‎7.11.2011 PT and dentist in one morning … anxiety attack … :(

anxiety, dentists:  Actually the modern-day dentist is not so bad … but still it is engrained in me to be anxious.

consumer market, China, KFC:  Interesting thought … Chinese consumers … and very interesting as to why KFC is so successful.

Some Western consumer-goods firms that are also-rans at home do surprisingly well in China. Back in America, Kentucky Fried Chicken KFC, part of Yum! Brands is dwarfed by McDonald’s. In China it has 3,300 restaurants—more than three times as many as its rival—and opens a new one each day. The secret of its popularity is local managers with the freedom to adapt KFC’s offerings to the Chinese palate. That means fewer bargain buckets of wings and more congee, a rice porridge with pork, pickles or mushrooms.

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Bernstein could have added: beware. The rules in China are still being written. Different arms of government may interpret them differently (see next article). And if someone in power changes his mind, there is not much you can do about it.

Will the Chinese government allow Nestlé to buy Hsu Fu Chi? In 2009 it rejected a $2.4 billion bid by Coca-Cola to buy Huiyan Juice Group, a drinks firm, for no apparent reason. Analysts say that this is unlikely to happen again, however. “The company is not strategically important and together Nestlé and Hsu Fu Chi would control only about 5% of the market,” says Jon Cox at Kepler Capital Markets in Zurich. As the world’s largest chocolate-maker Nestlé has high hopes for a market of more than a billion people who currently eat shamefully little chocolate.

Much could go wrong. Many economists think Chinese households save too much. Some fear a property bubble or a banking crisis. The risks of selling consumer goods in China are immense. But so is the opportunity cost of staying away.

via Consumer goods: The mystery of the Chinese consumer | The Economist.

tv, Bones:  Love Bones … can’t wait for next fall.

If you think Bones’ seventh season is just going to be about diaper-changing and nap time, think again: The show is introducing a new villain, TVGuide.com has learned.

“This is someone who is an extremely odd and fearless foe,” executive producer Stephan Nathan tells us, comparing the character to such past serial killers as Gormogon and The Gravedigger. “Only he’s going to be much more of a 21st-century, tech-savvy foe.”

Fox announced last week that Bones won’t premiere until Nov. 3, which will allow the network to air six episodes in the fall before star Emily Deschanel takes her maternity leave. Nathan says those six episodes will primarily focus on expectant parents Booth (David Boreanaz) and Brennan (Deschanel) preparing to raise their child together, but they will also introduce the new killer, who will take a while to subdue.

via Bones Exclusive: Who’s the New Gravedigger? – Today’s News: Our Take | TVGuide.com.

Civil War, history, journalism, Frank Law Olmsted:  I found this a very interesting historical tidbit.

Frederick Law Olmsted is rightly remembered as an eminent landscape architect, but in 1861 it was his work as a journalist and an administrator that brought him acclaim.

In February of that year, he agreed to edit his three earlier volumes, “A Journey in the Seaboard States” (1856), “A Journey Through Texas” (1857) and “A Journey in the Back Country” (1860) and reissue them as a two-volume work titled “The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller’s Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slaves States.”

The idea came from his London publisher, who assumed that the secession crisis would create great interest in such a work in England; Olmsted’s New York publisher quickly agreed. There was reason to believe they were right: one influential journalist and admirer later concluded that Olmsted’s writing “was more powerful and convincing than ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’” While that overstates the case, the book drew a wide readership keen to learn about the nature of Southern society.

via Frederick Law Olmsted’s Writing About the South – NYTimes.com.

ethics, business:  I was always told if I wasn’t willing to put my name on it, then I shouldn’t send it out.

Put your name on it

Is there a simpler way to improve quality and responsiveness?

If you can’t sign it, don’t ship it.

Easy to say, hard to do. Many people choose to work for a big organization precisely so they can avoid signing much of anything.

via Seth’s Blog: Put your name on it.

slime bags, perp walk:  I never thought about how they did this in other countries … but now that I am thinking about it, it does give the impression of guilt.

IT WAS one thing for the French public to hear that Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been arrested. It was quite another to see him grim-faced, handcuffed and in the custody of New York detectives. To Americans, this was just the “perp walk”.

This practice gives the newspapers and television images for stories and lets police and prosecutors show off the big game they bagged. J. Edgar Hoover, first head of the FBI, paraded arrested mobsters before the cameras. Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy’s assassin, was killed during a perp walk. It was a favourite tactic of Rudy Giuliani when he was a federal prosecutor.

…

If she means adversarial, she is correct. American trials pit two lawyers and two narratives against each other; a jury decides which is more plausible. The French have juries only in the most serious cases (including rape). Defendants lack fifth-amendment protections. Adversarialism may mean Mr Strauss-Kahn was roughed up in a way he would not have been in France; but it also meant that, when his accuser was found to be unreliable, the case began to collapse.

Hence a final argument against perp walks: they can be risky for prosecutors. Contrary to many French objections, Cyrus Vance, Manhattan’s district attorney, has behaved well. He dealt fast with a serious allegation against a rich suspect who was about to leave the country for one with which America has only a limited extradition treaty. He also moved quickly when the case against that suspect began crumbling. As for pictures of Mr Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs, the French may see a famous politician treated like a common criminal. Mr Vance—and the New York voters who elect him—may see another high-profile suspect whom he failed to convict.

via America’s judicial system: That guilty look | The Economist.

LinkedIn, social networking:  Are you on?  Do you use it?  I am on … don’t use it except to monitor the postings by Davidson grads.

Professional networking service LinkedIn blasted through the 100-million-user mark in March, making it even more powerful for finding a job, keeping up with colleagues and promoting your resume.

LinkedIn is growing so quickly, it’s adding a new member each second. As the size of its network grows, LinkedIn is steadily getting more useful. But how are people really using the fast-growing service? Researchers at Lab 42 asked 500 LinkedIn users that question and many more, and came up with a variety of answers in this infographic.

Among the fun facts they uncovered: We found it interesting the way top level executives use the service in vastly different ways from entry-level workers. Let us know in the comments how you like to use LinkedIn, or if you don’t use the service, why not?

via How Are People Really Using LinkedIn? [INFOGRAPHIC].

Betty Ford, obituaries, RIP:  Rest in peace, Betty Ford:  When I think of you I think of courage and your hair … 🙂

Honesty in marriage, like in politics, can be a gift or a weapon. Betty Ford’s husband Jerry loved her fizzy candor, her firm commitment when she believed in something and her refusal to pretend when she didn’t. She wore a mood ring, but that was redundant; she wasn’t one to hide an attitude anyway, any more than she’d hide how much her psychiatrist had helped her or what she thought of her children’s sex lives or which of her breasts was removed by doctors when she got cancer. So as the U.S. wrestled with the role it wanted women to play, she marched with Betty Friedan in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. As the political stars realigned for a generation around Roe, she called the court’s abortion ruling “a great, great decision.” As the trauma of Vietnam lingered, she discussed amnesty for draft dodgers. When after six weeks in office she discovered the cancer, she bared her pain in public. She was unlike any other First Lady and yet perfectly suited to her time — 29 months in the White House, during which America was catching its breath and checking its pulse to see if basic institutions and assumptions could survive the shock of the Nixon presidency. Her long combat against addiction brought all kinds of suffering out of the shadows. When she died Friday, July 8, at the age of 93, America lost one of its most unlikely and unmatched healers.

via In Memory: Betty Ford, Former First Lady, Clinic Founder – TIME.

Apple, iPhone:  low-cost version … I’m ok with that.

Citing a source that has been reliable in the past, the report says Apple will introduce both a revamped iPhone 5 and a low-price iPhone that could work with prepaid networks.

The site’s Seth Weintraub is quick to point out that Apple already has two models of the iPhone on the market — the 3GS and the iPhone 4 — but writes that he believes the cheaper phone won’t simply be the iPhone 4 with slashed pricetag. The cheaper model, he thinks, could look more like the iPod Touch, which is also expected to get a refresh this fall.

via Apple will launch low-end iPhone this fall, report says – Faster Forward – The Washington Post.

