Posts Tagged ‘Davidson College
“Solvitur Ambulando” – It is solved by walking, 2018 Labyrinth Walks, Wedgewood Church – Charlotte NC:“Solvitur Ambulando” – It is solved by walking, 2017 Lenten Labyrinth Walks (Walk 6/40), Wedgewood Church, Charlotte NC, 52 Words Every Christian Should Know:
Sights, sounds and musings … another free form day.
Totally overcast and damp breeze. The breeze and the Holy Spirit took my thoughts to the new movie The Shack. So I wondered how I would portray the Trinity. How would you?
Little birdhouse that I never noticed and later saw two robins, one atop the birdhouse clearly not meant for her.
Massive construction near major power lines; I’m not sure why someone would invest so much money right there on a busy street with electrical lines running in their front yard.
Massive oak tree.
Crunch, crunch, crunch – the pebble path is clearly not my favorite.
Red ant bed
Sounds of traffic at this busy intersection (Tyvola and Wedgewood)
52 Words Every Christian Should Know
Last week’s words were about God, this week’s words are about Scripture and include inspiration, infallibility, the Law, prophecy, interpretation and the Great Commandments. But today I will focus on the writer’s approach.
“I have written from a broadly evangelical perspective. My treatment is sensitive to areas where there are major differences of opinion, such as dispensational eschatology, Calvinism, Pentecostal issues, and the sacraments or ordinances. On the other hand, I affirm as a foundation the classic confessions of the churches (the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed) and the five pillars of the Reformation (salvation as taught in Scripture alone, by Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, to the glory of God alone). If you relate positively to these beliefs and want to gain a better understanding of essential Christian terms, this book is for you.”
Source: Easley, Kendell (2010-07-19). 52 Words Every Christian Should Know (p. 1). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
So I have to ask myself, do I relate positively to these beliefs? I must admit that I relate negatively to the introductory phrase “evangelical perspective,” but that is a visceral response and actually does not reflect what I have come to understand is the true meaning of the word. So I relate positively to the beliefs, but negatively to the box into which the author puts them. What do you think?
About labyrinths:
“The Labyrinth is an ancient spiritual tool meant to awaken us to the deep rhythm that unites us to ourselves and to the Light that calls from within. Based on the circle, the universal symbol for unity and wholeness, the labyrinth sparks the human imagination and introduces it to the intuitive part of our nature. It allows us, in a very simple, fundamental way, to let go of present concerns and open ourselves to a quiet place of new thought.”
Source: Labyrinth | Joy’s Rustic Garden Labyrinth Walk, https://joysrusticgarden.com/labyrinth/.
And I finish this walk with pebbles in my shoe …
3.6.17
A few extras …
Kith/kin, Davidson College, gifts: My sister began painting a few years ago. This painting of Davidson College was her graduation gift to Molly. Her paintings are from the heart.
Red Boot Coalition:
Red Boot Step Eleven: We came to see that living our lives as outlined in these eleven steps positively impacts our lives and the lives of those around us. We feel a new and joyful responsibility to serve our community in any number of ways. We are engaged.
Neon Museum – Las Vegas NV: Cary … thanks to you, I have been there.
“Solvitur Ambulando” – It is solved by walking, 2015 Lenten Labyrinth Walks 9/40, South Tryon Community Church (UMC): I came back to this labyrinth hoping that it had been restored. I know it is a Boy Scout project from quite a few years ago, but this one has REALLY fallen into disrepair. And it was a lovely treat for this community. I wish someone had taken the time to teach the community of its purpose and use.
Today, much of it is been dug up; there is even a pile of bricks over to the side.
I think some heavy equipment has dug it up, too. It is extremely damp, and in places there is 3 inches of mud.
I know the path, so walk it anyway.
I’ll look around and I realize there has been a leak; there’s a pipe, and there are huge puddles collecting water.
I hear trains, I hear and see buses and cars as everyone scurries to get home on a Friday afternoon.
If I had lots of money I would pay to restore this labyrinth and do some training. I think the people of this community would really enjoy it if they knew and appreciated it. I also think that they would enjoy receiving the guests that would come, like I do, just to walk the labyrinth.
This urban church is part of the community. I see and hear children yelling and playing
I made it work.
New Rules Spur a Humbling Overhaul of Wall St. Banks, NYTimes.com
Nearly seven years after the financial crisis, banks are still churning out profits and wrestling with regulators.
Yet Wall Street, by many important measures, appears to be in the middle of a humbling transformation.
Bonuses are shrinking. Revenue growth has stalled. Entire business lines are being cut. And some investors are even asking whether the biggest banks should be broken up — changes that are all largely attributed to a not-so-well-known set of rules regarding capital, a financial metric that captures how much cushion banks might have in the event of a crisis.
via New Rules Spur a Humbling Overhaul of Wall St. Banks – NYTimes.com.
Map Shows Loudest and Quietest Places in the U.S.:
Where is it quiet, and where is it loud? A map unveiled at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose, California, shows you where to go if you want a landscape without much racket.
It was produced by researchers from the National Park Service and elsewhere, who compiled 1.5 million hours of acoustic monitoring from around the country, Science reports. They then created an algorithm that predicted noise values for areas where sound wasn’t directly measured.
The map was made in part to see what areas may have ambient sound levels that could interfere with the survival of species like owls, which have sensitive hearing and require relative quiet to detect prey.
Be Still meditation:
The Oasis: Particularity of Time and Space, Davidson College:
It strikes me that Davidson overall is a temple in this contemplative sense, too, of higher learning and higher selves, individually and together.
Particularity and pluralism, faith and reason, time and space.
Professors question traditional four-year residential college model – LA Times, Davidson College, flipped courses, higher education, 4-year residential college:
“Remaking College: The Changing Ecology of Higher Education,” which Stevens edited with fellow Stanford professor Michael Kirst, questions the four-year college path that evolved after World War II. The authors advocate for a more flexible model that is based less on the Ivy League and more on for-profit colleges.
…
“Higher education is Teflon compared to that,” said Kirst, president of the state Board of Education.
As our “outsourced economy” continues to whither, and our population swells thanks to “open borders”, I don’t expect the “Land of Opportunity” to have much left.
Colleges have begun receiving score cards from the federal government based on their cost and graduation rates, among other factors. And the Obama administration has proposed a ratings system for colleges that would take into account tuition, average student debt and graduation and transfer rates.
Stevens said he sees more innovation in the technology field. Several San Francisco start-ups have started offering seminar-style college courses aimed at training people for tech jobs. And Stanford students and administrators have discussed a program to spread undergraduate studies over a longer period than four years.
But of all the residential campuses, Stevens said he believes Davidson College near Charlotte, N.C., has done the best job of exploring alternatives to the traditional four-year schedule among selective private schools.
The school has offered “flipped” courses in which students watch lectures on their computers and spend their time in class interacting with their peers and professors. The school also started an adult learning institute that offers primarily evening courses designed for adult students.
At Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, professors have been tracking results for students taking “flipped” classes and comparing them against the same class in a traditional setting.
Davidson President Carol Quillen said she’s not sure what role flipped courses and adult learning will play in the college’s future. “No one knows what the impact of new technologies is going to be on higher education,” she said.
Quillen said the college is likely to keep trying to find ways to integrate technology in the classroom, but she didn’t foresee it tearing down dorms any time soon.
“It would be foolish and possibly irresponsible to ignore it,” she said. “I don’t know how we can tell students they can make a difference in the world if we don’t teach them about technology.”
via Professors question traditional four-year residential college model – LA Times.
Religion’s Role in the History of Ideas – WSJ:
It happens every year. In teaching my humanities class, I ask what a philosopher had in mind in writing about the immortality of the soul or salvation, and suddenly my normally loquacious undergraduates start staring down intently at their notes. If I ask them a factual theological question about the Protestant Reformation, they are ready with an answer: predestination, faith not works, etc.
