OK Go – copyright, industry change, culture and technology, and great music

March 13, 2010

You’re internet and culture savvy — you probably already know all about this stuff.

OK Go’s music appeals to many.  The appeal convinced a major record label, Capitol/EMI, to sign the band to a deal.  OK Go worked hard to promote the music of the band, including videos.  Capitol looked at the videos, intensely creative works of art on their own, and pulled in the reins.  Okay to show the vids, the label said, but don’t allow downloads . . .

Minor twist on the old band meets label, band wins label story:  OK Go got out of the contract. They lost the label.

Now they’ve got an astounding new video to go viral, one that simply delights younger viewers and brings in older viewers with whispers of “shades of Rube Goldberg!”  (Who was Rube Goldberg?  Younger readers go here.)

NPR explains:

After the overwhelming success of the video for its 2006 song “Here It Goes Again,” in which its four band members execute a tightly choreographed dance routine built around a handful of treadmills, OK Go has lofty standards to live up to. With roughly 50 million views on YouTube, “Here It Goes Again” stands as one of the most popular music videos of the Internet era.

Not one to shy away from a challenge, the band set about constructing a painstakingly executed two-story Rube Goldberg machine, set to trigger in time to the music for its latest video, “This Too Shall Pass.” Although it starts out small, with a toy truck knocking over some dominoes, the contraptions that make up the machine rapidly get larger and much more complex — pianos are dropped, shopping carts come crashing down ramps, and one band member is launched headlong through a wall of boxes. After assembling a team of dozens of engineers to construct the set, more than 60 takes were needed to get everything working just right during filming.

Toughest part?  EMI, parent of Capitol, didn’t want to allow downloads of the music or video.

The band’s label, EMI, didn’t see things the same way. In an effort to maintain some control over the dissemination of the music video, EMI denied listeners the ability to embed it on their own Web sites and blogs. After receiving a deluge of complaints, the band eventually persuaded EMI to enable embedding. Soon afterward, however, OK Go parted ways with EMI to start its own record label, Paracadute.

NPR’s audio story is six minutes of fun, and learning.  Copyright, embedding and download issues — aren’t these the frontlines of new media legal discussion?

Personal quandary: I’m not sure that I don’t like this version of the song, with the Notre Dame marching band, better than the Rube Goldberg version.  What do you think?

Personal confession: Problems of mishearing lyrics abound.  I listened probably a dozen times thinking the refrain was “When the money comes.”  It makes more sense, and is much less cynical and wooish, with the real lyric, “When the morning comes.”

More:

Add to FacebookAdd to NewsvineAdd to DiggAdd to Del.icio.usAdd to StumbleuponAdd to RedditAdd to BlinklistAdd to TwitterAdd to TechnoratiAdd to Furl


Birthers claim Obama born in Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub in 1853

March 12, 2010

With Henry Louis Mencken as his father.

No, that’s not really what they claim (I think; sometimes it’s difficult to tell). But what happened, and how it spread virally through websites of birthers and Obama haters, should provide a moral to someone’s story.

To demonstrate how easy it is to create hoax claims about Obama and birth certificates, somebody created a false MySpace page, and a story of an office supply store employee who helped the Obama campaign generate a false birth certificate.

Birthers jumped on the story as proof that the Obama birth certificate is false.  Seriously.  You can’t make this stuff up.  Story at the aptly-named and fully entertaining Oh, For Goodness Sake! which seems dedicated to debunking all the birthers’ craziness (a mother lode of hoaxes and gullibility to be sure).

Santayana’s Ghost wags his finger, and Mencken’s Ghost has gone out in search of stronger beer.  You tell ’em it’s voodoo history, you tell ’em it’s a hoax, they still suck it up.  Dr. Kate, New Mexico Paralegal, Texas Darlin’, Free Republic, Orly Taitz, Tea Baggers, we know what you are and we don’t want to haggle about the price.  We ain’t buyin’.


Texas standards for social studies — where to find them

March 11, 2010

Texas Tribune quickly establishes itself as a Really Useful journal on Texas politics, especially with features like this summary of the proposed Texas social studies standards, with comments on changes and the history of the changes.