 

 

‎7.8.2011 Godspeed, Atlantis! … and by the way, Apple TV is pretty cool …

Harry Potter:  Can’t wait … Live Video: Watch the ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2′ Premiere in London – TIME NewsFeed.

NASA, end of an era:

Human spaceflight is dangerous — and it’s about to get more so, according to former Johnson Space Center director Christopher Kraft, who says NASA is making a mistake by retiring the space shuttle.

Kraft has co-written a letter, endorsed by a number of Apollo-era NASA veterans and astronauts, contending that the international space station will become more hazardous for astronauts without the shuttle’s resources as an emergency backup.

Born out of a grand vision of space exploration after the Apollo moon missions, NASA’s manned space vehicle, Columbia, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in 1981. The final flight of Atlantis will mark the end of the space shuttle era after 135 missions.

Space program’s final shuttle flight resonates in Cape Canaveral: The home of NASA stands to lose thousands of jobs after Atlantis goes on the last flight of the shuttle program.

“I think they’ve got their head in the sand,” said Kraft, who was NASA’s first flight director.

He said the shuttle’s robotic arm has no duplicate on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which NASA will need to rely on for several years as the private sector develops new vehicles for getting astronauts into orbit. Nor can the Soyuz permit two astronauts to conduct spacewalks simultaneously, Kraft said. Such spacewalks might be necessary if the station lost power or underwent decompression.

via NASA endangering space station by retiring shuttle, say ex-flight director, others – The Washington Post.

Civil War, photography, ethics:

One of the most famous photographs from the Battle of Gettysburg is also the most controversial.The photographer moved the body for a better composition. In the Newseum’s Ethics Center we ask “Should he have moved the body?” What do you think?

via Newseum’s Photos | Facebook.

Great Recession Recovery, China, US, Europe:

China’s economic expansion into Europe is gathering pace, as we report in a briefing in our latest print edition. We also argue, in a leader, that America needs to worry about the contrast between its own attitude to China and Europe’s.

via China’s presence in Europe: The long march | The Economist.

technology, education:

Co-founders Michael Chasen and Matthew Pittinsky created Blackboard in 1997 with a handful of friends, growing it through the dot-com bust and into a global business that turned a $16.6 million profit last year.

The company has made a concerted effort in the last year or two to target emerging technologies, such as mobile and social media, that might have applications in the education arena.

“Through our conversations, Providence has expressed interest in our business model,” said Chasen, the company’s chief executive. “We are very much not only going to continue to develop and bring new products to market in those areas, but with Providence I think we can accelerate some of that.”

Indeed, Providence is no stranger to the education marketplace. Its portfolio includes Archipelago Learning, Ascend Learning, Catalpa, Edline, Education Management Corp. and Study Group, according to a statement.

via Blackboard agrees to $1.64 billion buyout by Providence Equity investor group – The Washington Post.

statistics:  So more free time … but is anyone happier?

Americans are gaining more free time, but are devoting most of it to leisure rather than learning new skills or working out, according to a new government survey.

On average, Americans aged 15 or older spent about three hours and 58 minutes working on weekdays, according to the 2010 American Time Use Survey released Wednesday by the Labor Department. That was a six-minute decrease from 2009, and down 26 minutes from 2007, before the recession hit.

In its annual Time Use Survey, the Labor Department says Americans are working less, sleeping more and watching a lot of television. Joseph Light explains why.

According to the survey, that time has been allocated largely to leisure activities and sleep. In 2010, for example, Americans spent an average two hours and 31 minutes watching television on weekdays, up 5.4 minutes from 2007. They caught eight hours and 23 minutes of shut-eye per day, up more than five minutes from 2007.

The Census Bureau conducted the survey by interviewing about 13,200 people, across a range of demographic categories, who were asked to keep a diary of how they spent their time on a given day. Between years, average changes in time spent on activities tend to be very small. That means that changes of a few minutes are considered significant.

via Leisure Tops Learning in Survey – WSJ.com.

4.27.2011 … waiting for the midwestern storms to move east …

British Monarchy, Prince Charles, Prince William, journalism, media, tabloid news:  I enjoy the history and heraldry of the Royal Family, but it just seems “so yesterday” … tabloid news not real news.  Is their story really worthy of our major news outlets …

Prince William and Kate Middleton will exchange vows Friday in a ceremony expected to be watched by almost a third of the planet. But if the story that day will be of a prince and his bride, another will also be playing out behind the scenes: a tale of two kings.

William’s popularity is helping reinvent the monarchy here, with his marriage to a glamorous bride cementing the easy-mannered 28-year-old’s image as the perfect 21st-century king. Yet even as he becomes the single greatest key to ensuring the future of the House of Windsor, many here say William is in danger of overshadowing his far less popular father, Prince Charles, the next in line to the throne.

Streets in London were sealed off so that hundreds of troops from the city’s Wellington and Hyde Park Barracks could hold a dress rehearsal for the royal wedding on the procession route. (April 27)

How did William and Kate meet? Which princess married — and then divorced — an Olympic medalist? Whose wedding gown was adorned with 20,00 pearls? Test your knowledge!

At stake, royal watchers say, is the public standing of the British monarchy, which during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II has enjoyed virtually unwavering support. Yet despite a relatively successful campaign to improve Charles’s image, an Ipsos Mori poll last week showed a greater percentage calling for William to leapfrog Charles to the throne than at any point since the 1997 death of Charles’s ex-wife and William’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. Forty-six percent of respondents now say Charles should step aside.

via In Britain, Prince William threatens to eclipse his father, Prince Charles – The Washington Post.

Royal Wedding, Kate Middleton, fashion, icons:  She looks pretty good … but if you look back prior to the engagement, she looks like a beautiful commoner.  She’s going to have a little help now with the transformation into a fashion icon.

She’s not even a princess yet, but Kate Middleton, the future bride of Prince William, is already being held up around the world as a fashion plate. Designers are scampering to imitate the dresses she wears, and fashionistas debate the meaning of her latest hat. When it turned out that the ruffled silk blouse Middleton wore in her engagement photos was no longer being sold, the Whistles store obligingly brought the style back.

via Kate Middleton: The Fashions – Photo Gallery – LIFE.

Twitter, parenting:  Favorite of the day … I hope i am not a lawnmower parent … helicopter parent at least sounds more glamorous.

Word Spy

lawnmower parent n. A parent who smooths his or her children’s paths through life by solving their problems for them. http://wspy.ws/lawnm

via (39) Twitter / Home.

law, ethics, politics, King & Spalding, Atlanta:  Sometimes politics and lawyering don’t mix.

This week, the law firm hired by House Republicans to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, withdrew from the case in the wake of criticism from gay-rights groups. Paul Clement, a former solicitor general and a highly regarded litigator, who was to be the lead counsel on the case, resigned from the firm, King & Spalding, in protest. King & Spalding issued a bland statement saying it was dropping the case because it hadn’t adequately vetted the contract. It looks more like a cave-in to pressure from the Human Rights Campaign and other groups that warned King & Spalding that it could have trouble recruiting and retaining lawyers if it persisted in defending DOMA, a job the firm took on after the Obama Administration announced that it would no longer be doing so itself.

Now, the activists can certainly demand whatever they want, and it’s easy to understand their chagrin. DOMA is a discriminatory piece of legislation, made even more problematic by its disrespect for laws enacted by the states: it prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages that are legal in the states in which they occurred.

But giving in to pressure to rid yourself of a controversial client is never a good idea in our system. It sets a bad precedent and carries an unfortunate whiff of McCarthyite groupthink. The Los Angeles Times had it right when it editorialized that it understood the outrage,

But the suggestion that it’s shameful for Clement or his firm to do so misunderstands the adversarial process. For one thing, with sharp-witted counsel on both sides making the strongest possible arguments, it is more likely that justice will be done. For another, a lawyer who defends an individual or a law, no matter how unpopular or distasteful, helps ensure that the outcome is viewed as fair. If DOMA is struck down, the fact that it was defended effectively will make the victory for its opponents more credible.

