How Do You Sleep at Night?

A lot of high school students come in tired to school -- and many stay that way all day long. Well, bear in mind, it's not only the quantity of sleep that you get that matters, it's the quality, too.


And of course, since this entry has the same title as a John Lennon tune, here's a link to the song.

(The musical question is thought to be directed at Paul McCartney: that's why you'll see so many pictures of Sir Paul in the video.)

Fun with Grammar!

Although I hardly ever do this, I called out one of my students the other day on a matter of word usage. (It happens to be one that really gets to me: the difference between uninterested and disinterested.)

But here's a website that should make us all feel better about ourselves when we slip up in our grammar or our usage: even celebrities make mistakes!

Archetype v. Stereotype

Here's a link to an earlier post from last semester.

A New Year Begins. . .

so how about "Auld Lang Syne" (courtesy of Guy Lombardo and his Royal Candians).

Here's a less traditional version.

I wonder how that would sound on a tuba?

Now it Can Be Told! The Series is Complete!

Who’s Smarter? -- Interclass Beatdown 7!

(The Seventh and Deciding Match!)

Both classes should be proud of the knowledge they displayed over the course of the competition. But unfortunately there can be only one winner.

Geography: What nationality is a Breton?

A Breton is from Bretagne, or the province of France we know as Brittany.

Advantage, Block 2.

Entertainment: What runs up and down on the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album?

A zipper. Which actually zipped.

(I'm sure you're parents will remember this one. Ask'em).

This question stumped both classes.

History: What organization was founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell?

Reverend Falwell recently passed away. He was the founder of "The Moral Majority".

His obituary for MSNBC here. Both classes might be interested, since neither was familiar with the Moral Majority.

Arts & Literature: What playwright was married to Marilyn Monroe?

Arthur Miller, author of Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. (I could have shown you Arthur Miller, but both classes know who he is, anyway.)

Science & Nature: What non-working, stingless bee mates with the queen?

The Drone Bee

The drones are the male bees in the colony. Their sole function is reproduction. Drones who succeed in mating with a queen during her nuptial flight perish in the act.

Drones are larger and heavier than the workers, but not as long as the queen. It is easy to identify a drone by its large compound eyes that come together at the top of the head.

Usually several hundred to several thousand drones are present in a colony during the active foraging season. The young drones are fed by the workers; the older drones feed themselves honey directly from the storage cells. During the season, should the food supply diminish for any reason, workers waste no time in ejecting drones from the colony. After the first heavy frosts in the fall reduce the supply of nectar and pollen, the colony preparing for winter begins to drive the drones from the hive. They soon starve to death.

Kind of like those young people who come home after college and can't seem to find a job they like, so they decide to live at home for a few years (until they're driven from the hive and they starve to death). Neither class knows much about bees, apparently.

Sports & Leisure: What do Indianapolis 500 winners traditionally drink in the winner’s circle?

Does that look like champagne to you? No, it's milk. (Buttermilk, actually, but I will accept milk.) Why milk?

The tradition of the "500" winner drinking milk in "Victory Lane" began when Louis Meyer, the winner of the 1936 Race was photographed drinking his favorite beverage, buttermilk, after his victory. An executive of the Milk Foundation (now the American Dairy Association) saw the picture and, hoping to set a good example for kids, made sure that from that year on the winner of the Race received a bottle of milk to drink.

Children’s: What Ursula K. LeGuin novel tells of young Ged’s first
trip to the wizard’s school on Roke?

The Wizard of Earthsea, the first book in the Earthsea Trilogy.

(There's more in heaven and earth than Harry Potter, Horatio.)

Classics: What reclusive novelist published nine short stories in 1953 under the enigmatic title Nine Stories?

J. D. Salinger. (Advantage, Block 2)

Non-fiction: What best-selling Alex Comfort how-to guide includes sections on “Ingredients”, “Appetizers”, “Main Courses”, “Sauces”, and “Venues”?

Both classes went for The Joy of Cooking. Close! (I thought perhaps somebody's parents -- or grandparents -- had a copy hidden away somewhere.)

Book Club: Whose famed paintings of “Helga” inspired Larry Watson’s novel Orchard, about a Scandinavian immigrant who becomes the muse of a local artist?

Andrew Wyeth.

Authors: What Londoner, born Richard Patrick Russ, ditched his first wife and kids to reinvent himself as an “Irish” nautical novelist?

Patrick O'Brian, author of the wildly succesful Aubrey-Maturin series, set against the Napoleonic Wars. (Maybe you saw Rusell Crowe play "Lucky Jack" Aubrey in Master and Commander.

Book Bag: What government position did Jack Ryan hold at the start of Tom Clancy’s 1994 Debt of Honor?

National Secuirty Advisor. (Formerly Condoleezza Rice, now Stephen Hadley.)

In Case of a Tie

(The first correct, unmatched answer wins.)

Entertainment: What was “another sleepy, dusty delta day” in “Ode to Billy Joe”?

June 3rd. Here are the lyrics. Here's Bobbie herself , apparently from The Smothers Brother's Comedy Hour.

Check out some of the comments:

You don't see any Bobbie Gentry's around these days in the music industry. ALL WOMAN with REAL TALENT!
If you don't get chills listening to this song, check for a pulse. Still a classic.

Arts & Literature: What was the name of Captain Bligh’s ship?

The Bounty, as in Mutiny on the Bounty. Charles Laughton played Bligh to Clark Gables's Fletcher Christian (1935); Trevor Howard was Bligh to Marlon Brando's Christian in 1962, and our old friend Anthony Hopkins was Captain Bligh to Mel Gibson as Christian in 1984. Of course, it's all based on a true story.

Non-fiction: Who penned the bestseller Undaunted Courage about the Lewis and Clark Expedition?

