Texas 12-0
Texas 49
Texas A&M 39

Texas 11-0
Kansas 20
Texas 51

whenever one door closes, another opens. right? this evening, as i burn the midnight oil, i am reminded of this. i came across a most excellent contact for my research: a woman who wrote on the heritage minutes about ten years ago for her MA thesis at McGill. her history of the organization is quite detailed and some of the documents she uses i have not seen cited anywhere else. my first reaction was: i must get in touch with her.

it turns out that this individual, nuala lawlor, was a foreign service officer, the charge d’affiaires, in the sudan who was expelled in 2007.  the paper trail that i found on her is a mile long, but most of it filled with stories about the top diplomat’s expulsion. with no contact information to be found, i made a more advanced search, eliminating ’sudan’ out of the results. after her expulsion, she went on to work for the kofi annan peacekeeping training center in ghana. more googling took place. it turns out she was on parental leave as of january of this year. i had hit the end of the paper trail.

of course, i’ll try again later, but what i actually wanted to talk about was the issue of authenticity in historical reenactments. how do i get from lawlor’s struggles in africa to this? easy. it’s an issue that she brings up in her MA thesis, with regards to the treatment of authenticity by the bronfman foundation.

when the minutes began airing in 1991, there was an initial batch of fourteen. this was followed by a review of the minutes for their market value. one aspect of determining their value was a matter of authenticity. the table  linked below outlines the feelings toward the authenticity of eleven* of the first fourteen in the series:

authenticity

what i find especially interesting is just how many of the heritage minutes were invented situations; plausible situations, but nonetheless imagined by a team of designers and historians who said: “hey, this is marketable!” my mind first went back to the winnie the pooh heritage minute (seen below). i couldn’t help but think, “oh, silly old pooh. were you really not named after the town of winnipeg?”

i think margaret’s discussion of the costumes made a good case for authenticity. i always find it bothersome when i attend a performance or an exhibition of some sort and something seems out of place; anachronisms, specifically.

rod carley, tvo’s winner for best lecturer in 2008, talks here about the issue of authenticity and relating a historical piece (in this case, shakespeare) to the modern audience; to maintain meaning without losing the attention of the viewer. i’ve listening to this lecture twice and i think it’s incredibly well performed, in addition to being relevant to the issue of authenticity (and probably being of some interest to david…)

so, perhaps in the end, the roadblock in the middle of my paper trail wasn’t such a bad thing. aside from the creation of some ideas that i’m sure seem rather jarbled at this point.

Back before the Reagan Revolution, and long before PNAC [People for the New American Century] set the agenda for the neoconservatism of Bush II, one man set the agenda for the years to come.

Writing at a time when even a Richard Nixon was willing to embrace healthcare, environmentalism, and a guaranteed minimum income for the poor, Lewis F. Powell Jr. offered a striking new vision of America, one made real by his successors.

Though best known for his tenure on the United States Supreme Court from January 7, 1972, to June 26, 1987, Powell was a far more interesting figure: Spook, merger of corporate giants, and far-thinking political strategist.

Powell was a Harvard Law School graduate who entered the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, where was assigned to the Operational Intelligence Division of the Directorate of Intelligence of United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe, specializing in German communications intelligence and reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel by the end of the war.

After the war, he became a corporate lawyer for a large Richmond, Virginia, law firm—specializing in the issue closest to the heart of the corporate machine, mergers and acquisitions. Another speciality was tobacco litigation, and his chief client was the industry’s lobby, the Tobacco Institute, the industry’s immensely powerful lobbying arm. He also served on the board of directors of Philip Morris for the seven years preceding his elevation to the bench, furthering a certain intimacy with the art of killing smokers for fun and profit.

One of his Virginia neighbors was Eugene Snydor Jr., Director of the United States Chamber of Commerce. Casual neighborly conversation about their perception of the nation’s “plight” provoked the lawyer to draft a memorandum—often called the Powell Manifesto—which he handed to his neighbor on August 23, 1971. Blogger Ed Encho at STATION CHARON rightly dubs it the Looter Capitalist Manifesto.

His manifesto is represented in the transformation of every institution in our lives, which have been warped to the woof of the oligarchs and corporocrats.

The memo begins:

Confidential Memorandum:
Attack of American Free Enterprise System
DATE: August 23, 1971
TO: Mr. Eugene B. Sydnor, Jr., Chairman, Education Committee, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
FROM: Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

This memorandum is submitted at your request as a basis for the discussion on August 24 with Mr. Booth (executive vice president) and others at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The purpose is to identify the problem, and suggest possible avenues of action for further consideration.

Writing at a time when national movements had challenged the racism of mainstream society, were waging a campaign against the Vietnam War, and were raising critical questions about the growing power of corporations, Powell declared,

Should not the Chamber also request specific courses in such schools dealing with the entire scope of the problem addressed by this memorandum? This is now essential training for the executives of the future.

What he prescribed was a wide -ranging program of propaganda, one which increasingly dominates our mass media, but one has recreated the universities—then boiling founts of dissent and challenge—into bulwarks of the corpocracy.

While the chamber played a role in the unfolding events, other organizations such as the Cato Institute [a major Reagan Administration], the Heritage Foundation, and similar institutions—which had the great advantage of names other than “chamber of commerce”—took center stage, flooding the airwaves, filling the op-ed pages, and infiltrating the everyday discourse of journalism.

Since the entire memo is available at the link, I will focus here on an issue close to home [literally, here in Berkeley]. I leave it to readers to decide if Powell’s strategy has proved effective.

THE CAMPUS

The assault on the enterprise system was not mounted in a few months. It has gradually evolved over the past two decades, barely perceptible in its origins and benefiting (sic) from a gradualism that provoked little awareness much less any real reaction.

