March 13, 2010
No School Left Behind
The dirty dark secret of NCLB is that we may know how to identify the worst performing schools, but no one (yet) knows how to turn them around in any consistent and reliable way. And I mean no one. Not the Gates Foundation to date. Not most charter programs. No one.
That's from a review of Diane Ravitch's new book renouncing No Child Left Behind and most of the data-driven approaches that created it. It's that "consistent and reliable way" that gets me. After all the money flung at the problem where are we? And if all we got from NCLB was a way to identify the worst-performing schools - I'll bet that a candid interview with the central staff of each school district in America could have done that in a year for a lot less - we've always known which were the worst schools in any system. I taught high school Latin part-time in two radically different districts in Georgia - Atlanta City and Cobb County - and there was certainly a clear idea of which middle schools that fed us were the worst.
Joanne Jacobs round up some reactions to the proposed national standards.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)
Yet another cultural property story
Some Scottish MP (as opposed to some member of the Scottish Parliament?) is demanding the return of the Lewis Chessmen. To the Hebrides. *BIG SIGH*
The MP is also annoyed because the British Museum (and all other medievalists) think they were made in Norway, not in the Hebrides.
Yeah, if there's a bigger museum on that island some more people will visit. I say send them an assortment - maybe a dozen. There are something like 80 of them, all told, in the British Museum and in Edinburgh.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:39 AM | Comments (0)
Italy agrees to digitize a bunch of books
via Cronaca.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:37 AM | Comments (0)
March 12, 2010
Now that's a masthead!
To lash the rascals naked through the world
A Federalist, anti-Jefferson, newspaper, very important to American freedom of the press and libel law (Hamilton argued about truth and intent in the trial). I'm listening again to Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton - good book!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:34 PM | Comments (0)
Not that I watch a lot of Rochester TV news, but I'd love to know who ducked the Massa story
Massa's 2006 campaign alarmed Clarke. "This guy's running for congress and he's molesting people!" He called a TV reporter in Rochester, NY, and told the stories of Massa's gropey tendencies. The reporter got Tom Maxfield to confirm the allegations, but then he told Maxfield he was going to fly him out and get him on camera. That spooked Maxfield, and he backed out. The reporter abandoned the story, despite having confirmation of serious misconduct by a man running for congress. Clarke emailed the reporter this week--"you should stick to weather and traffic," he told him.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:02 AM | Comments (0)
Tuesday the Baltic, Today the Indian Ocean...
Tuesday I linked to a story about a dozen shipwrecks found in the Baltic. Today I came across a story about one of those fun reconstruct-it-and-sail-the-old-route efforts - this time a 9th Century dhow sailing from Oman to Singapore! Interesting story and nice pictures at Medieval News, but better than that is the project's own blog: Jewel of Muscat.
The project is cosponsored by Oman and Singapore - and they're retracing medieval trading routes. Fun!
I WILL be showing this to Islamic Art & Architecture!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:50 AM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2010
For your Bible-quoting needs
For the medievalist in your life who has Bible-quoting needs - my favorite Douay-Rheims online!
I'm not a slave to the idea, but lots of medievalists prefer to quote the Douay-Rheims version because it is a translation of the Vulgate, close enough to the Vulgate version of Jerome that it is occasionally more representative of the versions medieval people would have known; however, there are all kinds of qualifiers, like which version of Psalms you use - and in my period there are still lots of copies of the Old Latin (the Vetus Latina - speaking of which here's a great site for that!) knocking around.
Really, the idea that there was one, standard version of scripture before the invention of printing is problematic. Printing standardized things a lot - though it opened other cans of worms.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:51 PM | Comments (1)
My Congressman
Or is it "former Congressman" already? The man is coming off as a sleazy exploiter of subordinates.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:36 PM | Comments (1)
March 10, 2010
Jan Crawford explains it to you...
...using the Alabama setting to her advantage.
