Vom 29.-30.01.2010 findet in der Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster das christlich-islamische Symposium „LetzteDinge. Eschatologie als Scheideweg / am Scheideweg“ statt.

Details zu Programm und Anmeldung

The fifth annual Hakyoreh-Busan International Symposium on the subject of communication and peace in Northeast Asia organized by the Hankyoreh Foundation for Reunification and Culture (HFRC) began Thursday at the Nurimaru APEC House located in Busan. Experts and scholars who convened continued discussions through Friday on pressing current issues, including methods to resolve the North Korea nuclear issue.

Lim Dong-won, chairperson of the Hankyoreh Foundation for Reunification and Culture, opened the symposium by saying, “A comprehensive package deal is the only way to resolve the North Korea nuclear issue, to ensure a peaceful government and to bring
about an end to the Cold War that remains on the Korean Peninsula.” Lim added, “Although there have been so many obstacles, once we have reaffirmed our belief in the  power of negotiation, we will be able to attain the final goal of bringing about an end to
the Cold War on the Korean Peninsula.” Chung Mong-joon, chairman of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP), said in his
congratulatory address, “A consultative body needs to be put together on increasing peace and communication within Northeast Asia.” Busan Mayor Hur Nam-sik welcomed international researcher and experts by saying, “This year’s symposium could serve as the site of bipartisan leadership on peace in Northeast Asia.”

Learn from an outstanding group of experts at this 3-day symposium devoted to gardening in the South! Designed for all gardeners, this jam-packed schedule offers lectures, demos, workshops and a one-stop gardening marketplace. The symposium will take place in Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain GA. This content-rich event provides the unique opportunity for personal interaction with the speakers including for instance Lee Anne White, Pam Baggett, Pamela Crawford and Dr. Mark Windham. Attendees can also take part in a pre-conference tour of Jim Scott’s fantastic Lake Martin Garden with imaginative use of water features or participate on a silent and live auction for unique plants and garden items. For more information, visit the Southeast Tourism Society Destination Guide.

For scholars – do you honestly believe and think that the way moderns enjoy wine is anything like what our evidence shows us about ancient wine consumption?

Dionysus and wine were the objects of *worship*. Moderns can jokingly say that they ‘worship’ wine, but that’s an empty, shallow use of that word. In no way does the modern experience of wine match with the ancient experience of wine. Look at the evidence (Dionysus worship, symposium drinking parties, use in other mystery ceremonies, including Roman Imperial cult, literary evidence that reflects these practices, etc.).

How can we account for the ancient attitude towards wine?

• they were silly primitives who revered something as divine which we enlightened moderns are able to use much more discretely and with greater temperance than our silly primitive ancestors.
• they had a different physiology or body chemistry that made them more effected by fermented grape juice. We moderns lack the ability to be so effected.
• they were so awed by the ritualistic settings that wine was consumed in that they considered it to be divine. We moderns know better.
• Ancient wine was not simply fermented grape juice, but a mixture that had effects similar to psychedelic mushroom intoxication. When we come across evidence for ancient wine use, it’s more appropriate to interpret that in terms of psychedelic mushroom intoxication than fermented grape intoxication.

More examples similar to the first three could be supplied. Scholars have written thousands of useless pages propagating such theories or blithely passing them on without examining them. In comparison to the last suggestion, they are clearly bad, clueless explanations, fueled by a pseudo-scientific cultural evolutionism reminiscent of James Frazer (The Golden Bough). Either the ancients were stupid primitives or they were somehow just so different to be so effected by fermented grape juice.

The work done during the days of the MEDCOM Symposium has been very important.  This statement is related not just to the institutional dimension (and at this level, representative of both majority and minority of the local government took part in the work and expressed their interest in the prosecution of the manifestation in next years), but also in the theoretical sphere (as setting point of a shared methodology) and in the social dimension of the communication (the world around the magic of the meeting).

Allow me to start this synthesis from the meaningful title of the session I managed – Communicating Europe and the Euro-Med space: here the first manifesting dimension is the idea of communication as place where the matter comes out from the technical field and enter in the concrete sphere of the relation among individuals.

This starting point leads to the research of the effective possibility given to the main actors of a reciprocal understanding and opportunity to setting up a local public sphere as place where experimenting European methodologies and standards. This framework, which is not but the traditional way to work of European systems, is of particular interest for the Mediterranean area.

Of course, to communicate is also a choice of use of the right language and the proper methodology of work: therefore, during the session we have been remarking some documents as the EU Communication Strategy 2010 [COM(2009) 73] and the Sea-Basin program [Decision n. 2008/020-284] for the Mediterranean area.

We had the opportunity to hear from Mr. Salvatore Iacolino – EU Parliament Member – some interesting reflections about the way to look at Europe less as the cow who donate contributions (even because, we need to say, the financial framework is about the mix of enlargement and crisis) and more towards democracy, diplomacy, freedom. The leading role of EU in this field needs to affirm itself with effectiveness, and communication is the more concrete engine of these changes.

