This is the archive for August 2011
MISCELLANEOUS
Get in shape! Join Cross-Country.
BELIEVE TO ACHIEVE!
See Coach Webb on the track after school.
CLUBS
Are you interested in learning Mexican/Latino Folklorico Dance? Please come to the
orientation meeting Wednesday, September 7th. We will be meeting in the Pavilion
Dance Studio at 3:45 p.m. Everyone is welcome! For more information, see Mr. Huertas
in House 1.
Posted by courier at 02:11 PM. Filed under: Daily Bulletin
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By Rick La Plante, New Haven Schools Community Relations Director
Another New Haven Unified School District elementary school has joined the “800 Club” of schools meeting or exceeding the state’s goal for student achievement.
Emanuele Elementary raised its Academic Performance Index by 19 points – from 781 in 2009-10 to 800 in 2010-11 – meeting the state’s target score and continuing a steady ascent over the past several years. As recently as 2007-08, Emanuele’s API was 738.
Posted by courier at 02:10 PM. Filed under: News
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Courier Staff Report
The first day of the 2011-2012 school year went smoothly for most of the 4053 students currently enrolled at James Logan High School.
Rhonda Neagle, vice principal of operations, attributed much of the smooth opening to successful orientation meetings held with students during the summer. Attendance at the orientations was up over previous years, partly due to the district's relaxation of the requirement that students have their emergency contact forms in order to attend orientation. That requirement reduced attendance at previous orientations, Neagle said.
A casual sampling of student opinion conducted by
Courier staffers during fourth lunch indicated that most students were happy to be back in school.
Posted by courier at 01:32 PM. Filed under: News
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"Bedbugs" by Ben H. Winters;
Quirk Books,
Philadelphia
(256 pages, $14.95)
By Tish Wells
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)
After reading "Bedbugs" you might want to fumigate any apartment you rent. You also might want to call in an exorcist.
Ben H. Winters, who authored the mash-ups "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" and "Android Karenina," takes on a modern re-working of the classic horror novel "Rosemary's Baby" and adds other gruesome touches.
Alex and Susan Wendt, with their young daughter Emily, rent a Brooklyn brownstone from its kindly landlady, Andrea Scharfstein. The apartment comes with an extra attraction — a secret room — that Susan falls in love with, intending on making it her painting room. A part-time nanny takes care of Emily, freeing up Susan to work on her canvases.
Posted by courier at 11:25 AM. Filed under: Entertainment
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From wikipedia:
Helen Levitt (August 31, 1913 – March 29, 2009) was an American photographer. She was particularly noted for "street photography" around New York City, and has been called "the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time."
Levitt grew up in Brooklyn. Dropping out of high school, she taught herself photography while working for a commercial photographer. While teaching some classes in art to children in 1937, Levitt became intrigued with the transitory chalk drawings that were part of the New York children's street culture of the time. She purchased a Leica camera and began to photograph these works, as well as the children who made them. The resulting photographs were ultimately published in 1987 as
In The Street: chalk drawings and messages, New York City 1938–1948.
See examples of Helen Levitt's work, free from lensculture.com.
Posted by courier at 12:33 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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MISCELLANEOUS
Afternoon, off campus ROP students, report to the Career Center at the end of your 4th period lunch to receive your ROP bus pass and schedule.
ACTIVITIES
Girls Volleyball match today! Come on out and cheer for the Girls Volleyball team today after school for their first match of the season! JV @ 5:00 p.m., Varsity @ 6:00 p.m. Go Colts!
CLUBS
Are you interested in learning Mexican/Latino Folklorico Dance? Please come to the orientation meeting Wednesday, September 7th. We will be meeting in the Pavilion Dance Studio at 3:45 p.m. Everyone is welcome! For more information, see Mr. Huertas in House 1.
Posted by courier at 11:36 PM. Filed under: Daily Bulletin
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"Deus Ex: Human Revolution"
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: Eidos Montreal/Square Enix
ESRB Rating: Mature (intense violence,
blood, sexual themes, strong language,
drug reference, use of alcohol)
Price: $60
When we greeted "Deus Ex" as a liberator from a first-person shooter genre that badly needed a growth spurt, few probably predicted history would repeat itself 11 years later.
But here we are, neck-deep in a genre that's reverted to old habits and covered them up with cinematic flimflam. And here's "Deus Ex: Human Revolution," which holds so true to its pedigree that what was amazing then is amazing all over again now.
