“Mount Holyoke College names new president - Boston Globe” plus 4 more

Mount Holyoke College names new president - Boston Globe
PRESS RELEASE: The world's greatest photographers explain the creative ... - The Imaging Resource!
The Stupid Party - Hotair.com
Stars shine on once-obscure upstate NY campaign - WTOP Radio
Last Favre link - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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Mount Holyoke College names new president - Boston Globe

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 01:04 PM PST

Pasquerella succeeds Joanne Creighton, who has held the position since 1996. Under Creightons leadership, applications increased by 50 percent and the endowment nearly tripled before the recession. Pasquerella said today that she hopes to first reconnect with the Mount Holyoke community.

I want to get reacquainted with the community and listen to the aspirations people have for Mount Holyoke, she said.

Mount Holyoke has an enrollment of 2,200.

A native of Connecticut, Pasquerella received her doctorate in philosophy from Brown University. At the University of Rhode Island, Pasquerella was a professor of philosophy and became URIs associate dean of the graduate school. In 2006, she was named vice provost for research and dean of URIs graduate school.

In 2008, she returned to Connecticut and became University of Hartfords provost and chief academic officer.

Pasquerella is a project leader for a research team with the Africa Center for Engineering Social Solutions, which focuses on empowering women in Kenya. She has also written extensively in many areas, including medical ethics and the philosophy of law.

In a statement, University of Hartford President Walter Harrison said: Lynn Pasquerella is a powerful intellectual force, a dynamic and compassionate leader, and a charismatic and wonderful human being. I am as fond of her as anyone I have ever worked with, and our whole community will be devastated that she is leaving after only a year and a half as provost. But we are all so very proud of her.

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PRESS RELEASE: The world's greatest photographers explain the creative ... - The Imaging Resource!

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 01:11 PM PST

PRESS RELEASE: The world's greatest photographers explain the creative thinking behind their iconic images

(BOSTON, MA - October, 2009) Focal Press, a division of Elsevier, is pleased to announce the publication of Photography in 100 Words by David Clark and would like to invite selected press members to request a gratis copy for review.

David Clark is a photography journalist and author. He was the senior features writer on Amateur Photographer magazine for nine years, during which time he met and interviewed many of the world's great photographers.

The question "What is photography?" is not an easy one to answer. Thousands of words have been written in an effort to do so, in academic journals and books by cultural commentators such as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes. If we acknowledge that it is impossible to provide a definitive answer, can we at least distill the meaning of photography into somewhat fewer words, and get to the very essence of the medium without diminishing its importance as an art form?

This book aims to do just that. David Clark has selected 50 iconic images by some of the world's greatest photographers and asked them to explain how the pictures were made and their creative approach. From these interviews he has chosen 100 words - two from each photographer - that encapsulate their philosophy, and which are picked out in bold in the text. Martin Parr, for example, likes to capture ambiguity in many of his images, whereas David Bailey hopes for the perfect accident. For Harry Benson a news picture must have a sense of crisis while reportage photographer Paolo Pellegrin sees his role as that of a witness. And while Harry Cory Wright strives for completeness in his landscapes, Michael Kenna is drawn to the idea of suggestion.

The highlighted words work on two levels. As well as giving insights into iconic images from the photographers who took them, they build over the course of the book into a unique creative lexicon of the photographic medium - one which crystallizes its many aims and functions, perspectives and meanings. Thought-provoking, insightful and inspirational, Photography in 100 Words will appeal to all photographers and anyone who seeks a better understanding of the medium.

Features a host of famous names, including Ralph Gibson, Art Wolfe, Elliott Erwitt, David Bailey, Martin Parr, Frans Lanting, Nick Danzinger, Dennis Stock and Yann-Arthus Bertrand
World renowned photographers discuss their philosophy and approach, and explain their iconic images
Includes photographers from all branches of the medium, from landscape to still-life, portraiture to reportage
The hardback format makes this a collector's item for photographers and enthusiasts alike

Photography in 100 Words
David Clark
ISBN: 9780240813004
Pub Date: October
Price: $ 29.95

About Focal Press
Focal Press has been a leading publisher of Media Technology books for 70 years. We provide essential resources for professionals and students in many areas including: film and digital video production, photography, digital imaging, graphics, animation and new media, broadcast and media distribution technologies, music recording and production, mass communications, and theatre technology.

