10 Years Gone

A lot has happened since I last posted on this…

My last post was after the Ravens / 49ers Super Bowl in February 2013…

Since then, the 49ers coach left in December 2014 to take over the Michigan Football program… It’s taken a while, but the Wolverines have made it to the last two playoffs in 2021 and 2022… They lost to eventual champion Georgia in 2021, and lost a game they should have won in 2022 to TCU… Big expectations for the 2023 season, but as I have gotten older – I care a LOT less… I used to miss weddings, parties, concerts, and most everything in favor of Michigan Football… Now-a-days, if it’s raining – I might just stay home and not go…

Giuseppe had just turned four in 2013… Now he is 14 years old and finishing up 8th grade and getting ready for high school… The family has also grown a lot in the past ten years… We have lost two dogs (Cody & Hektor) and we have replaced them with two new dogs (Jessa & Falkor)… We have also added a snake (Monty) and a bearded dragon (Drago) and a little devil (Stella)…
Stella is now 8 years old and finishing up 2nd grade… She is involved in Girl Scouts, gymnastics, and she LOVES cheer…
Meanwhile, Giuseppe is continuing with his Spanish studies (Spanish III as a Freshman), and will play in the Marching Band next fall – and he will play football, wrestling, and baseball in high school…

We moved into a new home in 2020 in Canton, MI. Within three years, we have done all of the updates that we wanted to do and it is now very close to the house of my dreams!!!

I continued to teach every year from 2006 – 2018… I finally walked away from teaching in 2018 and found a job at a library… And since September 2018 – I have been happily working at the Salem-South Lyon District Library… The past ten years have easily been the greatest ten years of my life – and I look forward to being able to say that every single year as move forward…

Writing for no one can be fun… I should write a book that no one will read!!!

5/25/2023

Super Bowl XLVII

I figured – I need to make a blog post – and what better way to get started than by posting about the Super Bowl…  The Har-Bowl…  The Super-Baugh…

The Super Bowl last night lived up to our hopes of having an exciting game that would come down to one play at the end of the game to crown the world champions.  4th and goal from the five yard line – Baltimore brings an all out blitz right up the middle to pressure the young 2nd year QB Colin Kaepernick who is only starting his 10th game in the NFL.  Kaepernick quickly throws the ball to the corner of the endzone.  There is contact, maybe a little clutching and grabbing by Baltimore’s defensive back – and then Niner’s WR Michael Crabtree fails to catch up to the ball and it lands safely (if you were rooting for the Ravens) out of bounds.  The WR Crabtree immediately looks for the flag.  The 49ers coaching staff was begging for the flag to be thrown.  The head coach, Jim Harbaugh, continued to motion a holding signal until  – well, I’m not sure when or even if he stopped with that ridiculous gesture.  But there was no flag.  There was no penalty.  The game was all but over.

There are two ways to officiate a game.  You can call every tiny infraction that you see – or you can let the athletes play through the fouls and make plays.  Whichever way is decided, the entire officiating crew should be on the same page and the game should be called with consistency.  These officials opted to let the athletes play and not call many fouls.  In doing so, they made the correct call at the end of the game by not throwing the flag.  To do so could have been justified – but it would have been inconsistent with the way they officiated the rest of the game.  Just before this happened – a Baltimore reciever was bumped 15 yards past the line of scrimmage.  This interfered with his run and prevented a long catch and possible touch down.  So, the non-calls went both ways.

First and foremost, I would say that you don’t want to give the position of lead official to a guy who sounds like Tim Meadows’ character from “The Ladies Man.”  Go ahead, check it out for yourself – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYzAFvkOyDg.  This will be the most watched television show in the world in 2013, and the guy who is supposed to have ultimate control over everyone on the field and it sounds like he just wants a glass of Courvoisier.  The very first play of the game was flagged, and it was correctly flagged; however, it was said to have been an illegal formation.  This is not true.  The formation was legal.  The TE Vernon Davis caught a pass for a 20 yard gain.  Unfortuantely, he was covered up at the time of the snap, which made him an ineligable receiver.  The penalty should have been for ineligable man downfield.  This is still a five yard penatly, so no harm / no foul – except for the fact that you got it wrong on the biggest stage possible.  Another time the same official held up four fingers indicating fourth down – which should have been a fist instead.