This isn't immediately apparent, because while "Revolution" quickly establishes itself as a cover shooter — with a third-person perspective while in cover — it also makes a point to let you know that attacking enemies at the front door is as viable a tactic as using stealth to neutralize them from behind. The cover interface makes complete use of the controller and requires some finger gymnastics when "Revolution's" other systems are in play, but once you acquaint yourself, all the pieces — responsive controls, satisfying gunplay, intelligent enemy A.I. and an intuitive cover mechanic — are there.
Posted by courier at 08:25 PM. Filed under: Entertainment
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From wikipedia:
John Gunther (August 30, 1901 – May 29, 1970) was an American journalist and author whose success came primarily in the 1940s and 1950s with a series of popular sociopolitical works known as the "Inside" books. He is best known today for the memoir
Death Be Not Proud about the death of his teenage son, Johnny Gunther, from a brain tumor.
Gunther grew up in Chicago and attended the University of Chicago, where he was literary editor of the student paper.
Read about Inside: The Biography of John Gunther by Ken Cuthbertson, free from ereads.com.
Posted by courier at 06:03 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Richard Blackwell (August 29, 1922 – October 19, 2008) was an American fashion critic, journalist, television and radio personality, artist, former child actor and former fashion designer, sometimes known just as Mr. Blackwell. He was the creator of the "Ten Worst Dressed Women List", an annual awards presentation he unveiled in January of each year. He published the "Fabulous Fashion Independents" list and an annual Academy Awards fashion review, both of which receive somewhat less media attention. His longtime companion, former Beverly Hills hairdresser, Robert Spencer, managed him. He wrote two books, Mr. Blackwell: 30 Years of Fashion Fiascos and an autobiography,
From Rags to Bitches.
Read an interview with Mr. Blackwell
Posted by courier at 05:41 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (August 28, 1814 – February 7, 1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the premier ghost story writer of the nineteenth century and had a seminal influence on the development of this genre in the Victorian era.
Sheridan Le Fanu was born at No. 45 Lower Dominick Steet, Dublin, into a literary family of Huguenot origins. Both his grandmother Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu and his great-uncle Richard Brinsley Sheridan were playwrights. His niece Rhoda Broughton would become a very successful novelist. Within a year of his birth his family moved to the Royal Hibernian Military School in Phoenix Park, where his father, an Anglican clergyman, was the chaplain of the establishment. Phoenix Park and the adjacent village and parish church of Chapelizod were to feature in Le Fanu's later stories.
Read Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, one of
17 of his works available free from Project Gutenberg.
Posted by courier at 12:38 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Posted by courier at 08:16 PM. Filed under: Opinion
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Gloria Guinness (August 27, 1912 – November 9, 1980), born Gloria Rubio y Alatorre, was a Mexican-born socialite and fashion icon of the 20th century, and a contributing editor to Harper's Bazaar from 1963 until 1971. She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1964.
Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, she was a daughter of José Rafael Rubio, a Mexican journalist, and his wife, Dolores Alatorre. As a young woman, she was employed as a nightclub hostess before moving to Germany.
Read The Power of Style: The Women Who Defined the Art of Living Well, by Annette Tapert and Diana Edkins, free from foxlily.com.
Posted by courier at 08:09 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Rufino Tamayo holding a guitar 1945
Photo by: Carl Van Vechten (August 26, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico. Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, painting figurative abstraction with surrealist influences.
Tamayo's Zapotec heritage is often cited as an early influence. In 1911, he was orphaned and moved to Mexico City to live with his aunt.
Learn more about Rufino Tamayo, and see examples of how work, free from Artcyclopedia.
Posted by courier at 07:44 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Francis Bret Harte (August 25, 1836 – May 6, 1902) was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.
He was born in Albany, New York, on August 25, 1836. He was named Francis Brett Hart after his great-grandfather Francis Brett. When he was young his father changed the spelling of the family name from Hart to Harte. Later, Francis preferred to be known by his middle name, but he spelled it with only one "t", becoming Bret Harte.
Read Tales of Trail and Town by Bret Harte, one of
many of his works available free from Project Gutenberg.
Posted by courier at 07:48 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku (August 24, 1890 – January 22, 1968), "The Big Kahuna", is generally regarded as the inventor of the modern sport of surfing. He was also an Olympic champion in swimming.