Mr. Roberto Zangrandi, president CERP (Confédération Européenne des Relations Publiques), pointed his focus on the risk of a clash of civilization, formula to state that – notwithstanding the diplomatic language – often we can register that the Mediterranean southern coast Countries are not still accepted as full partners, and this is related also to the different problem coming out from the effectiveness of civil rights and the sharing of culture, where communication is the key to improve these changes.

Mr. Dejan Vercic highlighted the concept of public space – conceptually: public sphere of debate – is the framework where reconciliation is possible, and the instrument of governance reverberate as tools for democracy: therefore the extension of communication, also in the bureaucratic form, is the key to setting up standard for common sense of sharing which is the proper key to the EU methodology.

Mrs. Antonella Gurrieri, as journalist of the television communication system, pointed her speech on the social meaning of the new technologies, also about television, reporting the experience of RAIMED as satellite channel, and especially as instrument to improve the opportunities of communication and visibility, and reciprocity.

In the large framework of the other sessions of the MEDCOM Symposium, the way to share communication through entrepreneurs and the government levels seems to be the way for the tuning (and the fine tuning) for the effectiveness of democracy, especially when also the NGO (non-governmental organizations) have a place in the debate towards the choice for the territory.

The voices coming from Turkey, Israel and Albania gave effectiveness to the debate on the Mediterranean meaning of communication, focusing some aspect of primary dimension.

Among these, I feel the main suggestion could be:

• A modern way to interpret tourism, as system to improve contacts among people and give more trust in the opportunities of reciprocal understanding, especially when the richness of culture enter in the proper way to stay in touch: this is always a surprise able to increase the wish to know more about the others.  Tourism as an instrument for sharing values, with a viral expansion to involve an increasing number of people in cultural relationship which are not just the curiosity which lead to have a trip in that place (which is the starting point) but also a dimension of experience as this was in the educative model of the “grand tour” for the aristocracy of the XIX century, now expanded in a more large dimension, to build a fluid society through Europe and Mediterranean area, that is to build a new model of relation and reciprocal understanding, where myths, history, arts and special network are the linking dimension of this relation.

• A new dimension of politics is on the road, and women and young people are waiting for a new model of communication which can be able to give them more strength, the condition to create a more pervasive dimension of reciprocity, starting from the most important experience towards a sustainable model of governance and involvement of citizen in the debate around a modern idea of citizenship.

These two last themes can be explored in some new ways, making a more interactive field of relation, less formal and more effective, a new koiné where contents are more important that the package, and improve the dimension of the setting up of a public sphere at a local level as the proper dimension to go beyond the line of control and create a culture of comparison and knowledge which is the key of a future we can work to shape through a positive and reciprocal will.

Sincerely I believe MEDCOM is an important instrument to improve this level of Mediterranean awareness and readiness to adopt – and adapt – the European methodology to build partnership and common project.

I’m fully disposable to every deepening around the themes.

All the best!

Davide Crimi

EUROPE DIRECT CATANIA

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Surely mankind’s greatest invention is the sentence.

—John Banville

Since Aristophanes and Socrates

Are talking poetry—with the gods’ blessing—

With a whisper about a parchment—call

It a ‘sur-fact’, a secret, or maybe

A surface—just a simple white canvas,

Really, a talented tabula rasa,

A prime mover—prima facie—the desert.

Say poetry is like that too, just before—

Before the spacial silence like

—like, it’s like the desert—

And then when rain begins—a kind of Brain

Rain—it draws the oil up, surfaces it,

So it’s slick, the mind is, his daemon. Still…

*

The lamps are lit, so Socrates can see

That Aristophanes is pouring his

Particular oil into open ears,

Into everyone’s evening ears and eyes.

And Aristophanes goes for the joke too.

He farts. Real funny. He farts and pretends

It’s a hiccup out the wrong end. Stand on

Your head, why don’t you, Aristophanes?

…For its Aristophanes

Who is about to give an encomium

To Eros. Too sophisticated

To offer praise for a dead god, he

Will spin a tale of sun and earth and moon,

Of round bodies and moieties in search

Of themselves—this same Aristophanes

Is stinking up the stage right now…

*

So Socrates can smile and finally laugh.

It is as if he’s finally free, and in

This freedom he can sense that since

The gods can’t be persons, Eros must be

A shorthand for something else, for Eros,

Made of many minds, cannot not exist—

At least not this Artifice of Eros,

As plain as parchment, bright white and wet when

It rains. So Aristophanes, his oil,

So Socrates, his solitude, together

In encomium—in formation

Of the god, the goddess of love, the two.

*

But Aristophanes is puzzled by

These two fold tales. When death is not surpassed,

The momentary and the monumental

Remain. Repeat: When death is not surpassed,

The momentary and the monumental

Remain. Thus, the Eros-of-Now remains;

The Eros-of-Eternity…yes, yes,

By definition, if He or She exists

At all—like math, like the Good, like Beauty—

Something always is there—but poetry

Forced in our mouths, minds—both behemoth,

Beyond our beliefs, shivering beneath

The skin, a half-truth in a no-truth world,

And puny innocence so fragile that

The fragrance of a grape might destroy it

—a single grape, mind you, forced on you…

*

Or so it seems. For Aristophanes,

Most musts must reside inside of mustard seeds…

Say that twice.

