World Press Best Photo of the Year
I love this photo. It has the essence of true art; it is immediate and compelling, and pulls you in. Or at least it pulls me in. It reminds me of the Pieta (see end of article)
From the Huffington Post on AOL News:
New York Times photographer Samuel Aranda was announced the winner of the iconic World Press Photo competition on Friday.
The 55th annual jury of the World Press Photo contest selected Aranda’s photograph of a woman consoling an injured male relative in Yemen as 2011’s photo of the year. The woman is covered almost entirely by her burqa, by exception of small parts of her face and arms that seem to sneak out from beneath her robes. Aranda took the photograph in a Sanaa mosque that was being used as a hospital by demonstrators protesting against Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The Times’ Lens blog described the winning photograph as having the “feel of a Renaissance painting.” Mr. Aranda told the Times that it was one of the first shots he took during his two months on assignment in Yemen. “The woman is not just crying. It was something more. You can feel that the woman is really strong,” Aranda said of the female subject in his photograph.
The World Press Photo competition is one of the most famous competitions for photojournalists in the world. The award-winning photographs are made into a traveling exhibition, which visits more than 45 countries over the course of the year. Click over to the World Press Photo website to view all the winners and exhibit schedule.
Cramming for the Exam
“I’m cramming for my exam” I said to AdventureMan, as he eyed my plate full of vegetables and my WonTon soup broth.
“What exam?” he asked.
“I have a follow up with Dr. Internal Medicine, and I need to get my blood tested in two weeks. In two weeks I can make sure my cholesterol and blood sugar and blood pressure are all in line,” I told him.
My sister, Big Diamond, told me that it only takes two weeks of proper eating to get the numbers right. I did it last time and it worked. Now and then, between exams, I eat something too sweet, or too white, or too high on the glycemic index, but not the two weeks before my blood test! No no no!
Whoda thunk I would reach this ripe, mature age and still have to worry about exams?
Scanning Obituaries
Who knew? I certainly didn’t, and yet I find that I’m not alone. AdventureMan does it, too, and other friends. One friend says she thinks she scans the obituaries to celebrate the fact that she is still alive. That may be it for most of us, but in addition, I find that there are people living among us with amazing histories, and we don’t even know. Sometimes when you read an obit, you can tell that the person wrote it himself or herself, and what that person considered important in his/her life. Sometimes the obituary is not very loving.
Southern newspapers, in my experience, are much richer in extraordinary detail that newspapers in bigger cities, like Seattle. In bigger cities, only the rich and famous or notorious get much space; it may be that the space is far more expensive in the bigger cities, or that families are less willing to shell out from the estate for the bigger coverage. Southerners value family, and history; it’s a part of the culture.
Yesterday, when I took the Pensacola News Journal in to AdventureMan, I had circled something in one of the obituaries, knowing that he, like me, only reads them now and then. I didn’t want him to miss this line:
(Name) was a Past Mighty Chosen One of the Zelica Daughters of Mokanna, Ladies Auxiliary to the Grotto.
Holy smokes! I thought it might be one of the Mardi Gras Krewe things, but AdventureMan googled, and discovered that is a Masonic offshoot, and their larger groups are called Cauldrons. (!)
In America of the early 1900’s, social affiliation groups were important. People belonged to religious groups like Knights of Columbus, Ladies of the Church, etc, quasi-religious groups like Masons and Shriners, and social groups like the Elks and Moose and Lions Club. Some groups still exist, and are still going strong, like Rotary Club, and special interest groups. In Pensacola, there is a Tea Party AND a Coffee Party. There is a Philipino-American Republican Club. When people gather together regularly to share something in common, they can form a group. All of these groups help people be connected in their communities and in their lives, and help people to look after one another.
I belonged to a group once that called ourselves the Aqua-Babes. To be perfectly honest, we might not be total babes, but hey – it’s our group, we can call ourselves what we want, right?
But oh, my, to be a Mighty Chosen One . . .
Happy Two Years Old
I remember when they were called the Terrible Twos . . . but, at two, our little Happy Toddler is a delight:
He is so delighted to be able to communicate. We can hear him in his car seat, practicing his pronunciation, so people will understand what he says. Two weeks ago, he was patiently trying to communicate something to us, and we thought he was asking about the garbage can, but he was asking about his car blanket. Now “car blanket” is clear, and daily he gathers more and more vocabulary. “Stuck!” he chortles! “Bubbles!” “Tractor!” “Door OPEN!”
We laugh with glee to see his delight at our comprehension.
