Simple Sound Slide Production

In fooling around this afternoon, I wondered how long it would take and how expensive it would be to put a sound slide presentation on my blog.  There is a wide range of open source software available to make this a reality in very short order.  Recording both the photos and the audio was a snap with the iPhone.  They, they pictures and audio were emailed to myself (although they could be emailed to a newsroom just as easily) for further editing and prep.  I cleaned up the photos in Mac's 'Preview' utility, and edited the audio in a free version of Audacity.



I assembled the elements in Wondershare's 'Fantashow' software, which was intuitive and super easy to use.  There are undoubtedly other, perhaps better sound-slide production programs available - most notably 'Sound Slides' itself, but the main purpose is to give the content producer the ability to easily and quickly assemble sound slide presentation.  Fantashow did this with ease, even though the templates and 'styles' they offer are a bit lame.  In any case, it was a fast 20 minutes or so, and the presentation was up an operating.  Take a look at the results...

Also, we're trying out an online database system.  'SodaDb' seems interesting and worth an examination:



We will continue to develop this idea to end up with a simple, usable open source online database.


Wondershare 'Fantashow':  rapid 'sound-slide' prototyping and production.
http://www.wondershare.com/photo-software/photo-slideshow-mac.html

SoundSlides: the industry standard; widely used for rapid sound+slide show production
http://soundslides.com/

ProShow Gold:  well known, very popular and feature rich sound slide production software; not available in Mac version at present
http://www.photodex.com/proshow/gold

Taking the Nation's Temperature: Fever of 108°

It’s not as if winning the debate last Wednesday means that Romney will be our next president, but it was surprising that virtually everyone gave the defeat to President Obama.  The real questions that should be asked, however, were never seriously considered by the public:  apart from winning the three ring circus that is the debate, who will make a better president, and what are the substantive issues on which you base that judgment.  Much has been made recently about the war of ‘facts’ thrown around by both candidates.  Both are guilty of exaggeration at the very least, and outright falsehoods in the extreme (Romney never said he would gut Medicare).  The issue is so critical that it made the cover of the Oct. 15 Time magazine.

CSULA Grad Student Charles Ortiz

All of that aside, we’ve set out to get a series of snapshots of people’s thoughts on how the debate turned out and how it affected them.  Even for most students, the presidential debate has become an expected element of the election, even though they are mentioned nowhere in the constitution, nor have they been a part of the scene for very long.  Most historians consider the Lincoln Douglas debates in the middle of the 19th Century the quintessential debates, with two stirring orators, who had a deep respect for each other, really got down to the ideas that would make a good president.  

Run the calendar up to the present, and you are left with Kennedy v. Nixon, and essentially every election from Jimmy Carter on.  Students, of course, may not remember those earlier debates, but they are convinced of their value and importance.  CSULA Charles Ortiz noted that his interest began when he saw recordings of the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960, and he wouldn't think of missing them ever:  they give a side of the candidate that on the street glad-handing and baby-kissing never does.

I still wonder, though:  is this any way to elect a president?



More:
2012 General Election Debate Schedule
List assembled by the 'AOL/Patch' news organization

Museum of Broadcast Communications
Rich interactive source of information on the history of presidential debates.

Discovery Channel History of Debates
Engaging and compelling history produced by 'Discovery' cable channel.

Abridged List of Online Autonomous Agent Examples

V. 1.0  (Last updated July 11, 2012)

'Diva Dance' from 'The Fifth Element'

I've got a thing for androids.
Over the years of studying, reading about, and commenting on them, it was inevitable that I would put together a list of my favorite autonomous agents.  This list is by no means comprehensive or thorough, and I eagerly await your suggestions!  The rules of what fits into this category are very broad, but essentially consist of some sort of human interface connected with an autonomous logic/language algorithm, pretty much interpreted however you feel.
Please suggest additional examples of bots, avatars, androids or other autonomous agents.  You can either leave a comment (pull down the comment menu at the upper right of the page linked above) or send me directly your recommendations.  Also, if you have any interest in curating this page, let me know that as well.  Have fun!  