But things are that simple sometimes.

As he enters Agathon’s pavilion,

He wonders what ethics has to do with

Beauty. It’s seeds. There’s your answer—

For ethics are like seeds to beauty,

Like grapes that lead to wine,

Like grapes that lead to raisins.

*

But poetry is forced into our mouths

And minds, too—like the wine and like those raisins—

For the Beautiful should reign in both—

So Socrates stops—again—still outside

The bright confines of Agathon’s party,

Still part of an immense colloquy,

Contra the sun, and rain, contra the dry

Parched earth, all stacked as one, all stacked

Against his passage from stillness, from Eros

And love, all stacked against his desire

And lack of desire…

*

But we can stop too, and look at ourselves

As Socrates—like Socrates—and see

Him like a progression of the sun

Against the setting of the sun, the psalms

Of innocence versus the songs

Experience sings—grape, rain, wine, raisin,

Reason—the sun’s sunlight tempered by earth’s

Seasons, its rotation around the sun,

Its shadow of air, water from the sky,

—amazing suspense: gravity with grace—

And brought to final fruition in that grape,

That grain, that pod, the fruit and seeds, the grass

Grown and sheltered amid the rocks

And trees— enough to keep the gods in harness,

Enough to keep the fires burning, sending

The sun back to the sun, enough to keep

Both Socrates and Alcibiades,

Who will join us later, suspended in

The poetry we all will someday write…

*

Will write someday, that is, on the dry skin,

On the parchment that is at last preserved.

The Maryland Commission for Women is hosting a free Symposium on Saturday, December 5, 2009 at Prince George’s Community College from 8:00 a.m. through 3:00 p.m. This free event is intended to empower women is this challenging economy with a day of workshops, resources and sharing. Issues for women are foreclosure prevention and intervention, financial education and literacy, domestic violence, and where to get help. Registration and breakfast is set for 8:00 a.m. followed by valuable workshops, lunch, and a wrap-up, and there will be vendors with advice and assistance. To Register here and visit the website. Questions? Call 410-767-3049 or e-mail mcw@dhr.state.md.us

By Monica Watson

Ron Schassburger, a professor at Ithaca College in the School of Health Science and Human Performance, sat in his office and remebered his wife Elizabeth O’Brien-Schassburger, known as Bunny to everyone.

“It was Friday October 13th, 2006 when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,” he said. “She was a nurse practitioner, so with her experience with medicine she knew the diagnosis was pretty bad.”

O’Brien passed away in 2008 from pancreatic cancer after a 15-month battle. In honor of his late wife, Schassburger hopes to start a symposium that will help others in the medical field and students learning about the field embody the caring spirit his late wife had for her patients.

Steve Siconolfi, Dean of the School of Health Science and Human Performance at Ithaca College, said that O’Brien did more than just provide health care to her patients.

“She was an extraordinary professional who went out of her way to assist her patients who were in a chronic disease state,” he said “Not only did she provide good health care, she provided improvement of quality of life.”

The symposium will be available for students, professionals and the public. Siconolfi said that the symposium will help instill O’Brien’s natural gift of bedside manner into more health care professionals.

“They don’t teach bedside manner,” he said. “The idea is that these people who don’t get the bedside manner training will learn from this symposium and then go on to improve the quality of healthcare in rural America.”

Alana Koehler, a pre-medical exercise science major at Ithaca College, said that because there are no classes that teach bedside manners and that through the symposium people could become inspired to develop those skills.

“That’s something that really can’t be taught,” Koehler said. “There’s a humanistic element to it. You either have the passion for health and healing and improving people’s quality of life or you don’t. I think it would be a good way to try to develop that passion, especially if you had that community of people who have a compassion for healing and would be a great atmosphere to learn in.”

Schassburger said the symposium will help integrate the medical professionals with the average person or patient to learn and discuss with.

“The practitioners who are caring for people with various diseases can come together and discuss new developments in their field, Schassburger said. “The families and patients themselves will also have an opportunity to interact and find out what’s going on in that area of medicine and how they can best take care of themselves. I wanted to integrate both the medical community and the lay community with this.”

Schassburger said that the topic of the symposium will change from year to year depending on what the community and the practitioners are most concerned with.

“While the first year would be living with kidney disease, and that because that was the field she worked in. It would change year to year,” he said. “The topic might be living with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or any number of topics, whatever is of major concern to the people in the area.”

He said that the next steps are to fundraise and then establish a date for next year to hold Bunny’s first Symposium on the Art and Science of Healing.

Bunny Symposium by mwatson

An acupuncturist, a Reiki teacher, and two artists who work with chi and creativity and chi gung will present their healing arts on Saturday, Nov. 21 from 2-4 p.m. at Berkeley Public Central Library in downtown Berkeley. This is the second author panel in the free series Get Well! Alternative Practitioners Talk With You About Healing, sponsored by North Atlantic Books and Berkeley Public Library.