Early years
He was named after his father, Halapu Kahanamoku, who was christened "Duke" by Princess Dianna in 1869. The name "Duke" is not a title, but a slave name. His father was named "Duke" in honor of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, who was visiting Hawaii at the time of the elder man's birth in 1869. The younger "Duke," as eldest son, inherited the name.
Growing up on the outskirts of Waikiki (near the present site of the Hilton Hawaiian Village), Kahanamoku spent his youth as a bronzed beach boy. It was at Waikiki Beach where he developed his surfing and swimming skills.
Watch a video about Kahanamoku and the board he used to bring the sport of surfing to Australia, free from Film Australia, via Google Video.
Posted by courier at 12:35 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Will Cuppy, (born William Jacob Cuppy) (August 23, 1884 – September 19, 1949), was an American humorist and journalist known for his satirical books about nature and historical figures.
Cuppy graduated from Auburn High School in 1902 and went on to the University of Chicago, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1907. As an undergraduate, he belonged to Phi Gamma Delta, acted in amateur theater and worked as campus reporter for several Chicago newspapers, notably the Record Herald and the Daily News. He lingered at Chicago seven more years as a graduate student in English literature, not showing much interest in his studies, but producing in 1910 his first book,
Maroon Tales, a collection of short stories about university life. In 1914 he pulled together a short master's thesis, took his degree and left for New York, where he supported himself by writing advertising copy while he tried unsuccessfully to write a play.
Read Will Cuppy's book, How to be a Hermit, free from Project Gutenberg Australia.
Posted by courier at 12:28 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Melville Elijah Stone (August 22, 1848 – February 15, 1929) was a newspaper publisher, the founder of the
Chicago Daily News, and was the general manager of the reorganized
Stone was the son of a Methodist minister, the Reverend Elijah Stone and Sophia Creighton . In 1876, Stone, who started out as a reporter, founded the first Chicago penny paper, the
Chicago Daily News. In 1881 he established the
Chicago Morning News (renamed the
Chicago Record). Stone became general manager of the reorganized Associated Press in 1893, and under his direction it became one of the great news agencies. He retired in 1921. Stone died of hardening of the arteries in 1929.
Read Fifty years a journalist By Melville Elijah Stone, free from Google Books.
Posted by courier at 10:29 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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William "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years. Many notable musicians came to prominence under his direction, including tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison and singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams. Basie's theme songs were "One O'Clock Jump" and "April In Paris".
William James Basie was born to Harvey Lee Basie, and Lilly Ann Childs, who lived on Mechanic Street in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father worked as a coachman and caretaker for a wealthy judge. After automobiles replaced horses, his father became a groundskeeper and handyman for several families in the area. His mother, a piano player who gave Basie his first piano lessons, took in laundry and baked cakes for sale and paid 25 cents a lesson for piano instruction for him.
Watch Count Basie and his band perform "Swingin' the Blues," free from YouTube.
Posted by courier at 08:21 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Posted by courier at 08:38 AM. Filed under: Opinion
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From wikipedia:
Edgar Albert Guest (August 20, 1881, Birmingham, England – August 5, 1959, Detroit, Michigan) (aka Eddie Guest) was a prolific English-born American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th century and became known as the People's Poet.
In 1891, Guest came with his family to the United States from England. After he began at the Detroit Free Press as a copy boy and then a reporter, his first poem appeared December 11, 1898. He became a naturalized citizen in 1902. For 40 years, Guest was widely read throughout North America, and his sentimental, optimistic poems were in the same vein as the light verse of Nick Kenny, who wrote syndicated columns during the same decades.
Read All that Matters, by Edgar Guest, one of
seven of his works available free from Project Gutenberg.
Posted by courier at 12:33 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Bernard Mannes Baruch (August 19, 1870 – June 20, 1965) was an American financier, stock-market speculator, statesman, and political consultant. After his success in business, he devoted his time toward advising U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic matters and became a philanthropist.
Early life and education
Bernard Baruch was born in Camden, South Carolina to Simon and Belle Baruch. He was the second of four sons. His father Simon Baruch (1840–1921) was a German immigrant of Jewish ethnicity who came with his family to the United States in 1855. He studied medicine, became a doctor, and served as a surgeon on the staff of Confederate general Robert E. Lee during the American Civil War. He was a pioneer in physical therapy. His mother's Sephardic Jewish ancestors (likely from Amsterdam or London) came to New York as early as the 1690s, where they became part of the shipping business.