This blog post is to demonstrate how to embed a graphic.  We are examining a bar graph of Electoral college voters, with a special emphasis on the relative value of some key states in the electoral college tally.  This is intended to show how important it is for the candidates to take notice of the so-called purple states.  Here's the chart:

Intro to Broadcasting

The first class session for the Cal State LA TVF 220 Intro to Broadcasting class covers a nearly eight decade long history in about 15 minutes. This presentation put together on Google Docs presentation software is the thumbnail version of the early history of broadcasting. It is by no means a complete view, but a solid over view, putting all of broadcasting into some context as well.

You may also visit a full sized version of this presentation at: https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dfshf32h_62dg6twtc8

The Other Side of a Brutal City

On June 15 of this year, the torso of a man was found inside a suitcase in the Tijuana neighborhood of Colonia Reforma. At the time, authorities could not confirm whether a decapitated head found earlier belonged to the same victim. For better or worse, Tijuana has a reputation as a dangerous, brawling, heavy-drinking, violent town, the destination of choice for tens of thousands of Americans, out for a good time on Saturday night, cheap and legal pharmaceutical drugs, and a little bit of la vida loca. With a population of roughly a million and a half, it is about the same size as San Diego, just to the north, and despite the grim nature of the street violence there, its crime rate is about the same as Washington DC. What most people don’t know, however, is that despite its much-publicized violence and alienation, Tijuana has a sweet, soft side: it is a city that is passionate about opera.

Opera en la Calle, 2011

In addition to the widely respected City Opera, there are a number of small companies doing work all over the metropolis. In one of the most remarkable demonstrations of the city’s passion for opera, a collaboration eight years ago between the Colonia Libertad-based Café Opera and the Tijuana City Opera, led to a summer festival of live performances on Calle 5, the rough and tumble blue-color neighborhood, smack up against the border fence in the north of the city, a historic barrio minutes from the San Ysidro border crossing, on the other side of town from the Colonia Reforma. Organizers assembled booths to sell food and drink, installed portable bathrooms, vendor tables and cast costumed characters strolling the street. They set up 300 chairs for guests to watch their program of scenes, arias and art songs.

Six thousand people showed up.

Now in its eighth year, there is much that is remarkable about the Opera en la Calle, as the event is called. It is a full-fledged cultural phenomenon, a free celebration of opera, and art in general, written up in most major press and reported widely. It is a favored venue for artists who live in the area, and for many who ome to visit, just for the day-long party. The festival has never been interrupted, despite the surge of drug-related violence of the last three years. This year’s line-up included a traditional Japanese drum performance from San Diego Taiko, and a performance by an ensemble of Irish dancers from Lázaro Cárdenas Federal High School. There were selections from La Traviata and Boheme, as well as portions of the Phantom of the Opera, and Pietro Mascagni’s one act masterpiece Cavalleria Rusticana, which finished off the evening, the first full length opera to be presented in the festival.

Elisabet Mendoza and Jacob Perez

The event has even become an improbable destination for dating couples. Twenty-something Jacob Perez and his girlfriend Elisabet Mendoza snuggle in the cool afternoon air enjoying selections from La Traviata, with as much enthusiasm as they might for pop artists, like Café Tacuba, Los Tigres del Norte or Paulina Rubio.

Jacob explains “People will get even closer to music, and paintings and culture and all that stuff...I think if they go to the way of the culture, they can change.” Girfriend Elisabet Mendoza adds “To have you imagine other things that are not violence, is not our city. Just art, music, things like that…” Starting in 2004, as a cultural promotion of the city, and as an anniversary celebration of the tiny Café de la Ópera on Calle 5, part of the festivities celebrating the founding of Tijuana.

It soon became a renowned event, attracting up to 10,000 people from both sides of the border. In coordination with the State Government, the 22nd City Council, Tourism and Conventions Committee of Tijuana (COTUCO) as well as the private sector, the 2011 edition of the festival featured performances more or less continuously for 12 hours.