Moderator for the Nov. symposium is Lindy Hough, Co-Founder and Publisher of North Atlantic Books in Berkeley.
The panelists:
- Kaleo and Elise Ching, Chi and Chi Gung;
Authors of Chi and Creativity: Vital Energy and Your Inner Artist
- Don Beckett, Reiki healer;
Author of Reiki–The True Story: An Exploration of Usui Reiki
- Robert Johns, Acupuncturist;
Author of The Art of Acupuncture Techniques

Authors will describe their practices and theoretical framework and read from their books. Audience questions will be followed by a book signing.

Kaleo and Elise Ching live and practice in El Cerrito, Robert Johns practices in Berkeley, and Reiki teacher Don Beckett is from Mesa, Arizona.

“We’re interested in helping people understand how these modalities work and how effective they are. Hearing how our authors, who are also practitioners, treat different diseases helps people see whether a given modality might be helpful with their own troublesome conditions or something a loved one is struggling with.” Most people who don’t use alternative medicine find it hard to distinguish how these different systems work. “The goal of the November panel is to have the audience come away with a clearer idea of how chi energy works in Reiki, acupuncture, chi gung and creative work,” Hough said.

“The Berkeley Public Library is excited to be working in partnership with North Atlantic Books to better serve the interest in mind/body/spirit their readers are seeking,” said Douglas Smith, Deputy Director of the Library. “We’re pleased to be expanding our programming, outreach, and collections in these important directions.”

ALL ABOUT CHI
Get Well! Alternative Practitioners Answer Your Questions About Healing series
Saturday, November 21, 2009
2pm-4pm
Berkeley Public Central Library
3rd Floor Community Meeting Room
2090 Kittredge Street
Berkeley, CA 94704

Do you plan to attend this event?

Wheelchair accessible. To request a sign language interpreter, real-time captioning, materials in large print or Braille, or other accommodations for this event, please call (510) 981-6107 (voice) or (510) 548-1240 (TTY); at least five working days will ensure availability. Please refrain from wearing scented products to public programs.

Joskus konferensseja ja symposiumeja voi joutua järjestämään ikään kuin viran puolesta, jolloin ei välttämättä pääse kuulemaan juuri itseään houkuttavimpia esityksiä, tai kiireet voivat haitata konferenssiosanottoa niin, ettei ehdi nauttia esityksistä. Tällaisten kokemusten jälkeen on mieluisaa, kun pääsee järkkäilemään ja osallistumaan sellaiseen symposiumiin, jonka esitykset ovat toinen toistaan kiintoisampia ja avaavat itselle mainioita näkymiä. Tällainen symposium oli viime viikon lopulla Tampereella järjestetty Materiaaliset maailmat. Aineellinen kulttuuri ja sosiaaliset verkostot Itämeren alueella 1300-1700-luvuilla.

Hauskaa oli, vaikka itse sanonkin, tai nimenomaan koska itse sanonkin, sillä tätä tilaisuutta oli mietitty tutkijaporukalla, ja mietitty nimenomaan porukkaa yhteisesti kiinnostavia teemoja. Kantavaksi aiheeksi nousi lopulta materiaalinen kulttuuri, josta kävivät esitelmöimässä muun muassa Albertus Pictor -tutkija Pia Melin (Tukholman yliopisto), prof. Jan von Bonsdorff (Upsalan yliopisto) ja monet kotoiset tutkijat, jotka tarkastelivat menneisyyden materiaalisia maailmoja taidehistorian, “tavallisen historian”, arkeologian ja muiden lähitieteiden kautta.

Alustuksissa analysoitiin muun muassa sitä, millainen lahja kelpasi kihlauksen todisteeksi, millaisissa olosuhteissa esine muuttui taikuuden välikappaleeksi ja miksi 1700-luvun nuorten aatelissisarten kapiot maksoivat niin erilaisia summia. Aineellista maailmaa lähestyttiin myös kaupunkikokemusten ja maaomaisuuden kartuttamisen kautta. Kokonaisuutta on vaikea lyhyesti kuvata, mutta eri aiheiden kautta menneisyyden maailman aineellinen ulottuvuus ja koettu elinympäristö, samoin sen muuttuvat merkitykset, tulivat konkreettisemmiksi sekä lähdeanalyysien että hienojen esinekuvien kautta.

Myös sukukirjojen ja sukuvaakunoiden välistä suhdetta pohdittiin – Tiina Miettinen esitteli sukututkimuksen varhaisia juuria Pohjolassa ja tarkasteli sukupuiden esittämistä sekä kirjallisissa lähteissä että kirkkojen vaakunoissa. Mutta mihin käyttöön oli tarkoitettu Ulla Koskisen tilikirjoistaan löytämät, erään aatelismiehen kartanoille tilatut Daavidin harppu ja säkkipilli? Kotoisen musisoinninko iloksi, sotajoukkojen soiteltavaksi, vaiko paimenelle petoja karkottamaan, Grimmelshausenin seikkailukkaan Simplicissimuksen tyyliin? Kuinka monelle ihmiselle riitti ryyppy korkeasta passglasista, kun siitä tarjottiin majatalossa paloviinaa?  Ja miten suuret kulkuset lopulta koristivat aatelisia asuja keskiajan pohjolassa?

