1ST 10,080
Liberating Odyssey Minutes Minus 2880 Minutes
_____
-Aug. 27 F "Intersections
at the Crossroads: Walden, Thoreau, and Einstein"
The Environmental Crime Scene
Investigators (ECSI) check out the equipment, triangulate the
possibilities, discuss fluids, toxins, texts, and the directions on the
compass that will point us back to Walden. We will explore your favorite
place on earth. Does anything threaten your favorite place? Will it be
the same 10, 25, 50, a hundred years from now? Not a syllabus-talking
class. More like the first day of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Read:
“Only Connect: The Goals of a Liberal Arts (Liberating Arts) Education,”
by William Cronon in Intersections...
Sam Cady
Cronon's Top Ten List: Qualities of a Liberal Arts Education:
It takes a whole community to raise a well-rounded person...
Walt Cannon
Wild Geese, a Place at the Table, and an Open Hand:
Announcing Your Place in a Conversation About the Liberating Arts...
Life-Forming Connections...
"And this takes us to new metaphorical
territory to help us think about the Intersection as a special,
non-fatal, kind of connection. When two or more things do come together
in just the right way interesting things happen: life-forming things
happen when the right amounts of oxygen and hydrogen intersect to
produce water, when seeds intersect with the right soil, temperature,
light and moisture to sprout.
Non-organic molecules can even become organic when the right conditions
for intersections prevail, as in photosynthesis, or in the very
beginnings of life. And it is on the edges, the interface where one
thing meets another where flux occurs, where the highest rate of
exchange is registered, that interesting new stuff is made."
Assignment due Monday, Aug. 30
Type a 1 1/2 page (single-spaced)
response to Cronon’s essay due Monday.
On a second page type
out the three best ideas in Cronon, and the three best ideas from
Cannon.
Focus on Cronon’s
10 qualities
of an educated person. Then think about how these qualities are
essential, equipment for living. Think about how and where these
essential qualities are cultivated. It’s whatever sense
YOU
make of it. There is no one answer.
After reading this essay do you now understand the difference between
vocational ed and a real education?
Need a good title.
Awards for titles.
2nd 10,080 Cast Away Minutes
_____
-Aug. 30. M "The
Liberating Arts Odyssey: Ten Behavioral Qualities Beyond the Usual
AcademicSpeak About the Liberal Arts Major Now French Fryer According to
Regis"
We will discuss
Cronon’s
very specific list of qualities that he says identifies the goals of
your current $25,000
investment here at Central College. Be ready to talk about this essay in
detail.
Good title?
Special Guests
Adam/Melanie Zach
J./Nathan Justin/Amanda
Elmo Three Best
Ideas
Joe/Jason/Alison
After all that tuition what can you do?
1. You listen and you hear.
2. You read and you understand.
3. You can talk with anyone.
4. You can write clearly and persuasively and movingly.
5. You can solve a variety of puzzles and problems.
6. You respect rigor not so much for its own sake but as a way of seeking
truth.
7. You practice humility, tolerance, and self-criticism.
8. You understand how to get things done in the world.
9. You nurture and empower the people around them.
10. You follow E.M. Forster’s injunction from Howard’s End: “Only
Connect…”
______
-Sept
1. W "Cast Away in the van Emmerik at
Noon"
The
Fatal Leap
"WHICH of us, while sitting
at the edge of the ocean and gazing toward the horizon, hasn't shivered
to imagine being drawn out to sea, getting lost and ending up a tiny
forgotten speck in the middle of nowhere, shouting at the sky? As
potentially panic-inducing as this vision may be, there's also something
alluring about it. It's like standing on the edge of a cliff and
imagining that fatal leap into the unknown.
" -Stephen
Holden
Tick Tock Mania
"He lives in
'a world on time'
and yet does not know how to discern the time. He lives in a world of
unopened boxes, not realizing he has become one. He lives in a world he
controls until suddenly he is Cast Away."
-Film Review
Walden Pond as
Symbol
'Walden represents nature as both
knowable and unknowable. Its symbolic meaning is in some ways very
clear, especially when he describes it through the metaphors of the pond
as mirror, and the pond as 'earth's eye.' As a mirror the pond
symbolically mediates between the material and spiritual worlds
represented by the earth and the sky. In 'Where I Lived,' he speaks of
the pond's 'smooth reflecting surface' and emphasizes its ability to
reflect the sky, thus becoming a 'lower heaven.' It demonstrates that
heaven is not distant in time or place but immediately under our feet
here and now.
"In reflecting the shoreline also, the
pond reveals new views to the alert observer and provides and art
gallery of nature's masterpieces. The reflections, Thoreau finds, are
never mere duplicates of the scene reflected, however. The air and the
water always add something new. Thus the pond represents as well as the
eye of the artist/writer, whose task is to connect the material and the
spiritual and thereby reveal new and beautiful truths to others. As a
metaphor for the writer's own artistic eye, the the pond's 'crystalline
purity' emphasized in 'The Ponds,' also suggests a moral purity against
which the writer or the reader can 'measure the depth of his own
nature.'
"The pond as metaphor for humanity's moral nature is developed in 'The
Ponds in Winter,' where the map of the pond's depths becomes a symbols
of 'the height and depth of a person's character.' A comparison
more clever than clear, but one that emphasizes the importance to
Thoreau of finding moral implications in nature." The pond is bottomless
because man wants to believe in the infinite."
-Richard J.
Schneider "Walden" 101-102.
Read
Film Reviews
(handout)
From Walden (Intersections) "Where I Lived and What I lived For,"
by Henry David Thoreau.
From Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Intersections) "Seeing," by Annie Dillard.
"Walden," by Richard Schneider 92-106.
Stephen Newman
Henry David Thoreau's Guide to Regression:
Intersections Beyond Walden Pond and a South Seas Island-Fed Ex Keeps
Ticking, Ticking, Ticking...
Val Miller
Nature vs. Moocher: The Global Impact on the Human Environment-
So What if the Air, The Water, The Soil Get Contaminated, Polluted,
Wiped Out by Ignorance, Greed, and Self Interest... It's Not MY Major,
It Doesn't Affect Me: Confronting the Clueless
"I am suggesting that most people
now are living on the far side of a broken connection, and that this is
potentially catastrophic. Most people are now fed, clothed, and
sheltered from sources toward which they feel no gratitude and exercise
no responsibility."
-Wendell Berry, In Distrust of Movements Orion
The Anti-Life
Listen to the campus late at night. Conan gaggles with a midnight joke.
Video games explode and rip while conversations with a late night pizza
and pop buzz with "I can't believe we have to take this Intersections
course. Gee whiz, I just don't get it! Why do we get blamed! None of
this will ever affect me!"
Marty Feeney
Talk of the Campus: Conversations with Lucy and Henry David Thoreau
A Concord Jam with a Peanut Butter Chaser...
"I was melting this summer. Each day
more and more of me escaped into the atmosphere. Vapor became me.
My pants went swimming where my waist once belly-flopped over a belt. I
went to a family graduation and 80-year-old Lucy said, "Where's the rest
of your face?"