Architects from the Technology Institute of Tijuana transformed the working-class street into a tiny Italian village, which becomes the scene of the festival. There were more than 150 singers, musicians, actors and other artists from the region, and under colorful canopies, a variety of restaurants offered a sampling of their food and beverage. The day started around noon and lasted till past 11:00 pm, on a downright chilly July evening.

Jose Medina is a much loved local music teacher and singer. He has been involved in the production of Opera en la Calle from the very beginning, and many of his students are singing today. Though he looks a bit tired from all the planning and rehearsals, he is practically beaming with pride. “Everything you read in the paper, first thing in the morning is assassination and drugs and everything. But this contributes to change the image. This is important…So that at least gives you hope! Tijuana is not just this dark side, we do have this, too. This culture, this hunger of growing up to something so positive!” He then excuses himself, to go help with the set up for one of the acts he has been working on.

Maria Teresa Rique

Returning to run the festival, Opera of Tijuana Director Maria Teresa Riqué, described the rich offering of cultural activities the community offers, including for the first time a complete performance and the live transmission of the project via the Internet.

"The festival is framed in celebration of the centenary of the historic defense of Tijuana in June of 1911. We are preparing a program based on research done by the group Los Californios, led by baritone Manuel Acosta. The main intention of the festival is the promotion of the Opera…I am sure they will enjoy it. You can see the huge amount of talent we have in the city,” Riqué added. "It is great to be able to present a full opera for the first time," said Riqué, noting the involvement of tenor José Luis Duval and mezzo-soprano Ana Rojas. " People who may not be physically able to attend can enjoy the event via a live streaming webcast …a revolution in progress." she added. The performances are presented in a way to attract families, and to welcome everyone and was especially directed to those who have never had opportunity to attend an opera recital or performance, and to attract a young audience.

Between 8,000 and 10,000 people attended throughout the day, enjoying the singing, scenery, art displays, drinks and food, as well as a range of children's activities. Fully a third to a half of the attendees at the Saturday event appeared to be under the age of 25.

Julieta Mesa and Melissa Sanchez

Melissa Sanchez attended this year with her mother Julieta Mesa. It gives her a lot of pride to be able to show off her city. “If you can show the other side of Tijuana, which is an innovative city, where you find that art and culture has much to offer to the country and the world,” she says, while resting in the afternoon sun. “Maybe it is the result that we are receiving so much talent from other cities of the Mexican republic that art and culture and the proximity to the USA makes as to have a fountain of talent. In this respect young people can contribute in art and culture” she concludes.

Singer Marco Antonio La Bastida is a local favorite, and a regular at Café Opera – he sings the title role in ‘Phantom of the Opera’ tonight, and has seen the changes that opera in general and this street festival in particular have brought to this little rough and tumble neighborhood. “This is a very nice event…with all this very bad situation with what’s happening in Tijuana, this is the other side of the coin saying ‘hey, you know we are making something good…’ I think they [the media] should always promote this kind of event.” La Bastida agrees with Maria Theresa Rique’s assessment that this community’s love for opera is not abstract or pretentious. There is an obvious, natural, and enthusiastic love for this art form they say. “It was a way to tell people not to abandon the streets, to tell them to not be afraid,” says Riqué. “Opera won’t bite you; it’s not elitist,” she insists. “You just have to feel it. After all…” she added, “this type of festival is a reminder that the streets belong to the people.”

Jose Medina Interview

Photo Gallery of July 9, 2011 Opera en la Calle

…Sat on the Park Bench Like Book Ends

Time it was and what a time it was,

A time of innocence,

A time of confidences,

Long ago it must be,

I have a photograph,

Preserve your memories,

There all that’s left you...

- Paul Simon, ‘Old Friends’

The term ‘old friends’ could be interpreted a couple of ways. In common usage, it means colleagues, companions and acquaintances of long standing, people with whom you have a bond of affection lasting many years.