Clement will take up the defense of DOMA at his new firm, Bancroft P.L.L.C., which presumably is prepared for the disapproval that might come its way, and won’t back out. Maybe gay-rights groups can now return to making the strongest possible affirmative case for marriage equality, instead of trying to put its opponents out of commission.

via News Desk: Why DOMA Deserves A Lawyer : The New Yorker.

First Presbyterian Church, Rev. Roland Purdue:  Easter joke …. Rev Purdue does like to hear his congregation laugh!

So our interim minister today related a story that he often sees people he kind of knows but isn’t sure, since he travels a lot between churches. After service one day , he sees a woman he thinks he knows, so he he approaches her and says ” You look like Helen Brown,” to which she replied ” And you don’t look so good in black either!”

culture, gender issues, economics, traditions, marriage:  Name changing seems to be an expensive tradition.

FORGET ABOUT cash-stuffed wedding envelopes. A Dutch study suggests a way for brides to pick up an extra half million dollars by doing nothing–specifically, by not changing their names. Women who kept their maiden names were judged to be more professional than married-name doppelgangers and proved more likely to win a job, according to the research. They also attracted higher pay.

If the study results have real-world implications—and more on some limitations of the research in a moment—then as this season’s brides ponder a name-change, they might consider not only their shifting sentiments but economic realities.

via Are Maiden Names Really Worth $500,000? – SmartMoney.com.

Harper Lee, good stories, Jon Meacham, quotes:

Jon Meacham author of Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (2004) said in an interview about Harper Lee for the book Scout, Atticus & Boo:

“I was with Harper Lee once in Sewanee, Tennessee, a couple of years ago at an occasion where Winston Churchill’s daughter and Miss Lee were receiving honorary degrees from the University of the South. At one of the events, the recipient stands up and says how they got to be where they are, and when Harper Lee stood up, she simply looked at Churchill’s daughter, Mary Soames, and said, “I would like to thank Lady Soames for everything, because if her father had not done what he did, I wouldn’t have been able to write anything at all.” And then she sat down. It was one of the most remarkably gracious things I have ever seen.”

via The Character of an Author – Nelle Harper Lee | Authors Say the Darndest Things.

Harper Lee, birthdays, 4/26, favorite posts, Jon Meacham:

It’s Harper Lee’s 85th birthday. Everyone who has ever wondered What Would Atticus Do? should raise a glass and drink to Miss Lee tonight.

via Jon Meacham./Facebook

Google Doodle birthdays, 4/26, John James Audubon:  I like this one …

Happy Bird-day, John James Audubon!

via Google Doodle: Happy Bird-day, John James Audubon! – TIME NewsFeed.

Donald Trump, politics, balders:

A threat to the fledgling presidential campaign of Donald Trump emerged today, as a group of activists charged that Mr. Trump is not eligible to hold the nation’s highest office because his hair does not originate from the U.S.

The group, who call themselves “Balders,” claim that the hair-like substance that crowns Mr. Trump’s head is from a foreign country, which would mean that the candidate is less than one hundred percent American.

“Time and time again, Donald Trump has refused to produce a certificate of authenticity for his hair,” said Leeann Selwyn, a leading Balder.  “This is tantamount to a comb-over of the truth.”

via Trump Dogged By Rumors His Hair is Not From U.S. « Borowitz Report.

‎4.23.2011 … random act of violence in my own neighborhood … booking flights to France … any recs for places, restaurants or hotels in France?

random acts of violence, murder, South Charlotte, Charlotte, RIP, prayers, reverse 911, me:  Prayers for the Barber family; rest in peace, Robert Barber, respected health care executive. I just this week added  the “random acts of violence” category, and now such an act, this time murder, occurred 1/2 mile from my house, along my daily walking path, in the neighborhood next to mine.  We received two “reverse 911” calls.  When they come in the caller ID says “Char Meck Emer Serv” .. and of course you think, OMG, who is hurt? But usually they are about a missing elderly person with Alzheimer’s.  This time it was announcing an “assault’ around the corner with a suspect armed and fleeing on foot.  Only later do you find out it is a murder … Senseless…why?

The shooting happened around 10:15 a.m. in the 4500 block of Mullens Ford Road, off Carmel Road, not far from Charlotte Country Day School.Police said Barber, 64, was gunned down as he walked from a nearby business to his home, which was about two miles away from where he was killed.Police searched for the gunman using a helicopter and canine units, but no one had been arrested late Friday. The crime shocked residents of the Foxcroft East neighborhood, where Barbers covered body lay near a curb as police investigated.The shooting scene – in an area of townhouses, two-story homes, neatly trimmed lawns and walking paths – is about a mile east of SouthPark mall.

…

According to reports, Barber and his wife stopped Friday morning not far from where he was killed – at Caribou Coffee on Fairview Road. His wife drove to work, and Barber decided to walk home.

Neighbors reported hearing gunshots, and some residents told Observer news partner WCNC-TV that the shooting happened during a robbery.

Police issued two “Reverse 911” calls to residents in the area, alerting them to the assault and the search under way. Investigators talked to neighbors, and police said some residents were taken to police headquarters for questioning.

via Health care executive slain in S. Charlotte neighborhood | CharlotteObserver.com & The Charlotte Observer Newspaper.

France, Tailloires, Lyons, Chauvet, Mont St. Michel, Paris:  Tailloires, Lyons, Chauvet, Mont St. Michel … ideas we are considering … and, of course, Paris  … would love more ideas!!

Talloires is located south of Geneva, Switzerland, on Lake Annecy and 13 km (8.1 mi) from the local “prefecture” Annecy, near the border of Italy. The town is situated in the French Alps, along a bay on the east side of the lake.

via Talloires – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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Lyon was founded on the Fourvière hill as a Roman colony in 43 BC by Munatius Plancus, a lieutenant of Caesar, on the site of a Gaulish hill-fort settlement called Lug[o]dunon, from the Celtic god Lugus (‘Light’, cognate with Old Irish Lugh, Modern Irish Lú) and dúnon (hill-fort). Lyon was first named Lugdunum meaning the “hill of lights” or “the hill of crows”. Lug was equated by the Romans to Mercury.

via Lyon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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The oldest known cave art is that of Chauvet in France, the paintings of which may be 32,000 years old according to radiocarbon dating, and date back to 30,000 BCE (Upper Paleolithic).[4] Some researchers believe the drawings are too advanced for this era and question this age.[5]

via Cave painting – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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Honfleur is a commune in the Calvados department in northwestern France. It is located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine across from le Havre and very close to the exit of the Pont de Normandie. Its inhabitants are called Honfleurais.

It is especially known for its old, beautiful picturesque port, characterized by its houses with slate-covered frontages, painted many times by artists, including in particular Gustave Courbet, Eugène Boudin, Claude Monet and Johan Jongkind, forming the école de Honfleur (Honfleur school) which contributed to the appearance of the Impressionist movement. The Sainte-Catherine church, which has a bell-tower separate from the principal building, is the largest church made out of wood in France.

via Honfleur – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

…

Mont Saint-Michel was previously connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which before modernization was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. This connection has been compromised by several developments. Over the centuries, the coastal flats have been polderised to create pasture. Thus the distance between the shore and the south coast of Mont-Saint-Michel has decreased. The Couesnon River has been canalised, reducing the flow of water and thereby encouraging a silting-up of the bay. In 1879, the land bridge was fortified into a true causeway. This prevented the tide from scouring the silt around the mount.

On 16 June 2006, the French prime minister and regional authorities announced a €164 million project (Projet Mont-Saint-Michel)[1] to build a hydraulic dam using the waters of the river Couesnon and of tides to help remove the accumulated silt deposited by the rising tides, and to make Mont-Saint-Michel an island again. It was projected to be completed by 2012.[2]

via Mont Saint-Michel – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

photography, computer art, iPhone , iPhone art, NYC: Loved this use of the iPhone!

“Spring City” was photographed entirely by exploiting a neat quirk of the camera on my two-year-old iPhone. Shaking the phone vigorously while taking pictures in bright light will produce wonderfully rubbery, fun-house-mirror effects. Turning these still images into a movie required taking over 4,000 of them, wiggling the camera each time. The jiggling, jello-like movement is the sum of the differences between the the distortions. The resulting film becomes a big wiggly dance when set to Shay Lynch’s mambo.