Although origins, sources and causes are complex and interrelated, and obviously difficult to identify without careful qualification, there is reason to believe that the campus is the single most dynamic source. The social science faculties usually include members who are unsympathetic to the enterprise system. They may range from a Herbert Marcuse, Marxist faculty member at the University of California at San Diego, and convinced socialists, to the ambivalent liberal critic who finds more to condemn than to commend. Such faculty members need not be in a majority. They are often personally attractive and magnetic; they are stimulating teachers, and their controversy attracts student following; they are prolific writers and lecturers; they author many of the textbooks, and they exert enormous influence—far out of proportion to their numbers—on their colleagues and in the academic world.

Social science faculties (the political scientist, economist, sociologist and many of the historians) tend to be liberally oriented, even when leftists are not present. This is not a criticism per se, as the need for liberal thought is essential to a balanced viewpoint. The difficulty is that “balance” is conspicuous by its absence on many campuses, with relatively few members being of conservatives or moderate persuasion and even the relatively few often being less articulate and aggressive than their crusading colleagues.

This situation extending back many years and with the imbalance gradually worsening, has had an enormous impact on millions of young American students. In an article in Barron’s Weekly, seeking an answer to why so many young people are disaffected even to the point of being revolutionaries, it was said: “Because they were taught that way.” Or, as noted by columnist Stewart Alsop, writing about his alma mater: “Yale, like every other major college, is graduating scores’ of bright young men … who despise the American political and economic system.”

As these “bright young men,? from campuses across the country, seek opportunities to change a system which they have been taught to distrust—if not, indeed “despise”—they seek employment in the centers of the real power and influence in our country, namely: (i) with the news media, especially television; (ii) in government, as “staffers” and consultants at various levels; (iii) in elective politics; (iv) as lecturers and writers, and (v) on the faculties at various levels of education.

Many do enter the enterprise system—in business and the professions—and for the most part they quickly discover the fallacies of what they have been taught. But those who eschew the mainstream of the system often remain in key positions of influence where they mold public opinion and often shape governmental action. In many instances, these “intellectuals” end up in regulatory agencies or governmental departments with large authority over the business system they do not believe in.

If the foregoing analysis is approximately sound, a priority task of business—and organizations such as the Chamber—is to address the campus origin of this hostility. Few things are more sanctified in American life than academic freedom. It would be fatal to attack this as a principle. But if academic freedom is to retain the qualities of “openness,” “fairness” and “balance”—which are essential to its intellectual significance—there is a great opportunity for constructive action. The thrust of such action must be to restore the qualities just mentioned to the academic communities.

What Can Be Done About the Campus

The ultimate responsibility for intellectual integrity on the campus must remain on the administrations and faculties of our colleges and universities. But organizations such as the Chamber can assist and activate constructive change in many ways, including the following:

Staff of Scholars

The Chamber should consider establishing a staff of highly qualified scholars in the social sciences who do believe in the system. It should include several of national reputation whose authorship would be widely respected—even when disagreed with.

Staff of Speakers

There also should be a staff of speakers of the highest competency. These might include the scholars, and certainly those who speak for the Chamber would have to articulate the product of the scholars.

Speaker’s Bureau

In addition to full-time staff personnel, the Chamber should have a Speaker’s Bureau which should include the ablest and most effective advocates from the top echelons of American business.

Evaluation of Textbooks

The staff of scholars (or preferably a panel of independent scholars) should evaluate social science textbooks, especially in economics, political science and sociology. This should be a continuing program.

The objective of such evaluation should be oriented toward restoring the balance essential to genuine academic freedom. This would include assurance of fair and factual treatment of our system of government and our enterprise system, its accomplishments, its basic relationship to individual rights and freedoms, and comparisons with the systems of socialism, fascism and communism. Most of the existing textbooks have some sort of comparisons, but many are superficial, biased and unfair.

We have seen the civil rights movement insist on re-writing many of the textbooks in our universities and schools. The labor unions likewise insist that textbooks be fair to the viewpoints of organized labor. Other interested citizens groups have not hesitated to review, analyze and criticize textbooks and teaching materials. In a democratic society, this can be a constructive process and should be regarded as an aid to genuine academic freedom and not as an intrusion upon it.

If the authors, publishers and users of textbooks know that they will be subjected—honestly, fairly and thoroughly—to review and critique by eminent scholars who believe in the American system, a return to a more rational balance can be expected.

Equal Time on the Campus

The Chamber should insist upon equal time on the college speaking circuit. The FBI publishes each year a list of speeches made on college campuses by avowed Communists. The number in 1970 exceeded 100. There were, of course, many hundreds of appearances by leftists and ultra liberals who urge the types of viewpoints indicated earlier in this memorandum. There was no corresponding representation of American business, or indeed by individuals or organizations who appeared in support of the American system of government and business.

Every campus has its formal and informal groups which invite speakers. Each law school does the same thing. Many universities and colleges officially sponsor lecture and speaking programs. We all know the inadequacy of the representation of business in the programs.

It will be said that few invitations would be extended to Chamber speakers.11 This undoubtedly would be true unless the Chamber aggressively insisted upon the right to be heard — in effect, insisted upon “equal time.” University administrators and the great majority of student groups and committees would not welcome being put in the position publicly of refusing a forum to diverse views, indeed, this is the classic excuse for allowing Communists to speak.

The two essential ingredients are (i) to have attractive, articulate and well-informed speakers; and (ii) to exert whatever degree of pressure—publicly and privately—may be necessary to assure opportunities to speak. The objective always must be to inform and enlighten, and not merely to propagandize.

Balancing of Faculties

Perhaps the most fundamental problem is the imbalance of many faculties. Correcting this is indeed a long-range and difficult project. Yet, it should be undertaken as a part of an overall program. This would mean the urging of the need for faculty balance upon university administrators and boards of trustees.

The methods to be employed require careful thought, and the obvious pitfalls must be avoided. Improper pressure would be counterproductive. But the basic concepts of balance, fairness and truth are difficult to resist, if properly presented to boards of trustees, by writing and speaking, and by appeals to alumni associations and groups.

This is a long road and not one for the fainthearted. But if pursued with integrity and conviction it could lead to a strengthening of both academic freedom on the campus and of the values which have made America the most productive of all societies.