For example, explaining an insulting cut of Texas and African American heroes, Texas Tribune explains:

Tuskegee Airman Commander dumped: Board member McLeroy made the motion to pull Oveta Culp Hobby and Benjamin O. Davis from this standard. Hobby — a Houston newspaper publisher, the director the federal health department in the 1950s, and the wife of Texas Governor William P. Hobby — shows up elsewhere, in the 7th grade curriculum. Davis, however, does not. Davis was the first African-American general in the U.S. Air Force and the commander of the Tuskegee Airmen in the World War II. The board did insert a phrase on the “contributions of the Tuskegee Airman” in the next section.

Straightforward explanation.  If it raises your ire, it’s not because the writing is inflammatory, but because the facts are so clearly presented.

Tip of the old scrub brush to the Texas Freedom Network and their e-mail alerts.


Science bloggers doing it wrong?

March 10, 2010

A new paper in the Journal of Science Communication offers a critique of the workings and effectiveness of science bloggers.

Happily for us, the paper is open access, freely available.

The article appears to be from some research for a Ph.D.:

Inna Kouper is a doctoral candidate in the School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University
Bloomington. Her current research interests lie broadly in the areas of language and information; the role
of science in society; and the evolution of information and communication technologies generally
described as social or participatory media (such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.).

Several bloggers say the paper gets wrong what science bloggers do, and what they should do.

Perhaps — you can read the paper yourself and compare it with the criticism.

I do want to call your attention to a very good feature of the paper.  It analyzes postings on 11 of the top science blogs in the world.

1 Pure Pedantry scienceblogs.com/purepedantry
2 Synthesis http://www.synthesis.cc
3 MicrobiologyBytes http://www.microbiologybytes.com/blog
4 Wired Science http://www.wired.com/wiredscienc
5 BioEthics blog.bioethics.net
6 DrugMonkey scienceblogs.com/drugmonkey
7 Scientific Activist scienceblogs.com/scientificactivist
8 Pharyngula scienceblogs.com/pharyngula
9 Panda’s Thumb http://www.pandasthumb.org
10 ScienceBlog scienceblog.com
11 Cosmic Variance blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance

How can you tell the paper’s serious?  The 11 blogs analyzed do not include any of the junk science blogs, like Uncommon Descent or Watt’s Up With That?

If you listen carefully, you can hear Bill Dembski and Anthony Watts stewing.


Sour grapes of wrath at the Texas State Board of Education

March 10, 2010

A couple of months can make a big difference.  Can.

A difference which way?

Two months ago the Texas State Board of Education suspended its revamping of social studies standards — the efforts to grind the standards into a right-wing crutch were so controversial that hearings, discussion and amending proposed standards took up more time than allotted.  SBOE delayed final votes until March 10.

Today.

Last week Texas voted in primary elections.  Several board members’ terms are up.  Two incumbents lost primary challenges, Don McLeroy, the Boss Tweed of the right wing cultural war ring, and Geraldine Miller, a long-term veteran from Dallas, whose very conservative views cast her as a moderate among SBOE members.  Both are Republicans.

How will those primary losses affect them and their work on the board?

In addition, other members of the culture war ring are retiring, including Cynthia Dunbar. Will the lame ducks be content to vote up the changes urged by history and economic professionals and professional educators, or will they do as McLeroy suggested they need to do earlier, and fight against the recommendations of experts?

How will the lame ducks walk and quack?

Stakes are high.  New York Times Magazine featured the culture wars on the cover on Valentine’s Day (you should read the article)Texas Monthly weighed in against the culture wars, too — a surprise to many Texans.

Cynicism is difficult to swim against.  I expect McLeroy to try as best he can to make social studies standards a monument to right wing bigotry and craziness.  We’ve already seen SBOE vote to delete a wonderful children’s book from even being mentioned because the text author shares a name with a guy who wrote a book on socialism earlier.