But if I go on to ask them how one knows in one’s heart that one is saved, they turn back to their notes. They look anywhere but at me, for fear that I might ask them about feeling the love of God or about having a heart filled with faith. In this intellectual history class, we talk about sexuality and identity, violence and revolution, art and obscenity, and the students are generally eager to weigh in. But when the topic of religious feeling and experience comes up, they would obviously just prefer that I move on to another subject.
Why is it so hard for my very smart students to make this leap—not the leap of faith but the leap of historical imagination? I’m not trying to make a religious believer out of anybody, but I do want my students to have a nuanced sense of how ideas of knowledge, politics and ethics have been intertwined with religious faith and practice.
Julianna’s: I just love this place.
As quaint and charming as ever, this cafe serves up a menu of both savory and sweet crepes. Since I hadn’t had lunch yet, I went for savory while Lucy went for the classic sweet combo of strawberries, banana, and honey. Both tasted a bit like the French/Hungarian childhood I never had.
Charles Wright ’57, America’s Next Poet Laureate, Davidson College: Another great day to be a wildcat!
As a Davidson student Wright was a history major and won the college’s Vereen Bell Prize for writing. Davidson awarded Wright an honorary doctor of letters degree in 1997, the year before he won the Pulitzer Prize. “Poetry fulfills a spiritual need, the need to explain to myself what it is I would like to happen,” Wright once told the Davidson Journal.
via The New York Times: Charles Wright ’57, America’s Next Poet Laureate – Davidson College.
…
“Poetry is the dark side of the moon,” he said. “It’s up there, and you can see the front of it. But what it is isn’t what you’re looking at. It’s behind what you’re looking at.”
via Charles Wright Named America’s Poet Laureate – NYTimes.com.
MegaBus: Odd assortment on the bus … Indian woman in beautiful Indian attire walked up and demanded younger girl give up her seat and younger girl did, very cute chatty younger twenty-something with white skeleton on black background t-shirt and sticker that says “wanted: redneck girl with truck” and African American older woman who is totally upset because somehow she will have a 5 hour wait in Charlotte and she thought it was only an hour. It was a relatively full bus: I still love my bus!
ACAC Southeast Art Summit 9/50 opening soirée: I know I am getting old … Meow Lin (Chanel Kim) and ZigZagZig (Zopi Kristjanson) hip-hoppin’ their “lunar mythology” with inspiration drawn from Wu Tang Clan, ancient cultures, and personal drama … funky!
Bloomsday 6.16: Happy Bloomsday 6.16!
James Joyce’s “Ulysses” changed literature and the world, not necessarily in the ways its author intended and certainly in ways we still don’t entirely understand. One of the unexpected effects of the novel, which was first published in its entirety in Paris in 1922, was the most famous obscenity trial in U.S. history, conducted in 1933. That trial serves as the culmination of Kevin Birmingham’s astute and gorgeously written “The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses,’” an account of the tortuous path Joyce’s masterpiece took to print. Publishing is not the world’s most fast-paced and high-stakes business, but when it came to introducing the English-speaking world to a novel that one critic deplored as “full of the filthiest blasphemies” and “afflicted with a truly diabolical lack of talent,” the ride was a wild one.
Countless reams of paper have been consumed by writings on Joyce and “Ulysses,” but Birmingham has two particular, little-discussed themes to bring to the table. First, and most peripheral to his narrative, is Birmingham’s discovery of strong evidence that the eye problems that tormented and eventually blinded Joyce were caused by syphilis. (Birmingham concludes that a medication given to Joyce by his Parisian doctor in the late 1920s was probably “an obscure French drug called galyl,” used only to treat symptoms of syphilis.) Birmingham expands on this a bit by arguing that the effects of pain and disability on the writer and his work have been underestimated. It’s a credible argument, especially once you’ve read this book’s squirm-inducing description of a typical eye surgery Joyce endured and learn that he went through the equivalent a dozen times over. But Birmingham never quite gets around to showing how Joyce’s suffering shaped his work.
via “The Most Dangerous Book”: When “Ulysses” was obscene – Salon.com.
family history, kith/kin: And this is what I was searching for … A picture of my mom that through Facebook reconnecting, a friend from Davidson and I discovered that her mother took this of my mother at Wesleyan College. She had asked my mom to model for her.
And in response … here’s another pic your Mother may enjoy: the reporter/photographer in action while working on the Anderson Daily Mail! My Mama – the journalist/photographer – with the elephant! One of my all time favorites!
kith/kin: Photos at the train station … they look like the Addams Family. We think my sis, a Wednesday’s child, would have made a good Wednesday Addams …
In Addams’ cartoons, which first appeared in The New Yorker, Wednesday and other members of the family had no names. When the characters were adapted to the 1964 television series, Charles Addams gave her the name “Wednesday”, based on the well-known nursery rhyme line, “Wednesday’s child is full of woe”. She is the sister of Pugsley Addams (and, in the movie Addams Family Values, also the sister of Pubert Addams), and she is the only daughter of Gomez and Morticia Addams.
In all fairness to my sis …
Hawkinsville GA, Pineview GA: All my life when I visited Pineview GA, we would visit nearby Hawkinsville GA, and my grandparents would turn down Merritt St and stop in front of this house. They would say that my grandparents house on Bay Street in Pineview had been built in a hurry to replace a house that looked just like this house that had burned down around 1910. My great-grandfather JJ Dennard refused to build another two-story house since two of his girls had to jump to safety from the second story balcony. The new house which still stands is one story and all rooms have a door to the outside.
Artistic Sushi Rolls, Edvard Munch:
via Artistic Sushi Rolls – Edvard Munch inspired Food Art from Sushi Sculptors.
‘Lawrence of Afghanistan’… And His Woman, Jim Gant, Top Green Beret Officer: Fascinating story!
via Lawrence of Afghanistan: Rise and Fall of a Special Forces Legend Photos | Image #3 – ABC News.
‘Lawrence of Afghanistan’… And His Woman
General David Petraeus: ‘Going Native’ To Win In Afghanistan
A legendary Special Forces commander was quietly forced to leave the U.S. Army after he admitted to a love affair with a Washington Post war correspondent, who quit her job to secretly live with him for almost a year in one of the most dangerous combat outposts in Afghanistan.
U.S. Army Special Operations Command never publicly disclosed that highly-decorated Green Beret Major Jim Gant was relieved of command at the end of a harrowing 22 months in combat in March 2012.
His commanders charged in confidential files that he had “indulged in a self-created fantasy world” of booze, pain pills and sex in a tribal village deep in Taliban and al Qaeda country with his “wife,” journalist Ann Scott Tyson.
via Jim Gant: Top Green Beret Officer Forced to Resign Over Affair With WaPo Reporter – ABC News.
On the summer solstice, three siblings and one lone outlaw spouse enjoyed an outdoor fire in Atlanta after a delightful dinner and several glasses of delightful wine or other spirits … followed by a spirited discussion of all things political and religious …
The Gift of Siblings, NYTimes.com: Worth reposting … .
“Siblings are the only relatives, and perhaps the only people you’ll ever know, who are with you through the entire arc of your life,” the writer Jeffrey Kluger observed to Salon in 2011, the year his book “The Sibling Effect” was published. “Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most inchoate form.”
Of course the “entire arc” part of Kluger’s comments assumes that untimely death doesn’t enter the picture, and that acrimony, geography or mundane laziness doesn’t pull brothers and sisters apart, to a point where they’re no longer primary witnesses to one another’s lives, no longer fellow passengers, just onetime housemates with common heritages.
That happens all too easily, and whenever I ponder why it didn’t happen with Mark, Harry, Adelle and me — each of us so different from the others — I’m convinced that family closeness isn’t a happy accident, a fortuitously smooth blend of personalities.