Carrie Rheingans

Friday, 13 November 2009 marked the first-ever Center for Global Health Symposium and Student Global Health Day. I had a great time and learned a lot – especially about things to consider when applying for jobs in global health in a couple years. It was great to meet global health leaders from around the world and hear about health systems in three countries – South Africa, Ghana and India. The speakers’ presentations should be up on the CGH website soon.

The morning symposium featured three members of the External Advisory Council speaking about health systems in each of their countries. Dr. Marian Jacobs discussed the public/private health systems and the relationship that South Africa has with other global partners, particularly how many South African doctors leave the country for other, richer countries, and many Cuban doctors go to South Africa to work in rural areas. Dr. Peter Donkor spoke about health systems in Ghana, specifically highlighting how traditional health practitioners have a trusted role in healthcare and how Ghanaians’ changing lifestyles are leading to more non-communicable disease burden. Dr. K. Srinath Reddy, the President of the Public Health Foundation of India, talked about how the Indian health systems are very decentralized, with much of the control in the hands of individual states and districts. He said this leads to two things: 1. more culturally-relevant care and 2. possibly higher care disparities between regions. All three speakers spoke about the human resources in their respective countries, and stated that they are facing a shortage of professionals born, raised and trained in their own countries.

The Student Global Health Day in the afternoon was also educational. Another External Advisory Council member, Joel Lamstein, kicked off the afternoon activities with a brief talk about a possible future of global health. Mr. Lamstein is the founder and President of John Snow, Inc. and the President of World Education. He gave a lot of great career advice for people interested in going into the field of global health. His big take-away message was that neither business students nor public health students had all the skills that are useful in such careers, but that business and public health students should learn across disciplines and be sure to gain analytical skills as well. The student posters were very high quality and the two student presenters explained their great work about blood cancers in Egypt and maternal health issues in Liberia. Global health-related student groups also had tables with info and ways to get involved during the Student Global Health Day.

CGH Student Associates Katie Bush and Carrie Rheingans

Student research poster by Julia Finkel, CGH Student Associate Alice Zheng, Eunice Yu, and CGH Student Associate Sujal Parikh

You can become a Student Associate or Faculty Associate by submitting an application at any time. For more coverage of the annual Symposium and Student Global Health Day, you can become a fan of the U-M CGH on facebook. I was also live-tweeting during the day, and you can see all tweets marked with hashtag #UMCGH here.

Woke up early to prep. Prep. Prepare.

“Power-up” breakfast consisting of plein de café, grapefruit juice, fresh (-ish?) fruits, and mini-croissants. It was yum. Although the coffee was once again not the smartest of ideas, seeing as I had a good 2h30 of “stand by my poster and look intelligent and/or pretty while awaiting judgment,” and coffee is a diarrhoetic.

Intelligence -20.

Presented to several fun folk during the Poster Competition Session. Spoke to a fun old professor in Mechanical Engineering, who a-wandered by because he has diabetes, and my poster title suggested that my research “cured and prevented” it. Apparently, before Biomedical Engineering was invented, all the would-be BME-ers were ME-ers. He’s working on developing a portable mini-fridge for keeping medications cold during long travel trips.

Spoke at length, to the poor students beside me, about my deteriorating bladder condition.  I would have a-diatribed about something else, but I really couldn’t think of any conversation topic that would actually, truly be interesting. And I was really tired, and therefore plead the fifth. Ce n’est pas vraiment ma faute.

Had three judges:

1. Mr. X Neurobiologist. Northwestern alum (grad, post-doc). May or may not have won some brownie points here, being also a) of Northwestern, and b) concentrating in neurobiology. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I don’t love NU as much as he obviously did and does.
2. Mr. Y I honestly don’t remember. Although I suspect that I actually never really knew. Was scary, because he had on one of those hook-phone thingers in his ear, and I couldn’t tell if he was actually listening to me speak. Had the scary power of making me feel small and insignificant. I think he still liked me presentation though…? Maybe…?
3. Mr. Z Immunologist. Gah. The dude who really, really, really knows his stuff. Oh, AND he does diabetes work. This one was terrifying and fun (or terrifyingly fun?), since we ended up speaking about protocol that I had magically managed to remember. Apparently, if you spin down your viral supernatant over cultured cells for a couple seconds prior to incubation, you end up facilitating transduction by a bajillion fold. I exaggerate on the bajillion part, but apparently it’s like super-transduction.

Practically ran out to relieve moi-même at exactly 11h30. Attended the “Young Investigator Award Banquet” which consisted of yummy, yummy lunch (the desert was crazy—I admit to being slightly disappointed when I discovered that is was, not tiramisu as I had previously believed, but coffee cake…but it was very delish).