But it might also mean those friends who are on in years, aged and wearing experience on their face and body.

In either case, the idea of connecting with ‘old friends’ holds a special place in our hearts. With ‘old friends’, your shared experiences and memories come back with easy connection. With little effort, we connect with life’s landmarks – births, weddings, deaths and the like – without the need for a lot of explaining.

I had dinner this last week with friends of my family whom I hadn’t seen in perhaps 40 years. Barney and Pat were so close to our tribe in Nevada. He’s 88 now and I guess Pat’s a bit younger. They lived for a while in our funky little town of Virginia City, and shared hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours with us.

Barney was a geologist, with a big booming voice, a friendly grin and a kind of effortless enthusiasm that was simply magnetic. While we assumed that Barney was one of our dad’s endless parade of drinking buddies (and I don’t mean that sarcastically), as kids, we found him really cool. He could tell you anything you wanted to know about rocks. To this day, when I read or hear mention of the element ‘Beryllium’, it is inseparable from my memories of Barney’s expansive and engaging description of where this metal was found, how it got there, and why it was so important.

His wife Pat had her eye on the former sailor when he came in to cash a check at Harolds Club in Reno, where she was working after the war. Harold’s club is the real old Reno. Later eclipsed by its neighbor Harrah’s, Harold’s club was where locals went to drink, gamble, and cash their checks. We’ve had generations of relatives and pals who worked there, or had someone in their family who did as well, in their black pants and white shirts, as cashiers, waitresses, bar tenders, and Keno runners. If you don’t know what that is, you are obviously not from Nevada.

There was a year-long gap between the time Pat cashed Barney’s check at Harold’s Club, and the time she ran into him in Virginia City. She recognized the strapping sailor from the previous year and told her friends to pull over so she could say ‘hi’.

Pat was glamorous to us as kids. She was kind of dazzling – beautiful, confident, and pound for pound, at least as friendly as Barney. One thing led to another, and now they’ve been married for about half a century.

In the interim, there have been the foundation stories of my life: Pat Hart and the Brass Rail, Gordon Lane and his legendary bar next door, which was officially known as ‘The Union Brewery’, but simply known as Gordon’s to anyone who had spent five minutes in Virginia City would know. From Gordon’s, the great pantheon of drinking-legends from that town connected and became a community. There was four-foot-ten Kelly O’Keefe, an Irish miner who could drink anyone under the table. Highway Harry, Bob Dufresne, Agalee Del Carlo, Mike Nevin…they all spent long hours tossing them back and telling what seemed to me the funniest stories in the world.

Barney worked all his adult life as a geologist, and by all accounts, it was a profession he loved with a passion that was almost as strong as his passion for his beautiful wife. He also came to love our eccentric little town in the mountains.

They never had kids. My own circle of siblings all grew up and had their own broods; life went on, and all of a sudden, it’s four decades later.

Pat and Barney live on the water in a small, comfortable apartment in Newport Beach, just off the Pacific Coast Highway. They don’t get around so much, because of their physical limitations, but Pat managed to cook up a fantastic meal when I came by for dinner this week – crab cakes, Italian bread salad, pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy... The food was great, but it was passing time with these two ‘old friends’ that was so moving to me.

In a real sense, as kids we were exposed to a lot of personalities which we have ultimately combined into who we are as adults. Barney and Pat, along with Gordon Lane – who just passed away this last year - Pat and Penna Hart, and all the other characters who came into our lives each left a little something. A wicked sense of humor from one, a booming gregariousness from another, an unshakable need to stop and help out or, the ability to make an instant party from yet another; they have all become our ‘character’ as adults. Barney and Pat’s open, honest and joyful embrace have contributed to who I am as an adult.

Driving back up the 405 San Diego freeway toward home after that dinner, I pondered how wise the native Indians were in this country, long before the white man, something that had never struck me as strongly. For many westerners, the concept of ‘our elders’ or ‘our ancestors’ seems quaint and archaic. But after my visit with Barney and Pat, I felt a very sweet and fierce connection not only to them, but to my brothers and sisters, my parents, and to a younger, more wide-eyed me.