Stephen Ambrose. (I know for a fact that some of your parents have this on your shelves at home -- I know I do.)

Authors: What San Francisco novelist insists his name is real, despite its suspicious anagram “is a man I dreamt up”?

You'd have to be a pretty good anagrammist to come up with Armistead Maupin. Maupin has been called "the gay Charles Dickens". (Well, sort of.)

Why It's Sometimes Called "The Scottish Play"

Here's one version. (It's kind of amateurish, but has some interesting material).

This should be a more reputable source. (You can compare.)

The curse is still apparently alive and well.

Five-Minute Shakespeare

For you guys in Block 2, here's a link to the "Five-Minute Shakespeare" website. We already looked at Henry V; you might want to take a look at Romeo and Juliet, also.

By the way, I would give Henry an "A", R & J only a "C'. Whereas Lea Frost hits a lot of key points in Henry, "Aragorngirl" just seems interested in outlining plot in a silly manner.

Driving (to the hoop) While Black

You'd think that if there's any place in the United States where African-American have attained equality (if not superiority), it would be the National Basketball Association. And if you look at rosters, and all-star teams, that would certainly seem to be so.

But what happens when we look at fouls?

A coming paper by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a CornellUniversity graduate student says that, during the 13 seasons from 1991 through 2004, white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players.

Justin Wolfers, an assistant professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School, and Joseph Price, a Cornell graduate student in economics, found a corresponding bias in which black officials called fouls more frequently against white players, though that tendency was not as strong. They went on to claim that the different rates at which fouls are called "is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game."

Now Benjamin Disraeli said "You can prove anything with statistics." Mark Twain said "there are lies, damned lies -- and statistics." So I will acknowledge that statistical data can be misleading. Then again, sometimes statistics will contradict the things that we think we see, that things that we have just come to accept as true. (Memes, really.)

Here's a link to the whole paper, if you'd rather.

Now, a quick Google News search indicates that this is not the first bombshell dropped by Professor Wolfers. Maybe I just missed it, but this one didn't seem to make so much noise.

Jared Luce

In Block 2, we've been reading "The War Poets" -- particulary Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sasson, two British poets of World War I. We're now moving on to Doug Anderson, a poet and Vietnam veteran who is now teaching at UConn (as far as I can tell).



One of Owen's poems is called "Disabled" about a soldier who loses both legs (and at least one arm). One of my former students, Jared Luce, is an Iraq war veteran who lost both of his legs (from the knees down). Fortunately, his story seems to be turning out much better than the young man in Owen'd poem. Still, it's a high price to pay.

What Do You Mean "What Do I Mean 'What's a Meme?'?'?

In Block 2 (I think it was Block 2) the other day, I brought up the word "meme". It's a fairly recent concept, but one that makes a lot of sense. Let me give you a couple of links to it.

First, a general definition from Wikipedia.

The term "meme" (IPA: /miːm/, rhyming with "theme"; commonly pronounced in the US as /mɛm/, rhyming with "gem"), coined/popularized in 1976[1] by the biologist Richard Dawkins, refers to a "unit of cultural information" which can propagate from one mind to another in a manner analogous to genes (i.e., the units of genetic information).
Dawkins gave as examples of memes: tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothes fashions, ways of making pots, or of building arches. A meme, he said, propagates itself as a unit of cultural
evolution and diffusion — analogous in many ways to the behavior of the gene.

Some examples, also from Wikipedia.

Proverbs and aphorisms: for example: "You can't keep a good man down".
Nursery rhymes: propagated from parent to child over many generations (thus keeping otherwise obsolete words such as "tuffet" "pail" and "chamber" in use), sometimes with associated actions and movements.
Children's culture: games, activities and chants (such as taunts) typical for different age-groups.
Conspiracy theories.
Fashions.
Medical and safety advice: "Don't swim for an hour after eating" or "Steer in the direction of a skid".
The material of video technology: very memetic given its mass replication — people tend to imitate scenes or repeat popular catch phrases such as "You can't handle the truth!" from A Few Good Men or "Alllllllrighty then!" from Ace Ventura, even if they have not seen a film or a television broadcast themselves.
Popular concepts: these include Freedom, Justice, Ownership, Open Source, Egoism, or Altruism.
Group-based biases: everything from anti-semitism and racism to cargo cults.

For more information (again, thanks Wikipedia).

Interclass Smackdown -- Round 2!

Q1: What overalls are named for Dungri, a suburb of Bombay (Mumbai)?

A: Dungarees. While we (Americans) thing of them as synonymous with blue jeans, in England they apparently refer to overalls. (George Bernard Shaw characterized the English and Americans as "two peoples separated by a common language".)
[Both classes got this one right.]

Q2. What actor was stung in The Sting?

A: Robert Shaw. Maybe you remember him as "Quint" in the Steven Spielberg classic Jaws.
[Neither class was able to get this one. Block II thought "Henry Fonda"; Block IV, "Robert Redford (who at least was in The Sting.) Actually, Kristin LeBel came up with the name Shaw, but nobody paid her any heed).]

Q3. What did Peter Minuit buy for the equivalent of $24?

A: Manhattan Island. I was surprised that Block II was stumped by this. (They ended up going with "Sri Lanka".) When I was in school, this was one of those bits of Americana that everyone learned by 5th grade. Back in the day, we were all pretty proud of Mr. Minuit for making such a shrewd deal. Nowadays, I guess it's not something that we brag about.
[Advantage: Block IV]

Q4. What’s the name of Dr. Seuss’s egg-hatching elephant?

A: Horton!
[Both classes knew this.]

Q5. What’s a row of crows called?

A: A murder. (If you think that's fun. . .)
[Both classes knew this.]

Q6. Who was world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949?