"What is troubling is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour money into elections - drowning out the voices of average Americans," Gibbs said. "The president has long been committed to reducing the undue influence of special interests and their lobbyists over government. That is why he spoke out to condemn the decision and is working with Congress on a legislative response."Maybe it's because he's an Auburn guy and the Chief Justice was talking to law students at the University of Alabama (or, as we like to say, "the University"), but Gibbs should have let this go.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:53 PM | Comments (1)
March 9, 2010
A Dozen Baltic Shipwrecks
Really! Not enough pictures, and most of them are fairly recent - but they've got one medieval one. They were found by a company building a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 3:18 PM | Comments (1)
March 8, 2010
Internet access as a human right?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:43 AM | Comments (0)
The Hatter wasn't mad because of mercury poisoning?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:25 AM | Comments (0)
March 7, 2010
Beautiful day for a field trip!
I went along to Cornell as an extra chaperon (the rule is one faculty or staff member per van) with my colleague Lara Blanchard and some student groups (class, club, etc). I dragged my visitor, grad school friend Julie Hofmann, along. We lunch at a good Japanese restaurant in College Town and then we spent all afternoon at the Johnson. Click and see other pictures.
The building is I.M. Pei - who is not only still alive but designed the Johnson's new extension. That wing should open later in the year.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:10 PM | Comments (0)
Art of the Steal
I want to see this movie - the story of the Barnes Collection move.
The saga of the Barnes over more than 80 years is laid out as a story of initial rejection of Dr. Albert C. Barnes' peerless collection by a philistine establishment, to accumulating envy and subversion, and finally appropriation in a grand conspiracy orchestrated by civic boosters, public officials, and powerful foundations.. . .
Whether you support or oppose the move, these are issues that need to be addressed. Philadelphians don't need another fiscal liability, with the original and authentic Barnes less than five miles away, and sustainable for a fraction of the cost of moving it.
This last point is of particular significance, since the legal basis for moving the Barnes rests entirely on its alleged financial untenability in Merion. But Montgomery County has offered a bond-leaseback arrangement that would make $50 million available to the Barnes at once, at no cost to taxpayers. Lower Merion Township has rezoned the museum so that it can admit up to 150,000 visitors a year, an action not only supported by its neighbors but lobbied for by them. The Barnes itself has salable assets, not covered by its indenture, that could regenerate its endowment. And, were local philanthropists so inclined, the Barnes could be put on easy street for far less than the $68 million raised to save The Gross Clinic, a single painting inferior to scores if not hundreds of works in the Barnes.
Any or all of these options would make the Barnes viable in Merion. But the movers prefer to spend your money instead. In a back-door deal, the Pennsylvania legislature authorized $100 million for move-related construction eight years ago - long before court permission was actually granted.
That next to last paragraph is particularly interesting - the huge fundraising effort to "save" The Gross Clinic - that is, raise a pile of money to buy a painting from one public collection to put into another public collection but prevent it from being sold to a public collection out of town (the Walmart heiress's museum in Arkansas) overshadowed any effort to raise money for the Barnes. Oh, well.
And for a negative review of the film (one that sees the Barnes enterprise as flawed from the beginning), go here. Negative? Really negative:
"We never positioned ourselves as people who were hostile and had any agenda," he says. But his film is hostile and has an agenda. It uses a well-developed set of polemical techniques -- ominous music, imputations of dark motives, ad hominem interviews -- to connect only the dots that make its case.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:10 AM | Comments (1)
March 5, 2010
So is there grade inflation, or not?
Read this and wonder. It's always everyone ELSE who gives easy grades.
I don't worry about grade inflation so much as crankily fret about lowered expectations.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)
Everyone gets it
I mean, they might protest the core business model, in which so many employees are effectively unfireable, meaning that everyone else has to take a disproportionate share of the cuts. But other than that, what is all this protesting going to accomplish? Telling the administration they're unhappy? Trust me, the administration is pretty unhappy too.
That's Megan McArdle on the California student protests. What we've heard ad infinitum this year on the Budget Advisory Task Force salary and benefits are 70% of the budget. Put the relative unfireability of people like me and 70% and there are eventually going to be some ugly decisions. The faculty got called "good Germans" in a listserve email after the monthly Fac Meeting on Monday - you know, "they came for the communists and I didn't stand up...." It seems an inappropriate analogy to me, who has been standing up (and sitting down at conference tables all year) discussing what can be done. I think there are worse alternatives than the ones we have chosen and are exploring. We've polled the place - faculty and staff - to try to find the least of the evils. But still - people will be hurt. No way around it.
