Magician Marco Tempest pushes the boundaries on use of iPhones in magic tricks — is it magic, pure electronics, or what we want to see?
Tell us in comments how you could use this shorter-than-usual TEDS video as a bell-ringer, teachers — or as an ice-breaker, meeting facilitators and corporate trainers:
Tip of the old scrub brush to Michelle Gardiner, who suffered my bass playing with quiet equanimity.
Leave a Comment » | 
Bell Ringers, Brain learning, Technology, Warm-up exercises | Tagged: Bell Ringers, Ice Breakers, Illusions, iPhones, Magic, Marco Tempest, Meetings, Technology, TEDS, Warmups | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Americans are urged to fly flags today, at half-staff, in honor of patriots and those who died in the attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
According to Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute, the law says:
TITLE 36 > Subtitle I > Part A > CHAPTER 1> § 144
§ 144. Patriot Day
(a) Designation.— September 11 is Patriot Day.
(b) Proclamation.— The President is requested to issue each year a proclamation calling on—
(1) State and local governments and the people of the United States to observe Patriot Day with appropriate programs and activities;(2) all departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the United States and interested organizations and individuals to display the flag of the United States at halfstaff on Patriot Day in honor of the individuals who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks against the United States that occurred on September 11, 2001; and
(3) the people of the United States to observe a moment of silence on Patriot Day in honor of the individuals who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks against the United States that occurred on September 11, 2001.
Patriot Day formerly occurred earlier in the year; information on flag flying has not been added to the Flag Code portions of U.S. law, and consequently this news gets missed.
Fly your flag today, at half-staff. Remember when flying a flag at half-staff, it is first raised to full staff, then slowly lowered to the half-staff position. When the flag is retired at the end of the day, it should again be crisply raised to the full-staff position before being lowered.
A flag attached to a pole that does not allow a half-staff position should be posted as usual.
Also, September 11 is also designated as a national day of service, under the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, Public Law 111-13 (April 21, 2009). The Corporation for National and Community Service is charged with encouraging appropriate service in honor of the day and in honor of those who died.
National Day of Service and Remembrance
Date(s): September 11, 2010
Location: National
Event URL: http://911day.org/
Description
On April 21, 2009, President Barack Obama signed legislation that for the first time officially established September 11 as a federally recognized National Day of Service and Remembrance.By pledging to volunteer, perform good deeds, or engage in other forms of charitable service during the week of 9/11, you and your organization will help rekindle the remarkable spirit of unity, service and compassion shared by so many in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. And you’ll help create a fitting, enduring and historic legacy in the name of those lost and injured on 9/11, and in tribute to the 9/11 first responders, rescue and recovery workers, and volunteers, and our brave military personnel who continue to serve to this day.
Check in your own community to find opportunities for service projects.
Leave a Comment » | 9/11, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Patriotism | Tagged: 9/11, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Patriot Day, September 11, U.S. Flag Code | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Mike the Mad Biologist makes the case succinctly and clearly (teachers, observe his methods):
That shudder you felt was the Earth wobbling as an . . .
. . . education story actually covered U.S. students’ academic achievement during the last few decades accurately. I’ve made the point before that the claim of stagnating test scores for U.S. students is demonstrably false–in every demographic group, there has been a rise in achievement (and the minority-white achievement gap is closing to boot). Shockingly, in a Slate report on Steven Brill’s new book Class Warfare, Richard Rothstein sets up Brill with this:
The case they make for their cause by now enjoys the status of conventional wisdom. Student achievement has been stagnant or declining for decades, even as money poured into public schools to improve teacher salaries, pensions, and working conditions (reducing class sizes, or hiring aides to give teachers more free time). Teachers typically have abysmally low standards, especially for minorities and other disadvantaged students, who predictably fall to the level of their teachers’ expectations. Although teachers’ quality can be estimated by the annual growth of their students’ scores on standardized tests of basic math and reading skills, teachers have not been held accountable for performance. Instead, they get lifetime job security even if students don’t learn. Brill observes a union-protected teacher in a Harlem public school bellowing “how many days in a week?,” caring little that students pay him no heed and wrestle on the floor instead.