Most of us watching from outside of Austin (somebody has to stay back and grade the papers and teach to the test . . .) expect embarrassments.  On English and science standards before, the culture war ring tactics were to make a flurry of last-minute, unprinted and undiscussed, unannounced amendments apparently conspired to gut the standards of accuracy (which would not make the right wing political statements they want) and, too often, rigor.  Moderates on the board have not had the support mechanisms to combat these tactics successfully — secret e-mail and telephone-available friends standing by to lend advice and language on amendments.  In at least two votes opponents of the culture war voted with the ring, not knowing that innocent-sounding amendments came loaded.

In a test of the No True Scotsman argument, religious people will be praying for Texas kids and Texas education.  Meanwhile, culture warriors at SBOE will work to frustrate those prayers.

Oy.

Thomas Jefferson toyed with the idea of amendment the U.S. Constitution to provide a formal role for the federal government in guaranteeing education, which he regarded as the cornerstone of freedom and a free, democratic-style republic.  Instead, American primary and secondary education are governed by more than 15,000 locally-elected school boards with no guidance from the national government on what should be taught.  Alone among the industrial and free nations of  the world, the U.S. has no mechanism for rigorous national standards on what should be taught.

For well over a century a combined commitment to educating kids better than their parents helped keep standards high and achievement rising.  Public education got the nation through two world wars, and created a workforce that could perform without peer on Earth in producing a vibrant and strong economy.

That shared commitment to quality education now appears lost.  Instead we have culture warriors hammering teachers and administrators, insisting that inaccurate views of Jefferson and history be taught to children, perhaps to prevent them from ever understanding what the drive for education meant to freedom, but surely to end Jeffersonian-style influences in the future.

Texas’s SBOE may make the case today that states cannot be trusted with our children’s future, and that we need a national body to create academic rigor to preserve our freedom.  Or they will do the right thing.

Voters last week expressed their views that SBOE can’t be trusted to do the right thing.  We’re only waiting to see how hard McLeroy is willing to work to put his thumb in the eye of Big Tex.

More:


For sage grouse, not a nickel’s difference between Bush and Obama

March 9, 2010

Sage grouse don’t vote. If they did vote, they’d have a difficult time picking between Democrats and Republicans on their own life and death issues.

Of course, there aren’t enough sage grouse to make much of a difference on election day. That’s the problem.

Courting sage grouse - Gail Patricelli, UC-Davis

Courting sage grouse - Photo from Gail Patricelli, University of California - Davis

Last week the U.S. Department of the Interior released a decision on the fate of the sage grouse:  Near enough to extinction to merit protection under the Endangered Species Act, but too far down the list of endangered plants and animals to merit action on anything at the moment.

That means that the vanishing habitats of the little, magnificent bird, can be crushed by trucks making tracks across westerns prairies, deserts and mountains searching for oil.

Exxon-Mobil 1, Sage Grouse 0.  One might must hope that’s an early game score, and not the population counts.

Jim Tankersly explained the situation, more dispassionately, in The Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Washington — The Interior Department declared Friday that an iconic Western bird deserves federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, but declined to offer that protection immediately — a split decision that will allow oil and gas drilling to continue across large swaths of the mountainous West.

The department issued a so-called “warranted but precluded” designation for the greater sage grouse, meaning that the bird merits protection but won’t receive it for now because other species are a higher priority.

My childhood was marked by rapidly plummeting bird populations all around us.  Stopping the use of DDT benefited some of them, the Endangered Species Act benefited others.  Conservation efforts of groups like Ducks Unlimited and the Audubon Society saved others, and helped all of them.  While I lived near a great river, a view of a heron, egret or crane is not what I recall from my childhood.  Our children know the birds well.

Land birds, like turkeys, are even more rare.  Turkeys, mostly in eastern forested areas, at least well out of the Mountain West, made dramatic recoveries with massive aid from state game commissions.  I recall one column from the Washington Post’s recently retired hunting and outdoors columnist, Angus Phillips, in which he confessed that with the aid of professional guides paid from the paper’s expense accounts, in more than 15 years of hunting he had heard, but never seen, a wild turkey. This was two weeks after we had come upon a flock just off the side of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, the first I’d ever seen.