All of that is very nit picky from a perfectionist official.  Beyond that – the referees really did let some actions go too far.  I noticed early on that both teams were doing a lot of talking back and forth.  Actions that don’t need to be penalized – but should be addressed.  Then, after a turnover, there was a scrum and Cary Williams, #29 Baltimore, threw punches at another player and PUSHED A REFEREE.  He was not even penalized – when I thought he should have been immediately ejected.  This player went on to make great play after great play – and why not – when you don’t have to worry about being penalized, you can take all the chances in the world.  Here is the play:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu4cu10-rhk.

At the end of the day – the officials let the players play.  You want to win a Super Bowl because you made a play – not because a ref bailed you out.  Just ask Ohio State about that – I mean, sure, they claim that title from 2002 – but we all know that Miami really won that game and should be recognized as 2002 National Champs.  But, I guess it’s all about what goes down on paper.  Congrats to the Joe Flacco, Ray Lewis, and the rest of the Baltimore Ravens on winning your 2nd Super Bowl title.  As a Lions fan – I just pray for the day we can enjoy Super Bowl Sunday with our team playing and not looking forward to another top ten draft pick.

Now – on to the more important stuff!  Is it just me, or have the Super Bowl commercials gotten more and more boring each and every year.  With our overly sensative “PC” society, it is impossible for a company to make a meaningful, impactful, or even humorous commerical wihtout offending an entire group of people.  This years commercials were no better.  You had a few good ones in there – the farmer (Dodge), the military (Jeep), and some that even got a little chuckle here and there – but there was no commercial that was over the top funny.  Can we please go back to making commercials that might offend a person or two?  It’s OK – it’s a JOKE!!!

Dallas Trip

Thank You:

Our time in Dallas was absolutely amazing.  First and foremost, I want to thank my tailgate partner Dean Sommerfield for getting the tickets.  None of this happens without you my friend.  I would also like to thank ‘Michigan’ Mike Filliccia, and Steve, Craig and Tim from the Wolverine Den for helping to create the best tailgate we could possibly have in Dallas.  I would not have been able to pull this off without the help and hard work from my cousin Jesse Hood.  Thanks to him and his lovely wife Dawn for putting up with me and my wife for four days and letting us stay with you on our vacation.  Many thanks to Kip for taking charge and putting up those huge tents.  Thanks to Liz and Melissa for creating that awesome poster – even if it did have inappropriate pictures of my kid.  That was awesome!  Thanks to Marcus Hall and his friend Kevin of ‘HokeManiacs’ for putting together the great pre-party on Friday night at Fox and Hounds.  Thanks to my parents and my nephew Zac for watching my son for a week, allowing us to go on this trip.  And finally, many thanks to Ginger at Red, Hot-n-Blue for helping create a menu for a wonderful lunch for our 138 Wolverines!

Ballpark in Arlington:

A vacation with me would not be complete without a trip to the local MLB ballpark.  The Ballpark in Arlington was my 25^th MLB stadium and 22^nd team’s ballpark that I have personally seen.  I believe that this was the 2^nd “retro” park built after Oriole Park at Camden Yards.  This stadium had a very cool feel to it.  It had many good points that made it much better than Comisky (US Cellular) in Chicago or Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati.  It was dollar hot dog night – that was pretty awesome!  But one of my dogs was cold and one of my buns was hard. (Yeah, I ate more than one!)  There were girls that would dance with the Texas flag in the batters eye grassy area before the game and after all home runs.  The Rangers lost, so I’m not sure what they would do after a win.  But the brick stadium and the cool looking suites in left-center field gave this stadium some character that many MLB ballparks lack.