This is a hard time to be an administrator. But calling them Nazis doesn't help - this does not rise to the level of expelling the Jews from the Universities.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:34 AM | Comments (0)
March 4, 2010
If I were fool enough to take a cruise...
I'd rather be stuck in ice than facing freak 25 foot waves. Though I would generally prefer the Mediterranean to the Baltic, I have my standards.
An early sign of my interest in the apocalyptic genre is that I chose to memorize Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice" for a fifth or sixth grade assignment.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Maybe I memorized it because I'd heard of the poet and it was short - but I think I was responding to ideas of the end of the world. And from what I've tasted of desire I flip back and forth between fire and ice. Why I thought that was the way things were when I was 11, I don't remember.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)
Why There Is No Jewish Narnia
Why is relatively little Fantasy Fiction written by Jews? This is an interesting suggestion at the Jewish Review of Books.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:12 AM | Comments (0)
March 3, 2010
Sad Snowman in the Sunken Garden
Hope for humans, death for snowmen!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:42 PM | Comments (0)
Another story of art ransom
Here's another person who tried to sell works back to the collection from which they were stolen, like the story I linked to yesterday. What ARE these people thinking? Does this sometimes work?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)
March 2, 2010
Leonardo for Ransom
A fascinating take on how much ransom to ask for a stolen Leonardo, and how it was recovered:
In mid-December 2009, Leonardo's "Madonna of the Yarnwinder," which was stolen from the Duke of Buccleuch's collection at Drumlanrig Castle in 2003 and recovered in 2007, was placed on display at the National Gallery of Scotland. The painting, which currently hangs in a room filled with Raphael's and Renaissance masters, will be exhibited at the Gallery for a limited time only. It was last shown at the National Gallery of Scotland in 1991 when it was juxtaposed against a copy that was likely produced by Leonardo Da Vinci's workshop (now in a private collection). A similar visual comparison was made at the Milanese Exhibition at the Burlington Arts Club in 1898 (Nicholas Penny. "Leonardo's Madonna of the Yarnwinder" in The Burlington Magazine Edinburgh. National Gallery of Scotland. Vol. 134, No. 1073 Aug., 1992, pp. 542-544).Around the corner from the Gallery at the high court in Edinburgh, the trial has begun of five men, who are accused of organizing a plot to extort money from the Duke of Buccleuch for the safe return of the painting.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:27 AM | Comments (0)
March 1, 2010
The Mossad in Dubai
At first it all sounded so probable - but the security forces in Dubai are starting to sound delusional:
"The Mossad needs to be ashamed of its actions," said Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim. "They sent 26, 27 persons to assassinate one man who was involved in the capturing and killing of two Israeli soldiers."
Really? 26, 27 people? That would be stupidly conspicuous, wouldn't it? And quite improbable.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:36 AM | Comments (0)
Haiti
Matt Labash asks the missionary priest why he bothers with giving the unclaimed dead from the city morgue an organized (if group) funeral, something he's been doing since long before the earthquake.
Frechette thinks about it a long while, then says, "If the dead are garbage, then the living are walking garbage."
This is an amazing, moving profile.
Here is a link to the organization Fr. Rick Frechette works for.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:48 AM | Comments (0)
No Egyptology at Harvard since when? 1942?
This is a bit of a shock to read - Harvard is hiring its first full-time Egyptologist since 1942.
After years dedicated to shedding light on the work of the late Harvard Egyptology Professor George A. Reisner, Class of 1889, Peter D. Manuelian '81 will become the first egyptology professor at Harvard since his predecessor's death 68 years ago.Manuelian, currently an egyptology lecturer at Tufts, will be the first person to fill the Philip J. King Professorship, which was established in the fall of 2006 to support the study of ancient civilizations.
. . .
