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Sri Preston Kulkarni during an interview at Bar Louie in Sugar Land, Texas. Photo: Pu Ying HuangSri Preston Kulkarni during an interview at Bar Louie in Sugar Land, Texas. Photo: Pu Ying Huang
Texas Candidate's Radical Approach to Turning Out Asian-American Non-Voters: Talking to Them (in 13 Different Languages)
Sri Kulkarni, a 40-year-old Democrat, is facing incumbent Rep. Pete Olson in November, armed with a multilingual, multigenerational, multicultural battery of dedicated volunteers.
David Dayen
Nathan Truong was teaching in Taiwan the day that Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2016 presidential election. At 26, he'd grown up in Sugar Land, Texas, long the bastion of notorious Texas political boss Tom DeLay, so he was no stranger to the triumph of reactionary politics. But something about Trump was different and when Truong returned home, he was determined to do something about it.
Truong, 26, managed to link up with the congressional campaign of Sri Preston Kulkarni in Texas's 22nd District. Truong didn't recognize the radical nature of what he was about to engage in; he just considered it common sense. "If a block walker looks like the constituent, they're more willing to listen," Truong said.
Truong, who is Vietnamese-American, is now part of a sophisticated new experiment to target and turn out historically non-voting Asian-Americans by reaching them precisely where they are.
Kulkarni, a 40-year-old Democrat, is facing incumbent Rep. Pete Olson in November, armed with a multilingual, multigenerational, multicultural battery of dedicated volunteers, in a rapidly changing district that national Democrats had long ignored, but suddenly believe is flippable. On Wednesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee broke a long silence and put Kulkarni on their coveted "Red to Blue" list. "Sri has put together a strong, people-powered campaign that makes this race competitive," said DCCC chair Ben Ray Luján in a statement.
That may be something of an understatement. The campaign has held phone banks in 13 languages, including six major dialects spoken in India and a Nigerian language called Igbo. Organizers have dispatched volunteers to micro-target tiny communities. It has taken a street-by-street approach to outreach that has already paid dividends. When Kulkarni defeated four challengers for the Democratic nomination, his campaign's internal figures show that they increased the Asian-American percentage of the primary electorate from 6 percent in 2014, the last midterm election, to 28 percent in 2018.
If Kulkarni succeeds, his tactics will become a model for how to target communities that historically don't vote, primarily because nobody has ever tried to engage them in politics.
Along the way, volunteers have broken out of their clusters and gained a cultural education of their own. "All the people I've met I never knew before January," said Renée Mathew, an empty-nest mother and precinct chair in Sugar Land. "Whatever happens on November 6, we're going to still be here. We're all connected in an amazing way."
Along the way, Kulkarni's campaign is challenging the popular mythology of Texas. Olson has derided Kulkarni as an "Indo-American who's a carpetbagger," but it is Olson who's the relative newcomer. Kulkarni's family can trace its lineage back to migrants from the 1600s — and he is descended directly from the founding father of Texas, Sam Houston. Texas: It's complicated.
Sri Kulkarni, center, listens to supporters attending his fundraiser in Houston on July 29, 2018.
Photo: David J. Phillip/AP
The breadth of this organizing is necessitated by the astonishing growth in Fort Bend County, a suburban ring outside Houston that's home to 80 percent of the district, as sugar cane farms and open fields have given way to master-planned subdivisions. Good schools and several major arteries to downtown Houston have attracted young families. In 1990, the population of Fort Bend County was a little over 225,000. By 2017, it stood at nearly 765,000, a gain of 239 percent in 27 years. Estimates say it will be 2.1 million by 2050.
Texas's 22nd Congressional District, eight years after reapportionment in 2010, now has 897,000 residents, making it the largest congressional district in America by population, outside of the state of Delaware. The demographic makeup — 90 percent suburban, well-educated, and above average in median household wealth — mirrors the kinds of districts that national Democrats have been contesting in 2018. And the shifting political tastes here are apparent. In 2016, Trump won TX-22 by 8 points, a 17.5 point swing from Mitt Romney's victory over Barack Obama in 2012. That's one of the largest congressional district swings in the country, and now two more years' worth of new residents have moved in.
The difference — and perhaps the reason why national Democrats have been slow to recognize the opportunity — is that this district is incredibly diverse. Paradoxically, Democrats in Washington have long believed that their emerging coalition relies heavily on minority voters, but when they gaze toward the suburbs, they see white people, and that's not the complexion of this Houston suburb. Fort Bend County is 65 percent minority, with almost equal amounts of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans. Within those large banners are dozens of subgroups; Kulkarni's campaign estimates that 100 languages are spoken within the district. Churches mix with temples and mosques, fast-food joints with biryani restaurants along the main boulevards. "We don't look like Texas now, but this is what it will look like in 20 or 30 years," Kulkarni said.
Though Asian-Americans have trended sharply left in the last decade, these communities have largely been ignored in politics. Those who do vote in the affluent district vote Republican. Consultants and strategists don't see enough return on investment to put in the effort to raise historically low turnout. "When I ask people why they haven't voted before, I get variations of them saying, 'No one ever talked to me about it,'" said volunteer Nathan Truong.
Doing the outreach properly would require a small army of campaign workers. Who could inspire so many people to engage so deeply? The answer is Sri Preston Kulkarni, who is almost preternaturally situated to organize a place like this. "Sri is an Asian Barack Obama. When you hear him speak, that's it," said Ali Hasanali, a second-generation Indian-American who joined the campaign early.
Kulkarni spent 14 years in the foreign service, with tours in Iraq, Israel, Russia, Taiwan, and Jamaica. He speaks six languages fluently (English, Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, Hebrew, and Russian). Hasanali told me about Kulkarni visiting the Texas Democratic Party convention, discussing working in Iraq at the Muslim caucus, and cracking jokes in Hebrew at the Jewish caucus. Kulkarni has also practiced his diplomatic skills in conflict zones. "In Iraq, I sat across the table from a person funding roadside bombs," he said. "I was literally sitting next to the man trying to kill me! If I can talk to him, I can talk to anyone."
Few other candidates have this life experience, and it could prove useful in Washington. But Kulkarni, whose political experience consists of a brief fellowship working for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., on the Senate Armed Services Committee, had to get past a five-person field in the Democratic primary. He charted a path to victory by activating dormant, cloistered communities across the district who hadn't traditionally turned out, especially for midterm elections.
"There was a study that spent several years figuring out how to get people who don't vote to vote," Kulkarni said. "They found that you needed to talk to them. Big surprise!"
Kulkarni, along with a core campaign team of second-generation immigrants and millennials, had a fundamental insight: Nobody views themselves as solely Asian-American. East Asians from the Philippines, China, and Taiwan had to be approached differently from South Asians from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Even within that, there are sub-groups from the Indian subcontinent, like Gujaratis, Punjabis, and Bengalis. And all of these cultures are represented in the 22nd District.
The campaign took a list of 85,000 registered Asian-American voters and manually broke it down into as many categories as possible, whether by religion or ethnicity or homeland or personal knowledge from volunteers. "We were figuring it out from last names," said Kulkarni. "This person is Patel, they come from this region. This one is Subramanian. The Ismaili Muslims, they're a sect of the Shia and you can tell from the names."
Campaign volunteers for Sri Kulkarni place address labels on postcard mailers during a Rockets watch party at Bar Louie in Sugar Land, Texas on May 8, 2018.
Photo: Pu Ying Huang
After the categorizing, they split the voter lists into notebooks and designated volunteers to speak to people within their communities. Gujaratis would call Gujaratis. Urdu speakers would call Urdu speakers.
Meera Kapur, a Punjabi-American Kulkarni volunteer, related the micro-targeting to a campaign she worked on two decades ago for Martha Wong, the first Asian-American on the Houston City Council. "In those days we were a smaller community; we would go door to door and talk to our friends," Kapur said. "It's just going to the places where a lot of people are who don't pay attention. On their grounds, where they feel comfortable."
Kapur said she would not always start phone bank conversations in Punjabi, but downshift into it along the way. Others, like Nathan Truong, open with "xin chào" as a general hello greeting for Vietnamese speakers, or "Ni hao" for Chinese. He saw it as a sign of respect, making people comfortable with the messenger and subsequently, the message. Just pronouncing someone's name properly or throwing in a common phrase can earn that trust. "From my time in the classroom, effort goes a long way," Truong said.
The campaign believes that they've increased phone bank response rates between twofold and fivefold. The outreach led Kulkarni to the top 30 percent in the five-way primary, and over 60 percent in the runoff to take the nomination. "We were told that the easiest way to lose is go after voters who don't vote," Kulkarni said. "We did this on our own with a strategy that they said can't win. It's like, tell me one more of your conventional wisdom rules."
For the general election, Kulkarni has expanded the scale. "Instead of just phone banking, we take a group, like the Gujarati list or 18-year-olds in a certain high school," he explained. "I give [a volunteer] this list of voters, and I say, identify the people you know on that list. If you can identify 300, I'm not going to have you randomly phone bank, you're going to call the people you know. If they don't show up on the first day of voting, you're going to call them as someone who knows them directly."
The campaign has filtered by social network: Chinese-Americans tend to use WeChat, while South Asians use WhatsApp. They've deputized high school volunteers to cover their circles of friends. They've organized within temples and mosques, and professional organizations for people of color. In master-planned communities, they've found individuals in homeowner associations who know all the families. It's hyperlocal targeting to friends, and friends of friends, as an offline complement to social networking. It's all designed to get someone with a direct connection in front of voters.
"We find actual community leaders to be the organizing force for specific communities," said Hasanali, who has honed this technique at a smaller scale on campaigns in Fort Bend County since 2010. "You can't have token representation. That never gets you community-based knowledge that someone in the community does."
That Kulkarni can even attempt this strategy is a testament to his success as an organizer. "Building a volunteer corps that can reach out in this many languages proves there's a connection," said Maria Urbina, political director for Indivisible, which has backed Kulkarni. "That's why we're excited about him, he's not just chasing the same people."
Kulkarni likes to emphasize different aspects of his platform depending on his audience. For Indian-Americans, he finds that everyone knows someone with an H1-B or H-4 work permit visa issue, so he highlights that. With Chinese-American groups, he discusses family reunification (what Trump calls "chain migration"). For Latino groups, it's family separation at the border.
Other issues cut across groups. "We all care about health care, we all care about keeping kids safe," said Renée Mathew. Kulkarni can draw on local and personal experience here. Santa Fe High School, where 10 were killed in a mass shooting, is just outside the district. And when Kulkarni was 18, his father contracted leukemia, and being the oldest son, he dropped out of college to care for him. His father died the next year, and the family needed donations to stay out of bankruptcy. "Medicare for All" is the top issue on his website.
But Kulkarni also points to pride as a way to rally voters around someone who would be the first Asian-American member of Congress from Texas in history. "In Hinduism we have the concept of dharma, obligation or duty, all cultures have that," he said. "If you appeal to that feeling of communal responsibility, people will be more motivated to show up."
He continued. "We have people who speak Tamil; in the primary they were saying that all Tamils will show up. We showed them that only 30 percent turned out in the primary. Now they're all extra-motivated, they want to show us that they'll turn out!"
Rep. Pete Olson speaks during a press conference with Texas Republicans following the House vote on Hurricane Harvey relief Washington, D.C., on Sept. 6, 2017.
Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/AP
Kulkarni's campaign doesn't merely run on intense volunteer organizing. He has raised over $1 million without taking corporate PAC money, well outpacing Pete Olson, his Republican opponent, in the most recent fundraising quarter (half of Olson's cash comes from corporate PACs). He earned an endorsement from the Houston Chronicle editorial board, with the board raving that Kulkarni "represents our politics at its best."
Olson, on the other hand, didn't show up to the editorial board and is seen by many in the district as a non-entity. Elected in 2008, Olson has named his two greatest accomplishments as a bill he wrote to reverse ozone standards that has yet to pass, and the renaming of a post office. "A countywide Republican official told me, 'You know what they call people like Olson in Congress?'" asked Hasanali. "Office furniture."
In a video of a meet-and-greet with local supporters in Sugar Land, supplied by the Kulkarni campaign, Olson calls his opponent a "liberal, liberal, liberal Indo-American who's a carpetbagger." Kulkarni was abroad in the foreign service and then in Washington and at Harvard's Kennedy School until 2017, but he was born and raised in the district and literally has familial ties to a founding son of the state. Says Kulkarni, "When Olson said I was an Indo-American carpetbagger, my mom said, 'Why not ask him if he's related to Sam Houston?'"
Olson continues in the video to question Kulkarni's raising of money from "a group called Act Blue." Apparently unaware of the fundraising tool for Democratic candidates, Olson marvels that "somehow the other side has arranged for people to send money to this group in Massachusetts, to send it all across the country." And he further intimates that the money must be "coming from overseas" or through some other illegal means.
Olson speaks to supporters at Big Ben Tavern on August 1, 2018, referring to Kulkarni as an Indo-American "carpetbagger" getting donations from "a group called Act Blue." Video: Kulkarni Campaign
"You don't assume when you get a donation from someone with the name Murphy that it's coming from Ireland," said David Manners-Weber, Kulkarni's campaign manager. "We have a lot of diverse supporters who are Americans."
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It was not the first time Republicans in the area have used ethnicity as a club in the Kulkarni race. Earlier in the campaign, Olson blamed Pakistanis for 9/11, later calling it "accidental." Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. Kulkarni saw it as a way to pit traditionally adversarial communities, like Pakistanis and Indians, against one another. More recently, the Fort Bend Republican Party had to apologize for a campaign ad likening the Hindu deity Ganesh to the GOP elephant.
Olson wrapped up his talk this way: "We're going to make sure they don't turn this county blue because that's their dream. … Mrs. Clinton won this county by 10,000 votes in 2016. Democrats saw that. And they know if they can put a blue tinge, a little purple, on Fort Bend County, they may be able to take Texas. If they take Texas, guess what happens? We never, ever have a person like Donald Trump in the White House."
Said Kulkarni: "Sounds good to me!"
Campaign volunteers for Sri Kulkarni call constituents to discuss their plans for voting at the Kulkarni campaign office on May 8, 2018. in Sugar Land, Texas.
The volunteers, all unpaid, span generations, occupations, and electoral experience. Most have never worked on campaigns before. Kulkarni has attracted mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters, and numerous members of his extended family. There are Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipinos, Indians of all ethnicities, African-Americans, Latinos, and yes, some whites.
Renée Mathew reflects the campaign's spirit. She's white; her ex-husband is from south India; her son, like Kulkarni, is a polyglot, working on his sixth language and studying abroad in China. She has held campaign meetings in her house and provided a couch for field organizers. She praises Kulkarni for his "compassion, reason, and decency," and ability to disagree with respect. "It's the most exciting thing I've ever seen," she said.
Even if Kulkarni doesn't succeed, the campaign will leave an infrastructure in place for the future: from waves of new Democratic voters locally, to interns and organizers schooled in community engagement who can replicate it anywhere in America. When you activate communities, that switch rarely turns off.
I asked Ali Hasanali, who has been banging away at this strategy for a decade, what it would mean to win. "I think for me personally it would be a lifelong dream," he said. "I have had people yell at me, call me a terrorist in public school. This would be a sign that change is possible. If you trust your instincts and do community building, you can see dividends being paid."
David Dayen[email protected]prospect.org@ddayen


