Frustrations

Tonight, Bill Moyers is redoing the journal on the press’ role in the lead-up to the invasion. Ink quantity, pressure, passivity, information suppression. It’s very frustrating to hear the excuses. The doubters were placed on the back page. Those who had all he opportunity could have made the calls.

I feel now as I did then: it should have been easy to say no.

Good Work

Yipes, what a couple of weeks. But it has been good work. There’s lots to do at the course level, the program level, and the institutional level, and work with our fellow institutions in the state on transfer, articulation, and ability-based approaches.

Over the years the college system in Connecticut has been working on a common system of course numbering so that every college in the state declares common course numbers for courses that share more than 80 percent parity of content. The question is, how should courses define 80 percent parity, given than this is a quantity, and we typically don’t think of content in terms of quantity. For example, is a Shakespeare course the same at Tunxis as it is at Central Connecticut or Trinity if one teacher does 4 plays, another 3, and yet another 5? This may be a trivial question. Then what makes for parity? Experts can argue about this. Better yet, a course on Shakespeare can be summed up in terms of its expectation stated as a set of competencies, skills, or abilities, such that if a student demonstrates similar ability given similar expectations, and professors share those expectations among their peers, then a Shakespeare course can be better defined. This is a discipline question also and go pretty deep and can be defined in other area differently, for example in a course on C#, or game design.

Some are moving in the ability direction given that disciplines, as they change and evolve, can better define themselves in iterative contexts.

There’s lots to do.

Brain Drain

Spazeboy comments on a proposal by Rep Tim O’Brien that would hope to keep graduates in the state by offering them “savings” incentive:

While I think this plan will do a lot to keep young college graduates in the state, I also think it will make it easier for more adults to go back to college. Surely they are planning to stay in the state, but may not be able to afford college along with all the other expenses of running a household–especially earning wages at a job that doesn’t require a degree. It sounds to me like O’Brien’s proposal would allow for CT residents to go to college and get better jobs, regardless whether the fickle youngsters decide to stay in the state.

There are a few problems I have with this. The first goes to the reason why graduates leave the state in the first place: it’s not because of the costs of an education, but because staying hurts more than leaving. How will the incentive address the question of in-state innovation at the environmental, cultural, social, and economic level? People would stay in CT if they had the opportunity, wouldn’t they, or if “place” convinced them to: re the cool factor?

Secondly, the incentive is weak in that it removes choice and “punishes” people for what may be a necessity. What if the field calls me to Arizona? If I leave the state, I’m pretty much in the same boat as now, having to pay my college costs, but if I stay, I may or may not be able to work at a particular level of income and impact. India may call anyway.

Thanks, Beau, for the heads up.

Probably

One headline in the paper this morning read:

Pentagon: Spy Satellite Hit

Defense Officials Say Missile Fired From Navy Ship Probably Destroyed Toxic Fuel Tank

This is an Onion headline, right?

Names

I’d always been bothered by something in Brimmer and Death. Names. I’ve been through many of them and finally hit on a core but nuanced issue: Death herself. There’s a relationship here between a problem with linking in the story and their slow developing syntactical interference (which is a good thing). In the story, links interfere by creating a pause, a sort of breath of suspense: what’s going to come. So I had the notion that each link would have it’s own space.

The link would float between each lexia like a puff of smoke, not quite making meaning . . . yet. However this comes out, I think I have the set concept down finally. Here’s the new stage, the link in bold:

On the first evening of a two-day hike through the desert, Brimmer pushed through a dry stand of bushes and saw Dee seated on a flat-topped stone.

She said, “Hey, the moon’s just coming up. See it.”

Brimmer said, “The sky’s still blue, Dee, but the land’s in shade. Beautiful, right? Like time.”

“You’re still a mystery to me, Brimmer,” she said, hopping off the stone. She wore a plain black bandanna on her head. Silver rivets the size of nickels studded her belt, and she waved the heat away with a bone-handled fan. She wrapped Brimmer in a wrestler’s hug and touched him lightly on the cheek with her lips.

She set a small tape deck down and clicked play. She said, “A little ditty to take away your troubles.” Then she showed Brimmer an ancient dance. Dee circled him. She fluttered her long white fingers. She took his hand and spun him in the sand. The moon’s white edge rose like a scythe blade over the hills.

Director

Congratulations go to Susan Gibb who’s been promoted to Director of the writing arts at the Fine Arts Connection of Thomaston, Connecticut. In this position she’ll be able to promote her interests in traditional and digital arts from the ground up, where, I believe, swells need to occur and are most valuable.

The technical nature of the digital arts isn’t really the problem or the solution. It’s the promotion of fine work of whatever form and of whatever flavor and by whomever wishes to engage them. In hypertext, for example, we shouldn’t bother so much with the tech but, rather, with simple questions: should storytelling, which serves the needs of the community, take priority over snappy graphics, which can either get in the way or weigh too much in the favor of candy over substance? We always should argue for a balance: excellent telling, excellent art, excellent whatever.

Susan is the perfect pick: her energy, knowledge, and persistence can enflame.

Good luck and congrats.

Deadwood

Dority.jpgDeadwood is amazing. But for the background. Dan Dority, for example, played by W. Earl Brown, is totally realized. On screen, his manner, style of speech, habits and shape fit into Deadwood’s world without seam.

Last week we saw Dan streetfight with Captain Turner (Allan Graf). Dan is getting it pretty good. He reaches out, plucks the Captain’s eye out of his head with his fingers, and then finishes the scene with a club. It’s a quick fight, as most are, but the arc lumbers to conclusion: it feels longer than it is, wonderfully edited. The aftermath, the outcome of the scene, never goes away, though. The memory of the act can be seen in Dan throughout and into the next episode like an icon over his shoulder, a shadow cast behind him. He’s not the same. He knows it. We know it.

Sumptuous.