Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Make Way Partners Update
This is an email I received from Milton Smith of Make Way Partners, the organization that helped rescue Mary the Dinka woman. A team from the US traveled to the Sudan to help Kimberly Smith (Milton's wife, I think), the Executive Director of the organization, who is already at a village which is dealing with a meningitis epidemic, and this is a report. (I believe that Mary the Dinka woman is at this place.) I get updates via email from time to time. Let me know if you want to be added to the MWP email list, or you can go to the website and sign up.
Dear Fellow Sojourners:
I just now finished talking with Kimberly. She said the team arrived on Tuesday Sudanese time. All of the team is in good spirits but tired from the long journey.
When the plane landed in Nyamlel, all 400+ of the children of the Make Way Partners compound were there to meet the plane. Not only were the children there from the compound, but many of the villagers were there and they were all singing. They sang Christian songs, about Jesus, and they danced around the arriving guests. They then led the arriving team through the village in parade fashion out to the compound.
Once they arrived at the compound, Kimberly showed them the medical clinic that is being built and the meningitis clinic. The meningitis clinic is separated from the regular clinic in order to quarantine the meningitis patients.
Then, after a period of rest, Kimberly took the team over to Marialbai which is across the river. During the meningitis outbreak, Marialbai has become a portion of our responsibility. As the team got to Marialbai, a little boy was dying of meningitis. He was an orphan from the last attack by the Janjaweed upon his village. During the attack, the boy’s parents were killed. An uncle of the child had been taking care of him since then. The uncle is a guard at the clinic in Marialbai. The team saw the uncle hold the child’s body and he sobbed. The team cried too.
After giving the team some time to process what had taken place, Kimberly called the team together and led the new team in a foot washing of the medical team that has already been on the ground. After the foot washing, they shared the Eucharist together.
Please pray for the team’s effectiveness in this next week and that God will be glorified.
Jesus wept. (John 11:35)
Grace and Peace,
Milton Smith
Dear Fellow Sojourners:
I just now finished talking with Kimberly. She said the team arrived on Tuesday Sudanese time. All of the team is in good spirits but tired from the long journey.
When the plane landed in Nyamlel, all 400+ of the children of the Make Way Partners compound were there to meet the plane. Not only were the children there from the compound, but many of the villagers were there and they were all singing. They sang Christian songs, about Jesus, and they danced around the arriving guests. They then led the arriving team through the village in parade fashion out to the compound.
Once they arrived at the compound, Kimberly showed them the medical clinic that is being built and the meningitis clinic. The meningitis clinic is separated from the regular clinic in order to quarantine the meningitis patients.
Then, after a period of rest, Kimberly took the team over to Marialbai which is across the river. During the meningitis outbreak, Marialbai has become a portion of our responsibility. As the team got to Marialbai, a little boy was dying of meningitis. He was an orphan from the last attack by the Janjaweed upon his village. During the attack, the boy’s parents were killed. An uncle of the child had been taking care of him since then. The uncle is a guard at the clinic in Marialbai. The team saw the uncle hold the child’s body and he sobbed. The team cried too.
After giving the team some time to process what had taken place, Kimberly called the team together and led the new team in a foot washing of the medical team that has already been on the ground. After the foot washing, they shared the Eucharist together.
Please pray for the team’s effectiveness in this next week and that God will be glorified.
Jesus wept. (John 11:35)
Grace and Peace,
Milton Smith
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Joyce Hatto Scandal
In today's WSJ, an article headlined "Apparent Hoax Shakes Up World of Classical Music" describes the discovery that a series of CD recordings by Joyce Hatto, allegedly made while she was dying of cancer, were copies of recordings by another artist. Joyce Hatto's husband engineered the copies.
A British classical music magazine, Gramophone, initially broke the story. An American CD listener discovered the hoax, and his subsequent probing of the matter led to the Gramophone article. But the Gramophone article does not detail just how the listener first knew something was wrong. The WSJ article does.
When the CD listener inserted the disc into his Apple computer, he "was surprised when . . . iTunes software identified it as a CD by another pianist," Laszlo Simon. The American followed up the anomaly, and that led to the investigation by Gramophone.
The WSJ article explains the iTunes technology that enables it to recognize
a CD by querying a database maintained by a company called Gracenote, of Emeryville, Calif. Gracenote recognizes a CD by the number of tracks it has and the length of each of those tracks; when combined, the two form a mathematical fingerprint that Gracenote says is essentially unique for CDs with more than about five songs.