I remembered Phillips’ confession a few months later as I sat in the cold, at dawn, in a field at the Land Between the Lakes preserve of the Tennessee Valley Authority with other staff and members of the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors, when a guide summoned seven magnificent, lustful wild turkey toms to race across a field toward the lustful hen sounds the guide made with a part of a birth control diaphragm as a calling device.

In my years tramping the west for fun, in the months camping with the Scouts, in the professional tramping with the Air Pollution Lab and the Senate and the Utah Wilderness Commission, and just for fun, I’ve never seen a sage grouse.

Whether my children get such an opportunity, and their children, is a decision for the moment left to private interests, especially private groups with a financial stake in trampling out the nestings where the youth of grouse are grown.

Exxon-Mobil, will you and your colleagues go easy on the grouse, please?

More:


Okalahoma earthquakes: No swarm

March 6, 2010

Three earthquakes in a week do not make a swarm.  Interesting that the last post on an earthquake in Oklahoma drew earthquake conspiratorialists and “skeptics.”  Too many people distrust all science and sources of information these days.

Here’s the dirt on Oklahoma’s shaking in the last week, from the U.S. Geological Service site:

Earthquake List for Map Centered at 36°N, 97°W

Update time = Sat Mar 6 18:00:02 UTC 2010

Here are the earthquakes in the Map Centered at 36°N, 97°W area, most recent at the top.
(Some early events may be obscured by later ones.)
Click on the underlined portion of an earthquake record in the list below for more information.

MAG UTC DATE-TIME
y/m/d h:m:s
LAT
deg
LON
deg
DEPTH
km
LOCATION
MAP 3.1 2010/03/05 20:35:13 35.608 -96.783 5.0 3 km ( 2 mi) E of Sparks, OK
MAP 2.5 2010/03/03 04:35:17 35.549 -97.282 5.0 2 km ( 1 mi) SSE of Jones, OK
MAP 4.1 2010/02/27 22:22:27 35.557 -96.747 3.3 9 km ( 5 mi) SE of Sparks, OK

This isn’t unusual at all, of course. I think many people just don’t understand that earthquakes happen all the time, but they usually get crowded out of the newspaper because no one really cares.

For contrast, take a look at this animated map of a strip a little wider than Utah, covering from north of the Yellowstone Caldera to Arizona.  Run the animation.  Generally on any day there will have been at least two dozen earthquakes in the previous week, several magnitude 3, occasionally a magnitude 4 thrown in.

Almost none of those quakes make any news.

Maybe it’s the Earth, laughing.  We can hope.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it’s mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

(Excerpted from “Solitude,” 1917, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919))


Could Abraham Lincoln ever live up to Millard Fillmore’s record?

March 4, 2010

Alexander Stephens, Portage Publications image

Alexander Stephens, Portage Publications image

Elektratig found the most delightful thing, and wrote about it on his blog — Georgia politician and future vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens wondering about this new guy on the hustings, Abraham Lincoln, and comparing him to Millard Fillmore, in a letter from July 1860.  You gotta read it there.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.  Real history is always better than fiction.  There’s a delightful surprise around every bend of the river.

Also:


Shakiest states — geologically, that is

March 4, 2010

USGS map of states with the most quakes

Quake rankings of states

Which states shake the most?  Here are the top 20.

Surprised that Maine makes the list?

Much more from the US Geological Survey here, “Top Earthquake States.”


Diane Ravitch’s “U-turn”: The teachers were right

March 4, 2010

Were I to advise Diane Ravitch right now, I’d tell her to change all her computer passwords and redouble the security on her servers.  Why?  After what happened to the scientists who study global warming, I expect many of the same wackoes are working right now to get her e-mails, knowing that the mere act of stealing them will be enough to indict her change of heart on education in America.

It’s much the same mob crowd in both cases.  [I’m hopeful it’s not a mob.]

Dr. Ravitch thinks big thoughts about education.  She stands in the vanguard of those people who are both academically astute in education, and who can make a case that appeals to policy makers.  Working under Checker Finn at the old Office of Educational Research and Improvement, we quickly got familiar with Ravitch’s works and views.  Finn and Ravitch, good friends and like-minded in education issues, were the running backs and sticky-handed receivers for any conservative education quarterback, back in the Day.