A: Joe Louis. They called him "The Brown Bomber." (It was a simpler, more racist, time.) Nevertheless, Americans of all colors were proud when, on the eve of World War II, Louis defeated the German Max Schmeling, avenging an earlier loss. (Louis originally had taken the world title from James J. Braddock. )
[Advantage: Block IV.]

Q7. What Robert McCloskey favorite is honored by nine bronze ducks in Boston’s Public Gardens?

A: Make Way for Ducklings.
[Both classes knew this.]

Q8. What 1866 novel, written in only three days, was based on the author’s recurring nightmares of a double life?

A: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Both classes got this one, but I have to admit that I thought you both got it wrong. I was thinking of Fyodor Dostoevesky's The Double. But here's my excuse. The question is wrong! Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote Dr. J in 1886, not 1866. That was right in the middle of Dostoevsky's career. And Dostoevsky wrote The Gambler in less than a month (still much more than three days).


Q9. What jailed Sioux militant was the subject of Peter Matthiessen’s In the Spirit of Crazy Horse?

A: Leonard Pelletier. (I bet most classes in other schools wouldn't get that one. See what happens when you can offer your students lots and lots of classes?)
[Both classes knew this.]

Q10. What Aussie author copped the Booker Prize for his debut novel Vernon God Little, a dark comedy about a Texas high school massacre?

A: D. B. C. Pierre?? Neither class knew this, and neither did I. Come to think of it, I know hardly anything about Australia. A few actors, but not authors. Oh, and the Crocodile Hunter.
Oh, and Pierre? It turns out he's a "self-confessed serial 'conniving bastard' ".

Q11. What author of 80-plus romance novels opened an art gallery near her San Francisco mansion in 2003?

A: Danielle Steele
[Advantage: Block IV]

Q12. What Australian author penned The Touch, about a miner who swaps a trunk of gold for his 16 year-old Scottish cousin?

A: Colleen McCullough. (One of the two Australian authors -- Nevil Shute is the other -- that I do know.) Both classes were stumped by this one, and I don't blame them.


And, the winner of the second Interclass Smackdown: Block IV!

The Myth of Multitasking

Also from this morning's (3/25) New York Times. New studies on multitasking confirm what my instincts had told me -- it's a myth.

The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car. These experts have some basic advice. Check e-mail messages once an hour, at most. Listening to soothing background music while studying may improve concentration. But other distractions - most songs with lyrics, instant messaging, television shows - hamper performance. Driving while talking on a cell phone, even with a hands-free headset, is a bad idea.

You can do four things at once: it just takes you six times as long.

Big Brother is Stirring. . .

From an article in today's New York Times (Sunday, March 25). You can access the full article here.

An organization of artists called "Bands Against Bush". . . was planning concerts on Oct. 11, 2003, in New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston. Between musical sets. . . there would be political speeches and videos. "Activists are showing a well-organized network made up of anti-Bush sentiment; the mixing of music and political rhetoric indicates sophisticated organizing skills with a specific agenda," said the report, dated Oct. 9, 2003.

Sounds like democracy in action, doesn't it?

Well, the report was compiled by the Intelligence Division of the New York City police. They were preparing for the Republic National Convention the following year, which would renominate George W, Bush for president, and they wanted to be ready for any trouble. (Remember Chicago, 1968?)

They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department's Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms. . . But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped "NYPD Secret," the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show. These included members of street theater companies, church groups and anti-war organizations, as well as environmentalists and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies. Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports.

I can understand why New York City would be worried about some violent events planned to coincide with the Republican Convention. And I can understand the need in this day and age to gather information, and the value of plants and informants. But it makes me nervous when the sitting goverment is secretly investigating citizens whose only crime is political dissent.

Here's a longer article from the Village Voice on how the authorities handled protests when the Convention finally rolled around. Is this protecting the peace, or stiffling poltical expression? There will continue to be a lot of tough calls like this in the future.

Interclass Smackdown (Round I) -- Answers

1. (Geography): What Thames River bridge is nearest the Tower of London?

A: The Tower Bridge. Maybe that's the one you were thinking of, but that's the Tower Bridge.





2. (Entertainment): What father and son won Oscars for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre?

A: Walter Huston (Best Supporting Actor), and his son John (Best Director). Humphrey Bogart, as Fred C. Dobbs, did not win an Oscar.





3. (History): Who won the 1968 California Democratic primary?

A: Robert F. Kennedy.


4. (Arts & Literature): What is Juliet’s last name?

A: Capulet.


5. (Science & Nature): What’s the most common color of garnet?

A: Red.


6. (Sports & Leisure): What American won the world Grand Prix driving championship in 1978?

A: Mario Andretti.


7. (Children’s Literature): What novice Keeper is hailed as Gryffindor’s “king” after winning the Quidditch Cup in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix?

A: Ron Weasley.


8. (Classics): What fearless Prince of the Geats gets munched by a dragon, in an old English poem?

A: Beowulf. (Block IV, I'll give you a pass on this. Block II, you should nearly be ahamed of yourselves.)


9. (Non-Fiction) What 72 year-old feminist rallied for the rights of the elderly in The Fountain of Age, in 1993?

A: Betty Friedan. (Click here for a little social commentary from our friends at The Onion.


10. (Book Club): What novel by Peter Carey finds an imaginary poet created by Christopher Chubb coming back to haunt him?

A: My Life as a Fake.

11. (Authors): What bit actor ran the Playhouse-on-the-Mall in Paramus, New Jersey, before penning, at age 40, the first of his twenty-plus best-selling thrillers?

A: Robert Ludlum. (Like Mr. Blais, Mr. Susla, Bill Belichick, and myself, Robert Ludlum has a degree of Wesleyan University.)

12. (Book Bag): What Dan Brown thriller pries into the secrets of the Priory of Sion after a murder at the Louvre?

A: The DaVinci Code.


