October 1, 2011
Oh dear.
The most depressing story I've read about the financial crisis -- brought down to the level of municipal disasters in California, and why "human beings [may be] neurologically ill-designed to be modern Americans."
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:17 PM | Comments (0)
September 30, 2011
Returning stolen art. Sort of.
Dominique de Menil's last project has got to be one of the stranger stories in the world of museums, and it's taking another turn now.
In the 1980s thieves chopped the dome and apse frescoes out of a tiny 13th century Byzantine chapel in the Turkish controlled part of Cyprus. When they showed up for sale Dominique de Menil bought them, fully knowing and acknowledging that they were stolen. She did it to save them. She poured a lot of money into restoration and then had her son build a very sophisticated little building to house them (be sure to look at the pictures of the setting in the various links).
I never realized that their agreement with the archbishopric of Cyprus had a term, but evidently that term expires in February and the Cypriots want them back. But they can't put them back in their original chapel yet -- and that's when the nationalism-and-art angle gets uncomfortable. Read this statement in the Houston Chronicle article about the agreement to return the frescoes:
"(The frescoes) are living monuments and symbols of our faith," Costas Katsaros, head of the archbishopric's legal department, said in an email. "Those treasures of our religion and cultural heritage are of invaluable merit for Cypriot people, who were long waiting for their return in their homeland."Katsaros said the church will work with the Cypriot Department of Antiquities to place the frescoes "in a proper environment in the free part of Cyprus" with the goal of eventually returning them to the original chapel "in their holy sacred land on the day of its liberation."
You know, I'm sure the Cypriot people have bigger and more interesting symbols of their faith, but they'll get this one back. Where they will house it is unclear.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:55 AM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2011
Revolt of the interns
Is this the beginning of the end for the unpaid internship? I certainly hope so! There really is little more iniquitous about higher education right now (oh, o.k., NCAA division I sports springs to mind) as our encouragement of relatively more-prosperous young people to do all this unpaid labor.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:07 PM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2011
I who have nothing
Not that I don't love the Tom Jones version! And go read the song's back story.
via Lady Bunny/Jon Ingle
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:58 PM | Comments (0)
Would you WANT to work for this board of trustees?
. . . Hocking College president Ron Erickson resigned in June after a battle with trustees over governance and communication. Since then, several board members have been replaced. The new mix of trustees voted 5-4 on Tuesday to bring Erickson back.New board Chairman Mike Brooks has said he thinks it would be a mistake to spend money searching for a new president. He also says the college needs consistency after having five interim or permanent presidents within three years. Brooks says that shuffling has wasted a lot of money.
Five presidents in three years? They drive him out in June, and then a bare majority vote to bring him back? Run away!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:31 AM
September 27, 2011
From each according to his ability - to each according to his need.
Or her need and ability. After all, her husband is the only self-identified democratic socialist in Congress.
I guess President Sanders NEEDED a sabbatical after her resignation . . . otherwise a good Socialist would not have requested it as part of her severance package from Burlington College.
Last week, after a VTDigger.org story described the challenges facing the school, the agenda for a special Board of Trustees meeting, held at the Sheraton Hotel on Monday, was leaked. The agenda revealed that the trustees would be discussing the "removal of the president." Lawyers for Sanders and the college have since reached a settlement that includes her resignation effective in three weeks, the title of President Emeritus and a year-long-paid sabbatical.
I find it amusing that she is accused of creating a hostile work environment (see the link -- accusations of spying and verbal abuse come up). What a surprise in a socialist-run workplace. Was the next step a new re-education campus for regime opponents? Whatever happened to the feminist ideal that a woman-run workplace would be a better workplace?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)
Members of the Democratic Party who are over democracy
Peter Orszag. Just let the technocrats ru(i)in everything.
Democratic governor of North Carolina thinks that leaving the current Congress in place for a few extra years would help. Otherwise known as suspending elections. Hmmm.