While gathering the images for this film I spent a lot of time on various street corners, looking a little nuts, shaking my phone furiously at the city. Not a single person asked what I was doing. Of course, many people were busy looking at their own phones, but I think a lot of behavior that would have seemed eccentric not long ago now seems normal once you spot the phone in hand or ear. I’m all for the convergence of media in our pocket devices these days, but I’m still surprised when my camera rings while I’m shooting something and someone wants to talk on it.

via ‘Spring City’ – NYTimes.com.

South Africa, ethics, photography, photojournalism, documentary movies, Tribeca Film Festival: Unsettling use of the camera …

It is an indelible portrait of African despair: an emaciated little girl collapses to her knees from hunger. Her forehead and palms press against the ground in an apparent final act of prostration. In the background, a vulture awaits its carrion. In May 1994, 14 months after capturing the image of a famine stricken child crawling toward a U.N. food camp in Sudan, photographer Kevin Carter was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. Three months later, Carter drove to the Braamfontein Spruit river in Johannesburg, an area he used to play as a child, taped one end of a hose to his pickup truck’s exhaust pipe, ran the other end into the passenger-side window, and took his own life.

The cast of “The Bang Bang Club”.

The image became a symbol of African suffering, but it also emerged as one of the most controversial in the history of photojournalism, addressing issues of complicity. By Carter’s own admission, he waited 20 minutes, focusing and refocusing his lens on the scene, hoping the vulture would spread its wings. When it didn’t, Carter snapped the photograph and chased the bird away, but did not help the girl. The St. Petersburg Times went so far as to say, “the photographer adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.” Afterward, Carter retreated to the shade of a tree, lit a cigarette, spoke to God, and cried. “He was depressed afterward,” fellow photographer João Silva told Time. “He kept saying he wanted to hug his daughter.”

While Carter’s image is the most famous, currently taught in journalism school ethics classes across the country, it’s just one of many impactful photos taken by The Bang Bang Club, the name given to a group of four fearless photographers—Carter, Silva, Greg Marinovich, and Ken Oosterbroek—who captured the brutality of South African apartheid between 1990 and 1994. In 2000, Marinovich and Silva published the book, The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots From a Hidden War, that documented their apartheid experiences, and the tome has been adapted into a feature film by South African documentary filmmaker Steven Silver, starring Ryan Phillippe as Marinovich, Taylor Kitsch as Carter, and Neels Van Jaarsveld as Silva.

via The Bang Bang Club: Tribeca’s Harrowing Film About War Photographers – The Daily Beast.

Jane Austen, games, puzzles, random: Everything Jane!

For those addicted to brain teasers and Jane Austen, I have the prefect diversion for you. The Puzzle Society™ has assembled this tidy Pocket Posh® edition of crosswords, quizzes, word searches, codewords and more, all inspired by Jane Austen, her novels and her world.

Challenge your knowledge of “our” Jane in this compact pocket edition wrapped in a beautiful Renaissance rose pattern cover design, bound by elastic band closure with smooth rounded edges. Slip it in your purse, backpack or brief case Janeites with the assurance that you will expand your knowledge and appreciation of our favorite author while on the go.

via Laurel (Lake Stevens, WA)’s review of Pocket Posh Jane Austen: 100 Puzzles Quizzes.

Bible, KJV, history:  Another good article on the history of the KJV.

From the start, the King James Bible was intended to be not a literary creation but rather a political and theological compromise between the established church and the growing Puritan movement. What the king cared about was clarity, simplicity, doctrinal orthodoxy. The translators worked hard on that, going back to the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, and yet they also spent a lot of time tweaking the English text in the interest of euphony and musicality. Time and again the language seems to slip almost unconsciously into iambic pentameter — this was the age of Shakespeare, commentators are always reminding us — and right from the beginning the translators embraced the principles of repetition and the dramatic pause: “In the beginning God created the Heauen, and the Earth. And the earth was without forme, and voyd, and darkenesse was vpon the face of the deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters.”

The influence of the King James Bible is so great that the list of idioms from it that have slipped into everyday speech, taking such deep root that we use them all the time without any awareness of their biblical origin, is practically endless: sour grapes; fatted calf; salt of the earth; drop in a bucket; skin of one’s teeth; apple of one’s eye; girded loins; feet of clay; whited sepulchers; filthy lucre; pearls before swine; fly in the ointment; fight the good fight; eat, drink and be merry.

…

Not everyone prefers a God who talks like a pal or a guidance counselor. Even some of us who are nonbelievers want a God who speaketh like — well, God. The great achievement of the King James translators is to have arrived at a language that is both ordinary and heightened, that rings in the ear and lingers in the mind. And that all 54 of them were able to agree on every phrase, every comma, without sounding as gassy and evasive as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, is little short of amazing, in itself proof of something like divine inspiration.

via Why the King James Bible Endures – NYTimes.com.

social networking, tracking, technology:

Through these and other cellphone research projects, scientists are able to pinpoint “influencers,” the people most likely to make others change their minds. The data can predict with uncanny accuracy where people are likely to be at any given time in the future. Cellphone companies are already using these techniques to predict—based on a customer’s social circle of friends—which people are most likely to defect to other carriers.

A wave of ambitious social-network experiments is underway in the U.S. and Europe to track our movements, probe our relationships and, ultimately, affect the individual choices we all make. WSJ’s Robert Lee Hotz reports.

The data can reveal subtle symptoms of mental illness, foretell movements in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and chart the spread of political ideas as they move through a community much like a contagious virus, research shows. In Belgium, researchers say, cellphone data exposed a cultural split that is driving a historic political crisis there.

And back at MIT, scientists who tracked student cellphones during the latest presidential election were able to deduce that two people were talking about politics, even though the researchers didn’t know the content of the conversation. By analyzing changes in movement and communication patterns, researchers could also detect flu symptoms before the students themselves realized they were getting sick.

via The Really Smart Phone – WSJ.com.

movies, Bible, film/lit, faith and spirituality: This is a good article about movies of the Jesus story …

DeMille concluded his account of Wallner’s visit by writing: “If I felt that this film was my work, it would be intolerably vain and presumptuous to quote such stories from the hundreds like them that I could quote. But all we did in ‘The King of Kings,’ all I have striven to do in any of my Biblical pictures, was to translate into another medium, the medium of sight and sound, the words of the Bible.”

Millions world-wide will celebrate Easter this weekend with the proclamation, “Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!” Knowing this has inspired men and women throughout the ages to claim the words of St. Paul, “that you may know what is the hope of His calling . . . the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.” A resurrection hope found not only in film, but in the lives of those that follow.

via John A. Murray: The Gospel According to Hollywood – WSJ.com.

Easter, bookshelf, lists: Recommendations for books on the Passion of Christ …

Jon Meacham

A little late, but maybe for next year. I think three of the best books on the Passion are N.T. Wright’s “The Resurrection of the Son of God”: Paula Fredriksen’s “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”; and Raymond E. Brown’s two-volume “Death of the Messiah.” They are all amazing, and take most of us well beyond what we think we know.

via Facebook.

3.29.2011 … humerus is healing … but 6 more weeks of sling … :(

silly joke, kith/kin:  When Jack was baptised at 3 months he had a yeast infection (from antibiotics) and a  columnist had this story in the paper … we all died laughing reading it …

SAD NEWS – Please join me in remembering YET ANOTHER great icon of the entertainment community. The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes to the belly. He was 71. Dough Boy is survived by his wife Play Dough, three children, John Dough, Jane Dough, and Dosey Dough,plus they had one in the Oven. Services were held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.

technology, retirement: scary …Want To Retire Wealthier? Start by Scanning Your Photo – WSJ.com.

kith/kin, death penalty:  Go, Bob!

While the news conference was under way, an Iredell County judge imposed consequences against the state in a double-murder trial halted last week by the late handover of evidence.