I said, "Lucy, it's hiding in a cloud over Kentucky."
Then I went to Walden Pond. Surprised because I could not find some
Disco-Mania-Fast-Food-screeching-overdeveloped-grub-money-schemers
trying to crock a buck out of transcendental sight-seekers."
Assignment due Monday, Sept. 13
Type 2 1/2 pages (single-spaced). Type on a
separate page five compelling moments from the readings... Be sure to
reference readings in your own responses too. Should not be just a
quick-off-the-top-of-your-head-response.
Think!
Type a Letter to Thoreau
Do the readings and then consider
your own responses to the film and to Thoreau and to the film reviewers.
One reviewer pointed out that the film does not sharply contrast the
hell of modern life with the utopia of a south sea island. Lots of
ambiguity. How does Annie Dillard's essay about seeing connect with this
film?
Then type a
letter to Thoreau. You have read his
essays, some perspective on Walden and his life now type a letter and
tell Thoreau what you think? Talk to him about the film, about the ideas
in his essays that connect with you and the film. Compare Thoreau and
Chuck Noland. Differences? Common ground? What would Thoreau say about
modern and postmodern life?
What would Thoreau think? If Thoreau watched this film, how would he
respond? How do you respond? What about your lifestyle? What about the
nature of time in the 21st century? Does Thoreau speak to any of these
issues? What specific Thoreau quotes relate to the film and/or the
reviews?
Need a good title. Awards for titles.
_____
-Sept. 3 F
"Cast Away in the van Emmerik at Noon"
Metaphysical Dimensions of the Existential
"But
even in the wobbly narrative bookends that hold a love story,
interrupted by disaster, there are flashes of a deeper metaphysical
poignancy. At its best, "Cast Away," like "Titanic," awes us with its
sheer oceanic sweep and its cosmic apprehension of human insignificance."
-Stephen Holden
3rd 10,080 Jon Chenette Minutes
_____
-Sept. 8 W "Cast Away in the van Emmerik at
Noon"
In the Express
Lane...
"Noland himself is presented as
the poster boy for what my main man Bob Greene called 'The Twitching of
America,' the modern habit of living life in overdrive. When Noland
isn't chewing out overseas FedEx employees about the need to speed up
deliveries, he's shuffling through his Day-Timer trying to juggle his
schedule, or talking on his cell phone. (The first part of the movie is
set in 1995, so he doesn't have a Palm Pilot yet.) When a harrowing
plane crash in the South Pacific casts him adrift on a desert island, a
world away from Memphis, Noland is separated all that gave his life
meaning; time, technology and love."
-Greg Ellis
______
-Sept. 9 R
"The Fascinating and Funky Professor Jon Chenette in Douwstra
at 11 a.m."
Do not miss this convo. This guy
works in strange and beautiful ways. A music composer, deft at creating
weird sounds, an environmentalist who lives the good earth life. College
is a place for you to meet people like Jon Chenette. Take some notes. We
will talk about him on Friday. A response is due on Friday.
Profile
Jonathan Chenette's (b. 1954) music has received international
recognition, including performances on the ISCM World Music Days in
Amsterdam, at the World Harp Congress in Vienna, at the Bishop Auckland
Early Music Festival in the U.K., and on an NPR national broadcast by
the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. A resident of Iowa since 1983, Chenette
is
Associate Dean of the College at
Grinnell
College and Blanche Johnson Professor of Music in the
Department of Music. He also serves on the Board of Directors
of the
Iowa Composers Forum. His major choral-orchestral work Broken
Ground, written in collaboration with six Iowa poets, premiered in 1996
on a concert of the Des Moines Symphony. Other major works include the
opera Eric Hermannson's Soul (1993), the song cycle Oh Millersville!
(1990), and the orchestral composition Chamber Symphony for 31
Instruments (1983).
-Jon
Chenette web site
Jon Chenette Convocation Program Notes
Good notes for
your one-page single-spaced response
Read
Chelsea Sandvik
Jon Chenette's 'Deformed
Ending' Compositions: Spending an Hour With Strange Mixtures of Music
and Moo... Agri-Culture Symphony, a Harvest of Pleasure
Chelsey Landzky
The Chenette Convocation:
Sound-tracking Farm and Prairie-
Nature As a Way of Redefining Time and Its Swift Passage
Leanne Townsend
Artistic Representations:
Literary, Musical and Art Gallery Works As Rhetorical Visions:
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jon Chenette, and Photographs of God's Creatures
Destroyed by Man...
Assignment due Friday:
Type one page (single-spaced) response to Professor
Jon Chenette.
On a separate page type out three points from the
readings listed about Chenette, Good title?
___
-Sept.
10 F "Jon Chenette Response: The Sound Guy"
So what did he say that you found
interesting? What about the approach he takes? What did you find that
will help you think about the world in ways this course champions? Did
you listen? Did you hear? Do you think he's the kind of person who
empowers those around him?
Art For
Everyone's Sake
"Artists have different ways of presenting the information that they
want to convey to their audiences. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle
Tom's Cabin, teaching the American people about the horrors of slavery
during the nineteenth century.
When Abraham Lincoln met Stowe he remarked, "So you are the little old
lady who started this big war." Stowe's book stirred America's pot. The
north was no longer able to accept the slavery in the south, resulting
in the Civil War.
Stowe used her literary talents to help change the way people thought.
Today, artists still use the art they create to present their own
agendas. Photographers snap pictures of starving children in Africa to
win the sympathy of Americans and similarly musicians write patriotic
songs such as "God Bless America", causing listeners to have feelings of
patriotism toward the land they love."
-Leanne
Townsend
Special
Guests
Jeremy/Sara
Eric/Aaron Trent/Zach S.
Elmo Three
Best Ideas
Sara/Jordan/Kellee
4th 10,080 Seeing With Annie Dillard Minutes
_____
-Sept.. 13 M "Cast
Away, Thoreau, Wildness and the Postmodern World:
Your Responses"
You've been waiting all week to talk
about Cast Away and about Henry David Thoreau. Texts speak in different
ways. What ideas were most meaningful for you? Connect Thoreau and
Noland. What did Newman and Miller say that connects with you.
Interesting Noland... mmm... Enough with my babbling-what did you think?
Good title?
Special Guests
Reid/Kellee
Jordan/Alison Jason/Joe
Elmo Three Best Ideas from Readings
Reid/Zach S./Eric/Jeremy
_____
-Sept..
15 W "Response to Annie Dillard's Essay:
'Seeing'"
Read Annie Dillard's
essay "Seeing" in the Intersections text. Fascinating ideas about
perception and the way we view the world around us. Great examples and
not written in high school academic flotsam that makes no real sense!
"But there is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go. When I
see this way I sway transfixed and emptied. The difference between the
two ways of seeing is the difference between walking with and without a
camera. When I walk with a camera I walk from shot to shot, reading the
light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own
shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When
I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer."
Special
Guests
Adam/Melanie Zach
J./Nathan Justin/Amanda
Elmo Three Best
Ideas from Essay
Amanda/Melanie/Trent/Justin
____
-Sept..