We had the options of going to “Student Workshops,” which I decided to not, or lectures for the “Energy Symposium.” First speaker was excellent: Hans B. Püttgen is a big Swiss man with an AWESOME rolling accent, who spoke well—but not exhaustively, though I sort of wish he did (this symposium was slated to last 3h30m, with four speakers…half of which really should not have spoken)—about the general concerns about energy and its usage. His lecture was peppered with some fun numbers comparing carbon footprints and expenditure in the Sates versus in Switzerland. Third speaker also spoke, though not of a topic particularly fascinating, well about the economics and history thereof, of [the search for] renewable energy sources: Michal Moore, Canadian, and apparently without an accent (I tried, but was unable to pick up even a hint of an “aboot”). And the second and fourth speakers gave us a math lesson and a numbers presentation that was punctuated by noises of him pursing his lips every couple of seconds.

Had Student Awards + speaker next. The latter was good, the former I just wanted to get over with. Got a medal-thing for my category. I like medal-things.

Was too tired to do anything afterwards. Went to the Sigma Xi Banquet, where we were promised “fine dining, music, and dancing.” Dining really was quite fine: salad was delicious, followed by steak and salmon (not usually a fan, but oh my GOD the steak was so good), and then a delicious non-chocolate dessert consisting of this bread-cake/pudding/thing topped with crème brûlée. Messieurs Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters were the guests of honour for the night—they were presented with Honorary Membership into Sigma Xi for their use of the scientific method on their show.

The rest of the night was uneventful. I essentially died for a bit. I don’t know what it was, but it felt like they had drugged the food (it’s probably the fact that steak and salmon is about as heavy a meal as I eat…well, never). Cause aside, I basically lay prostrate atop my heavenly bed, completely and involuntarily immobile (I really tried to move. Nope, didn’t happen.).

Finally managed to move. Sat organising papers and throwing out stuff, while watching Ace of Cakes. Or some cake show, really can’t remember.

Tomorrow’s going to be a very not-fun day.

[I'm at Indiana University, attending the 2009 IGERT symposium on evolution, development, and genomics.]

Tonight, we heard from Patrick Phillips and PZ Myers.

Patrick gave a broad overview of the past, present, and future of EvoDevo.  The central question of EvoDevo is: how do developmental systems evolve?  Conversely, we can ask: how does development shape the evolutionary process?  Although EvoDevo has witnessed big progress in the last decade, these central questions are unanswered.  Patrick consequently said, “[grad students], your future is secure!”

Patrick claims that EvoDevo lacks a central theory.  In other fields, there is a unit of study: chemistry examines atoms, biochemistry examines molecules, molecular biology examines DNA, population genetics examines DNA sequences, population biology examines individuals, and community ecology examines species.  For EvoDevo, Patrick asserts the unit of study should be (and is) the cell.

Finally, Patrick talked about experimental barriers for EvoDevo.  The most significant barrier is that the genotype-phenotype map is still not completely understood.  A large proportion of research is focused on simply finding genes, let alone understanding how they affect phenotype.  Patrick used Hopi Hoekstra’s work as an example of successful geneotype-phenotype mapping.  (Hopi’s lab revealed the genetic mechanisms controlling mouse coloration patterns).  Although Hopi’s work is seminal, but we still have a long ways to go towards understanding the genetic mechanisms that control complex phenotypes, such as behavior.

After Patrick’s introduction, PZ Myers gave a talk titled, “Repelled and Fascinated: Coping with the Public Response to Evolution.”  PZ Myers authors a famous (or infamous) blog about evolutionary biology, and has lately become a lightening rod for attacks from the creationist and intelligent design community.

PZ started by showing results from pew polls, suggesting that about 50% of the U.S. public does not believe in evolution.  Furthermore, about 16% of U.S. high school science teachers don’t believe in evolution [citation: Berkman et al, 2008, PLoS Bio].  Although these numbers are alarming, PZ thinks the public is only nominally creationist and confounded by the loud voices of creationists.

PZ next gave a “pocket guide to creationism” in which he explained the history of the creationist movement.  PZ traces creationism’s roots to Archbishop James Ussher, who calculated the age of the earth using dates from the bible.  Until the early 1900’s, most of U.S. public was willing to accept the bible as metaphor.  The *best* slide from PZ’s talk was a phylogeny expressing the history of creationism.  I include it here, but I’m sorry that it’s slightly blurry:

[Note to PZ: if you'd rather I don't share this photo, let me know]

PZ went on to discuss some significant events in the history of creationism: the Scopes trail in 1925, The Genesis Flood in 1961, Edwards vs. Aguillard in 1987, and Kitzmiller vs. Dover in 2005.  PZ claims that “scientific” creationism comes from Seventh Day Adventism, but is has been intellectually laundered to hide or sever it’s Seventh Day Adventist roots.  The most radical change in the creationist movement has been towards portraying evolutionary biologists as “evil.”