Protecting this incompetence are teacher unions, whose contracts prevent principals from firing inadequate (and worse) teachers. The contracts also permit senior teachers to choose their schools, which further undermines principals’ authority. Union negotiations have produced perpetually rising salaries, guaranteed even to teachers who sleep through their careers. Breaking unions’ grip on public education is “the civil rights issue of this generation,” and some hard-working, idealistic Ivy Leaguers and their allies have shown how.
And then knocks him down with:
Central to the reformers’ argument is the claim that radical change is essential because student achievement (especially for minority and disadvantaged children) has been flat or declining for decades. This is, however, false. The only consistent data on student achievement come from a federal sample, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Though you would never know it from the state of public alarm about education, the numbers show that regular public school performance has skyrocketed in the last two decades to the point that, for example, black elementary school students now have better math skills than whites had only 20 years ago. (There has also been progress for middle schoolers, and in reading; and less, but not insubstantial, progress for high schoolers.) The reason test score gaps have barely narrowed is that white students have also improved, at least at the elementary and middle school levels. The causes of these truly spectacular gains are unknown, but they are probably inconsistent with the idea that typical inner-city teachers are content to watch students wrestle on the classroom floor instead of learning.
The question we need to ask is “Is our media learning?” (to steal a phrase from Little Lord Pontchartrain).
Maybe they are . . .
Brill, God bless him, proposed to shake up public schools in America a few weeks ago in a long article in the Weekend Wall Street Journal. His solution? Make AFT local leader Randi Weingarten superintendent of New York’s public schools.
Actually, his story was much better than his advocacy. But I hope to get more commentary on that proposal, and this continuing War on Education and War on Americans, soon.
Leave a Comment » | Education, Education reform, Education success, National Assessment of Educational Progress, Teacher Pay, Testing | Tagged: Education, Education reform, NAEP, National Assessment of Educational Progress, Teacher Pay, tests | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
BBC map showing location of Wagah and Punjab, divided between Pakistan and India, south of Kashmir
Written accounts cannot possibly do justice to the ceremonies that mark the daily close of business at the border between India and Pakistan. I had understood it was quite a good show, rivaling the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.
But, you don’t expect Monty Python to break out at these affairs, do you? Here’s a video of the ceremony as it was conducted prior to July 2010, I believe, which I found at Wimp.com. It’s a video clip from BBC Worldwide, narrated by comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
(If that one doesn’t work, try this one — a bit lower quality video):
(Or, here’s a shorter, YouTube version of Baskar’s film.)
Where in the world is this? It’s in a town and area called Wagah, in Punjab, divided between India and Pakistan since the 1947 independence of those nations (links to Wikipedia left in for your convenience).
Wagah (Punjabi: ਵਾਘਾ, Hindi: वाघा, Urdu: واہگہ) is the only road border crossing between India and Pakistan[1], and lies on the Grand Trunk Road between the cities of Amritsar, India and Lahore, Pakistan. Wagah itself is a village through which the controversial Radcliffe Line was drawn. The village was divided by independence in 1947. Today, the eastern half of the village remains in the Republic of India while the western half is in Pakistan.
While both nations and local residents fully recognize the silliness, it also stands as a symbol of the deep divisions between the two nations.
The Wagah border, often called the “Berlin wall of Asia”,[2] is a ceremonial border on the India–Pakistan Border where each evening there is a retreat ceremony called ‘lowering of the flags’,[3] which has been held since 1959.[4] At that time there is an energetic parade by the Border Security Force (B.S.F) of India and the Pakistan Rangers soldiers. It may appear slightly aggressive and even hostile to foreigners but in fact the paraders are imitating the pride and anger of a Cockerel.[1][5][6] Troops of each country put on a show in their uniforms with their colorful turbans.[7] Border officials from the two countries sometimes walk over to the offices on the other side for day to day affairs. The happenings at this border post have been a barometer of the India-Pakistan relations over the years.[1]
Did someone say “Pythonesque?”
