Archive for the 'Arts, Literature & Culture' Category
We took a little drive this morning through some of the more scenic portions of Gunnison County, Colorado. For reference purposes, Gunnison County is significantly larger than the state of Delaware, and since it’s extremely mountainous (the city of Gunnison, which sits in the valley, is at an altitude of 7,700+ feet), there are a lot of scenic spots in the area.
We headed over through Pitkin and drove up the Cumberland Pass Road, the “highest standard car road for summer use in the nation” - and along the way we took some photos. I thought maybe I’d share a few of them with you. (I’m not a real photographer, but perhaps the natural beauty of the place can overcome my technical shortcomings.)
This was shot along the road between Highway 50 and Pitkin. Nothing special, perhaps, unless you’re just blown away by how clear the sky can be in Colorado. Full Story »
 It’s an image most Westerners recognize immediately: A lone man standing in the middle of a five-lane street, blocking a line of tanks. Single-handedly, “Tank Man” prevented the tanks from advancing on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.
Tank Man was one of more than a million Chinese students from universities across the country’s capital who converged on the square in April of 1989, demanding democratic reform. The resulting stand-off between students and the government lasted a month and a half and, eventually, led to a military crackdown. As many as 3,600 students died and more than twice that number sustained injuries.
The picture of “Tank Man”—taken by photographer Jeff Widener of the Associated Press—was one of the most famous stories captured during the confrontation. Now, issued to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, comes another compelling story: Lake with No Name by Diane Wei Liang. Full Story »
 This week’s TunesDay featured a couple of new videos from Jeffrey Dean Foster, including one for “The Summer of the Son of Sam,” which is maybe the best song on Million Star Hotel, which is in turn one of the best CDs that way too few people have ever heard in the history of popular music.
Anyhow, it’s always nice when a listener/reader/viewer sits down and truly invests themselves in a work of art, and that’s exactly what happened over at Secondat a couple of days ago. Not only do they examine the music, they also reflect back, in great detail, on the summer of 1977 - the Summer of the Son of Sam itself. That was an eventful three months, to be sure. As the writer points out, a lot happened during
the long summer of 1977: New York City’s historic blackout, the deaths of Elvis Presley and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a radio telescope reception from deep space. Full Story »
Guess this one…
 by JS O’Brien
Despite pie-in-the-sky economic theory, competitively priced, quality products do not always trump those of lesser quality in the marketplace. A variation of Sony’s Beta format video was used for decades by professionals because of its superiority to the VHS format, but this didn’t stop VHS from becoming the dominant consumer format. McDonald’s does not make food that is cheaper, more nutritious, or even better tasting than a good sandwich from a local deli, but this hasn’t stopped the burgermeister from selling untold billions of its artery-clogging offerings. The US health care system gets arguably fewer positive results per dollar spent than any other health care system in the world, but there are US consumers who will defend it as being “the best” right up to their untimely deaths.
The truth is that marketing techniques often trump product value when determining marketplace winners and losers. Full Story »
Four years of college seems an appropriate time for the leavening of the young. They arrive on campus in various states of glee, fear, confusion, and hope. Four years later, many, perhaps even most, walk confidently across a stage to receive a diploma from the college president. Society is thus assured that these young men and women are capable of wisely voting, serving on a jury, and holding down a job.
College is 120 credits: That’s eight semesters at 15 credits per semester, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. And it’s pricey: For the academic year just ended, public four-year colleges charged for tuition and fees, on average, $6,585 (up 6.4 percent from last year), and private four-year colleges cost $25,143 (up 5.9 percent from last year) for the same. Now add up to $10,000 for room and board. In a recession, that’s tough for many students and their families to afford.
Hence the recent surge in colleges touting three-year degrees. Save money, they promise. Get a head start on life, they say.
Don’t bet on it. Three-year degrees short-change both the student and society.
Full Story »
Guess away…
Rho - we got our own tag now!
Enjoy
All yours
 by Terry Hargrove
The last two weeks of April are a trying time for me. It’s when I typically introduce my middle school students to poetry, real poetry. For many of them, it’s the first time they’ve waded past Shel Silverstein and into the murky metaphoric waters beyond. It’s also when I am inevitably tricked into reading large tracts of adolescent poetry written about old boyfriends or girlfriends or others “who have done me wrong.”
My poetry unit always follows a predictable pattern. I start with a work that is sure to get their attention, and this year that was “Traveling Through the Dark” by William Stafford. In that poem, the narrator has come upon a deer that has been hit by a car on a narrow road, and his civic responsibility is to push the carcass into the ravine, so other motorists won’t be endangered. Full Story »
 Last Saturday we decided to explore these strange formations in southwest Washington State. These are large uniform mounds of earth covered in prairie. These formations also go by the name Hogwallows and appear in at least six other states and five other countries.
 No one has been able to determine the origins of these mounds, but the leading theory about retreating glaciers got a boost when Department of Natural Resource scientists presented new laser imaging of the mounds.
Full Story »
 by Josh Catone
This past weekend saw the online release of the first non-spoof, fan-created film set in the Lord of the Rings universe. That by itself is fairly unremarkable, but a number of things set The Hunt for Gollum apart from your standard fan created fare. It’s long (about 40 minutes), it has better than average acting and writing (think direct-to-DVD caliber), it features incredibly high production values despite a meager £3,000 budget, and it is based on canon. That last bit especially, had some wondering if Gollum would run afoul of rights holders at Tolkien Enterprises.
Where most fan art uses original characters and story lines, The Hunt for Gollum’s writer and director Chris Bouchard based the script on appendices to Tolkien’s original work. That the film uses Tolkien’s actual story could have spelled trouble for the entire production. There are two understood rules in the world of fan art: don’t use official material (like logos, music, and to a lesser extent known characters), and don’t try to make money off your creations. Full Story »
Have a guess
Behind the jump is the reverse of the plant
Full Story »
 Every region of this beautiful planet has their treasured local festival and celebration. Spring is not officially Spring in Western Washington State without the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. This year marks the 26th year of this springtime icon. Over 700 acres are planted with daffodils, tulips and irises.
I had my ritual visit early this past Friday morning. The tulips are stunning. They speak for themselves. After a walk around the 3 acre show garden I decided to explore the barn on the property.
Barns are just cool. Full Story »
 It sits at the core of the American Dream: the idea that, through pluck and hard work, anyone can succeed. Horatio Alger called that kind of person the “self-made man.”
And according to Malcom Gladwell, it’s all a bunch of malarkey.
In his latest book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell explodes the myth of the self-made person. “No one makes it alone,” he says.
“We tell rags to riches stories because we find something captivating in the idea of a lone hero battling overwhelming odds,” Gladwell says. While inspiring, such stories are deeply flawed because a person’s success has less to do with what they’re like than with where they’re from.
“The values of the world we inhabit, and the people we surround ourselves with, has a profound effect on who we are,” he says. Full Story »
I saw a couple of different things in this week’s image…
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