17 F "Reading and Research Day On Your
Own"
The convocation last week added a
day to last week's schedule. So today is your day. Catch up on the
readings. Nap. Watch a soap. See you Monday in the van Emmerik for a
unique experience. More observing and interpreting.
5th 10,080 FlukeyMan Gross Out
Minutes
_____
-Sept.. 20 M
The Host (van Emmerik)
Original airdate Sept. 24,
1994 (Chris Carter)
In the van Emmerik Scully and Mulder
sewage their way in pursuit of the creature from the
Yuck Lagoon. A creature feature, a
stand-alone episode that introduces Darin Morgan as the
Flukeman, an especially shivering
experience. Giant worms are the stuff of nightmares. An homage to the
1950s and movies about mutated creatures, genetics amok. It's not
nice to fool Mother Nature. From 1945 until 1963 nuclear bombs were
tested above ground spewing radiation all over the world. Not to mention
the two that were dropped on Japan.
The Creature from the Muck Lagoon
"Chris Carter should be terrified to learn that, seven minutes into last
night's episode of "The X-Files", four of the five TV viewers in my
household left the room and never came back. This is bad, bad news for
anyone in the ratings game. The "X-Files" has built its reputation on
being cool, hip and just a little bit twisted. Viewers have come to
expect something more sophisticated than a gore-filled remake of 'The
Creature from the Black Lagoon.'"
-Sarah
Stegall
Read
Farrand
and Edwards (handout)
Claudia Cauchon
Amy Lang
Sarah Stegall
Pellinor summary
X-Review Page
Summaries of episodes can be found on the X-Reviews pages next to each
episode title.
Brande Hulshizer
Is it a Fluke? Maybe not in Palo, Iowa
Living Near a Nuclear Power Plant in the 21st Century...
Fluke of Nausea
"Yuck, it's so disgusting and disturbing.
The translucent, manlike, conglomeration floats in the tank as the
audience looks in suspense at the "flukeman".
Its mouth looked stretched and large which hide the big fang-like teeth.
The fangs served to attack and injure its next victims: victims that
would inherit a piece of him-the fluke worm.
I have seen the X-Files before, but the shows that I have seen have
never been so graphic, disturbing, and related so closely to real life."
Sam Cady
Horrible Fears About "Flukes of Nature"
The X-Files, A Giant Worm, the Chernobyl Disaster, and Consequences of
the Nuclear Age...
"Will the next nuclear disaster bring about a new species of mutants? Will
flukeman rise out of the glowing muck and raise a horrible battle cry to
his atomic brothers and destroy us for giving him life? I am no
scientist and do not know if the ideas posed in the X-Files about
genetic mutation can occur.
But I also know that science is incomplete and there are things that
cannot be known or predicted.
Which brings a sense of fear in me that though the radiation kills, it
might have the power to breed life. What if a fetus was given a precise
amount of radiation at precisely the right time in it's growth to retard
or enhance it's growth? Could it bring about a strange creature much
like flukeman? While the incidents at Mayak are long over, the radiation
remains.
And depending on the half-life of the radioactive substances, will
probably remain for hundreds of years."
Jaime Schimelfenig
Who Will Be Left to Fight for the Dying?
Earth Odyssey and The X-Files Track Down Nuclear Nihilism: Morality or
Obedience?
The Chelyabinsk Vanishing Act...
"In To the Nuclear Lighthouse, Mark Hertsgaard deals with nuclear
explosions, factories, and radiation problems. What happened in
Chelyabinsk was compared to what happened at Chernobyl.
It's basically the same story, only Chernobyl got more attention and
Chelyabinsk didn't get any. Actually, quite the opposite happened.
Nothing was said about Chelyabinsk because it was top secret, even
though the results were much more devastating.
Because everything was top secret, the people in the town weren't even
told about what happened. They just knew there were now changes. The
water turns black, the crops and livestock are failing, and people are
getting sick more."
Adam Christian
The Silent Killer: Creating Madness and Killing Millions
Nuclear Power, the Flukeman Legacy and the Future of Life...
A Planetary Narrative of Doom
"In the years following World War II, the race for nuclear arms
superiority was in full swing between the U.S. and the former Soviet
Union.
Scientists worked around the clock to research, create, test, and
manufacture weapons that would give their country the upper hand in
nuclear technology.
The military wasn't the only group interested in this new technology
though, because the civilian world was always looking for a cheaper and
more efficient way to produce electricity.
This new technology was so rapidly evolving that very few people paid
any attention to the negative side effects of it, especially the
potential harm that it posed to the environment and society at large.
After reading the fourth chapter of Earth Odyssey called "To the Nuclear
Lighthouse" my eyes were opened to a whole new perspective on the use of
nuclear technology."
Mark Hertsgaard
To the Nuclear Lighthouse,"
in Earth Odyssey 119-155. (handout)
Student Research Papers
"What Have We Learned After 17 Years From TMI and 10 Years From
Chernobyl Accidents: Implications for future Chernobyls"
Read
Patra
Shovityakool and
Seth Weintraub.
Look at sources.
Assignment due Friday,
Sept. 24 -Two page (single-spaced) response to The Host with the
five best quotes you found typed on a separate page.
What is the nature of evidence? How do such stories prey upon nightmares
aplenty stuffed under a pillow that feels lumpy? Read the reviews by
clicking on the names. Go look at Chernobyl research. What strikes you
about this story from an environmental perspective? Personal
perspectives? Effective storytelling? Plausibility? Remember that your
own responses are significant.
Do Scully and Mulder read and understand? Do they listen and do they hear?
Do they empower people around them? Are they good at solving puzzles? Do
you think they experienced a Liberating Arts Education? Is that
important?
Need a good title. Awards for
titles.
______
-Sept..
22 W The
Geisler Matrix: Doing Research beyond Yahoo,
Google and Your Friend Billy's Cool Website"
We meet in Geisler Library. That
building on stilts (summers the Geisler building joins the circus and
tours with a juggling act) about 50 yards from Kruidenier. Research
Raconteur, Library CEO, and the Redoubtable Robin Martin will be our
guide as she takes us for a cyber ride where the very world itself
creeps and crawls at light speed through a cable into a space we can
inhabit. From wind farms-to the Chesapeake-from the South Pacific to Red
Rock-from the immortal slug to the ephemeral insect-we begin our
Environmental Crime Scene Investigation (ECSI) Education and the search
for solutions.
We will focus on
solutions this fall
semester. Do not miss this
class.
_____
-Sept.
24 F "The Slimy FlukeMan Returns: Your
Responses will be Wrapped in Hermetically-Sealed Containers and Doused
with Radiation"
Maybe it's just the nature of
New Jersey. But I thought Tony Soprano would keep the sewers safe
from giant worms. Did you look at Stegall's response? Did you read Sam
Cady, Brande Hulshizer?Adam Christian? Jaime Schmelfenig? Did you read
To the Nuclear Lighthouse? Have you looked at the Chernobyl sites and
the student research papers? So did you write something clear,
persuasive, moving in the Liberating Arts Tradition?