Here’s Michael Palin narrating another view of the ceremony for one of his BBC enterprises, Himalaya with Michael Palin:
Would you be surprised to hear that local people refer to this as “the dance of the roosters?”
Events at this crossing reflect some minor easing of tension between the two nations in the last decade, and in 2010 both nations announced they would tone down the retreat ceremonies. Surely some scholar has analyzed this retreat ceremony and its history, to determine whether it helped ease the tension, or increased the conflict between the two nations. Could soldiers who participate in such goings-on actually shoot at each other?
Has anyone got a more recent viewing of the ceremony?
How will you explain this to your sophomore world history class? Is there anything sillier than humans in conflict?
Video via VodPod.
An astonished tip of the old scrub brush to Judith Shields.
More:
3 Comments | Change Over Time, Diplomacy, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, India, War | Tagged: Diplomacy, geography, Grand Trunk Road, History, India, Pakistan, Wagah, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
(This is almost completely an encore post — one that should get more circulation. From four years ago, in 2007. I have not updated years or ages — sharpen your math skills, and do it as you go.)
Some people can’t let go of the past, and like the greedy chimpanzee who grasps the rice in the jar, and then is trapped when he cannot pull out his fist nor will he give up his prize to save his freedom, they trap themselves out of a good life.
Cover of 1996 album of songs, "Pete." Seeger, born May 3, 1919, is 88 years old now.
Like this fellow, whose father’s dislike of an old political position of Pete Seeger kept them both from a good concert. He appears to agree with his father, though, thinking that somehow Seeger is responsible for the evils of Stalinism, and complaining that Seeger was tardy in making note of the fact that Stalin was evil. And Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds agrees, profanely, and inaccurately, as I’ll explain below the fold. But heed this warning: I’m explaining at length.
Get a life, people! Pete Seeger did.
Leave a Comment » | Cold War, Dirty Tricks, Dissent, Heroes, History, Music, Patriotism, Politics, World War II | Tagged: Cold War, Dissent, Heroes, History, Music, Patriotism, Pete Seeger, Politics, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A veteran Republican Congressional insider wrote:
To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.
It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.
The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel — how prudent is that? — in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.
Sheesh! And I thought they were crazy in 1985!
David Badash analyzed Lofgren’s article, at the New Civil Rights Movement:
GOP veteran Congressional staffer of 28 years, Mike Lofgren, who retired in June, just published a 6114 word attack on today’s Republican party, classifying them as “an apocalyptic cult” “full of lunatics.” Unsurprisingly, it’s gone viral. Included within Lofrgren’s 28 years in Congress is his “16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees,” according to his bio. James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, calls Lofgren “a familiar and highly esteemed figure.” Lofgren likens today’s Republican Party to the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic, and observes that “legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.”
Also unsurprisingly, Lofgren talks about the GOP’s attacks on same-sex marriage, several times.
And almost exactly like we at The New Civil Rights Movement have been doing, Lofgren particularly targets Steve King, Michele Bachman, Paul Broun, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, and Allen West. (Good to know we’re on the right track!)
6 Comments | Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party | Tagged: Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Remember that the weekend was a Crazy Liberal Idea™, and that union men and women died for the right to have them.
See this and more at PoliticalLoudmouth.com
Text of the poster: “The weekend was a crazy liberal idea. In 1886, 7 union members in Wisconsin died fighting for the 5-day work week, and 8-hour work day.”
Source: PoliticalLoudmouth.com
4 Comments | Democracy, Democracy in action, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Labor and unions, Politics | Tagged: Democracy, freedom, labor, Labor Day, Politics, unions | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Bunch of opposite-editorial page articles say states ought to get off the testing treadmill, do some real walking instead. Is it a national movement?
One of these pieces explained:
For example, Tim Slekar, a professor of education in Pennsylvania, opted his son Luke out of his state’s tests last school year to “make my community aware and to try and enlighten them of the real issues.” This parent and professor’s plea is simple and forceful: “Stop treating my child as data! He’s a great kid who loves to learn. He is not a politician’s pawn in a chess game designed to prove the inadequacy of his teachers and school.”