HOWEVER, the worst part of this stadium was not inside the stadium, but outside.  The fact that there is no bar or restaurant or even a street vendor within a mile of the stadium does not give us patrons an opportunity to do much before the game.  The stadium was also enclosed, which just means that we don’t see any Skyline of Dallas.  Part of this has to do with the fact that the ballpark is in Arlington and not in Dallas.  There is no skyline in Arlington.  Oh well – all in all the ballpark had both good and bad points and falls right in the middle of the pack of the ballparks that I have visited.

JFK Museum:

If you go to Dallas, you should really make sure that you put this on your list of things to do.  We stood in line for close to two hours to get into the warehouse that used to be the Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK.  It was an amazing and powerful piece of US History that every person – regardless of political allegiance – should take the time to see.  I really enjoyed the people outside of the museum selling all of their conspiracy theories.  Yeah, we bought some.

Texas:

People in Texas love them some Texas (and some God too, and I’m not sure which they love more).  I’ve never been to a state where I see every state flag flying as high as the US flag.  For those who don’t know, you’re not supposed to fly anything as high or higher than the US flag.  We experienced one day of “dry heat”, where it was hot and we didn’t sweat.  But we had a couple of days of heat and humidity – UGH!!!

My cousin took me to eat at a place called Texas Land & Cattle (TXLC).  This may not have been the greatest steak I have ever eaten – but it is certainly in the top five – probably top three.  This steak was unbelievably good.  Encrusted in peppercorn around the fatty part of the meat, this thing was to die for!  We also ate at Whataburger.  For a fast food place – this burger was top of the line.  Next time I go, I guess I have to hit up some popular Tex-Mex places, as we stayed away from them for the most part.

Jerry World:

Once you are inside and at your seat – this is one of the greatest and most epic stadium I have ever had the opportunity to see in person. The view from our seats was simply amazing.  I have heard that those on the fourth level watched most of the game on the giant 60-yard big screen.  But on the 3^rd level – I had a great view of everything.

This place was sold out with over 90,000 people in the stands and I did not see one line at any restroom.  The only reason the food lines backed up is because they couldn’t keep up with demand and they ran out of pizza.

My only problem with Cowboy’s Stadium was the fact that it took us close to :30 minutes to go through the security checkpoint – and then we were turned away at the door because we were at the wrong gate.  This is a huge problem.  I am certain I was not the only one to experience this.  Once inside – you could not get from one part of the stadium to the other part without going all the way up to the fourth level.  The inside layout really sucks – but if you just go to your seats – it’s awesome…

The Game:

If you want me to say something bad about Alabama, I cannot!  Their women are unbelievably beautiful (even the older ladies are hot), and their men are BIG, FAST, and DISCIPLINED.  Their fans are top of the line.  “We’re gonna kick your ass and buy you a drink afterwards!”  Even standing in line with a couple of young, college age kids that had clearly been over served – they liked to talk their smack before the game but just as quickly gave praise to the strengths of my beloved Wolverines.  They acknowledged how great their team was while still staying humble about the fact that anything can happen on a football field with a bunch of 19-23 year old kids.  Alabama fan – I have now seen you twice and you are as classy as any fan in college football.  I will gladly share a drink and a story or two with you any day!

I thought that Michigan played well – for at least their first series.  Then it was pretty much all over.  I can’t come up with any of the multitude of excuses that you would normally hear that would make me think we could have won this game.  Alabama is just better – end of story.

Take Aways:

What can I take away from this game?  The good:  Our defensive line looked really good against an NFL caliber O-Line.  Big Will Campbell looked really good all game long.  I really liked our new kick returner Norfleet – I think he is going to be Steve Breston special.  And that is where the good ends.

The bad:  We lost Blake Countess for the year as our starting CB was playing gunner on punt coverage.  This was a horrible loss for the team – but it was compounded by the fact that we were playing a starter in a position where he should not have been playing.  Denard and LT Taylor Lewan were both hurt in the game.  All WR’s (save Drew Dilio) looked AWFUL.  Our O-Line wasn’t good.  Our LB’s looked confused.  The defensive backfield was the worst of the bunch.  Michigan fan is in for a long and frustrating season if Courtney Avery is going to be a starting CB all year long.