Good title?
Special Guests
Jeremy/Sara
Eric/Aaron Trent/Zach S.
Elmo Five
Best Ideas Found in the Readings
Nathan/Zack J./Adam/Joe
6th 10,080 Scary Woodsy Detour Minutes
_____
-Sept.
27 M Detour (van Emmerik)
Original airdate Nov. 23, 1997 (Frank Spotnitz)
The Dark Side of Nature
Scully: "It sure is beautiful, though."
Jeff Glaser: "That's what happens. People
get to looking around. Next thing they know, something eats them."
Scully: "What do you think killed those
men?"
Jeff Glaser: "Nature is populated with
creatures either trying to kill something they need to survive or trying
to avoid being killed by something that needs they to survive. If we
become blinded by the beauty of nature we may fail to see its cruelty
and violence."
Scully: "Walt Whitman?"
Jeff Glaser: "No, 'When Animals Attack' on
the Fox Network.
Like Tributaries to a River
"Across the continent, on the
shores of small tributaries, in the shadows of sacred mountains, on the
vast expanse of the prairies, or in the safety of the woods, prayers are
being repeated, as they have for thousands of years, and common people
with uncommon courage and the whispers of their ancestors in their ears
continue their struggles to protect the land and water and trees on
which their very existence is based. And like small tributaries joining
together to form a mighty river, their force and power grows. This river
will not be dammed."
-Winona LaDuke
Read
"The Memory Place," by Barbara Kingsolver in Intersections.
"Honor the Earth: Our Native American Legacy," by Winona LaDuke in
Intersections. "Transfiguration," by Annie Dillard in Intersections.
Claudia Cauchon
Woodsy Fear and
Loathing
"You would think by now Scully would know better than to follow Mulder
into the woods. She gets a rifle butt in the face in the pilot episode,
she almost gets killed by a bunch of killer bugs in 'Darkness
Falls,' she almost gets killed by some volcano spurs in 'Firewalker,'
Queequeq gets killed in the woods of Georgia in 'Quagmire' and now in
'Detour' she almost gets killed by a 450-year-old Treeman (I don't know
what else to call them. Dirtmen? Mothmen? Tickmen?). It isn't any wonder
that Scully didn't seem too happy throughout the episode with the
thought of another trek into the woods with Mulder. 'Detour' is one of
those X-Files episodes where Scully and Mulder go out and chase a
monster and one of them gets beat up from said monster then in the end
they are the only ones left alive, and it almost appears as if they
killed the monster. Remind me to never go into the woods with
Scully and Mulder."
Autumn Tysko
Wood Chuck Chuck...
"Thank God for the Mulder/Scully 'Outward Bound' program because
the red-eyed moth/mud/tree boys of Ponce de Leon who seemed like a
cross between 'Predator' and the XF novel 'Goblins' didn't do a whole
lot for me. I'm glad to see the monster of the week back. I'll be
even more glad when there is at least a scary monster instead of a
necessary evil."
Amy Lang
Monster
Intersection
"I am a fan of Stephen King. His work
has always scared and entertained me. I remember reading a short story
of his titled 'The Boogey Man.' It featured well… the boogeyman.
This scary entity would hide in people’s closets, waiting to pounce on
them and do lord knows what to their bodies. Since then, I have never
been able to sleep if my closet door is open, even a crack. My sister
told me that one time, I arose from a dream and closed the closet door
near my bed, all without waking. (Apparently, even in my dreams, I was
scared by a closet door ajar. ) I always check the status of the doors
before I get into bed. Of course, I can’t get out of bed to close the
closet door if I forget, because whatever is inside there, surely will
get me."
Tom Carissimi
Conversation in
the Woods
"David Duchovny was believable as the
suddenly invigorated Mulder. He must have been practicing with Gillian
Anderson, because his facial expressions in 'Detour' were as
demonstrative as hers usually are. I thought DD did a nice job playing
injured after the attack, and he delivered his one-liners deftly. Even
during the Conversation in the Woods, he seemed natural while rebuffing
Scully's attempt at serious, meaningful conversation about the meaning
of life and death. Mulder may be a smart man, but he's still clueless
when it comes to anything more than a deep, abiding respect for and
trust in his partner. Gillian Anderson was just as adept at displaying
her emotions without speaking. Her parting glance at Mulder as he
slipped out the door was priceless, and she displayed a genuine terror
after Michele disappeared in the woods."
Mulder: "I think nature is supremely indifferent to whether we
live or die. I mean if you're lucky you get 75 years. If you're really
lucky you get 80 years. And if you're extraordinarily lucky you get to
have 50 of those years with a decent head of hair."
Scully: "I guess it's like Las Vegas — the house always wins.
Oh!" [Finally separating the shell from the casing] "Taa-daa!"
Homicidal Nature
We all have celebrated
nature experiences, meditated about sunsets, the moon as big as a
harvest balloon sitting on the edge of the interstate... Cinematic
beauty stored eternally too. But nightmares spawned by nature creature
us too. Creep us out. Think about those moments as you type this
response.
Assignment due Friday, Oct. 1. One and a half page (single-spaced)
response with the five best quotes you found typed on a separate
page from the readings. Be sure to include quotations from the readings
in your response.
Need a good title.
Awards for titles.
______
-Sept.
29 W "Research and Writing Day: Work on
Detour Paper"
Good day to visit the prof too. I will be
in my office from noon until 2 p.m. Be sure to read carefully the
articles by Kingsolver, Dillard, and LaDuke. Read the reviews too. Then
create your own response. Metaphysical diversity here. Select some
interesting quotations. How
do the beauty and the beast of nature collide?
______
-Sept.
30 R "Dorm Day"
_____
-Oct.
1 F "TreeMan
and Steven King Limn Another View of Nature"
Cinematography
and Sound Intersection
"The first Monster of the Week episode of Season Five (and the first one
in a long time on the calendar) is a cross between the schlock movie
classic 'Swamp Thing' and the Arnold Schwartzenagger action film
'Predator.' Borrowing heavily from both movies, writer Frank Spotnitz
uses the subtlety of a sledgehammer (the tool, not the old ABC series ;)
to drive home his point about the evils of disturbing existing
ecosystems in the name of progress. Amazingly, Spotnitz' blend of
horror, pathos, humor and pontificating melds into an enjoyable X-File.
Mark Snow's score took on a life of its own in 'Detour,' and the result
was most gratifying. He nimbly used the caracas to simulate the warning
sounds of a rattlesnake when danger was imminent. During the scenes
where someone was fleeing from the creatures, staccato rhythms from
bongos helped pace the action. His orchestral movements at other times
blended in with the serenity that made you appreciate the natural beauty
depicted on the screen. For having the background score match the action
on the screen perfectly, it would be hard to find an episode of the
series where Mr. Snow's work was any better.
Director of Photography Joel Ransom did a superb job of capturing the
elegance of the natural beauty of the forest. The sheer lushness of the
setting was almost breathtaking. One could almost touch his/her TV
screen and feel the life that emanated from the forest. Ransom expertly
blended natural sunlight with daytime settings, and then basked our
heroes in subtle mix of light and shadows as darkness crept in. This was
a visually aesthetic episode to watch."
