Mark Boughton versus Mark Boughton: The parade ordinance edition

When will the media take this man to task for misleading the public?!?

This is just too easy.

Here's Danbury's last honest man disagreeing with critics of the parade ordinance.

Rotello said the new ordinance cost the city money, because people now pay $100 for the parade permit, but nothing for the police officers who put up barricades and stop cars from crossing the intersections as people walk by.

[...]

Boughton disagreed. He said for big events, where police are required, the organizers are charged a fee to offset the police costs. He said the old law was harder to enforce. With this one, everybody gets charged the $100.

The mayor claims that the ordinance does not cost the city money as organizers "are charged a fee to offset the police costs."

Would you be shocked to learn that a year after the ordinance went into effect, Boughton was singing a different tune...

Watch and learn.

Summer 2008:

BOUGHTON: …the bad news is we probably run up about 150,000 in police charges for all the parades and things that go on in the city…those numbers, they escalate quickly, so that's been a problem….there are other questions about the amount of people, and I think one of the things that we'll look is for recommendations from the chief [Al Baker] is "is this working, are you turning people down", I don't we ever turn someone down but the good news is that people have been really good about coming in and getting a permit so we've been able to organize…I'll talk to the committee chair and if there is a burning issue, I sure we can look into that...

So on one hand, one year after the ordinance went into effect, Boughton claimed that the new ordinance cost the city a whopping 150,000 dollars in police charges. On the other hand, in response to criticism, Boughton disagreed that the ordinance cost the city money and that costs were passed down to the organizers for big events (although the ability for the city to pick and choose which organizers were to be charge for police assistance was NEVER part of the ordinance).

You can't make this up folks!

It's getting to the point where I'm having trouble keeping track of Boughton's misleading statements. The questions remains...when will the media start holding this mayor accountable for the years of contradicting statements he's made on this issue as well as other matters.

It's Feeling Hot Hot Hot

It's getting hot in here folks - and not just because we've only got six weeks to get the living room done! The electrical will be finished up this Wednesday so for now my ceiling is a mix of pot lights, holes, and hanging wires. It always looks worse before it gets better, right?

HandyMan and I are moving along and purchased the fireplace. So here's the thing about the fireplace... although we loved the old wood burning fireplace, it wasn't going to work for our family. Rocks were literally falling off the front and the hearth was cracked so we would have to replace it. The fireplace, placed on an angle, also took up a huge amount of floorspace so we'd need a smaller unit. Plus, with plans for expanding our family, we knew we didn't want to have a fireplace that was so accessible to wandering little hands.

Where did that leave us? Well, we decided to get one of these:

That's the Skyline fireplace by Marquis. We've decided to place the fireplace flat against the wall (back towards the dining room) to minimize its size. That meant we only had a 48" wall to work with and this particular model fit the size and had a nice tall flame as compared to other similar styles. The idea is to build out a floor-to-ceiling rectangular frame to house the fireplace. We'll add in some details, like tiling right up to the glass edge, and recessing the base and the top to make it appear like it floats and less like a massive thing the room.

I've done a bit of shopping for tile to face the fireplace - and let me tell you, this is no easy task! We want something that blends in a bit and fits with our decor. So no slate, no rustic stone, nothing too dark and heavy. We keep getting drawn to a variation of our kitchen backsplash... some sort of marble mosaic.

Not all of these are fireplace options (I was also shopping for something for the eventual basement bathroom).  I am still unsure though. I haven't been able to find many white marble fireplaces so I'm guessing its not typically used there. And now, I read Carol's take on modern fireplaces and I'm worried we've picked both an ugly fireplace and the wrong tile!!!  Agh. I don't know how to mix a modern fireplace in a traditional home!

Just joking. Sorta. I'm so indicisive about the fireplace... and we don't have much time to figure it out.

LOCAL ACCESS VIDEO: Danbury Live 02.26.11 broadcast

Cinematic

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Rita Hayworth in Lady from Shanghai, 1947: screenshot from film trailer

We dwell in our plush gumstuck viewing thrones.
Buck's still caught on that log when the house lights come
Up. Shocked by the return of a real life
We were doing very well without, thank you,
We recognize that image was a white lie,

With no more substance than a dream,
No more lasting than the gift by which we breathe,
No more lasting, that is, than itself.
And as in waking from the dream too soon
One forgets its truths, we turn back into lumps,

Resigned to our several lump personae
Washed up amid alien popcorn boxes,
Moving out past velvety chains into
Cool silks of the night, Rita Hayworth lost,
Stars widening their vast indifferent gaze.