Barney & Pat Eglit

Whatever...

The fact that our congress finally consigned ‘don’t ask – don’t tell’ to the dustbin of history is not that big a big deal.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s historic, it’s moving, it vindicates everyone who fought for this decision, and it endorses our beliefs that our brothers and sisters serving in the military can ‘access their integrity’, to quote Lt. Dan Choi, who was booted last year after coming out on national television.

I’m not saying it’s not important, but I’m a little leery about congratulating ourselves for doing what should have been done not seventeen years ago, but 50 or 80 years ago. To be sure, the battle for acceptance of sexual minorities in our military was a significant stop on the path to acceptance. But it seems odd to celebrate something that should have been done anyway, even without the battle.

We had no international celebration when our medical institutions defeated smallpox last century. We did not hold festivals for giving the vote to people who should have had the vote all along. We have held no celebrations when women began to earn equity in the work place (of course, they are still not earning at the levels of their male counterparts).

In the long history of the fight for civil rights of LGBT people, this military issue was not exactly at the top of the stack. The concurrent fights for the right to adopt, the right to fair and equal treatment in the work place and in accommodations, domestic partner rights which allow partners of LGBT people to visit their loved ones in the hospital, the right to inherit the estate of a gay partner who has died, and of course, the big, big question: the right to marry - these issues loom like skyscrapers over the landscape of public policy.

While LGBT people can serve openly in the militaries of nearly two dozen countries, including Australia, Canada, Israel and Italy, gay people are still persecuted, injured, jailed, and executed in Uganda, Iran, Russia and other countries just for being who they are.

With a growing number of states in the US and countries around the world affirming the right to marry, gay marriage would have to be considered the biggest and most vital challenge in the fight for civil liberties. There is no issue more central, more vital, and more momentous that the right to legally choose who is allowed to marry whom. On that day, I will feel that the biggest hurdle to LGBT acceptance has been breached.

My comment about the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask…’ is more of a rhetorical flourish than a deep feeling. News of the US Senate’s vote on the question made tears well up in my eyes, and a deep and emotional feeling of vindication wash over me. We will take whatever victories we can, and fight for the ultimate right: to marry whomever we wish. The repeal of ‘Don’t Ask…’ may not be the biggest victory for Gay rights, but it is certainly big enough.

When every person has the right to live their life openly, with dignity and standing in their community, then I will celebrate like it was 1999.

Whatever...

The fact that our congress finally consigned ‘don’t ask – don’t tell’ to the dustbin of history is not that big a big deal.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s historic, it’s moving, it vindicates everyone who fought for this decision, and it endorses our beliefs that our brothers and sisters serving in the military can ‘access their integrity’, to quote Lt. Dan Choi, who was booted last year after coming out on national television.

I’m not saying it’s not important, but I’m a little leery about congratulating ourselves for doing what should have been done not seventeen years ago, but 50 or 80 years ago. To be sure, the battle for acceptance of sexual minorities in our military was a significant stop on the path to acceptance. But it seems odd to celebrate something that should have been done anyway, even without the battle.

We had no international celebration when our medical institutions defeated smallpox last century. We did not hold festivals for giving the vote to people who should have had the vote all along. We have held no celebrations when women began to earn equity in the work place (of course, they are still not earning at the levels of their male counterparts).

In the long history of the fight for civil rights of LGBT people, this military issue was not exactly at the top of the stack. The concurrent fights for the right to adopt, the right to fair and equal treatment in the work place and in accommodations, domestic partner rights which allow partners of LGBT people to visit their loved ones in the hospital, the right to inherit the estate of a gay partner who has died, and of course, the big, big question: the right to marry - these issues loom like skyscrapers over the landscape of public policy.