In 1881 the family moved from Camden to New York City, where Bernard and his brothers attended local schools. He studied at and graduated from the City College of New York.
Learn more about Bernard Baruch, free from History.com.
Posted by courier at 07:34 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Margaret Thomas "Mardy" Murie (August 18, 1902 – October 19, 2003) was a naturalist, author, adventurer, and conservationist. Dubbed the "Grandmother of the Conservation Movement" by both the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, she helped in the passage of the Wilderness Act, and was instrumental in creating the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She was the recipient of the Audubon Medal, the John Muir Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the highest civilian honor awarded by the United States.
Born Margaret Thomas on August 28, 1902 in Seattle, Washington, Murie moved to Fairbanks, Alaska with her family when she was five years old. She attended Simmons College (Massachusetts), then transferred to and became the first woman to be graduated from the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, (now the University of Alaska Fairbanks), with a degree in business administration. She met Olaus Murie in Fairbanks, and they married in 1924 in Anvik, Alaska. The couple spent their honeymoon traveling over the upper Koyukuk River region by boat and dogsled, conducting caribou research. The couple were the inspiration for John Denver's ballad "A Song For All Lovers."
Read more about Margaret and Olaus Murie, free from Wilderness.net.
Posted by courier at 07:18 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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"From Dust"
Reviewed for: Xbox 360 (via Xbox Live Arcade)
Coming later for: Playstation 3 and Windows PC
From: Ubisoft
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (mild violence)
Price: $15
"From Dust" is impressive — visually, conceptually and simply for the intuitive way it distills playing God down to tossing sand and water around like a kid building a sandcastle.
Arguably most impressive, though, is the bold way it combines a genre synonymous with free-spirited aimlessness and the one thing — a ticking clock — that unnerves gamers unlike any other.
Framed like a real-time strategy game, "Dust" tasks you with utilizing nature and some divine tricks to guide a primitive civilization across lands teeming with tidal waves, volcanoes and other deadly natural phenomena.
Posted by courier at 09:37 PM. Filed under: Entertainment
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From wikipedia:
Amos Alonzo Stagg (August 16, 1862 – March 17, 1965) was a renowned American collegiate coach in multiple sports, primarily football, and an overall athletic pioneer. He was born in West Orange, New Jersey, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy. Playing at Yale, where he was a divinity student, and a member of the secret Skull and Bones society[1][2], he was an end on the first All-American team, selected in 1889.
He later became the coach at Springfield College (1890-92), the University of Chicago (1892-1932), and the College of the Pacific (1932-46) after he was forced to retire from Chicago at the age of 70. During his career, he developed numerous basic tactics for the game (including the man in motion and the lateral pass), as well as some equipment. From 1947 to 1958 he served as an assistant coach under his son at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. In 1924, he served as a coach with the U.S. Olympic Track and Field team in Paris.
Learn more about Amos Alonzo Stagg as a football player and coach at the College Football Hall of Fame.
Posted by courier at 07:16 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Henrietta Vinton Davis (August 15, 1860 - November 23, 1941) was an American elocutionist, dramatist, and impersonator.
Lady Davis was proclaimed by Marcus Garvey to be the "greatest woman of the (African) race today". She has come to be considered the physical, intellectual, and spiritual link between the Abolitionist movement of Frederick Douglass and the African Redemption Movement of the UNIA-ACL and Marcus Garvey.
Read a 1888 leter from Henrietta Davis to George A. Myer, free from ohiohistory.org.
Posted by courier at 12:39 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
John Henry "Doc" Holliday (August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887) was an American gambler, gunfighter and dentist of the American Old West, who is usually remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The legend and mystique of his life is so great that he has been mentioned in several books, and portrayed by various actors in numerous movies and television series. For the 100-plus years after his death, debate has continued about the exact crimes he may have committed during his life.
"Doc" Holliday was born in Griffin, Georgia, to Henry Burroughs Holliday and Alice Jane Holliday (née McKey). His father served in the Mexican–American War and the Civil War. His family baptized him at the First Presbyterian Church in 1852.
Read "Where's Doc?" by Della A. Jones (Mattie Holliday), free from the Tombstone Times website.