Rita Hayworth in Lady from Shanghai, 1947: screenshot from film trailer

In Your Dreams

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Children in front of movie theatre, Alpine, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, May 1939

Shoveling snow away from the movie entrance, Chilicothe, Ohio: photo by Arthur Rothstein, February 1940

Movie theatre, Elkins, West Virginia: photo by John Vachon, June 1939



Children looking at movie poster in front of theatre, Saturday, Steele, Missouri: photo by Russell Lee, August 1938



Saturday afternoon movie crowd, North Platte, Nebraska: photo by John Vachon, October 1938



Flags of the confederacy displayed at movie house on Lincoln's birthday, Winchester, Virginia: photo by Arthur Rothstein, February 1940

Children at a movie house on Saturday, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania: photo by Jack Delano, January 1941

Movie theatre, Elkins, West Virginia: photo by John Vachon, June 1939

Movie theatre, Moore Haven, Florida: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, January, 1939



Mexican man in front of movie theatre, San Antonio, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, March 1939

Photos from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

Cooper and Bogart: The Hero (Manny Farber)

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Gary Cooper in The Virginian (1929): film poster

The older-fashioned hero is a long-bodied, long-armed man whose air is one of troubled silence, and who grew up in the bleaker parts of the country to be shy, honest and not given to excesses. He doesn't seek success, but because he is a physical genius he reaches the hero class and performs there as a good honest man would. He is probably the most likable person to see winning so many rewards, especially when his person is that of Gary Cooper (who had as much to do with shaping this movie personality as anyone else), Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda. His career, which the earliest pioneer first hacked out and which Hemingway revived by opening new worlds for him to conquer, is apt to be an untroubled one of physical superiority; but the faint tinge of tragedy latent in his personality sometimes leads at the end of the picture to the fact that he or his wife will die or that he must leave her in some far-off desert oasis, singing in a cabaret, to prove that the twain of East and West cannot meet for very long. Though he seems made for lonely nights out on the range, the picture of his love life is always one of wholesome, perfect physical compatibility, and he is a conscientious, non-professional lover. He is seldom bothered about money, since he works outside the civilized world of business, and his few excursions into that world are in the roles of philanthropist or savior ("Mr. Deeds," "Mr. Smith").

Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943): screenshot from film trailer

The hero played by Mr. Bogart, which grew out of the gangster film and Dashiell Hammett detective novels, looks as though he had been knocked around daily and had spent his week-ends drinking himself unconscious in the back rooms of saloons. His favorite grimace is a hateful pulling back of the lips from his clenched teeth, and when his lips are together he seems to be holding back a mouthful of blood. The people he acts badly toward and spends his movie life exposing as fools are mainly underworld characters like gangsters, cabaret owners and dance-hall girls (and the mayor whom he puts into office every year). Everything he does carries conflicting quantities of hatred and love, as though he felt you had just stepped on his face but hadn't meant it. His love life is one in which the girl isn't even a junior partner in the concern, his feeling about life is that it is a dog kennel, and he believes completely in the power of the money which he steals or works everyone else's fingers to the bone to earn. He is the soured half of the American dream, which believes that if you are good, honest and persevering, you will win the kewpie doll.

Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest (1936): cropped screenshot from film trailer

Manny Farber: The Hero (excerpt), from The New Republic, 18 October 1943, in Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber, 2009

LOCAL ACCESS VIDEO: Spotlight On 02.22.11

Frank O'Hara: Written in the Sand at Water Island and Remembered (Little Elegy for James Dean)

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James Byron Dean (8 February 1931-30 September 1955): studio publicity still, c. 1955

James Dean
actor
made in USA
eager to be everything
stopped short

Do we know what
excellence is? it's
all in this world
not to be executed

Julie Harris and James Dean in East of Eden: studio publicity still, 1955

Frank O'Hara: Written in the Sand at Water Island and Remembered, 9 October 1955, from Four Little Elegies in Collected Poems, 1971

Clueless hippies desecrate war memorial in Wisconsin Capital building

And get called on it, thanks to Ann Althouse and husband.