IT’S a resolve, a priority made and obeyed. Mark and his wife, Lisa, could have stayed this weekend in the Boston area, where they live, and celebrated his 50th with his many nearby college buddies. Harry and his wife, Sylvia, could have taken a pass on a trip to New York: they’re traveling all the way from the Los Angeles area, their home. But we made a decision to be together, and it’s the accretion of such decisions across time that has given us so many overlapping memories, which are in turn our glue.
Davidson College, Document Legacy of Lake Norman Online:
Lake Norman, the largest manmade lake in the Carolinas, was created in 1964 when Duke Energy built a hydroelectric dam on the nearby Catawba River. As buildings and roads vanished underwater and backyards suddenly turned into shoreline, Lake Norman transformed the local community.
The anniversary prompted college archivist Jan Blodgett to think about cataloguing the history of this prominent environmental feature. At the same time, Duke Energy officials approached her about creating an online educational resource for the public.
“The creation of Lake Norman changed the landscape of the region both literally and figuratively,” said Tim Gause, Duke Energy district manager. “It was and continues to be a catalyst for growth and vitality. We certainly appreciate the need to preserve its colorful history.”
Blodgett subsequently collaborated with Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Brad Johnson and Professor of Economics David Martin to conceive the DCLNP as an assignment for environmental studies majors.
Johnson said this project also comes at an important phase in the lake’s history. “We are right at the point of losing the people who still remember what this area was like before Lake Norman. It’s important to hear the stories of these people so that they can be preserved,” he explained.
via Students Document Legacy of Lake Norman Online – Davidson College.
South Africa, Much too fat, The Economist: First world problems …
South Africa’s latest ailment could herald a dangerous trend across the rest of Africa and the poor world, where obesity is projected to increase dramatically in the next two decades, along with urbanisation and economic development. It is a paradox that in places where malnutrition in children is high, adults are increasingly likely to be overweight or obese, say researchers.
Most South Africans sound comfortable with their waistlines. A health-and-nutrition survey published by the country’s Human Sciences Research Council found that two-thirds of South African men and women reckoned that they ate and drank healthily, with no need to change their way of life. Indeed, 88% of 25,500 South Africans interviewed indicated that the body image they deemed ideal was, in fact, fat.
Reflections On a Davidson College Reunion Weekend | Paul Dryden: I have to ask if any of my ’79 friends were there when the police arrived?
My hope takes form in a rumor swirling around during reunion weekend about the class of 1979. Those 56- and 57-year-olds, so said the chatter, stayed up all Friday night to catch up and get rowdy with drinks. They say the campus police came in to breakup the frolics at 5 a.m. This makes me smile. I hope it’s true because inside that party I can imagine many old classmates thawing the friendship freeze that came as life marched on; reconnecting in ways they haven’t in the 35 years since their graduation. Their kids are grown up, and their careers are winding down. They have time that we simply don’t right now. I hope they take these rekindled friendships home, pick up the phone a little more often, and act like dumb 20- year-olds together.
via Reflections On a Davidson College Reunion Weekend | Paul Dryden
Words Matter and Student Translators Have “Mercy”, Davidson College, kith/kin: I think this is one of those classes that will stay with the students for their entire life …
Just think about that: In any language, we are indeed at the mercy, at some point, of some translator, somewhere. This night in the Carolina Inn, six Davidson students rose to offer some details of just how.
They worked from across a diverse range of traditions: a wartime radio address delivered by De Gaulle from London; a previously untranslated 1992 Gamoneda poem from Spain; a page of idiosyncratic screenplay from the recent French blockbuster The Intouchables; a ribald Roman comedy by Plautus from the first century B.C.E.; an ambiguous Greek ode by Sappho six centuries before Plautus; and a feminist revolutionary’s poem in Chinese about an early 1900s visit to Japan.
Just as telling as the original readings and translations were the students’ commentary on their projects, collected in a handsome chapbook. A sampling:
• “To complicate matters, cárdenas does not correspond directly to any color in English…. And while I believe that ‘purplish lilies’ is the best option, it still is far from perfect. Alas.” —Peter Bowman ’16, on Antonio Gamoneda’s “Book of the Cold”
Senior Art History Majors Study Original Works in Vienna, Davidson College: Can I go back to college?
At the beginning of each spring semester senior art history majors find out the title of their capstone seminar-the title reveals not only what they’ll be studying, but also where they’ll be traveling. This spring, Professor of Art History Larry Ligo announced to the nine majors that the course would be “The Art and Architecture of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna.”
“It’s a significant period not only in terms of painters, but also sculptors and architects,” said Ligo. Artists and architects, including Oskar Kokoschka, Adolf Loos, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt and Otto Wagner, produced work during this 20-year period from 1890 to 1920. Two major driving forces were the 1897 Secession, during which artists hoped to transition from the traditional ornamental baroque style to a new visual language, and the Wiener Werkstätte, a production community of painters, architects and designers that evolved from the Secession.
Ligo added, “It wasn’t solely a revolutionary time for the visual arts. Freud was developing his ideas in psychology, Wittgenstein in philosophy, and Arthur Schnitzler in theatre.” To explore these subjects further, he invited three outside lecturers to lead class discussions: Professor of History Patricia Tilburg, Professor of Psychology Cole Barton and Professor of Theatre Caroline Weist.
However, the students delivered the majority of class lectures. Ligo said, “Although I designed the course, I wanted the students to take over.” Students were randomly assigned an artist, architect or movement to study in depth throughout the semester and then teach to the class. “The topics are randomly assigned because the course is meant to be a time of discovery rather than learning more about something you already know.”
The students’ individual research culminated in final lectures presented on site in Vienna.
via Senior Art History Majors Study Original Works in Vienna – Davidson College.
Vienna’s chocolate cake war, BBC News, sachertorte, Hotel Sacher or the Demel cafe: I need to go back to Vienna … 30 years this week.
For many visitors to the Austrian capital, enjoying a slice of delicious sachertorte is an essential thing to do during their stay.
And there are two famous, rival places to go for the cake – Hotel Sacher or the Demel cafe.
“Sacher has been incredibly good at building on their brand, the famous cake, the story line, and, most importantly, maintaining the perception [of being the original]”
Martin Lindstrom, Brand expert
A classic example of a duopoly, the two businesses more than dominate the sachertorte market, both in Austria, and overseas via online sales.
The legal battle, which ran from 1954 to 1963, was centred on which had the right to call its sachertorte the “original” one.
The case was complicated by the fact that the son of the chef credited with inventing the cake, in the 19th Century, had connections to both businesses.
However, eventually an out-of-court settlement was agreed, under which Hotel Sacher became the one that could say it was the original producer of the sachertorte.
Startup Hires “Fake” Mandela Sign-Language Interpreter for Bizarre Ad, Re/code, can’t make this stuff up, Tel Aviv-based Livelens (which recently raised $2 million for its social live streaming app):
An Israeli startup’s new ad features the “fake” sign-language interpreter from Nelson Mandela’s memorial service — and the company says it pulled him out of a psychiatric hospital to film it.
The commercial featuring Thamsanqa Jantjie is a stunt from Tel Aviv-based Livelens, which recently raised $2 million for its social livestreaming app.
via Startup Hires “Fake” Mandela Sign-Language Interpreter for Bizarre Ad | Re/code.
VP Joe Biden, ‘Elizabeth Warren-type speech’, CNN Political Ticker, CNN.com Blogs: Sometimes I can’t avoid politics …
Biden did not mention his own White House ambitions. But several Democrats at the event were struck by one remark he made about Bill Clinton’s presidency: Three sources there told CNN that Biden said the fraying of middle-class economic security did not begin during President George W. Bush’s terms, but earlier, in the “later years of the Clinton administration.” Biden, of course, could face off against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016 if they both decide to run.
Biden’s speech was described, to a person, as “populist.”