The Results: Block II -- 8 correct answers, Block IV -- 6 correct answers.
(Block II caught a very lucky break in Beowulf, which you are just starting but Block IV has not come to yet. So toss out that question and all that stands between the two classes is "Betty Friedan".)

RU into Hip-Hop?

It's not really my cup of tea, but there's an International Hi-Hop Festival next weekend at Trinity College in Hartford.

It's time to put the heart back in Hartford.

(Don't forget to check out the Cinestudio while you're on campus. There's a French Film Festival coming up next month!)

Julie Taymor is a Genius. . .

and Joe Roth is a putz.

Who's Julie Taymor? Ever see the stage version of The Lion King? That was her vision. Those were her puppets. (Some of my long time fans will remember "Fool's Fire", her dramatization of the Edgar Allan Poe story "Hop Frog.") The best filmed verson of Shakespeare that I've ever seen is Titus, Taymor's version of Titus Andronicus. (If you're good, maybe I'll show you some of it.)

Joe Roth. Well, he's the genius who directed Christmas with the Cranks and Revenge of the Nerds II.

Taymor just finished directing a new movie, Across the Universe, a "psychadelic love story set to Beatles' music. The studio (Joe Roth), decided it was too long, and that it should be cut down, and that Roth was just the man to do it.

Taymor does not have final cut. (Very few directors do). She's so outraged that she may take her name off the whole project. Stay tuned.

I'd trust Julie on this one.

Update: Not so fast, says Nikki Finke in the LA Weekly.

Here's what four civilians who have seen it have to say (courtesy of Internet Movie DataBase).

And here's the website, where you can watch the trailer.

(I'm still going with Julie.)

Loon-y Tunes

Do you like Thoreau? (I bet you don't. I bet you had to read it last year in American Lit, something from Walden, and you thought it was boring and irrelevant, and even now you're not reading this, you stopped as soon as you got to Thoreau -- assuming you even came here in the first place.)

Well, I do. I love Thoreau. I would love to hang out with Thoreau. When I get to Heaven, one of the first people I'm checking out, is Thoreau.

Aunt (to HDT, on his deathbed): Henry, have you made your peace with God?
HDT: I wasn't aware that we ever quarreled.

There's nothing I'd like better than to get out my kayak this afternoon (right now!) and go play hide-and-seek with a loon!

THE LOON

(From Walden.)

By HENRY D. THOREAU.

As I was paddling along the north shore one very calm October afternoon, for such days especially they settle on to the lakes, like the milkweed down, having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly one, sailing out from the shore toward the middle a few rods in front of me, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued with a paddle and he dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived again but I miscalculated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods apart when he came to the surface this time, for I had helped to widen the interval; and again he laughed long and loud, and with more reason than before.

He manœuvred so cunningly that I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. Each time when he came to the surface, turning his head this way and that, he coolly surveyed the water and the land, and apparently chose his course so that he might come up where there was the widest expanse of water and at the greatest distance from the boat. It was surprising how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into execution. He led me at once to the wildest part of the pond, and could not be driven from it. While he was thinking one thing in his brain, I was endeavoring to divine his thought in mine. It was a pretty game, played on the smooth surface of the pond, a man against a loon.

Suddenly your adversary’s checker disappears beneath the board, and the problem is to place yours nearest to where his will appear again. Sometimes he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, having apparently passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he and so unweariable, that when he had swam farthest he would immediately plunge again, nevertheless; and then no wit could divine where in the deep pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a fish, for he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in its deepest part. It is said that loons have been caught in the New York lakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout,—though Walden is deeper than that. How surprised must the fishes be to see this ungainly visitor from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools!

Yet he appeared to know his course as surely under water as on the surface, and swam much faster there. Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre, and instantly dived again. I found that it was as well for me to rest on my oars and wait his reappearing as to endeavor to calculate where he would rise; for again and again, when I was straining my eyes over the surface one way, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh behind me. But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he invariably betray himself the moment he came up by that loud laugh? Did not his white breast enough betray him?

He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. I could commonly hear the plash of the water when he came up, and so also detected him. But after an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as willingly and swam yet farther than at first. It was surprising to see how serenely he sailed off with unruffled breast when he came to the surface, doing all the work with his webbed feet beneath. His usual note was this demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like that of a waterfowl; but occasionally when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like that of a wolf than any bird; as when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground and deliberately howls. This was his looning,—perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard here, making the woods ring far and wide. I concluded that he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident of his own resources.

Though the sky was by this time overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke the surface when I did not hear him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, and the smoothness of the water were all against him. At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was angry with me; and so I left him disappearing far away on the tumultuous surface.

For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman; tricks which they will have less need to practise in Louisiana bayous. When compelled to rise they would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a considerable height, from which they could easily see to other ponds and the river, like black motes in the sky; and, when I thought they had gone off thither long since, they would settle down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile on to a distant part which was left free; but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.

This Just In!

Death of Western Civilization Imminent!

Sound Familiar?

The New 3 R's: Rules, Rules, Rules
By Washington Post | Published Today | Daily EdNews , K-12 | Unrated

Students Chafe as Schools' Web of Restrictions Grows

At Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, students can't just randomly stroll out to their cars to fetch a textbook or some other forgotten item. They need a pass because authorities worry about what might be stashed in the parking lot.

Read the whole article here.

If you don't have the time or the inclination, here are a couple of passages that I found particularly interesting.

At Forest Park Senior High School in Prince William County, students sought to rejuvenate Spirit Week with funky themes. They were over Twin Day, so they proposed Bling Day, which gave school officials visions of property -- i.e., pricey necklaces -- getting snatched at school. So that idea was a bust. Then students dreamed up Salad Dressing Day -- cowboy garb for ranch, togas for Caesar, Hawaiian shirts for Thousand Island.

