Wake Up
As a child, Herrera lived a nomadic life out of tents and trailers on farm roads throughout California. His folks, both migrant farmworkers from Mexico, moved with the seasons of agriculture for the often hazardous and thankless work in the fields.
Source: The new U.S. poet laureate will make your brain work. Plus 4 other great things to know about him.
Hipsters rejoice! IM Global Television will be adapting Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical sci-fi novel Cat’s Cradle for the small screen, the studio announced Thursday.
The studio is looking for a “high-level writer/showrunner,” to develop the project alongside executive producer Brad Yonover and co-executive producer Sandi Love.
Published in 1963, Cat’s Cradle was Vonnegut’s fourth novel and focuses mainly on the topics of science, technology, and religion, satirizing in particular the nuclear arms race through the story of one family’s involvement with the atomic bomb.
Here at Open Culture, we don’t just feature education in your recommended daily servings of culturally wide-ranging video, audio, text, and image — we also feature it in a form that goes deep: whole courses you can download to your computer or mobile device of choice and experience at your own pace. If you never quite studied all the literature you wanted to — or if you simply can’t get enough study of the stuff — pay a visit to our collection of over 50 free literature courses online.
Spalding had spent more than thirty years on “the slippery slope,” as he called it, as a high-wire performer, a funambulist, and had never fallen off. He doubted if he could continue. While I expressed hope and optimism outwardly, I now shared his doubt.
On January 10, 2004, Spalding took his children to a movie. It was Tim Burton’s “Big Fish,” in which a dying father passes his fantastical stories on to his son before returning to the river, where he dies—and perhaps is reincarnated as his true self, a fish, making one of his tall tales come true.
That evening, Spalding left home, saying he was going to meet a friend. He did not leave a suicide note, as he had so often before. When inquiries were made, one man said he had seen him board the Staten Island Ferry.Two months later, Spalding’s body was washed up by the East River. He had always wanted his suicide to be high drama, but in the end he said nothing to anyone; he simply disappeared from sight and silently returned to the sea, his mother.
Ed: First of all, can you really blame the carbon monoxide for deaths?
Just six weeks before his death, he implored his friends to cherish the time they have: “life is never promise[d] no matter how you look at it.”
via Carbon monoxide blamed after father and his 7 children die in their sleep – The Washington Post.
Schools, universities and all forms of educational institution should be centers for the discovery and development of every individual’s innate and inherent skills, talents, abilities and interests.
words on a computer screen
can push a period forward
whereas a typewriter
puts it down for good
The coming stage of evolution, Teilhard de Chardin said, won’t be driven by physical adaptation but by human consciousness, creativity, and spirit. We visit with his biographer Ursula King, and we experience his ideas energizing New York Times Dot Earth blogger Andrew Revkin and evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson.
For more on this story, visit: Teilhard de Chardin’s ‘Planetary Mind’ and Our Spiritual Evolution | On Being.
Introduction
This page will help you find songs that you can use to identify intervals.
A common way to recognize intervals is to associate it with reference songs that you know well. For example, the song Amazing grace begins with a perfect fourth. So when you hear an interval that sounds like the beginning of Amazing grace, you can easily identify it as a perfect fourth.
How to use the EarMaster Interval Song Examples Chart
Select one song for each interval, and press the “Create interval examples chart” button at the bottom of the page to generate a printer-friendly page with your own interval song reference chart.
Each song includes a link to a video example hosted on YouTube, with the sole purpose of providing a musical exerpt to illustrate each interval.
For more on this story, visit: Interval Song Examples Chart.
Unfortunately, some things can get in the way of the fun, excitement, and group bonding experiences. So here are a few guidelines to making sure you and your parents enjoy the big storm, as well as the many more likely to be coming your way by the time you’re grown up.
Unfortunately, as soon as a monster storm comes heading our way, you’ll hear people talk about “climate change.” That can totally ruin the fun, because climate change also means: crop failures, droughts, rising food prices, famines, conflicts, and insect-borne diseases migrating to where there’s no resistance. Those things in turn mean the deaths of 1000 children like you every day, and warnings from the UN that last summer’s crazy temperature records could end up hurting tens of millions of people in the coming months. So don’t listen to the UN, or to scientists, or to anything other than the weather channel, network television, or the pronouncements of the president and his challenger. Knowing that the cool storm you’re in the midst of is part of a pattern of global mass murder can be a big bummer.
For more on this story, visit: The Yes Men: A Child’s Guide to Enjoying Hurricane Sandy.