Hippies reduced to babbling incoherent defense - priceless.

Gems from bespectacled hippy dude around the 4:40 mark:

"We need to be somewhere that is visible."

"Because..." turns, gestures demonstratively to memorial.

"Do not think that I am not serious about this cause that we are working for now."

"Uh, never mind, sorry, that was a poorly formed sentence."

Indeed.



Give credit to the last women they talk to. She, unlike the others, seems to be cognizant.

Frank O'Hara: To the Film Industry in Crisis

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Gloria Swanson in The Great Moment (1921), film poster

Not you, lean quarterlies and swarthy periodicals

with your studious incursions toward the pomposity of ants,

nor you, experimental theatre in which Emotive Fruition

is wedding Poetic Insight perpetually, nor you,

promenading Grand Opera, obvious as an ear (though you

are close to my heart), but you, Motion Picture Industry,

it’s you I love!

In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.

And give credit where it’s due: not to my starched nurse, who taught me

how to be bad and not bad rather than good (and has lately availed

herself of this information), not to the Catholic Church

which is at best an oversolemn introduction to cosmic entertainment,

not to the American Legion, which hates everybody, but to you,

glorious Silver Screen, tragic Technicolor, amorous Cinemascope,

stretching Vistavision and startling Stereophonic Sound, with all

your heavenly dimensions and reverberations and iconoclasms! To

Richard Bartelhmess as the "tol'able boy" barefoot and in pants,

Jeanette MacDonald of the flaming hair and lips and long, long neck,

Sue Carroll as she sits for eternity on the damaged fender of a car

and smiles, Ginger Rogers with her pageboy bob like a sausage

on her shuffling shoulders, peach-melba-voiced Fred Astaire of the feet,

Eric von Stroheim, the seducer of mountain climbers' gasping spouses,

the Tarzans, each and every one of you (I cannot bring myself to prefer

Johnny Weissmuller to Lex Barker, I cannot!), Mae West in a furry sled,

her bordello radiance and bland remarks, Rudolph Valentino of the moon,

its crushing passions and moonlike, too, the gentle Norma Shearer,

Miriam Hopkins dropping her champagne glass off Joel McCrea's yacht

and crying into the dappled sea, Clark Gable rescuing Gene Tierney

from Russia and Allan Jones rescuing Kitty Carlisle from Harpo Marx,

Cornel Wilde coughing blood on the piano keys while Merle Oberon berates,

Marilyn Monroe in her little spike heels reeling through Niagara Falls,

Joseph Cotten puzzling and Orson Welles puzzled and Dolores del Rio

eating orchids for lunch and breaking mirrors, Gloria Swanson reclining,

and Jean Harlow reclining and wiggling, and Alice Faye reclining

and wiggling and singing, Myrna Loy being calm and wise, William Powell

in his stunning urbanity, Elizabeth Taylor blossoming, yes, to you

and to all you others, the great, the near-great, the featured, the extras

who pass quickly and return in dreams saying your one or two lines,

my love!

Long may you illumine spaces with your marvelous appearances, delays

and enunciations, and may the money of the world glitteringly cover you

as you rest after a long day under the klieg lights with your faces

in packs for our edification, the way the clouds come often at night

but the heavens operate on the star system. It is a divine precedent

you perpetuate! Roll on, wheels of celluloid, as the great earth rolls on!

Gloria Swanson in Sadie Thompson (1928), lobby card



Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1926), film poster



Rudolph Valentino in Son of the Sheik (1926), film poster

Rudolph Valentino in Son of the Sheik (1926), film poster

Frank O'Hara: To the Film Industry in Crisis, 15 November 1955, from Meditations in an Emergency, 1957 (ms. draft has "mother" for "starched nurse", line 9)

Dubya to Brave Sir Julian -

Stuff it bub.

Spokesman for George Bush David Sherzer said he learned of Assange's invitation
only this week.