Posted by courier at 08:17 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 – October 18, 1893) was a prominent American suffragist. She was the wife of abolitionist Henry Brown Blackwell (1825-1909) (the brother of Elizabeth Blackwell) and the mother of Alice Stone Blackwell, another prominent suffragette, journalist and human rights defender. Stone was best known for being the first recorded American woman to keep her own last name upon marriage and being the first woman in Massachusetts to receive a college degree.
Early life and influences
Lucy Stone was born on the 13th of August, 1818, on her family's farm in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. She was the eighth of nine children, and as she grew up, she watched as her father ruled the household and his wife by "divine right." Disturbed when her mother had to beg her father for money, she was also unhappy with the lack of support in her family for her education. She was faster at learning than her brother — but he was to be educated, she was not.
Learn more about Lucy Stone and women's name choice at the Lucy Stone League website.
Posted by courier at 12:25 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Katharine Lee Bates, (August 12, 1859 – March 28, 1929), is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem "America the Beautiful".
Bates was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The daughter of a Congregational pastor, she graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and for many years was a professor of English literature at Wellesley. While teaching there, she was elected a member of the newly formed Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences because of her interest in history and politics for which she also studied. She lived at Wellesley with Katharine Coman, who herself was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College Economics department. The pair lived together for twenty-five years until Coman's death in 1915. These arrangements were sometimes called "Boston marriages" or "Wellesley marriages," which, however derisive the terms may be, did not indicate a knowledge or even a presumption of the sexual practices of those to whom the terms were applied. Most often, such "marriages" were for convenience and companionship of unmarried women.
Read Katharine Lee Bates "Ballad Book," free from Project Gutenberg.
Posted by courier at 12:02 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899) was a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic."
Robert Ingersoll was born in Dresden, New York. His father, John Ingersoll, was an abolitionist-leaning Presbyterian preacher, whose radical views forced his family to move frequently. For a period of time, Rev. John Ingersoll filled the pulpit for American revivalist Charles G. Finney while Finney was on a tour of Europe. Upon Finney's return, Rev. Ingersoll remained for a few months as co-pastor/associate pastor under Finney.
Visit RobertIngersoll.com.
Posted by courier at 07:13 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Era Bell Thompson (10 August 1905–30 December 1986) was a graduate of the University of North Dakota (UND) and an editor of Ebony magazine. She was also a recipient of the governor of North Dakota's Roughrider Award. A multicultural center at UND is named after her.
Thompson was born on August 10, 1905 in Des Moines, Iowa, the only daughter of Steward “Tony” Thompson and Mary Logan Thompson, the children of former slaves.
Read an Ebony article on race in Brazil, written by Era Bell Thompson and free from Google Books.
Posted by courier at 11:34 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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"Call of Juarez: The Cartel"
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Windows PC
From: Techland/Ubisoft
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, drug reference,
intense violence, partial nudity, sexual
content, strong language)
Price: $60
Those who stroll unknowingly into "Call of Juarez: The Cartel" are in for a serious case of video game culture shock. The third game in a series of gunslinging first-person westerns takes place in present-day Los Angeles amid a looming war between the United States and a Mexican drug cartel, and while the national park setting is slightly novel, the game's first shootout would otherwise feel at home in that other series that has "Call of" in its title.
"Cartel's" chief protagonist has ancestral ties to the previous game's protagonist, but otherwise, this may as well be a new series altogether. If you played previous "Juarez" games precisely to get away from assault rifles, C4 explosives, launching rockets at choppers and small armies constantly firing on your position, "Cartel's" embrace of all that in the first mission alone will leave you deeply dismayed.
Whatever attempt "Cartel" makes to justify this change isn't helped any by its storytelling. The leap to present day doesn't strive for novelty, opting for a pedestrian cops-versus-gangs story instead of something that calls back to the Old West or makes the main character a fish out of water. You can play as one of three characters — "Cartel's" online co-op functionality lets you assign two other players to the other two — but all three are dull caricatures who blather in cliches and (along with their enemies) repeat themselves way too often.
Posted by courier at 06:38 PM. Filed under: Entertainment
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From wikipedia:
Izaak Walton (August 9, 1593 - December 15, 1683) was an English writer, author of
The Compleat Angler.
Walton was born at Stafford; the register of his baptism gives his father's name as Jervis, and nothing more is known of his parentage.