“He gave a stem-winding, almost revival-type speech today,” one Democrat said of the vice president. “I have never seen him this good. He was on fire. Sometimes when Joe gives a speech that goes on for 30 minutes, people are kind of drifting off or looking at their watches. But he was more enthused, more passionate. He was a preacher delivering a sermon.”
via Biden delivers ‘Elizabeth Warren-type speech’ at fundraiser – CNN Political Ticker – CNN.com Blogs.
The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, The Bright Cloud of Unknowing, Transfiguration (Matt. 17-1-9): From a while back, but I wanted it in my researchable database …
For those of you who keep the Christian calendar along with the one that says this Sunday is March 2, you know it’s the swing Sunday between the seasons of Epiphany and Lent–the day those who follow Jesus look down at our maps and say, “Uh-oh,” because it is time to turn away from the twinkling stars of Christmas toward the deep wilderness of Lent. As gloomy as that may sound, it is very good news. Most of us are so distracted by our gadgets, so busy with our work, so addicted to our pleasures, and so resistant to our depths that a nice long spell in the wilderness is just what we need.
No one can make you go, after all. But if you’ve been looking for some excuse to head to your own mountaintop and pray, this is it. If you’ve been looking for some way to trade in your old certainties for new movement in your life, look no further. This is your chance to enter the cloud of unknowing and listen for whatever it is that God has to say to you. Tent or no tent, this is your chance to encounter God’s contagious glory, so that a little of that shining rubs off on you.
Today you have heard a story you can take with you when you go. It tells you that no one has to go up the mountain alone. It tells you that sometimes things get really scary before they get holy. Above all, it tells you that there is someone standing in the center of the cloud with you, shining so brightly that you may never be able to wrap your mind around him, but who is worth listening to all the same–because he is God’s beloved, and you are his, and whatever comes next, you are up to it. Amen.
Handwriting Analysis of Jane Austen, My Strength and My Song:
Jane Austen, well-loved author of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and others, has beautiful and unique writing that reveals much about her personality. Click on the image above to view a larger version. Here are a few of the traits I found in her writing:
1. Rightward Slant – Miss Austen noticeably slants to the right in her cursive. This is normal for people of highly expressive natures. She shows her emotions, feels comfortable expressing herself, and demonstrates compassion. She easily sympathizes with others.
2. Desire for Culture – The lower case ‘d’ (as in ‘Friday’ at the top of the letter) that ends with a stroke high and to the left instead of returning to the baseline indicates a love for elegance, high art, fine dining, literature, and music.
3. Enthusiasm – Miss Austen’s long, rightward ‘t’-bars (as in ‘told’, ‘the’ and ‘weather’ in the first line and many following words) indicate a high level of enthusiasm, especially with regards to her interests. This is a common trait of very successful people. Those with this stroke are future-oriented and driven.
4. Independence – Though I said above that Miss Austen likes people and relates well to them, she also has an independent streak that shows up in her ‘y’s that end in a straight stroke below the baseline but do not veer out toward the left (as in ‘Friday’ and ‘My’ at the top). People with this stroke prefer to get things done on their own, to not need anyone and not be needed in return. They also do not mind spending time alone and have a need to be away from people now and then. Not all of Austen’s ‘y’s look like this, so this personality trait would likely have shown up in some situations and not in others. This can be a desirable trait as it also includes a sense of determination when the ‘y’ is especially heavy and straight.
5. Argumentativeness – The ‘p’ that separates from the stem and reaches high into the middle (and even upper zone) of handwriting reveals an argumentative nature. Those with this trait might argue just for the fun of it and enjoy good verbal banter. For examples of this ‘p’, see ‘prevent’ in the second line and ‘opportunity’ in the last line of the first paragraph.
6. Diplomacy – Many of Miss Austen’s ‘m’s begin with a hump that is taller than the others. This is the sign of diplomacy, or the ability to approach even potentially sticky subjects with tact and grace. This, coupled with the fact that she writes with a rightward slant, leads me to believe that Miss Austen probably had excellent social skills and was good with people.
All this talk about Jane Austen makes me want to pick up a book! I’m off…
All the best,
Allie
PS – See handwriting analysis of more well-known figures by clicking here!
via Handwriting Analysis of Jane Austen | My Strength and My Song.
Atherton HS- Louisville KY, Gay Straight Alliance, policy, transgender controversy:
The controversy comes nearly two weeks after the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights issued guidance under its Title IX programs extending federal civil-rights protections to transgender students. However, it doesn’t offer specific advice on the use of school facilities.
The issue was brought to Aberli’s attention about a month ago when the freshman student, who was born male but identifies as a female, asked for permission to use the school’s female facilities.
“We have two facilities for all female students to use,” Aberli said. “Initially, the student was allowed to use both facilities. However, in addressing concerns raised by parents and students, I wanted to respond to those concerns, so at this time, the student is only being allowed to use one of the two restrooms.”
The situation has ignited a firestorm among some parents and community members.
Clint Elliott, an attorney with the Christian-based legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, asked the Jefferson County Board of Education on Monday night on behalf of several parents to overturn Aberli’s decision granting the student access to the girls’ facilities.
“Imagine this scenario — a transgender student, a biological boy who decides that he wants to identify with the female gender, and yet he acknowledges that he has a girlfriend and is sexually attracted to girls,” Elliott said. “Are parents supposed to be OK with allowing such boys to use the girls’ restroom and locker room facilities?”
Elliott argued that Title IX “certainly doesn’t require opening up opposite-sex facilities.”
“(This is) a violation of parents’ rights regarding the oversight of their children and educational environment of their children and it is certainly a violation of a student’s rights to privacy,” he told board members. “What about those girls and their rights to privacy and safety? What about the First Amendment rights of all students?”
Other parents and students have rushed to defend the student.
Lorenna Cooper, a junior at Atherton and a member of the school’s Gay Straight Alliance, said the student is a friend of hers who has “fought exceptionally hard for acceptance.”
Facts In Your Face @FactsInYourFace, zip code, acronyms: I guess I should have figured it was an acronym … In my mind I assumed it had something to do with speedy delivery. 🙂
The ‘zip’ in ‘zip code’ stands for ‘zone improvement plan’
via (1) Twitter.
The New York Times @nytimes, N.B.A. fan maps: Interesting …
N.B.A. fan maps. Which team do you cheer for? http://nyti.ms/1sBvhEZ pic.twitter.com/knWYLsZMUd
via The New York Times (nytimes) on Twitter.
At this point, you might be thinking that we’ve run out of ideas. Not exactly. It’s just that we happen to love maps, and Upshot readers seem to as well. In particular, you spent a lot of time with our interactive map and accompanying article detailing the borders of fandom for Major League baseball based on Facebook likes. The most common question from readers was: What about other sports?
Today, basketball fans can stop wondering.
We’re also able to answer what may have been the second-most common question about the baseball maps: What about Canada? Facebook data shows that the Raptors own Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, but haven’t made many incursions into the United States. Though much of the rest of Canada looks Laker purple on our map, many of those areas are sparsely populated or have the Raptors as a close second.
via Which Team Do You Cheer For? An N.B.A. Fan Map – NYTimes.com.
Best Graduation Rates: Colleges, Bloomberg Best (and Worst), Davidson College: #6 … I think Davidson can do better. Actually, #6 is quite good. These are the schools that came out on top: Williams, Yale Notre Dame, Princeton and Carleton. I have three children, and the 4 year graduation rate intrigues me. Of their friends, those that graduated in 4 years are in the minority unless they went to a private college or a smaller flagship university (i.e., UVA, UNC). The larger universities make getting credits and completing majors extremely difficult, so that 1 or 2 extra semesters is not unusual and certainly not looked down upon. In our era, it was just what you did.
Overview
Bloomberg ranked U.S. colleges and universities based on the four-year bachelor’s-degree graduation rate at or above 80% for full-time first-time students.