Graduate Schools of Business

The Chamber should enjoy a particular rapport with the increasingly influential graduate schools of business. Much that has been suggested above applies to such schools.

Should not the Chamber also request specific courses in such schools dealing with the entire scope of the problem addressed by this memorandum? This is now essential training for the executives of the future.

Hey there!

This week? It’s been awesome. I’ve finally managed to be both productive and chilled out at once, and I’ve done some quality writing. For the first time, I can really see that I’m getting somewhere with this thesis. I’ve written half of chapter one, with submission date fast approaching (my draft chapter is due 8 December). There’s a lot of work still to do… referencing, for instance (urgh – why can’t I just write a thesis straight from my brain with nothing to back it up?)… but I am getting there, and it will be done. It’s kind of true, what I’ve been told: writing does get easier once you’ve actually done some, and as I finish this first chapter (which is actually chapter two of the thesis), the others will surely flow somewhat easier.

I still feel as though I know absolutely nothing, but I guess I’m more confident in my ability to source supporting theory and quotes as I go. Or, I’m more confident in my ability to bullshit. Either/or.

However – the more I do this, the more convinced I am that I’m not really 100% happy in this field. I’m enjoying it, and it’s something I have an interest in, but I’m not passionate about it. Or rather, I am, in some weird way: despite feeling disconnected from the whole Internet geekery cyberculture scene (because a lot of it bores me, or feels repetitive, or whatever), I’ve found myself reading blogs and articles and texts with more interest this past week than I have in a long time, coupled with the desire to keep reading, and to know more. But that doesn’t make me any less glad that I have a backup plan in the works. This thing? It might not be right, and I need to be sure that I have options.

How vague am I being?

On to another subject. I’m about to throw my computer out the window. It won’t go far as I’m currently at ground level, and it will cause more damage to the windows than to the computer itself, but I hope that throwing it out the window causes the little bastard to be suitably shook up so as to start behaving itself. I know it’s a common three-year-old computer combined with stuffed-to-the-gills hard drive kind of issue, but lordy, I am going to scream if my computer fails to cooperate once more. Did I mention already that I am writing my thesis at the moment? Yes?

Well. I’m doing it in TextEdit – Mac’s equivalent of Notepad, for you Windows users out there – because Word has decided that this week, it won’t load up. It will just freeze. I’m a bit worried that I deleted something important when I was making space on my computer the other week, but I actually just think that it’s being a bit of a shit head. I thought it would be a cold day in hell before I said something like what I’m about to say, but, here goes: Windows 7 looks awesome and I’m almost jealous of the fact that other people have it when I’m bashing my head against the wall day after day trying to get my Mac OS X to not hate me. But not jealous enough to revert to Windows. Never that jealous. Once you go Mac, you never go back. You just upgrade. The path to upgrading it on: I’ve put on my best budgeting and saving pants, and I plan not to take them off until I have purchased myself a swanky new computer (which might be a while, so they’ll be smelly pants by then). Then, I plan to move my iTunes library on to my new computer, freeing up most of the space on this laptop, which in turn will hopefully cause the laptop to stop behaving like a difficult little child, and just do what I want it to. Which is open Word. Not that hard.

Finally – another rant. My apologies for my rantypants being on – I’m in a good mood, but these things, they are annoying me somewhat. WordPress. WordPress + Mac. Apparently I’m the only person who has constant issues with WordPress not loading up on my Mac, because I have Googled and Googled and read every forum out there trying to find out why WordPress and my Mac seem to be mutually exclusive. I thought that using Firefox might be the problem, and admittedly when I tried Safari it was a little better, but overall? Not happening. It only occurred to me recently that I could download software and update from my actual computer, rather than in-browser (yes, I am that technical), so I’m going to utilise the free trials of a few programs and see if any of them work for me. To be honest, I don’t really enjoy using the WordPress interface all that much, so it would be ideal to find something that gels with me a little more. I can’t even change my theme, because WordPress won’t load up the ‘Themes’ page for me. Bastard.

But all in all? Things are good. Puppy arrives in one week and one hour today! I am going out for drinks tonight, then to family things tomorrow and Sunday. Rhys and I are going to build a fence tomorrow, which will be hilarious as I don’t think either of us has attempted any kind of woodworking since highschool. I have trouble fitting my wooden draws back into the wooden chest, ffs, let alone building anything. Luckily, we had a stroke of genius involving lattice + wire + the existing fence posts, so when I say ‘building’ a fence, I more mean ‘tying pieces of lattice together, and then to the posts’.

Because I feel bad that this is such a long post with no photos, here are some fun pictures from my weekend.

Edit: WOW, okay. Apparently there will be no photos from my weekend, because WordPress refuses to let me upload them. GRRRRRRRRR. I know I could just HTML it but the pictures haven’t been uploaded to Flickr yet and grr grr grr. Blogger never caused me this many problems Unfortunately my blog also looked like poo when it was over at Blogger. Sigh.

I love my school. Duke Divinity School has been immensely formative for my theological development. Though there are many, many things I love about Duke, there are just a few things that drive me bat shit crazy about it. One of the things is that, in our three years at seminary, we are not required to take any pastoral care classes. Something like 70% or more of the students graduating with an M.Div from Duke are going to be pastors. Classes we are required to take at Duke, include a New Testament course, two Old Testament courses, three church history courses, theology, ethics, preaching, and a black church studies course. One of the things that Duke seems to pride itself on is the fact that it takes thinking/theology/academics seriously. This is obviously a very good thing— one of my beefs with my undergrad education (I went to a conservative Christian college) is that there wasn’t enough theology/academics/thinking, that everything that was talked about was…practical, but often practical in the bad way (i.e. caring about “church growth” for the sake of church growth).

