tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7230517231596734012024-03-13T06:15:09.104-07:00Coming Up for AirIdeas of Order and DisarrayN.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-62146402651640776982010-04-11T14:01:00.000-07:002010-04-11T14:09:19.172-07:00Reality is the Beginning, Not the End"Professor Eucalyptus said, "The search<br />for reality is as momentous as<br />The search for god." It is the philosopher's search<br /><br />For an interior made exterior<br />And the poet's search for the same exterior made<br />Interior: breathless things broodingly abreath<br /><br />With the inhalations of original cold<br />And of original earliness. Yet the sense<br />Of cold and earliness is a daily sense,<br /><br />Not the predicate of bright origin.<br />Creation is not renewed by images<br />Of lone wanderers. To re-create, to use<br /><br />The cold and earliness and bright origin<br />Is to search. Likewise to say of the evening star,<br />The most ancient light in the most ancient sky,<br /><br />That it is wholly an inner light, that it shines<br />From the sleepy bosom of the real, re-creates,<br />Searches for a possible for its possibleness.<br /><br />-Wallace Stevens<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">from </span>"An Ordinary Evening in New Haven"N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-37738681942909105172010-04-11T13:56:00.000-07:002010-04-11T14:01:16.166-07:00How To Live. What To Do.Last evening the moon rose above this rock<br />Impure upon a world unpurged.<br />The man and his companion stopped<br />To rest before the heroic height.<br /><br />Coldly the wind fell upon them<br />In many majesties of sound:<br />They that had left the flame-freaked sun<br />To seek a sun of fuller fire.<br /><br />Instead there was this tufted rock<br />Massively rising high and bare<br />Beyond all trees, the ridges thrown<br />Like giant arms among the clouds.<br /><br />There was neither voice nor crested image,<br />No chorister, nor priest. There was<br />Only the great height of the rock<br />And the two of them standing still to rest.<br /><br />There was the cold wind and the sound<br />It made, away from the muck of the land<br />That they had left, heroic sound<br />Joyous and jubilant and sure.<br /><br />-Wallace StevensN.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-36062299021310461482010-04-04T18:59:00.000-07:002010-04-04T19:02:19.668-07:00Too Cruel for SchoolDiane Ravitch has an excellent <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/01/AR2010040101468.html">piece</a> in today's Washington Post on school reform. She calls for an end to the pernicious impotence of No Child Left Behind. She also mercifully sheds light on the complete lack of evidence to suggest the supremacy of charter schools or school choice in better quantitative academic outcomes. A sound piece all in all.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-28638266990367419682010-04-04T10:47:00.000-07:002010-04-04T10:50:24.956-07:00Is Translation Possible?Edith Grossman thinks <a href="http://www.guernicamag.com/features/1649/the_fault_is_mine/">so</a>. The dance is a difficult one no less and must be undertaken not just with scrupulous care, but also with authorial kinship with the translated work.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-59868488198841268982010-04-04T09:16:00.000-07:002010-04-04T11:03:25.124-07:00Montaigne, Woolf, and the Will to LiveI was reminded while walking one week ago of two reasons why I live. One reason came to me when I was reminded of a sense I had that containing myself within myself, if possible, was among the highest joys imaginable. Negotiating myself with myself has always been a difficult proposition - and an abstract one - but I have for years now turned to Montaigne to help me on my way. Montaigne, the most honest of all men, is captured in essence by <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Virgina</span> Woolf in her peerless essay on the man and the writer:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">For beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself. This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside of us. If one has the courage to ask her why she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite of what other people say. </span><br /><br />-<span style="font-style: italic;">Montaigne</span>, 1925<br /><br />Another reason why I live is to attempt to merge an unadulterated life of both sense and mind while confronting the omnipresent sad fact of mortality. Of course I reject the antiquated idea of any such dualism of mind and body. When Oscar Wilde reminds us in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Picture of Dorian Gray</span> that one of the great secrets of life is "to cure the soul by means of the senses, the senses by means of the soul", he is reminding us that abstract notions and sensual immediacy coexist and inform each other not as opposed halves but as a seamless whole. Again, Virginia Woolf heroically captures the essence of this in describing the Greeks:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">With the sound of the sea in their ears, vines, meadows, rivulets about them, they are even more aware then we are of a ruthless fate. There is a sadness at the back of life which they do not attempt to mitigate. Entirely aware of their own standing in the shadow, and yet alive to every tremor and gleam of existence, there they endure, and it is to the Greeks that we turn when we are sick of the vagueness, of the confusion, of the Christianity and its consolations, of our own age.