples are as good at raising well-adjusted, healthy children as heterosexual couples are, a review of 20 years of social science research finds.
…
“It was on this day in 1754 that the word “serendipity” was first coined.”
—
Serendipity is one of my favorite words, and this is a good history of it. I especially enjoy that, like the words in other languages that describe emotions you never knew you had, it’s one of the top ten English words that is difficult to translate into other languages.
So here’s to those pleasant surprises.
The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor | Small Town by Philip Booth
Does Mars ever appear as large as the full moon? →
earthsky.org
Tonight, the planet Mars will be at at its biggest and brightest until the year 2014. Does that mean that Mars wil […]
Editor’s Highlights: Engaging the Life Course Perspective to Study Same-Sex Families →
contexts.org
It’s fascinating that this says we must take the long view. We can’t rely on cohort studies to give us this information yet, but we should be starting them now in places where marriage rights for same-sex couples have been explicitly affirmed.
Photo courtesy of Melinda.
As the Proposition 8 trial is underway in California, testing the definitions of family and marriage, it seems timely to look at what sociologists…
Jan. 28, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
feeds.americanpublicmedia.org
Thursday’s Poem: “Small Town” by Philip Booth, from Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950-1999. Thursday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of José Martí, born in Havana, Cuba (1853). He was a poet and…
Oh Apple, Will You Save the Fourth Estate? →
contexts.org
It would be ideal if Apple could sell premium subscriptions to periodicals such as newspapers using the “season pass” infrastructure it uses with TV shows. It could help bolster flagging journalism, just as people are willing to pay 99¢ a song for the convenience. I’ve blogged elsewhere about the rental model for textbooks, and for at least one of the textbooks I have used, students can download a time-bombed electronic version for half the cost. The infrastructure to support this exists with the movie rental capabilities of the iTMS, and with the publishers’ provision of electronic content. (Even publishers who do not have electronic textbooks provide me with facsimile sample chapters in PDF form.)
I bet, too, that the recent availability of “LPs” in the iTMS—albums with premium content and a premium price—were designed with the iPad in mind.
There’s much anticipation for Apple’s announcement today out in California about a new super secret insanely great killer hardware. Leaks by McGraw-Hill CEO have confirmed eBook…
Mars comes closest to Earth on January 27, 2010 →
earthsky.org
Today, the planet Mars comes closest to Earth for all of this year. Mars is at its best about every two Earth year […]
Jan. 27, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
feeds.americanpublicmedia.org
Wednesday’s Poem: “Something Else” by Nin Andrews, from Southern Comfort. Wednesday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born in Salzburg, Austria (1756). His whole life…
the benefits of working women in marriage →
contexts.org
Shoehorning
Right now I’m trying to shoehorn a MWF class into a TTh schedule. Theoretically, this should work: 3 x 50 minutes = 2 x 75 minutes. Several different things interfere.
First, as a corollary to the Peter Principle (everyone is promoted to their highest level of incompetence), “work expands to fill thetime alloted for it.”
Second, the course is a process, and it can be difficult to start a big chunk of a topic, only to have to split it across more than one day. This is exacerbated by the somewhat irregular schedule of Tuesday-Thursday classes. There’s the same amount of time between Tuesday and Thursday as between Monday and Wednesday, and Wednesday and Friday, but much more time between Thursday and the following Tuesday. Toward the begining of a semester, I can walk into a Tuesday class and think “Who are you people?”
Lastly, add to this the effort to try to keep the same classes in sync, with papers, tests and all. It’s not going to happen. But the good news, I think is that such things make a professor more nimble and more versatile, therefore more responsive to the students as individuals and idiosyncratic groups. Every class has its own chemistry, which the versatile instructor can use to cross-pollinate ideas across classes.
Does this make any sense?
Mercury's greatest morning elongation January 27 →
earthsky.org
As seen from Earth, the planet Mercury - the solar system’s innermost planet - appears to be closely tethered to t […]
Jan. 26, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
feeds.americanpublicmedia.org
Tuesday’s Poem: “Matilda (Who told Lies, and Was Burned to Death)” by Hilaire Belloc, from Cautionary Tales. Tuesday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of cartoonist, novelist, and playwright Jules…
Tales from the front - Haiti - MiamiHerald.com →
miamiherald.com
I once heard Paul Farmer speak, and one of the things that most impressed me was his ability to speak of complex and difficult things in the most plain terms. I have been known to say I would like to teach like that.
Whole Foods was collecting for Partners in Health, so this became the subject of conversation with the cashier with the sunniest disposition there. She said that Farmer also spoke at her high school, and what impressed her most was his ability, not to diminish problems, but to portray their solutions as possible. “Tractable,” I offered.
The effective medical metaphor which should shape our thinking on Haiti is “acute on chronic.” Understand that, and you understand what Farmer argues is the task ahead.
lowering the bar for exit exams →
contexts.org
The New York Times recently spoke to sociologist John Robert Warren about the effects of high school exit exams, now adopted in 26 states:
People who have studied the exams, which affect…
Your Brain Can’t Handle Your Facebook Friends →
mashable.com
I’m a few over my limit. I’m afraid some of you will have to go. (Just kidding.) How about you?
Ever heard of Dunbar’s Number? According to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, it’s the cognitive limit to the number of people you can be friends with. The number is 150, meaning your brain can only handle that much friends, and – shockingly enough – it also applies to Facebook.