Though Harvard offers the occasional course related to ancient Egyptian history, it has not had an egyptology professor since 1942, when Reisner died during an excavation in Giza, Egypt.
They are hiring an in-town alum, interestingly enough.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:17 AM | Comments (0)
February 28, 2010
The Kennedy Clan takes a break
Was it more than a week ago that we heard that an RFK grandson (scary - already FOUR generations down from Honey Fitz! Talk about dynasties that haven't quite made it back to shirtsleeves*) was thinking of running for Congress? THAT didn't take long.
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*though I dunno - county prosecutor out on the Cape might be shirtsleeves. Shouldn't he at least be in Boston?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:16 PM | Comments (0)
Why Hobart is playing Cornell in the (Syracuse University) Carrier Dome today
The lacrosse season-opener got moved - and I'm sure the Buildings and Grounds staff is VERY grateful. McCooey Field is astroturf, but imagine cleaning this seating area over and over again all day Friday and Saturday to try and keep ahead of this!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
What? Boorish Canadians?
Heads are exploding all across Blue America - unless they're fast readers and figure out that these are boorish WESTERN Canadians. Surely this couldn't happen in Toronto! And anyway, if they fall down and hurt themselves, they have universal health care.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:57 AM | Comments (0)
What it would take to free Tillikum
SeaWorld should try thinking outside the swimming pool when it considers its options for Tilikum's future. Tilikum needs something he isn't getting in a concrete enclosure. The idea of keeping captive such a large, complex, intelligent predator for our entertainment may no longer be acceptable in the 21st century.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:34 AM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2010
I guess I have to go to NYC for Spring Break to see the disbound Belles Heures at the Met.
Look at this. Yikes. 172 folios, displayed floating in air? This kind of show is rare - when a book has been disassembled for conservation work or rebinding you can see both sides of all the pages at once. More usually, when you visit the Cloisters you see whatever 2 page spread the books happen to be open to at the time. This is a really big deal - and the sweetener, if you needed one, is the display of mourners. From The Art Newspaper story:
Works created under the aegis of two of the greatest art patrons of the period--Jean de France, duc de Berry (1340-1416) and the second Duke of Burgundy, Jean sans Peur (the Fearless, 1371-1419), will fill the Robert Lehman Wing and the Medieval Sculpture Hall. "The Art of Illumination" presents the first, and most likely the last, chance for visitors to see both sides of all 172 folios from the duc de Berry's richly illustrated Book of Hours.This is the only completed manuscript by the Dutch illuminators to survive.
The folios were removed from their bindings as part of a decade-long conservation project and this is the last chance to see all of them simultaneously before they are rebound. "Our biggest challenge was finding a way to present the folios in a way that conveys that they are part of a book rather than just mounted pictures," says curator Timothy Husband.
Conservators devised a new method of display, floating the folios with silk thread strung through the holes made by the original binding. "The Belles Heures is unique...its grandeur and ambition escalates as it goes on.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:35 PM | Comments (0)
Leave it to the Education Industry to take over the Census
"Here comes a prospect," she said as a student walked up. Ware explained that filling out the census form this spring could mean more money for the university and the surrounding neighborhood, one of the oldest and most diverse in the city. The student took some knickknacks and promised to fill out her form. Ware smiled."If we could get some more of that funding back, we could get some more services," said Ware, 48, a member of the commuter school's Student Senate who is among a group that has been pushing the census in classrooms, lobbies and hallways.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:22 PM | Comments (0)
I.M. Pei is still alive??
Here's an interesting career-retrospective interview with I.M. Pei at the Financial Times. Pei is one of those people who goes beyond surprising people that he's still alive (he's 92) but that he's still designing major buildings. The picture is the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar (2008), which I would really like to get to at the end of my Islamic Art & Architecture course.
There's a little bit of everything in the interview - a little biography, a little architectural criticism, and a little Jackie Kennedy (did you realize that JFK would have been 92 this year, too? Pei says the Kennedys chose him for the Kennedy Library and Museum in part because he was born in the same year as the dead president).
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:03 AM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2010
What IS it about New York governors and the State Police?