While LGBT people can serve openly in the militaries of nearly two dozen countries, including Australia, Canada, Israel and Italy, gay people are still persecuted, injured, jailed, and executed in Uganda, Iran, Russia and other countries just for being who they are.

With a growing number of states in the US and countries around the world affirming the right to marry, gay marriage would have to be considered the biggest and most vital challenge in the fight for civil liberties. There is no issue more central, more vital, and more momentous that the right to legally choose who is allowed to marry whom. On that day, I will feel that the biggest hurdle to LGBT acceptance has been breached.

My comment about the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask…’ is more of a rhetorical flourish than a deep feeling. News of the US Senate’s vote on the question made tears well up in my eyes, and a deep and emotional feeling of vindication wash over me. We will take whatever victories we can, and fight for the ultimate right: to marry whomever we wish. The repeal of ‘Don’t Ask…’ may not be the biggest victory for Gay rights, but it is certainly big enough.

When every person has the right to live their life openly, with dignity and standing in their community, then I will celebrate like it was 1999.

Red Earth and Pouring Rain

The towering, sprawling masterworks of Indian literature – especially the love poem the Ramayama, and the Muhabarata, which includes the Bhagavad Gita – are unruly, shaggy dog tales that read like a combination of Beowulf, Dante’s Inferno, and Milton’s Paradise Lost rolled into one. They are story upon story upon story, and to many westerners first exposed to them, they were seen as inferior literature, because they didn’t follow Plato’s unities of poetry. But the authors of these great Hindu epics have produced some of the most soaring, transcendent literature civilization has ever produced.

We have advanced somewhat since those years of the Raj, an era which demeaned the great Indian literature, in a spasm of Victorian judgment one hopes, with an ability to appreciate these shimmering, epic tales of wars, gods, love and death, and all the rules that make up ethical living, the works have come to take their proper place in the pantheon of world literature. Despite the west’s long standing ignorance, many have come to appreciate the awesome literary efforts that these works represent.

Vikram Chandra channels these ancestors in his novel Red Earth and Falling Rain, which in some ways out does even those two thousand year old Vedic texts. The title of the novel comes from a Tamil poem nearly 2,000 years old, which at least in translation, echoes contemporary passions:

And how

Did you and I meet ever?

But in love

our hearts have mingled

as red earth and pouring rain.

In post-modern western literature, we have become accustomed to stories within stories; wordsmiths shattering rhetoric and syntax for some deeper truth, but mostly we remain cued to the importance of one central story. So as writers like James Michener and William Faulkner (not exactly post-modernists; but the point holds nonetheless) spin their complex tales, we always refer back to the central story to know where we are and what is the perspective from which we are observing.

In Chandra’s epic work, our attention is constantly pulled, to the point we don’t quite know what is the central story: a young Indian, returning to India from California with a broken heart, a magic realism tale of a monkey pulled back from the brink of death by his ability to tap out fantastic stories on an old typewriter, visits from a number of the best known Hindu deities – most notably Ganesh the laughing Elephant god, and Hanuman, the monkey-like god of war, battle and alliances.

In the tradition of those great Hindu epics, Chandra leaves our head spinning, unable to decide where the center of the story is. In a playful way, we are always brought back to the story of the type-writing monkey, whose story – as fantastic as it is – is no comparison to the swashbuckling tales of the two young men – Sikander and Sanjay, born at the same time – as they travel across the subcontinent, facing adventures, growing up, suffering and becoming men.

Oh, and for good measure, Chandra even throws in a connection to Jack the Ripper in Victorian London.

Even if your brain is being stretched, trying to figure out which hand to watch while Chandra weaves his magic spells, the tales within tales, the endless stories within stories, are hypnotic, and somehow, deeply moving.

It is said that authors speak through their characters. If this is true, then we can conclude that to Vikram Chandra, humanity’s ability to tell stories is what renders us something like gods. Everyone has a story, and each one makes us a little more human. The stories invest us with dignity, position, and the weight of history, with each telling.

