A Most Interesting Bone
Check out Carl Zimmer's latest article about a most interesting bone . . .
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Sheri Berman's Latest NY Times Piece
Sheri Berman authored a piece in the New York Times recently. Here it is:
Marx’s Lesson for the Muslim Brothers
By SHERI BERMAN
Published: August 10, 2013
KARL MARX wrote that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. He had in mind the Revolution of 1848, when a democratic uprising against the French monarchy collapsed into a Bonapartist dictatorship just as the French Revolution had six decades earlier.
In 1848, workers joined with liberals in a democratic revolt to overthrow the French monarchy. However, almost as soon as the old order collapsed, the opposition fell apart, as liberals grew increasingly alarmed by what they saw as “radical” working class demands. Conservatives were able to co-opt fearful liberals and reinstall new forms of dictatorship.
Those same patterns are playing out in Egypt today — with liberals and authoritarians playing themselves, and Islamists playing the role of socialists. Once again, an inexperienced and impatient mass movement has overreached after gaining power. Once again, liberals have been frightened by the changes their former partners want to enact and have come crawling back to the old regime for protection. And as in 1848, authoritarians have been happy to take back the reins of power.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Check out Carl Zimmer's latest interview on NPR. You can listen to it by clicking here.
Or you can read it below:
The Promise In Unraveling The Mysteries Of Rare Diseases
As a child, Jeannie Peeper was diagnosed with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, an extremely rare disease that causes a second skeleton to grow inside the body. Peeper and science writer Carl Zimmer discuss the efforts of a small group to fund research to battle the disease.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
News from Jackie Horne
Here is nice note I received from Jackie Horne:
Hi, Tim:
Hi, Tim:
Hope all is well with you and yours. We were sad to miss reunion last year -- we were planning on coming, but my mother died the Friday before Memorial Day, and we ended up grieving with family instead of celebrating with old classmates...
Hard to believe our daughter Maddie is just finishing up her first year of high school at the Commonwealth School in Boston. The school is only a few blocks away from where the Marathon bombings took place, but luckily no one from her school was hurt.
Keith is still working as a Senior Engineer in the Advanced Technology Group at NetApp, and I'm working as an independent scholar and writer. Since last August, I've been writing a blog called ROMANCE NOVELS FOR FEMINISTS (romancenovelsforfeminists.blogspot.com), which analyzes the intersections between feminism and popular romance writing. Starting next month, I'll be co-chairing the Publications Advisory Board for the Children's Literature Association (childlitassn.org), which oversees the publishing program for the association, in conjunction with the UP of Mississippi. Any scholars out there studying books, films, computer and video games, or any other media for children, and who looking to publish their book-length work -- let me know.
Best,
Jackie C. Horne, ES 87
The Case of the Disappearing Penis
Check out Carl Zimmer's latest:
Sex is intriguing in all its forms, and bird sex is particularly intriguing. Some male birds have giant corkscrew-shaped penises, but most have none, thanks to its evolutionary disappearance millions of years ago. For “Matter,” my weekly New York Times column, I take a look at the case of the disappearing penis, and why it’s important to study, despite what some cable news pundits may say. Check it out!
Bird Sex and Why It Matters: My New Column For the New York Times
No penis required. Google “cloacal kiss.” Photo by PWIO via Creative Commons [Photo linked to original]
Jon Spurney is Musical Director for Upcoming Benefit
Check out the benefit concert that Jon Spurney is directing soon:
Heidi Blickenstaff, Caissie Levy, Gabriel Ebert and Amanda Green Join Lineup for Dory Previn Concert at Vineyard Theatre
By Carey Purcell
07 Jun 2013
07 Jun 2013
The evening will also feature the previously reported Michael Cerveris (Assassins, Sweeney Todd, Evita), Montego Glover (Memphis), Julia Greenberg (People Are Wrong!), Judy Kuhn(Passion, Eli's Comin'), Nellie McKay (Old Hats),Jessie Mueller (Nice Work If You Can Get It, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) and Stew (Passing Strange). Jon Spurney is the evening's musical director.
Dory Previn was an American lyricist, singer-songwriter who released six pop/folk albums of original songs and was the lyricist of several Oscar-nominated songs. She also wrote several works for the stage, including a musical adaptation of her album "Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign" and several autobiographical works of nonfiction. She passed away in 2012 at the age of 86.
Tickets to the concert can be purchased by calling (212) 353-0303 or by visiting vineyardtheatre.org.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Read Lynn Oberlander's latest post on the New Yorker Blog
Here's the latest from classmate Lynn Oberlander from the New Yorker Blog:
JUNE 7, 2013
CAN JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR STOP THE N.S.A.?
The Verizon Business customers who learned, this week, that the company had given records of every call they made within and from the United States to the National Security Agency might also have been surprised to find out that, under current law, the government did not need a warrant (or probable cause) to access that information. The records are not considered private, and all the government needed was an order from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court. That might sound like a safeguard against government overreach, but the court approved all but one of the five thousand one hundred and eighty applications submitted for surveillance and physical searches between 2010 and 2012. It is hardly what you would call a watchdog.
How could phone records—“telephony metadata,” as the order called them—not be considered private? As Jane Mayer has written, metadata can contain numerous revelations, not just about who we’re talking to and for how long but about where we are. The answer has to do with a case that dates back more than thirty years, and which the Supreme Court may be ready to reëxamine. Based on a reading of recent opinions, one of the key figures in such a reëxamination is likely to be Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
New York Times Profile of Classmate Jay Carney
Did you see the recent NYT piece about Jay Carney? If not, click here. Here's a sample of what you will read:
Reporter Turned White House Spokesman Enjoys the Hot Seat
Doug Mills/The New York Times
“For me personally, it has been a good week,” said Jay Carney, President Obama’s press secretary.