I remember when colleagues of mine had posters on their doors about how Bush-the-Fascist was going to suspend elections -- and he wasn't even joking about it.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
Substantive disagreements
Well, the Department of Sweetness and Light had a meeting today at which a more than usually substantive disagreement arose -- our position request and subsequently provost-office approved advertisement indicates that preliminary interviews will be conducted via Skype. Someone hadn't noticed until it came up in the meeting. We ended up voting - and we don't vote on much around Houghton House; consensus usually reigns.
Well, we're doing Skype interviews.
I understand the drawbacks of video-interviews (you're not in their physical presence, etc, etc), but I am with Tenured Radical on the withering away of the annual conference meat market. How many interviews are enough to make it worthwhile for a candidate to trek to an national conference? One interview is too few (I did that once myself and ate rice and beans for a month paying for a job for which I didn't get a call-back). Two? Do you really think you're that good that with two interviews you can afford a ticket to (this year) Los Angeles, at least one night in a hotel (shared with fellow seekers if you want to be driven really insane)? Three? Maybe that's enough.
It's early days yet, but so far there are 5 Early Modern jobs on the College Art Association list -- 2 universities with Ph.D. programs, one big state university with a B.A. only, and 2 smaller places we're really competing with. Only one of the 5 indicates that they will be interviewing at the conference. One of the SLACs set their deadline for September 30, evidently intending to bypass the usual art history job season and hire this semester for a fall 2012 start. The rest have phrases like "evaluation will begin December 1 and continue until the job is filled." Sounds like Skype interviews to me.
So, I think we are positioning ourselves in the midstream of the discipline -- we're going to try to beat the conference interviews, but during the 2nd semester. We're going to save our institution several thousand dollars by not sending 3 of us to the conference to sit in an interview room (if we're extravagant) or a bedroom (if we're not afraid of getting sued) for 2 days. Maybe they'll let us bring an extra candidate or 2 to campus -- which I think would be all to the good.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:38 PM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2011
Academic Job Market looking up?
Well, raising its head from the mud, maybe.
According to a new report, the number of jobs listed with the MLA in 2010-11 rose by 8.2 percent in English and by 7.1 percent in foreign languages. Still, however, the number of jobs listed in 2010-11 remains below the peak in 2007-8.
Our department's ad is up on our local website, is submitted to the College Art Association (I'm not sure how long it takes to show up on their website), and will appear in the Chronicle of Higher Education directly. We'll get it on the Academic Jobs Wiki today.
If you know any Early Modern art folks -- preference for specialty in painting or sculpture -- send them this way!
further: it's up at InsideHigherEd too! I realized why I'm so excited about this search: it's our first nationally advertised art history search since 2000-01!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:24 AM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2011
University sports as gang warfare
That's about right.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:29 PM | Comments (0)
sunt lacrimae rerum
Serendipity! Yesterday, while nursing a cough at home, I saw my first episode of Jersey Shore. Would that I had put on some weepy Haydn.
via Fr. Zuhlsdorf
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:16 PM | Comments (0)
A story of overreach
The American Folk Art Museum may survive, but not because of its own efforts. And no one will say how much the rescue will cost. They borrowed a crazy amount of money to build a foolishly large and expensive building which they never succeeded in getting people to come to. So now they've sold their building to the art-monster MoMA and moved back into their old building (what, they never managed to sell that? not a good sign!). And what was a museum of Folk Art ever doing in New York City anyway? That's a part i never understood.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:32 AM | Comments (1)
September 22, 2011
Living the Pathetic Fallacy
I'm home today nursing a cough and grading a stack of work. It's rained a few times, gotten sunny and blue a few times, and my sinuses have cleared up and stopped up a few times. Or maybe I mean As Above, So Below. I'm in no mood to think about the fine points.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 3:40 PM | Comments (0)
"Please, don't take my priceless Renoir!"
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:43 AM | Comments (1)
September 21, 2011
Rome's Final Frontier - the Antonine Wall
The Hunterian in Glasgow has opened a new gallery dedicated to the Antonine Wall -- Rome's northernmost frontier in Britain. The director says: "There are no interactives in this gallery. This is quite deliberate. The collections have the power to tell the narrative and must be given prominence." That sounds almost defensive.