One could read this as me never being satisfied, or one could read this as me wanting something in the middle. No, not even something in the middle—that assumes that it is a bit less of each. I don’t want half-assed academics and half-assed ministry. I want all of both, damnit. Yes, the Bible is important, but three church history courses, three Bible courses, and zero courses on pastoral care? Sure, I’d hope that pastoral care stuff works its way in to our core classes…its quite appropriate to talk about domestic violence when you read through the Old Testament (Judges 19, Ezra 10, Genesis 34, Numbers 25, etc…etc…), or to talk about church conflict when you read Paul. But, still. One, it doesn’t happen enough—there is a hell of a lot to go over in Old Testament, even in two semesters. Its shocking how much “texts of terror” are ignored. Even if stuff related to pastoral care does come up, the conversation still never actually gets to pastoral care. While it is definitely important for me to know the Documentary Hypothesis, the Documentary Hypothesis won’t help me when a parishoner approaches me telling me that their husband beats them.

This is not me saying that knowledge for knowledge’s sake is not important. I think it is, I do. Instrumentalism just causes trouble. But, I also think that part of the value of knowledge is because of the way it impacts people. Hell, this is what made me fall in love with academia. Books were not only a way of escape for me in difficult times in my life by way of distraction, but also by way of knowledge—it was knowledge (truth) that took me from the confining grasp of conservative evangelicalism.

In her book “Trauma & Recovery,” Judith Hermann points out the ways in which the consciousness-raising of the 1970’s shaped domestic violence and rape policy and saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of women. “The decision to emphasize our own feelings and experiences as women and to test all generalizations and reading we did by our own experience” she writes, “ was actually the scientific method of research. We were in effect repeating the 17^th century challenge of science to scholasticism: ‘study nature, not books,’ and put all theories to the test of living practice and action.”

It’s interesting what Hermann does here—navigating the complex ways in which experience and academics affect one another. Hermann recognized the ways in which experience both shatters knowledge and utilizes knowledge. The experiences of the women in these consciousness-raising groups challenged the prevailing idea that violence didn’t happen to women, but their experiences were bolstered by a source of knowledge, that of the scientific method.

All I’m saying is that I think knowledge and experience are both good for each other, and it bothers me when they are so dichotomized.

I’ve got more to say on this, but I’ll leave it at this for now. I’m tired after all the turkey and mashed potatoes…..

What do you all think? Does experience matter, does it inform knowledge, or is it only informed by knowledge?

… then you might enjoy this video:

Tirou da água as mãos e as levou ao rosto pálido, cheio de maquiagem. Colocou-as de volta na água e repetiu o gesto, tantas e tantas vezes. “Vênus”, uma moça chamou da porta. A moça que lavava o rosto virou-se e olhou para ela. Era baixa, atarracada, as mãos gordas e o rosto ruim, azedo. “Sim?”, Vênus respondeu cheia de sorrisos, as mãos ainda trêmulas e mergulhadas na água, o rosto num pálido dividido entre o líquido, o pó de arroz e sua pele leitosa. Parada por alguns segundos, pensou em que desgraças carregava aquela senhora, que andava sempre pelos corredores do prédio com a mesma expressão vaga e triste no rosto. Secou as mãos na toalha, e levou o rosto até ela, secando e tirando de vez a maquiagem. Era ainda mais pálida que o pó. Talvez ele lhe deixasse mais morena do que branca. “Vamos abrir as cortinas em um minuto”, a mulher informou e Vênus assentiu com a cabeça, o sorriso ainda com ela. A outra se foi, fechando a porta onde uma estrela ficava. Era dourada. No centro da estrela lia-se o nome da bailarina que lá dentro estava. Ela, Vênus, sentou-se na cadeira e olhou o espelho. Os olhos nos próprios olhos, aquelas mãos tremendo até agora. Estava nervosa, como ficava todos os dias antes de ir para o palco, antes de ir para frente de todas aquelas pessoas. Olhou para baixo, os pés doíam e estavam tão trêmulos quanto as mãos. Pensou. Doía até mesmo pensar, dada a dor de cabeça que sentia. Riu. O nervosismo lhe confundia os nervos e cruzava as emoções. Tinha finalmente chegado. A semana que vem era a hora de ir a um musical no maior teatro da Inglaterra. O dinheiro seria suficiente para pagar todas as contas, seria os suficiente para resolver todos os problemas. Todos os problemas? Riu de novo. Meu Deus, todos os problemas? Buscou problemas consigo mesma, tentou dar-se problemas para se preocupar. Não achou. Tinham? Se tinham, ela sabia? Não saber era ainda pior do que tê-los. A não ciência de suas deficiências, que outrora tanto lhe ajudou, agora lhe corroía as aflições e tornava suas extremidades ainda mais trêmulas, ainda mais nervosas. Precisava saber e não sabia onde buscar o conhecimento a respeito.
“Vênus!”, a voz veio quebrando o silêncio. Essa era de um homem: alta, esganiçada. A menina se levantou no mesmo instante, os olhos pregados na porta que se abriu com estrondo. “Onde você ‘tava?”, ele perguntou se aproximando dela. As mãos dela começaram a tremer mais ainda, seu rosto se contorceu em medo e seus pés descalços foram um, dois, três passos para trás. “Aqui”, ela respondeu passiva, encolhida, quieta. Ela que sempre se garria para ele, que sempre se aprontava de enfeites e fazia pra ele o que ele queria que fosse feito. Ela que sempre doava o que era e o que não era decente para ele poder pegar. “Aqui?”, ele repetiu. Agora a voz baixa e calma. Lívido, continuou: “Aqui, sua vagabunda?” Tinha os olhos presos nela, sem medo de encará-la embora ela estivesse morrendo de medo de continuar a olhar naqueles olhos. Olhou para baixo, suas mãos batiam contra a coxa de tanto que tremiam. Ele bateu na cara dela. Vênus foi ao chão. “E por que você estava aqui, que mal lhe pergunte?”, ele quis saber com os olhos tão juntos das feições dela que até incomodaria qualquer um que estivesse vendo.
Na porta chegaram, e debruçaram-se contra o batente, outras meninas. Algumas com os rostos em deboche, contorcidos e estúpidos, como se pedissem para ele bater mais em Vênus. Muitos motivos tinham para desejar o pior para ela: algumas pelo fato dela ser a mais importante de todas as bailarinas dalí, outras porque era ela quem ganhava o nome nos cartazes, nos programas de rádio. Mas a maioria delas, dessas que debochavam, tinham inveja de estar alí, apanhando de Paulo. Queriam que antes fossem elas lá, atiradas ao chão, levando as porradas porque não estiveram onde deveriam estar. Queriam elas serem a frágil, a deficiente, a que era tão, mas tão importante para o espetáculo que chegava a apanhar se não comparecesse a ele. Queriam, mas não eram. Algumas outras olhavam com compaixão, como se quisessem poder fazê-lo parar. Não podiam, contudo. Mulher, menina, homem, velho nenhum alí dentro tinha a coragem de olhar Paulo nos olhos. Ele era extremamente alto, esguio, de voz aguda e olhos muito fundos, lembrando um par de copos velhos e escuros. Sua pose não era máscula — tampouco seus parceiros — mas não havia dentro daquele prédio alguém tão macho, tão homem quanto Paulo. “Levanta, porra”, ele mandou. Vênus obedeceu no mesmo instante, o rosto tão imponente quanto derrotado. Como tinha classe, e como a classe colocava todas as outras bailarinas no chão. Aquela capacidade de encantar os olhso de qualquer um que Vênus tinha era o que mais incomodava as outras. “Isso vai acontecer de novo, Vênus?”, Paulo perguntou começando a andar até a porta. “Vai”, ela respondeu. O homem não ficou surpreso, não pareceu afrontado. Se era aquilo que ela dizia que aconteceria, não havia nada que ele pudesse fazer. O que ele podia fazer, que era mandá-la para a porta da rua, seria o mesmo que fechar as portas e dizer que não fariam mais espetáculos. É complicado explicar o quão brilhante Vênus era.