There are other times he cracks us up. “What color is this?” we ask, and he says “Lello,” but he isn’t even looking. He doesn’t really care much what color it is. If we say “no, it isn’t yellow” he might say “red” or “geen” or “boo” but he isn’t looking and he doesn’t care. The-Grandmother-who-lives-on-color hopes that this is just a passing phase, and that one day he will care whether it is carmine or flaming or blood or cherry or claret . . .
He walks boldly, he runs exuberantly, he skips, he dances, he climbs; he is a very all-boy boy. He has a dignity all his own, and a confidence that he is greatly loved. We thank God for this little grandson.
A Sucker Born Every Minute
It just must be that time of the year . . . here is today’s scam e-mail. Please feel free to contact the sender and screw with him:
We are delighted to inform you that your e-mail address has won you the sum of
Ђ350,000.00 Euros from the Patricia Wood Award Foundation. For your payment, You
are requested to contact Dr.Eduardo Pablo with the details:1. Name: 2. Age: 3.
Address: 4. Phone Number: Through her Email: segurosagenciad19@hotmail.com and
For More Info Call Tel:+34-622-646-594
Scam Letter for Today . . .
Scam Letter
You know how I hate lying and deception, sneaking and peeping, all manner of pretending rather than keeping it real. I have a real thing about scams, and I want to pour the light of day on each and every one of them, so that the vulnerable will be forewarned.
This is a letter I got this week. Many times, I won’t even open junk mail, just throw it away, but this one looked like it MIGHT be official, even though my gut told me it wasn’t:
Looks a little like a W-2 form, doesn’t it, or something governmental?
Inside:
Still looks official, doesn’t it, but it isn’t a government form, it’s a form telling me (using my name) that this is my FINAL notification that I have to claim the two round-trip tickets on any American airline that I have won.
In a separate attachment is this “flight coupon”:
I passed it along to AdventureMan, in case he wanted to call the number and mess with them a little, but neither of us really wanted to waste the time – or to give them any idea what our phone number is: we hate scam phone calls, too. Yes, it is a scam, even if it may not be an illegal scam, it is a deception and not what it appears to be. SCAM!
Houston CC: Qatar Unable to Credit Coursework?
TThe western universities in Qatar have fought long and hard to have accountability and enforced standards . . . and there are always challenges. Here is a hilarious article about one such newer university facing significant challenges (thanks, John! )
Faulty planning may be to blame for HCC Qatar campus’s problems
By Jeannie Kever, Houston Chronicle
Updated 09:01 p.m., Saturday, February 4, 2012
As top officials at Houston Community College were collecting awards and publishing papers about their international ventures last year, their effort in Qatar was struggling with disagreements over accreditation, high faculty turnover and growing worries that the dean hired by the Qataris to lead the effort was working against them.
The problems, detailed in emails and internal documents obtained through a public records request, raise questions about whether HCC was prepared for the ambitious foreign undertaking.
The dean chosen by the Qatari government was replaced in November by a veteran HCC employee, Butch Herrod, as part of an administrative overhaul. Enrollment has reached 750 students, less than two years after HCC signed an agreement with the Qatari government to create that nation’s first community college.
But students have not received HCC credits for their classes there – a cornerstone of the promises made when the partnership was announced – and for now it appears unlikely their coursework will transfer to the six U.S. universities with operations in Qatar. After months of student protests, a deal signed last month will allow graduates of the new community college to enroll in Qatar University.
Things were so bad last spring an HCC administrator in Qatar wrote HCC Chancellor Mary Spangler that Community College of Qatar, or CCQ, had become known as “the Crazy College of Qatar.”
From the beginning, Spangler said the Qatar contract was a way to earn money as state funding dropped and property tax revenues remained flat. HCC records indicate the college has collected $640,034 from the deal; it projects a profit of $4.6 million by 2015, slightly more than expected.
Deputy Chancellor Art Tyler said in a recent interview that things now are running smoothly, and that misunderstandings are unavoidable in any international operation.
“The world is not exactly flat,” he said. “It may have gotten smaller over the years, thanks to technology, but when you’re dealing with people, with communities, you can’t know everything.”
Women taught separately
Among the things HCC didn’t know until just before classes began in September 2010: The Qatari government decided male and female students would be educated separately, contrary to the five-year, $45 million contract, which called for coeducational classes.
Former employees say that was just one of the surprises when they arrived in Qatar, ranging from delays in getting textbooks to worries over their exit visas.
“Things did not go smoothly at all,” said Randi Perlman, hired to teach English to Arabic-speaking students. “There were a lot of issues that came up … that I think didn’t need to happen.”