Here are some photographs. I like the distance slab (marking the completion of a stretch of wall).
Here's Wikipedia, if you are interested in some specifics.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:29 AM | Comments (1)
September 20, 2011
Crazy story about DISMANTLING an almost completed building
This is one of the oddest stories of the Crash of 2008 that I've read:
Seven years ago, Bernstein searched for an architect to design what was to be the headquarters of the Bernstein-Rein advertising agency. Top designers, including Zaha Hadid and I.M. Pei, were considered before Bernstein chose [Moshe] Safdie and his "hillside village" concept.In December 2004, a beaming Bernstein joined Safdie in unveiling the model. A year later, construction started. But by early 2007, Bernstein and the builder, J.E. Dunn Construction Co., were embroiled in a dispute over rising costs.
"I tried to be an intermediary," Safdie said. "I called them individually and tried to have a meeting of the three of us, but it never worked."
Bernstein's development company declared bankruptcy in 2009. The development was purchased last fall by VA West LLC. Last month it was announced that Polsinelli Shughart would be the tenant needed to complete the project, but at the cost of Safdie's building.
The new developer said the building Safdie custom-designed for Bernstein was not adaptable to other tenants.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:14 PM | Comments (0)
Weird underediting from the BBC
One of my Google News searches is art + theft. This morning it turned up a story on the recovery of two Bolivian paintings in Washington, DC, where a dealer asked the Art Loss Register to check out the two.
The portraits, Saint Rose of Viterbo and Saint Augustin, were among more than 100 religious artefacts stolen from the church, which is a national monument, at the same time.
Admittedly, it's the BBC news FOR Latin America, but still. That's not quite English. Or Art-talk. First, we don't call those things portraits, since they aren't. They are icons (even in the non-Byzantine orbit) or, more simply, paintings. Second, if you're going to call her Rose of Viterbo, you might as well refer to him as Augustine. Or Rosa and Augustin. Either way. But not a mix.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:07 AM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2011
Washing in cold...
Read the last sentence here and think about how the seriously Green are likely to react:
After realizing how much energy was used to heat water for laundry, Procter set a goal to convert 70 percent of all washing-machine loads to cold water by 2020; by Procter's estimate currently 38 percent of laundry loads globally were done in cold water.But in trying to create Tide Coldwater, Procter's scientists were confronted with a problem: hot water does help get clothes cleaner. In fact, thermal energy is one of three secrets to cleaning clothes, along with mechanical energy and chemicals.
"When you reduce one, you have to do better in the others," said James Danzinger, a senior scientist who works on detergents for Procter & Gamble.
So the company set its scientists loose to find new chemicals to compensate, and what they came up with was a detergent, Tide Coldwater, with different enzymes and surfactants that work better in cold water.
. . .
The chemical composition of the new cold-water detergents, which cost about the same as regular detergents, is "totally different" from what was found in detergents a decade ago, said Dr. Mueller-Kirschbaum of Henkel. Some even contain chemicals that coat fabric fibers so that they are less likely to absorb dirt in the interval before the next washing.
Really? Chemicals coating the fibers of our clothes?
Do these scientists live in the real world at all?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:29 PM | Comments (0)
Understanding Stimuli
Pacemaker or defibrillator? Or maybe hole in the ground?
After the biggest stimulus in American history, this is still about what I think. A bigger stimulus would have given us a bigger temporary boost to consumption, and it might have prevented some human capital depreciation, which is important. But I do not think that making it 30% bigger, as Paul Krugman seems to be insisting that we should have, would have somehow transformed it from a pacemaker to a defibrillator. We would still be now about where we are: growth stagnant, unemployment around 9%. We'd just be in more debt.
That's Megan McArdle. Does she mean that if we hadn't installed a pacemaker we would be measurably worse than stagnant with unemployment around 9%? Because that's not the outcome the administration promised. Whereas my father's pacemaker seems to have worked pretty much as advertised.