He said: 'Six months ago, President Bush accepted an
invitation to speak to the YPO Global Leadership Summit in Denver on February
26, 2011.

"This week, upon learning that Julian Assange had recently
been invited to address the same summit, President Bush decided to cancel his
appearance. The former president has no desire to share a forum with a man who
has wilfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United
States."

Too bad for this YPO organization. The Bush Center might have been a good partner to work with. Epic facepalm folks. Epic.

Clouds in the foreground

And Brian Eno as soundtrack?

Cool Astronomy vids of the day: Time lapse, Milky Way

Made over the course of a single night. From the YouTube page:

Time-lapse of a whole night at the ALMA Array Operations Site (AOS), located at 5000 meters altitude on the Chajnantor plateau, in the II Region of Chile. As the Moon sets at the beginning of the night, three of the first ALMA antennas start tests as part of the ongoing Commissioning and Science Verification process. Because they are pointing at the same target in the sky at any moment, their movements are perfectly synchronized.

As the sky appears to rotate clockwise around the south celestial pole (roughly on the upper left edge of the video), the Milky Way goes down slowly, until it is lying almost horizontal before sunrise. The center of our galaxy becomes visible during the second half of the night as a yellowish bulge crossed by dark lanes in the center of the image, just above the antennas.

The flashes on the ground are the car lights of the guards patrolling at the AOS. ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array is the largest astronomical project in existence and is a truly global partnership between the scientific communities of East Asia, Europe and North America with Chile. ESO is the European partner in ALMA.





And from another angle:



Awesome ain't it?

Robert Duncan: Salvages: An Evening Piece

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A plate in light upon a table is not a plate of hunger. Coins on the table have their own innocent glimmer. Everything about coins we obliterate in use and urgency. How lovely the silver dull disk glimmer is. Shells without remorse. The rubd antique nickle dated 1939 Liberty portrait relief of Jefferson and, beyond, darkend with use, a grimy patina beautiful 1929 buffalo head nickle.

Bottles. An aluminum tea pot with wicker handle. A remnant length of Italian shawl worn by my grandmother in the 80s, this too, increasing as beauty in dimness. The reds, ochres, blacks and once perhaps almost white natural cotton yellowd. The wearing, the long use, the discoloring. It would be becoming to beauty in words worn out. As a poetry to be discolord.

It is not the age it is the wearing, it is the reversion of the thing from its values. One nickle, then two dimes brighter, a newness, fresh-minted (yet, when I look -- in god we trust -- it is 1944, the god is Mercury with winged helmet; the other, a bust of Deus Roosevelt roman style with sagging chin and stuck-up defiant nondescript head -- this is 1947 -- in god we trust). Then two nickles, the grimy ones. One shiny fifty cent piece above. (Beyond) a fourth nickle showing Monticello E Pluribus Unum.

This mere ninety cents is more, is all piece by piece in art, as they are here, pieces of glimmer as rare as the mysterious chalice with faces and figures on the casting from the greek house and rider.

Notes on use and values.

.....Then the litter. The gleams of silver and nickle seen as coins of light in the litter. A key, another gleam, an ancient evocation, a coin-silver spoon, a chipt cheap cup-shaped cup with a grey glaze without the imperfections of beauty beautiful because it is a cup. A large brown glass bottle of vitamins that look like beans. Papers. A letter from a friend, a program in my own script black and definite (defiant) arranged over the white paper. Matches. An envelope.

In the late hour left after the history of the day, taken with a will before bedtime -- how transformd the world is! The silence almost reaches us in which an original, all that has been left behind, tosst about, of us remains.

Beautiful litter with thy gleam and glimmers, thy wastes and remains! The tide of our purpose has gone back into itself, into its own counsels. And it is the beauty of where we have been living that is the beauty of the hour.