<br /><br />-On Not Knowing Greek, 1925<br /></span>N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-34995084117135293862010-04-04T08:48:00.000-07:002010-04-04T16:41:09.080-07:00The Rising Threat of Christianist Terrorism in the U.S.The New York Times reported Friday on the growing threat of potentially violent Christianist terrorist groups within the U.S. With the recent arrest of members of the Hutaree in Michigan, tensions are admittedly high. Fortunately, from what I can tell from my reading on the topic, the Michigan militia was more laughable than capable, but <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/us/03threat.html?ref=politics">heavily armed and amply deluded nonetheless</a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In a federal indictment unsealed on Monday, nine members of a Christian militia group were accused of plotting an uprising against the federal government. The indictment said the group, based in Michigan, was planning to kill a local law enforcement officer and use explosive devices to attack police officers from around the country who would attend the funeral. </span><br /><br />I have no doubt the federal and/or state governments will meet these brutal and ignorant thugs with the requisite response if it must come to that. In the meantime, we as U.S. citizens now have to put up with threats to our governors and law enforcement personnel. Undoubtedly, potentially violent Christianists have no respect for civility or the rule of law, as divine law and its tenuous legitimacy in a modern secular world seem to be their only true allegiances. Yet, the group in question in the article, the so-called Guardians of the Free Republics, curiously blends libertarian, anti-corporate proclamations with totalitarian Christianist sentiments. It's a synthesis of two vantage points I heretofore thought unbridgeable (and still do), but when one mixes resentment with divine sanction, anything can happen. What makes this group even more bizarrely curious is the fact that the "revolution" they call for will be done quietly and without visible public disturbance, and they even hint at something akin to a post-Apartheid South African-style truth and reconciliation commission. If you need further evidence of this group's unique blend of weirdness and danger, please note their opaque attempt to cast themselves in <a href="http://gotfr.com/">lofty terms</a>.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-91181030627211619492010-03-13T11:39:00.000-08:002010-03-13T11:46:20.787-08:00Lewis Carroll, the Mad Tea Party, and Language<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S5vrUO2RPrI/AAAAAAAAAGE/IawO3TdL0H4/s1600-h/alice_in_wonderland_mad_hatters_tea_party.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 221px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S5vrUO2RPrI/AAAAAAAAAGE/IawO3TdL0H4/s320/alice_in_wonderland_mad_hatters_tea_party.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448206907050376882" border="0" /></a><br />"You should say what you mean," the March Hare went on.<br />"I do," Alice hastily replied; "at least - at least I mean what I say - that's the same thing, you know."<br />"Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter. "Why, you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see!'N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-83313747891093757812010-03-13T11:17:00.000-08:002010-03-13T11:23:32.597-08:00Gundula Janowitz, after allOf all of the great Contessas I've heard, none can compare to the dignity and sweetness of soprano Gundula Janowitz. Here, in a fine performance from 1980 at the lush and gorgeous Opera Garnier in Paris, is her "Porgi Amor<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">," </span></span>from the <span style="font-style: italic;">Marriage of Figaro. </span>Sadly, her even more spectacular "Dove Sono", from the same performance, lacks an embed for posting. It is worth <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHbv0CYs0ik">viewing</a> as well.<br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Gz3jBUmzqlQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Gz3jBUmzqlQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-13205787043163733332010-03-13T10:38:00.001-08:002010-03-13T10:57:04.380-08:00Clinton and East JerusalemJeffrey Goldberg has an apt <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/03/a-smart-and-necessary-move-by-hillary-clinton/37443/">post</a> about Hillary Clinton's scolding of Netanyahu over East Jerusalem settlement building:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >So Hillary has picked the right fight, and the Obama Administration has picked the right person to pick the fight: A former senator from New York who is married to one of Israel's favorite ex-presidents. I might be over-optimistic here, but maybe this scolding will help Bibi focus on what's important: Keeping Israel in America's good graces so that the two countries can together figure out a way to neutralize the Iranian threat. </span><br /></div><br />She is right to use her husband's popularity in Israel as leverage in the wake of the needless, belligerent act on Israel's part. I am nearly always a supporter of Israel, as it is the only legitimate democratic and open society in the Middle and Near East - with the exception of another steadfast ally, Turkey. That is not to say that Israel has any right to occupy the West Bank for any other reason than for security purposes. Yet, as is widely known, the occupation seems to be as much about illegal expansion of territory as it is about security. But the Palestinian leadership in under Abu Mazen has shown <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/world/middleeast/08mideast.html">signs</a> recently of opening to direct peace talks with Tel Aviv. Hopefully, this is more than an admonishment of Israeli hubris. Maybe peace talks can happen because of this assertion of will by the Clinton. Netanyahu has spoken before about his dialogues with President Obama and the personal comity they engendered between the two men. Let's hope the construction in East Jerusalem is a test of American fortitude and not Netanyahu's caving to the Israeli version of our Christianist right.