Finn was Assistant Secretary of Education for Research under Bill Bennett.  Ravitch succeeded Finn, under Lamar Alexander.  While Bennett and Alexander took troubling turns to the right, and Finn stayed much where he was, Ravitch has been looking hard at what’s working in schools today.

Ravitch doesn’t like the conservative revolution’s results in education.  She’s changed her views.  Says one of the better stories about her changing views, in The New York Times:

Once outspoken about the power of standardized testing, charter schools and free markets to improve schools, Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical. She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education. She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups.

“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ ” Dr. Ravitch said in an interview.

This is big stuff, and good news to teachers who, since I was at Education in 1987, have been telling policy makers the same things Ravitch is saying now.

David Gardner and Milton Goldberg wrote in the report of the Excellence in Education Commission in 1983 that America faces a “rising tide of mediocrity” because of bad decisions.  That’s true of much education reform today, too.

Gardner and Goldberg also said that, had a foreign nation done that damage to us, we’d regard it as an act of war.

Maybe Ravitch’s turn can help mediate an end to the Right’s War on Education and pogroms against teachers.

Here in Texas the conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education didn’t like Ravitch’s views when she was in the conservative camp, so Texas has started, finally, to vote out commissioners who don’t get it, who prefer a state of war on Texas’s children to promoting public education

Let’s hope more people listen to Ravitch now.

More:

Be sure to listen to the NPR interview from Morning Edition, yesterday (you can read it, too).

And, in next Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, a story about how to build a better teacher; do you know the difference between testing and teaching?


Annals of global warming: Glaciological map of Antarctica’s Palmer Land Area, 1947-2009

March 3, 2010

Are the ice fields of Antarctica increasing or decreasing?  How do we know?

U.S. Geological Survey released a study of the change in glaciation in Antarctica between 1947 and 2009.  Serious student of climate change will heed what the maps show — better bookmark the site.  The study and publication were done in a joint effort of USGS, the British Antarctic Survey, the Scott Polar Research Institute, and the Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (same page, in English, here).

Coastal-Change and Glaciological Map of the Palmer Land Area, Antarctica: 1947—2009

By Jane G. Ferrigno,1 Alison J. Cook,2 Amy M. Mathie,3 Richard S. Williams, Jr.,4 Charles Swithinbank,5 Kevin M. Foley,1 Adrian J. Fox,2 Janet W. Thomson,6  and Jörn Sievers

Introduction

Cover of USGS publication, Coastal-Change and Glaciological Map of the Palmer Land Area, Antarctica: 1947—2009

Cover of USGS publication, Coastal-Change and Glaciological Map of the Palmer Land Area, Antarctica: 1947—2009

Reduction in the area and volume of the two polar ice sheets is intricately linked to changes in global climate, and the resulting rise in sea level could severely impact the densely populated coastal regions on Earth. Antarctica is Earth’s largest reservoir of glacial ice. Melting of the West Antarctic part alone of the Antarctic ice sheet would cause a sea-level rise of approximately 6 meters (m), and the potential sea-level rise after melting of the entire Antarctic ice sheet is estimated to be 65 m (Lythe and others, 2001) to 73 m (Williams and Hall, 1993). The mass balance (the net volumetric gain or loss) of the Antarctic ice sheet is highly complex, responding differently to different climatic and other conditions in each region (Vaughan, 2005). In a review paper, Rignot and Thomas (2002) concluded that the West Antarctic ice sheet is probably becoming thinner overall; although it is known to be thickening in the west, it is thinning in the north. The mass balance of the East Antarctic ice sheet is thought by Davis and others (2005) to be positive on the basis of the change in satellite-altimetry measurements made between 1992 and 2003.