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Home Kobe Bryant Officially Out For The Season; Set To Miss Nine Months
Kobe Bryant Officially Out For The Season; Set To Miss Nine Months
Lakers Vs. Bulls Preview: Pau Gasol Returns Home
Five-time NBA champion Kobe Bryant underwent season-ending surgery on his right shoulder on Wednesday after suffering a torn rotator cuff in the loss to the New Orleans Pelicans last week.
— Have You Seen These LIMITED EDITION "Try Me" T-Shirts? —
As a result of the surgery, Bryant will have a timetable of approximately nine months, according to Bill Oram of the Orange County Register:
Lakers announce the inevitable: Kobe Bryant surgery successful. The twist: He is expected to be out approximately nine months.
— Bill Oram (@billoram) January 28, 2015
With Kobe on the shelf for the rest of the season, the Lakers will likely have Wayne Ellington take over as the starting shooting guard moving forward. Ellington is coming off his best performance as a Laker recording a career-high 28 points against the visiting Washington Wizards on Tuesday.
As for Kobe, there's no telling what the future holds for the future Hall of Famer. If all goes well, Bryant will be healthy and ready to go for the start of the 2015-16 NBA season.
Along with rehabbing from shoulder surgery during the off-season, Bryant will be actively recruiting free agents to the Lakers. The team will have a considerable amount of cap space at their disposal this summer with a few All-Star-caliber players set to hit the free agent market.
Bryant's recruiting of players like Rajon Rondo, Marc Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge might help the team bring in another star player of two. Unfortunately for the Lakers, there's no guarantee the team can reload quickly, but Kobe's involvement could improve their chances.
Lakers Rookie Jordan Clarkson On His Development
Lakers Injury News: Dennis Schroder Not Worried About Sprained Ankle
The Los Angeles Lakers continued their strong start to the preseason, rallying from behind in the fourth quarter to…
NBA Rumors: Nicolas Batum Prefers To Remain With Hornets?
With the salary cap set to make a huge jump this summer, a number of players are set to cash in big…
Lakers News: Anthony Davis Wanted To 'Dominate' Against Spurs In Afternoon Game
Anthony Davis was visibly frustrated and upset after the Los Angeles Lakers' blowout loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves…
Lakers Starting 14-Day Quarantine And Waiting For Coronavirus Test Results Now
One week ago, NBA commissioner Adam Silver suspended the 2019-20 season shortly after Rudy Gobert tested positive…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Vascular Surgeon Tim Chuter Honored with 2017 Jacobson Innovation Award
UCSF Vascular & Endovascular Surgery - by Richard Barg - June 15, 2017
Timothy A.M. Chuter, BM BS, DM, FACS, Professor of Surgery in the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, has been honored with the 2017 Jacobson Innovation Award by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) for his pioneering work, spanning many decades, in the field of endovascular aneurysm repair. Dr. Chuter received the award, which honors living surgeons who have been innovators of a new development or technique in any field of surgery, at a dinner held in his honor by the ACS on June 9 in Chicago. The award is made possible through a gift from Julius H. Jacobson II, MD, FACS, a general vascular surgeon known for his pioneering work in the development of microsurgery, and his wife Joan.
Dr. Chuter, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS), was honored with this international surgical award in recognition of his innovations in the field of endovascular aneurysm repair. He was the first to design, develop, and implant bifurcated stent grafts as a treatment for abdominal aortic aneurysms. The ACS, described the approach, a hallmark of Dr. Chuter's inventions, as embodying a very simple principle:
If the aneurysm has branches–as it does at the bifurcation of the common iliac artery, the bifurcation of the aorta, the arch of the aorta, and the thoracoabdominal aorta–the endovascular prosthesis should also have branches. Because the most common site for aortic aneurysm involves the distal abdominal aorta, bifurcated endovascular repair has become the most accepted method of aneurysm repair worldwide.
Importantly, Dr. Chuter's devices and surgical techniques made aneurysm repair possible in patients who might otherwise have had no effective treatment options.
Dr. Courtney M. Townsend, Jr. (right), President of the American College of Surgeons, presents Dr. Timothy A.M. Chuter (left) with the 2017 Jacobson Innovation Award
Between 1993 and 2000, there was rapid expansion in the scope of endovascular aneurysm repair including the first endovascular repair of a ruptured aortic aneurysm (1994), the first endovascular repair of an aortobronchial fistula (1995), the first bifurcated stent grafts (1993), the first inflammatory aneurysms (1995), the first fenestrated stent grafts for aneurysms of the pararenal aorta (1998), and the first branched stent grafts for the thoracoabdominal aorta (2000). Although none was the work of a single inventor, Dr. Chuter's trailblazing work was pivotal in this rarefied period of surgical breakthroughs, not simply by his invention of new forms of endovascular aneurysm repair, but also through his mentoring of surgical residents, fellows, and faculty.
Notably, Dr. Chuter has nurtured his inventions from conceptualization to life-saving therapeutic interventions. In addition to pioneering the minimally invasive approaches to endovascular aneurysm repair, he invented and patented the very stent grafts that are utilized in the surgery.
Dr. Chuter has been recognized for his work in the field throughout his career: by the Royal College of Surgeons (Kinmonth Medal, 1995), the Society for Vascular Surgery (Medal for Innovation in Vascular Surgery, 2008) and the Society for Endovascular Therapy (2009). Dr. Chuter holds more than 40 patents, including 23 related to endovascular aortic stent-graft devices, stents, attachment systems, delivery systems, and component junctions.
San Francisco Surgeon Dr. Timothy Chuter Receives the 2017 Jacobson Innovation Award of the American College of Surgeons (Official Announcement)
Tags: Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Endovascular Aneurysm Repair Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm Thoracoabdominal Aneurysm
People: Timothy A. M. Chuter, M.D.
Adam Oskowitz, MD, PhD Awarded $400,000 R21 Trailblazer Award
Tim Chuter Lauded For Invention of Life-Saving Stent to Repair Aortic Aneurysms
Expanding the Options for Treating Complex Aortic Aneurysms
Tim Chuter Presented SVS Medal for Innovation in Vascular Surgery
Endovascular Aneurysm Repair
Thoracoabdominal Aneurysm