Methodology
Six-year and eight-year graduation rates were provided for comparison. Included were 1,941 public and private not-for-profit schools of four years or more that offer broad curricula; specialty schools were omitted such as military academies, seminaries and schools with religious focus, music and art schools, engineering schools, nursing schools and medical training schools. Data were for 2010 to 2011, the most recently available school year.
4-Year bachelor’s-degree graduation rate 6-Year bachelor’s-degree graduation rate 8-Year bachelor’s-degree graduation rate
via Best Graduation Rates: Colleges – Bloomberg Best (and Worst).
Vincent Van Gogh, Discovery Place/Charlotte:
He probably didn’t cut off his whole ear, just a lobe. He died a failure, having sold only one painting. He created most of his famous works in the last two years of his troubled life.
Vincent Van Gogh also painted on small canvases, but his larger-than-life multimedia exhibition opening Friday at Discovery Place won’t be contained. Van Gogh’s works will be cast as giants across a gallery accompanied by a soundtrack from Bach, Handel and other classical composers.
More than 3,000 images of Van Gogh’s paintings, sketches and letters will be splashed digitally from wall to floor, immersing visitors in his work through 40 high-definition projectors.
“Van Gogh Alive,” which comes to Charlotte from Moscow and moves on in 40 days to Philadelphia, is designed to intensify the emotional experience of the artist’s labors. It also provides the rare microscopic view of his highly-textured brush strokes, unusual for his era.
“Guests may have had previous opportunities to see a few authentic paintings in a gallery, but ‘Van Gogh Alive’ brings thousands of Van Gogh’s images under one roof in a stunning audio-visual format,” says Catherine Wilson Horne, Discovery Place’s president.
Van Gogh is a departure for Discovery Place, which tends to showcase scientific exhibits. But the immersive Sensory 4 technology, used in the recent the “101 Inventions That Changed the World,” drew the museum to the show, said Kaitlin Rogers, Discovery Place’s marketing manager.
In one corner, for example, guests’ silhouettes are digitally painted with Van Gogh’s style of color and light in an experience created by artist Ivan Toth Depena in collaboration with the McColl Center for Visual Art.
Another local touch for the Charlotte visit of the exhibition is the presence of actors who interpret Van Gogh’s life. Greeting visitors in character will be Van Gogh; his brother Theo; his artistic contemporary Paul Gauguin; or his model, Adeline Raxous.
Running concurrently with the exhibit, sponsored by Wells Fargo, is the IMAX movie “Van Gogh: Brush with Genius.”
via CharlotteObserver.com – News, sports & weather for Charlotte, NC.
Who Can Write About Performance Art?, e-flux, Judson Memorial Church: This caught my attention because, one, it is about art and two, it is being hosted by Judson Memorial Church in NYC. And of course it sent me searching. I took a Big Onion Tour of Greenwich Village in january 2013 and Judson Memorial was of course highlighted, both as a politically active faith community and as a significant sponsor of the arts. There is a great Hopper painting of Judson Memorial … http://www.walkingoffthebigapple.com/2009/02/light-in-edward-hopper-sunny-side-of.html
“Why Dance in the Art World?,” presented by The Performa Institute and NYU Steinhardt at Judson Memorial Church on September 17, 2012. Photo © Paula Court.
“Who Can Write About Performance Art?”
Thursday, April 24, 2014, 6:30pm
Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South
New York City
Share on twitterShare on emailShare
How many histories do you need to know in order to write exciting criticism about art at the axis of dance and visual art, theater and performance, and every iteration in between?
Performa is pleased to announce “Who Can Write About Performance Art?,” a lively informative panel discussion and forthcoming series of instructional workshops investigating the myriad knowledge and skills necessary to write thoughtful and insightful art criticism at the axis of dance and visual art, theater and performance, and every iteration in between. Panelists Claire Bishop, RoseLee Goldberg, Adrian Heathfield, John Rockwell, Hrag Vartanian, and David Velasco will contribute their own expertise in writing about performance in an evening that specifically focuses on the ways and means that writers approach their writing, to be as flexible in crossing these various borders as are the artists who create multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary works. Specifically, panelists will discuss their backgrounds and interest in performance—do they come from art history, theater history, or literature?—share how they first came to write about performance, and express their ideas about the responsibilities of writing about work that demands a knowledge of several disciplines at once. Participants’ contributions are informed by their diverse perspectives and experiences in art criticism, ranging from publishing texts in international monthly art magazines, daily newspapers, and websites, to extensive, book-length scholarly publications.
via Who Can Write About Performance Art? | e-flux.
…
Edward Hopper achieved fame relatively late in life, with his art career gaining momentum during the early years of the Great Depression. After years as a working artist, the Met, MoMA, and the Whitney started acquiring his paintings. Hopper turned 50 on July 22, 1932.
That year Hopper and his wife Jo moved toward the front of the building at 3 Washington Square North into a sunnier spot on the fourth floor that afforded a view overlooking the park. Inspired by the new point of view he started painting November, Washington Square, a landscape that showed the buildings on the north side of the park, prominently Judson Memorial Church. He set the unfinished painting aside for about twenty-seven years, coming back to it in 1959 and filling in the missing sky. Hopper shows Washington Square to be completely empty, not surprising for a painter known to remove people from his compositions. The painting shows a sleepy village, and with the earth tones and blue sky it looks like it could be a village in northern New Mexico.
Previous to the move to the sunny side, he painted an oil and a few watercolors of the views of the roofs from the back of the building, ones that show the chimney vents and such. City Roofs (1932) features the looming presence of 1 Fifth Avenue, the Art Deco skyscraper that upset the Villagers when it was erected. Interestingly, Hopper ignored many of the famous buildings of the era such as the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and Rockefeller Center and stuck mainly to pedestrian subjects. This strikes me as a wise move.
…
Sponsorship of the arts[edit]
Beginning in the 1950s, the church supports a radical arts ministry, first led by associate pastor Bernard Scott and subsequently by associate pastor Al Carmines. The church made space available to artists for art exhibitions, rehearsals, and performances. The church also assured that this space was to be a place where these artists could have the freedom to experiment in their work without fear of censorship. In 1957, the church offered gallery space to Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine and Robert Rauschenberg, who were then unknown artists. In 1959, the Judson Gallery showed work by pop artists, Tom Wesselmann, Daniel Spoerri, and Red Grooms. Yoko Ono also had her work exhibited at the gallery.
The Judson Dance Theater, which began in 1962, provided a venue for dancers and choreographers including Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Steve Paxton, David Gordon and Yvonne Rainer to create and show their work. Among others, these dancers and choreographers shaped dance history by creating postmodern dance, the first avant-garde movement in dance theater since the modern dance of the 1930s and 1940s. For the past several decades, Movement Research has presented concerts of experimental dance at the church on Monday evenings during the academic year.
In the 1970s, the church hosted various art shows and multimedia events. Most notable among these multimedia events was the People’s Flag Show in November 1970, a six-day exhibition of painting and sculpture on the theme of the American flag. The exhibit and the accompanying symposium, featuring speeches by Abbie Hoffman and Kate Millet, attracted widespread attention from the public, the press and the police. During the final days of the exhibit, three of the contributing artists were arrested, both pastors (Moody and Carmines) were issued summons (not followed up), and the District Attorney closed the exhibit on charges of desecration of the American flag.
The Judson Poets’ Theatre started in November 1961 – with a play by poet Joel Oppenheimer – as one of three off-off-Broadway venues (the others were Caffe Cino and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club). Experimental plays and musicals by later-famous authors and directors, including Sam Shepherd, Lanford Wilson and Tom O’Horgan, were presented in the church’s main Meeting Room. Starting in the late 1960s, Carmines began writing and producing his own musicals, and later, “oratorios” that used large volunteer choruses. Especially notable were several shows using texts by Gertrude Stein, music by Carmines, with direction by the Judson Poets Theatre director Lawrence Kornfeld.
