Wall Street Journal write-up on an urban church plant in Detroit. The lead pastor is a Miami alum.
Archive for December, 2009
18 Dec
she’s so lucky
Evaluating scholars simply by tallying their citations is “like saying Britney Spears is the most important artist who ever existed because she’s sold 50 million records,” said Johan Bolle, an associate professor of informatics and computing at Indiana University at Bloomington, as he introduced a daylong workshop on academic metrics here on Wednesday…
14 Dec
brochet
From the Chronicle:
By Emma L. Carew
In the old days, we got our hats and mittens from our grandmothers. They gathered on weekends, probably drank tea, and gossiped about us while they hooked and stitched yarn for hours.
Seven male friends at the College of Wooster have updated the knitting circle of days gone by and are helping three local charities in the process.
The guys formed the Wooster Brochet Society, whose community-service aspect helped them score housing together through the college. Every month, each man is responsible for crocheting three hats to be donated to the group’s community partners, which include a children’s home and a women’s shelter.
It all started with Matt S. Pullara, a psychology major, who shared the skill with his buddies when they were all freshmen in the dorms. Today the housemates crochet together regularly, often with a football or basketball game on the television, says Jake W. Kubasta.
“We like to put flaps, braided dangles, and a pouf on the top,” he says. Each hat takes about two hours, depending on skill level.
So far, says Mr. Kubasta, no one has criticized them for breaking gender stereotypes. “A lot of people think it’s pretty cool, and a lot of people want hats,” he says.
Mr. Kubasta still remembers his first hat, the one he learned on as a freshman. But he doesn’t wear it.
“It was not very good,” he says, laughing. “It was pretty oddly shaped, it was way too big, and the color schemes weren’t awesome.”
12 Dec
a single story
Kristof: http://ow.ly/K1Xy
(Reminds me of a good TED Talk that was floating around before–the danger of a single story, I think it was called. But I guess the single story can serve a good purpose too. Some of the social psych research Kristof cites on how we like to make individual/local versus massive/structural change makes a lot of sense. I got a $25 Donors Choose gift card, and when I was browsing which project to fund, it was so much more appealing to feel like your $25 could actually help make a classroom’s wish come true–we need $100 for us to buy a digital camera to do xyz!–versus being a drop in the bucket towards a $11,000 trip to Europe.)
12 Dec
more on undocumented students
Speaking up/out: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/us/11student.html?hpw
“Maybe our parents feel like immigrants, but we feel like Americans because we have been raised here on American values,” said Carlos Saavedra, national coordinator of a network of current and former students called United We Dream.
“Then we go to college and we find out we are rejected by the American system. But we are not willing to accept that answer,” said Mr. Saavedra, 23, a Peruvian who lived here illegally until he gained legal status two years ago.
12 Dec
friends no more in florida
In practice, of course, actual friends and Facebook friends can be as different as leather and pleather…
Still, legal sycophants can take heart: lawyers can declare themselves Facebook “fans” of judges, the committee said, “as long as the judge or committee controlling the site cannot accept or reject the lawyer’s listing of himself or herself on the site.”
10 Dec
ain’t no circulatory problem
I too question the prevailing view that security-fraud actions suffer from a circulatory problem. Just kidding, I have no idea what that means, but this article by James J. Park, Miami University Class of 1996, can help you understand it
http://www.michiganlawreview.org/articles/shareholder-compensation-as-dividend
10 Dec
a safe academic
The people of El Salvador remember Archbishop Oscar Romero as a martyr who gave his life standing up for justice and the poor. But he was not elected archbishop because of his radical politics. Quite the opposite: Romero was chosen as a safe academic who had a consistent record for supporting the status quo. After he was elected, however, the Salvadoran military shot his friend from seminary, Father Rutillio Grande, who had been organizing the poor in a rural parish. After receiving the news of his friend’s death, Romero drove through the night to the little town of Aguilares, where his friend lay dead. Those who knew Romero said he was never the same again after that night. His worldview shattered by the murder of his friend, Romero began to speak out against his country’s repressive government. His old way of being in the world would not work anymore.
-Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice in Reconciling All Things
10 Dec
congratulating
Dr. M. Kevin Eagan, my favorite collaborator (along with M. Lisa Millora…why all of this “M” avoidance, I don’t know) on finishing his Ph.D. in record time. Moore Hall 3019 = Overachievers Anonymous.