This post dedicated to Aram Saroyan

Salvages: An Evening Piece: Robert Duncan, 1950 (from A Book of Resemblances, 1950-1953)

Indian Head nickel (obverse): designed by James Earle Fraser, 1913: image by Einar Einarsson Kvaran, 2005

Buffalo Head nickel (reverse): designed and by James Earle Fraser, 1913: image by Einar Einarsson Kvaran, 2005

Composite image of 1936 Winged Liberty Head (Mercury) dime, designed by Adolph A. Weinman, 1915 (obverse image based on portrait of Wallace Stevens's wife Elsie Kachel Stevens): original obverse image by Bobby 131313, 2006; composite image by Cholmes75, 2006

WW II period US Liberty Head nickel (Monticello/reverse side), designed and engraved by Felix Schlag,1938: image by Cholmes75, 2006

House key: photo by Linuxerist, 2006
Spoon: photo by Ari Abitbol, 2008
Street Item: Garbage, Berkeley: photo by Dorothea Lange, 1945 (Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California)

Rummy makes the rounds, part V, Jamie McIntyre presents; Cage match with General Shelton

A serious interview. Covers Abu Graib, 9/11 trutherism, and Shelton's very different take on the administrations intention vis Iraq in the early days post 9/11, among and other things. Well done interview.

Weekend

It's the weekend! Hope yours is filled with some lazy breakfast eating, some fresh outdoor-air-breathing, perhaps some thrifting, and definitely lots of relaxing.

*****

I'd like to thank all of you who drop by Rambling Renovators. I appreciate all of your comments, your tweets, and your emails. Each and every one makes me smile. xoxo.





Photo via http://prettystuff.tumblr.com

The fallacy you are looking for: Hasty Generalization

Interesting post, one of a series on war memoirs over at "On Violence" asks the following question:

Given only pictures of combat at its worst, we, the American public, the world, extrapolate that all of Afghanistan (or Iraq) is war at its worst. I’m sure there is a fallacy here, but I don’t know its proper name. (Reverse synecdoche?) The America media diet consists mostly of combat, and ignores the 2.5 people behind every combat soldier..

..This distortion hits all deploying or deployed soldier on a personal level. Every time Michael C or I told someone he was deploying to Iraq, we would get a shocked look of concern. They assumed he was going to battle. In truth, as he wrote about here, he was a Fobbit.

One might also add that such memoirs not only cause people to generalize from the instances to the whole in this further way: Afghanistan and Iraq are hell holes as wholes.

The logical fallacy is 'hasty generalization' which, from the looks of the link provided for the term 'reverse synecdoche' seems to be family related to the latter, which is itself a term of art from linguistics, not logic.

A brief natural history of a conspiracy theory...continued.

John Hinderaker continues to pester his betters at the Paper of Record, vis the alleged shady machinations of Big and Li'l Enos, the brothers Burdette HERE

Regarding: the below evolving pseudo fact, or meme, or whatever the hell you want to call it. Behold the three stage transformation of a bit of information with implicit quote into a reported direct quote:

Stage one - implied statement from subject of interview, one Tim Phillips (let's call it the "airquotes" version):

Even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown, Mr. Phillips said in an interview on Monday.

Stage two - using the story, and above "airquote" from the Paper of Record, an outfit called "Think Progress" helpfully supplies the print equivalent of the 'airquotes' rendering them explicit, fabricating a direct quote, bringing it into existence like God himself. Most impressive:

Tim Phillips, ... current president of Americans for Prosperity, a front financed by David Koch, told the New York Times that Koch operatives "had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown."

Stage three, the Los Angeles Times engages in some editorial padification, and creative contextualization, basically making explicit and adding to the quote the implicit conspiracy theory it entails:

In fact, as Tim Phillips, head of Americans for Prosperity, a group created and funded by the Koch brothers to the tune of $40 million last year, told the paper, "even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown."

All of this while the original author of the New York Times piece sits on Mr. Hinderaker's letter (consequent to H confirming with Mr. Phillips the inaccuracy of the original) asking for substantiation of the "airquotes" original:

Eric, I believe we have corresponded before, but it has been quite some time. I have a web site called Power Line where I do political commentary, along with two co-authors.

I am writing about your article in Monday's paper called "Billionaire Brothers' Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute." You quote Tim Phillips of Americans For Prosperity in a couple of places in your article, but I was struck by the fact that the most controversial statement you attributed to him was not a quote: "Even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown, Mr. Phillips said in an interview on Monday."

