More Technical Difficulties
This is my first attempt to post something directly into Wordpress, as opposed to having a not-yet-published post imported from Movable Type. Hope it works! Comments:
1) Thanks to Eric Smith ‘99 (and our genius intern Michael) for help with the process so far. Although the pain is great now, I hope that the benefits will be even greater later. Thanks also to our authors for their patience and our readers for their feedback.
2) The problem with misattributed posts may only be solvable by committing Wordpress “suicide,” i.e., deleting everything and doing another import from the old Movable Type installation. We will try that now. This means that any new comments (and posts like this one) will be lost forever. Sorry!
3) With luck, things will stablize in the next few days. We will be contacting some authors in the near future with information on how they can start posting.
Thankathon
Why not cut out the middle man from this?
Help support the Alumni Fund and earn additional funds for your Williams student athletic team, club, or organization. Each hour that is spent by each student sending Thank Yous to Williams Alumni for their contribution to the Alumni Fund is counted toward the 25-hour goal, which is necessary for each reward.
So, I send in money to Williams so that it will fund student organizations that I care about. Great. The College then bribes students from those organizations to send me a thank you note. Perhaps we should cut out the middleman by having me send my money directly to those student organizations. Remember Ephs Choose? Read that post. Most of my goofy ideas are too nuts to work. But not that one! That one was genius. More to come in 2008 . . .
By the way, it’s the last day for 2007 charitable donations. Feel free to suggest worthy Eph-related causes in the comments. I’ll start with A Window Between Worlds, founded by Cathy Salser ‘88. Other recommendations welcome.
Hotness Cools
Greg Crowther ‘95 reminds us that “over time, hotness cools.” He also notes that:
Most scientists now consider the “bar magnet” model of human interaction to be inadequate. The preferred current model is that of the enzyme-substrate complex. In brief, you and your partner should complement each other physically, and physical proximity should lead to chemical changes. But beware of competitive inhibitors!
Indeed.
Use SPF
DeWitt Clinton ‘97 claims that he has nothing to do with a recent outbreak of text-spam.
I awoke this morning to see numerous emails in my personal inbox reading:
To: dewitt@gmail.com
From: nnnnnnnnnn@vtext.com
Subject: Stop texting me!Now obviously I’m not spam texting anyone. Not via the phone, not via email.
Sure, DeWitt. Whatever you say . . .
Technical Difficulties
We are in the process of moving EphBlog to a different hosting company and switching to Wordpress from Movable Type for our blogging software. There will, no doubt, be teething pains. Apologies in advance for any difficulties, especially for authors trying to post new material. The process should be complete before the start of Winter Study.
Academic Communities
Three years ago, David Ramos ‘00 wrote
If Williams wants to engineer additional communities, why not build real academic communities? Environmental Studies comes together every week for Log Lunch, and CS meets for pizzas and colloqiua. My department, English, did nothing of the kind, barring once-a-year socials.
Good question. Which departments/programs do the best job of creating an academic community? I have heard wonderful things about MATH/STAT. Is that still true? What departments do a poor job? English? What ideas could the bad departments easily steal from the good ones? Now is a good time for department chairs to start thinking of New Years resolutions . . .
Modest Proposal
Interesting video of Wendy Shalit ‘97, author of Girls Gone Mild, discussing mentors.
There is a story about a Williams professor toward the end. Previous Shalit posts here.Related (?) is this Record article about Liz Osthus ‘96, the only (?) Eph stripper.
For graduating students, entering the real world often means following a dress code. Sometimes it means wearing a three-piece suit, or sometimes it means wearing Abercrombie & Fitch. For Liv Osthus ‘96, also known as Viva Las Vegas, it means wearing her birthday suit. It’s not that Osthus doesn’t ever wear clothing for her job; it’s that she takes it off while she works, because while most Ephs start work at 9 a.m., Osthus’s job at her Mary’s Club doesn’t begin till at least 4:30 p.m., or 9 p.m. if she’s taking the night shift.