Here is another ICSE 2010 workshop you should be interested in: the Second Workshop on Software Research and Climate Change.

The call for papers is just out –you might find it a bit unusual that there will not be a formal publication of the proceedings but the intent of the workshop is to create a lively discussion on the topic and to build a community of researchers interested in tackling it. Here is the challenge for participants:

How can we, as experts in software technology, and as the creators of future software tools and techniques, apply our particular knowledge and experience to the challenge of climate change? How can we understand and exploit the particular intellectual assets of our community — our ability to:

• think computationally;
• understand and model complex inter-related systems;
• build useful abstractions and problem decompositions;
• manage and evolve large-scale socio-technical design efforts;
• build the information systems and knowledge management tools that empower effective decision-making;
• develop and verify complex control systems on which we now depend;
• create user-friendly and task-appropriate interfaces to complex information and communication infrastructures.

In short, how can we apply our research strengths to make significant contributions to the problems of mitigation and adaptation of climate change?

I should mention I am also in the Program Committee for this workshop — if you have anything to say on the subject I’d love to hear from you!

Finaliza con éxito 4to Encuentro Nacional de Escuelas de Comunicación Social

El evento se llevó a cabo durante los días 18, 19 y 20 de noviembre de 2009 en las instalaciones de la UCAB, en Caracas

Después de tres días de jornada en la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, culminó con éxito el 4to Encuentro Nacional de Escuelas de Comunicación Social, que hizo énfasis en los “50 años de transformación de la comunicación”. Libertad de expresión, experiencias de formación y empleo, iniciativas en la era digital y la comunicación en la gestión pública venezolana, fueron algunos de los temas que se abordaron en las diferentes ponencias.

Más de 350 personas entre estudiantes, profesores e investigadores asistieron al evento. Todas las escuelas de comunicación social del país estaban presentes y tenían delegados en el lugar, entre ellos, estudiantes de la UCAB con sede Guayana, de la Universidad Arturo Michelena, UCSAR, LUZ, ULA Táchira, UCV, UNICA, UMA y URBE.

Se contó con la participación del invitado internacional Octavio Islas, miembro del Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, México, quien aseguró que “en la sociedad de la información todos podemos tener acceso a ella y asumir el rol de creadores de contenidos”.

Continuar lectura: http://www.entornointeligente.com/resumen/resumen.php?items=983758

News, news, news! After my graduation ceremony I got in touch with one of my old lecturers, one thing led to another and now she and my dissertation supervisor are going to help me present/publish my dissertation! How awesome is that! Not that I expect that anyone would actually want to publish it, but it’s nice that people are even recognizing the possibility! So yesterday I went down to Southampton again (I’ve been down there like every 2nd week lately! haha) to attend a research seminar this lecturer was going to hold.Funnily enough, my supervisor showed up as well by coincidence. The seminar in itself was nice because I finally got some intellectual stimulation, which I’ve missed a lot. After the seminar there was a small social gathering (don’t know what else to call it) where I got the chance to network a little bit. Emphasis should be on a little bit, but I did get to meet up with this lecturer and my supervisor again and we developed a small ‘action plan’ which involved me writing up an abstract for the BPS Annual Conference. I need to submit it on Monday to have the chance to attend this conference in April with a poster presentation. It would be SO exciting if I managed to get on there, but I’m not gonna get my hopes up too much. I think it’s nice to submit it and the fact that I got a good mark, there’s not much more to it really.

Anyway, I should get back to my abstract… Just wanted to post a tiny little update

xoxo

Oggi ho finito le lezioni di Storia dell’informatica e della Comunicazione Digitale (sono stanco ma soddisfatto). Dopo la presentazione, questi sono tutti i lucidi, pubbicati sul mio profilo SlideShare, di storia dell’informatica:

1. Origini del calcolo digitale: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
2. Il computer come calcolatore: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
3. Il computer fatto in casa: 1, 2.
4. Il computer da scrivania: 1.
5. Il computer connesso: 1.

Questi invece sono i lucidi della parte di comunicazione digitale, dedicata al rapporto tra tecnologia e immaginario, anche nel senso di prodotti culturali (letteratura e cinema, in particolare):

• Tecnologia e immaginario: 1, 2, 3.