He settled in London as an ironmonger, and at first had one of the small shops, in the upper story of Thomas Gresham's Royal Burse or Exchange in Cornhill. In 1614 he had a shop in Fleet Street, two doors west of Chancery Lane. Here, in the parish of St Dunstan's, he gained the friendship of Dr. John Donne, then vicar of that church. His first wife, married in December 1626, was Rachel Floud, a great-great-niece of Archbishop Cranmer. She died in 1640. He married again soon after, his second wife being Anne Ken — the pastoral Kenna of
The Angler's Wish—step-sister of Thomas Ken, afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells.
Read The Complete Angler, by Izaak Walton, published in 1653, one of
three of his works available free from Project Gutenberg.
Posted by courier at 12:06 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Arthur Joseph Goldberg (August 8, 1908 – January 19, 1990) was an American statesman and jurist who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Supreme Court Justice and Ambassador to the United Nations.
Goldberg was born and raised on the West Side of Chicago, the youngest of eight children of Jewish immigrants. The paternal side of the family (Goldberg-Flaumen) originally came from the town of Oświęcim, Poland. The maternal side of the family originally came from a shtetl called Zenkhov in Ukraine. Goldberg's father, a produce peddler, died in 1916, forcing Goldberg's siblings to quit school and go to work to support the family. As the youngest child, Goldberg was allowed to continue school, graduating from high at the age of 16.
Read an interview with Arthur J. Goldberg, free from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum.
Posted by courier at 08:08 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
James Bowdoin II (August 7, 1726 – November 6, 1790) was an American political and intellectual leader from Boston, Massachusetts during the American Revolution. He served in both branches of the Massachusetts General Court in the colonial era and was president of the state's constitutional convention. After independence he was governor of Massachusetts.
Bowdoin was born in Boston to Hannah Portage Bowdoin and James Bowdoin, a wealthy Boston merchant. His grandfather Pierre Baudouin was a Huguenot refugee from France. Pierre took his family first to Ireland, then to Portland, Maine, finally settling in Boston in 1690.
Read James Bowdoin and the patriot philosophers by Frank Edward Manuel, Fritzie Prigohzy Manuel, free from Google Books.
Posted by courier at 12:56 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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By Jim Puzzanghera
Los Angeles Times (MCT)
WASHINGTON — Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. government's credit rating Friday for the first time in history, saying the recent plan worked out to raise the federal debt ceiling "falls short" of what's needed to stabilize the nation's longer-term finances.
The credit rating agency also said the partisan stalemate that put the U.S. on the brink of default this week did not bode well for efforts to reduce the nation's soaring debt.
"The political brinkmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective and less predictable than what we previously believed," said S&P, one of three leading credit rating agencies.
"The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy."
U.S. debt now will carry a AA-plus rating instead of the coveted AAA, dropping it into the same general category as countries such as Japan, China, Spain, Taiwan and Slovenia.
The downgrade could increase U.S. borrowing costs because its bonds could be considered more risky. The higher interest rates the U.S. Treasury might have to charge for its bonds could spill over into other areas, such as mortgages.
But the effect of S&P's move could be muted because U.S. Treasury bonds are still considered a safe haven, particularly in stressful financial conditions. In addition, the other two leading credit rating agencies — Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings — decided this week to keep their AAA rating for U.S. debt for now.
Posted by courier at 08:36 AM. Filed under: News
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Posted by courier at 08:30 AM. Filed under: Opinion
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From wikipedia:
Cecil Howard Green (August 6, 1900 – April 11, 2003) was a British-born American geophysicist who trained at the University of British Columbia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He was a founder of Texas Instruments. With his wife Ida Green, he was a philanthropist who helped found the University of Texas at Dallas, Green College at the University of British Columbia, St. Mark's School of Texas, and Green College at the University of Oxford. They were also major contributors to the Cecil H. Green Library at Stanford University, and the Cecil & Ida Green Building for earth sciences at MIT (designed by I.M. Pei).
Read more about Cecil Howard Green at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute website.
Posted by courier at 08:00 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents.
A protégé of Flaubert, Maupassant's stories are characterized by their economy of style and efficient, effortless dénouement. Many of the stories are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s and several describe the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught in the conflict, emerge changed. He also wrote six novels.
Read
Bel-Ami, one of many of
Guy de Maupassant's works available free from Project Gutenberg.
Posted by courier at 11:30 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
John Venn (born Hull,Yorkshire, August 4, 1834 – died Cambridge, April 4, 1923), was a British logician and philosopher, who is famous for conceiving the Venn diagrams, which are used in many fields, including set theory, probability, logic, statistics, and computer science.