Of course, I tend to think of the late stimulus as a hoard -- a hole dug in the ground where one deposits valuables to prevent them being taken by the enemy. And a bigger hoard, if you don't come back to dig it up, is just more for archeologists to find later and use to figure out your failed society. But I know very little about economics, and believe less of what I read.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:14 AM | Comments (1)
Metal detectorists find a problem
Well, not every metal detector find in England is a medieval seal -- this one found a live WWII grenade!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:51 AM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2011
Criminal Monocropping
A man has been arrested for art forgery in Florida - but according to the story he seems only to have bilked a single collector. Why would you buy more than 100 paintings from the same source -- especially fake ones??
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:17 AM | Comments (1)
September 14, 2011
Schadenfreude isn't attractive from the outside. But from the inside, it's a very pleasant emotion.
Remember when "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
Heh. I am SO enjoying the pre-campaign special election results from downstate -- the Ds lose a district they've held since the 1920s.
And some people have to pretend like they expected this might happen when Weiner imploded.
Every time something like this happens I remember a faculty lunch talk in October of 2008, in which a specialist in American history (no link to his campus bio to protect the vainglorious) proclaimed that this would be one of those long-term realignment elections . . . and ended the talk with an altar call: New York is a safe Blue State -- come ring doorbells in Pennsylvania this weekend!
Guess even the NY 9th Congressional District isn't safely Blue any more. Heh.
My father (a lifetime professor) points out that my real problem as a denizen of the groves of academe is that I have no one to giggle WITH -- only people to giggle AT. Luckily for my spiritual life, that particular historian lives in Rochester and is in a phased retirement plan, so I may never see him again. Otherwise I might be tempted to say something, which would not be sweet.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:09 PM | Comments (3)
Yay - we have permission to search!
You know, the log-jam from a few years ago is really starting to break up. There are 11 tenure track jobs advertised already on our HR website.* Four more are about to be added, including ours for an Early Modern Art position (that's Renaissance/Baroque for those not up on fashionable nomenclature). Know anyone to prod to apply?
*Biology, Economics, Education, English, Environmental Studies, French, History, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology, Sociology -- soon to be followed by Art History, another Econ position, Political Science, and Women's Studies.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:41 PM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2011
How many jobs is Obama really interested in? One. His.
You can say that Obama has no choice, because the GOP is just so damn obstructive that they won't pass anything anyway. As it happens, I disagree--I don't think that he could have gotten the whole thing through, but the GOP would probably have given him a few pieces to avoid looking like total jerks, and while that might not have done too much for Obama's re-election chances, it probably would have meant a lot to the schmoes trying to make their mortgage payments in a tough economy.
But say it's true. If it is, I really wish that Obama hadn't wasted my Thursday evening, and that of 31 million other Americans, listening to a jobs plan that was only designed to produce one job--a second term for Barack Obama. I mean, I don't blame him, exactly. But I get a little pang when I realize that I could just as well have spent that time bleaching the grout in the master bath.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:51 AM | Comments (1)
Yesterday was - whew, thank goodness it's over.
Art 101 at 9:05; finished off the ancient Near East.
Office time.
Noon - 1:30 - Provost search committee meeting and conference call.
Home to grab a jacket to take to a new tailor downtown for alterations.
3:00 - met 10 of my Art 101 class for an optional tutorial in thinking about sculpture. We talked about the Elizabeth Blackwell statue on the Quad. Their paper about the William Smith statue is due Friday.
4 - 6ish - first Faculty Meeting of the year.
6:30 - 8:00 - dinner with some colleagues
That was a moderately busy day!
Gosh it was a pretty day, though!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:13 AM | Comments (0)
September 9, 2011
Nice metal detector find in Cornwall
Go look at the exceptionally clear picture of the 13th century silver seal discovered in Cornwall and declared treasure trove -- the finder and the landowner will share the proceeds of the sale.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:16 AM | Comments (0)
September 8, 2011
Green energy - turns out that was the color of the money they were stealing
Beautiful. Just beautiful. FBI raids on the most-favored-energy-company.
And then there's this story:
According to White House visitor logs, between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing. In the week before the administration awarded Solyndra with the first-ever alternative energy loan guarantee on March 20, four separate visits were logged.