Overseas campuses
With more than 70,000 students, HCC is one of the nation’s largest community college systems, offering lower division academic classes and workforce training.
Over the past decade, it has become increasingly involved in international ventures, as well, with projects in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Qatar.
Tyler said Qatar, located on the Persian Gulf, is a natural match for a Houston institution: energy industry ties, Qatar Airlines’ nonstop flights and the presence of the Qatar Consulate here. Six U.S. universities have campuses there, including Texas A&M.
The Methodist Hospital System has an office in the United Arab Emirates and is helping to build an ambulatory care center in the capital city of Doha.
Visa requirement
The first wave of HCC faculty and staff discovered after being hired – in some cases, after arriving in Doha – that their visas required them to get permission before leaving the country.
“That seemed to me to be a human-rights violation,” said Jan McNeil, a veteran English teacher who had previously worked in Singapore.
HCC offered interviews with three employees who worked in Qatar last year, all of whom said the visas posed no problem.
David Ross, chairman of the English as a second language and English departments in Qatar, said the system worked but acknowledged the six-day window to use the visas made timing tricky and the lack of multiple exit visas – standard for U.S. employees of American universities and companies there – provoked anxiety.
Internal emails also detail delays in preparing apartments for the expatriate employees, paying tuition at schools for their children and complaints about spotty Internet service.
“That whole piece of helping faculty and staff feel at home … was a challenge,” Tyler said.
‘A matter of learning’
Perlman, who now teaches at Texas A&M in College Station, attributed many of the challenges to poor planning, including hiring administrators – many of whom transferred from Houston – without experience working in a foreign country.
“You need people on the ground there, to help you get things done,” said Perlman. “They didn’t have that.”
Mark Weichold, dean and CEO of Texas A&M’s Qatar campus and a member of an interim board appointed last fall to govern CCQ, said missteps are to be expected.
“Watching HCC help get the community college established, some of the bumps are similar to what I’ve seen the other branch campuses (in Qatar) experience,” he said. “It’s a matter of learning how to do things in a different part of the world.”
Little control at top
But former employees and internal documents suggest HCC’s biggest problem came from a contract that authorized the Qatari government to hire the school’s chief academic official, giving HCC little control over decisions at the top.
Judith Hansen was hired by Qatar’s Supreme Education Council and served as dean until late last year.
Tyler declined to discuss the circumstances that led to Hansen’s departure in November.
Hansen, who had been forced out of the president’s job at Southwestern Oregon Community College in 2008 following three no-confidence votes by faculty and staff groups, did not respond to requests for comment.
But she was at the center of disputes over accreditation and whether CCQ could change HCC’s curriculum or claim it as its own.
She insisted on independence in an email to Tyler last winter: “The request for no assistance with (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) accreditation means there is no need for HCC to be concerned about CCQ organizational chart,” she wrote.
‘Crazy College of Qatar’
Not so fast, Spangler said after Tyler passed on the message.
“We will not accept this response,” the HCC chancellor wrote to Tyler. “She is not calling the shots.”
Cheryl Sterling, an HCC administrator now in Qatar, wrote Tyler and Spangler last spring after Tyler acknowledged no HCC credit would be awarded for the spring 2011 semester.
“If students do not receive HCC credits this Spring, we will have a major crisis (all out war),” she wrote. “The Dean has held several forums assuring them of credits. … we are known as CCQ, the Crazy College of Qatar.”
At about the same time, faculty members issued a “no confidence” vote against Hansen.
John Moretta, a faculty member now in Qatar, was in contact with Spangler before the vote.
“She avoids me because she knows … that I know what she is doing is in direct contravention of so many HCC policies,” he wrote of Hansen. “Should we proceed with the faculty-senate vote of no confidence? … Please advise.”
Spangler replied the same day.
“The short answer is yes, and we didn’t have this conversation,” she told him.
Snake Troubles My Sleep
I was sleeping soundly, and suddenly I would be awake, hearing footsteps, the sneaking kind, like you don’t want to be heard. AdventureMan is snoring softly, so I know it is not him. Once the adrenaline stops coursing through my veins, and I calm, I remember that the weather is unseasonably warm for February and I have turned on my overhead fan, and somewhere, it must be a piece of paper rustling just a little, now and then, as the fan-induced breeze hits it.
In the morning, I laugh. I’m working on a project which includes a snake. In order to get the snake movement just right, I had to make a paper template, which is now hanging over a rod in my office. The faint rustling was the paper snake. Guess I’d better move that snake to where it can’t do any harm.
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