(First posted on Monday, November 2, 2009 at 16:08 EST)

The Stupid Party - Hotair.com

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 01:32 PM PST

The Stupid Party

posted at 4:25 pm on November 2, 2009 by Doctor Zero
printer-friendly

New York Republicans got a rock in their trick-or-treat bags over the Halloween weekend, as Dede Scozzafava ripped off her million-dollar Republican mask and revealed herself to be a Democrat. It was never a very good disguise, but every previous attempt to peer beneath it was punished with stern lectures from Newt Gingrich and the rest of the party establishment. The bags of contributor money Republicans handed to the Scozzafava campaign would have been more usefully spent hiring detectives to trail ACORN operatives, and keep Democrat voter fraud down to manageable levels.

The Scozzafava campaign is the latest dreadful mistake from a party establishment enchanted by the mirage of the perfect moderate candidate. For Republican voters, it seems like every winter is the winter of their discontent. Many of the GOP's boneheaded mistakes come from exactly the same source as the Democrats' boneheaded mistakes: the tendency to believe the media action line about themselves. This produces arrogance in the Democrats, while the Republicans are like awkward, lovestruck teenagers – terrified the slightest bit of confident self-expression will blow their chances with the cute moderate in the pink sweater seated beside them in homeroom class. They suffer beneath the same irony that crushes every awkward teenager, since confident self-expression is exactly what is needed to connect with the object of their affections… assuming they're not obsessing over someone they never had a chance with anyway.

Establishment mouthpieces trying to rationalize the Scozzafava debacle as a tactical maneuver, designed to win a liberal district by running a moderate candidate, can save their breath. The success of Doug Hoffman's insurgent candidacy blows that argument out of the water. Even if he suffers a narrow loss on Tuesday, Hoffman has certainly proven himself competitive. Just imagine what he could have done with, oh, say about $900,000 in Republican party funding!

As it stands, Hoffman has already crushed one of the Democrats in the race, and stands poised to claim victory over the other - and he did it with the help of all the conservative hobgoblins lurking within liberalism's nightmare closet. While Newt Gingrich was droning through the third hour of his Power Point presentation, explaining why running the Card Check-supporting wife of a union thug was a brilliant political maneuver, Sarah Palin roared up in her 4×4 and shouted the obvious truth: voting for actual conservatives is the only way to clear away the Obama malaise.

Every district presents different political challenges, and there are places where both parties are compelled to run candidates who deviate from their core philosophy. The degree of deviance is the issue… particularly for the Republicans, whose core philosophy runs counter to the collectivist momentum of the past century. The Democrats certainly have problems with their mavericks, but usually only when they attempt to implement the most extreme policies, such as trapping America in the nightmare of state-run medicine. As long as the growth of the State bubbles along at Clinton levels, the "Blue Dog" Democrats are content to sit quietly on their porches, ignoring the Republicans waiting for them to bark.

Meanwhile, the Republicans keep running "moderates" who prove to be very useful to the Democrats… which keeps the growth of the State bubbling along at Bush levels. The radical nature of the current Administration makes the idea of "moderate" compromise laughable. What's the moderate position on freedom-crushing trillion-dollar health care and environmentalist legislation? They're okay, as long as the Democrats pinky-swear to keep the cost under $800 billion? That's the kind of promise no politician could keep, even if it was made in earnest. A moderate Republican is someone who lives in a state of perpetual surprise as he ponders the monthly bills for nanny-state government. What's the point of electing people who are guaranteed to spend the rest of their political careers complaining about how they've been played for fools?

Too much of the Republicans' "Stupid Party" strategy is based on the mechanics of getting people with little elephants on their campaign signs elected. They view the election as the conclusion of a contest, when in fact it's only the beginning. A successful Republican Party doesn't have to be ideologically rigid, but it should insist on candidates who possess an intellectual foundation of conservative theory, and the ability to explain it at least as well as the thousands of people posting comments on conservative blogs.