If it’s not a national movement, should it be?
List of Op-Eds which support opting out of the state test in order to save the public schools:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-school-testing-20110825,0,7660909.story
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-d-slekar/public-schools-are-not-ne_b_943803.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/28/1011377/-Empty-Test-Chair-by-Empty-Test-Chair
http://www.examiner.com/education-reform-in-baltimore/opt-out-or-give-up-resistance-shades-of-grey
http://pegwithpen.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-opt-out-of-state-test-better.html
http://www.realhartford.org/2011/08/31/back-to-school-guide-reclaiming-your-childs-education-22/
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/20/pennsylvania.school.testing/index.html
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2011/09/opting_out.html
http://www.marionbrady.com/articles/Orlando_Sentinel_Column/arts.html
http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/old/shove.htm
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/28/1011377/-Empty-Test-Chair-by-Empty-Test-Chair
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-d-slekar/i-am-more-than-a-test-sco_b_921279.html
When parents choose to get their kids out of the test, do the kids know why, and do they develop any greater love for learning? If so, I’m for it.
But, parents, don’t take your kid out, so your kid can sit in my class wasting his time, my time, and other students’ time, saying “I don’t have to learn this stuff.”
_____________
Much more detail on the issue and events at Real Hartford.
1 Comment | Education, Parents, Testing | Tagged: Education, Opt-outs, Parents, Testing | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Probably more important in 2011 than before: Fly your flag for American labor today.
Poster from the Office of War Information, 1942
It’s Labor Day 2011 in the United States, a federal holiday, and one of those days Americans are urged to fly the U.S. flag.
The poster was issued by the Office of War Information in 1942, in full color. A black-and-white version at the Library of Congress provides a few details for the time:
Labor Day poster. Labor Day poster distributed to war plants and labor organizations. The original is twenty-eight and one-half inches by forty inches and is printed in full color. It was designed by the Office of War Information (OWI) from a photograph especially arranged by Anton Bruehl, well-known photographer. Copies may be obtained by writing the Distribution Section, Office of War Information [alas, you can’t get a copy from the Office of War Information in 2011]
- Digital ID: (intermediary roll film) fsa 8b04027 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8b04027
- Reproduction Number: LC-USE6-D-005707 (b&w film neg.)
- Repository: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Even down here in deepest, darkest-right-to-work Texas, patriots fly their flags to honor Labor today. It’s heartening.
Leave a Comment » | Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Labor and unions, Patriotism, Politics, World War II | Tagged: Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Labor Day, Labor Movement, Politics, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A new biography of Millard Fillmore popped out last spring, and the publisher didn’t send me a copy to review!
Not that my review could boost sales much — nor harm them — but don’t publishers use Google to figure out how they might get some publicity for their books? Most internet searches for “Millard Fillmore” end up here.
No, I’m not really offended. But I did find it interesting that none of my “Millard Fillmore” keyword compilers picked up on the book.
Details: Millard Fillmore, Paul Finkelman, Times Books, $23.
Cover of Millard Fillmore, by Paul Finkelman
In a review for the Wall Street Journal, Fergus M. Bordewich wrote:
In this short, fierce book—part of the “American Presidents” series—Mr. Finkelman has delivered an unvarnished but compelling portrait of one of our least remembered but far from insignificant presidents. Against his grain, he gives Fillmore credit for promoting a number of “visionary” ideas that would come to fruition only after he left the presidency in 1853: the transcontinental railroad, the assertion of American power in Hawaii, the building of a Central American canal. “But on the central issues of the age,” Mr. Finkelman writes at the end of “Millard Fillmore,” “his vision was myopic and his legacy is worse.”
Has anyone read the book? Is it any good?
More:
3 Comments | Biography, Books, History, Presidents | Tagged: Biography, Books, History, Millard Fillmore, Paul Finkelman, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Greg Williams produces more cartoons than newspapers can print (or do print) — he’s got a blog called WikiWorld as an outlet for some of them. At WikiWorld, he does a one-panel cartoon to accompany some article he found at Wikipedia. It’s much cooler than it sounds.