Further - now the FBI is searching the houses of Solyndra executives.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:17 PM | Comments (0)
The Closing of the Frontier
What would Turner think of a Utah where a man can't butcher a steer in his own driveway without his neighbors calling the police? Turns out it's NOT illegal, just considered to be in poor taste. The frontier is closed.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:24 AM | Comments (0)
September 7, 2011
Want to make me feel like summer is over?
Give me a rainy morning with a small stack of homework to grade. Yes, I'm giving back the first graded homework assignment of Art 101 today -- I'm fast off the mark! The first paper assignment goes out today, too. And to increase that melancholic back-to-school mood, it's going to rain for the rest of the week, it looks like.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:10 AM | Comments (0)
September 5, 2011
This is going to be one FUN election
Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., uses intemperate language to refer to his political opponents in a warm-up speech for President Obama.
Guess that whole civility thing we were enjoined to practice after the shooting of Representative Giffords can just be tossed now.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:36 PM | Comments (1)
How did gladiators learn to kill people?
Coolness! Roman gladiator school discovered outside Vienna!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:27 PM | Comments (0)
Higher Education and the Pathetic Fallacy
This year I will have no problem switching to tweed on or after Labor Day -- because the high for today is 65, and we expect showers all day (nothing like the rain my parents are getting, just showers).
I find that a little weather like this early in the semester concentrates students' minds wonderfully on getting down to business.
The Pathetic Fallacy? When my summer died, the little cloud cried. A classic exemplar.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:36 AM
Google News makes a small world connection
Google News doesn't often throw up a personal name I know in the 1 sentence excerpt from a news story -- but there she is! This morning the first hit In my search category COLLEGE PRESIDENT* is:
New Knox College president greets new students
Galesburg Register-Mail - Sep 3, 2011Knox College president Teresa L. Amott addresses incoming freshmen students and their families on Saturday during move In day.
Yay, Teresa! *SIGH* for us! Teresa was provost at these Colleges, and if she hadn't left us for Knox, I would be spending a couple of hours in her company this afternoon in a joint Committee on the Faculty / Committee on Academic Affairs meeting to consider position requests from departments and programs.
Oh, well, best wishes, Teresa!
*I ask Google to search "college president" and "university president" to find stories of presidents behaving badly (or at least cynically). This was a more pleasant result.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:10 AM | Comments (1)
Busyish weekend with no photos!
What's that about?
We had a neighborhood yard sale Saturday. I cleared $3 and a bunch of shelf-space. If I hadn't bought a hat I would have made $18, but there you go. The straw boater with a black ribbon on a neighbor's table called my name and fits my head perfectly.
So I bought the boater and wore it to a croquet party in the afternoon. Great fun was had by all.
Sunday was fairly restful -- ran into friends for brunch at the Water Street Cafe, dawdled around the lake front, and had an all-round last day of summer kind of Sunday. The first campus mass got off unremarkably, but I think the current students have plans.
Oh well -- Hobart and William Smith Colleges don't observe Labor Day, so I'm up and blogging at 6:00 to be in the office by 8:00 to teach at 9:05. The 2nd week of classes begins!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:01 AM | Comments (0)
September 2, 2011
I never thought I'd type these words, but . . .
. . . I find myself in agreement with Chaz (née Chastity) Bono.
Chaz has already told me he doesn't want to dance to any of his parents' songs," referring to icons Sonny and Cher. "But the show really wants it to happen, so we'll see."
I could live out the rest of my life happily without ever dancing again to Cher, let alone Sonny and Cher. But the Glass Teat will be served, Chaz! Unless you had your lawyers lined up on that point in advance, I bet you'll be bopping to I got you, babe! Which, of course, is a sight better than Do you believe in life after love?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:09 PM | Comments (2)
Well this would be an exciting way to liven up those post-tenure doldrums
Run a motorcycle gang and sell meth!
"If the allegations are indeed true, this is beyond disappointing," [University president] Karnig said.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:28 AM | Comments (3)