Measurement of changes in area and mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet was given a very high priority in recommendations by the Polar Research Board of the National Research Council (1986), in subsequent recommendations by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) (1989, 1993), and by the National Science Foundation’s (1990) Division of Polar Programs. On the basis of these recommendations, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) decided that the archive of early 1970s Landsat 1, 2, and 3 Multispectral Scanner (MSS) images of Antarctica and the subsequent repeat coverage made possible with Landsat and other satellite images provided an excellent means of documenting changes in the cryospheric coastline of Antarctica (Ferrigno and Gould, 1987). The availability of this information provided the impetus for carrying out a comprehensive analysis of the glaciological features of the coastal regions and changes in ice fronts of Antarctica (Swithinbank, 1988; Williams and Ferrigno, 1988). The project was later modified to include Landsat 4 and 5 MSS and Thematic Mapper (TM) images (and in some areas Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) images), RADARSAT images, aerial photography, and other data where available, to compare changes that occurred during a 20- to 25- or 30-year time interval (or longer where data were available, as in the Antarctic Peninsula). The results of the analysis are being used to produce a digital database and a series of USGS Geologic Investigations Series Maps (I-2600) (Williams and others, 1995; Swithinbank and others, 2003a,b, 2004; Ferrigno and others, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and in press; and Williams and Ferrigno, 2005) (available online at http://www.glaciers.er.usgs.gov).

The paper version of this map is available for purchase from the USGS Store.

What’s the condition of glaciers in Antarctica?  Now you can look it up.

The pamphlet accompanying the maps says under “Discussion”:

The most noticeable and dramatic changes that can be seen on the Palmer Land area map are the retreat of George VI, Wilkins, Bach, and northern Stange Ice Shelves. The northern ice front of George VI Ice Shelf was at its farthest extent during our period of observation between 1966 and 1974. It retreated, losing 906 km2 between 1974 and 1992 and 87 km2 between 1992 and 1995. After 1995, it retreated an additional 1 km to more than 6 km by 2001. The southern George VI ice front retreated considerably from 1947 to the late 1960s. From the late 1960s to 1973, there was additional substantial retreat, the greatest during the period of measurements.  From 1973 to 2001, there was overall noticeable retreat.

Wilkins Ice Shelf had four ice fronts up till 2009; all retreated during the time period of our study, but Wilkins “a” and “b” have had the most dramatic change, including extensive calving in 2009 that eliminated ice front “b” and threatened the future of the ice shelf. During the period of observation, the Bach Ice Shelf front maintained a fairly consistent profile, and advanced or retreated at the same time along the entire ice front. The overall trend of Bach Ice Shelf is retreat. On the northern Stange Ice Shelf during the period of observation, the 1947, 1965–66, 1973, and 1986 ice fronts were more advanced, and the 1997 and 2001 ice fronts were more in retreat. However, the earlier data are less accurate geographically, and it is difficult to quantitatively analyze them. The later satellite images are more accurate, and it is possible to measure overall advance from 1986 to 1989, then retreat from 1989 to 1997 and from1997 to 2001; the net result was retreat.

The three coastal-change and glaciological maps of the Antarctic Peninsula (I–2600–A, –B, and –C) portray one of the most rapidly changing areas on Earth. The changes exhibited in the region are widely regarded as among the most profound and unambiguous examples of the effects of global warming yet seen on the planet.

Resources:


Good news from Hawaii: No deaths, little damage

February 28, 2010

Hawaii missed a big tsunami.

That’s probably not entirely accurate, let’s rephrase:  Hawaii didn’t get a significant tsunami from the Chilean quake.  The Hawaiians didn’t miss it at all.  Hawaiians moved to higher ground.  They prepared for disaster.  Then the disaster didn’t occur.

That’s good news, especially since there remains disaster in Chile to worry about.

How long before some yahoo complains we shouldn’t trust USGS, nor NOAA?

Resources:


Computer-aided study of the Venus de Milo

February 27, 2010

Oh, sure, it’s on the web more as advertising for Konica/Minolta.  But it’s still cool.

Close-up of arm of Venus de Milo - Wikimedia image

So-called “Venus de Milo” (Aphrodite from Melos), detail of the upper block: join surface of the right upper arm, with mortise; attachment holes, which probably bore a metal armlet; strut hole above the navel, now covered with plaster. Parian marble, ca. 130-100 BC? Found in Melos in 1820. Wikimedia image

Konica/Minolta scanned the Venus de Milo in great detail, and they have put up a Flash multimedia piece exploring the creation of the piece, techniques of sculptors of the time, and, most interesting to most of us, just what the piece was supposed to look like with her arms.