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-29356483837384567442010-03-06T22:44:00.001-08:002010-03-06T23:32:28.392-08:00Passage<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S5NWRRI4C2I/AAAAAAAAAF8/i9vVo6XJ3iA/s1600-h/3323617102_8f12b40d1f.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 215px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S5NWRRI4C2I/AAAAAAAAAF8/i9vVo6XJ3iA/s320/3323617102_8f12b40d1f.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445791229079456610" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S5NVrLLK-0I/AAAAAAAAAF0/1qEM1JJk4Tw/s1600-h/3323617102_8f12b40d1f.jpg"><br /></a>N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-75127148692777943062010-03-06T18:36:00.000-08:002010-03-06T22:16:02.177-08:00D.H. Lawrence's WarRereading D.H. Lawrence's <span style="font-style: italic;">Women in Love</span>, I am struck by how forcefully anti-philosophical it is. I find this refreshing of course, since too much philosophy can make the mind go limp by abstracting itself and its surroundings too much. Lawrence is a creature of exquisite and daring passion, and his critique of modern British society as largely artificial and spiritually bereft may very well have been accurate. His solution is not just a frontal assault on industrialism and over-refinement; it is a war on bourgeois culture itself. Lawrence, through the character of Rupert Birkin, makes the case for a sensualism that defies what many would likely deem to be decadent. What makes Lawrence so radical, in part, is his exaltation of sensualism as a response to the decadence of self-satisfied, impotent intellectualism, as well as bourgeois, Romantic naivete. What makes Lawrence's work profoundly anti-philosophical is its assault on such concepts as "knowledge" and the "self." Rather than wading into the murky waters of definition of these abstractions, he dismisses them in favor of self-abandonment. Through this, he casts knowledge and the self in vital rather than abstract terms by allowing their ebb and flow without detaining them for interrogation.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-48526699466216504382010-03-06T18:28:00.001-08:002010-03-07T19:23:41.878-08:00A Sober Point on IraqReal Clear Politics picks up a sober and acute <a href="http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/2010/03/taking_credit_for_iraq.html">response</a> to Jonah Goldberg's <span style="font-style: italic;">ex post facto </span>defense of the Iraq war. Of course any reasonable comment on the Iraq invasion must consider the seeming inevitability of Iraq coming undone with or without American military action. Saddam Hussein held that artificial - see British colonialism - country together by force, and I see no reason to believe either one of his sons would have been chillingly competent enough to hold the respective ethnic regions together once he inevitably passed. In all likelihood, Iran would have exerted its presence in the Shia south of the country and the Kurds would have continued their campaign for an independent Kurdistan in the north of the country, with conflict over oil-rich Kirkuk ongoing with the Sunni heartland. The point is well taken though: if the United States is going to claim credit for a nascent democracy in Iraq, it must take responsibility for the tens of thousands who have lost their lives because of the decision to invade. We really cannot have one without the other. The moral ambiguity is crushing.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-556553604756238942010-03-06T00:11:00.001-08:002010-03-06T00:24:56.752-08:00Hillbilly StormA curious <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-05/palins-reality-tv-makeover/?cid=hp:exc">take</a> on the grotesque carnival of Sarah Palin. Has she officially stopped differentiating between being a celebrity and being a politician? Is she crafting a new kind of hybrid form of public official as yet unknown? Or is she plainly an incurious degenerate looking to line her pockets with fistfuls of mammon her phony religion likely embraces? If you chose all of the above, good on you. Wasilla always sounded more like a skin disease than a place to be from, and I am itching incessantly just thinking about it.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-47031401246613039152010-03-05T23:58:00.000-08:002010-03-06T00:05:25.492-08:00There's Still Public Support for Health Care Reform<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S5IMkiLZ_JI/AAAAAAAAAB8/SnvA4H2bqww/s1600-h/ewamnjhjnuwzi5awtxwodw.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 198px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S5IMkiLZ_JI/AAAAAAAAAB8/SnvA4H2bqww/s400/ewamnjhjnuwzi5awtxwodw.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445428721233820818" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Gallup indicates the American public still trusts the Obama administration to do the right thing on health care reform. I think the Congress does need to get this done so the numbers do not erode further from where they were last summer.