As you probably are aware, Mr. Phillips denies making any such statement to you. Since you didn't put the statement in quotes, it apparently was not exactly what Phillips said. So my question is, what record do you have of the interview with Mr. Phillips? Did you record it? Did you take notes? If so, would you be willing to share your notes or recording with me? As you may know, the statement you attributed to Mr. Phillips has attracted a good deal of attention, and it would be worthwhile, I think, to determine what record you have of what he actually said.

Thank you.

John Hinderaker

Powerline, David to the Grey Lady's Goliath.

You go John.

No word yet from the nefarious Brothers Burdette.

James Boswell: Samuel Johnson's Cat Hodge

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Statue of Samuel Johnson's cat Hodge in the courtyard outside Johnson's house, 17 Gough Square, London: photo by Michael K. Westlake, 2006 (via Dr. Johnson's Rambler)

Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he showed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, 'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.'

This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'

Hodge keeping watch: photo by Michael K. Westlake, 2006 (via Dr. Johnson's Rambler)

James Boswell: Life of Johnson, entry for 23 March 1783 (Johnson aetat 74)

Ezra Pound's Hodge-Podge (Robert Duncan to H.D.)

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The Feast of St. Nicholas: Jan Steen, 1663-1665 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

The very obstruction, the contention within the spirit of Pound seems to me an act of the mystery Poetry, the act shows forth under its own orders. Cantos like 90 or 91 in the Rock Drills

Light compenetrans of the spirits

Where an Aphrodite that is creptallive light, a cluster of refractions appears I take it as heritage unmixed.

And in Thrones these are the gists:

"The Temple (hieron) is not for sale"

Getting the feel of it, his soul. . .
where the rime shows the mind has been brought into melody -- and

"Food is the root.
......Feed the people."

How odd that a man shld start about from an M.A., all his life an instructor, or professor manqué (as Dante was an ambassador manqué), and come into the genius of Poetry, into the Core of the Making. It did occur to me that I would believe too readily that the divine might keep company with publicans and whores, but find it hard to believe the divine could keep company with professors and Pharisees.

The professor shows up more and more. He wants to fraternize with his students and tries slang in his discourse: "grand-dad" -- "gramp," "bumbd off," fussed about hair-cuts," "that louse G burnt the Palatine

...........and messed up the music
to speak clearly
..ἀπληστία, insatiate κακουργία
....... this is not a mere stunt to lay fines
..............as is found in hodge-podge.

There is in the Cantos themselves, in the poetics of Pound, a music, a hodge-podge. May there be a hint of magic in this stew. Before the word was in cookery, the O.E.D. tells us: it may have had to do with the shaking of things together in a pot of other than culinary purposes. (I went to look it [up] in the O.E.D. bec[au]se I suspected a fairy or sprite in Hodge; the nearest was Hodge-poker who was a devil or hob-goblin.)

I think I see now what I am after here. We follow the melody usually as poets, discovering what rimes, along an organization of feeling that is counterpart of the musician's melodic sense. But there is an urgency (is the [κακουργία?] not only a pun here but an etymology) in the genius of our time to break up the mode itself, dissolving there discords [in] the old scale and trying to set once disparate elements into a new harmonia. Pound's recalcitrant off-notes then -- if we think of this greater scale of all things toward which we are set to work -- is [sic] not only a personal insistence but also a demonstration of the genius.

You askd in your last letter your "Why do you write?" but the question you then noted was rhetorical. But why, the what is happening in Pound's work, is as much the difficulty as the ease it presents.

The parrot cage: Jan Steen, 1663-1665 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

Robert Duncan to H.D., excerpt from private letter, 1 October 1960, in A Great Admiration: H.D./Robert Duncan: Correspondence 1950-1961, 1992; Pound passage in inset quotation from Canto XCVI, in Thrones de los Cantares XCVI-CIX

Board of Education tackle DHS grading controversy

Danbury School Superintendent Sal Pascarella offers his thoughts on the grading modification at DHS with members of the Board of Education. Danbury BOE meeting, 02.23.11

Yesterday, the Board of Education finally addressed the much talked about grading policy modification at Danbury High School.

Changes to the grading system at Danbury High School, made in part because of the number of missed school days this year, received a backlash with several teachers, parents, and students criticizing school administrators and calling the changes unfair.