-Tom Carissimi
Survivor
"That is the challenge we find ourselves in at the cusp of the
millennium. This conceptual framework between one worldview and another
worldview, indigenous, and industrial, or land-based and predator.
That's what we call it sometimes-predator. The predator worldview. It
is, in fact, manifest in how we live here. And every ecological crisis
we have today is a direct consequence of that-and the human crises that
we have as well. Our communities have seen that and we are still here.
We survive."
-Winona LaDuke
A Fork in the
Woods
"We are indeed at a crossroads. The choices of which road to follow I
think are based on all of the efforts that have been accumulated by the
disciplines of ecology island biogeography and forest management. So
which of those roads should we be following?
This is a decision that the country is about to make. It’s a one time
decision because of the rate at which the Ancient Forests are
disappearing. That unlike 'if we take the wrong road, it’s a trauma,' it
would be unlike other national traumas which we get over after a period
of recovery.
This would be a trauma that would be worse in its consequences and the
perception of the consequences with time.
And similarly if we take the right approach, the benefits of that
decision will grow and become more perceptible as time."
-E.O. Wilson
Special
Guests
Reid/Kellee
Jordan/Alison Jason/Joe
Elmo Best
Ideas Found in the Readings
Jason/Alison/Sara/Jordan
7th 10,080 Blade Runner Apocalypse Minutes
_____
-Oct
4 M "Blade
Runner in the van Emmerik at Noon"
"The film is set in the industrial
wasteland of Los Angeles in the year 2019, on an Earth that is in
physical and psychological decay - without a trace of nature. In the
opening, panoramic long shot, fire belches out of oil refinery towers
and factory smokestacks in the industrial overgrowth. There are
thousands of city lights flickering in the misty night air. Futuristic
vehicles cruise through the darkened, polluted sky where the sun doesn't
shine.
The ambitious, enigmatic,
visually-complex film is a futuristic film noir detective thriller with
all its requisite parts - an alienated hero of questionable morality, a
femme fatale, dark sets and locations in a dystopic Los Angeles of 2019,
and a downbeat voice-over narration. "
-Tim Dirks (click on his site
address)
http://www.filmsite.org/blad.html
The Ecological
Apocalypse
"The 700 story skyscrapers are obscured by the ash-gray pollution that
infects the sky like a weeping wound that is not allowed to heal...
(From Pink Floyd: 'And all you touch, and all you see, is all your life
will ever be.') Replicants have no history, they have no future; all
their life will ever be- are the things they are doing with it at the
moment."
- Alec
Read
"Nowhere to Hide: The Global Spread of High-Risk Synthetic Chemicals," by
Jennifer Mitchell in Intersections.
"Elixirs of Death," by Rachel Carson-Silent Spring in Intersections.
"A Silver-Paper Unicorn," by Rebecca Warner 178-184.
(handout)
"Nature's Last Stand," by E. O. Wilson in Intersections.
Sam Cady
Blade Runner: And You Thought
Cleveland was Hell on Earth
Jim Morrison and The Doors Crank the Fires of Industry and the Toxic
L.A. Sky
Los Angeles and L.A. Woman...
The film Blade Runner takes place
in the future where the world is a polluted wasteland.
"The setting is Los Angeles which
is portrayed as an "urban hell".
The first scene opens with a panoramic of the city aglow with artificial
lights and fiery explosions from industrial smokestacks.
There is never any sunlight in this place for the smog has formed a
blanket which covers the sky and devours any sunlight that tries to pass
through it.
As a consequence the city is always in a state of perpetual darkness.
The viewers are never shown a clock or any semblance of time which leads
me to believe that these people no longer live by clocks or time for
there is no longer day, just horrible oblivious night.
It reminds me of the classic Doors' song L.A. Woman which was written
about Los Angeles in the late 1960's. Jim Morrison's lyrics are a kind
of strange prelude into the Los Angeles of Blade Runner."
Assignment due
Monday, Oct. 11: Type two pages (single-spaced).
Read Mitchell, Carson, Fisher, and Warner, and use the Tim Dirks
site for his terrific summary and commentary. I will also hand out some
reviews too. Type on a separate page the five best quotations.
Need a good title. Awards for
titles.
_____
-Oct.
6 W "Blade Runner in the van Emmerik at noon"
"The world of 2019. It has no
soul. The participants, human and inhuman, act out a part. Interaction
is a piece of the past. Experience is masked. Our view is obscured and
unclear. We become enmeshed in a world dominated by others. The pulsing
sound is the only lifeblood flowing through the veins of the world. The
world is no longer made up of involvement and relationship. Instead life
is an overall force, governed by few, understood by none.... The inner
soul has died. Can humans learn from the replicants? Only if they can
see their uncanny ability to provide an insight. Herein lies the
paradox: It takes empathy and understanding to see another type of
existence as important. Humans seem to have lost this ability. Can
replicants give it back?"
-Dede
_____
-Oct.
7 R Ray Anderson in Douwstra at 11
a.m.
BUSINESS HERO:
RAY ANDERSON
by Jennifer Beck Real world guy not
theorizing and hypothesizing... Action hero...
Interface, Inc. CEO Ray C.
Anderson has been called the "greenest chief executive in America." By
combining environmentalism with dedication to his company's success,
Anderson has proven that being green can also bring in the green for big
business.
When Anderson started Interface, Inc., in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1973, he
wasn't concerned about the environment. He'd earned a degree from
Georgia Institute of Technology, worked for fourteen plus years in
various positions at Deering-Milliken and Callaway Mills, and was out to
make his own carpet business the biggest in the world. He succeeded,
turning Interface into a billion-dollar-a-year company. But there was a
price. Every year his factories produced hundreds of gallons of
wastewater and nearly 900 pollutants.
"I just wanted to survive," Anderson recalled in an interview with Kate
Jaimet of The Ottowa Citizen. "I never gave one thought to what we were
doing to the earth."
Assignment
due Friday, Oct. 22: Type one page (single-spaced) response to Ray
Anderson's presentation.
On a separate page type out three points from the
readings listed about Anderson. Good title?
Read
Ray Anderson
Ray Anderson
Ray Anderson
“If we’re successful, we’ll spend the
rest of our days harvesting yester year’s carpets and other petro-chemically
derived products, and recycling them into new materials; and converting
sunlight into energy; with zero scrap going to the landfill and zero
emissions into the ecosystem. And we’ll be doing well … very well … by
doing good. That’s the vision.”
Ray Anderson
"Indeed, Anderson's success has been marked by a kind of galloping
enviro-gluttony. He is the 63-year-old founder and CEO of Interface
Inc., an Atlanta-based company with 7,300 employees. Its business:
turning petrochemicals into textiles. In 26 factories on four
continents, Anderson's looms produce a million pounds of synthetic
carpet and fabric every day - along with more than seven tons of air
pollutants every year.