It’s been about 10 years since Osthus started stripping. “I was trying to be a musician and a writer and so I needed money to allow me to do those things,” Osthus said. “I thought I’d just be doing it for a year. I had a lot of loans from Williams and I thought I’d do it for a while and get my loans paid off.”
Another reason to be pleased with Williams move to a no-loans financial aid policy? Just asking! Previous posts about Osthus here.
“I’ve been writing my book for the last four years,” Osthus said. “I would like to have stopped [stripping] before now, but I still love my job – and I can still afford my mortgage.” And it’s not just through her well-roundedness that Osthus shows her Eph background. She has put her Williams education to good use – she speaks five languages and has used them all during her act.
“I met Sean Penn, and he just spent some time in East Africa so I spoke Swahili with him,” she said. “I speak French, German, English, of course, and I studied in Bali for a semester and east Africa for a semester. Both are very, very rusty but we had a whole bunch of sailors from Indonesia and I was able to talk to them, and a missionary dude from east Africa.”
Am I a bad father for hoping that my daughters don’t become strippers, for Indonesian sailors or anyone else? I can’t come up with the exact culture reference, but isn’t it the father’s job to “keep his daughter off the pole?”
Her old classmates have been supportive as well, and many have come in to see her act. “They knew I was a wild card, and I think most have been in to see me dance,” Osthus said. “They’re always shocked by how normal it is – I just happen to be unclothed and dancing.”
Even her father, the preacher, supports her now. “He was initially very upset and disappointed, but I’ve taught classes on it and even the philosophy of it,” Osthus said. “It’s my pulpit when I get on that stage – he gets that. It’s so not about the sex, it’s about performance and I love it.”
A good father’s love is unconditional.
I have exchanged e-mails with both Shalit and Osthus. Best to both during the holiday season.
Phonefare
Greg Crowther ‘95 defines “phonefare” as the “that brief musical ‘fanfare’ that cell phones emit when they are turned on or off.” Given EphBlog’s Google juice, I expect this to be the top hit for the term shortly. Spread the word.
Due Date
Grades from professors are “due” to the Registrar today. Cale Weatherly comments, “You are significantly likelier to receive grades on time from professors who do not have tenure than from professors who do.”
Indeed. And this would make for an interesting senior thesis! What is the pattern of timeliness among professors when it comes to getting grades in? You could even run some randomized experiments by sending out reminders to some professors but not others. You could look for department effects. And so on.
I realize that this might seem like a stupid topic. Shouldn’t a senior thesis tackle a bigger problem? No! The more narrow the topic, the better the senior thesis. The more Williams-focussed, the more likely that anyone will ever read it. Thousands of people have read selections from Lindsey Taylor’s ‘05 thesis. Moreover, this small topic will provide all the complexities of a bigger issue.
Merry Christmas!
Can you guess this Eph Santa and his elf, and the occasion for their merriment?
A Christmas Wish
Particularly ill-informed thread on WSO about Herb Allen’s ‘62 op-ed. Don’t kids today read EphBlog!? Could a student reader please add a link to our discussion to that thread? Consider it a Christmas present for me and them.
Nice Boots
Nice picture of Ian Poirer ‘07 in the December issue of Skiing.
Not exactly what I look like on the slopes . . .
With all respect …
For the intellectual rigor of the agnostic and the aetheist,
and for the sincerity of those who guide their lives by the principals of their religion,
but with approbation for the sales-over-last-year Whirlwinds of Walmart
and the practitioners of PC prattle who triivilaize language and meaning,
May I wish this community a very Happy Christmas!
Dick Swart 1956
Hood River, Oregon
An Application Metaphor
Stephen O’Grady ‘97 writes:
When I was in high school, and it came time to apply to college, my primary goal was as straightforward as it was unambitious: to get in. Obviously I had certain preferences, but like musical chairs I more or less didn’t want to be the one left standing. Most kids, I’m sure, are of the same mindset, which is why they labor through the often tedious application process for so-called “safety schools” that they would prefer not to attend. What differentiated me then wasn’t the fact that I applied to a safety school, but rather the fact that I applied to about a dozen of them.