In the 1980s, the church sponsored various political-theater performances, such as those by the Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater. These performances included Insurrection Opera and Oratario, performed in February and March 1984. In this performance, the Bread and Puppet Theater, under the direction of its founder, Peter Schumann, used opera and the company’s now signature oversized puppets to convey an anti-nuclear message. The church has recently become the home of the West Village Chorale, directed by Michael Conley. The Chorale’s former home was St. Luke’s in the Fields on Hudson Street.
The church celebrated its centennial in 1990 with performances and symposia involving many of the artists who had been involved with the arts ministry in the 1960s and 1970s. It continues both its support of the arts and its social outreach to the community.
via Judson Memorial Church – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Spitbank Fort, Solent Forts – The Most Unique Collection of Venues:
Our three AmaZing historic sea forts have been, or are in the process of being, transformed into the ultimate private island experience. Perfect for Private Parties, Fort Breaks, Weddings and Lunch Experiences, our venues offer something unique.
Erev Yom HaShoah, Holocaust:
Alex Levin, Art Levin Studio. http://www.ArtLevin.com
April 27
Tonight, on Erev Yom HaShoah-jews come together to remember the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
NEVER AGAIN!
Please SHARE picture on your Wall!!!
Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, Animated in Motion Graphics, Brain Pickings: Happy Earth Day!
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
via Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, Animated in Motion Graphics | Brain Pickings.
‘Artisanal’ Toast, The Salt : NPR:
The TIY Verdict
If you’re looking for a delicious treat — and a few extra calories — try pan-fried toast. To impress your friends, pull out the blowtorch. And when you’re stuck in a motel room and get a hankering for toast, the coffee maker should do the trick.
Or just wait for a toastery to open up in your neighborhood.
via We Didn’t Believe In ‘Artisanal’ Toast, Until We Made Our Own : The Salt : NPR.
Worth sticking with one airline?, Atlanta Forward, frequent flyer miles:
Maybe, just maybe, more customers will make a rational decision about their next flight itinerary — not one distorted by a pathological obsession with miles, but based on ticket price and convenience. A veil is slowly being lifted from the traveling public, and at last, they’re seeing loyalty programs for what they really are: habit-forming schemes that impair your ability to make a clear-headed decision about travel and that almost always benefit the travel company more than you.
via Worth sticking with one airline? | Atlanta Forward.
Cloud Photo Storage, Family Pictures, WSJ.com:
In my hunt for the best cloud photo option, five services stood out: Dropbox, Flickr, Shutterfly, SmugMug and the powerful yet clumsy combination of Google GOOGL +1.14% Drive and Google+. In the end, only Flickr managed to satisfy all my requirements, though SmugMug was a close second
via Cloud Photo Storage: The Best Ways to Bank Family Pictures – WSJ.com.
Survivalist Seder, Passover, go bags: Loved this!
That all changed Monday night, when he decided to use the first night of Passover to talk openly about emergencies and evacuation and disaster “without delving into paranoia and fear.”
Aaron had been thinking for a while now that for Passover, which comes with its own stash of basement boxes—foods and dishes to be used only for eight days a year—we’re all forced to create what he calls “a mini household in a closet.” And the Passover story, at least as he thinks about it, is really all about leaving home quickly in an emergency, with only the stuff you can carry.
So Aaron sent out an email to our Seder guests simply asking “for everyone (kids included) to take some time this week packing a ‘bag’ of your necessities if you had to pack up and leave your home as our ancestors did. The only requirement is that it should be something that you could reasonably carry without having to ask someone else to do it for you.” It was our first ever Emergency Preparedness Seder. We will probably do it again next year (if we make it to next year).
George F. Kennan’s Diaries, Reviewed, New Republic: Worth your time …
He is a relic of the nineteenth century, a misfit in modern times. The achievements of science, medicine, and technology leave him cold; he sees only the defilement of nature wrought by the automobile, and the corruption of the spirit brought on by consumer society, whose blight he laments with numbing frequency. (“With all due effort to avoid exaggerated pessimism and over-dramatization,” he writes, in a typical passage, from 1978, “I can see no salvation for the U.S. either in its external relations nor in the development of its life internally.”) From urban decay to the decline of the schools, from the media’s crass commercialism to sexual libertinism, he sees all about him a decadent society—late Rome—offering grounds only for hopelessness.
Indy churches, share spirit — and their space:
Nesting, where a congregation welcomes another flock to share its home, isn’t new, but it’s a growing trend as churches face challenging demographic and financial changes. The sharing is sometimes between an established church with a dwindling membership and a newer church that can’t afford a building, although some established and healthy churches do it as an outreach, a Christian helping hand.
Ender’s Game Movie, Roger Ebert: I actually liked it. Worth a Redbox rental.
The movie version of Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” is way too kind, and the drama suffers greatly for it. The movie packs too much plot into 114 minutes and has serious pacing issues, and because its makers don’t have a eye for spectacular set pieces, it never looks as grand as it should. But the film’s biggest problem is a matter of tone and characterization: the characters constantly talk about how mean they can be, but their actions suggest otherwise.
via Ender’s Game Movie Review & Film Summary (2013) | Roger Ebert.
Veriditas, labyrinths, history:
The labyrinth design used by Lauren Artress is a replica of the Eleven-circuit Medieval Labyrinth from Chartres Cathedral in France. This pattern, made of Beauce quarry stone and an unnamed black stone to delineate the path, was inlaid into the stone floor in 1201. For the last 250 years, however, it has been forgotten and covered with chairs until Artress led a small group of people into Chartres cathedral to remove the chairs to experience the meditative walk first hand.
After her experience in Chartres, she returned home to Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, painted the design on canvas and opened it to the public. In 1994 the indoor tapestry labyrinth — open during cathedral hours — was installed and in 1995 the outdoor terrazzo labyrinth — open 24 hours a day — was installed in the Melvin E. Swig Interfaith Meditation Garden. Literally millions of people have walked these labyrinths. In the summer of 2007, Grace Cathedral replaced the tapestry labyrinth with a beautiful new limestone and marble labyrinth in the floor of the cathedral.
After introducing the labyrinth through the International Transpersonal Association in Ireland in 1994 and to Switzerland, Germany in 1995, her work began to focus intensely in both Grace Cathedral and Chartres Cathedral. She has led workshops around the United States, Canada, the UK and Europe. In 1997 she began to train facilitators to present the labyrinth in their communities. Now, over 4000 people have been trained in this transformational work.
Labyrinths are currently being used world-wide as a way to quiet the mind, recover a balance in life, and encourage meditation, insight, self-reflection, stress reduction, and to discover innovation and celebration. They are open to all people as a non-denominational, cross-cultural blueprint for well-being. The practice of labyrinth walking integrates the body with the mind and the mind with the spirit. They can be found in medical centers, parks, churches, schools, prisons, memorial parks, spas, cathedrals and retreat centers as well as in people’s backyards.
Go to our world wide labyrinth locator to find a labyrinth near you!
South Africa’s Pistorius trial, Justice, The Economist: So is this a trial of a society.
Campaigners highlight what they see as South Africa’s dangerous proliferation of firearms. The trial has brought to light several incidents when Mr Pistorius carelessly fired a gun in public, once in a crowded restaurant, another time out of his car’s sunroof after an argument with a policeman.
Some thus see him as a product of the country’s malignly macho gun culture. A string of South African men have recently shot family members after apparently mistaking them for intruders. But others point out that the number of guns in South Africa has fallen sharply since the end of apartheid in 1994 to 12.7 per 100 people, not least because stricter laws were enacted in 2000. In comparison, Americans on average own one gun per head of population. Britain has 6.7 per 100.