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Nogoyá es un departamento de la provincia de Entre Ríos en la República Argentina. Es el octavo más pequeño de la provincia con una superficie de 4282 km² y el séptimo menos poblado, con 39 026 habitantes según censo de 2010.

Limita al oeste con el departamento Diamante, al norte con los departamentos Paraná y Villaguay, al sur con los departamentos Victoria y Gualeguay y al este con el departamento Tala. El departamento es atravesado por el arroyo Nogoyá.

De acuerdo a la metodología utilizada por el INDEC para los censos de 1991, 2001 y 2010 el departamento Nogoyá comprendió 8 localidades: Aranguren, Betbeder o Villa Matilde, Don Cristóbal (en la jurisdicción de Don Cristóbal 2°), Febre, Hernández, Lucas González, Nogoyá, XX de Septiembre.

Historia
En 1782 el sacerdote Fernando Andrés Quiroga y Taboada, cura de Gualeguay, decidió la construcción de una capilla para los habitantes de la zona, iniciando oficialmente el poblado de Carmen del Nogoyá.

El 25 de junio de 1813 la Asamblea del Año XIII otorgó a Paraná la categoría de villa, constituyéndose el cabildo el 1 de octubre, quedando Nogoyá dentro de su jurisdicción, pero pocos meses después José Eusebio Hereñú reconoció a José Gervasio Artigas como Protector de los Pueblos Libres desconociendo la dependencia de la Tenencia de Gobierno de Santa Fe y quedando Justo Pastor Hereñú como comandante de Nogoyá desde febrero de 1814. Luego se sucedieron los comandantes militares.

Durante la República de Entre Ríos Nogoyá fue uno de los partidos del departamento del Paraná, creado en 1820 por Francisco Ramírez.

Mediante el Plan de división de los Departamentos de la Provincia de Entre Ríos del 6 de diciembre de 1821, (ley sancionada por el congreso el 17 de febrero de 1822) el gobernador Lucio Norberto Mansilla dividió la provincia en dos departamentos principales subdivididos en departamentos subalternos. Dos de los cuales englobaban al futuro Departamento Nogoyá:

El Departamento N° 3 tenía cabecera en el pueblo de Nogoyá. La administración de justicia estaba a cargo de un alcalde mayor en Nogoyá, del que dependían dos alcaldes mayores de hermandad en La Matanza y la campaña.

El 26 de agosto de 1826 una ley del Congreso Provincial sancionada a propuesta de Justo José de Urquiza, elevó al rango de villa varios pueblos, entre ellos Nogoyá.

Mediante la sanción del Reglamento de Administración de Justicia del 13 de abril de 1849, Urquiza realizó una nueva división administrativa de la provincia, creando el departamento Nogoyá y separando a Victoria de su jurisdicción:

Tras la desfederalización de Entre Ríos, el 21 de septiembre de 1860 fue sancionada la ley que creó las jefaturas políticas en cada departamento, siendo el jefe político un representante del poder ejecutivo a cuyas órdenes estaban los comisarios policiales y los alcaldes de distrito en sus funciones políticas. El 16 de enero de 1861 a propuesta del jefe político el gobernador Urquiza decretó para el departamento Nogoyá el nombramiento de un juez de paz, 3 alcaldes de los cuarteles 1°, 2° y 3° y 7 alcaldes de los distritos Chañar, Algarrobitos, Don Cristóbal, Crucesita, Chiqueros, Sauce y Montoya.

Una ley del congreso provincial sancionada el 3 de mayo de 1867 fijó el límite entre los departamentos Victoria y Nogoyá:

De acuerdo a un decreto de nombramientos del 18 de mayo de 1868 el departamento Nogoyá tenía un juez de paz y 4 alcaldes de cuartel denominados 1°, 2°, 3°, y 4° Sección en la villa de Nogoyá, y alcaldes de los distritos de campaña numerados del 1 al 6.

El 21 de junio de 1979 la intervención militar de la provincia sancionó y promulgó la ley n.º 6378 que rectificó y precisó los límites interdepartamentales. El límite entre los departamentos Diamante y Nogoyá que se apoyaba en la ruta n.º 131 fue rectificado para dejar en el departamento Diamante la totalidad de las localidades de Camps y de General Ramírez. Un sector del departamento Nogoyá en el área de la localidad de Aranguren fue transferido al de Victoria. El límite entre los departamentos Nogoyá y Gualeguay que se apoyaba en los arroyos Ají y Barrancosa fue remplazado por una línea recta. Aunque el decreto-ley n.º 6378 perdió eficacia el 10 de diciembre de 1987 al no ser prorrogada su vigencia, los límites quedaron legalmente retrotraídos a los existentes al 24 de marzo de 1976 (excepto los legislados posteriormente en democracia). Sin embargo, los organismos públicos provinciales y nacionales continuaron utilizando los límites dispuestos por ese decreto-ley sin revertir a los límites previos.

Gobiernos locales

Municipios

Comunas

Centros rurales de población
Los centros rurales de población gobernados por juntas de gobierno son:
Segunda categoría
 Crucesitas Octava: creado el 13 de septiembre de 1984. Población rural dispersa.
 Distrito Sauce: creado el 2 de noviembre de 1984. Población rural dispersa.
 Don Cristóbal Primero: población rural dispersa.
 Justo José de Urquiza: población rural dispersa.
Tercera categoría
 Aldea San Miguel: creado el 2 de mayo de 1984. Población rural dispersa.
 Crucesitas Séptima: creado el 19 de junio de 1985. Población rural dispersa.
 Crucesitas Tercera: creado el 7 de agosto de 1984. Población rural dispersa.
Cuarta categoría
 Betbeder: creado el 4 de octubre de 1984
 Distrito Chiqueros: población rural dispersa.
 Laurencena: creado el 4 de mayo de 1998. Población rural dispersa.

Los integrantes de las juntas de gobierno fueron designados por decreto del gobernador hasta que fueron elegidos por primera vez el 23 de noviembre de 2003, sin embargo, dado que los circuitos electorales en algunos casos no coinciden con las jurisdicciones de las juntas de gobierno algunas de ellas siguen siendo designadas por decreto mientras que otras se agrupan para elegir una sola junta. En este último caso el gobierno se reserva el derecho de realizar posteriormente la designación de la o las juntas subsumidas. En las elecciones del 23 de noviembre de 2003, 18 de marzo de 2007, 23 de octubre de 2011 y 25 de octubre de 2015 Justo José de Urquiza y Crucesitas Séptima eligieron una única junta de gobierno, lo mismo que Laurencena y Distrito Chiqueros. Sin embargo, el gobierno provincial designó integrantes de Laurencena por decreto n.º 7442/2004 MGJEOYSP del 29 de diciembre de 2004.

Los circuitos electorales utilizados para las elecciones de las juntas de gobierno son (CIRCUITO ELECTORAL: junta de gobierno):

 113-DON CRISTÓBAL 1.ª. SECCIÓN: Don Cristóbal Primero
 116-ALDEA SAN MIGUEL: Aldea San Miguel
 119-BETBEDER: Betbeder
 120-CRUCESITAS 3.ª. SECCIÓN: Crucesitas Tercera
 121-CRUCESITAS 7.ª. SECCIÓN: Justo José de Urquiza y Crucesitas Séptima
 122-CRUCESITAS 8.ª. SECCIÓN: Crucesitas Octava
 125-SAUCE: Distrito Sauce
 127-CHIQUEROS: Laurencena y Distrito Chiqueros

El circuito electoral 115-ALGARROBITOS corresponde a un área no organizada en la que no se elige un gobierno local.

Distritos
El departamento Nogoyá se divide en 6 distritos. Para fines de mensuras catastrales y en algunas ramas de la administración provincial el ejido original del municipio de Nogoyá es considerado aparte de los distritos y la Codificación General de Jurisdicciones Político Administrativas de la Provincia de Entre Ríos le asigna el código 0900.