By Matthias Herren
The Swiss people’s relationship with religion is undergoing significant change. There are twenty times more Swiss with no religious affiliation today than forty years ago. Faith also plays a less significant part in the everyday lives of most churchgoers. Yet, religion is an issue that receives widespread coverage in the media. However, the focus there is more on differentiation from Islam than on Switzerland’s own tradition.
… A study carried out by Jörg Stolz, a Lausanne-based sociologist of religion, and his colleague Edmée Ballif shows that the major factor in the development concerns social megatrends rather than the approach adopted by the churches. The megatrends are global processes of social change over which the churches have little influence. They are quite simply part of the prevailing circumstances with which the churches will have to contend in future.
For more on this story, visit: SWISS REVIEW – FOCUS.
Preserving Mid-Century Modern Architecture: Anatomy of a Restoration
Fair Haven Homeowner’s Corner
Saturday, October 20, 2012 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM (EDT)
New Haven, CT
For more on this story, visit: Preserving Mid-Century Modern Architecture: Anatomy of a… – Eventbrite.
Today, World Habitat Day, is a day to recognize the basic need for adequate shelter in a world where it is lacking for so many — a day for grassroots action, starting in your community. As we reflect on the state of towns and cities everywhere and the right of everyone to decent housing, I challenge you to reflect on the actions that you can take. In your own community, in communities around the globe and in places such as Haiti that so desperately need our assistance. I believe, as does Habitat, in the idea of many homes, one community. The act of building, of renovating, of coming together cements a bond not easily undone. When we bring together available resources, take decisive action and advocate for lasting change, we build the kind of stability, that Haiti — and we — need.
For more on this story, visit: Jimmy Carter: World Habitat Day: A Day to Recognize the Basic Need for Shelter.
By Christopher Zurcher
Curiosity will use 10 instruments to probe areas of Mars and determine whether the chemical ingredients are favorable for life there, which I think is a good idea, particularly since if we ever want to go there, we won’t have to spend the eight years of planning and eight months of interplanetary travel that this mission did.
Who knows?
Someday maybe we’ll be able to get there in eight days. 154 million miles from Earth. Where there is no water, only frozen water that pretty much turns immediately to water vapor under certain conditions only because of atmospheric differences between our planet and that one. Water might be able to exist at the bottom of some of the largest craters on Mars because there are different atmospheric pressures there.
“Touchdown confirmed,” said Allen Chen, the leader of the rover’s descent and landing team. “We’re safe on Mars.”
Are we really safe on Mars? If we are, perhaps there are some Syrians and Palestinians and Afghanis or maybe even some Americans who would like to travel to Mars if we’re actually safe there.
“Tonight, on the planet Mars,” United States President Barack Obama (@BarackObama) tweeted, “the United States of America made history.” I guess since we’ve made history in this country
The goal of the $2.5 billion mission is to see whether Mars might have ever supported microbial life – or could now. But there are no tools that will actually detect life, just instruments will probe for organic compounds.
Scientists have noted that the money is being spent on Earth, not Mars, and the mission is costing every American about the price of a movie. Can every American afford a $10-$15 movie? Some say the amount Americans pay for the space program is more like $50 a year. Maybe Lon Seidman can clear that up for us.
You wouldn’t want to watch a movie on Mars, though. Like the old joke, “Nice scenery but no atmosphere (or at least very little).”
But we’ll ask what scientists think are some important questions like: Did Mars support life? Billions and billions of dollars have been spent. Interesting pictures have been taken and sent back to Earth. History has been made again with the landing of another robotic vehicle on the surface of Mars.
NASA’s shuttle program cost $210 Billion. Was it worth it? We now have the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station.
I guess it depends on your priorities and whether you’re interested in space exploration. I was coming at it from an ethical point of view though. NASA does invent a lot of things that are very useful to humanity and while the organization is as large as some others that take a much greater slice of the economic pie, NASA only takes about 1 percent of it. NASA also contributes a couple of hundred billion dollars to the U.S. economy.
I guess as long as humanity is around to see the benefits of space travel and exploration and experimentation, then it will be worth it. If we blow ourselves up in the meantime, then what a waste it will have been, but then so will have a lot of other things.
Love, the deepest human commitment, the force that defies empirical examination and yet is the defining and most glorious element in human life, the love between two people, between children and parents, between friends, between partners, reminds us of why we have been created for our brief sojourns on the planet. Those who cannot love—and I have seen these deformed human beings in the wars and conflicts I covered—are spiritually and emotionally dead. They affirm themselves through destruction, first of others and then, finally, of themselves. Those incapable of love never live.
“Hell,” Dostoevsky wrote, “is the inability to love.”