<br /><br /><br /><br /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/NICHOL%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.png" alt="" /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/NICHOL%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.png" alt="" />N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-5651173897302757882010-03-05T23:03:00.001-08:002010-03-05T23:27:18.465-08:00Trial RunDavid Frum rightly <a href="http://www.frumforum.com/obamas-military-tribunal-flip-flop">claims</a> the use of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects is not a perfect idea, but there is not a feasibly better one. I disagree in part. Framing the question is central here: giving high-level terrorist suspects trials in civilian courts casts them as domestic criminals rather than enemy combatants guilty of the murder of thousands. This gives the paranoid right wing fringe ammunition to cast anyone who believes in showcasing the superiority of impartial American justice in the face of religious, fanatical hate as an obvious Stalinist madman bent on the liquidation of American "values" - I wish this were hyperbole.<br /><br />The civilian trial would have made sense as another step in the reinstatement of the rule of law. The gesture would have been largely symbolic, but a noble gesture all the same. The problem, I figure, with this scenario is that most of the suspects up for trial have been tortured - as was policy - and, therefore, most of the evidence gathered to be used against them - i.e. coerced evidence - is tainted and cannot be used.<br /><br />The favorable aspect of a trial by military tribunal is that it denies terrorist suspects a public forum to make martyrs of themselves and fulminate against their rhetorical bogeymen. Trying and executing top suspects by military tribunal is not appetizing, but it may keep them away from the publicity they so crave and is so key to their propagandizing. Either way, a trial would be practically meaningless beyond symbolism: no one believes the U.S. might have the wrong players behind 9/11. Whatever happens to the them in the long term will happen, whether it be by civilian trial or military tribunal.<br /><br />Nevertheless, this is a retreat for the Obama administration. In this case, however, I acknowledge it may be an intelligent political move, since the amount of political capital required to fight this out with the right wing fringe would come at too high a cost with so much of the domestic agenda still to be legislated and implemented. Let the opposition have this one. Allow them to glory in defeating a symbolic move while health care, cap and trade, and, hopefully, a sane and not purely market-driven education reform bill make their way, with some luck, through the Congress.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-89956596525432887112010-03-05T19:37:00.000-08:002010-03-05T23:29:09.326-08:00Tinker Creek ReduxHaving finished Annie Dillard's <span style="font-style: italic;">Pilgrim at Tinker Creek</span>, my enthusiasm has ebbed significantly. Initially, I found the book enthralling for its simultaneous emphasis on the ecstasy and intricacy of the natural world. By capturing minute natural occurrences and massive natural upheavals, she creates a sense of the sublime by rendering the natural world as something beyond not just rational apprehension, but stable meaning all together. The boldness of this concept captured me quickly at the outset. Moreover, her idea of the reinvention of sight by undoing what we see in objects and living things and attempting to look on them in a purely dynamic, protean way was masterly developed.<br /><br />Yet, with all of these ideas going for it, the book becomes tedious as it progresses. I could not help but simply wince at her labored meditations on muskrats and grasshoppers. God, who cares. When writing about the awful brilliance of the praying mantis female killing and eating the male during copulation, I was struck with awe. That was it. From there her ideas begin to become over-extended. The book should never have been more than a long essay. The latter third is so self-indulgent as to nearly ruin the preceding two thirds.<br /><br />Ah well.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-744757075460278182010-03-01T13:40:00.000-08:002010-03-01T13:49:39.221-08:00Against the Misappropriation of George OrwellYglesias has an important <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/03/george-orwell-was-a-socialist.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29">note</a> on the American Right's wrong-headed adoption of Orwell for their own imperialist and theocratic purposes. Not only was Orwell a committed Socialist, he was arguably even more of an anti-Fascist and anti-Capitalist. Yes, he expressed great fears of the destructive potential of certain centralized states. Yet, mercifully, he recognized what so many in the Unites States today do not: that a centralized government acting as a vehicle of the citizenry's will is not the same as a rapacious, imperialist police state bent on total social and cultural homogeneity. Fortunately, the closest we've come to having an irrationally expansionist police state that spat on the rule of law expired in January of last year.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-61675296854844607202010-03-01T13:26:00.001-08:002010-03-01T13:33:41.551-08:00The Enduring Foolishness of the "Giveaway to the Health Insurance Industry" ideaJonathan Chait rightly <a href="http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/the-insurance-industry-doesnt-want-its-giveaway">pounces</a> on this silliness:<br /><br />"The insurers were playing a double game -- hoping reform would die, but negotiating to limit their downside risk if it did pass. They were most friendly to reform when it looked inevitable. Now that they have a chance to kill it, they're taking their best shot. That's not something you do to legislation that's designed to give you billions in profits."