 Algarrobitos: comprende el ejido municipal de Aranguren, la parte norte del de Nogoyá, y la mayor parte del de Hernández; el área jurisdiccional del centro rural de población de Aldea San Miguel, y el área no organizada del circuito electoral Algarrobitos.
 Chiqueros: comprende las áreas jurisdiccionales de los centros rurales de población de Laurencena y de Distrito Chiqueros.
 Crucesitas: comprende las áreas jurisdiccionales de los centros rurales de población de Crucesitas 3°, Crucesitas 7°, Crucesitas 8° y Justo José de Urquiza.
 Don Cristóbal: comprende el área jurisdiccional de la comuna de Don Cristóbal 2° y el área jurisdiccional del centro rural de población de Don Cristóbal 1°.
 Montoya: comprende una pequeña parte del ejido municipal de Hernández, y la parte sur del de Nogoyá, el área jurisdiccional de la comuna de Febre y el área jurisdiccional del centro rural de población de Betbeder.
 Sauce: comprende el ejido municipal de Lucas González, el área jurisdiccional de la comuna de XX de Septiembre y el área jurisdiccional del centro rural de población de Sauce.

Áreas naturales protegidas
Como parte del Sistema Provincial de Áreas Protegidas se hallan en el departamento el 2 áreas naturales autóctonas preservadas con categoría de reservas privadas de usos múltiples:
 Reserva privada de uso múltiple El Chañar: de 75 ha, fue creada en 1996.
 Reserva de usos múltiples La Lydia: de 340,5 ha, fue creada el 16 de junio de 2009.