If you try to summarize what the book is about, you would be lost. To be sure, there are some overarching themes of honor, duty, and the unshakable love of family. But to say that, no less than saying the Bible is a book about sin, misses the point entirely. Red Earth and Pouring rain contains the material for at least ten novels. Each story is woven into the others and each leaves off where another begins. Like the nearly endless cycles of life that Hindu tradition tells us is the fate of the world, Chandra’s masterpiece resonates with the vibration of life itself.

Daniel Liebeskind’s Rocky Mountain High

Clearly, the standard was set by Frank Gehry’s gleaming museum in Bilbao and Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Much has been written about how Gehry and his associates used sophisticated computer programs to scope out the complex forms that make up those dazzling buildings.

It always seemed to me, however, that the interiors of those spaces would be so reinforced and engineered that they would make the spaces claustrophobic and alienating, with essentially no vertical walls to enclose the space and windows punched out at strange, vertiginous angles.

Daniel Liebeskind’s new Denver Art Museum faces many of these challenges as well. Planted baldly to the south west of the older Hamilton wing, the prime motif of the new wing is enormous, slashing diagonals of space, bordering on the bombastic; and like the Gehry structures, sheathed in a gleaming metal skin.

To be sure, the outdoor shape of the building is dramatic and eye catching, especially by comparison to the forbidding castle-like Hamilton building, which looks like a ten story prison tower, except for the use of the beautiful dimensional stone-like surface and the elegant clerestory windows punched into that surface. But the Hamilton wing of the museum suffers in the way a lot of modernist/immediately post-modernist architecture does: while it may have looked grand when it was new, from the context of the times and the location, it has not aged gracefully. The Hamilton wing, which was completed in 2006, looks like it could join the ranks of those other modernist icons – Lincoln Center in NY, The Music Center in Los Angeles, The Kennedy Center in Washington, Empire Plaza in Albany – as dated and frankly, a little ugly. This is not to say that the Hamilton wing architecture resembles any of those other modernist milestones, but rather that the impulse of how you plan and build public structures is related.

The museum is set a bit outside of what has come to be called 'LoDo', the lively, popular neighborhood just south of downtown. The museum is in the Civic Center Golden Triangle neighborhood, adjacent to the State Capital, the Denver Mint, and the handsome Denver Public Library .

The great surprise is that inside Liebeskind’s angular prism-like structure, the interior spaces are lovely, slightly mysterious, in a playful hide-and-seek way, and they are quite welcoming.

While there may not be a right angle in the building (except for doors and individual window panes), the spaces never feel threatening or disorienting. Instead, they unfold in a series of surprising, graceful spaces, which seem quite happy to have humans within their volume.

It’s not easy to tell where you are, exactly. The windows in the Liebeskind wing are narrow, and looking out them doesn’t help much to orient the viewer.

Rumor has it that Liebeskind’s ideas for the museum were inspired by the nearby Rocky Mountains, the same inspiration Santiago Calatrava’s is purported to have used as the basis of his Denver International Airport main terminal. Their interpretations couldn’t be more different, but while Liebeskind faced endless challenges to replace the World Trade Center in New York, civic leaders in Denver largely embraces his adventurous ideas.

The result is one of the most eye-catching and welcoming spaces west of the Mississippi, and signals Denver’s arrival on the international scene, not just for it’s football team, mountains, and fresh air, but also for it’s art, culture and architecture.

NB: Form Magazine has just announced that Calatrava will oversee additions to the Denver Airport; the designs for which are typically dramatic and compelling. Take a look at Form's report for the details.

New Therapies Could Revolutionize HIV Treatment

This article in the MIT Technology Review journal outlines a novel new treatment for HIV that not only shows great promise, it could revolutionize how not only HIV is treated, but also how a wide range of infections that could respond to genetic therapies.

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Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: Scientists Engineer Stem Cells to Fight HIV
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24502/

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Jon Beaupre's Publish2 Profile:
http://www.publish2.com/journalists/jon-beaupre/

Where Have all the Glaciers Gone?