Per chi ha tempo e voglia, ricordo che la lezione speciale di quest’anno ha avuto come tema il retrocomputing ed è stata filmata e pubblicata su Vimeo (non viene richiesta all’esame, comunque).

Sempre fui o desleixo em pessoa. Nunca curti me arrumar e muito menos chamar a atenção. Minhas roupas sempre foram um tanto discretas e nos pés, nada que não fosse tênis. Vestidos e saias sempre passaram longe de mim e eu sempre convivi muito bem com isso, acho que principalmente pelos meus problemas de auto-estima, que fizeram com que eu me escondesse. Além disso, para mim sempre foi muito importante que a pessoa mostrasse a capacidade dela muito mais do que a aparência. Mas, conforme fui amadurecendo crescendo mudando de perspectiva e conhecendo as minhas fronteiras, percebi que não adianta nadar tanto com a corrente, que o segredo é saber como ir até ultrapassar a arrebentação, senão você vai levar um caldo. Boa aparência abre portas SIM, e não só a do carro.

Não que eu vá deixar de ler e estudar, ou deixe de acreditar que o legal mesmo seria se todo mundo desse muito mais valor ao intelecto do que à aparência. SERIA. Infelizmente não é assim e o mundo nem dá sinais disso. Aí eu fiz uma listinha de coisas que me convenceram a mudar um pouco isso:

 - Comer porcarias e engordar é o de menos! Antes eu avacalhava, mandava mil lanches cheios de queijo bem no café, acompanhado de uma Coca normal e pensava “Tudo bem, não quero ser magra e nunca foi bonita, pelo menos vou me divertir!”. NOT! Depois de alguns anos nessa farra de gordura trans, descobri que meu COLESTEROL estava na casa do cacete e minha chance de infartar na casa dos 30 era mais alta ainda. Ok, bonita só nascendo de novo, mas saudável dá, né?! (Não que eu tenha parado de mandar um carboidrato nervoso e várias uma coca quando rola aquele ressacão. Mas todo dia não mais. E, pasmem, tenho mais disposição).

 - Boa aparência ajuda na vida profissional. Roupas devidamente lavadas e passadas, salto alto e algum corretivo depois de dormir apenas 4h passam boa impressão (Depois de 24 anos eu descobri o que é uma base, um corretivo, rímel e pó. Brasil, maquiagem faz milagres e até eu fico bonitinha. Olhando de longe, claro!). Ou quantas vezes você um gerente-supervisor-chefe maltrapilho? Será mesmo que eles chegaram lá e mudaram depois? Ninguém aqui defende um desfile de moda e salto agulha no mundo corporativo. Mas blusa furada e tênis cheio de lama não dá. E não tratemos aqui de higiene pessoal porque não acho que seja o caso. Limpinha eu sempre fui, só não era arrumada.

 - Praticar alguma atividade física não é coisa só de escravo do corpo. Confesso que morria de preconceito com academia, gente marombada e que contabiliza caloria. Continuo sem curtir essa vibe total shape freak, mas praticar esporte/atividade física é necessário para a saúde. Exercício cansa o corpo, descansa a cabeça, produz endorfina e ajuda a gente a dormir melhor. Faça algo que você goste (nadar, correr, jogar futebol, peteca, sei lá) e encontre prazer em praticar, porque o resto é conseqüência. Se você fica delicinha, já ta no lucro.

 - Coma legumes, frutas e verduras. Desde criança eu sempre torci o nariz para tudo que tivesse tons de verde e pudesse ser comido sem por algum tipo de preparo ou sem esquentar. Só que a idade vai chegando, você corre e de repente fica tudo preto. Credo, né!? Isso é uma das coisas mais suaves que a falta de vitamina pode fazer. Frutas, legumes e verduras, mais do que aquela cara nada pouco simpática, são fonte de nutrientes importantíssimos para que o seu corpo possa encarar BEM um show, uma balada e o tranco do dia-a-dia. Além disso, geralmente é mais barato e mais fácil de comer. Ou vai dizer que é alegria de deus a sujeira que faz comer uma barra de chocolate no calor? E preparar uma lasanha então?

The list of workshops for ICSE 2010 is out, and though many of them look very interesting I’d like to point your attention towards the workshop on Web 2.0 for Software Engineering. Here’s the abstract:

Social software is built around an “architecture of participation” where user data is aggregated as a side-effect of using Web 2.0 applications. Web 2.0 implies that processes and tools are socially open, and that content can be used in several different contexts. Web 2.0 tools and technologies support interactive information sharing, data interoperability and user centered design. For instance, wikis, blogs, tags and feeds help us organize, manage and categorize content in an informal and collaborative way. One goal of this workshop is to investigate how these technologies can improve software development practices. Some of these technologies have made their way into collaborative software development processes such as Agile and Scrum, and in development platforms such as Rational Team Concert which draw their inspiration from Web 2.0. These processes and environments are just scratching the surface of what can be done by incorporating Web 2.0 approaches and technologies into collaborative software development. This workshop aims to improve our understanding of how Web 2.0, manifested in technologies such as mashups or dashboards, can change the culture of collaborative software development.

I’m in the Program Committee and I’d love to read your work on the topic, so start writing!

I get knocked down
But I get up again
You are never going to
Keep me down
CHUMBAWAMBA

*

There were two news that I received yesterday.  News that really made my heart goes thump thuMP thUMP THUMPING!  One was a good news, and another one was a not-so-good-but-can-be-considered-as-good-too news.

#1: Diner Dash

One of the giants from the hills fee-fi-fo-fummed me telling that they have approved my dishes. So that left me another one level.  After that, the game would be over and I can start a new restaurant at another hills.

#2: She-Male

What would you feel when you get to know that someone close to you is not what you think he/she is?  Angry? Sad?  Betrayed?  I had a mixed feelings when I got to know that……

SMARTIES IS A SHE NOT A HE!

Hah hah hah

So I brought another female Roborovsky to accompany her – Dexter.

I know, both of them have macho names, aren’t they?

Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher might just be the best film about teaching that I’ve ever seen. In particular, high-end teaching – the instruction of students potentially good enough to better their teacher. In the film, Erika Kohut (played by Isabelle Huppert) is a professor of piano at the Vienna Conservatory. She once had hopes, it seems, of being a big-time pianiste herself – hopes which are still held by her tyrannical mother, who warns her daughter in an early scene “If you want your students to have a career instead of you… No one must surpass you, my girl… Ne sois pas maladroite.” But of course her mother’s words speak to (or around) the insurmountable problem, even paradox, at the center of high-end teaching. One teaches because one can’t quite do, but can nevertheless do well enough to instruct others – others with a hope (that’s why they’re there!) of doing better, even doing well enough not to have to teach. Erika, as it turns out, obeys her mother’s orders with shocking fidelity.

She’s an extremely demanding teacher, but what she teaches is a demanding topic – interpretation. We hear her again and again criticize her students for faulty comprehension of the composer’s directions as to tempo or dynamics, or in the case of music accompanied by song, their understanding of the relationship between the notes that they play and the words that go with them.  At one point, she berates one of her charges for missing the fact that “here, the mood switches to irony” as well as the “obstinacy of the complacent middle-class” expressed in one of the songs.  In the scene that I’ve clipped in here, it’s the question of what Schubert’s instructions mean – “Schubert’s dynamics run from scream to whisper not loud to soft.”

She is an extremely good teacher, it seems – but her aptitude only heighens the contradiction that I described above. In fact, it heightens it so much that the film has to shift registers, translating what had been an issue of interpretitive education into one of sexuality. Erika’s affair with Walter Klemmer starts where the piano instruction left off. He is desperate for her attention, and she responds by giving orders, and eventually composing an entire textbook of sexual interpretation for Walter to follow. The results are disastrous (and unfortunately, not English subtitled on Youtube….)

It is worth remembering at this point that Erika’s sexuality has been figured all along as not only masochistic but spectatorial. She doesn’t seem to get off, but what fun she has in this department arrives via the observation of the fun of others. She spies on people fucking in their cars at a drive-in movie theater, and retrieves the cum-rags in a porn shop video-cell in order to sniff them. Those who cannot do… But at the point in the film captured in the video above, Walter rejects her instructions as insane – in fact, insanely overly-instructional. She reacts desperately, but despite her desperation, anything beyond written instructions, anything beyond teaching, is too much for her. (In the next scene, as she apologizes to him and begs him to stay with her, she frantically offers him oral sex – but vomits when he ejaculates in her mouth….) Thus begins her plummeting fall from the position of the teacherly mastery at the hands (and cock) of a student who will both follow her instructions all too literally (showing up at her apartment that night to beat the shit out of her, breaking her nose, ignoring her pleas for him to stop – all per her previous written instructions) and at the same time asserting his own right to make up some rules of his own.

As he says just after breaking her nose, “You know, I do realise that all this isn’t very nice of me. But if you’re honest, you’ll admit you’re partly responsible. I mean, it’s true… Yes or no?” She answers in the affirmative. He repeats, “Am I right?” And she responds “Yes, Walter.”  And as he rapes her, he utterances take on an uncannily pedagogical tone, a series of imperatives and scolding prohibitions: “You have to give a bit… You can’t leave me now… You can’t humiliate a man that way and… It’s not possible.”

Stringent instructions on musical interpretation have given on to sexual orders, but this time Erika’s student at once fulfils and outsteps the paths that she has outlined in her teacherly instructions. It is the ostensibly blissful moment of the student’s supercession of the master, what we teachers all would say that we hope for, that we teach for, but which in fact – whether we know it or not – constitutes an act of fatal violence upon ourselves and the very authority upon which our instructorial authority is based. All of which significantly clarifies the stakes of the final scene.

Back during Walter’s initial admission interview, Erika had argued that he was too old to have a shot at a career as a professional pianist. But if he is too old, what does that make her? Her belated turn toward sexual adventurism in lieu of the intensities of work was always already a registration of her failures as an artist – in a sense, it was implicit in her taking up of a position, right from the start. She will never get her shot, it’s way too late – she can only give instruction and live on with he ambivalent hopes and fears that someone learns to obey them so thoroughly that they come to disobey them. That is to say, to learn to love her with all the sexualized violence and hatred that she displays toward her own mother. But unlike the the pathetic old woman with whom she shares a bed, she is enough of a professional to do herself in (if that is what she has done) just at the moment when the outcome – of all of it – is clear and she has finally lost and her student has in his own way won. But even this act, as you can see in the clip above, hovers undecidibly between stonecold hari-kari and some sort of apotheosis of childish passive-aggression. Whatever she has done in this scene, and whatever the outcome, she has missed the heart yet again.

Fui à casa da minha amiga Sarah, começo de tarde…assistir ao Lua Nova(versão cinema), dublado ainda..affe…Jesus…só entendemos o que é falado porque já vimos o filme no cinema….e por falar no filme, esqueci de postar a loucura que foi o dia da estréia…vou marcar um recadinho na frente do pc..rsrs

Enfim…saindo de lá fui para a bendita da academia, pois fiquei com a maior preguiça na parte da manhã e faltei na natação (vergonha viu!)….chegando lá…lotaaado…oh gente que curte uma academia de noite.Como sempre…fui direto para o meu aparelho favorito(o simulador de degraus), adoro demais…em apenas 15 minutos de subida,você já está suando feito porco, ou seja, queimando calorias, uebaa!

Marquei, 45 minutos e lá vamos nós….como eu esqueci o bendito do mp4, fui obrigada  a prestar atenção no povo que frequenta a bendita.Gente, please, respondam-me:Porque essas meninas de praticamente 40 quilos vão à academia e querem fazer aeróbica?elas querem perder o quê, me fala.Ou então, qual a razão dessas mocinhas fazerem chapinha para ir malhar?É idiotice, gente burra, ou mulheres que acham que impressionam os homens com os cabelos voando em frente aos ventiladores?O pior de tudo, é que elas malham mesmo, soam tudo e o cabelo faz o quê?Enrola..affe..fica pior do que cabelo após banho de mar!