The judge declared a mistrial and barred prosecutors from pursuing the death penalty against defendant Al Bellamy. Last week, three weeks into the trial and after prosecutors finished presenting their case, defense attorneys were given about 1,700 pages of interview notes taken by a former narcotics detective.

Fair-trial advocates like Mumma were joined at the news conference by men who were wrongly convicted in cases in which their lawyers did not learn crucial investigative details. They included Greg Taylor of Raleigh and Darryl Hunt of Winston-Salem, who both spent more than 17 years in prison on faulty murder convictions before being exonerated and pardoned.

“When we have fairness in our system, then the chances of human lives being taken is slim,” Hunt said.

via Critics target NC bill limiting DAs evidence risk – CharlotteObserver.com.

Bible, history:  Great story …

A little English village church has just made a remarkable discovery.

The ornate old Bible that had been sitting in plain view on a table near the last row of pews for longer than anyone could remember is an original King James Bible – one of perhaps 200 surviving 400-year-old original editions of arguably the most important book ever printed in English.

In fact, the Bible at St. Laurence Church in Hilmarton, England, was sitting right under a hand-lettered sign saying it was an original.

The sign said it had been found in “the parish chest” in 1857, that the cover had been added, and that it was the second of the two impressions published in 1611 – the year of first publication.

But no one knew whether to believe it, parish council member Geoff Procter said. As the anniversary of publication in 1611 approached, they decided it was worth investigating.

“We had no way of knowing whether it really was a 1611 Bible so we had to get it verified somehow,” he said.

He and two other church members took it to a specialist, the Rev. David Smith at the Museum of the Book in London.

Smith knew immediately what he was looking at, Procter said.

“We put it on his table and he opened it and immediately he said, ‘Yes, this is a 1611 Bible,'” Procter remembered.

via Tiny church finds original King James Bible – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs.

technology, media, paywall, ethics: Is it ethical for me to work around the paywall?

But the argument over the paywall has taken on a strangely moral cast for what is, after all, a business decision by a for-profit company. At Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow—who admits that he is against charging for news regardless—cited eight reasons he thinks the paywall will fail. Advertising Age’s Simon Dumeneco responded with a column that said, essentially, that people should pay for the Times because it has reporters risking their lives in Libya (unlike Boing Boing).

All of which may feel satisfying to argue. But the whole argument is based on a conundrum that would challenge the NYT magazine’s Ethicist columnist: when exactly is it immoral to go around the Times’ paywall, considering that the Times intentionally put the holes in the wall itself?

I won’t go into all the ins and outs of the paywall’s workings (see here for the Times’ FAQ). But essentially, you pay a certain rate for different kinds of unlimited access—web plus smartphone or tablet or both. Free web visits are limited to 20 articles a month. But the number of articles you can read if you access them through outside links (from blogs, Facebook, etc.) are almost unlimited. [Update: also, if like me you already subscribe to the paper version, you get digital access included.]

This is deliberate: the Times doesn’t want to lose the relevance that comes from being linked. But it also wants money, which it won’t get if you—legitimately, by its own design—read it mostly through social media and other linkers. In the eyes of the Times and its defenders, in other words, there is a certain level of reading for free that becomes freeloading. But it will deliberately not say what that is.

via The NY Times Paywall Goes Up. When Is It Immoral to Go Around It? – Tuned In – TIME.com.

RIP, Elizabeth Taylor, icons, science:  Rest in Peace, Elizabeth Taylor … but to think your gorgeous eyes were a genetic mutation.

Elizabeth Taylor wasn’t one for understatement: she had eight marriages, two Oscars, and she was a bold pioneer in AIDS activism. And let’s not forget those captivating violet eyes. Now, according to Slate’s Brow Beat blog, Taylor’s large, liquid eyes had the unusual benefit of a genetic mutation, one that left her with a double row of eyelashes.

via Were Elizabeth Taylor’s Double Eyelashes Linked with Her Heart Failure? – TIME Healthland.

RIP, Harry & David:  What … no more Christmas pears!!

Harry & David, the purveyor of fruit-filled gift baskets, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday morning as part of an effort to reorganize its troubled finances.

The company filed what is known as a “prearranged” Chapter 11 plan in Delaware bankruptcy court, under which bondholders would take over by converting their debt holdings into equity.

via Harry & David to File for Bankruptcy – NYTimes.com.

twitter, lists:  Who do you follow … I follow the NYT … to get around the paywall!

TIME picks the 140 Twitter feeds that are shaping the conversation.

via Full List – 140 Best Twitter Feeds – TIME.

DC, Politics and Prose, Resurrections:

The Washington Post reports that two former Post reporters will buy Washington DC’s Politics and Prose bookstore.

The bookstore has become a hub for media events, hosting everybody from Mika Brzezinski to BookTV. When co-founder Carla Cohen fell ill last year, the owners decided to sell the bookstore. Cohen (pictured, via), passed away in October.

Here’s more about the sale: “Former Washington Post reporters Bradley Graham and his wife Lissa Muscatine are purchasing the iconic upper Northwest bookstore … [the owners narrowed] a flurry of propositions down to about six serious bidders, the most prominent of which was a group that included ex-New Republic editor Franklin Foer and Atlantic magazine writer Jeffrey Goldberg.” (Via Don Linn)

via Politics and Prose Bookstore Sold To Former WaPo Reporters – GalleyCat.

RIP, Geraldine Ferraro, politics, icons:  Rest in peace, Geraldine Ferraro.  You brought us a long way!

There are two things to remember when we try to make out the lessons of Geraldine Ferraro’s career. The first is overwhelmingly historic: as Democrat Walter Mondale’s running-mate in 1984, the three-time Representative from New York was the first woman (and first Italian American) to be part of a major party’s presidential ticket. The second is much more sobering: after Mondale’s defeat, Ferraro never again won elected office. Making history lasted less than four months, from Mondale’s announcement of her choice to be his vice-presidential candidate on July 19 to Ronald Reagan’s landslide re-election on Nov. 6. The consequences of history would complicate the rest of her life.

Her brief star turn at the center stage of American politics had not really been part of the Ferraro’s own plan. Logically, the next step would have been to turn her six years as a tough but efficient congresswoman into the first of many six-year terms as U.S. Senator from New York. But Mondale and the Democrats needed drama on the ticket to offset Reagan’s overwhelming lead in the polls. So, why not a woman? A shortlist was drawn-up and, after much anticipation and last minute deliberation, Ferraro was picked over Dianne Feinstein, who was then Mayor of San Francisco.

via The Pioneer: Geraldine Ferraro (1935-2011) – TIME.

1.11.2011 … another snow/ice day here … what shall I read?

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weather, Charlotte, followup: Treacherous, but beautiful.  Note (above) that my basset wants to know why I am standing in the snow-filled yard yelling “come” when there is a perfectly dry porch to view the lovely snow!

Iced-over secondary roads continued to shut down much of the Carolinas on Tuesday, but a slow recovery began shortly before midday as temperatures began to rise.

Travel is treacherous across the region today, after several hours of freezing rain left a coat of ice atop the 4 to 7 inches of snow that fell Monday.

via Charlotte’s temperature is climbing toward a thaw; roads are still dangerous – CharlotteObserver.com.

Arizona Massacre, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords: The more I read about her the more I like her.

On the eve of the shooting that left her critically injured, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) wrote an email to Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson (R), asking his help in toning down the partisan rhetoric in the country.

“After you get settled, I would love to talk about what we can do to promote centrism and moderation,” wrote Giffords. “I am one of only 12 Dems left in a GOP district (the only woman) and think that we need to figure out how to tone our rhetoric and partisanship down.”

via Gabrielle Giffords Wrote Email Calling For ‘Centrism And Moderation’ On Eve Of Shooting.

travel, commuter travel, culture, Chicago:  When we lived in suburban Chicago and John commuted via Metra, cell phones were still not used by everyone, and it was definitely considered rude to talk on the train if not an emergency … times have changed, and now Metra has to establish “quiet” cars.

Metra debuted “quiet cars” Monday on its Rock Island Line from Joliet to the LaSalle Street station downtown. And except for a couple of subdued conversations and a few cell phone calls, it was quiet.