Republican voters would be well-advised to ignore the people who engineered the Scozzafava debacle, and listen for the sound of Sarah Palin's monster truck instead. America needs conservatives more than it needs Republicans. Both the party, and the country, benefit when they are one and the same. Next Halloween, just to be on the safe side, we should test the blood of every "moderate" Republican with a hot wire and a petri dish, just to make sure we don't have another DIABLO on our hands.

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Stars shine on once-obscure upstate NY campaign - WTOP Radio

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 02:08 PM PST

By VALERIE BAUMAN
Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - A burst of star power Monday brought the vice president, a former presidential candidate, a country singer and the man who used to be "America's mayor" to a largely rural patch of upstate New York as a Democrat tried to fend off a late-campaign surge from a maverick conservative.

Away from the rallies, organized labor claiming membership of 110,000 people in the sprawling 23rd Congressional District knocked on doors, staffed phone banks and flooded the radio waves to give Democrat Bill Owens its united, last-minute clout in the last 72 hours of his unpredictable campaign against Doug Hoffman, a member of the state's Conservative Party.

Hoffman and Owens scrambled in the final hours to win the district, which stretches from eastern Lake Ontario up and over to the Canadian and Vermont borders and has suddenly become a national battleground for the identity of the Republican Party.

What started as a three-way race with Hoffman initially playing the role of spoiler turned into a frantic duel when Republican Dierdre Scozzafava abruptly dropped out over the weekend and backed Owens. She was sharply criticized in the strongly Republican district for some views, including her support of abortion rights and same-sex marriage, that some conservatives balked at.

The schism has pushed high-profile support Hoffman's way, including from former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and others. Scozzafava was initially backed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who said he was disappointed by her support of Owens following her withdrawal.

Speaking in Watertown on Tuesday, Joe Biden said the Conservatives' view is narrow and a reflection of failed Bush-Cheney policies, espousing a philosophy that "you are either absolutely right or morally wrong.'"

"We need to bring people together, not divide them," Biden said. "This is a place ... where people have strong views but not closed minds."

Meanwhile, automated calls by Rudy Giuliani, the former presidential candidate and New York City mayor who helped comfort the nation after 9/11, flooded telephone lines.

"Voting for Doug Hoffman is the only way to stop (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi from gaining one more liberal vote for higher taxes, higher federal deficits and government-run health care," Giuliani stated in his automated phone calls.

John Rich of the country music duo Big & Rich was performing Monday evening at a rally for Hoffman, where Fred Thompson, a former GOP presidential candidate and star of TV's "Law & Order," was speaking.

But the tumultuous weekend could help the Democrat out, too.

The AFL-CIO and the New York State United Teachers union united over the weekend for Owens.

"That's key for Owens," said Steven Greenberg of the Siena College poll. "There are not many unions who have the get-out-vote potential" of the teachers union.

____

Associated Press writers Michael Gormley in Albany and William Kates in Watertown contributed to this report.

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Last Favre link - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 11:52 AM PST

Nov. 2, 2009 1:41 p.m.

Green Bay - Last week I linked to a nationalfootballpost.com column from former Packers vice-president of player finance Andrew Brandt.

Well, he wrote another today.

And this one is better.

Brandt buries the lead a bit, but the payoff is at the end after Brandt addresses a statement made by FOX analyst Troy Aikman during the game:

Troy Aikman said with some certainty that perhaps Brett never really wanted to play for the Packers again after his brief retirement last year.

Here was the payoff from Brandt:

After so many tirades about how we weren't going after this guy or that guy in free agency or trade, I would say to Brett, "What part of Ted Thompson's philosophy do you not understand?" He would just shrug and walk away.

Brett wanted a ready-made veteran team for the longest time. That's what the Jets sold him last year, and that's what the Vikings were selling this (and last?) year. Now he's where he has wanted to be for 16 months and, at the moment, thriving.

You should read the whole thing.

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Philosophy

Monday, November 2, 2009