Referencias

Enlaces externos

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Prissy Percy protests politely
Don't go there!
It was an informal after-hours gathering at a colleague's house. We lapsed into talking shop, cheerfully describing the foibles of absent colleagues and the sins of wayward students. I began to recount the tale of a peevish student who got upset near the end of the semester that I would not guarantee his A in the class.
He was one of those extremely bright and extremely lazy students who had never had to break into a sweat in any of his previous classes, so he was offended that matters were proving to be just a little more difficult in calculus. He also liked to arrive late or skip class, so it was extremely unfair of me to average in zeros for all the assignments and quizzes he had missed. He was at risk of getting a B if he did not blow the doors off the final exam. It made him very unhappy.
Could I guarantee his A? No. Could he withdraw from the class? No; too late. He did not come back to class after our discussion and I noticed that he had magically vanished from my class roster. Somehow he had finagled special permission to wipe the slate clean despite having missed the drop deadline. I was deeply dismayed that someone had been willing to pull strings on the little prima donna's behalf, ensuring further postponement of a lesson in responsibility that he seriously needed to learn. In fact, I was more than dismayed. I was angered by his success at gaming the system. I told my colleagues:
"That little shit worked some angle and managed to talk a lamebrain flunky in administrative services into preserving his delicate little butt from the risk of getting a demerit on his transcript."
My complaint was greeted with knowing chuckles. My colleagues had all met such students. One of my listeners, however, had a bemused smile on his face for a different reason.
"Hey, didn't anyone notice? Zee said 'shit.' Jesus Christ, Zeno, how much did that little fucker piss you off if you're starting to swear now?"
Busted! My exceedingly observant colleague was correct. I probably have the cleanest mouth in the math department. Perhaps the entire school. Hell, in all of North America, with the possible exception of a few convents. It rather sets me apart from my fellow math professors. It sure as hell sets me apart from my students. (Notice how I use "hell" for emphatic stress as if it still retains some currency as a profanity? Heck, how sad is that?)
My students, both male and female, litter their language with the f-word and don't even bat an eye. They stroll by with their cell phones stuck in their ears and the profanity flows freely and casually. Fascinating. That's how denatured profanity has become. F-bombs used to create shock waves in my youth. Today there's barely a tremor.
I never use the f-word myself (see how demurely I use the euphemism?), with minor exceptions for when I'm quoting others (see above, for example, or Dick Cheney). And the time when a young friend died as we sat vigil in the intensive care unit. On that occasion I combined it with some suitable blasphemy, which might have offended God if only he had remembered to exist.
It's perhaps even worse that I am a liberal blogger. I don't fit in. My leftish peers are decidedly more pungent in their prose than than those who describe themselves as wingnuts—I mean, conservatives. (Sorry.) The right-wing blogs even take quite a bit of pride in how clean their language is. Frankly, I think they should pay more attention to what they say than how they say it, but that appears not to concern them. (I guess it's okay to support torture if you say it nicely.)
My Listerined language is yet another item on the tally sheet that suggests I could be a repressed right-winger. I don't drink. I don't use drugs (except for those which are duly prescribed by a physician). I don't sport any tattoos or piercings. My hair is short. I often wear ties. I am thoroughly white-bread retro-conventional. I could infiltrate a Republican gathering without anyone being the wiser. (Of course, I'd have to bone up on my profanity if I were slipping into a meeting of McCain's campaign leadership.)
I was even mistaken for a Mormon once.
Even so, I have no big plans to change. I'm perfectly happy with my clean-mouthed lifestyle, supplemented as it is by a simply enormous vocabulary. There may even be advantages. For example, an epithet like "shithead" would just roll off my kid brother's back, but "microcephalic imbecile" always seemed to offend him quite satisfactorily.
My avoidance of Carlin's notorious seven dirty words may be a slight handicap, and will surely prevent my becoming a celebrated rap artist, but I'll manage somehow. And frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
Posted by Zeno at 8:00 PM 6 comments:
Labels: language, life, weird students
Naked bankers
And no dollar bills for figleaves
The whole family was quite surprised when my nephew grew up to become a Washington Mutual mortgage broker. My nephew not excepted. After all, "Mike Chamberlain" had had a stellar career as a college clown and academic cut-up. Truly, we never saw it coming.
He recently send me a message from within the dyspeptic bowels of the American financial industry:
Hey uncle,
Well, yesterday was indeed very difficult... I realized that I was out of "Laughing Cow" brand cheese, oh yeah, and my company folded.
For now, it's business as usual. On Chase's investor call last night, I learned that they maintain a similar model to ours with a focus on home loan origination from bank branches. The question at hand is whether those loan consultants report to the branch managers or if they have separate management (i.e. - me).
A sharp operator like me always has a back-up plan... I have a firm offer from Wells already. Time will tell...
Mike was remarkably successful in his career in the financial sector. Even before turning thirty he had been elevated from the cubicle farm of the office drones into the ranks of junior management. Mike had dark suspicions about why there was so much room at the top. He figured that incompetence was thinning out the executive ranks. It seems likely that he was correct. Unfortunately, plenty of incompetents were left.
I recall that Mike was puzzled at the fondness among his colleagues in the loan division for poorly secured adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). He regarded them as dicey instruments and described the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage as "the gold standard of the industry." (I have, mercifully, a gold-standard mortgage. Thanks, Mike!) He did, of course, understand what was at the bottom of the enthusiasm for creative financing. ARMs made it possible for more prospective homeowners to persuade themselves (with the help of a friendly broker) that buying a home was feasible.
Mike tells me that many of his senior colleagues have had their retirement plans shattered by the failure of Washington Mutual, their 401(k) accounts stuffed with now-worthless WaMu paper. It may well be a condign punishment, if the people who hoped to profit by pushing clients into untenably creative financing are now beggared by the collapse of same. As Mike says, "They were wiped out"
And what about Mike and his own 401(k) portfolio? Not to worry. The boy knows a poor risk when he sees one, both in potential mortgage customers and investment opportunities:
Fortunately for me, I had only bought a handful of [WaMu] shares years ago and selected other investments… which have been growing at a rate of -15% ytd. Yeah!
Minus fifteen percent? That's a hell of a lot better than a wipeout, isn't it? Whoo hoo!
Posted by Zeno at 6:00 PM 1 comment:
The return of the crypto-Republican
Not since the 1950s has the California legislature been a hospitable environment for Republicans. Since the election of 1958, when the Democrats under Pat Brown surged into power, the GOP has seldom commanded a majority of the seats in either house of the Golden State's legislature. The only significant exception is a pair of years, 1969 and 1970, when Republican Bob Monagan held the gavel as Speaker of the Assembly and Howard Way and Jack Schrade took turns presiding over the State Senate as presidents pro tempore. In addition, there was a comical interlude in the State Assembly in parts of 1995 and 1996, when three different Republicans served as Speaker of the Assembly; two of those were GOP renegades installed with Democratic votes and the third utterly failed to consolidate his power before the Democrats regained their majority.
During one point in the 1970s, when Republican legislative fortunes were at a particularly low ebb, the Democrats enjoyed a two-thirds majority in the assembly. Even the arrival of the so-called "Proposition 13 babies" in 1978 merely trimmed rather than toppled the Democratic majorities. In the early 70s, therefore, it was an amusing but trivial game to identify the political affiliation of legislative candidates by examining their signs and posters. Democratic candidates simply said "Democrat for Assembly" or "Democrat for State Senate" on their placards. If no party affiliation was given, however, you could be certain it was a Republican hoping to sneak into the legislature. Being a member of the GOP wasn't exactly poison, but it wasn't any big help outside of Orange County. Not in those days.
Have those days returned? Greg Aghazarian is an incumbent assemblyman and the Republican nominee for a state senate seat. His campaign website, however, is stripped clean of any sign that Aghazarian is a proud member of the Republican Party. His campaign bio does not mention the GOP at all. His latest campaign spot, a television ad being broadcast across a big chunk of northern California, not only neglects to mention he is the Republican candidate, the ad itself is a pitch to formally remove partisan labels from legislative elections.
Is that even a good idea? Aghazarian argues that legislative races should be like those for county boards of supervisors or city councils—officially nonpartisan. I suspect it wouldn't work. In the big cities, like Los Angeles and San Francisco, the candidates are well-known by party affiliation, even if their party's name is absent from the ballot. Nonpartisan legislative races would not be any more neutral than that. Perhaps Aghazarian just wants the potential advantage of not being labeled a Republican. Under current law in California, his party affiliation will appear next to his name on the election ballot.
It's true, of course, that the rising numbers of independent voters make party affiliation less valuable than it used to be for the Democrats. I checked out the campaign website of Aghazarian's opponent, Democratic assemblywoman Lois Wolk. It's fairly easy to detect that she is a Democrat by virtue of blurbs like "Wolk easily wins Democratic nod for 5th District Senate Race," quoted on her endorsement page. Nevertheless, Wolk does not go out of her way to highlight her partisan bent, the way a Democratic candidate would have done in the days when it was literally the majority party in California (and not just the plurality party).
Perhaps we are moving into a post-partisan political environment. Perhaps Aghazarian is on to something. More likely, though, he's trying for a political upset in a senate district that contains a big liberal Democratic community clustered around the Davis campus of the University of California. I think he's a duck-and-cover Republican in the mold of those stealth GOP candidates of the 1970s. The election returns next month will indicate whether his move was a wise one.
If you live in the 5th Senate District in California, don't forget to vote for Wolk.
Posted by Zeno at 11:00 PM 1 comment:
Labels: California, politics, Republicans, spin
Tissue of truth
As opposed to tissue of lies
Theologians are familiar with the Kleenex box as one of the more compelling proofs of the existence of God. After all, if there is no God, then who keeps pushing up the next tissue? It makes you think!
I was thinking about tissues recently. Or, more correctly, I was stanching a nose bleed and thinking about why so many people insist on mistakenly saying "staunch" (hearty or solid) in place of "stanch" (quell or block). The words are even different parts of speech. I crumpled up the bloody tissue and reached for the next one—but it was not there. Had God failed me? No. The box was merely empty.
I fumbled around in the cabinet under the bathroom counter and found a box that had been pushed toward the back. I winkled it out, tore out the perforated slot, and pulled out a fresh tissue. As I did, the next tissue popped up. (Thanks, God!) And a savings coupon for my next purchase of Kleenex also fluttered out. (Thanks, Kimberly Clark!)
Then I noticed something. Date of expiration: October 31, 2000.
Okay, this was one coupon I wouldn't be using. The box of Kleenex had evidently been lurking in my bathroom cabinet since the final days of the Clinton administration. The notion seized me and wouldn't let go for several minutes.
Eight years ago George Bush was not president and none of his disasters had befallen us. My cousin was alive and in high school, thinking of joining the military after college. The twin towers of the World Trade Center stood in New York City and I was going to see them the next summer, just before they were brought down. John McCain had lost all credibility by embracing the man who had abused him during the primary campaign and was due to retire in luxury and obscurity. And I had never heard of an Illinois state senator named Barack Obama. I didn't have a doctorate. My one-year-old nephew was in the middle of a custody tug-of-war that would continue till he was two. My colleague in the math department was robustly healthy and had no idea her pancreas was going to betray her.
Then I wiped my nose. The bleeding had stopped.
If only everyone could say that.
Posted by Zeno at 8:00 PM 17 comments:
Labels: life, politics
Puddinghead Union
The Twain never met
In the 1970s and 1980s, I used to see the Sacramento Union among the newspapers stacked in the lobbies of most legislative offices in the State Capitol and on the desks of most bureaucrats. In those days one used to read the Sacramento Bee to get a moderately liberal perspective on state government and the Sacramento Union for the moderately conservative alternative. The handwriting, however, was already on the newsprint.
The Union was devolving into a propaganda organ for the most conservative elements of the Republican Party. When Richard Mellon Scaife purchased the paper from the Copley News Service, the Union became less and less like the pioneering journal that once published the dispatches of a roving reporter named Mark Twain (whose bronze bust once dominated the entryway of the Union building on Capitol Mall). The news articles became more and more difficult to distinguish from the hectoring editorials on the opinion page. Scaife lost money as Union circulation suffered in head-to-head competition with McClatchy's Bee, which had switched to morning publication.
Scaife finally bailed out at the end of the 1980s and the new owners delivered the coup de grace by installing the wacky Joseph Farah as editor. (Farah now presides over the on-line dispenser of right-wing talking points known as WorldNetDaily—though referred to fondly as WorldNutDaily by its admirers.) The Union never recovered either its senses or its circulation. By 1994 the newspaper was dead.
While the state capital had effectively been a one-newspaper town for a few years before the Union officially expired, its formal demise had a bad impact on its rival. The Sacramento Bee lost its editorial focus now that it was the region's only major daily newspaper, trying to be all things to all people. California's conservatives, however, bereft of their steady diet of Union rants, were in no mood to accept a pallid substitute that dutifully published conservative columnists as a sop to their sensibilities. To this day they continue to decry what they call the Bee's left-wing bias. It's a figment of their imagination. In its declining years, the Bee is just another struggling middle-of-the-road rag owned by a media corporation. A little red-meat liberalism would do the paper good.
Since its tragic death, there have been several attempts to revive the Sacramento Union, perhaps in hopes of saving California's capital from the forces of tepid Sacramento Bee liberalism-lite. The current Union revenant is a mewling Voldemortian weekly tabloid that occasionally appears in the free-to-take newsracks next to its much more robust rival, the leftist Sacramento News & Review. Both newspapers have Web editions that permit those of us who live outside the capital's immediate sphere of influence to enjoy their reports and editorials. But be wary. You'll never get back those minutes that you devote to reading a Union editorial, and brain damage is definitely a risk.
An editorial featured in the September 19, 2008, edition of the Sacramento Union gives us a good sample of what passes for thoughtful opinion in today's neocon press. Please pick up your shotgun and approach the barrel of fish. This isn't going to be pretty.
Sarah Unmasks the Democrats
Democrats believe that some people are poor because others are rich. They propagate the notion that theirs is the party of the average working man and woman and that the GOP empowers only elite, wealthy males.
Ha! They forgot "white"!
This is an enormous lie, exposed in excruciating relief by John McCain's selection of a working-class running mate.
That's gutsy: a right-wing publication criticizing lying in political campaigns. Did John McCain approve this message?
In election after election, the Democrats have nominated for president the elite, wealthy males they pretend to disdain. Al Gore was a U.S. senator's son raised in the Fairfax Hotel on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C. and educated at the exclusive St. Albans prep school and Harvard University. He became a newspaper reporter after starting, then quitting, both divinity school and law school. John Kerry, a wind-surfing Yale University graduate, worked briefly as an attorney before entering politics. His first wife was wealthy, and his second, Theresa Heinz, is said to be worth over $1 billion.