Commuters said the rowdiest rides are the afternoon trains heading home.

via Metra debuts ‘quiet cars’ – Chicago Sun-Times.

art, graphics, Maira Kalman, kudos:  As many of you know I adore Maira Kalman’s work … don’t really agree with her … so I just ran across that she won a 2010 National Design Award!

Maira Kalman

Award-winning designer, author, and artist Maira Kalman has written and illustrated a dozen children’s books as well as an illustrated edition of William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White’s classic book Elements of Style. A compilation of her recent New York Times columns about American democracy, And the Pursuit of Happiness, will be published in fall 2010. Kalman’s vibrant illustrations often grace covers of The New Yorker, and she has designed products for The Museum of Modern Art under the M&Co. label, fabric for Isaac Mizrahi, accessories for Kate Spade, and sets for Mark Morris Dance Group.

via Maira Kalman | National Design Awards 2010 | Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

education, new models/experiments, Rousseau:  I want to research the Rousseau reference.  For those who know me well, my mom jokingly said to me when my Jack was turning 2 that “children are born uncivilized and that as far as she could tell, I had made little progress.” 🙂

All this was the early stages of an audacious public education experiment taking place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, one that its founder hopes will revolutionize both how students learn and how teachers are trained. Instead of assigning one teacher to roughly 25 children, the New American Academy began the school year with four teachers in large, open classrooms of 60 students. The school stresses student independence over teacher-led lessons, scientific inquiry over rote memorization and freedom and self-expression over strict structure and discipline. The founder, Shimon Waronker, developed the idea with several other graduate students at Harvard. It draws its inspiration, he said, from Phillips Exeter Academy, an elite boarding high school in New Hampshire where students in small classes work collaboratively and hold discussions around tables.

But Mr. Waronker decided to try out the model in one of the nation’s toughest learning environments, a high poverty elementary school in which 20 percent of the children have been found to have emotional, physical or learning disabilities. The idea, he said, was to prove that his method could help any child, and should be widely used elsewhere. “I didn’t want to create an environment that wasn’t real for everyone else and then say, look at my success,” he said.

…

“Many of the children have already had a year in what I would call a state of nature, when Rousseau spoke about people who live under no civilization,” Mr. Waronker said, referring to the children’s experience in a regular public school kindergarten. Fifteen children still could not recognize letters, and only one-third were at grade level. “This is messy work — this is the front lines.”

via New American Academy in Brooklyn Is an Experiment in Class Size – NYTimes.com.

Apple, technology, competition: Wouldn’t it be great (for me, anyway) if the competition made my AT& T service better!

A Consumer Reports survey last year ranked Verizon first and AT&T last in terms of network quality for major carriers.

via AT&T Preps Verizon iPhone Plan – WSJ.com.

global economy, social good, microfinance:  Such a great idea … even a Nobel prize awarded to one of its creators … truly want this to work.

* So what’s going to happen to microfinance?

“Microcredit had this magical glow to it,” Roodman said. “It’s gone away, and that’s healthy. But you wouldn’t say that just because of the mortgage crisis, we shouldn’t have mortgages.”

Tightening of lending standards and a broad pullback may be coming, but microfinance will certainly persist.

At the same time, other forms of finance for the poor may become more popular among funders, Roodman says:

Almost all money that’s going into microcredit is socially motivated. … It could be that a tipping point has been reached when the World Bank and others will say, “You know what? The feel-good aspect is gone. We’ll put our money elsewhere.”

via The Microfinance Backlash : Planet Money : NPR.

Arizona Massacre, public defender:  Interesting article on Judy Clark who will be one of Loughner’s attorneys. I have a good friend who does this work in North Carolina.  It takes a special person.  Also found it interesting that SC now prohibits out of state public defenders.

The capital-defense lawyer who will represent Jared L. Loughner in the shootings in Tucson, Judy Clarke, is a well-known public defender who gets life sentences in cases that often begin with emotional calls for the death penalty.

…

Mr. Bruck brought her in to work with him in defending Ms. Smith in the drowning case in the mid-1990s. Ms. Clarke’s approach often turns death-penalty defendants into confidants who must trust her with their lives. But it does not necessarily win friends outside of the courthouse.

After Ms. Clarke arrived from the West Coast to take on the Smith case, the South Carolina Legislature passed a law banning the future appointment of public defenders from out of state in capital cases.

After Ms. Clarke completed Ms. Smith’s case, she returned to the state the $82,944 fee that the trial judge had approved for her work, saying it was needed for the defense of other indigent people facing charges.

via Judy Clarke, Loughner’s Lawyer, Is Called a Master Strategist – NYTimes.com.

politics, The Constitution, history, filibuster:  Enjoyed putting this history in focus.

As all good Constitution-reciting Republicans know, filibusters are all about protecting minority rights, encouraging compromise, facilitating careful deliberation, etc., etc. The filibuster may not be in the Constitution’s text, but it is consistent with the essential vision of the Framers.

Alexander Hamilton’s reply (in The Federalist No. 22): What a load of anti-federalist bull!

In practice, Hamilton charged, the “real operation” of the filibuster

is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.

Technically, I grant you, Hamilton was not attacking the filibuster per se. (That particular atrocity wouldn’t come into existence for another half-century.) Nor was he talking specifically about the Obama Administration, though he might as well have been.

via Hendrik Hertzberg: Alexander Hamilton Speaks Out (I): The Filibuster : The New Yorker.

followup, economics, ethics, professionalism:  Great question.  I mentioned this last week.  I think the answer is yes … my husband disagrees.

This week the American Economic Association will take up this question. Many academic economists have financial ties to industry, government or other organizations, and critics say this biases their research. Do these associations create a conflict of interest? If so, how should it be addressed? Do academic economists need their own version of the Hippocratic Oath, a formal code of conduct, or a more vigorous policy of disclosing potential conflicts of interest?

via Economics: Do economists need a code of conduct?.

economics, Great Recession, Great Shift, global economy:  …”the financial crisis has accelerated the shift in global economic power to emerging economies…” Something to think about.

THE World in 2050, published by PwC, a professional-services firm, concludes that the financial crisis has accelerated the shift in global economic power to emerging economies.

via Daily chart | The Economist.

1.4.2011 … last day with the boys in town … will miss them … but they have become night owls … not sure what they look like in daylight.

economists, ethics, Davidson:  When I was a senior, I remember a professor telling me I was an economist … I wondered what that meant … not much I guess.  I also remember a class at Davidson called “The Emergence of Professions.”  In that class we discussed the difference between an expert/ a specialist and a professional.  Only professionals were governed by a fiduciary duty to their customer (patient, client, student, etc.).

Economists are no purer than anyone else, and I share the view of my fellow Economix blogger Nancy Folbre that we all have room to become better people. But I’m skeptical that the A.E.A. is well suited to arbitrate the ethics of the economics profession.In one area, however, the A.E.A. can act productively: It can create clear conflict-of-interest disclosure rules for its prestigious journals.The film “Inside Job” raised disturbing questions about whether economists who regularly wrote or opined on various policy debates failed to report relevant background information, such as board memberships or consulting arrangements. The accusations are serious, and it seems clear that the profession has been carelessly cavalier about conflicts of interest.As individuals, most of us could do with higher moral standards, but what are the appropriate institutional remedies?It would be nice to think that the American Economic Association could lay down a code of ethics that would solve everything, but that would be a vast institutional overreach. The biggest problem with that approach is that the A.E.A. is not a licensing or accrediting association, like the American Bar Association.The A.E.A. publishes journals, organizes an annual meeting and gives out awards, such as the John Bates Clark Medal. Membership in the A.E.A. is not selective, and many economists choose not to join, without much harm to their professional reputation I think I’ve let my own membership lapse.

…

The American Economic Association has successfully operated for 125 years, and part of its success comes from staying above the fray. Its primary purpose is to encourage the exchange of ideas through meetings and journals. It can and should regulate those journals better, but it doesn’t have the authority to try to regulate other aspects of economists’ lives.

via Edward L. Glaeser: Where to Draw a Line on Ethics – NYTimes.com.

random, kudos, South Africa:

Project: Report 2010 is a partnership between YouTube and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, made possible by Sony and Intel. The contest invited aspiring reporters to share their stories with the world.