Or is it only Democratic governors? I don't know, myself. But weren't heads supposed to roll after Spitzer misused them?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2010
Snakes on the Plane!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:26 AM | Comments (0)
If it's Thursday, my meeting must be about the Budget.
I go to too many meetings this semester - and Thursday is the depressing one. I ended up on the president's Budget Advisory Task Force to talk about ways in which we might work ourselves through the "current situation" without losing our minds, our staff, and whatever makes us our own snowflake of a Small Liberal Arts College.*
In case you, dear reader, live on another planet and haven't noticed, here's a nice summary with a local angle on what the fiscal crisis has done to higher education giving.
A recent report by the Council for Aid to Education shows how, nationwide, colleges have also been hurt by an almost 12 percent drop in donations last fiscal year, which for most colleges ended June 30.Alumni and other individuals, corporations and foundations tightened their purse strings.
The 20 colleges receiving the most donations got a total of $7.3 billion -- 13 percent less than the top 20 reported the previous year.
No local college made the latest list, which Stanford University headed by raising $640 million.
Locally, the declines are more striking. The $120.8 million in donations received by 11 Rochester-area colleges for fiscal 2009 was 29 percent less than the $169.3 million recorded in fiscal 2008.
Suffering the biggest drop was the University of Rochester, which saw its contributions fall from almost $101 million in fiscal 2008 to about $64 million in fiscal 2009.
Alumni watching their pocketbooks were the biggest factor in the almost $7 million drop in donations received last fiscal year by Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva. That was the second-largest local dollar decline.
The news brightens by the end of the article: "But there is cause for optimism -- giving to Hobart and William Smith Colleges is 27 percent higher than a year ago." At the meeting today I'm going to be asking what that 27% is - 27% more money? 27% more gifts?
I have to admit that the mood has brightened as the meetings have gone on; there is indeed a feeling of milder pessimism (it's not really optimism - things are still hard!) in the room than when we started meeting, and markers like that 27% help. But really - if you know of any smart rich kids, send them my way. Admissions are the make or break in this game.
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*Make that TWO smaller, coordinate liberal arts collegeS, thank you very much. Hobart AND William Smith. We get touchy about that here. Remember that story about our Admissions folks sending out 3-d glasses? Go back and read the comments. There are even faculty who see the increasing use of our initials (HWS) instead of our full name as a devious way of flattening difference.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:01 AM | Comments (1)
February 24, 2010
The Genesis of one of the great collections of Islamic arts
I still can't get over how recently two of the great collections of Islamic art were started. The Khalili Collection (based in London) was started in the late 60s or early 70s - and here's the story of the al-Sabah Collection:
In 1975, Sheikh Nasser al-Ahmad al- Sabah, eldest son of the Amir of Kuwait, brought home a 14th- century decorated glass bottle and showed it to his wife, a committed lover of modern abstract art.The beauty of the artifact and its design changed her mind and became the first of more than 30,000 items that now make up one of the world's largest and most valuable collections of Islamic art.
"I realized that everything I loved about modern and contemporary art was in that piece of glass," said Sheika Hussah Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah in Singapore, at the opening of an exhibition of 402 stunning items from the collection illustrating the wealth of India's Mughal empire.
Read more about the exhibition (and a little more about the collection) here.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:15 AM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2010
Oooh - Apple Rumors
Why would Apple build a big ol' server farm in North Carolina? To deliver content? Hmmmm....iPadism.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:37 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2010
That February Feeling
I walked home in black oxfords totally dry-footed about 5.30. I've been sitting at my desk working on some notes for tomorrow's Greek Art & Architecture (mmmm, Doric refinements!) for awhile. There's a window within 5 feet, but I guess I hadn't looked out until just now. When I see that it's snowing. Hard. The shrubs dividing our parking lot from the Presbyterian lot are heavily dusted (though I can still see leaves through the snow on top), and it's still coming down.
Oh, well - it IS February.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:07 PM | Comments (0)
I think it was the indignity of the three deltas that did it . . .