Truly it is outrageous when presidential candidates are cushioned by the vast wealth of their spouses. These shamefully "kept men" should refrain from inflicting their spoiled lifestyles on the public and be content to lounge about in the many, many houses that their wives buy for them.
The latest in this chain of easy-life Democratic presidential nominees is Barack Obama, a graduate of Punahou, the top prep school in Hawaii. Later, he graduated from Columbia and Harvard. A one-time associate in a law firm, and a one-time college lecturer, Obama identified himself as a "community organizer" before his election to the U.S. Senate. His salary as a U.S. senator is $169,300, but last year the Obamas reported an income of $4.2 million.
Certainly it's embarrassing to the entitled Republican establishment to find themselves challenged by a young man who was raised in the absence of his birth father (and sometimes without his mother) and parlayed hard work and scholarship into an Ivy League education, enabling him to become uppity. Shocking! And then he dares to write bestselling books that earn him millions of dollars. It's just offensive when Democrats make money, you know. Money belongs to Republicans, who are more deserving of it.
Obama is a member of Chicago's political nobility. He could afford to buy a 96-year-old South Side home with four fireplaces, a wine cellar, and bookcases made of Honduran mahogany because a since-indicted campaign contributor, Tony Rezko, helped him meet the $1.95 million asking price by purchasing a $625,000 side yard. Exclusive connections also helped the Obamas snag a mortgage at a discounted interest rate no working man or woman could ever obtain.
As previously noted, Sen. Obama is a bestselling author. Your average working man or woman cannot qualify for a mortgage that a bank would eagerly offer to a wealthy writer. (Did the Union forget that they just criticized him for being rich? Guess what? Rich people are courted by banks and financial institutions. Surprise!) As for the gibe about Rezko: I know it's cruel to take away one of the GOP's favorite teddy bears, but this plush toy is full of sawdust. Obama clearly did not need any special favors from Rezko to help him purchase his home in Chicago.
Just when it seemed that the Democrats might continue to get away with feigning a connection to working people while choosing another white-bread, millionaire candidate, the Republicans nominated for vice president a woman without elite roots or family or political connections who has had to work for everything she's gotten.
Yeah, I saw that, too. They just called Barack Obama a "white-bread millionaire candidate." The Union editorial writer must have had a completely successful shame-bypass operation. I presume that John McCain feels slighted by the assignment of this descriptor to Obama, when surely it should belong to the senior senator from Arizona, the Wonder Bread of U.S. politicians. And is the Union suggesting that Palin had to "work for" the nomination that was handed to her by McCain's caprice? Gee, what did she do?
The embarrassing contrast between Palin and Obama has left Democrats sputtering. Palin graduated from rural public schools and the University of Idaho. Her husband, Todd, is a member of the United Steelworkers union. She is a former commercial fisherman, one of the toughest jobs in the world. The salary of this full-time governor and part-time mother of five is $125,000 per year.
The Union continues to manifest the tin ear that made its editorials so hilarious during its death throes in the nineties. (They're slaves to tradition, they are.) Does Gov. Palin want to be described as a "part-time mother"? This would seem to be inconsistent with the Republican position on family values.
Palin has unmasked the Democrats as poseurs and they hate her for it. Sacramento News and Review columnist R.V. Scheide called Palin's selection "insane." He dismissed her as "little known," someone who "looks pretty and eats moose meat." The paper carried a cartoon claiming that Palin's only foreign policy experience is having eaten once "at the International House of Pancakes." Accompanying it was a blog by Melinda Walsh that belittled Palin as someone with "minor-league experience and smarts."
Liberals said the same thing 30 years ago about another governor who grew up in a small town and graduated from an undistinguished college. But Ronald Reagan proved to be the greatest president of our times.
I'm not inclined to defend Ronald Reagan's political record, although the U.S. Treasury was looted at a much more modest rate during his tenure than during those of his Republican successors. I will, however, point out that Reagan had completed two terms as governor of California before he was elected president in 1980. Palin is the half-term governor of Alaska. Alaskan politics may be as bizarre as in California, but the 49th state is large only in terms of land area. Fifteen of California's fifty-eight counties have more people than Palin's entire state. Alaska has about as many people as Kern county, whose county seat is Bakersfield. Palin is not quite on the same level as even Bakersfield mayor Harvey Hall when it comes to being a national candidate, let alone Ronald Reagan.
What really bothers these critics is that Palin does not measure up to the exacting royalist bona fides the Democrats expect of a presidential or vice presidential contender. She did not attend an exclusive prep school, let alone an Ivy League university. No family fortune financed her career-surfing, as it did for Gore. She did not marry into money. Unlike the Obamas, the Palins could not afford a mansion—with or without the help of a crooked campaign donor—nor could they score a discounted mortgage rate.
The Yellow Pages show that there actually is an IHOP in Wasilla, Alaska. The Palins probably eat there a lot.
Can you see Russia from the Wasilla IHOP?
Palin's road, like most of ours, has been rough. Obama's has not. That alone could cost the Democrats this election.
Obama has obviously had it easy, especially since Harvard is known as the "safety school" of the Ivy League, a refuge for legacies and layabouts (I'm looking at you, George W. Bush, MBA) who want gentlemen's Cs as their due reward for merely existing and blessing the world with their wonderfulness. Barack probably just had to check a box on his graduation petition to get that magna cum laude from Harvard Law. Lazy bastard couldn't be bothered to get a summa.
I told you it wasn't going to be pretty.
Labels: extremism, journalism, Republicans
The Obama-Heinz incident
It's vegetable politics
Okay, it was probably a mistake to get Dad a high-speed Internet connection. He's stumbled into tubular truth and cannot resist sharing his discoveries. He sent me the ancient and absurd Clinton Body Count list, along with the tag, "It makes you think, doesn't it?" My response was, "Yes, it makes you wonder how gullible people can be."
Dad has now moved on to sly political humor, the kind that pokes fun at a candidate while revealing some dangerous truth at the candidate's expense. His latest find is almost contemporary, dating back only as far as last May, when a tired Sen. Obama fumbled his words while talking about the states he had visited during the primary campaign.
Obama said he's going to campaign in 57 states, and it turns out that there are 57 Islamic states.
There are 57 Islamic states!
So did Obama just lose his bearings, or was this a more telling slip, ladies and gentlemen?
KEEP IT GOING, FOLKS! Our future is at stake ... Make no mistake about it.
Our future is at stake? Because Obama got a number wrong? (Then a McCain administration would be the equivalent of the apocalypse, wouldn't it?) But right-wingers cannot resist Freudian interpretations when it comes to the verbal gaffes of liberals (even though they themselves have nothing but contempt for the psychoanalysis they so desperately need).
Dad passed along this particular nonsense with a mordant, "I wondered where the 57 came from." That's not true, of course. I'm certain that he had never even heard of the incident until it came to his attention wrapped in several layers of wingnut Obama's-a-Muslim spin. Nevertheless, since Dad was bold enough to forward the item to me as worthy of my attention, I favored him with a reply:
Goodness! Are folks still talking about Sen. Obama's verbal slip from last spring? It has long since been known that the senator was tired and looking forward to supper, where Heinz (57 varieties) ketchup would be served. Ketchup is endorsed by the Ketchup Advisory Board and it used to be a vegetable during the Reagan administration. Sen. Obama is particularly fond of Heinz ketchup, the Democratic condiment that people across America enjoy with their freedom fries.
Lately, of course, the GOP presidential campaign is backing off on trying to make too much of verbal mistakes by Democrats because otherwise people might take too seriously Sen. McCain's gaffes about staying 100 years in Iraq, bomb-bomb-bombing Iran, considering $5 million to be the dividing line between middle class and upper class, and admitting to knowing almost nothing about economics during an election year in which the economy is tanking and Wall Street is crashing. Of course, verbal gaffes are more innocent than outright lies, as I'm sure we can all agree.
Dad appreciated my riposte so much that he's rewarded me with several days of e-mail silence. But the truthiness is still out there, and at some point I know he'll feel compelled to share it with me again. Some people, you see, never learn.
Posted by Zeno at 6:30 AM 6 comments:
Labels: family, politics, spin, urban legend
Thinking outside the cell
Yin meets yang
He wasn't one of my students, but he knew who I was.
"Hey, Mr. Z, you're a computer guy, right?"
Well, kind of. At least, I was on the college's information technology committee. It was 1990 or so and computers were increasingly percolating into the campus.
"Yeah, I guess so. What can I do for you?"
"I have a problem with my computer and maybe you can help me. Do you use a Mac or a PC?"
"PC."
"Damn. Okay, sorry to bother you."
As anyone knows, of course, personal computing is divided between the two great religious sects: Apple and Windows. Or Hatfields and McCoys. Montagues and Capulets? It's difficult sometimes for me to remember, partly because I don't have much patience with sectarian wars or family feuds. The gap cannot be bridged.
"No, no," I said. "Go ahead and tell me your problem anyway. Who knows? Maybe I can help you."
He was using the Wingz spreadsheet program on his Macintosh. Although largely forgotten now, Wingz was a powerful spreadsheet from Informix that eventually lost out to Microsoft's Excel (as did all of the other spreadsheets in the world).
"I have a six-page spreadsheet in Wingz but it won't print except for the first page. I've tried printing the whole thing and get only page one. I've tried printing just page two and nothing comes out."
"Can you edit pages other than the first?"
"No problem. I can change stuff and save the changes, but nothing I do prints out anything except the first page. I used to be able to print it all, but something happened and I'm really stuck now."
He had saved and reloaded the file. He had rebooted the system. He had done all of the usual jiggery-pokery to get things going again, but he was still stuck.
"Does Wingz have import/export options?" I asked.
"Yeah. Definitely."
"Good. Can you save your spreadsheet as a Lotus 1-2-3 file?"
"I think so. Yeah, I'm pretty sure."
"Okay. Save your file as a Lotus 1-2-3 file using the export feature. Then use the import feature to bring it back in. See if the conversion process clears up the printing problem you're having."
He seemed just a little skeptical, but he said he'd try my idea.
A day later the student caught up with me again in front of the math department building.
"Hey, Mr. Z! It worked!"
"Great! Thanks for letting me know how it turned out. I guess some gimmicks work across platforms, eh?"
Knowledge. More portable than you might think.
Computers. Weird and demon-possessed no matter what the logo.
Labels: computers, school, technology, weird students
Men in dresses defend marriage
Do as I say, not as I do
Religion was simpler when I believed in revealed truth. Unfortunately, revealed truth was often manifest stupidity. That makes it more difficult to cling to, so perhaps we should be impressed by those whose faith can overcome the sheer inanity of it. After all, don't we admire people who are willing to sacrifice themselves for a sacred cause?
Yeah. Not so much anymore.
The Catholic Church is trying to throw its weight around in the battle over Proposition 8 on the California general election ballot in November. If it passes, Proposition 8 overturns the state supreme court ruling establishing same-sex marriages by placing a ban in the California constitution. That would trump the state supreme court and end the Golden State's experiment with marital equality. The Catholic Church is an enthusiastic fan of traditional marriage and its celibate priesthood is girding for the fight to pass Proposition 8.
Yes. Unmarried men in dresses are among the Church's shock troops in the war to enshrine the one-man/one-woman definition of marriage. Clever.
Bishop Allen Vigneron of the Oakland diocese is one of the generals trying to lead Catholic voters into the polling stations to cast their ballots for Proposition 8. He issued a pastoral letter in the wake of the supreme court ruling that politically minded Catholics are citing as an inspirational blast of the trumpet of traditionalism. Vigneron warns his readers of the consequences of losing in the attempts to re-establish monogamous heterosexual marriage as the only sanctioned marital union:
If such efforts fail, our way of life will become counter-cultural, always a difficult situation for Christians—one our forebears faced in many ages past, one that the Lord himself predicted for us.
"Counter-cultural"? Does His Excellency actually think that old-fashioned man-woman marriage will be abandoned in the wake of Proposition 8's defeat? No doubt society will rise up in opposition to the marriage of straight couples. Heck, the fifty percent failure rate shows that it doesn't work very well anyway. May as well give it up. Counter-cultural.
And what's this "our way of life" business? Vigneron's bachelorhood is part of his career; the wedded way of life is entirely foreign to him. (Of course, he can see married couples from his vantage point in the episcopal see of Oakland, sort of like Gov. Palin can see Russia from her perch in Alaska.) It seems we must construe "way of life" broadly if it is to include bishops.
Finally, Vigneron points out that Christ himself predicted that the Church would fall into the "difficult situation" of opposing the dominant culture. Does His Excellency think he can avert Christ's oracular pronouncement? Maybe Catholics can learn a lesson from the Protestants who cheer every report of famine and disaster and war because they consider catastrophe a prerequisite for the Second Coming. Embrace same-sex marriage (though not too literally), Your Excellency. Otherwise you risk making Jesus a liar.
Vote No on Proposition 8!
Labels: Catholicism, logic, politics, religion
God's situational ethics
His means can be mean
In the words of William Cowper's hymn, "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform." Furthermore, the Bible assures us that "all things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28). Good thing, too. Otherwise some of God's stunts might persuade us that he's just a sociopath. With enough faith, you can find rationalizations that permit you to forgive God for practically anything.
Catholic radio talk show host Johnnette Benkovic is like Job in her willingness to sing the praises of God while her deity rains abuse down on her head. During yesterday's broadcast of her Women of Grace program, Johnnette favored her listeners with a homily on the virtues of forgiveness. (The on-line archive for Women of Grace stores only a week's worth of programs, so the Friday link will be replaced with next Friday's broadcast in a few more days.) She had received a call from a woman who had been treated badly by a former friend. The woman expressed her concern that God would fail to punish her ex-friend for the offense, so Johnnette explained (at 27:44 into the broadcast) that God might have had hidden motives for allowing the incident to occur:
One time years and years ago, God presented to my mind someone I needed to forgive. I did not want to forgive this person because this person hurt me very, very deeply and really in some ways inflicted tremendous scars on my heart and to my entire being. But the Lord told me I had to forgive and so I asked him to help me to enter into that process, but I sure did not want to do it.
And a wise spiritual director of mine at the time told me, Johnnette, pray for the desire to forgive, and if that's too close, pray for the desire to desire to forgive; and if that's too close, keep backing it up. And I've got to tell you, as I engaged that process against my feelings, you know—and this is a matter of the will, against my feelings—as I engaged that process, the Lord began to show me a whole lot of things and one of the things that he showed me was that this person was probably very bereft of anybody that was praying for him. This person seriously needed prayer and perhaps God permitted this offense into my life so that I could be somebody who would pray for this person.
And then as I began to pray for this person, I began to have a different attitude of heart toward this person. I began to see that this person— Had this person really understood who God was, or a relationship with God, or if this person truly understood the sanctity of the human person or any of these things, this person never could have committed that sin against me. And that person then deserved my compassion, not my anger.
All things considered, I have to say that this example of turn-the-other-cheek Christianity is far superior to today's dominant go-to-hell strain of evangelical and fundamentalist Jesus worship. I doubt, however, that it's any more rational. Still, if it's a choice between a painfully rationalizing God-is-always-good apologist versus a God-hates-fags sign toter, it's pretty easy to give Johnnette the thumbs up. She'd be a much better neighbor, even if cloyingly nice-nice.