Predictions:

After game one – Michigan begins the season 0-1.  Going in, I really thought we would have another season like last year and finish 11-2 or even 12-1.  Now, I think we are going to struggle this season.  And I am predicting a regular season record of 8-4 with a bowl victory to put us at 9-4.  This will come with a 30-point victory over Sparty.  Either way, I think we are still building towards a great future for Michigan Football and we are going to be unstoppable sooner than later.

GO BLUE!!!

A New Season…

Here we are – nine days away from the 132nd installment of Michigan Football.  I am still unemployed, yet optimistic.  I am optimistic about my future career in teaching and librarianship, and I am optimistic about this years football program.  So, let’s take a look at why I believe this will be a successful year at the University of Michigan.

First of all, college football is better when teams like Michigan, Notre Dame, Tennessee, and Nebraska are great.  College football will be even better when programs that cheat like USC, Ohio State, Miami, and Auburn are punished to the full extent of what can be done so that we are all on a somewhat equal playing field.  A team like Western Michigan or my alma-mater Eastern Michigan will never be able to compete with the likes of Florida, Oklahoma, or Michigan simply because of tradition alone will attract better athletes to the top tier schools – not to mention facilities.  But when a player is given money, or extra perks that range into the tens of thousands of dollars – that is when we’re not all playing the same game.  I will be the first person to stand up and argue for these athletes to get paid.  Not all athletes – just those in the money making sports of football, basketball, and possibly hockey.  But even that does not stop the corruption that some of these schools stoop to.

OK – Now that that is off my chest, let’s get back to Michigan Football.  Let us begin with the QB – the most important position in all of sport.  Denard Robinson is the most exciting and electrifying player in all of college football.  The new offense may not showcase his running ability like the spread offense did – but he will still get loose about ten times a game.  The new offense allows him to still run the ball, while giving more responsibilities to the RB (whomever that may be).  Don’t be surprised to see Devin Gardner handing off to Robinson before the season is over.

The new, slower, pro-style offense will allow our defense to have more time to recover on the sidelines.  This will keep them fresher as the game progresses.  This is the first of many improvements to our defense.  Another huge improvement is the fact that we are going back to the 4-3 defense.  It was clear that the former coach had a brilliant mind for offense – and an equally benighted view of the defense.  Former Michigan, ND, and Baltimore Raven’s DC Greg Mattison has come back to Michigan to take over the defense and bring hard nosed tackling back to Maize & Blue football!

Special teams can’t get any worse than they were last season.  We have a new kicker who is apparently in a battle to win the job from one of the two stiffs from last season.  4 for 14 is unacceptable at any level of competition in this game.  I cannot believe that I ever saw that stat at the D-1 level – much less at MICHIGAN!  Michigan’s punter Hagerup is suspended for the first four games.  This kid is a better than average punter that was suspended for the Ohio State game last season when the coach knew his job was on the line.  He had better stop breaking whatever team rules he continues to break and get his act together or we will need a new punter soon.  We will miss Stonum on kick-off returns.  Hopefully someone can step in and fill that position.  It looks like Drew Dileo will be back there again this season with someone else.

My preseason prediction for this team is to go 9-3 during the regular season.  This is both hopeful and believable.  I would like to think that we can compete for the Big Ten title within our division – but who knows how the other teams will be.  Iowa could be good, although they lost their QB, top WR, and many top players on their outstanding D from last season.  Michigan State will be in the mix, as Kirk Cousins may be the best pro-style QB in the Big Ten.  Northwestern is rumored to be very good this season with an outstanding QB.  And who knows how good or how average Nebraska will be once they join the Big Ten for the first time.  They could be great – or – they could go .500 in conference play.

So, having to play all five of those teams, along with Notre Dame and Ohio State – I am predicting UM to win four and lose three and win the other five games on their schedule that they should win (WMU, EMU, SDSU, Purdue, and Minnesota).  It all begins in nine days…  What are your preseason predictions?

Webinar

For the last blog of this class, this semester, and of my college career, we will take a look at what was good and bad about the last two weeks of putting together a Webinar and watching five others.  This was a very cool assignment, even though I did the absolute worst of everyone in the entire class.