In response to the increasing fundamentalism of the creationist movement, PZ asserts that we (evolutionary biologists) should be more active with our outreach.  In particular, we should write blogs!

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Central Athens.  3:30 am.  Early September 2005.  Sitting alone at an outdoor patio listening to a live 2-man bouzouki band.  Beers in front of me.  Parthenon in sight.  The night is far from over.

I’m in the only city on earth that grips me; that captures my heart and wraps it in a big ball of emotions.  The sound of the bouzouki adds to the emotional carnage as Spiro is playing a song that pulls on the strings of my soul.  I’m helpless when I hear it.  It’s a Greek thing.  I can’t explain it.  I won’t try. 

Athens. 

To think how many famous people walked its streets and how many more fought to preserve it.  To think I was one of the billions to follow the same walking routes as Socrates, Plato, Pericles, to breathe the same air and after thousands of years be able to look upon that same stunning Acropolis as they did.  Just the thought of it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

The first time I came here was in 1996.  I can remember being in the front seat of a cab and not knowing where I was, having no sense of direction.  All of a sudden my mom and aunt suddenly and simultaneously tell me to look to my left over the cabbie’s shoulder.   And there it was.  Parthenon.  Only got a glimpse. 

There had been so many times I had seen pictures of this monument.  So many more times from family and even at Greek school as a kid I was told about it.  But I had never seen it until that glimpse.  It was as if a fictional character was coming to life right before my eyes.  Awe-inspiring. 

More than a dozen years later and after seeing it several times, The Parthenon continues to be the only structure on earth that moves me to near tears every time I see it.  Sounds ridiculous I know.   But think about it. Is there  a place on earth that moves you to that point?  It could be anything, anywhere, with anyone, with nobody. 

Back to the night at hand.

Sitting outside, minding my business, listening to the music.

I notice an older Greek couple approach the table next to me, sit down and order a few drinks.  The man is in his late 70’s while the woman is in her mid-40’s.  I think nothing else of it.

I figure this guy still has “it”.  He’s perfected the art of ladies man and clearly isn’t shy about illustrating his skills.  I glance over at their table once in a while in hopes of getting a few pointers from the old man and learn how it’s done.  

Everything seems to be going well, each having a good time enjoying the music, drinks and company.  At 4 am something must have happened.  The woman gets up, unannounced and walks away.  Did she go to the bathroom?  The man thinks she did.  Again I think nothing of it and continue drinking. 

Five minutes pass, no sight of her.  15 minutes pass, still no sight.  45 minutes pass and now it’s getting ridiculous.  It’s nearly 5 am and she has disappeared.  At this point the gentleman makes his way over to my table, sits down across from me and asks me a question I never expected to be asked by someone his age:  “Can you give me some advice about women”?     

I know some of you probably had your minds in the gutter as to what the question was going to be but this was a legitimate question coming from what appeared to be a very compassionate and somewhat broken man just looking for the answer to a question every man has asked. 

I was amazed and couldn’t believe it.  After exchanging hand shakes and introducing each other I went about trying to give women advice to a 70+ year old man, at 5 am, in Athens.  Incredible.

He told me that he didn’t know what to do anymore.  He told me that he was in fact going out with this woman but had no idea where she could have gone.  He asked me what to do.  He wanted me to tell him what his next move should be.  He wanted me to tell him how he should handle her walking out on him the way she did.  And here I was only an hour ago trying to learn from him.  Just goes to show you can’t assume anything, as tempting as it is. 

I told him what I thought but also reminded him that he was much older than I was and that he should be helping me with women, not the other way around.  He agreed but also took the time to remind me that age doesn’t matter when it comes to understanding life and its many twists and turns, ups and downs, especially when it comes to the thoughts and emotions of a woman.  Everyone teaches everyone.  Everyone learns lessons often from unexpected people, in unexpected ways. 

By the time we finished talking it was 6 am.  The live band had long packed up and the sun was about to shine on Athens for another day.  He told me that he could now go home as the subways were about to start-up again.  He never asked me for change to take an overnight bus or even a cab. 

A beautiful symposium between two people in a city that has hosted  millions of them.

De resultaten van het onderzoek naar digitalisering van cultuurcollecties van de afgelopen vier jaar, CATCH, worden morgen (13 november) gepresenteerd tijden het symposium “How to Catch the future“.

Directeur Valentijn Byvanck van het Nationaal Historisch Museum gaat tijdens het symposium in op de mogelijkheden van digitale technologie in het museum. Na hem zal Chad Gaffield, voorzitter van de Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), zijn visie uiten op de kansen die digitalisering en nieuwe technologie biedt voor het geesteswetenschappelijk onderzoek en musea in het algemeen. 

Het programma start om 09.30 uur, eindigt om 17.00 uur met een borrel en vindt plaats in ‘De Bazel’ te Amsterdam.

Wellicht kan men zich – op de valreep - nog  inschrijven?

The International Federation for Theatre Research in assocation with IPAD @ UEL is organising a symposium on East European approaches to dramaturgy, adaptation, and translation for the stage.