But isn't rational thought still better than rationalization?
Posted by Zeno at 10:00 AM 3 comments:
Labels: Catholicism, media, religion, spin
The investment opportunity of the future!
Loud and clear!
Hearing aids.
It has become increasingly obvious that the hearing aid industry is absolutely guaranteed to be one of the greatest growth sectors of the nation's future economy. I get more evidence of this every day.
For example, my students cannot whisper. Oh, they think they are whispering, but they really aren't. Yesterday I was standing at one end of a large classroom (about 30-feet square) and easily overheard the conversation of a pair of students on the far side.
Well, maybe they were just rude and didn't bother to lower their voices. Isn't that possible? Possible, sure. But if they were merely being impolite, I don't think they would have been so startled when I joined their conversation from the far side of the room. They were clearly surprised that their elderly teacher was eavesdropping on their private interchange. Aren't old guys supposed to be half deaf?
The iPod generation is going to be the hard-of-hearing generation even before they reach middle age, I fear. Too many of them play music so loud that it bleeds from around their ear-bud headphones and even I can hear it from several feet away. And they've lost the ability to whisper. They're doomed, I tell you.
Early deafness: It's not just for rock stars and roadies anymore. Invest in hearing-aid futures. It's a sure thing.
Labels: life, teaching, weird students
A firm offer
Would this be hard science?
Few things have delighted me as much as the spam that dropped into my in-box this evening. My prestige as a blogger has risen so high that I am now being solicited to do product reviews! Grand new vistas open before me and my excitement reaches unprecedented levels!
I'm the webmaster of http://www.peloop.com . I wanted to know if by any chance you would be interested in doing an unbiased review of one of our products on your blog http://zenoferox.blogspot.com/
If you agree we will send you a product sample so that you can try it and then write a review about it. Please note you won't have to return the product sample after publishing the review.
Please let me know if you are interested.
F. B
The pitch is irresistible. I hastened over to peloop.com to learn the precise nature of my opportunity. What are they asking me to review?
Hey! Check it out! It's a cock ring! But first appearances can be deceiving. It's not just an adjustable plastic tourniquet for your favorite chicken neck. It's a scientific device! Just look at the scientific explanation:
Penis Enhancement Made Simple
Harness the power of
To naturally and safely enhance your penis
These 3 materials will constantly provide your penis with amazing benefits. peloop™ is simply worn at the bottom of your penis just like you wear a ring on your finger. It's penis enhancement and penis enlargement made simple.
These materials work by drastically improving the condition of blood inside your penis. Your penis health is as good as the blood health inside it. If you have unhealthy blood in your penis, you will have a weak unhealthy penis BUT if you have healthy blood in your penis, you will have a big, strong and healthy penis. It's that simple.
See? Magnets! And other stuff! Fields and ions!
It's both scientific and simple. This must be the biggest breakthrough in erectile enhancement since Bob started scarfing up Enzyte tablets as if they were breath mints. If only I were both scientific and simple, this would be an ideal match.
Too bad I'm going to have to let this opportunity slide. No doubt the makers of peloop tried to do due diligence before deciding that I was the ideal blogger to evaluate their wares. (Ha! I said "do due"!) Unfortunately, they missed the tiny detail of my being single and unpartnered. (I guess they overlooked my definitive blog post on the topic.) Their tool tool does not fit into my solo lifestyle.
Quel dommage!
Hey! What a coincidence! I just got e-mail from eHarmony. What are the odds?
Labels: blogging, pseudoscience
Pseudo-Freudian Republicans
True believers of the moment
Despite the crying need that so many of them have for strenuous psychological counseling, most Republicans claim to belong to the school of rugged individualism and mock the theories and therapies of Freud and his successors. Nevertheless, as devout members of the Church of Opportunism, they'll embrace the concept of Freudian slip with ardent fervor if it suits their purpose. That's why they're all over a 13-second sound bite from This Week with George Stephanopoulos in which Sen. Obama supposedly admits to his Muslim faith. It's a misrepresentation, of course, but when did that ever stop them?
The problem is simple: We just don't have enough punctuation in spoken English. And Barack Obama is too dignified to do "air quotes" even when he really should. (No one wants to be mistaken for Dr. Evil.) But as Victor Borge taught us long ago, rabbit ears can be our friend.
Here's a faithful transcript (including the candidate's peroration, truncated in the video) of the exchange between Obama and Stephanopoulos, as the latter insisted that McCain himself was not spreading smears against the Democratic standard bearer:
Obama: You're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my "Muslim faith" and you're absolutely right that that is not coming—
Stephanopoulos: Christian faith.
Obama: My Christian faith. Well, what I'm saying he hasn't suggested that I'm a Muslim.
[Stephanopoulos: (overtalking) He's suggested connections, right.]
Obama: And I think that his campaign's upper echelons have not either. What I think is fair to say is that, coming out of the Republican camp, there have been efforts to suggest that perhaps I'm not who I say I am when it comes to my faith, something which I find deeply offensive.
But Sen. Obama did not hook his fingers in the air to underscore the sense in which he was citing "my Muslim faith"—a specious claim by GOP operatives and other members of the loony right—and thus we have a video clip certain to warm the bigoted cockles of many a shallow Christian.
Keep this in mind: Most of the Republicans who will cite the short version of the "Muslim faith" clip will know full well what Sen. Obama intended and what his statement meant. Therefore we should not hesitate to bestow upon them the title they so richly deserve: liars.
Notice I didn't put quotes around that.
Posted by Zeno at 12:30 PM No comments:
Labels: language, politics, spin
A political angle
When math teachers go astray
We math teachers are a relentlessly logical and thoughtful cohort of people. So why don't we agree on everything all the time? Anyone who has witnessed the knock-down and drag-out battles of the math wars knows that we don't. It depends on your initial assumptions. Most math teachers will cheerfully agree on whether a conclusion is the logical consequence of a set of axioms, but then they'll fight to the death over the axioms.
Courtesy of the McClatchy Company's newspapers, we have a stunning example of political logic from an old math professor. Shall we see if we can identify the axioms from which his logic flows?
Palin: A home run for McCain
Wow! Talk about a bombshell? Talk about thinking outside the box? Talk about going off the reservation? Let the game begin.
And all the so-called pundits thought John McCain was too old and over the hill to make important strategic decisions in a timely and impactful fashion. This could be a major-league home run; it puts a shot right over the bow of the Democrats and will haul them up short in their effort to bring disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters and independents into the Obama fold.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has the right politics. She is a reformer who has stared down Sen. Ted Stevens, she is a maverick, she is a hockey mom, she is very comfortable in a man's world, she is a hunter who knows the difference between the business end and the butt end of a weapon, she has been to the Middle East and has a son serving in the military, she is pro-life, she is articulate, she is younger than Barack, she is compelling, and she has a strong, comprehensive energy position. In the words of an old math professor, she is a running mate who complements and supplements John McCain to a "T." Enough said.
—Walter Andrews, Folsom
Passing lightly over the disdain-worthy "impactful," we must consider whether the choice of Palin "will haul [Democrats] up short in their efforts to bring disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters and independents into the Obama fold." First of all, we're already there. Former Clinton supporters are not looking for an anti-choice, anti-science alternative to Sen. Obama. By what magic are we supposed to be inveigled into voting for a right-wing conservative? Are we suddenly no longer pro-choice? Second, independents are not necessarily charmed by Sarah. She stoked up the base; she didn't expand it.
Palin "faced down Sen. Ted Stevens"? I guess that came after she headed one of his 527 campaign committees and her support of his "bridge to nowhere" earmark. (She really used to like earmarks, you know, but she's over that now.)
Palin can fire a gun. I did not know that was a requirement for the job, unless the vice president is expected to shoot hunting companions in the face.
She is younger than Barack. That's a positive thing? Goodness! Until recently, the GOP insisted that Sen. Obama was a callow youth. Now Gov. Palin's tender years are a campaign asset. The rules of the game keep changing.
Palin "has a strong, comprehensive energy position"? I guess that "drill, drill, drill" is comprehensive because Sarah wants to drill everywhere. Yes?
Some wicked angles
My favorite part of the math professor's letter is the cutesy bit about how Gov. Palin "complements and supplements John McCain." As you may know, complementary angles add up to 90°, while supplementary angles add up to 180°. The letter-writer is sending a discreet shout-out to his fellow math teachers. As one of his innumerable mathematical colleagues—albeit a liberal one—I cannot resist going off on my own tangent here. Let's puzzle out the possible significance of Gov. Palin being both a complement and a supplement to John McCain.
I begin by schematically indicating where the nation needs to go. It's just an arrow, pointing to the conventional "east." (Self-described wits might wish to observe that the arrow points to the right, but don't try to make too much of a simple mathematical convention. That's my job.)
Then we note that McCain is not planning to go in the right direction. He's significantly off.
If Palin is his complement, then McCain-Palin together must go off in the 90° direction, at right angles to the nation's best interests. Oops!
Even better: If Palin is his supplement, then McCain-Palin must be heading in the direction exactly opposite to where we should be going—off by 180°. This may an even more accurate representative of McCain-Palin policies.
To be even-handed, let's consider Sen. Obama's political direction. There he goes, doing the best he can for his country, trending strongly toward all that is good and decent.
Why don't I, the slavishly devoted Democrat, show him heading due east toward the promised land? There's some fine print in the Obama illustration. Let's zoom in to see what it says:
Oh, that's right. Obama ended up supporting a very slightly amended FISA bill (not nearly amended enough!) and he has failed to disavow Bush's motley crew of faith-based initiatives. He may even expand them!
Well, you can't have everything. Any logical person knows that. (I'm not as sure about the letter-writing math professor, though.)
Labels: logic, math, politics, Republicans
A political high
Mainlining, but not mainstream
Like a junkie with the needle still dangling from his arm, the Republican National Convention is pumped up and feeling good. Life was such a downer recently, but things are looking up! It sure is better than feeling down—all that gloom after that damned Democratic convention.
The Republican junkie is assimilating a big dose of uncut Palin. The euphoria is real enough, although it's not based on reality. Quite the contrary. As has been amply pointed out, Gov. Palin's speech was riddled with lies and distortions. Astonishingly enough, the freshman governor of Alaska did not hesitate to repeat several factually compromised statements that had been definitely revealed as false in the days following the announcement that she was Sen. McCain's running mate. In particular, she again claimed as governor to have opposed the "bridge to nowhere," although its fate had been sealed before her election and before her election she had expressly endorsed it. (Two lies in one statement; that's efficient!) She repeated the assertion that she disdained earmarks, when as mayor of Wasilla she gobbled them up and bragged about it.
Why lie so transparently?
It's all part of rallying the troops. And in that sense Gov. Palin was extremely successful. She pandered to the worst sentiments of the conventions attendees and they lapped it up. Her snide remarks and sarcastic sallies were the stuff that hardcore Republican dreams are made of.
Less likely, however, to attract the uncommitted.
And that's why in the longer run Palin's well-executed speech will fail. While many commentators were grading her effort with an A, some of her detractors were insisting on a D. Like the English professor that I am not, I would give her both grades: an A for the composition's technique and a D for its content. In the short term, the A aspect of her speech stirred up the troops, who are now enjoying their temporary high. As the weeks progress, however, the D aspect of the speech will alienate fence-sitters who might have been drawn by less specious content.
The folks in the convention didn't care about the truth of what Palin said. They cared about the way she said it. The speech served its purpose as a cheerleading effort for the political party that spawned our current cheerleader president. But a good cheerleader does not make up for a weak team.
The one sure consequence of a junkie's high is the crash that soon follows.
Labels: extremism, politics, Republicans, spin
Classroom mulligans
The art of the do-over
Sometimes I think my classrooms have been taken over by the reincarnated souls of golf course duffers. They're an increasing presence among my students. I suspect something is going on in elementary, middle, and high schools that is percolating into college. A conversation will illustrate the point:
"Gee, Dr. Z, I didn't do very well on the exam."
"Yes. As the person who graded it, I am aware of that."
"I really need a better grade. Can I take it again?"
"I'm sorry, but for obvious reasons I can't just let students repeat exams. For one thing, I don't have the time to rewrite the exam so you can retake it."
"Oh, that's okay. You don't have to rewrite it. I could just take the same one over again."
"Don't you see a problem with that? We just went over the exam in detail in class and put all the solutions up on the board. I can't use that exam again."
"No, you can! I would do really well this time. I know I would!"
Gee, you think? (I know: Even in this case it's no guarantee.)
This never used to happen. Now it occurs a few times each semester, as disappointed students seek redemption by asking for do-overs. Most of them seem sincerely perplexed when I tell them it makes no sense to give them the same exam a second time. It's a math class. Not a memorization and transcription course. We solve problems. We don't memorize solutions and regurgitate them.
The spam ate my homework
Technology has opened up new vistas for the scholastic mulligan. These days I begin each semester with a simple assignment:
Write your instructor an e-mail by Friday. Include four items in your message:
the name of the course in the subject line;
your reason for taking the course;
the topic of the latest post on the course website;
your full name.
That last item is important. Students who don't use their campus e-mail accounts to e-mail me typically have handles that don't match up in any obvious way to the names on my roster. I mean, how am I supposed to know that HellGirl666@evil.com is Jane Doe?
This assignment on Day One is a good way to collect e-mail addresses and to see whether your students know how to follow instructions. By the end of the first week I have replied to each student individually, welcoming him or her to the class and announcing the number of points earned for the exercise (depending on the degree of compliance with the four items):
Welcome to the class, Debbie. To get full credit for this assignment, you needed to include the course name on your subject line, explain why you are taking the course, report that the latest website posting is about peer tutoring opportunities at the Learning Center, and include your full name.
You forgot to report on the content of the course website. Your score is 9 points out of a possible 12.
Professor Z
Whereupon I get this:
Hi Dr Z! I'm sorry I forgot to check the website. It says "Student Tutors Needed at LC Now". Can I have the 3 points now? Debbie Deluded
I'm afraid that Debbie was disappointed. At least she didn't cut-and-paste my message and send it back to me with a request for full credit. She did her own typing!
Debbie and the handful of others who promptly resubmitted their initial assignments after I gave them the answers do not, however, win the prize for my favorite student message of the past year. I have to bestow the palm on someone else, someone whom I've never met:
Hi, it's Sandy No-Show. I'm enrolled in your calculus class. But i didn't come the first week of class, i was wondering if i can still continue taking this class?
"Still continue taking"? In what universe does missing the first week of class position a student to ask about continuing to take it? I wrote back to gently inform her that I had dropped her ass from the class. But not in those precise words.
Labels: education, school, weird students