Yes, even Salad Dressing Day was cut, for reasons that remain mysterious to some students.

And while the first impulse is always to blame what seems to be the nearest source, it's not always their fault.

If students feel that the climate is suffocating, so do principals. Gerald N. Tirozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, based in Reston, [his last job was as the Connecticut State Education Commissioner] said school systems are frequently hard-pressed to find candidates for principal openings because those who take on the job are more accountable than ever for test scores, campus safety and much more.

"A lot of principals are on pins and needles. We have one or two school shootings, and suddenly everyone wants zero tolerance. Principals are overly sensitive to the students who are in their charge," Tirozzi said. "You've got one group of parents who want you to be more liberal and another group of parents who want you to be ultra-conservative."

"Entertainment" Tonight?

I know you've heard this before, but. . .

For more details, go here.

TV Beatdown -- House, or Grey's Anatomy

Judging from the People's Forum, we have fans of each show.

I don't watch either. I've seeen House enough to know the basics; Grey's I've only read about.

I only have time to watch one. Which should it be?

Comment below.

Grey's Anatomy

Any comments on recent developments? (Post Below.)

Hey, this looks interesting. A blog from the writers of the show?

The official website.

And here's another site.

And, of course, the book that started it all.

Any others we should know about?

House M. D.

Any comments on recent developments? (Post Below.)


The official website is here.

Here's a fansite, where apparently you can watch old episodes. There's a forum there, too.

It's Not Easy Being Green

When I was a kid, I was fortunate enough to go on several long cross-country trips with my family. From Connecicut to California and back, up the spine of the continent from Arizona to Montana, and even to Alaska!

Now this was in the days before Ipods and portable DVD players. Probably you had an AM radio in the car. And no air-conditioning. One of the things that we did to pass the time (when we weren't squabbling and picking on one another in the back seat) was to "collect" plates. We had a pad of paper, and added to the list each time we saw a new one. It was very exciting, because as you got into a new state, the plates changed -- in color and style of numbers. Some had state slogans ("Live Free or Die") or even pictures (a rider on a bucking bronco in Wyoming, for example. There's a lot more of that now).

If only Ohio had been doing back then what they're doing now. If you've been convicted of drunk driving, you get a special license plate (yellow, with red letters). And they're proposing a new one -- bright flourescent green for convicted violent sex offenders and child predators.

Originally they were going to be pink (but Mary Kay Cosmetics, among others, put the kibosh on that).

Can't think of why they wanted to choose pink in the first place. . . unless they were falling back and false and hurful sterotyping!

Bang for the Buck!

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

~Hamlet

I don't know if you saw this article in the Courant the other day, but it turns out that the Tolland school system is the seventh most efficient in the state, in terms of how much money it costs us to educate you. That is to say, out of 169 towns, only six spend fewer dollars per pupil! Wow! In fact, here in Tolland, we're able to educate each one of you for about $2,000 less than the state average. And let's not even think of what those wealthy, big-spending towns are shelling out!

Well, Here's One Bit of Bright News. . .

Thanks, AP. It's a job well not done!

Know Your Rights!

In Block IV today, we covered "Know Your Rights" by the Clash. It's a way to make Percy Bysshe Shelley more accessible to kids today, if there are any outsiders peeking in. (Actually, it's getting to the point where I need something to make the Clash accessible before I Can start to make the bridge to Shelley. Sigh!)

Anyway, here are the lyrics.

And here is a YouTube video. (Kids, be sure to get your parents' permission before logging on.)

But I also came across some other interesting things while googling "know your rights".

Know Your Rights concerning. . .

1. the police;
2. civil rights;
3. physical and mental disabilities;
4. about insurance;
5. being a female;
6. as a photographer;
7. getting your car fixed;
8. being an American Muslim;
9. owing people money;
10. owing medical bills;
11. child labor;
12. being a bike messenger in NYC;
13. organizing your workplace;
14. being an expectant mother;
15. funerals;
16. being audited;
17. religious freedoms;
18. gifted education;
19. lost luggage;
20. a recovering substance abuser;
21. home schooling.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Block IV: Coincidence. . .

Those of you who were doing the Sunday Times Crossword may have noticed this --

83 Down: Something to be thankful for

The answer: B - O - O - N.

Coincidence? Some would call it that.

Then, of course, there was 34 Across: Head-scratcher.

Answer: E - N - I - G - M - A.

So? So, the name of one of the production companies for Local Hero? Enigma Films.

There's more in heaven and earth, Horatio . . .

All: Saturday Night Special (Galactic Edition)

If it's clear. . a total lunar eclipse.

All: "Into the Silence"

There's a new movie out -- well, if you live in the Big Apple. It might get to Cinema City, maybe CineStudio at Trinity (a great place to go see a movie, by the way. It's got a balcony!). Perhaps Real Art Ways. (Actually, it is -- beginning May 4th!) Fortunately, there's video, now, so the two or three of us who might want tot se this movie will get a chance to, where it's not economically feasiable other. (That's what they call "The Long Tail", but that's a whole 'nother story.)

Anyway, the movie is called Into Great Silence. It's about a bunch of monks who almost never talk. (Maybe because part of what I do for a living is talk, I'm drawn to the idea of voluntary silence.)

So, that immediately put a musical phrase into my head: "in-to the silence" from one of my top five all-time songwriters, Van Morrison. (If you made me choose a number one, I'd probaly name him.) Of course, I was misremembering the actual lyric, which is "hymns to the silence"

But whatever. Call it kismet, call it serendipity, call it wyrd. I put "into the silence" into Google, and came up with this poem by e. e. cummings.

up into the silence the green
silence with a white earth in it

you will(kiss me)go

out into the morning the young
morning with a warm world in it

(kiss me)you will go

on into the sunlight the fine
sunlight with a firm day in it

you will go(kiss me

down into your memory and
a memory and memory

i)kiss me,(will go)

Now I'm not a huge fan of e. e. cummings, but I thought this one was lovely, and I wanted to share it with you.