With two rounds over three months, short documentary assignments were judged on the quality of the stories reported and the production value of the videos. An expert panel led by the Pulitzer Center chose ten finalists from the first round to receive technology prizes from Sony and Intel. The ten finalists then competed to receive one of five $10,000 grants to work with the Pulitzer Center on an under-reported international story. See the official rules.

The winners were announced in May 2010. The five winners received travel grants to report on an under-reported international story with the Pulitzer Center.

The winners’ reporting projects are now underway:

…

And Mark Jeevaratnam , who explored the effects of mountain top removal mining in Kentucky, reports on how soccer may have the potential to improve the lives of South African youths.

via Project: Report 2010 | Pulitzer Center.

Soccer in South Africa: Youth Program provides Hope and Skills | Pulitzer Center.

food trucks, street art, random, quote:

“Pie is the new donut, or pie is the new cupcakes…and the truck thing, I don’t know how long that’ll last. I don’t know where they eat it, that’s what I can’t figure out about a truck. Where the hell do you eat it?”

via Mimi Sheraton on Food Trucks | The Food Section – Food News, Recipes, and More.

Apple, marketing: Amazing … “It’ll be the elephant in the Las Vegas Convention Center: the endlessly discussed outsider whose absence helps define the show.”

Slate PCs, smartbooks and the Que were rendered largely irrelevant by the iPad, which Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced in San Francisco two weeks after last year’s CES. The fact that the most influential company in the business chooses to hold its own launch events on its own schedule further erodes CES’s usefulness as a predictor of next big things, but it doesn’t mean that Apple won’t be on everyone’s minds. It’ll be the elephant in the Las Vegas Convention Center: the endlessly discussed outsider whose absence helps define the show.

via The 2011 Consumer Electronics Show: What to Expect – TIME.

Great Recession, BofA:  I hope he is right.  🙂

Jim Cramer thinks Bank of America could break out after addressing its housing losses head on.

via Cramer: BofA Could Break Out JPM, C, WFC, BAC – TheStreet TV.

Politics, Congress, culture:  I wonder if this lack of spousal friendships is a factor in what is viewed as a lack of  congeniality among members of Congress.

In its midcentury heyday, 50 or so members of the Senate Wives’ Club, met at 10 o’clock each Tuesday morning, Democrats and Republicans alike, sitting together in Red Cross uniforms, rolling bandages and exchanging the intimate details of their lives. “We became close friends,” remembers Ellen Proxmire, whose late husband, William Proxmire, spent three decades in the Senate. “We all lived here. We would see each other on weekends.”

Today, the club, long ago renamed Senate Spouses in a nod to the growing number of women in Congress, meets about once a month, and fewer than a dozen attend. “A lot of the Senate wives don’t live here,” explains Proxmire, “so it would be harder to have a weekly meeting.” When Michelle Obama hosted the annual First Lady luncheon for the club this past July — harkening back to a time when the likes of Van Cliburn and Marvin Hamlisch played at the event– only 45 or so current Senate spouses showed for Jill Biden’s slideshow of her recent trip to Iraq, over crab cakes and grilled shrimp. The room was filled out by Proxmire and other wives of senators long-retired. “It wasn’t unusually well attended,” she says.

As the 112th Congress opens, the family lives of the nation’s lawmakers are in disarray. Newsweek recently reached 46 of the 107 freshman members of Congress, and only one—Mike Lee, the newly elected Republican senator from Utah—said he or she was planning to move to Washington with spouse and children in tow.

via No More Washington Wives and It’s Our Loss – Newsweek.

apps, New Year’s Resolution’s, me:  Hmmm, wonder which ones I should buy!  5 Fitness Apps to Get You Off the Couch – TIME Healthland – StumbleUpon.

history, France, Elizabeth Musser, kith/kin:  This article made me think of Elizabeth’s  early trilogy.

Algeria is not France’s Vietnam, he said, but something more ingrained. “It is much more complicated to exorcise it here, and then on top of that we have the pieds noirs and the harkis,” he said. “France is now getting slightly more involved in this part of its history,” with more documentaries on television. “But the French can’t, for now, see their tragedy on the big screen.”

via France’s Pain Over Algeria Reawakens With 2 New Films – NYTimes.com.

12.20.2010 Christmas Eve … Not on Christmas Eve … Dinner

nature, astronomy:

This year’s winter solstice — an event that will occur next Tuesday — will coincide with a full lunar eclipse in a union that hasn’t been seen in 456 years.

The celestial eccentricity holds special significance for spiritualities that tap into the energy of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and a time that is associated with the rebirth of the sun.

“It’s a ritual of transformation from darkness into light,” says Nicole Cooper, a high priestess at Toronto’s Wiccan Church of Canada. “It’s the idea that when things seem really bleak, (it) is often our biggest opportunity for personal transformation.

via Solstice-eclipse overlap first in 456 years.

history:  I think I will tire of this sesquicentennial. Gone With the Myths – NYTimes.com.

kith/kin, banking, ethics, BofA, Charlotte, UNC:  Charles Bowman quoted in the paper … one of our own.

Q. Can you describe an ethical dilemma you’ve faced at work?

Charles Bowman, Bank of America: Part of my job is to help people work through things like conflicts of interest. There are things that are clearly black and white: You can’t take bribes, you can’t act illegally. But I think the toughest ones are, how do you deal in the shades of gray where people are making very rational decisions but it may not be as clear-cut as an illegal activity?

***

Q. Can you give us an example?

Bowman: One example is probably gifting or perceptions of influence – will it be perceived as giving favor to a customer?

Another example is where an institution may be representing both sides of a transaction. You may have two customers coming at a transaction from different perspectives and you’ve got an obligation to try to represent their interests. In some cases you might take yourself out of one side of the transaction. Clearly you don’t represent the buyer and the seller, or you try not to.

via Bankers and ethics: Where do we go now? – CharlotteObserver.com.

too little-too late: Panthers get a 2nd win, boosting Fox’s record – CharlotteObserver.com.

12.12.2010 Thunder Road was a success for John … my favorite Advent service tonight …

FPC, Advent:  Taize Service tonight.  This may be my favorite one.

“…in our silence.”

December 12, 2010

This evening service will remind us that among the noise of the holiday, God’s voice is still able to speak to us in the stillness and silence. Taize is a worship style from France that seeks to contrast noise and silence, and light and darkness as we worship God.

art, Norman Rockwell:

Norman Rockwell’s America still has its fans—both at home and overseas. His first major British exhibition will open Dec. 15 at London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery. On Thursday in New York, his work saw strong sales at a Sotheby’s auction.

It wasn’t always so: For decades, much of the art world looked down on Rockwell’s idyllic portraits of ball games, Boy Scouts and freckle-faced kids. But in recent years, collectors and museums have come to embrace the artist. At auction, 87% of the Rockwell oil paintings offered for sale this year have been sold, up from 73% last year.

via Norman Rockwell Paintings Sell Well at Sotheby’s – WSJ.com.

lawyers, ex-lawyers, yoga: Yoga teacher!

But nineteen months ago, Stuart lost his job.  He responded by becoming a yoga instructor. WTF Stuart?

“All I can tell you is that when you get older there are certain things that start coming to your mind that you can’t possibly explain or understand when you’re younger,” says Stuart. “It’s like trying to explain puberty to a five-year-old.  The concept of now or never really does begin to hit you, and you realize: Well, wait a second if I don’t this now, I’m never going to do it.  It’s not like oh geez I’ll do this when I retire.  I’m 55. A lot of people retire at 55.”

via From BofA Attorney to Yoga Instructor, Stuart Dean | The Ex-Lawyers Club.

holidays:  To call Christmas an agnostic holiday bothers me even more than a cultural holiday.  Holiday is by definition a holy day.  Interesting interview/book … Agnostic Holidays: Green With ‘Spiritual Envy’? : NPR.

culture, medicine, ethics:

PlanetHospital’s most affordable package, the “India bundle,” buys an egg donor, four embryo transfers into four separate surrogate mothers, room and board for the surrogate, and a car and driver for the parents-to-be when they travel to India to pick up the baby.

via Assembling the Global Baby – WSJ.com.