Ray Anderson is a certified captain of industrial capitalism. He is also
becoming one of the nation's leading environmentalists, a radical who
makes the folks from Greenpeace look timid."
-Charles
Fishman
_____
-Oct.
8 F "Blade Runner in the van Emmerik at noon"
"The world of 'Blade Runner' has
undeniably become one of the visual touchstones of modern movies. The
movie's Los Angeles, with its permanent dark cloud of smog, its
billboards hundreds of feet high, its street poverty living side by side
with incredible wealth, may or may not come true - but there aren't many
20-year-old movies that look more prophetic now than they did at the
time."
-Roger
Ebert
8th 10,080 Replicant Dream Minutes
_____
-Oct. 11 M "All Those
Moments Will be Lost in Time Like Tears in Rain"
Blade Runner Responses
"The first visions of
light that manage to break through the darkness are the orange roars of
flames that are excreted form the city's computer chip buildings. This
light brings on feelings of desolation and destruction... You feel a
sensation of being swallowed as the camera runs you through the crazed
city sloshing you around in its stomach..."
-Andrea
Special
Guests
Adam/Melanie Zach
J./Nathan Justin/Amanda
Elmo Blade Runner Five Best Quotations
Kellee/Reid/Zach S./Eric
Journal Due
Tuesday, Oct. 12 in my office 216 Jordan Hall by 5 p.m.
______
-Oct. 13 W "Semester
Break: Get to the Off World"
Take time to prepare for your
trip home. Take some time for yourself. "The world is too much with us,
late and soon." Did you turn in the journal?
9th 10,080 E Crime Scene
Investigator (ECSI) Minutes
_____
-Oct.
18 M
"Blade Runner Greatest Hits"
I will share with you the best of
your Blade Runner responses. We will also talk about the Mitchell
article and Rachel Carson's "Elixirs of Death" chapter. And of course
another "Will it Float" segment.
_____
-Oct.
20 W "The
Geisler Matrix: Doing Research beyond Yahoo, Google and Your Friend
Billy's Cool Website II"
We meet in Geisler Library. That
building with stacks where you can study and make out.
Research wunderkind and Geisler Matrix CEO Robin Martin will be our
Terminator as we search for specific environmental crime scenes and
focus on
SOLUTIONS. Think Los Angeles
2019. We will work in duos looking for a ways we can solve an urban
apocalypse, a rural apocalypse, any apocalypse we can locate and
investigate.
_____
-Oct.
22 F "Superbo Responses to Ray Anderson Convo"
Did you read the articles about Ray
Anderson? Just click on Ray Anderson. Did he get you thinking about
solutions? See there are solutions to these Blade Runner problems. Does
Ray Anderson sound like someone with a liberating arts perspective? Is
he a good problem-solver? Does he empower those around him? Does he
listen and does he hear?
Good Title?
Special
Guests
Jeremy/Sara
Eric/Aaron Trent/Zach S.
Elmo Five
Best Ideas Found in the Readings
Nathan/Zack J./Adam/Joe
10th 10,080 Geisler Matrix
Research Sojourn Minutes
This week we will work on library
research. We will work in duos (two) researching a particular
Environmental Crime Scene. As ECSI Investigators we will track down not
only the catastrophic event but especially
possible SOLUTIONS. The point is to build a 30 item bibliography
and to construct an environmental crime scene report to share the last
week of class. PowerPoint might be a good option! Each class period we
will meet in the library.
_____
-Oct..
25M "Researching the Geisler Matrix I"
What is the Environmental
Crime Scene Narrative? Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Need forensic
exactitude. Who is responsible? What are the issues? What are the
solutions? Will this happen again? Why? Why not?
What can be done? What have we learned by investigating this crime scene?
SOLUTIONS?
_____
-Oct.
27 W "Researching
the Geisler Matrix II"
What is the Environmental
Crime Scene Narrative? Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Need forensic
exactitude. Who is responsible? What are the issues? What are the
solutions? Will this happen again? Why? Why not?
What can be done? What have we learned by investigating this crime scene?
SOLUTIONS?
_____
-Oct.
29 F "Researching
the Geisler Matrix III"
What is the Environmental
Crime Scene Narrative? Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Need forensic
exactitude. Who is responsible? What are the issues? What are the
solutions? Will this happen again? Why? Why not?
What can be done? What have we learned by investigating this crime scene?
SOLUTIONS?
11th 10,080 Poison Toxication Minutes
_____
-Nov. 1 M "Erin
Brockovich in the van Emmerik at Noon"
Toxic Water
"With
its slant on the corporate pollution of groundwater and the resulting
health concerns,
Erin Brockovich
couldn't have been released at a better time. Uncertainty about the use
of
MTBE
in gasoline and revelations about the ease with which it can contaminate
drinking water have dominated the news in recent weeks, and aspects of
this movie will undoubtedly strike a nerve for some viewers. After all,
few things can be more insidious than impure water, since water is one
of the natural resources we take for granted. Like 1998's
A Civil Action, which traversed similar territory,
Erin Brockovich
is based on an actual case - a fact that makes the basic storyline all
the more discomforting."
-James Berardinelli
The Pitch
STUDIO HEAD: OK, the door is
closed, the phone is turned off and I'm ready for your pitch.
AGENT:
You're just gonna love this one! It's the true story of a sleazy lawyer
or paralegal or something who gains self-respect by single-handedly
taking on a multibillion-dollar corporation that's been polluting the
ground water with toxic chemicals and callously poisoning the people of
a small town and ...
-William Arnold
Assignment due Monday, Nov. 8: Type two pages
(single-spaced). How do you respond to a character like Erin Brockovich?
What's the message of the film? Effective moments? Is Erin the SOLUTION?
Type on a separate page the three five quotations.
Need a good title. Awards for titles.
Read
Stephen Newman
What is in Your Drinking
Water?
Erin Brockovich Communicates More Than All the Environmental Tracts Ever
Written and Shoved Down Our Throats...
The Quiet Rhetorical
Charge
"Erin Brockovich is not your typical
environmental awareness movie. The movie barely touches on the effects
of the waste from Pacific Gas & Electric on the environment.
Most of the movie is spent telling the stories of a couple of families
who were affected the most by the waste.
This was a good approach for the movie. Most people do not want to be
beaten over the head about environmental issues when they go to a movie.
They do not want to hear from a bunch of radicals ranting about
pollution and how everything that we do is somehow ruining the
environment. There is enough of that in the news."
"Animals," by Sandra Steingraber Intersections . How does this film
connect with Sandra Steingraber's "Animals"...?
"Elixirs of Death," by Rachel Carson-Silent Spring in Intersections.
"Nowhere to Hide: The Global Spread of High-Risk Synthetic Chemicals,"
by Jennifer Mitchell in Intersections.
"Dude Over Troubled Water," John Galvin in Intersections. Water Rights:
The State, the Market, and the Community," by Vandana Shiva in
Intersections.
"Nature's Last Stand," by E. O. Wilson in Intersections.