Do our history students appreciate the significance of Kilroy? Williams offers a quick cartoon to explain.
Would this make a good poster for a classroom? Greg Williams cartoon, Wikipedia information
In my studies of rhetoric at the University of Arizona, one class turned to a long discussion on Kilroy. Without the internet, we had to make do with memory, logic, argument, and a quick trip to the library to see what we could find quickly.
My thesis, which I still hold, is that the presence of Kilroy marks the existence of sanity in otherwise crazy world, and that the rise of Kilroy, or Kilroyism, in war, demonstrates the spirit necessary to win. Kilroy didn’t win the war singlehandedly, of course — but it was that spirit of Kilroy that turned the tide to victory for the Americans and allies so many times, in so many places.
Why isn’t Kilroy in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) list?
More, resources:
Kilroy, in granite, at the World War II Memorial, Washington, D.C. - Wikimedia image, photo by Luis Rubio
1 Comment | Cartoons, History, Kilroy Was Here, World War II | Tagged: Cartoons, Greg Williams, Kilroy, Kilroy Was Here, Wikipedia, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Among other things one might observe from this film, one might note that Yosemite National Park’s beauty is so great that it looks good from almost any angle, even with tourists plastered all over it.
This was released between Yosemite Nature Notes #14 and #15, and I find no other description. This remains a wonderful series showing off the geography and natural phenomena of Yosemite. I wish there were similar programs for Yellowstone, Glacier, Denali, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Big Bend, Great Smoky Mountains, and for the Adirondack State Park in New York, among many others.
2 Comments | Geography - Physical, Government, National Parks, Natural history, Nature, photography, Yosemite | Tagged: geography, Government, National Parks, Natural history, Nature, Nature Notes, photography, Yosemite National Park | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Do Americans have great business sense?
Then it is unlikely that we’ll pass up the opportunity to export energy for profit — and consequently, we’ll boost our wind generating capacities, geothermal power generation, and step in to retake the lead in solar cell development and production, won’t we?
Here is a story I’ll bet you missed last spring — I missed it, too; from the Daily Ticker:
Just as the average price for gas is set to hit $4 a gallon this week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports February was the third month out of four that the U.S. — the world’s most energy-hungry nation — actually exported more oil that it imported.
Despite the notion that the U.S. is currently hugely reliant on foreign oil, the country sold 34,000 more barrels of petroleum products a day than it imported in November 2010. And, in both December and February, the U.S. sold 54,000 more barrels a day. Net imports have not been negative for nearly two decades.
Part of this has to do with weak U.S. demand in recent years due to the recession. The other part rests on the growing demand in our own backyard for not only crude oil, but refined oil as well.
Mexico, Latin America and even OPEC member Ecuador are some of the U.S.’s top customers for fuel products, namely refined oil. Rising demand in these countries far outpaces their capacity to refine crude oil into petroleum products like gasoline or diesel fuel.
But, as Dan points out in the accompanying clip, this is not the only news item that hints at this country’s ability to export energy to the rest of the world.
Yesterday, Arch Coal announced a $3.4 billion all-cash deal to buy its competitor International Coal Group. The transaction would make the newly formed company the second-largest U.S. supplier of metallurgical coal, which is the coal used to make steel.
And because of growing demand in places like India and China, where coal is used for electricity, the U.S. has started to export more at higher prices than in previous years.
Then there’s natural gas. U.S. reserves of natural gas have also grown considerably in the last decade to record levels. A new report by the Potential Gas Committee suggests that in the last two years, potential U.S. natural gas supplies have increased by 3 percent. Two years ago, however, the group reported that supplies jumped 36 percent.
The U.S. does not currently export liquefied natural gas, but that time may soon be on the horizon.