The Walbridge Overaa joint venture was contracted by the US Army Corps of Engineers to design and build a new Army Reserve Center (ARC) in Concord, CA. The project includes a 64,000 sf ARC, 9,500 sf Organizational Maintenance Shop (OMS), 4,000 sf unheated storage building, parking lots and installation of supporting utilities. The project is LEED Gold certified with the inclusion of photovoltaic field, storm water harvest system, and grey water harvest system.
Sustainable design focused on reducing site disturbance, managing stormwater, maximizing vegetated space and providing means for alternative transportation. The water efficiency includes the use of low-flow and high efficiency plumbing fixtures. Building siting, exterior envelope construction, air infiltration, water efficiency, HVAC system selection and electrical system efficiency measures were integrated to exceed the required 40 percent energy usage reduction.


A man was found seriously injured Saturday morning on Carnes Road. Investigators are trying to figure out what happened to him.
Forrest County Sheriff's Department deputies are trying to figure out what may have happened to a man found injured in Carnes.
"Right now, we are treating this as a hit-and-run," sheriff's department spokesman John Tryner said Sunday.
The victim, who is in his early 20s, was found seriously injured Saturday morning on Carnes Road, Tryner said.
It is not clear how the man was injured, Tryner said.
The victim, whose identity has not been released, was taken to an area hospital for treatment.
The man is not conscious, so he has been unable to tell deputies what happened.
Investigators are talking with the victim's family and hospital staff, hoping to piece together what may have happened and why the man was on Carnes Road.
The incident remains under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call Forrest County Sheriff's Department at (601) 544-7800.


text:
Waisake Naholo
Wise brings his powerful running game and elusive pace to the New York back field.
A World Cup Winner with the All Blacks in 2015, Wise arrived in New York for the back half of the 2022 season. He previously played with the Highlanders and London Irish. He made his debut in Hoboken agasint the Seattle Seawolves.


My son Aaden was diagnosed with Sternomastoid Torticollis. I read up on it and it is a muscle condition that limits his neck range of motion on one side. His is on his right side and so his ear almost touches his right shoulder and he looks left. I was referred to physical therapy and he may need nesk surgery. I was just wondering if anyone else has or is going thru this.
We found out that my daughter had Torticollis when she was around 2 months old. Her head was tilted in the same way. We did physio for about 6 months (3 days a week and stretches at home) and we're lucky enough that she didn't need surgery.
It took a lot of stretching and a whole LOT of crying but she's a healthy and happy 15 month old now.
I completely understand the stress you must be feeling! Good luck and hope your little one is better soon.
Does anyone know anything about Torticollis?