Film Reviews Packet
_____
-Nov. 3 W "Erin
Brockovich in the van Emmerik at Noon"
Howard Stern in
Drag
"A cross between "A Civil Action" and "Howard Stern" in drag, "Erin
Brockovich" graces the screen with the difficult balance of heart,
tragedy and hard-hitting pottie-mouthed humor. In fact, the film's only
dips from divinity occur during a couple of segments that postpone
Erin's lightning-charged tongue. It's her sharp lingua determined to cut
though any BS, which sets fly sparks. Her mouth is as refreshing as an
ice cold shower; it's sure to send hilarious jolts of truth through
audiences around the country."
-Ross
Anthony
_____
-Nov. 4 R
"Chad Pregracke
Convo in the van Emmerik at 11 a.m."
Solutions for
Cleaning up the Mississippi
"If Doug Morse's commitment to
cleaning up the Mississippi River could be measured, it would weigh more
than 60,000 pounds (27,215 kilograms). Volunteers organized by Deere
employee Doug Morse clean debris from tires salvaged from the
Mississippi River.
That's the weight of all the debris that Morse, his family and friends
have collected from the river's banks since 1998. That year Morse, an
engineering supervisor at the John Deere Davenport Works, his wife,
Melanie, and their sons, Michael and Philip, volunteered to "adopt" five
miles of Iowa and Illinois shoreline, and all the islands in between, as
part of the Adopt-a-Mississippi-Mile program. The program is the
brainchild of Chad Pegracke, a local river and environmental activist
and founder of the Living Lands and Waters organization."
-Citizenship
Read
Chad Pregracke
"In 1998, he founded Living Lands &
Waters, the not-for-profit environmental organization based in East
Moline, Illinois. Today, there are ten paid staff members and a fleet of
several barges and workboats. Thousands of volunteers have cooperated to
help with the community cleanups, Riverbottom Forest Restoration and
Adopt-a-Mississippi River Mile programs. Chad's project has been filmed
by many of the major networks and featured in numerous national and
international magazines. In December of 2001, Biography magazine
selected Chad as one of the "Top Ten Future Classics in America” along
with Rory Kennedy, Julia Roberts, Tiger Woods and others."
Cleaning up the Mississippi
Speaker Series
Changing Course: One Man and a Wheel Barrel
"PULLING AN OVERSIZED john boat away
from the shore, Pregracke cracks the throttle of the 90-horsepower Honda
outboard motor. The motor, just as the boat, is donated. For four years
in a row, Pregracke is cruising along the river shorelines and islands
of the Mississippi. He’s looking for trash, garbage that people have
dumped in the river or that flood waters have carried away. When he
spots a barrel, an old tire, or just debris, he pulls up to shore. He
tears a few large donated plastic bags from a roll and starts picking up
trash. He finds aerosol cans, plastic bottles, light bulbs, Styrofoam® -
lots of Styrofoam® - cans of pesticides, jugs of anti-freeze. You you
name it and Pregracke bags it up and throws it into the boat."
-Lester Graham
Assignment due
Wednesday, Nov. 10: Type one page (single-spaced) responseChad
Pregracke's presentation.
On a separate page type out five points from the
readings listed about Chad. Good title?
_____
-Nov. 5 F "Erin
Brockovich in the van Emmerik at noon"
Action as the
SOLUTION
"There’s something decent about this Erin Brockovich. Something that
responds to injustice with more than sympathetic clucking — with action,
with personal commitment. Something that has active concern for people
in need; something that such people intuitively trust. Her style could
use some work, but her cause is just; and she’s indomitable, courageous,
and resourceful.
"Watching Erin take on corporate
ruthlessness and professional apathy, I often felt that while I couldn’t
always condone her choice of words, I appreciated the spirit behind them
— not to mention the effect they had on her hapless victims. This movie
makes you feel that one person really can make a difference; especially
since it’s based on a true story. "
-Stephen
Greydanus
12th 10,080 Young Chad Pregracke Minutes
_____
-Nov. 8 M "Erin
Brockovich Response"
Not Disco
"Many of us do not know the words
to our own song. We stumble along seeking the right tune. Then, often
suddenly, we catch an intimation of what we have been put on earth to
do. We embrace our particular project and begin to sing from the bottom
of our heart. And it feels so good, so right, and so true."
-Frederic and
Mary Ann Brussat
Special
Guests
Reid/Kellee
Jordan/Alison Jason/Joe
Elmo Best
Ideas Found in the Readings
Jason/Alison/Sara/Jordan
____
-Nov. 10 W "Superbo Responses to Chad Pregracke
Convo"
So Chad has found a way try to save
the planet from a Blade Runner outcome. What about all those people who
say that nothing can be done! That it is hopeless! Or that we should
just let the natural processes take over... let the planet be the
planet! What a lot of passive hooooey.
Special
Guests
Adam/Melanie Zach
J./Nathan Justin/Amanda
Elmo Blade Runner Five Best Quotations
Kellee/Reid/Zach S./Eric
_____
Nov. 11 R
"Vandana Shiva Convo in the van Emmerik at 11 a. m.
Read
Vandana Shiva Interview
In Motion Magazine: You made the statement in
your book on patents that there’s always a connection between ecology
and equity. Can you talk about that?
Vandana Shiva: Ecology is about interactions in
the natural world, sustainability of resources. Whether you look at
water, you look at biodiversity, you look at anything, conservation
happens. Environmental sustainability takes place when people have a
stake and a share in the rewards of the conserved resource. If people
have the ability to drink water from a well, and look after that well,
and will suffer the consequences of contamination, they will not
contaminate that well. People who pollute a well or a river are the ones
who don’t have to drink from it.
Similarly, when it comes to monopolies on intellectual property,
conservation is what is sacrificed. It’s the small peasants of the world
who have conserved biodiversity. If they have to continue conserving
biodiversity, they need to have their rights defended. They need to be
able to know that when they plant basmati rice it will be their reward
to harvest that basmati. They will not be treated as pieces of RiceTec
property. And they need to have a market for their produce.
Intellectual property destabilizes both, and in fact, starts to become
an incentive for destruction of biodiversity by pressures of the
industry for monocultures, on the one hand, but also by not giving
people a chance to protect the resources from which they make a living
because they are no more their resources.
That is why ecology goes hand-in-hand with equity.
Biography
"Born on November 5, 1952 in the verdant valley of Dehradun, to a father
who was the conservator of Forests and a farmer mother with a deep love
for nature, Vandana Shiva received her first lessons on environment
protection in the lap of Himalayas. A student of St Mary’s School in
Nainital and later of Convent of Jesus and Mary, Dehradun, Vandana Shiva
had always aspired to be a scientist since childhood. But particle
physics soon raised questions in her mind regarding its Impact on Life
and the environment. And thus began Vandana Shiva’s passionate affair
with the environment.
Dr. Vandana Shiva is trained as a Physicist and did her Ph.D. on the
subject “Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory” from the
University of Western Ontario. She later shifted to inter-disciplinary
research in science, technology and environmental policy, which she
carried out at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute
of Management in Bangalor."