Watch a video discussion of the news:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
What Energy Problem? U.S. Oil Exports Are on th…, posted with vodpod
Of course the U.S. is not about to join OPEC. But this news, quietly sneaking up on us as it did, should change the nature of the discussions about our energy future, and the direction, too.
In the first place, energy substitution — wind and geothermal for coal and oil, for example — becomes an issue of generating revenue, rather than just saving imports. If we can get power from the wind for free and sell coal to others for profit as a result, we get wins for U.S. citizenry and big wins for U.S. industry.
I haven’t seen much discussion of the topic. Stephen Leahy wrote an opinion piece for Common Dreams suggesting that oil companies have a political stake in keeping this news quiet, in order to get greater advantage for themselves, especially in electoral politics.
The only reason U.S. citizens may be forced to endure a risky, Canadian-owned oil pipeline called Keystone XL is so oil companies with billion-dollar profits can get the dirty oil from Canada’s tar sands down to the Gulf of Mexico to export to Europe, Latin America or Asia, according to a new report by Oil Change International released Wednesday.
“Keystone XL will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but rather transport Canadian oil to American refineries for export to overseas markets,” concludes the report, titled “Exporting Energy Security”.
Little of the 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of tar sands oil pumped through the 2,400-kilometre, seven-billion-dollar Keystone XL will end up in U.S. gas tanks because the refineries on the Gulf Coast are all about expanding export markets. One huge refinery operator called Valero has been touting the potential export revenues of tar sands oil to investors, the report found.
In 1941, the U.S. was the largest oil-producing and oil-exporting nation in the world. When we cut off oil to Japan, Japan determined to attack the U.S. to try to get energy superiority in the Pacific, and our nation was pulled into World War II.
Is it possible we can avoid future energy wars, and change the game with our energy exporting capabilities over the next decade? What do you think? Does this change any game, and how does it change things?
Watch those exports.
3 Comments | Coal, Economics, Energy, History, Oil, Politics | Tagged: coal, Economics, Energy, History, Keystone Pipeline, Keystone XL, Oil, Oil Pipeline, Politics, Tar Sands | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Special invitation just for you:
 |
You’re invited: “Uncensored” Celebration at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin
On Friday, September 9, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas announces “Uncensored,” the opening celebration for the fall exhibitions, “Banned, Burned, Seized, and Censored” and “The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia, 1920-1925.”
Materials from the archive of ACLU attorney Morris Ernst, who defended James Joyce’s novel Ulysses against obscenity charges, are featured in the exhibition.
Order your tickets from the Harry Ransom Center’s website.
From the flyer on the event:
Banned, Burned, Seized, and Censored
How did hundreds of thousands of books, pictures, plays, and magazines come to be banned, burned, seized, and censored in the span of less than 30 years? This exhibition, drawn from the Ransom Center’s holdings, reveals the rarely-seen “machinery” of American censorship from 1918 to 1941. Writers, reformers, agents, attorneys, and publishers battled publicly over obscenity and freedom of expression. Ulysses, All Quiet on the Western Front, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and The Grapes of Wrath came under fire from would-be censors alongside classics like The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales. This exhibition tells how the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, the New England Watch and Ward Society, the Post Office Department, and the Customs Bureau irrevocably altered the American literary landscape.
The exhibit runs through January 22. The Harry Ransom Center is located at the corner of 21st and Guadalupe Streets on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. For more information, including a map of parking options, visit http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/visit or 512-471-8944.
Leave a Comment » | Banned Books, Books, Censorship, First Amendment, History, Museums | Tagged: Banned Books, Books, Censorship, First Amendment, Harry Ransom Center, History, Museums, University of Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Not a nostalgic look, Gary Nicholson and Christopher Lockett are making a documentary about typewriters, and people who use them in the 21st century.
Yeah, I’m interested.
Here’s their description of the project:
In May of 2010, Los Angeles-based filmmakers Christopher Lockett and Gary Nicholson read an article on Wired.com about “The Last Generation Of Typewriter Repairmen.” Casual conversation over coffee about the importance of the typewriter in world history eventually turned toward the inevitable conclusion that “this would make a good documentary.”