Let’s start with the Webinar that my team put together.  We decided to go first, so we would be done early.  I was in charge of putting together the slides for the presentation.  So, I put my slides together in iWorks Keynote instead of PowerPoint.  I like iWorks better; however, I didn’t count on the Elluminate software to be incompatible with iWorks.  So, I simply tried to convert my Keynote slides to PowerPoint, but this didn’t work EITHER!!!  Talk about frustrating!!!

So, this led us to have a live Webinar with live people in front of a wall monitor that showed our slides.  This is not the best way to get your point across, but it worked in a last second crisis situation.  I, personally, feel horrible that I really let my group down as this was my main contribution to the project.  They were all kind and positive, but I felt it could have been so much better.  GRRRRR….

As far as our Webinar itself, it went pretty well.  Minus the slides / PowerPoint mishap.  There was one point where I tried to communicate with a team member by hand gestures, as we were in the process of recording and I couldn’t just ask her a question.  She misunderstood what I was trying to ask her, and she thought I was telling her to speed it up.  Man, if there was a worse team member than me, I would like to hear that story!  So, this made her speed through her part faster than she wanted to.  GRRRRR…  Sorry – again!!!

As far as what we were supposed to do, we did.  We had good interaction with our audience when we polled them, but we didn’t post the polls for everyone to see.  When I saw everyone else doing this in the other Webinars, I was completely jealous.  I thought it was so cool and simple to do that we should have added this to our Webinar.  This is one of the pitfalls of going first.

From my perspective, I believe that everyone in the class learned how to put together and present a Webinar – even me!  This is a very cool tool that we will probably use on both ends of presentations in our careers as librarians.  I really liked hearing the other Webinars and their different topics.  I feel that I am up to my ears in copyright talk – but that may be a good thing.  I don’t think that I will ever, unknowningly (is that a word), break copyright law, and I can be the copyright police for other colleagues.

At the end of the day, I really liked this class and felt it was very useful in helping to prepare everyone for running his or her own library.  From Podcasting to Screencasts to Webinars to reading and following blogs and Twittering you heart away, everything that we have done in this class has had a great meaning behind it, and we were able to work through and create our own projects.  Granted, my projects were not great projects, but I learned how to do them and I can find out more on my own.  This was more than exposure to a product, it was an integrated experience that I (and I assume most of the rest of the class) will remember for the rest of our careers as we strive to bring technology to more people within whatever community we may happen to work in.

Thanks to Kristin and everyone in class for a great semester.  It’s been a blast.

Social Media in Schools

Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, Friendster, Flickr, Myspace, Linkedin, Delicious, Goodreads, Library Thing, etc.

There are hundreds of social networking tools on the internet for people to use around the world.  Facebook has become so popular that they have 650 million users.  In other words, 1 in 12 people in the world use Facebook.  Kristin will soon fall prey to the addiction as well!!!  Here is a link to some other quick stats about Facebook and other social networking websites and their recent growth, <http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7334-social-media-statistics-one-year-later&gt;.

With so many people using tools like Facebook and Twitter, isn’t it time for schools to embrace this technology and use it to help their students learn content?  With some of the mash-ups that are out there that show different moments in history if they happened through Facebook are absolutely hilarious!  Here is one about WWII, <http://www.collegehumor.com/article/5971108/omg-wwii-on-facebook&gt;.  Here is one you can look at to see how Jesus would have reacted on Facebook, <http://eugenecho.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/if-jesus-was-on-facebook/&gt;.

Facebook is very difficult to monitor.  If someone else posts something on your wall, all of your friends will be able to see that post.  I have friends that have poor taste in humor or plain bad judgment.  They will post things on my wall that I have to immediately remove so that other people will hopefully not see these irresponsible posts.

Twitter, on the other hand, is one way only!  You post something to twitter, and the people who are following you are the only ones that can see it.  You have nothing to worry about other people commenting on your posts or adding to things that your viewers can see.  This makes Twitter a better tool to use for schools.