For more on this story, visit: Chris Hedges: Acts of Love – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.
***NEWS ADVISORY***
On Wednesday, September 21, thousands of New Haven public school students from all city schools will gather on the New Haven Green to celebrate United Nations International Day of Peace. Students have made more than 3,000 pinwheels that will be displayed on New Haven Green.
The event will feature singing and speakers, including Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, retired under secretary general of the United Nations; former President of the Security Council; Honorary President: United Nations NGO Committee on the International Day of Peace. Also speaking will be Mayor John DeStefano, Jr., and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Reginald Mayo.
Students will celebrate the event, which seeks to promote peace both in the world and the community, with fellow students in Kragujevac, Serbia via an Internet hookup.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
TIME: 10:30 A.M.
PLACE: NEW HAVEN GREEN
In case of rain, the event will be held at the Floyd Little Athletic Center, at Hillhouse High School, Sherman Parkway, New Haven.
CONTACT:
Henry Lowendorf, New Haven Peace Council
203-389-9547
Al Marder, New Haven Peace Commission
203-387-0370
Nilda Morales, Arts Supervisor, New Haven Public Schools
203-946-6498
Christopher Hoffman, Director of Communications, New Haven Public Schools
203-946-8450
The New Haven School District is collaborating with the New Haven Peace Commission and the New Haven Peace Council to celebrate International Day of Peace on Sept. 21, 2011. The art teachers have been working with students to create perhaps as many as 6,000 pinwheels with messages of peace written on them that will be part of an art installation on the New Haven Green tomorrow.
The Eli Whitney Museum of New Haven is making wire holders for the pinwheels, which were distributed to the schools at the beginning of the school year.
A ceremony on New Haven Green at 10:30 a.m. will include many New Haven students, dignitaries and a special guest from the United Nations. At least two classes from each K-8 school plan to attend the ceremonies.
An essay contest for middle and high school students on the meaning of peace will also take place. Social studies teacher Sandra Cates-Clark is coordinating the contest and the winning essay will be read at tomorrow’s event.
Music teachers are also working with students preparing a performance of “Let There Be Peace On Earth,” which will be part of the ceremony. Music facilitator Ellen Maust is coordinating the performance.
The making, collection and installation of the pinwheels on the green will be coordinated by Arts Supervisor Nilda Morales and Lisa Davis Rucinski, Arts Facilitator from Comprehensive Arts.
Resources for lessons on peace include:
www.peacefulschoolsinternational.org
www.readwritethink.org/lessons-plans/peace
www.internationaldayofpeace.org
The International Day of Peace was established by a United Nations Resolution in 1981 to coincide with the opening of the General Assembly. The first Day of Peace was celebrated in 1982 and the day is now celebrated worldwide.
September 16, 2011 – New Haven, CT – Three youth partnerships will host a community breakfast on Wednesday, September 21, from 8:30 to 12 noon, New Haven Job Corps, 455 Wintergreen Avenue, New Haven to focus energy and commitment on issues related to positive youth development and support services.
The event will feature guest speakers, including state Rep. Toni Walker (93rd district, New Haven), legislative panel and youth panel discussions. Participants will be asked to reflect on the discussions and develop ideas for next steps in supporting youth in the community.
The event has been organized to increase knowledge about local efforts to support youth, spur greater action to support youth, and expand youth-adult partnerships in decision-making on issues that affect youth.
Working together for the first time to create such a shared community event are three groups; Citywide Youth Coalition, which promotes positive youth development, the Local Interagency Service Team, which focuses on juvenile justice, and the local Collaboratives, which provides wraparound services for children and youth with mental health issues.
Community members submitted questions for legislators and youth, on themes including: youth development, community violence, juvenile justice, education, service needs, and encouraging youth voice. Participating legislators include Senator Toni Harp (10th district, New Haven), and Representatives Gary Holder-Winfield (94th district, New Haven), Roland Lemar (96th district, New Haven), Peter Villano (91st district, Hamden), and Patricia Dillon (92nd district, New Haven). Participating youth were recruited from Farnam Neighborhood House, Boys & Girls Club of New Haven, and Branford High School.
This event is organized by Citywide Youth Coalition, Local Interagency Service Team, the Collaboratives, sponsored by Empower New Haven and the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, and hosted by New Haven Job Corps.
Registration is accepted via web, links.cwyc.org/breakfast, and phone (203) 936-8010.
Photo/video opportunities: Wednesday, September 21, from 8:30 to noon
New Haven Job Corps, 455 Wintergreen Avenue, New Haven, near Springside Ave. intersection
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