(I like to think that certain poems/stories/movies are meant for certain people, and sometimes I'm the postman chosen to make the delivery. So I don't know which of you is supposed to have this, but here it is.)

All: I Guess It Wasn't His Time Yet

Check this out.

(And don't forget to check out BBC radio while you're over there.)

All: Sunday Night TV

There's a new show premiering tonight on FoxNews at 10 p.m.  It's called The Half-hour Newshour and it's the conservative answer to The Daily Show.

The early reviews aren't great, but we should watch and see for ourselves.  There's too much anger on the political scene today, so a humorous, satiric look at poltics and the news can only be a good thing, right?  If you go to the article in the link, you'll find links to a couple of clips.

Also, (and this is for Block 2, but you'll be getting it later in the semester, Block 4), tune into BET around 11:30 p.m. to see Geoffrey Chaucer's Pardoner in action.  He goes by the name of Robert Tilton these days, but it's basically the same schtick.

And, of course, I daresay you're all as sad as I am to realize that the final two episode of Reba air tonight on the CW (7:00 and 7:30).  Alll I can say is, thank goodness for syndication.

All: At Least We're Not Last!

When I was a kid, on Halloween when we went door to door saying "Trick or treat for Unicef!", holding out our little orange boxes for spare change that went to help poor, sick children in foreign countries.  

Now to be fair, when you see the United States listed by UNICEF as 20th out of 21 nations as far as the well-being of children, that's in industrialized nations. We're still way ahead of the thrid world nations. 

The run down:

CHILD WELL-BEING TABLE
1. Netherlands
2. Sweden
3. Denmark
4. Finland
5. Spain
6. Switzerland
7. Norway
8. Italy
9. Republic of Ireland
10. Belgium
11. Germany
12. Canada
13. Greece
14. Poland
15. Czech Republic
16. France
17. Portugal
18. Austria
19. Hungary
20. United States
21. United Kingdom
Source: Unicef

What exactly are the criteria they used?
 

Block II: Regarding Ghosts

I guess that when I conceive of myself, I picture myself wearing clothes. But I don't get why a ghost should be a self-conception as opposed to an actual entity.  And if an actual entity, I just wonder where the clothes are coming from?

Well, excuse my skepticism.

Here's something you may like that I stumbled across some time ago.  It concerns a phenomenom/mirage known as "after-death communication" (ADC).

Actually, I had a similar experience.  My mother was a great bird-lover, and as you are all reminded on the hour, so am I.  My special totem has always been the red-wing blackbird.  On the first Valentine Day after my mother died, there suddenly appeared on my back lawn a flock of no less than 50 - 75 redwings.  Coincidence?  

All:A Winter Classic

 I hope Mrs. Morrison made you all read John Greenleaf Whittier's "Snowbound" last year.
What??  You didn't, or you just don't remember?

Well, it's all about a real New England nor'easter (one with snow, I mean, not sleet) remembered from boyhood.  The storm starts around sunset, goes all though the next day and night.  On the following morning, it's time to dig out.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!"
Well pleased (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.

The snow is so deep that they have to dig a tunnel through it on their way to the barn to tend to the animals.  But still there's time for fun, too.

And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp's supernal powers.

(Remember all the fun you used to have as a kid playing in the snow, them coming inside to hot chocolate and grapefruit!)

That night, the family gathers by the fireside (in the children's rooms snow is blowing in between the clapboards).  To pass the time, they talk.  To each other!  They begin to tell stories.  Father, of course, goes first telling about sitting "down again to moose and samp/In trapper's hut and Indian camp" up on Lake Memphremagog when he was a young man.

Mother goes next, with some family history of

how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.

Whittier's uncle was there, a "simple" man who never travelled more than twenty miles from home in his life, but who knew as well as any man the natural world in his own backyard.  A maiden aunt, a sweet woman who never found a man to marry her, was there, as well as the local schoolmaster.  (In lieu of paying taxes, a family could offer to board the school teacher.

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the local school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth's college halls.

There was another visitor there, too, a strange, exotic woman who cast a strong spell over the young Whittier.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold. . .
She sat among us, at the test,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways. . . 
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The vixen and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak of feint
The temper of Petruchio's Kate,
The raptures of Siena's saint.

And, of course, in any nostalgic look back at the past, we're likely to feel the presence of the mortality paradox.

Gathered around the fire that night were two of Whittier's sisters.  The older,

A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice. . .
How many a poor one's blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

And the younger

Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?

It's only in his memories that Whittier can see them now, as well as most of those people around the fire that night.

I have logs already to go in my faireplace.  After lunch I will set them ablaze, and I'll be sitting around spending a stolen afternoon with my wife and my son (and missing my older boy, already away from home at college).

Enjoy your day off, class.  Try to enjoy every day.

All: "24" and Civil Liberties

Since September 11th, depictions of torture have become much more common on American television. Before the attacks, fewer than four acts of torture appeared on prime-time television each year, according to Human Rights First, a nonprofit organization. Now there are more than a hundred, and, as David Danzig, a project director at Human Rights First, noted, “the torturers have changed. It used to be almost exclusively the villains who tortured. Today, torture is often perpetrated by the heroes.” The Parents’ Television Council, a nonpartisan watchdog group, has counted what it says are sixty-seven torture scenes during the first five seasons of “24”—more than one every other show. Melissa Caldwell, the council’s senior director of programs, said, “ ‘24’ is the worst offender on television: the most frequent, most graphic, and the leader in the trend of showing the protagonists using torture.”  