<br /><br />Instituting an insurance mandate is a means of spreading risk and, at least theoretically, pushing premiums down in cost by doing so. Car insurance would almost certainly be higher if insurance companies had to consider the potential risk of motorists' accidents with uninsured drivers when setting premiums. Moreover, the added bill in the House to end the anti-trust exemption for the health insurance industry I think is more devastating for them - and rightfully so - than ending their ability to discriminate against those with chronic illness or refusal to provide insurance for health - the latter, of course, being their paradoxical means to profitability.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-88140786644626168102010-03-01T12:48:00.000-08:002010-03-01T12:49:59.183-08:00A Modest Case for Religion"Any religion that does not affirm that God is hidden is false."<br />- PascalN.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-27916733925001548792010-03-01T11:41:00.001-08:002010-03-01T12:49:25.548-08:00A Modest Case against ReligionAn Eskimo once asked a missionary priest if he would spend eternity in hell if he did not know about God or sin. "No," the priest replied, "not if you did not know." "Then why," the Eskimo asked, "did you tell me?"N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-31364400528707214652010-02-28T23:09:00.000-08:002010-02-28T23:19:25.972-08:00Good Teaching: Critics and Aspiring CriticsLately I have been considering what good teaching actually entails. There is much talk among my colleagues about who is and is not a good teacher, and what strategies and inclinations he or she uses to facilitate good teaching, or how he or she fails miserably at the task. And yet, with all of this humming from the teacher commentariat, I am not convinced that teachers can adequately decide who teaches well and who does not. The students, on the other hand, seem to have the knack for judging teachers' mettle. Now, to be fair, some teachers are seen favorably by students plainly for giving very little work and grading lightly and infrequently. Those are exceptional, however. Though I do not want to overhear students' comments about fellow teachers, I usually do. The comments consistently reflect what I would naturally assume to be the style and temperament of the teacher being commented on. Students know who is a good teacher and who is not a good teacher. Why? They are the consumers after all, and consumers decide what works best for them. One hopes they will digest slowly.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-32785082209906834002010-02-28T22:09:00.000-08:002010-02-28T22:34:51.241-08:00Danielle de Niese - A Great Mozart Soprano<a href="http://www.lyricopera.org/tickets/marriageoffigarobios.aspx#deniese">Her Susanna</a> in Lyric Opera's <span style="font-style: italic;">Marriage of Figaro </span>this year was superbly Mozartian: comic, lyrical, sly, humane. Her glory in the role won the day. Mozart's women, like Shakespeare's, are often strong and noble; but Susanna is the great synthesis of humor and strength: two virtues I often lack more than any others.<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=111959032&m=112419950&t=audio" wmode="opaque" allowfullscreen="true" base="http://www.npr.org" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="386"></embed>N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-48412126353027088772010-02-28T21:49:00.000-08:002010-02-28T21:57:44.551-08:00The Closest We May Get<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S4tXPUJ-ORI/AAAAAAAAABk/zlXyTF0XVBQ/s1600-h/9192730_da0951d999.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S4tXPUJ-ORI/AAAAAAAAABk/zlXyTF0XVBQ/s400/9192730_da0951d999.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443540495227566354" border="0" /></a><br />"...On that cedar tree shone, however briefly, the steady, inward flames of eternity; across the mountain by the gas station raced the familiar flames of the falling sun. But on both occasions I thought, with rising exultation, this is it, this is it; praise the lord; praise the land. Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow; you catch grace as a man fill his cup under a waterfall."<br />-Annie DillardN.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-36268648281130521682010-02-27T22:48:00.000-08:002010-02-27T23:01:06.652-08:00An Actual ConservativePaul Ryan (R-Wis) may be firmly ensconced in the GOP, but he must give those of us pause who clamor for health reform. This thorough critique is of the current Senate bill. It does not sway me quite away from the current proposals, but it does incline me to want a more muscular approach to pushing down premiums and making sure providers are able to provide Medicare beneficiaries service in the future.<br /><object style="height: 344px; width: 425px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zPxMZ1WdINs"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zPxMZ1WdINs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723051723159673401.post-71663593040346285452010-02-27T22:46:00.000-08:002010-02-27T22:47:33.889-08:00Big Red<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S4oRUQiehXI/AAAAAAAAABU/-4pAltA29Gc/s1600-h/100224_bigred6.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FZoenlFBrg4/S4oRUQiehXI/AAAAAAAAABU/-4pAltA29Gc/s400/100224_bigred6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443182139365295474" border="0" /></a><br />I may emerge, but you have seen enough to know.N.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11445834626349775003noreply@blogger.com0