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: May 17, 2013
WASHINGTON — For the better part of a decade, Jay Carney sat slumped in his tiny chair in the White House briefing room, parsing, challenging and at times pillorying the words of an array of press secretaries.
Drew Angerer for The New York Times
Jay Carney poked fun at himself on Wednesday by showing a group of photos of himself from the previous day's briefing.
But over the last week Mr. Carney — the first reporter in a generation to move to the other side of the White House podium — has made his most emphatic and inextricable leap from reporter to reported on.
Cornered by a number of controversies — one of which swept in his own words — Mr. Carney has chalked up the criticism over the handling of the attack on an American mission in Benghazi, Libya, to partisan beefing, cast a tiny shadow of doubt on the I.R.S.’s targeting of conservatives, and defended the administration over its seizure of reporters’ phone records.
In so doing, Mr. Carney, 47, has fully embraced the sort of semantic jujitsu that might have made his reporter self choleric, “appreciating” tough questions, dodging others as “wholly inappropriate” to answer, boasting about an “unfettered” respect for the press that was being spied upon, and generally splitting hairs, obfuscating and testing his turbulent ties with the members of his former tribe.
If the incoming mortar fire is leaving wounds, Mr. Carney, the bespectacled, baby-faced press warrior, does not feel them. “Honestly, I find it enjoyable,” Mr. Carney said. “I find it challenging. It’s hard, but it’s better than 45 to 60 minutes of calling on reporters who are kind of sleepy and disinterested. For me personally, it has been a good week.”
Yale Class of 87 Leads the Way in Social Media
From news.yale.edu:
Yale College reunions break records on campus – and in social media
Yale’s tradition of engagement by alumni/ae reached new heights with Yale College graduates returning for their class reunions in record numbers over the weekends of May 23-26 and May 30-June 2.
This year’s reunions of Yale College classes graduating in years ending in “3” and “8” — from 1948 and 1953 down to 2003 and 2008 — saw the highest total attendance overall of any reunion cycle ever. Among the leaders were graduates of the Yale College Class of 1988, which set a record number of classmates, percentage of classmates, and total number of attendees for a 25th reunion class
Mark Dollhopf ’77, executive director of the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA), captured the spirit of alumni volunteers, attendees, and staff in an e-mail — titled, simply, “Wow!” — in which he praised the AYA team’s efforts, amidst some rather tough weather, to create what he described as “Fabulous reunions! A great success!”
Similar enthusiasm was evident on social media, too. This year saw the biggest reunion engagement yet by alumni/ae about reunions on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
A good part of this social media growth is due to the efforts of volunteers from the Yale College Class of 1987, who have worked to facilitate use of Twitter to connect alumni of all classes during special events and non-event periods, having seen the benefits of even modest use of Twitter during their 25th reunion last year.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Theater Night for the Class of 1987 (and all Yalies)
Yale Alumni of all Classes,
The Class of '87 is hosting a general Yale Alumni event, Friday
June 14, in New York: a night during previews of a spellbinding Off Broadway
play. There's an optional prix fixe pre-show
dinner. We'll also go out for post-show drinks.
One of the play's lead producers is a Yale graduate, Jim Landé
Y'87, who arranged a Friends & Family ticket discount and will do a short
Q&A on the production.
.png)
.png)
____________________
Tennessee
Williams' The Two-Character Play at New World Stages Off Broadway
www.thetwocharacterplay.com
The
Stars
Amanda
Plummer and Brad Dourif
unite their white-hot talents in the long-overdue Off Broadway production of
Tennessee Williams' rarely performed masterpiece, THE TWO-CHARACTER PLAY. (Tony award-winner Amanda will be seen soon as
Wiress in Hunger Games: Catching Fire,
and was Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction.
Oscar nominee Brad is Gríma Wormtounge in Lord
Of The Rings, Billy Bibbitt in One
Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and Chucky's voice in the Child's Play series.)
Synopsis
Reality and fantasy are interwoven with terrifying power as
two actors on tour—brother and sister—find themselves deserted by their troupe.
Faced by an audience expecting a performance, they enact The Two-Character
Play. As they dip in and out of performance they find it difficult to
differentiate themselves from their roles and reality from illusion. Equal
parts Southern Gothic thriller, black comedy and psychological drama, it is a
marked innovation from Williams’ earlier works, one he says was "my most
beautiful play since Streetcar."
CURTAIN
TIME
Friday,
June 14:
8:00pm, New World Stages, 340 West 50th, NYC 10019
Pre-show
Dinner Option:
Meet Yalies at 6:00pm
Churrascaria Plataforma
Brazilian Steakhouse, 316 W 49th St, NYC, 10019
Prix Fixe Rodizio style Dinner: $62.95, Gourmet Salad Bar only: $49.95
* Please Rsvp for a restaurant
headcount to: james.lande@aya.yale.edu
Friends
& Family 25% DISCOUNT TICKET CODE: CPFF513
Purchase
Tickets: http://www.broadwayoffers.com/go.aspx?MD=2001&MC=CPFF513
Background
Reading for studious types: (don't worry, there's no exam!)
- http://on.fb.me/11yt0BP
- http://on.fb.me/1333anI
- http://on.fb.me/12iCLWq
YouTube
Clip: http://www.youtube.com/TwoCharacterPlayNYC
WEBSITE: www.thetwocharacterplay.com
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)