 

‎11.11.2010 … happy veteran’s day … and the bassets are winning again …

technology, culture, change: I have a vivid memory from 2007 of a man riding a bicycle smoking a cigarette and talking on a cell phone in the rural China.

More than 4 billion of the 6 billion people on earth now have a cell phone, with a quarter of those owners getting one in just the last two years. And many are using them, in a giant global experiment, to change the way life is lived, from Manhattan to Ouagadougou.

The phones now allow Masai tribesmen in Kenya to bank the proceeds from selling cattle; Iranian protesters to organize in secret; North Koreans to communicate with the outside world; Afghan villagers to alert Coalition soldiers to Taliban forces; insurgents to blow up roadside bombs in Iraq; and charities to see, in real time, when HIV drugs run out in the middle of Malawi.

via How the Cell Phone Is Changing the World – Newsweek.

economics, RIP: Rest in Peace, Mr. Isard.  I did not know this specialized multidisciplinary area of study existed.

Walter Isard, an economist who founded the field of regional science, inspiring social scientists to study the relationships between such factors as geography, migration and land use in local or regional economies, died on Saturday at his home in Drexel Hill, Pa. He was 91.

His death was confirmed by his son Peter.

In the 1940s Professor Isard (pronounced EYE-zard) found common cause with other economists searching for a more sophisticated way to measure and understand economic activity on a smaller-than-national scale.

Deeply influenced by the German economists who developed location theory — the study of geographic location as a prime factor in economic development — he began lobbying for an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing local and regional economies.

Typically, a specialist in regional science might study the factors causing a particular industry to be located in a particular place, how the arrival or departure of a company affects a region, or how internal migration influences regional economic activity.

The core concepts of regional science were developed and propagated through the Regional Science Association (since 1989 the Regional Science Association International) and the Journal of Regional Science, both of which Professor Isard founded in the 1950s.

via Walter Isard, Father of Regional Science, Dies at 91 – NYTimes.com.

history, ancestry, research:  Fascinating … but I don’t think anyone in my family went there … until now … my nephew Harman is there …

Years before leading his vastly outnumbered troops to their doom at Little Bighorn, a young George Armstrong Custer was described as accurate in math.

Nearly 30 years before his March to the Sea laid waste to a large swath of Georgia, William Tecumseh Sherman was deemed a “fine energetic boy.”

And two decades before he would earn the nickname “Stonewall,” Thomas J. Jackson’s dreams of a military career got a boost from a man who would help start the Civil War.

Those are some of the tidbits gleaned from more than 115,000 U.S. Military Academy application documents being posted online for the first time by Ancestry.com. The Provo, Utah-based genealogy website said Tuesday that the information can be viewed for free starting Thursday — Veterans Day — through Sunday.

…

The oldest West Point documents being posted online date to 1805, three years after the academy’s founding, and run through 1866, a year after the Civil War ended. The records and other related documents from that period were culled from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., said Quinton Atkinson, director of content acquisition for Ancestry.com.

The documents represent some 16,000 individuals accepted into the Corps of Cadets, he said. Missing from the collection are the application records of notables such as Edgar Allen Poe, who briefly attended West Point, and Robert E. Lee, who graduated in 1829, Atkinson said.

“These are the rich aspects of the research that you can add to the more fundamental tree-building that family historians do,” Atkinson told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “You can understand who these people were.”

via Old West Point applicant letters being put online – Yahoo! News.

random, not quite right: From a Tuesday Morning e-mail.  Just seems interesting that this was not a big seller … take it on the road 🙂

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public art, food trucks, NYC: OK, Zagat has a food trucks site … and ranks them … street food has come a long way in a very short time.

We’re so excited about the launch of our new Zagat Food Trucks site that we thought we’d give you a primer on some top-notch mobile eateries. These ratings are part of our recently released 2011 New York City Restaurants Survey. The list shows surveyors sure have a sweet tooth – more than half of the trucks listed will help you get your sugar fix. Check out full roundup below, and let us know about your favorites in the comments!

via 8 Best Food Trucks in New York – New York City Restaurant Buzz – Zagat.

BofA:

Bove estimates the BlackRock sale, coupled with paying employee bonuses this year in stock instead of cash, will allow BofA to meet the $3 billion target.

via BofA sells BlackRock stake | Charlotte Business Journal.

Davidson:  Two good articles in the recent Davidson Journal … one about diversity … Is This the Face of Davidson? | davidsonjournal and the other about Davidson’s football history … Davidson & Goliath | davidsonjournal.

college, CU-Boulder, youth, faith: College is a time to experiment.  It is interesting that atheists would want to participate.  Maybe it is that yearning for something more … for God.

Some CU secular students said they are participating in religious activities for reasons other than faith.

via CU secular students participate in religious activities | CU Independent.

public art, history, superlatives:  The last World War I vet … and he’s right there should be a memorial to those vets.

The West Virginia resident is the last of 5 million Americans who served in World War I. He says a memorial doesn’t have to be elaborate, but a monument should be created alongside others commemorating other 20th century conflicts.

Born in 1901, Buckles was 16 when he enlisted but persuaded the Army he was 18. He saw no combat but worked as a driver and warehouse clerk in Europe and helped repatriate German prisoners after the war.

via Last US WWI veteran seeks DC memorial to that war  | ajc.com.

restaurants, Charlotte, followup:  I did not have the tater tot nachos … but I thought it ranked “good enough to go again” … We’ll see how I feel after I try the tater tot nachos … a combination of two of my favorite things.  Review of The Burger Company – The Charlotte Observer.

religion, culture,ethics: Good read …

The psychologists realized that as the speed of life increases, the possibility for ethical choice becomes a rarity: a too-full life limits the capacity to care.

In the tenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Christ commissions the disciples to go out two by two to cure the sick and proclaim the gospel (Luke 10:1-12). This text is paired with the telling of the parable of the Good Samaritan in the second half of the chapter (Luke 10:30-37). The lesson in exhaustion is a lesson for those who are sent.

via Exhaustion ethics | Faith & Leadership.

random, LOL: I like to take pictures of certain things all over the world … never thought of children’s play places and how outrageously funny they could be.  enjoy …

Strange Play: 26 odd pieces of playground equipment

via 26 strange play places – Cheaper Than Therapy.

colleges, GA, education:  Where are they coming from … and when will the peak in enrollment occur?

The University System of Georgia is teaching 311,442 students this fall – a new record for the 35 campuses and an increase of 3.2 percent from last year, Chancellor Erroll Davis said Wednesday.

…

Some campuses did see a slight drop in enrollment. University of Georgia has 34,677 students – a decrease of .6 percent.

via Georgia colleges set enrollment record  | ajc.com.

education, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, Great Recession:  One of the most important characteristics of a community are its schools.  Let’s hope that this recession does not destroy the good in our system.

In a night marked by split votes, angry protests and accusations of racism, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board approved a sweeping plan to close 10 schools and make other dramatic changes.

In the most controversial item, the board voted 5-4 to close Waddell High and make it the new home for Smith Language Academy, a K-8 magnet. Harding High, which had also been considered as a home for Smith, will turn into a neighborhood school housing many of Waddell’s students, along with the International Baccalaureate magnet now at Harding.

Most other efforts to block or revise the plan failed, often with the board’s only two black members on the losing end of votes.

via Board closes Waddell, saves Harding – CharlotteObserver.com.

public art, Chicago: It seems strange that this installation was only temporary …

The Eye sculpture, the giant blue eyeball that stared down Loop commuters all summer, is shutting for good today.

Crew members are scheduled to break down local sculptor Tony Tasset’s fiberglass sculpture and remove it from Pritzker Park, where it sat as the Chicago Loop Alliance’s inaugural Art Loop installation.

…

Kavi Gupta Gallery, which counts Tasset on its roster, said Monday it is hoping the sculpture will be back in Chicago by spring.

via The ‘Eye’ blinking out of Chicago for the winter – Chicago Breaking News.