Funny, when I hear the name "Amon Carter" I think of a great museum of American art, not a drunken frat boy with Greek letters branded on his buttocks. There you go, though - takes all sorts.
via Prof. Soltan.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2010
What we get from blogging...
I started blogging a good while ago -- I'm too lazy to go through Google cache versions of my Blogspot version to find out quite when it was, but I was leaving a lot of comments on the early blogs of Amy Welborn and Megan McArdle. Both of them, in the nicest way possible, suggested that I should get one of my own. I took their advice.
I didn't set out to meet any other bloggers when I started doing this, but it happens fairly regularly. I've never met Amy, just by the way things have worked. But Megan, who is still Miss McArdle for now, is in Upstate New York this weekend and managed to find time to stop by Geneva for dinner at the Red Dove. I enjoyed showing her my favorite room in downtown Geneva -- and was reminded that it's always good to meet the people we read. Voices spring to life; typing habits turn into verbal tics; tone that sounds happy proves to be a real smile.
I enjoy blogging. If you read several a day you might give it a try.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:12 PM | Comments (3)
Igloo Fail
My friend and neighbor Bruce Bennett wrote*
The poet asks
"If winter comes can spring be far behind?"
Where I live, yes.
*I hope I quote this accurately, but my copy is at the office.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:10 PM | Comments (1)
Funding Public Universities
Here's a thoughtful article about how to fund the University of Iowa in the hometown newspaper, the Iowa City Press-Citizen. The author explores all sorts of things - the local situation at the flagship campus, the problem of funding a system, the relation between state funding, tuition, and revenue-generating* activities. All in all a good piece to read.
*though it takes the idea that athletics generates revenue too seriously
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:52 AM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2010
Is it the greatest passive aggressive note of all time??
I think so! Of course, it was written by a Briton - and they are the greatest.
Whoops! I had attached the wrong link! Sorry!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:48 PM
Bad day for historic Islamic architecture
Minaret collapses and kills 36 in Morocco - I'm pretty sure, despite the transliteration issues, that this is the one.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:18 PM | Comments (0)
Obama tries to smooth ruffled feathers...
...in Las Vegas. Yeah - throwing good money after bad.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:28 PM
Albers at the Hirshhorn
There's a big Josef Albers show on at the Hirshhorn at the Smithsonian...and I do wish I didn't have to go to some trouble to visit DC to see it (sister currently stationed elsewhere).
Here's the website for the exhibition.
Here's one of my favorites, which I found on the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation web site. I wonder where it is now?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2010
Youtube strangeness
Is this the weirdest thing ever?? The horrific Imagine sung by this cast:
Nina Hagen????
Chaka Khan???
Marianne Faithfull??
Omara Portuondo?
It was in Vienna - but you have to wait to the end to see that in the credits (no, I can't read the cyrillic-based language of the poster). But watching all the way through is the only way you get Omara Portuondo singing solo. At least she, the subject of Fidel Castro, had to look at her notes. And it was 1995, but Nina Hagen is wearing fuzzy leg warmers. Chaka's in great voice.
Ok. I was listening to iTunes. One thing led to another...and I youtubed the semi-divine Omara Portuondo (after listening to No me llores màs for about the thousandth time - and this is one of the few live videos I found).
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
Los Angeles cuisine. Or cocina. Or whatever.
But one of the paragraphs that hit me was this:
It should be noted that Los Angeles has its own, indigenous cuisine, too. The city and the surrounding area gave birth to the Cobb salad and the chiffon cake; the chili burger and the California roll; Taco Bell and McDonald's. What most people think of as Los Angeles cuisine is a variant of gracious, basic cooking: Dad grilling steaks and burgers out on the deck, Mom tossing a big salad, a pot of beans on the stove. Compared with London or Barcelona, Los Angeles is a young city, but its food has always had its own style, informed by the quality of the produce, the cultivated ease, and the pleasure of being able to barbecue outside in your shirtsleeves almost every day of the year. The vaqueros, the Mexican cowboys who settled this land more than 200 years ago, ate a lot of grilled meat and salad in California's early days, and so did the Midwesterners who ended up here at the beginning of the last century. The Sunset magazine, ranch house, checked-blouse paradigm of the 1950s was a continuation of that lifestyle--and so, in their way, are the grill-intensive menus of Wolfgang Puck's Spago, the big salads at places like the Beverly Hills Hotel's Polo Lounge, and the fire-charred pizzas at Nancy Silverton and Mario Batali's Mozza. When it is 72 degrees outside and the surf is up and Vin Scully is calling the Dodgers game on the radio, there is no patience for casseroles or stews.