While Facebook is primarily a social / friendship networking tool, Twitter is and can be more of  a professional networking tool.  We can follow people from our profession on Twitter and see what they have to say in 140 characters or less.  That turns out to be such a useful tool due to the fact that it keeps all posts short and concise.  The only problem is that people develop a new language that must be learned in order to read many posts.  For instance, the word great can be shortened to gr8.  IMHO stands for “In My Honest Opinion.”  These add to the learning curve of the new technology – which is one reason that so many people are reluctant to try it.  However, with the bulk of society turning more and more towards new technology to stay connected, one must jump on board or get left behind!

Workshop, Webinar, & Effective Teaching

This week in class, we were put together in groups and asked to give a 20 minute workshop presentation to our peers.  It was practice for what we would do as School Media Librarians or Academic Librarians who would need to give presentations for professional development.  The most interesting workshop was when we got in groups and discussed the ALA Code of Ethics.  Do you place your personal beliefs onto a patron who is looking for a book.  For instance, how would you handle a patron that is asking for a book on how to commit suicide, or a book on how to abort a child, or a book on Black Magic and Satanism?  Do you inquire more, or do you just lead them to where they can find what they are looking for.  Do you, at ANY POINT, push your personal beliefs onto a patron?  I believe this is a very difficult question to answer on paper or given a “scenario.”  I believe that every librarian would adhere to the ALA Code of Ethics and assist the patron in finding what they need, but I also believe that each person would handle these difficult situations in a different and professional way.  As a reference librarian, it is your job to delve deeper into the patron’s questions so that you can assist them in the best possible way, and each librarian will handle each situation in their own unique way.

The next thing we had to do this week was to watch or listen to a webinar that dealt with teaching and learning with technology.  I chose to listen to the JSB webinar entitled, “A New Culture of Learning.”  Due to a last minute scheduling conflict, JSB did not show up for this webinar, and his co-author Douglas Thomas ran this talk.  Although they look very similar, I am fairly confident that Douglas Thomas is not the brother of famed Canadian Dave Thomas of SCTV fame, nor is he the son of Wendy’s founder (the other) Dave Thomas.  That being said, Douglas Thomas is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California.  Thomas and JSB wrote a book together on how we can change as teachers to better serve the new students of the 21st century.

The most interesting thing that I pulled out of this webinar was his insistence on allowing for failure in the world of education.  Both on the administrative side and on the student side, failure should be OK.  We need to fail, because that is how we learn.  It is clear to almost everyone that our educational system is not perfect in the United States, nor is it as good as it could be.  But we are so afraid of failure, that any experiments that we want to try are on such small scales that we can’t get a real sense of if it would really work on a large scale.  Students, too, need to opportunity to fail.  OK, instead of calling it “FAIL,” what if we call it being creative with no recourse of getting a poor grade.  Students who are given the opportunity to try something new, be creative at the student level, are often not afraid to take chances as an adult in the “Real World.”  It is OK to fail as a student.  This is where we learn.  It is NOT OK to fail in the “Real World.”

There is the thought out there that any teacher can teach.  The subject matter is irrelevant.  I have even argued this at times in the past.  Chapter Seven in How People Learn disputes this myth.  While some teachers may be able to control a classroom and explain facts and dates to their students who might be able to regurgitate them back to them in test or paper form, a truly outstanding teacher is able to not only teach certain facts, but also get their students to develop a deeper understanding of the subject to where each student can ask important questions on their own.  If the teacher has a deeper understanding of the subject matter, then he or she will have a better opportunity to convey those important disciplines onto their students.  The students will then be able to connect ideas from one chapter to another, or even one subject to another.

Upon reading this chapter, I was very pleased to see that the book mentions history teacher Bob Bain.  They used Bain’s classroom example of his “Rules for Determining Historical Significance” to show how students are able to learn history by each one of them determining what they believe to be important about the past.  This was an awesome exercise that I hope to be able to use in my classroom, if I am ever teaching history again.  But for all of the SI people reading this blog, I was pleased to see Bob’s name for another reason.  He is a professor here at U of M!  He teaches a course in the School of Ed called “Teaching in Public Spaces.”  I would highly recommend this as a cognate for anyone who still needs to fill that space, if you are getting into teaching.