When Mr Pistorius declared in his testimony, “I shot out of fear,” he became the voice of many white South Africans. They tend to see themselves as living in the shadow of violent crime, retreating behind high walls, electric fences and steel doors. From there they can summon private security guards, who are twice as numerous as policemen, by pressing a panic button.
The trial has revived a long-running debate about other aspects of crime. South Africa’s murder rate is one of the highest in the world: 30.9 for every 100,000 people, compared with 4.7 in the United States. Yet the rate has fallen by half in the past 15 years. Rich whites, the most fearful among South Africans, are actually the least endangered. Most victims are poor and black.
via South Africa’s trial: Justice, after all, is being done | The Economist.
Bubba Watson, $148 Tip at Waffle House, Bleacher Report: You rock, Bubba!
But that’s just “Bubba being Bubba,” according to USA Today. So it was hardly a surprise when Watson celebrated this year’s Masters victory win with a trip to Waffle House. He tweeted a selfie with his wife and some friends on that evening.
And it was even less surprising when Meg Mirshak of The Augusta Chronicle reported he was more than generous with the tip he left:
A waitress told a customer Tuesday morning that Watson left a $148 tip on the bill. When asked to confirm the amount, Knotts declined to say how big the tip was but said three employees split the money.
‘It was above and beyond what would have normally been shared,’ [manager Ken] Knotts said. ‘Bubba was just so gracious about everything.’
Steak n’ Shake franchise owner Preston Moss said Watson left a $24 tip on his milkshake bill.
…
Watson has become one of the most likable players in the game, and his dominance at Augusta means he’s one of the better players, too. Big things will be expected of Watson, and the golf world eagerly awaits to see if he can win another major outside of the Masters.
We are still awaiting a dynamic personality in golf in the post-Tiger-Woods-dominance era, and Watson is a colorful figure who is easy to root for. But we also partly cheer for him because, let’s be honest, we’re all a bit curious to see where Bubba might celebrate next.
via Bubba Watson Reportedly Leaves $148 Tip at Waffle House | Bleacher ReportA.
Mt Everest Avalanche:
The avalanche struck around 06:45 local time (01:00GMT) in an area known as the “popcorn field”, just above Everest base camp at an elevation of 5,800m (19,000ft), an official told the BBC.
via Everest avalanche: Ten climbers missing (Video/Photos) – Newsfirst.
Miniversion of Wrigley, Freeport, chicagotribune.com: Love this one, too!
Little Cubs Field is a miniversion of Wrigley Field, including everything from the green scoreboard to the WGN press box and even a Harry Caray statue.
The park, about one-quarter the size of Wrigley, is used for youth baseball and other Freeport functions. Wrigley’s been around for a century. Little Cubs Field is starting its seventh season.
Little Cubs Field was Garkey’s brainchild. In 2002 he pitched to the local park district his dream as a place where kids could play ball, but it took a village to build it and continue improving on it, he said.
via Miniversion of Wrigley a hit in Freeport – chicagotribune.com.
Shakespeare, Davidson College, Radio Play Live on WDAV, Davidson College:
“Performing Shakespeare,” a seminar regularly taught at Davidson College by Dana Professor of English Cynthia Lewis, has been reimagined for the airwaves.
The title of the course was changed to “Radio Shakespeare,” indicating that the class will be presenting the playwright’s work on the radio rather than on the stage.
Lewis’s students will perform a broadcast of The Merchant of Venice for a live audience at the college’s radio station, 89.9 FM WDAV, at 7:30 p.m., on Saturday, April 26. This production of the Elizabethan classic harkens back to the heyday of radio drama, and occurs on the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s baptism.
Bracketing the live broadcast on April 26, Lewis’s radio Shakespeareans also will present performances before studio audiences at WDAV on Friday, April 25 and Monday, April 28. WDAV engineers will record the three performances in the studio and compile the strongest elements from each into a single podcast, which will be available for download.
The “Radio Shakespeare” students also will present another, non-recorded staged reading of The Merchant of Venice at 2 p.m., Sunday, April 27, at “Pian del Pino,” the Italian Renaissance-style villa of Margaret Zimmermann and Price Zimmermann, a former academic dean at Davidson.
The public is invited to all four performances, but space is limited. Contact Radio Shakespeare with reservation or information requests.
via Shakespeare Students Will Perform Radio Play Live on WDAV – Davidson College.
Chicken Thigh Recipes, Bon Appétit: Favorite piece of chicken …
Chicken Thigh Recipes Slideshow
Dr. Max Polley, RIP, obituary, Davidson College: Max, the Axe!
And I am especially grateful for the phrasing Vance Polley used in remembering his father’s passions for his community, his college, his church, his beloved theatrical stage: “He wasn’t just passionate about things he cared about. He was passionate about lifting up things we should all care about.”
Thank you, Max, for sharing your “place of seeing.”
via Max Polley: A Passion for Things We Should All Care About.
kith/kin, Koko, sociology: My son wrote a college paper on Koko … Does Koko have “selfhood?”
Legendary comedian Robin Williams meets the most famous gorilla in the world, Koko, who is fluent in American sign language. Hilariously, Koko and Williams have an epic tickle fight just shortly after meeting one another.
via Robin Williams has a tickle fight with Gorilla. [VIDEO].
Lent, Praying the Parables, Maren Tirabassi:
Praying the parables – March 31,2014
Matthew 25: 31-33
God, be praised for this season
of the kidding of goats –
my new friend’s Nigerian dwarf kid,
my cousin’s
Tennessee fainting goats —
the vulnerable joy
in newborn sweet slickness,
the more-than-a-metaphor
tender freshening of does.
God, make us careful in our
glib recitation of parables –
for you taught love,
not division
not how to judge ourselves or others —
least of all the breech-born kid,
just saved,
bloody, wet and eyes wide open
in your loving hands.
Amen
via Maren Tirabassi.
Atlantic 10’s postseason, Davidson basketball, The Davidsonian – Davidson College: Next year …
Dayton’s success caused Krzyzewski’s criticism to ring hollow, especially since Coach K and his Blue Devils stumbled out of the gate against 14-seed Mercer in the tournament’s biggest upset. Yet aside from the Flyers’ out-of-the-blue tournament run, the conference as a whole was shaky at best through the tournament’s first weekend. Were it not for Tyler Lewis’s jumper rimming out at the buzzer against Saint Louis, the A-10 would have seen five of its six teams bow out in the Round of 64. Certainly the Atlantic 10 will field steep competition for the Davidson men’s and women’s basketball squads next year. But in light of this year’s flimsy performance, the conference will just as certainly receive fewer bids next time around, adding to the Wildcats’ difficult task of earning at-large bids in future seasons.
via Evaluating the Atlantic 10’s postseason – Sports – The Davidsonian – Davidson College.
96.9 NASH FM, LOL, snarly: 
via 96.9 NASH FM.
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, A Stroke Leads a Brain Scientist to a New Spirituality – NYTimes.com:
Her desire to teach others about nirvana, Dr. Taylor said, strongly motivated her to squeeze her spirit back into her body and to get well.
This story is not typical of stroke victims. Left-brain injuries don’t necessarily lead to blissful enlightenment; people sometimes sink into a helplessly moody state: their emotions run riot. Dr. Taylor was also helped because her left hemisphere was not destroyed, and that probably explains how she was able to recover fully.
Today, she says, she is a new person, one who “can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere” on command and be “one with all that is.”
To her it is not faith, but science. She brings a deep personal understanding to something she long studied: that the two lobes of the brain have very different personalities. Generally, the left brain gives us context, ego, time, logic. The right brain gives us creativity and empathy. For most English-speakers, the left brain, which processes language, is dominant. Dr. Taylor’s insight is that it doesn’t have to be so.
Her message, that people can choose to live a more peaceful, spiritual life by sidestepping their left brain, has resonated widely.
via A Stroke Leads a Brain Scientist to a New Spirituality – NYTimes.com.
Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy: I loved re-reading classics from my childhood!