Here's the rest. Makes my mouth water. It's been a long time since I've been to LA - maybe . . . .
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:09 PM | Comments (1)
Human navigation in the Mediterranean - 100,000 years earlier than thought?
Oh my - that's a LONG time ago.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:05 PM | Comments (0)
Blue state permanent realignment?
I heard a faculty current-research-lunch-talk that not only proclaimed that if Barack Obama won the Red Tide would be turned back for decades to come but ended with an altar call to join the speaker canvassing in Pennsylvania or Ohio that weekend. And I mean altar call - there wasn't the slightest doubt in the speaker's voice that everyone in the room agreed with him that the election of the Democratic candidate was a good thing.
Heh.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:24 PM | Comments (2)
Oh my - Michigan State to build a Zaha Hadid art center!
Big money from Eli Broad funds a new art museum for Michigan State. Here's the story with a picture.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:52 AM | Comments (0)
Tales of the Weird
Amy Bishop is one serial killer who isn't drawing out many of the "s/he was always so nice and quiet, we didn't see this coming" kind of comment. Read this story from the Boston Globe.
via Kathy Shaidle.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:19 AM | Comments (1)
February 15, 2010
Improvement!
Getting out of the weekly Committee on the Faculty meeting while there is still light in the sky is a good thing! It's good to be reminded that the days are getting noticeably longer -- and that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:59 PM | Comments (0)
What's worse?
Spam, or people who hit 'reply all' on listserves? I sometimes think the latter.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2010
A Nice song for all of you people with someone to sit beside you on St. Valentine's Day.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:37 PM | Comments (1)
Climate? Weather? History?
Well maybe the Medieval Climate Optimum --- really, that's what people used to call it --- wasn't so bad after all. And maybe, despite certain medievalists worrying about denialism, things are more complicated on the natural science side of things than humanists can see.
Except when it comes to analyzing motivation.
Where we're not so bad at spotting self-interest. And it turns out that carelessness and self-interest have driven terrifying conclusions that have had policy consequences already.
Don't believe me? Read this.
And this.
And this.
Not that I don't think things might be warmer....but I do NOT think that scientists are unmotivated, disinterested, or all that much more careful than anyone else.
I'm sure as hell going to ask questions about the Campus Climate Compact - and why in these times of fiscal difficulty we should go out of our fiscal way for polar bears. Because, you know, they slipped up and put me on the committee. I'm all for buildings that save us money over 20 years - but I'm not in favor of buildings that can't. And LEED standards are designed by people who are fallible.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:46 PM | Comments (0)
Word choice and BAD journalism
Is it possible to write a good article that uses the verb "tout" twice within 5 paragraphs?
I don't think so.
I pass over the sad fact that one of the two touted as a replacement for the dead congressman is the widow. Do you tout widows?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:54 PM | Comments (0)
Is Obama a War Criminal?
Just asking. Because goodness knows lots of the people I work with thought W and Cheney were.
I guess if you blow them up rather than arresting them there's less question about whether or not you should read them their rights. Law professors would know, right?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:50 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2010
News of the Ick
Albino crocodile in the wild in Australia. Ick!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:46 PM | Comments (0)
Our Admissions gimmick makes the New York Times (blog)
The viewbook we're sending out this year to high school juniors comes with 3-d glasses - so you can see us in three dimensions. Get it?
All admissions mailings are gimmicks, so I'm not ashamed (I go to sleep at night imploring God for an entering class of 600). This post on Jacques Steinberg's The Choice blog (and his commenters) go into the 3-d approach in some detail
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:39 AM | Comments (1)