From last night's public participation portion of the meeting, here's resident Sandy Steichen addressing the board about the grading problems at DHS.



Although several residents have expressed their displeasure with the modified grading policy, a majority of the board supported the decision made by DHS principal Robert Rossi and school officials.

Here's video of the board's discussion on the matter.



Based on the reaction of those in attendance to the comments made by members of the board, it's safe to say that some people were not satisfied with what they heard.

Could Principal Rossi handled the situation differently...ABSOLUTELY. As several members of the board mentioned, the communication in this matter was anything but acceptable. In fact, other schools in the area tackled their grading situation differently with an overall positive reaction from the public.

For instance, in Ridgefield, school officials simply canceled mid-terms testing after students voiced their concerns and I still don't understand why school officials in Danbury didn't do the same thing.

Also, the BOE as a whole should receive a failing grade when it comes to the way they addressed the concerns from the public. It's bad enough that the meeting was delayed because there weren't enough board members present to have a quorum, it seemed that the board was not interested in addressing some of the critics chief concerns.

For instance, no questions were raised by board members regarding the breakdown of communication between parents and school administrators...

Dale Steichen, a parent of a student at Danbury High School, spoke at last Wednesday's Board of Education meeting about concerns with mid-term examinations. He asked many questions of the board, and most of them have gone unanswered until now. His most pressing complaint was his suspicion of grade tampering.

A decision to adjust the weighting of grades at Danbury High School had not been passed onto parents, and Steichen wondered if grades could be changed to suit the needs of the school. Steichen wanted to know, “Is it fair to change the grading process without informing parents and students?”

Here's another concern that was not fully addressed by a member of the board:

“On Jan 31, a group of people including the Superintendent decided the test grades would only be changed to 20% if it helped the students,” said Rossi. If there were students that would be hurt by it, we would keep it at 10%. Students who failed or did not show up for the test would be given a 50%.”

[...]

Students have wondered what kind of message was being sent if grades could be changed to suit their needs.

Although the board went on and on about failing grades, the underline concern regarding the change in grade weight depending on the score a student received was not addressed.

Then finally, at no point was Principal Rossi present at the board meeting to address the matter and answer the public's concerns. In fact, it seemed like the members on the board were more interested in defending the actions made at DHS as opposed to asking questions on behalf of the member of the public who were critical of the grade modification.

Hopefully all parties involved learned a thing or two from this dust-up before charges of lack of integrity are directed towards Rossi and his team at the high school again...only time will tell.

UPDATE: News-Times Eileen Fitzgerald talked to Steichen last night and her comment regarding what transpired at the meeting echoes the points I raised in this write-up.

After the meeting, Steichen, who has a child in college and one in high school, said she's disappointed in the board's response and the lack of interest in the parents on the issue.

"I think it's a shame that teachers were put in the position they were in and students were put in the position. I don't think it's over. The communication remains the issue,'' she said. "I'm sad about how the board handled this. I would like to know when communication changes are in place so everyone knows what's going on from the start, not after the fact."

Glad to see that I wasn't the only person who walked away disappointed at the way the board handled the situation.

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RELATED POSTS:

HatCityBLOG: DHS modified grade policy sparks controversy

DANBURY PATCH: 'Grade Tampering' Alledged at DHS

NEWSTIMES: DHS grade policy creates unrest

Rummy makes the rounds, part the IVth: John Stewart

Once again, Rummy refuses to accept standard CW characterizations...

"Present" not "sell".

"Why do you say "at least" twice?"

Watch, and you'll understand.

In short: Rumsfeld is to Ali as Stewart is to Glass Joe. Rumsfeld is to Foghorn Leghorn as Stewart is to Henery Hawk

The Daily Show - Donald Rumsfeld Pt. 1
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

More from Plantinga the comedian. Be sure you are not drinking beverages anywhere near electronics..