John Venn's mother, Martha Sykes, came from Swanland near Hull, Yorkshire and died while John was still quite young. His father was the Rev Henry Venn who, at the time of John's birth, was the rector of the parish of Drypool near Hull. Henry Venn, himself a fellow of Queens', was from a family of distinction. His father, John's grandfather, was the Rev John Venn who had been the rector of Clapham in south London. He became the leader of the Clapham Sect, a group of evangelical Christians centred on his church who campaigned for prison reform and the abolition of slavery and cruel sports.
Learn more about John Venn and Venn diagrams, free from Enchanted Learning.
Posted by courier at 12:51 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
John Thomas Scopes (August 3, 1900 – October 21, 1970), a teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was charged on May 25, 1925 with violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools. He was in court in a case known as the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Scopes was born and raised in Paducah, Kentucky, but as a teenager attended Danville High School in Danville, Illinois (Danville High was also the first school at which he taught, shortly before he moved to Dayton). Scopes was a member of the class of 1919 in Salem, Illinois, which is also William Jennings Bryan's home town. After he had gained a law degree at the University of Kentucky in 1924, Scopes moved to Dayton where he took a job as the Rhea County High School's football coach, and occasionally filled in as substitute teacher when regular members of staff were off work.
Learn more about the Scopes Monkey Trial, free from essortment.com.
Posted by courier at 12:23 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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"Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon"
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: Vicious Cycle Software/D3Publisher
ESRB Rating: Teen (animated blood, mild
language, mild suggestive themes, violence)
Price: $40
Before it was cool to love "Deadly Premonition," "Earth Defense Force 2017" was everyone's ironically adored game of choice — a low-budget, sloppily assembled but wholly lovable Japanese third-person shooter that took bad graphics, terrifying voice acting, comically stiff controls and jerky animation and mixed in a too-ambitious-for-its-own-good scope and some dead simple but absolutely chaotic shootouts to create one inexplicably great time.
With "Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon," we have the third-person shooter equivalent of a cherished unsigned band putting out its major-label debut. An American developer has wrestled away the reins, and it's clear a bigger budget was in play during development. "Armageddon's" control tweaks — both on foot and in vehicles — are a night-and-day improvement over "2017," and while the visual presentation remains behind the curve, it's considerably more stable and much better equipped to handle the action when everything is collapsing and exploding.
Posted by courier at 11:27 PM. Filed under: Entertainment
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By David Lightman and Lesley Clark
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)
WASHINGTON — Congress and President Barack Obama beat the deadline for raising the nation's debt ceiling by just a few hours Tuesday, but they hardly ended the clash over the size and reach of government. The next confrontation promises to be at least as contentious as the one they just finished.
Congressional leaders have two weeks to name members of a special 12-member legislative panel that's assigned under the debt-limit law Obama signed Tuesday to find ways to cut the government's budget deficit by as much as $1.5 trillion by Nov. 23. That number can be reached by reductions in spending and increases in revenues, and the brawl over how to do that already has begun.
Posted by courier at 11:24 PM. Filed under: News
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From wikipedia
Irving Babbitt (August 2, 1865 – July 15, 1933) was an American academic and literary critic, noted for his founding role in a movement that became known as the New Humanism, a significant influence on literary discussion and conservative thought in the period between 1910 to 1930. He was a cultural critic in the tradition of Matthew Arnold, and a consistent opponent of romanticism, as represented by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Politically he can, without serious distortion, be called a follower of Aristotle and Edmund Burke. He was an advocate of classical humanism but also offered an ecumenical defense of religion. His humanism implied a broad knowledge of various moral and religious traditions.
Visit the Irving Babbitt Project at the National Humanities Institute website.
Posted by courier at 10:13 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Maria Mitchell (August 1, 1818 – June 28, 1889) was an American astronomer, who in 1847, by using a telescope, discovered a comet which as a result became known as the "Miss Mitchell's Comet". She won a gold medal prize for her discovery which was presented to her by King Frederick VII of Denmark. The medal said “Not in vain do we watch the setting and rising of the stars”. Mitchell was the first American woman to work as a professional astronomer.
One of ten children, she was raised in the Quaker religion.
Read Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals by Maria Mitchell, free from Project Gutenberg.
Posted by courier at 11:03 PM. Filed under: In Quotes
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