Dennis Roddy wrote a great article on John Gilmore, a guinea pig for freedom. The article shows how some fundamental issues of freedom and security are at stake, and includes this important question: "Since the 9/11 terrorists had drivers' licenses, why do airlines want to see mine?"
Yesterday, I took the kids to the Children's Museum to see the new entrance and wing. Impressive entrance. Couldn't look at the planetarium area without a sense of loss. Our first stop, though, was to see the new Saturday Light Brigade studio. Intimate and quirky. I hope it gets lots of use. Rikki and Larry, always gracious, invited us right in, gave us tour, and immediately put the kids on the air. Thomas and Larry recited Shel Silverstein's Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout.
This New York Times editorial expresses some of my feelings about the Lawrence Summers Problem.
Whatever Dr. Summers was doing at the conference, it had nothing to do with serious intellectual inquiry. "I don't think anybody actually has a clue" was one operative phrase. "I don't remember who had told me" was another. It was every woman's nightmare of what a university president thinks privately about equal opportunity.Granted we should be open. I even think positive inquiry can start with "I don't remember who had told me." I think the problem, though, lies in Summers' arrogance and bullying built on a foundation of half-baked assumptions.
An article in the Boston Globe made me think that Summers' seemingly off-the-cuff statements reflect not a critical and open mind, but a powerful crackpot, according to Harvard physics professor Daniel S. Fisher:
''Several years of Summers' pushing for grandiose schemes, emphasis on hype over substance, and remarkably incompetent 'planning' by . . . task forces, have led to massive chaos and disillusionment," he wrote in an e-mail.If Harvard fired Summers, though, that would look like a PC witch hunt, like that performed on Eason Jordan. Better if a chastened and humble Lawrence Summers remained as president. Then again if he is chastened and humble would he remain Lawrence Summers.Fisher said he thinks Summers has been uninterested in true dialogue about the future of science at Harvard, even on the proposed new campus in Allston, which the president wants to focus on science. Fisher said that what passes for science planning under Summers is as phony as creationism passed off as science.
I'm not sure why the Summers story appeals to me right now. Something to do with understanding those who hold power. Surely the transition we're making in regards to sex roles has something to do with it. The whole emergence thing, political attacks coming from left field, as it were, makes this a fascinating story.
On New Years' Day I heard a great wintertime story by Garrison Keillor. Improbably enough, the 13-year-old Keillor finds himself driving on the frozen ice of the Mississippi River, with Crazy Eric skiing alongside on 2x4s with shotguns in both hands and wearing coyote leg traps for bindings. Eric gets in the car and they head toward Minneapolis:
I just drove along with my head outside the window so I could see where I was going. Boy, I felt good. I never drove a car this far before . . . it was beautiful. [Crazy Eric] was all excited. He was talking a mile a minute in Norwegian. Then he was talking about New Orleans. I could tell he enjoyed it. How he'd come to New Orleans, I had no idea. That was the first I'd heard about New Orleans, hearing an old drunk Norwegian talk about it in Norwegian, snot frozen to his moustache . . . You know you ought to venerate people like me because I remember things that no one else remembers.You can hear the whole thing here.
Or maybe I'm just cheap. The P-G's Carolyn Shropshire writes on free wireless in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's behind in free wi-fi hotspots, but it's catching up. What I do see in the article are business owners understanding that free wireless is an affordable amenity, just like clean bathrooms. What I don't see in the article are people who say, "Hey, we tried to do free wi-fi. It didn't work. We're going back to the subscription system." Unmentioned were two of my favorite hotspots: Crazy Mocha (actually in a number of locations), and the Schenley Park Visitor's Center.
I was almost out of paper, not 8.5 x 11 paper, and I had only filled half of my notebook/sketchbook. What I needed was something for my back pocket. I've always like the idea of "black book" knowledge, rules-of-thumb that you have handy, formulas, equations, schematics, and sketches. Unfortunately Artist & Craftsman Supply don't have the Rhodia pads that I covet, so I settled for the spiral bound 3x5 elephant books, which might be a little better for sketches because it has some tooth.