"But isn't this just endorsing a wholly outmoded and discredited fundamentalism,
that condition than which, according to many academics, none lesser can be
conceived? I fully realize that the dreaded f-word will be trotted out to
stigmatize any model of this kind. Before responding, however, we must first
look into the use of this term 'fundamentalist'. On the most common contemporary
academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like
'son of a bitch', more exactly 'sonovabitch', or perhaps still more exactly (at
least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on
matters of pronunciation) 'sumbitch.' When the term is used in this way, no
definition, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a
sumbitch, would you fell obligated first to define the term?) Still, there is a
bit more to the meaning of 'fundamentalist' (in this widely current use); it
isn't simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have
some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative
theological views. That makes it more like 'stupid sumbitch' (or maybe 'fascist
sumbitch'?) than 'sumbitch' simpliciter. It isn't exactly like that term either,
however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its
content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal
theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional
Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the
mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to
denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation that
the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the
phrase 'considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my
enlightened friends.' The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can
be given by something like 'stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are
considerably to the right of mine'"

(Warranted Christian Belief, pp. 244-245).

Sherrif Buford T. Justice would be proud.

Ezra Pound: A Paradise Lost (Notes for Canto CXX)

.

Rock formation sculpted by wind erosion, Altiplano, Bolivia: photo by Thomas Wilken, 2005

I have tried to write Paradise

Do not move
...Let the wind speak
.........that is paradise.

Let the Gods forgive what I
.........have made
Let those I love try to forgive
.........what I have made.

Lightning and lava flows over Eyjafjallajokull: photos by Olivier Vandeginste, Sunday 18 April 2010

Ezra Pound: Notes for Canto CXX, c. 1960

Alvin Plantinga to retire

from the hallowed halls of the Indiana school with the Golden Dome.

It understates things to say of this Wayne State alum, that he is a very influential philosopher, not only in the field of philosophy of religion and Christian thought but in the hoary halls of metaphysics and modal logic. One suspects that every possible world (or at least the tolerably good ones) requires a "Big Al".

By all accounts he's a nice unassuming, warmly humorous man. Here's a taste:





Gotta love this bit from the story:

The program included a hilarious reading of Plantinga's famous "token-reflexive" definition of a "fundamentalist" as "a stupid (expletive deleted) whose theological beliefs are to the right of me and my enlightened friends." Plantinga's legendary resemblance to Abraham Lincoln was duly and wittily noted as well, and a song was written and performed for the occasion: "Hotel Possibilia," to the tune of "Hotel California," full of metaphysical in-jokes and allusions to Plantinga's emphasis on the importance of "possible worlds."

Brilliant. Let's hope YouTube videos are forthcoming.

If the account here is correct he's heading back to Michigan to teach at Calvin College.

Wait a minute...I thought he was retiring.

Emily Jane Brontë: Remembrance

.

Samotnia Shelter, Karpacz, Karkonosze, Poland: photo by Klapi, 2006

Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Sever'd at last by Time's all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
Thy noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers
From those brown hills have melted into spring:
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

German soldiers killed at Stalingrad: photo by USSR Ministry of Information, February 1943 (via Contemporary Military Historian)

Emily Jane Brontë (1818-1848): from Remembrance

Are you now or have you ever been associated in any way, directly or tangentially with the Koch brothers?

Seems, ironically enough, that events in Badger country, home of Senator Eugene McCarthy are scaring up a witch hunt of sorts in various corners of the intertubes, vis the eeeeeeeevil and nefarious Koch Brothers.

Now, I've already tagged the U.S. and Israel with the monikers "Big and Little Enos Burdette", so I cannot take it back, and paste the label on these two sinister figures from the shadowy libertarian right, puppet masters behind every single move of every single conservative and/or Republican politician in the country at this time, but boy I wish I could.

As if the Left/Liberal/Democrat politicians do not have 'sugar daddies' galore, equally 'tentacled' menacing puppet masters... As if the unions both private and public are not monied interests with..heh heh. 'vested interests'. Please. Get over your vapors folks. The Kochs are wayyy down on that list at slot number 82, a list well populated with..wait for it...unions.

The Enos brothers (Damn. Can't help that.) have just as much a right to support politicians with which they agree than do your champions of progress. Oh...and Walmart, right? right? Center for American Progress"?

For an amusing deconstruction of the McCarthy-like vapors, and sloppy and misleading use of numbers in the New York times and CAP pieces, read these two posts at the always well informed and biting POWERLINE blog:

'Right Chere '

as they say down in the Burdette country,

And chere