Adult Read: Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy was way ahead of its time. It deals with difference in class: Harriet is upper-middle-class, whereas her best friend has an absent mother and an absent-minded father, and knows how to pay bills and balance a budget at the age of 11. Fitzhugh has Harriet go to a therapist long before this was the thing to do with “problem children.” The issue of privacy—which is on everyone’s minds recently—comes to the forefront when Harriet’s secret notebook is passed around between all the kids in her class who then stop talking to her because she wrote mean things about everyone. It’s a book to pick apart (a new way to enjoy it) now that the years of wanting-to-be-Harriet have passed.
via Classic Childhood Books That Grow With You | Zola Books.
Pope Benedict, Catholic Church, ‘conscious uncoupling’, The Week:
When Pope Benedict XVI announced he was stepping down as pope a year ago — dropping the news almost casually, in Latin, at a meeting about an upcoming canonization — nobody was sure what to call it. No living pope had handed off the keys of St. Peter since Gregory XII in 1415. If Pope Benedict had only waited some 14 months to announce his retirement — or abdication, or vacation — we might have had an apt phrase at the ready: Conscious uncoupling.
via How Pope Benedict unwittingly made the Catholic case for ‘conscious uncoupling’ – The Week.
UNC Athletics, Marcus Paige, “Trust Me We Can All Read”, susankingblog:
I was not surprised when I saw the news reports of Marcus Paige’s appearance, along with a few other athletes, at the UNC Board of Trustees this week. They were there representing the top sports: football, basketball, soccer and lacrosse- all teams who are the pride of UNC. I laughed when I saw Paige’s quote. ‘Trust Me. We can all read.” I laughed because it seemed like the kind of smart quote a PR major might turn to after he’d witnesses all the bad coverage of UNC athletics that have filled the newspapers and airwaves of late. If there had been UNC athletes who had been cheated out of a first rate education and channeled into weak courses and sham majors that didn’t’ demand much – Paige was making it clear he was not one of those athletes.
Jerry Reid, University of Virginia senior, The Wall Street Journal: Fun story!
Jerry Reid will graduate from the University of Virginia this spring with a résumé that would attract the attention of any potential employer.
Under extracurricular activities, Mr. Reid lists membership in a campus literary society, brotherhood in a fraternity and two intramural flag-football championships. His academic accomplishments include a thesis reinterpreting Stonewall Jackson’s legacy. He counts rooting for Virginia’s men’s basketball team as his primary hobby.
Are you a March Madness basketball fanatic? Do you bow at the altar of the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament? If the answer is no, Simon Constable explains why you should care.
Then there is his work experience: 45 years as a conveyor-belt salesman.
via At University of Virginia, 70-year-old Undergrad Cheers Cavaliers in March Madness – WSJ.com.
Tha Hugs, kith/kin: At the Georgia Theater in Athens. See Tha Hugs on the Marque!
Ed Lindsey for Congress:
The Truth-O-Meter Says:
Georgia has recovered more than $60 million that was lost to Medicaid fraud
Edward Lindsey on Thursday, March 20th, 2014 in press release
Lawmaker’s claim on Medicaid fraud recovery correct
,,,
Our conclusion: Georgia has submitted documentation to the feds that it has recovered $159.4 million lost to Medicaid fraud in three years in both federal and state money. Lindsey was very conservative in saying the amount recouped was “more than $60 million.”
We rate Lindsey’s statement True.
via Lawmaker’s claim on Medicaid fraud recovery correct | PolitiFact Georgia.
DST, daylight saving switch, lost sleep, heart attack risk, Society | theguardian.com:
Switching over to daylight saving time and losing one hour of sleep raised the risk of having a heart attack the following Monday by 25%, compared to other Mondays during the year, according to a new US study released on Saturday.
By contrast, heart attack risk fell 21% later in the year, on the Tuesday after the clock was returned to standard time, and people got an extra hour’s sleep.
The not-so-subtle impact of moving the clock forward and backward was seen in a comparison of hospital admissions from a database of non-federal Michigan hospitals. It examined admissions before the start of daylight saving time and the Monday immediately after, for four consecutive years.
In general, heart attacks historically occur most often on Monday mornings, maybe due to the stress of starting a new work week and inherent changes in our sleep-wake cycle, said Dr Amneet Sandhu, a cardiology fellow at the University of Colorado in Denver who led the study.
“With daylight saving time, all of this is compounded by one less hour of sleep,” said Sandhu, who presented his findings at the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology in Washington.
A link between lack of sleep and heart attacks has been seen in previous studies. But Sandhu said experts still don’t have a clear understanding of why people are so sensitive to sleep-wake cycles. “Our study suggests that sudden, even small changes in sleep could have detrimental effects,” he said.
Charlotte Mayor Cannon Scandal, Kevin Siers’ Editorial Cartoons | CharlotteObserver.com.
Kevin Siers’ cartoons are distributed to over 400 newspapers nationwide by King Features Syndicate. He and his wife and son reside in Charlotte.
via Kevin Siers’ Editorial Cartoons | CharlotteObserver.com.
Carol Quillen, Davidson College, liberal arts education: I heard Dr. Quillen speak on 3.29 and was intrigued by her re-imagining of the liberal arts to include both original work and entrepreneurship.
Our rapidly changing world urgently needs creative, disciplined, eloquent leaders with the courage, integrity, resilience, personal presence, and intellectual tools to tackle complex challenges in health care, education, sustainability, economic growth, and social justice.
At Davidson College, we are using new technologies both to expand our impact and to ensure that Davidson can lead in this new environment through four key strategies: 1) seeking out talented young people from around the country and world irrespective of their financial circumstances, enabling them to thrive at Davidson and beyond; 2) building a challenging curricula based on students doing original work, so that they graduate with a portfolio of work, rather than simply a transcript with grades; 3) offering students significant opportunities in emerging crucial fields, like computer science, global languages, computational biology, cognitive sciences, digital studies, and environmental studies; and 4) moving our students efficiently from our campus to meaningful work in the world.
Ultimately, our societal value is measured by what our graduates do, the lives they lead, and the impact they exert. The world is changing quickly, and we can’t wait. Join us.
via Carol Quillen, Davidson College | The Inauguration of Alison Byerly.
Ed Lindsey for Congress, Neighbor Newspapers – Barr leads in District 11 U S House poll: Update …
In a new poll regarding the District 11 U.S. House candidates in the May 20 primary election, Bob Barr leads the six Republicans running for the seat being vacated by incumbent Phil Gingrey, who is running for U.S. Senate. The district includes Vinings and parts of Buckhead and Sandy Springs.
The poll, conducted by phone interviews March 10 and 11 by Alexandria, Va.-based McLaughlin and Associates, included 300 likely Republican primary election voters in the district. It was ordered and paid for by candidate Ed Lindsey’s campaign. The results were as follows: undecided: 41 percent, Barr: 25 percent, Lindsey: 15 percent, Barry Loudermilk: 13 percent, Tricia Pridemore: 4 percent and other (including candidates Allan Levene and Larry Mrozinski): 2 percent.
In favorability ratings, Barr led the way with 38 percent, followed by Loudermilk (26 percent), Lindsey (21 percent) and Pridemore (9 percent). The poll has an accuracy of plus or minus 5.7 percent at a 95 percent confidence interval.
via Neighbor Newspapers – Barr leads in District 11 U S House poll.
Los Angeles Dodgers, The New York Yankees, Highest Payroll, Business Insider:
However, for the first time since 1998, the Yankees do not have the largest payroll in baseball. That distinction now belongs to the Dodgers with an estimated 2014 payroll of $235 million, up 147% in two years and $32 million more than the Yankees.
via CHART: Los Angeles Dodgers Surpass The New York Yankees With Highest Payroll – Business Insider.
Dennard's Clipping Service 
You must be logged in to post a comment.