In the fall of 2009, I had the great pleasure of participating in a reporting trip to Peru with my much admired colleague Claes Andreasson, to cover a number of powerful and moving stories connected with environmental change in that amazing country. Over the course of two weeks, we recorded 30 interviews, 24 hours of audio, 16 hours of video, and close to 700 photos. For me, the trip was as much a luxury escape from Los Angeles, school, and the weekly drill of my life. The circumstances weren't luxurious, but getting away was. For Claes, this trip shows how he earns his bread and butter. There were so many stories that we followed, but I am only posting this one video as an overview of what we accomplished.

What do you put in the bird-cage?

Elizabeth Churchill's carefully reasoned take on the future of news is as much a nostalgic reminiscence of a medium that is fading. It's not simply a 'woe-is-me' take however, but an insightful analysis of the current media environoment.
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interactions magazine
http://interactions.acm.org/content/?p=1272

William Vollman's Brand of Imperialism

William Volman



William T. Vollman is consistently one of California's most provocative and prolific writers. His 'novels' are set in as disparate locales as the mountains of Afghanistan, Soviet era Berlin, and colonial Jamestown Virginia. His latest work takes on the Imperial valley of extreme south eastern California. This is the New York Times preview of the book.

I'll have more to say about Vollman a bit later, when I have some time to write...

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William T. Vollmann, an Author Without Borders - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/books/29vollman.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

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Legislation to Increase Accountability for University Foundations & Auxiliaries Passes Key Committee

Legislation to Increase Transparency & Accountability in

University Foundations & Auxiliaries Passes Key Committee
Senate Bill (SB) 218 comes in response to financial scandals involving foundations in the already cash-strapped state university system

Legislation to make the spending practices of California State University subsidiary organizations and foundations more transparent was approved by the Assembly Appropriations Committee Wednesday.

Senate Bill 218 – authored by Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) – updates the California Public Records Act to include campus and statewide auxiliary organizations at CSU, University of California and California Community Colleges. The bill – which is co-sponsored by CFA and the California Newspaper Publishers Association – was passed unanimously by the committee with just one abstention.

“Placing state college and university auxiliaries under the authority of the public records act will safeguard the use of taxpayer funds and provide much needed accountability and oversight to state policymakers,” said CFA President Lillian Taiz, a professor of History at CSU Los Angeles. At the CSU alone, these auxiliaries manage more than a billion dollars with little or no public oversight.

As legally separate tax-exempt entities, they are not currently covered by the California Public Records Act, even though the universities that form these subsidiaries are. According to data from the CSU Chancellor’s Office, 20% of the CSU’s $6.7 billion budget is funded by these auxiliaries and foundations.

“This legislation will enable us to pull back the curtains that hide these foundations and ensure that taxpayer dollars for our public universities are used as they were intended and not for the pet projects and slush funds of campus administrators,” said Taiz.

The bill must now be voted on by the full Assembly, perhaps as early as next week. The bill previously passed the state Senate by a margin of 35-1 and has received zero no-votes thus far in the Assembly.

Earlier this year, a campus foundation at Sonoma State University was found to have used donated funds to provide huge personal loans to a former foundation board member. Some of this money may never be recovered. This money was intended to fund scholarships for qualified students.

There are currently 87 CSU-related non-profit auxiliary organizations connected with the 23 CSU campuses and/or the CSU Chancellor’s Office. CSU auxiliaries often operate campus bookstores, concessions and student unions, manage foundations to benefit students, and operate campus parking facilities, to name a few of their functions.

Many newspaper editorial boards from across the state have come out in support of SB 218, including the Los Angeles Times, the Sacramento Bee and the Riverside Press Enterprise.

NB: On Oct. 11 of this year, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, which had passed both houses of the state legislature with seemingly overwhelming support. One can only imagine that the UC and CSU systems together brought to bear considerable pressure on a governor who would not benefit much by passage of this bill. Needless to say, the veto was a great disappointment to advocates for an open and transparent operation of the state's two higher education pillars.