(from "WHATEVER IT TAKES: The politics of the man behind “24.” by JANE MAYER)

I mentioned this in Block IV yesterday (I think - maybe it was Block II), how Mr Welden was  telling me that although Jack Bauer himself sometimes has to tromple on certain civil liberties in the name of terrorism, that actually a theme of the show seemed to be that even in these uncertain times we must respect human rights and civil liberties.  That's what makes us Americans, after all.

This week's issue of the New Yorker has an article about "24" and the man who created it, Joel Surnow.  While Surnow's number one concern is audience-share, it tunrs out he's not so concerned with civil liberties as Mr Welden seems to think.

The series, Surnow told me, is “ripped out of the Zeitgeist of what people’s fears are—their paranoia that we’re going to be attacked,” and it “makes people look at what we’re dealing with” in terms of threats to national security. “There are not a lot of measures short of extreme measures that will get it done,” he said, adding, “America wants the war on terror fought by Jack Bauer. He’s a patriot”. . .  
Surnow, who has jokingly called himself a “right-wing nut job,” shares his show’s hard-line perspective. Speaking of torture, he said, “Isn’t it obvious that if there was a nuke in New York City that was about to blow—or any other city in this country—that, even if you were going to go to jail, it would be the right thing to do?”

Does it matter?  It's just a tv show, right?

Well, take this quiz:  Rate these in order, from most to fewest.

a.  number of readers of the New York Times
b.  number of readers of George Orwell's 1984
c.  number of viewers of "24"

Block II: There's No Day Like a Snow Day. . .

but that doesn't mean we can't still learn!

Okay, so nobody knew who Benny Goodman was. Here's Benny Goodman (playing the clarinet -- about halfway through). That's Gene Krupa on the drums. (He used to be somebody, too.)

And you barely knew who Joni Mitchell was. Here's Joni singing "A Case of You" (live) in 1983. (Here are the lyrics, if you're interested.)

And here's a song of Joni's that I love, "River" as performed by another Canadian, Allison Crowe (lyrics here). It's from an album called Blue, which, if I could only have one Joni Mitchell album, would be the one I would choose (Hejira being second).

I once tried to play this for a class, but they were all talking, so I pulled the plug. They didn't deserve it. Here's the good thing: you only have to listen to this if you want to (and if you talk through it, I'll never have to know).

Block IV: This American Life

You can read this, too, if you're in Block II.  We did this today in Block IV; you'll be getting it later in the year.

Okay, remember that radio story about "that guy"?  It's from a radio show called "This American Life".  Check it out.

Here's one of my favorite episodes: from November 2, 2001.

Act Three. People Like You If You Put a Lot of Time Into Your Appearance. To prove this simple point, a familiar one to readers of any women's magazines, we have this true story of moral instruction, told by Luke Burbank, in Seattle, about a guy he met on a plane who was dressed in a hand-sewn Superman costume. (13 minutes)
 

All: Poetry Goes Hollywood

Here's a fun site that a just found. It's a partial list (I'm sure there are many more) of poems that have appeared in movies. I don't believe there is category at the Oscars for this: There should be.

One of my all-time favorite poets is Jane Kenyon. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I read that her poem "Let Evening Come" appears in the 2005 film In Her Shoes starring Cameron Diaz. I doubt that you could have made me watch that movie before tonight.  Now I might have to.  (Not in class, though.  Don't get any ideas.)

(If you ever wondered what it was like to be clinically depressed, try "Having it Out With Melancholy.")

But I'm depressed enough.  Let's try something that's very seasonally appropriate.

February: Thinking of Flowers

       by Jane Kenyon

Now wind torments the field,
turning the white surface back
on itself, back and back on itself,
like an animal licking a wound.

Nothing but white--the air, the light;

Seniors: Shadowlands

Check out this essay from the Journal of Religion and Film (who knew?) about the film we've been watching, Shadowlands.

Here are a couple of excerpts that I find especially pertinent.

"Something must drive us out of our nursery into the world--we must grow up!" becomes the film's C. S. Lewis dictum. This statement very much summarizes the plot of Attenborough's story. The "something" that drives Lewis out of his cloistered and safe world--his nursery--into the real world of open spaces full of bright joys and dark shadows is love; the something that forces the man to grow up is intense suffering and tragic loss--pain. Attenborough illustrates this humanizing journey through careful attention to Jack's progressive relationship with Joy, his detached professor to human being relationship with a student, his increasingly intimate relationship with Douglas, and his maturing relationship with God.

And. . .

Lewis queries, "Why love if loving hurts so much? I have no answers; only the life I've lived. Twice I've been given a choice: the boy chose safety; the man chooses suffering." The film in its entirety answers the "Why love" question. It proclaims that it 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all; indeed, pain and suffering is part of the living experience. As Joy puts it, "it's part of the deal." To further clarify, safety provides only that - safety. Accepting the risk of suffering, however, provides the possibility of experiencing great joy. Furthermore, the film, and specifically Lewis's "I have no answers" concluding statement reiterates the thinking of a previous great intellect: "There lives more faith in honest doubt...than in half the creeds."

All: Bad Writing ~ Good Book

This is some bad writing. It's from a professor of American history at the University of Hartford.

History-making heroism, Stephanie Capparell means to demonstrate in this admiring account of the Pepsi-Cola Company’s pioneering — but largely unsung — “special-markets sales staff,” ought not to be measured solely by the fame it attracts. She’s right. Inconceivable without the giants of the ballpark and the ring, demonstrations and courtrooms, the movement for African-American civil rights depended even more on the mostly unknowable actions of millions, black and white, who created new ways of thinking and working and acting within and across racial lines.

Whoa! This is way too complicated. Professor Goldstein is trying to squeeze too much information into one sentence.

History-making heroism, Stephanie Capparell means to demonstrate in this admiring account of the Pepsi-Cola Company’s pioneering — but largely unsung — “special-markets sales staff,”ought not to be measured solely by the fame it attracts.