Battling Coca Cola
"Two years ago, adivasi women in a small hamlet, Plachimada, in Palghat,
Kerala started a movement against Coca-Cola. Today, the Coca-Cola plant
in Plachimada has been shut down. The victory of the Plachimada movement
is major step in reversing corporate hijack of our precious water
resources. It provides both inspiration and lessons for building water
democracy in other parts of India and in the rest of the world.
The Coca-Cola plant in Plachimada was commissioned in March 2000 to
produce 1,224,000 bottles of Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Limca, Thums up,
Kinley Soda, Maaza. The Panchayat was issued a conditional license for
installing a motor for drawing water. However the company started to
illegally extract millions of liters of clean water from more than 6
bore wells installed by it using electric pumps in order to manufacture
millions of bottles of soft drink."
-Vandana Shiva
13th 10,080 Attenborough Mammal Mania
Minutes
______
-Nov. 15 M "Return to the Water with
David Attenborough ( van Emmerik)"
"Sir
David Attenborough is, by common consent, the world's foremost
naturalist and broadcaster of wildlife programs. His international best
selling books accompanying documentary series that are watched by
millions around the globe have provided education, information and
inspiration to thousands."
-EuropaWorld
30 Item Research Log
DUE
Read
David Attenborough
Would he have liked to have
been someone like Darwin and come back today? "Oh yes, I think so. I
mean, one is living an amazingly privileged life. It's only been the
last twenty or so years that one could have possibly gone to all the
places you and I go to. Very few people in the history of biology could
have seen as much of the actual things that I have and the sad thing is
that I do so little with it. I'm so busy gobbling it up that I don't
sort of digest it.
"But one of the great things, far more
exciting than going to the moon, would to have been not Darwin, but
Captain Cook. On his first and second voyage, he went round the Pacific
and went to Tahiti where he saw a new brand of humanity, and a
completely new set of animals and plants. That must have been
mind-blowing. The reverse side of the coin in having this extraordinary
ability to go anywhere, is that no-one anywhere is remote any more. I
just caught the end of it in the mid-fifties. When I was right in the
middle of Borneo, you thought you were in a different world. There was
no radio, no ways of communicating - but it was nothing compared to what
Cook did. I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was
still unexplored."
Short Biography
Zoo Quest
David Attenborough joined the BBC's fledgling television service in
1952, fronting Zoo Quest, the breakthrough wildlife series that
established the international reputation of the BBC Natural History Unit
at Bristol. The first of these, Zoo Quest for a Dragon, established
Attenborough as an intuitive performer, so prepossessed by his
fascination with the subject at hand and unconcerned for his own dignity
in front of the camera that he seemed to sweat integrity. A sense of
daring has always surrounded him with a glamorous aura: even in this
early outing, the massive Komodo Dragon, object of the quest through
Borneo, at least looked as ferocious as its name portends, and
Attenborough's presence seemed to prove not only the reality and size of
his specimens, but a kind of guarantee that we too were part of this
far-flung scientific endeavor, the last credible adventure in the period
which witnessed the demise of the British Empire.
______
-Nov. 17
W "Life in Trees with David
Attenborough (van Emmerik)"
In an interview with for
the WWF magazine, on the eve of his seventieth birthday, Sir David
revealed some of the inspiration behind his work. "The public will not
care tuppence about wildlife unless they think that birds, butterflies
and badgers are wonderful things that lift the heart and the spirit when
you see them," he explained. This is the rationale that has prompted him
to stand in rat-infested caves in Venezelua, to capture footage of lions
and crocodiles wrestling - even to abseil down a tree in the rainforest
in his late 60s during the filming of 'The Private Life of Plants'.
EuropaWorld
Mini-assignment due Friday, Nov. 19: Type one page (single-spaced).
Respond to Mr. Attenborough and his unique way of presenting his views.
What were some of the best moments? Do the readings. Did he persuade you
to appreciate the life of mammals? What will you remember? Be sure to
type out five best ideas.
Good Title?
_____
-Nov. 19 F
"David Attenborough Response: The Life of a Nature Lover"
"Sir
David has been criticized by environmental campaigners for not speaking
out in defense of the natural world. His reply has been that this would
have interfered with the perception of the images of animals and plants
that he was able to bring with such compelling vigor into the world's
living rooms. He wanted people first to appreciate the wonderful planet
on which we lived; others might then explain why it was under threat."
-EuropaWorld
Good title?
Special Guests
Jeremy/Sara
Eric/Aaron Trent/Zach S.
Elmo Five
Best Ideas Found in the Readings
Nathan/Zack J./Adam/Joe
-Nov. 22 M
"Approaches to Presentation Experiences"
Last minute tips about audience
approaches, organizing materials, PowerPoint, and the no podium
presentation style. Let's make the last five classes worth attending. We
do not want to hear that refrain: "Oh no it's student presentation day."
Do not miss this
class.
14th 10,080 ECSI
SOLUTION & Your Presentation
Minutes
______
-Nov. 29 M
"Presentation Preparation Day
I will be in my
office between noon and 3 p.m. Come over to see me or give me a call, or
use e-mail.
SOLUTIONS?
30 Item Research Bibliography DUE
______
Nov. 30.
W "Environmental
Crime Scene Investigations Presentations"
What is the Environmental Crime
Scene Narrative? Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Need forensic
exactitude. Who is responsible? What are the issues? What are the
solutions? Will this happen again? Why? Why not?
What can be done? What have we learned by investigating this crime scene?
SOLUTIONS?
______
Dec. 3 F "Environmental
Crime Scene Investigations Presentations"
What is the Environmental Crime
Scene Narrative? Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Need forensic
exactitude. Who is responsible? What are the issues? What are the
solutions? Will this happen again? Why? Why not?
What can be done? What have we learned by investigating this crime scene?
SOLUTIONS?
15th 10,080 The Who & Your
Presentation Minutes
______
-Dec. 6
M "Environmental
Crime Scene Investigations Presentations"
What is the Environmental Crime
Scene Narrative? Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Need forensic
exactitude. Who is responsible? What are the issues? What are the
solutions? Will this happen again? Why? Why not?
What can be done? What have we learned by investigating this crime
scene?
SOLUTIONS?
_____
-Dec.
8
W
"Environmental
Crime Scene Investigations Presentations"
What is the Environmental Crime
Scene Narrative? Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Need forensic
exactitude. Who is responsible? What are the issues? What are the
solutions? Will this happen again? Why? Why not?
What can be done? What have we learned by investigating this crime
scene?
SOLUTIONS?
______
-Dec.
10 F "Environmental
Crime Scene Investigations Presentations"
What is the Environmental Crime
Scene Narrative? Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Need forensic
exactitude. Who is responsible? What are the issues? What are the
solutions? Will this happen again? Why? Why not?
What can be done? What have we learned by investigating this crime
scene?
SOLUTIONS?
The point is to build a
30 item bibliography and to construct a report to share the last week of
class. Are you learning how to find journal articles? Have you become
fluent in database usage? What's the most interesting thing that you
have found? Are you preparing for the final week presentation? Have you
finally selected the Environmental Crime Scene?
SOLUTIONS?
High Tide |