The event takes place on January 20th 2010 at Stratford Circus.

More details here.

IFTR Symposium

Symposium day is coming! We are still ironing out the details of the program, but the date is set. This year it will be December 8th 8:30 till about 5:00 (times are not final). We will have 3 group presentations and I will be a part of the middle one running approximately 1:00 to 3:00pm. The day will start with a breakfast, so don’t worry about running by a coffee shop on your way over.

Mark your calendars!

Dec 8th

8:30 to 5:00

full day attendance is not required

coming and leaving at any time is OK.

Location: Main Building, Room 100

What is a Symposium

Antioch, and specifically Center for Creative Change, are known for their experiential approach to education and, as part of testing out newly gained skills, all students are required to go out into the community at the beginning of their second year of a graduate program and find a Change Project. For the last nine month we have been doing just that: each one of us found an organization, a sponsor within that organization and worked tirelessly on planning and implementing the change in collaboration with our clients and peers. Now it is time to take a step back and reflect on what happened.

A kick to me is that on December 8th we are not just going take turns standing up and reporting our findings by way of a slide show, instead, we have taken some time to find common threads in what we set out to do in our projects and what we have learned at the end. Believe it or not, those two rarely matched! This is where the three groups came from. I am not going to give away all the details yet, some of them aren’t even known to us at this point, but it looks like our group’s presentation will be about community building, collaboration and allowing for all voices to be heard.

Presence on Twitter

We are going to be communicating about our presentations and the whole day experience using Twitter! While I take it as a tribute to my project (Flocking to Seattle, action research on using Twitter at the ODN conference), it is simply about keeping up with the times and taking advantage of a great tool to increase involvement of the audience and create a feedback mechanism  for us to know what you think about our work.

Our hash tag: #FFSymp

please make sure to use it in your posts twitter related to the event and search for it if you would like to know what others are saying.

Twitter is a perfect OD tool and we are planning to use it exactly as that! Two things that OD practitioners do a lot are check ion and surveys. As Edie Seashore said during this year’s ODN conference, “Twitter is a different type of support system.”

College-counselor-turned-admissions-officer Peter Jennings posited an interesting question on his blog, why college? He asks us to think about what it is that we want to get out of life and, in a related vein, our four years at university.

I guess I’m fairly utilitarian in my response, because college was never really about the classes.  Rather, college is about all the opportunities, the life lessons, the people and friends, the interactions.  Because let’s be honest – am I really going to remember how to calculate derivatives or need such information outside of my terrible (and, for me at least, terrifying) international economics class?  I think not.

I am, on the other hand, going to remember Freeman Dyson’s lessons (see previous post), the great life advice from the UN worker temporarily in Cambridge because of last week’s UN attack in Kabul, the conference that I attended down at the Naval Academy, the late night conversations about everything from the costs/benefits of medical marijuana to the best way to make a Spanish tortilla.  It’s almost as if classes are secondary, a necessary evil that I have to get through so that I can enjoy the rest of what college offers.

And lately, this attitude has meant that I’m doing some truly amazing, unforgettable things, but that I’m spending way less time studying.  So today, instead of attending this awesome symposium, “Soldiers & Citizens” with fellow blogger Carolyn Pruitt and other ALLIES members, I’m going to be in the library teaching myself derivatives. Fun.

But hey, it’s all about balance, and I know that come Thursday, when I have my economics midterm, I am going to be loving this decision.

Virtuele reconstructie van Pompeï met behulp van CityEngine-software ©DEN

Op vrijdag 6 november 2009 organiseert het Allard Pierson Museum in samenwerking met DEN een symposium over virtuele reconstructies van historische steden. Tijdens de bijeenkomst zullen negen sprekers uit binnen- en buitenland spreken over de techniek van driedimensionale visualisaties en de praktische toepassing daarvan, in het bijzonder op het gebied van city marketing en erfgoedtoerisme.
Sprekers zijn o.a. Daniël Pletinckx (Visual Dimension bvba, Ename), Bernard Frischer (University of Virginia, Charlottesville) en Pascal Müller (Procedural Inc, Zürich).
Met symposia als deze zet het Allard Pierson Museum (steeds meer) koers richting de actualiteit en vernieuwing, passend bij de status van universitair museum.Aansluitend is het mogelijk de tentoonstelling Toekomst voor het verleden te bezoeken.

Het symposium vindt plaats in het Allard Pierson Museum, Oude Turfmarkt 127, 1012 GC in Amsterdam.

Het programma start om 10.30 uur (zaal open 10.00 uur) en wordt om 16.30 uur afgesloten met een borrel en een gelegenheid om de tentoonstelling Een toekomst voor het verleden te bezoeken. De voertaal van de lezingen is Engels.
Deelname aan de studiedag bedraagt 55 euro (65 euro bij betaling op de dag zelf). Belangstellenden kunnen zich opgeven via den@den.nl.

Kijk voor meer evenementen bij de agenda van DEN. Daar vind je ruim voldoende evenementen voor het komende halfjaar!