Recognizing that my relative indifference towards academics and a lamentable lack of real athletic talent did little to distinguish me from my peers, I fell back on the shotgun approach. Apply to enough institutions, my thinking went, and somebody would have to accept me.
Fortunately for everyone – or at least me – Williams rolled the dice and everything worked out nicely. After a positively abysmal freshman year, anyway.
Perhaps because the tactic played a role in the fine education that I received, I find it curious that so few enterprises are willing to embrace it when entering markets with which they are unfamiliar. Many if not most of the vendors we speak with focus, understandably, on the science of community and software development. But while the science has its place, the fact is that the software world is, like the MLB Playoffs, a crapshoot. And success is often far more art than science.
Consider the evidence. . . .
Not sure that the metaphor works in this case, but who am I to begrudge a tenuous connection to All Things Eph?
Let he who is without purple-tinged memories, cast the first stone.
Solstice Story
A beautiful solstice story for the shortest day of the year from an anonymous Eph.
Alarming
David H.T. Kane ‘58 and he-who-is-now-only-Aidan point to today’s New York Times op-ed by Herb Allen ‘62.
The separation of the wealthiest from the rest of the country is alarming.
Uhhh, not so alarming that Herb Allen deigns to fly commercial like the rest of us plebeians.
But it would be even more alarming if we recognized that income isn’t the only measure of wealth. Health and education are forms of wealth, too, essential to happiness and a strong society. Yet in the discussion of America’s growing wealth gap, they too often go unnoticed.
True, and not just education and health. See my contribution to last year’s CGCL.
Disparities in health care and in education are widespread. In the realm of education, however, there’s a particularly corrosive shift that’s taking place, one that has tremendous consequences for the development of America’s best minds: the growing gap between super-wealthy colleges and universities — and the rest of the academic world. There is a widening division that gives top colleges and universities a huge financial advantage over their poorer counterparts.
Is that really true? There is no doubt that the existing division between elite schools like Williams/Harvard and everyone else is large. But it is growing? Is Williams wealthier relative to, say, Bennington or UMASS than it was 50 years ago. I am not sure, but I have never seen a good study of the topic. Color me suspicious.
Prof. Pasachoff Speaks
Prof. Jay Pasachoff has a letter to the editor published in today’s NY Times. The proposal laid out in his letter seems reasonable on its face, but perhaps is a little naive.
Cycling in India, Part II
Liked Porfessor Joe Cruz’s description of cycling in India? Part II is ever better.
Taking One for the Team
Kim Daboo ‘88 reports that “the uterus, she is closed for business.” She also has a question for her male readers.
African Food/ Townie Wisdom
I figured I would comment on the recent posts about African food. I have spent some fairly recent time in East Africa. About seven months, in fact. The best food I had there was Lebanese food.
The Lebanese are everywhere, by the way. A great majority of lebanese live outside of Lebanon. There are millions of Lebanese livings in Africa.
I found the African people I encountered to be very friendly and polite. There was minimal crime. Almost everyone had a curiosity about America that revealed hesitating admiration and trust. Most Africans that I met still held guarded hope for a strong and good America that delivered friendship and the promise of a better future.
I also encountered extreme separations of wealth, desperate poverty, and the rampant corruption that is prevalent in many African Nations. It is a sad place, in many ways. Very hard for me to express in the written language, but when I think about Africa, I get mixed feelings of joy, remorse, sadness and hope.
Has anyone ever heard of the theory “Relative Deprivation“? From what I have observed in my travels in life, I believe it is the most accurate criminology theory ever written. I do not believe that crime has anything to do with genetics, race, or even poverty. It is cultural.
Our views on class and race are always a work in progress. No one is ever “right” about such matters, but there are plenty of people who I know are wrong.
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