This chapter is exactly what George Bush would point to when defending his NCLB legislation and the demand for all teachers to be “Highly Qualified.”  Unfortunately, being highly qualified does not make you an outstanding teacher.  The idea of being an outstanding teacher, one of the teachers that parents are begging to send their children to, is one who can get the students to think critically and be socially active.  It is imperative for a teacher to be able to ask difficult and meaningful questions that get back to the subject at hand.  This is accomplished by having a deeper understanding of your subject matter than the average person.  You must know your content and understand the pedagogy of teaching in order to become the outstanding teacher that we are all striving to be!

Workshop Activity

Scenario 1:
A student embedded this image in his persuasive Glogster assignment on the topic of cell phones in schools.  Student has added a speech bubble with the words “What? There’s an emergency? Good thing I have my cell phone.”
http://www.fox.com/familyguy/photos/#currentepisodes/episode_6:13474669

Scenario 2:
Student embedded this photograph of a Libyan rebel in her 11th grade Civics class blog in a post about the U.S. missile attack on Libya and the local reaction.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/03/19/world/africa/20110320-LIBYA-2.html

Scenario 3:
Student used this photo as the background for his science fiction video book trailer, created in Photostory and shown in class.
http://goldengatebridge.org/photos/ggb_lightning.jpg
Image found at http://goldengatebridge.org/photos/current.php#beauty

Scenario 4:
Student included this image in his essay analyzing the painting The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer.  The essay was turned in on paper and posted to the publicly accessible class wiki.  Student included a citation that reads:

Vermeer, Johannes. The Girl with the Pearl Earring. 1665. Mauritshuis, The
…….Netherlands. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 20 Mar. 2011.
…….<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johannes_Vermeer_(1632-
…….1675)_-._The_Girl_With_The_Pearl_Earring_(1665).jpg>.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johannes_Vermeer_(1632-1675)_-_The_Girl_With_The_Pearl_Earring_(1665).jpg

Please complete this quick survey.  Thank you.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFNBVzVuS1lVNjBacXYteUdybFpNLUE6MQ

 

Book Club

On March 14, our class did a project where we would team up in small groups of two or three and pick a small short story for others to read.  Then we would come together a week later and discuss all stories that were assigned in our small groups.  We had four groups of two and one group of three in my section.

My group picked the story “The Last Question” by Issac Asimov.

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

Although our story was longer than expected – it turned out to be a good story and a great story for discussion.  The story is about two guys in the future who have a computer that answers all questions until they ask it one question to which it responds, “INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

The story then jumps further into the future and we go through the same scenario.  The computer is stumped again.  Finally, after moving through time and space at hyper-speed, on the seventh time around, humanity dies out and the computer is the only thing left in existence.  It is at this time the computer finally has enough data to answer the question – and so it does.

One group picked the story “Cinnamon” by Neil Gaiman.

http://neilgaiman.net/cinnamon/page1.htm

I was shocked at how short this story was.  When it ended – I was perplexed.  I didn’t get anything out of the story, and I was really looking forward to the book club to see what other people thought.  Here is the story:

Rich girl in town can’t talk.
Tiger comes to town.
Tiger has girl’s aunt for dinner.
Tiger get’s girl to talk.
Girl leaves with tiger.

I just gave you the entire story in 25 words, and could have done it in less.  This story is certainly good for people to look deeply into and pull out meanings that were never meant to be there.  Sometimes there is such beauty in simplicity!

Another group chose the short story “The Lady or the Tiger?” by Frank Stockton.

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LadyTige.shtml

This was a cool story.  A very by the book king has a very unusual way of dealing with people who are accused of committing a crime.  The accused is to stand in front of two doors and open one and walk in.  Behind one door is a man eating tiger, and the entire town is there to watch you be eaten.  Behind the other door is a woman and you are immediately married and declared innocent of your crime.

At the end of the story, the king’s daughter is romantically seeing this guy who is accused and must stand in front of the door.  He now has to stand in front of the door and either die by the tiger, or be married off to someone else.  He makes his choice and walks through the door, but the story ends there.  We are left to guess what happens next.