In red is the basic sentence. In orange is a descriptive clause, which could easily be its own sentence. In yellow, a descriptive clause within the descriptive clause. William Faulkner can do these, and make it work. Most of us can't.

She’s right. Inconceivable without the giants of the ballpark and the ring, demonstrations and courtrooms, the movement for African-American civil rights depended even more on the mostly unknowable actions of millions, black and white, who created new ways of thinking and working and acting within and across racial lines.

Red: a long descriptive clause referring to "the civil rights movement". But until we know that, its hard to figure out where the sentence is going, and how the two parts of that (giants. . . ring/ demonstrations. . . courtroom) go together. Orange: the core sentence. Yellow: another descriptive clause, chock-a-block full of action ("thinking" and working and acting").

Here's paragraph two.

“The Real Pepsi Challenge” begins with a creative, dynamic white New York businessman, a politically connected, progressive Republican turnaround specialist named Walter S. Mack Jr., who took over Pepsi in 1938. Mack, in his own words “an unrepentant capitalist and a liberal” who enjoyed playing, as Capparell puts it, “scrappy David to the Goliath that was Coca-Cola” (Pepsi’s 1939 sales were under $5 million, compared with Coca-Cola’s $128 million), decided to strengthen Pepsi’s hold on the “Negro market.” Pepsi’s 12-ounce bottle, twice the size of a Coke, sold for the same nickel, which made it more popular among poorer people; according to Capparell, Pepsi had “survived the Depression by appealing to Negro consumers.”

Again, this is way too complicated. Always remember the acronym "KISS". (Keep it simple, stupid.) That applies to good writing, (in terms of organization as well as word choice), and often to life, as well.

That being said, if you can read the whole review, the book sounds very interesting. We know about Brown v. Board of Ed., and the Montgomery bus boycott, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This tells about a big part played behind the scenes by a major corporation -- a story of which I was unaware. This book is going on my personal summer reading list.

Seniors: Sunday NY Times ~ Dick Cheney is Lord Voldemort?

On Friday we were talking about Harry Potter (the seventh and final(?) book in the series is due out on July 21st). Nicholas Kristof, writing today (Sunday) on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, cites Harry Potter.

A reader named Melissa S. e-mailed to say that she explains Iraq policy to her 8-year-old son in terms of Harry Potter characters: “Dick Cheney is Lord Voldemort. George W. Bush is Peter Pettigrew.” Don Rumsfeld is Lucius Malfoy, while Cornelius Fudge represents administration supporters who deny that anything is wrong. And, she concludes, “Daily Prophet reporter Rita Skeeter is Fox News.”

Kristof had written an earlier piece which asked readers what parallels to our current struggles in Iraq can be found in classical literature.

If you are interested in seeing what other people had to say, go here.

Some suggestions that we may cover this semester: Beowulf, Macbeth, Henry V, Hamlet, Othello, "Ozymandias", Slaughterhouse 5.

Some you may know from last year: The Great Gatsby; The Scarlet Letter, "The Raven", "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Fall of the House of Usher", Huck Finn, The Catcher in the Rye.

Others that you may know (some of them "borderline" classics): The Lord of the Rings, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Animal House, Yertle the Turtle, Bartholomew and the Oobleck, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Juniors: Riding the Rap

Dale Crowe, Jr., is a "punk" ("somebody who won't grow up").  He refuses to take responsibility for his own actions.

For instance, he attributes the fact that he's going to jail for five years to "a broken taillight", ignoring the fact that he was driving drunk, or that he punched a cop in the first place.

And when it comes to drinking, he claims he had "like four beers."  The police report said something different -- that his blood alcohol level was 0.19.  How drunk is that?

Very.

Seniors: Archetype v. Cliche

In class today, we listened and lectioed to "Vincent Black Lighting 1952". They say the way to really learn about something is to teach it, and I learned something new today.

I said that the song worked so well (at least it does for me) because it relies on archetypes -- both of character and plot. These are well known and traditional literary figures, which means they can be introduced and come to life in the brief space of a song. We already know James, we already know Red Molly.

What saves these from being cliches is that a cliche is stale, trite and expected. The archetype takes a new and interesting character, and plugs it into a new stories. (Or "presses that button", as I put it in class.)

Anyway, here's a page on archetypes.

Juniors: "Starry Night"

A key image in "Seeing Through Walls" is Vincent van Gogh's painting"The Starry Night". Fin

(For a bigger image, go here.)

The painting was the introductory image to the program on the chip in Gabriel's head (kind of like the Windows banner that comes on when you turn on your computer). When he asks Teresa why she chose that image, she says "she saw it in a museum" when she was small. Now, that's as far as the movie goes, but I think it's reasonable to assume that this is what started her on path of learning, eventually leading her to become a doctor. And that is exactly the path that she wants to open up for others.was the introductory image to the program on the chip in Gabriel's head (kind of like the Windows banner that comes on when you turn

Everyone: Jack Bauer v. George Orwell

Are any of you 24 fans? I've watched a couple episodes, and then last year I started to watch it. But it was just too fast paced for me. And then I knew I'd miss an episode here and there, so I stopped.

Here's an essay that I just stumbled across (via Digg.com). It's written by a student at Colorado State University, who is also affiliated with something called the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a "sanctuary for Austro-libertarian scholars." (It's always a good idea to find out where things you find on the net are really coming from.)

Matt McCaffrey is concerned with the way that Jack Bauer, in the course of doing his job saving America from terrorist threats, tramples on civil liberties (not to mention kills a lot of people).

He decides that:

"As enjoyable as 24 is on the surface, a more than cursory glance makes it obvious that the show is attempting to justify and even celebrate an ever-expanding Orwellian state. It almost makes me want to root for the bad guys."