If your school district is nipple intolerant, don’t send your kids there.  If you have AP World History, your kids might benefit from seeing Konica/Minolta’s comments and study — you can check it all out in less than ten minutes.


Quote of the moment: Martin Niemöller, “. . . I did not speak out . . .”

February 26, 2010

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

— Pastor Martin Niemöller

Martin Niemoller on a postage stamp, painted by Gerd Aretz in 1992 - Wikipedia

German theologian and Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller on a postage stamp, painted by Gerd Aretz in 1992 – Wikipedia

It’s spring, and school curricula turn to the Holocaust, in English, in world history, and in U.S. history.

Martin Niemöller’s poem registers powerfully for most people — often people do not remember exactly who said it.  I have seen it attributed to Deitrich Bonhoeffer (who worked with Niemöller in opposing some Nazi programs), Albert Einstein, Reinhold Niebuhr, Albert Schweitzer, Elie Wiesel, and an “anonymous inmate in a concentration camp.”

Niemöller and his actions generate controversy — did he ever act forcefully enough?  Did his actions atone for his earlier inactions?  Could anything ever atone for not having seen through Hitler and opposing Naziism from the start?  For those discussion reasons, I think it’s important to keep the poem attributed to Niemöller.  The facts of his life, his times, and his creation of this poem, go beyond anything anyone could make up.  The real story sheds light.

Resources:

Save

Save


“Brain rot” in the Lower Merion School District?

February 25, 2010

My Latin is not good.  My high school didn’t offer it, and I couldn’t squeeze it in to college, either.  Tom, one of my study group mates in law school, had four years of Latin with a Catholic priest who was a great and grave taskmaster.  Tom could memorize the hell out of anything (obviously what the priest was trying to instill).

I’ve lost Tom’s address.  I could use his translations now.

Remember the Lower Merion (Pennsylvania) School District?  That’s the one that issued Mac laptops to all the high school kids, and then got embarrassed when it was discovered that the computers came equipped with cameras that take pictures of the kids in their homes, according to the allegations in the complaint that started the federal lawsuit.

Since the lawsuit was filed, the FBI opened an investigation, and the district itself backpedaled fast, claiming that no photos were ever taken except when laptops were reported stolen, and issuing statements that the district and its employees did nothing wrong.  The district also says it has turned off the remote photo devices, and won’t turn them on without notifying parents.

Good.  We’ll watch to see how it comes out.

So, while pondering whether to post a follow up, the logo of the school district caught my eye and my curiosity.

Logo and web letterhead of Lower Merion (PA) School District

What does that Latin stuff translate to?

Okay.  “VE RI TAS” is a very Harvard-like claim of truth.  “Corpori,” obviously means body.  “Menti,” obviously refers to the mind.

“Moribus?”  Something to do with death.

“Body, Mind and Death?”  What sort of a motto is that?  I must have translated something wrong.

Here, I’ll use an on-line translator:  “Fleshly mind to die.”

Fleshly mind to die.  What?  Brain rot?  Does that slogan mean brain rot?

The Welsh Valley Middle School, part of the Lower Merion School District, says the motto means “Body, Mind and Spirit.”  That’s better.

But, “moribus” means “to die, wither away” according to the dictionaries I find.  I get the concept that a spirit remains after death — but is that what they actually say?

Back to the translator, if I ask it to translate “body, mind and spirit” into English, I get “Somes, mens quod phasmatis.” No moribus.

Back to the translator again.  “Spirit” into Latin comes up phasmatis, phasma, spiritus, animus, animositas — nothing about death, no moribus.

Maybe some kid from a Latin class in the Lower Merion schools can tell me how they get “spirit” from “moribus,” or alternatively, just assure me that the motto isn’t supposed to mean “brain rot.”

Did somebody pull a quick one on the LMSD when they adopted their motto?  Could there maybe be a better way to translate it?