Ainda existe mulher que vai na academia pra fazer amizade com os caras de braço grande?elas ainda não perceberam que eles conversam com elas olhando os próprios músculos no espelho?Se não repararam, precisam.E as roupinhas das Barbie´s?Comédia demais…elas combinam até o sutiã com a cor da meia, do tênis, do prendedor de cabelo…hilário..até mesmo com a garrafa de água..juro!

Será que o investimento que elas fazem na academia é tão curto assim que dá tempo de perder tempo com todas essas babaquices?Pô, eu pago uma notinha pra perder peso e vou me preocupar com roupa, com cabelo, com unha feita?Acorda mulherada, 80% dos caras bombados da academia raspam as axilas com cera….podem notar..precisa dizer mais alguma coisa?Acho que não!

Mas graças à essas babaquices, o tempo passa até mais rápido na malhação…o que é o ato de ficar entretido não?!

CORRESPONSAL

Federico Reyes Heroles

24 Nov. 09

Escuchar y ser escuchado. Aceptar los límites de la razón y el entendimiento y tratar de ampliarlos una y otra vez. Informarse, siempre informarse, no emitir opinión si se carece de un mínimo que debe ser un máximo de información. Aprender de las generaciones mayores pero también estar atento a las nuevas perspectivas e incluso, por qué no, herejías. Ser amable en las formas pero riguroso en el fondo. Intento describir el ánimo que reina en el Foro Iberoamérica que la semana pasada celebró en Buenos Aires su décima versión. Presidido hoy por Carlos Fuentes y Ricardo Lagos el Foro reúne a una tríada de ámbitos: políticos, empresarios e intelectuales. Ex mandatarios como Sanguinetti, Betancurt, Felipe González, el propio Lagos o Cardoso dialogando y en algún sentido conviviendo anualmente durante tres días con empresarios de gran calado y escritores como Nélida Piñón, Tomás Eloy Martínez, periodistas como Cebrián, Magnetto, Escribano, historiadores como Carmen Iglesias; u hombres de estado como Enrique Iglesias, Celso Lafer, Francisco Pinto Balsemao. Termino obligadamente la lista cometiendo la injusticia que provoca la escasez de espacio.

El diapasón de paneles es siempre muy amplio, va desde la cruda economía hasta el impacto de la cultura. De todas seleccioné y resumo al lector una que me pareció pertinente para nuestro país. Funjo como corresponsal. Por la información confidencial que se maneja estoy autorizado a transmitir qué se dijo pero no quién lo dijo. La mesa sobre narcotráfico y seguridad estuvo integrada por Juan Manuel Santos, ex ministro de defensa del Colombia, una persona que ha sufrido en carne propia el horror de esa guerra y uno de los más fuertes candidatos a suceder a Uribe si éste declina la reelección, y Luis Felipe Lampreia ex canciller brasileño. Moderó Jorge Quiroga ex candidato presidencial de Bolivia. Intervinieron además Sanguinetti, Betancur entre otros.

Extensión del fenómeno: creciente al grado de haber tocado ya a países que parecían islas como lo puede ser Costa Rica. Brasil cuenta con favelas de cientos de miles de habitantes controladas por el narco. Gobiernos involucrados a partir de su tolerancia expresa que se plasma en infinidad de casos: Venezuela y Ecuador en particular a través de las FARC. No hay sorpresa pero si enojo por la hipocresía diplomática. Participación de las Fuerzas Armadas, no es deseable pero es inevitable, la pérdida de control sobre las áreas y el sacudimiento de las instituciones no dejan margen. De allí la enorme diferencia entre países con instituciones fuertes y los débiles que pueden naufragar.

Cómo medir el éxito de los operativos, dos son los referentes: el aumento del precio y la caída en la pureza. Esto generó uno de los puntos de mayor discusión. La paradoja: el éxito de los operativos hace aún más lucrativo el negocio. Es el cuento de nunca acabar. Uno de los aspectos más sugerentes expresados por personas que han tenido experiencia de gobierno es el factor fatiga. Se trata de una guerra de mediano plazo en la cual nunca habrá una victoria total pero si puede haber una derrota del estado. En el trayecto las poblaciones se van cansando de escuchar los logros de otro golpe y otro más sin que pareciera haber un fin. Los gobiernos deben hacer un enorme esfuerzo informativo para mantener o no perder el apoyo de la población. Los medios deben asumir un compromiso expreso como aliados del estado en esta guerra y auto regularse. Sólo así se evita el narco terrorismo.

Otro aspecto provocado por la complejidad del asunto, por el desconocimiento de la mayoría de la población y por cierto resquemor, es un síndrome de silencio. Poco a poco las sociedades dejan de hablar de esta guerra, de hablar en las escuelas, en las universidades, en el medios. Al aislarse de la discusión los ciudadanos terminan convencidos de que el asunto no les incumbe y dejan a los gobiernos solos. Uno de los asistentes expresó con enojo la paradoja de la doble moral estadounidense de sostener una sociedad en la cual las drogas están prohibidas y las armas permitidas. Dos caras de la misma moneda. Hubo consenso en que un mundo sin drogas es utopía. Los participantes expresaron su convencimiento de que la única solución, a la larga, es la legalización o despenalización como producto de un gran acuerdo internacional. Hubo debate en cuáles eran los efectos de acciones de tipo gradual o si debería procederse en varios frentes a la vez. Por supuesto se mencionó el documento promovido en esa línea por los ex presidentes Zedillo, Gaviria y Cardoso el cual debería ser retomado para una discusión seria con todas las bases empíricas que hoy tenemos.

Hubo un amplio reconocimiento a la labor del Presidente Calderón y varios de los asistentes, basados en sus experiencias, asentaron que la estrategia tendrá éxito en la recuperación de la capacidad de gobierno y en la firmeza de las instituciones. Pero estamos apenas en el inicio de la ruta.