Lockett and Nicholson agreed that the passing of the typewriter, a portable printing press that moved the world’s communication technology from pen and ink to the QWERTY keyboards on today’s computers, along with the highly skilled technicians who service them, should be documented.
But as so often happens in documentaries, a funny thing happened on the way… to paraphrase Mark Twain, news of the typewriter’s death is greatly exaggerated. Three typewriter repairmen the filmmakers have interviewed all agree that their business is better than it has been in years.
Perhaps it is a reaction to the plugged in existence of today’s 24/7 communications world. Perhaps it is mere nostalgia and kitsch. Perhaps it is an admiration for the elegance of design and the value of time-tested workmanship. And for some, like typewriter collector Steve Soboroff, it is the appeal of owning machines on which American writers like Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Ray Bradbury, John Updike and Jack London typed some of their finest work. (He also owns typewriters once owned by George Bernard Shaw and John Lennon)
But one thing is certain, from the Typosphere – an online community of bloggers who sometimes meet up for “Type-In” events, to vintage stores in fashionable neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Portland and Philadelphia, to noted typewriter collector Tom Hanks, to teachers using typewriters to encourage young writers to focus their thoughts without benefit of a delete key – if the typewriter is on the way out, it’s going out with more appreciation that it’s seen in years.
So far, the filmmakers have documented two Type-in events, (Los Angeles and Phoenix, AZ) have interviewed three typewriter repairmen, one noted typewriter collector and already have arranged to interview at least one Hollywood screenwriter who still uses a typewriter. They have also interviewed journalists, authors, teachers, enthusiasts and people who use typewriters in their personal and professional life.
But there are other novelists, screenwriters and enthusiasts out there. And there are so many more typewriters they’d like to feature – typewriters that produced some of the finest works of 20th Century American literature. They have also interviewed technicians with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office who repair the typewriters the department still uses. They are handy for typing forms in triplicate and for such communications requiring a personal touch as letters of condolence.
Along with dozens of photographically gorgeous typewriters lovingly restored by repairmen Ruben Flores, Ermanno Manzorati and Bill Wahl, the filmmakers have interviewed Darryl Rehr, the author of the definitive book “Collecting Antique Typewriters” and an artist whose work features typewriters.
On the wish-list are an East Coast-based orchestra that uses typewriters in their music, the US Patent office holding Christopher Scholes original 1868 US Patent for the typewriter, a man in Philadelphia who has wired a manual typewriter to a computer screen via USB cable and a 15-year-old collector in West Virginia who has collected more than 200 machines and has written and published a book about collecting typewriters. A writer who got kicked out of the Writers Room in Grenwich Village for using his grandmother’s 1929 Royal typewriter and making too much noise. He was given an ultimatum: Use a laptop or get out. Also on that wish-list: an artist who creates her work by typing out portraits on the page, an “instant poet” who types spontaneous poetry on the street, and an author who has documented the feminist history of the typewriter’s early days – it was the first piece of office machinery that gave women the opportunity for employment outside the home.
All of which is currently beyond the filmmakers’ financial grasp. Travel isn’t cheap. In terms of technical skills and gear, the filmmakers are covered. Lockett holds an MFA in Cinematography from the American Film Institute and his credits include TV shows for every major TV network and most cable networks, indie features and PBS documentaries. Nicholson holds a BFA in Motion Pictures and Television from the Academy of Art University and his producing credits include indie features, Broadway, and music. The team is shooting on Canon 7D and 60D DLSRs and editing in 1920 x 1080 full HD on Final Cut Pro and recording sound digitally on a Zoom H4N.
The Typewriter (In The 21st Century) – if the typewriter didn’t exist, the filmmakers couldn’t have typed this. And you probably wouldn’t be reading it on a computer screen. It’s that important.
The film will feature people who demonstrate much greater fanatacism towards typewriters than I do.
My ears are tintinnabulating in anticipation.
2 Comments | History, Technology, Typewriters, Video and film | Tagged: film, History, Technology, The Typewriter (In The 21st Century), Typewriters | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 