Another story was “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry

http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/magi.html

Most people have read this story if they went to school in the United States.  It is about a boy who sells his watch for hair combs for his girlfriend, while she sells her hair for a chain for his watch.  They each bought the other a gift and sold their most valued possession to do so.  I remembered reading this story as we learned about irony.  This brought up very interesting discussion during the book club.  However, I think that my view is correct in that while they each sold their most valuable possession, they found their love for each other was greater than any object they could ever own!

The last group chose to read “The Goose-Girl” by the Brothers Grimm.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/066.txt

This was a another story that I can summarize for you very quickly.  Let me make another attempt here:

King sends his daughter away to be married.
She leaves with her dowry and a maiden.
Half way to the princes house, the maiden makes the princess trade places.
The princess is now the maiden and vice-versa.
They arrive and the princess goes to work with the goose-boy.
The new king hears the princess cry her sorrows without her knowledge of him being around.
The new king asks the maiden what she thinks punishment should be for betrayal.
And so it is, and he unveils the TRUE princess for his son to wed, while the maiden must suffer the fate that she has declared.

O.K., so it was longer than my first summery, but that is the story in a nutshell.  This story did not leave very many open ended questions, but rather brought about people questioning the story.  Sometimes it is very difficult to see  yourself in another person’s unfortunate situation.

To Boycott, or not?

The internet is quite possibly the greatest invention since Prometheus gave us fire, or the caveman created the wheel.  The internet has brought almost everything in the world to our computer screen with the simple click of a button.  What was once rare or hard to find, is no longer.  The speed of information has grown at a factor that is beyond exponential.

Unfortunately, with all of this massive availability to the world, some things become difficult to regulate.  At the turn of the century, people began using the computer to share what they owned with everyone around the world.  People would download the music they owned to their personal computer and share it with millions of people around the world.   This is great for the consumer – but it is a terrifying situation for anyone who is looking to make money from that music.

Ten years later, this situation has moved from the music world to the world of books and publishing.  Books have become available in electronic form available to be downloaded to your personal computer or handy e-reader.  Now you can carry thousands of books at a time within a device that is the size of a notebook.  This is great for the consumer – but again, it is terrifying for those who expect to make money from these books.

In order to combat the overuse of e-readers, Harper Collins – a publishing company – has decided to allow their biggest customers, libraries, to buy an e-book and loan it out for a maximum of 26 downloads.  After that e-book is checked out 26 times, it must be purchased again.  This has made librarians around the country furious.  To show their frustration, many libraries have boycotted Harper Collins Publishing.

The ALA has a code of ethics, which has eight short and distinct statements.  Broken down, it basically states the following:

• Libraries will provide a high level of service
• No Censorship
• Your account will be private and confidential
• You retain all of your Intellectual Property Rights while here
• We will treat you with respect (like Aretha)
• Staff will not push private interest on you
• Staff will keep personal beliefs separate from professional duties
• Staff will be lifelong learners and trainers

By only allowing 26 downloads of purchased e-books, librarians feel that the publishing company is violating this code of ethics.  Maralyn Johnson, an author who’s work is published by Harper Collins, cries out, “What if I’m the 27th patron?”  How is that fair to everyone in that community?  If you come early, you can have access to the library – but only the first 26 people!

As a person who is understanding to both sides of the argument, I feel that there needs to be a compromise.  Upon reading on this topic, it seems that the librarians want the 26 limit lifted, while the publishing company wants to make sure that they do not lose business because of libraries putting their work out in electronic form for the world to see without proper compensation.  It seemed to be all or nothing for both sides – or all or 26 as it were.

I feel that there should be a library version of e-books that would allow a patron to check out a book onto an e-reader for a certain amount of time – or a certain amount of times to open that e-book.  After the time expires or the number is met, the e-book would then disappear.

This would satisfy the libraries by allowing them to provide their service to everyone.  And it would also keep the publishers happy knowing that their work was not being pirated around the world.  Until something is done, many libraries will continue to boycott Harper Collins Publishing.