Archive for October, 2008
On Mentors By Rollie [Blog Entry]
Friday Random Top 10
So what was your favorite World Series moment? Man I probably had the least interest in a World Series ever. Looks like we need a Friday Randome Top 10:
1. This Land is Your Land — Woody Guthrie
2. Don’t Dictate — The Penetration
3. California Dreamin’ — The Mama’s and Papa’s
4. Heart Songs — Weezer
5. Chloroform — Jack Logan
6. Opportunity (live) — Elvis Costello
7. Mystery — Kelly Hogan and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts
8. Divide and Conquer — Husker Du
9. Opportunity — Elvis
10. Judy is a Punk — Ramones
First time ever the same song by the same artist in the same top ten (although one is a live version). A fine list too. What’s your top ten?
TCF Bank Stadium Photos
I got to tour TCF Bank Stadium today, future home of the Minnesota Golden Gophers. The place is going to be spectacular. While the form of the stadium is pretty much complete, the interiors don’t have any finishes so I didn’t take a lot of pictures of the interiors. However, that locker room is going to be spectacular!! Below are some pics that I did take (click on photo to enlarge).
The Field is at grade level, so you will have to walk up to get to your seat (or take an elevator).
Ground Level Exterior
View from the President’s Suite (holds 80 people)
3:30 on a late October afternoon. Sun and Shade will be a factor
Inside the Suites
Top Row below the Loge
Inside Corridor
The Field
Top Row, worst seat in the House!
MATERIAL AND QUESTIONS FOR NOV 3, 2008
Here are the links:
Time, damage and ageing : what really matters? Rejuvenation Res. 10:373-375 is not accessible through library, We should ask Warner to send us this paper.
Here are the questions that Huber prepared for November 3. Would someone be willing to send Edgar the links to directly access reading materials?
1. Suggest an explanation for why SOD-deficient mice are viable, but fibroblasts taken from such mice are not when grown in air.
2. What is the significance of increased levels of plasma alanine aminotransferase activity in mice exposed to diaquat?
3. How do Han et al. explain the changes in gene expression patterns observed in diquat-treated mice?
4. Would you predict that GPx1-deficient mice would be short-lived? What about SOD2-deficient mice?
5. Should we consider the 'free radical theory of aging' disproved by evidence that oxidative damage and tumor incidence in mice can increase significantly without affecting life span?
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Please add Hansen et al., 2008 to the reading list for November 10. I have listed 6 articles in all, but I hope you will read all of these more for their 'flavor' rather than for the details.
Until they can, this group is focused on getting others to vote
Jeffrey Belteton and Jameer Anderson know that this year’s election matters, and they want everyone to get out and vote.
When their teachers at Sojourner Truth Academy in North Minneapolis called to make arrangements for them to run a voter registration drive with their fifth and sixth grade classmates, elections officials were skeptical. However, Siri Nestingen and Maggie Struck knew that their students were more than capable of doing voter registration: they have seen them shine this year as community problem solvers using the Public Achievement organizing model.
Where do you find eligible voters who need to register? Fifth and sixth graders know.
A growing, important part of the nation’s political dynamic
Young combat veterans who work on behalf of political campaigns or initiatives are featured in a recent article in the New York Times. While Pentagon regulations still ban partisan activity for active-duty service members, for many of the 869,000 Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and subsequently left the service, engaging in politics has become another type of duty.
From joining political campaigns to working for nonpartisan, politically engaged groups, many of these veterans are returning from war with a calling to engage civically, some for the first time in their lives.
The Times article states that “Scores more young veterans are volunteering for the presidential campaigns, speaking at rallies or knocking on doors, while 150,000 or so have joined new groups that have no official party association but have spent millions on advertisements supporting points of view on the Iraq and Afghan wars.”
The Center for Democracy and Citizenship’s Warrior to Citizen Campaign exists to recognize the contributions that veterans make both overseas and in their communities. With so many veterans returning home with new skills and, like the Times article illustrates, a calling to be civically engaged, initiatives like the Warrior to Citizen Campaign are ever more important to help support and connect veterans to the communities they left behind.
To illustrate how veterans are using their skills and passions when they arrive home from deployment, the Warrior to Citizen Oral History Project is chronicling the stories and contributions of Minnesota’s most recent returning veterans in an exhibition, which will travel the state of Minnesota beginning in January 2009.
To read the full text of the article, click here.
Bob Dylan Week
While everyone is focused on the election, it’s unofficially Bob Dylan week here in Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota. Tonight the festivities kick-off with an hour long discussion at Nicholson Hall by Dylan biographer and pop culture critic Greil Marcus and Director Todd Haynes who wrote and directed the very interesting Dylan film I’m Not There. I’m not sure exactly what the topic is going to be but it promises to be interesting and I will be there with a certain review tomorrow.
Saturday night events move to the Walker Art Museum where Haynes’ film I’m Not There will screen. Again Marcus and Haynes will be there — this time to specifically discuss the film. I’m hoping to go, but who knows what the boss has planned for Saturday night. I saw I’m Not There when it came out and really enjoyed it, although it was oblique at times. In this article even Greil Marcus admits it takes a few viewings to enjoy fully so I am hoping to see the movie again, hear the discussion, and gain more insight into the movie.
Claymation!
Here is an animation I've made using clay and stop motion. Just an experiment to see how claymation works. It' a lot harder than it looks!
A Tale of Two Campaigns
One rainstorm, two campaigns and two responses
“Wearing jeans, white sneakers and an insulated windbreaker, Barack Obama delivered his stump speech this morning in a chilly, steady rain in Chester, Pa.
“A little bit of rain never hurt anybody,” Obama said, surveying the soaking, umbrella-covered crowd at Widener University, occasionally rubbing his hands together for warmth and squinting through the raindrops. An estimated 9,000 people turned out.
And John McCain:
“The McCain campaign announced it was postponing a rally at 1:15 p.m. in Quakertown, Pa., about one hour north of Chester, due to weather.”
Add to the fact that an unnamed McCain staffer called Gov. Palin a “Whack Job” today, and you get the feeling that the wheels are starting to come off the McCain campaign bus.
“Green” civic organizers achieve success on local project to improve water quality, Part II
Last spring, a team of high school students at St. Bernard’s Catholic School used Public Achievement to identify a community problem they cared about (environmental damage), narrow it down to a discrete issue (water pollution), and then develop and implement a plan for making change (building a rain garden at their school).
They had a lot to learn – what is a rain garden? who makes decisions about the school grounds? – and faced significant but not insurmountable challenges (educating and convincing decision-makers, sustaining the project through changes in team membership, communicating with contacts outside the school, making their work sustainable, and funding).