The Gracenote software was able to recognize the CD of the real pianist, even though the husband of the dying pianist had shrunk or stretched some of the tracks.
There is a lot on the internet about this hoax. You can start here or simply google "hatto simon hoax".
A British classical music magazine, Gramophone, initially broke the story. An American CD listener discovered the hoax, and his subsequent probing of the matter led to the Gramophone article. But the Gramophone article does not detail just how the listener first knew something was wrong. The WSJ article does.
When the CD listener inserted the disc into his Apple computer, he "was surprised when . . . iTunes software identified it as a CD by another pianist," Laszlo Simon. The American followed up the anomaly, and that led to the investigation by Gramophone.
The WSJ article explains the iTunes technology that enables it to recognize
a CD by querying a database maintained by a company called Gracenote, of Emeryville, Calif. Gracenote recognizes a CD by the number of tracks it has and the length of each of those tracks; when combined, the two form a mathematical fingerprint that Gracenote says is essentially unique for CDs with more than about five songs.
The Gracenote software was able to recognize the CD of the real pianist, even though the husband of the dying pianist had shrunk or stretched some of the tracks.
There is a lot on the internet about this hoax. You can start here or simply google "hatto simon hoax".
Monday, February 26, 2007
K&K Nightstand
This thread is for questions and discussion of the books sitting on our Nightstand. I made the title of the sidebar segment "K&K Nightstand" link here, so if you see something appear in that space and you want to comment, click on the sidebar title and go for it.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Another great review of The Unforseen
From SpringBoardMedia blog, the executive director of Renew Media:
Sundance Wrap-Up - Unforseen and GWSClearly, this is a blogger of good taste and discernment.
My favorite films at Sundance this year were Laura Dunn’s The Unforseen and Craig Zobel’s Great World of Sound. Both were films that made me glad I attended the festival, and that reminded me why I keep working in the realm of indie film. They are very different films, but similar in one key way – they are both artistic, small films about big ideas, with a lot of heart and apparently little chance of being seen by the masses.
Laura Dunn is one of our Fellows, but I don’t think I need much of a disclaimer – we’ve never met, she received her fellowship before I started working for Renew Media and it was for a different film. So half-hearted disclaimer aside, I think The Unforseen is one of the best documentaries I’ve seen at any festival in at least two years. It helps that it was shot by Lee Daniel, the cinematographer for Rick Linklater among others, and that her graphics (no small part of the movie) were done by Kyle Cooper, who has done the opening credits of Seven and Spider Man. [This is a great compliment to Jef Sewell, who actually did the graphics in the movie. KC did the credits, but that's it. Maybe Jef will get the credit he deserves someday. -- Macon] Daniel’s footage is ethereal - a combination of old super-8 (from the looks of it) and modern footage which is always well-lit, beautifully framed and gorgeous to watch. Laura’s style evokes Terrence Malick, who was an executive producer of the documentary, and leaves you mesmerized – not an easy task for a film about urban sprawl, politics, the environment and a vanishing way of life in the Southwest. This is not a sensibility seen in many docs today, which often eschew visual style and an attention to form to focus solely on interesting subject matter. It’s one of the biggest problems facing documentary today, this lack of attention to form, and Dunn firmly establishes herself as one of the smartest documentary filmmakers precisely because of her attention to it. This film could have easily been much less of a movie, but through her attention to the craft of filmmaking, Dunn has styled an important film about a weighty subject. It is nuanced – you feel real pain for the “big, bad” developer - without striving for some mythical journalistic “balance.” It is important – urban sprawl and its effects on our environment shown for the political choices they are - without putting the weight of the world on your shoulders, like a powerpoint film. It is also beautiful, an aesthetic choice made not to save money and get it done fast, but to do it right. It is also, unfortunately, doubtful to be seen at a theatre near you anytime soon. It’s not easy to market, too long for most and while it has a star (Reford), he’s not the focus of the film. I never thought that the effects of a developer on little Barton Springs in Austin, Texas could have such an affect on me, but Laura Dunn’s treatment of the subject gives me new hope for documentary film.
Nightstand Reading
I added a spot for us to note what Kith&Kin are reading these days. If you send me the names of books you're reading, I'll keep it up to date for us. Email citostokes at gmail. All Kith & Kin readers are welcome to submit! There is no limit to submissions.
Friday, February 23, 2007
The Jarhead Footlocker Principle
My friend and colleague, Juan, is a US Marine. He told me when he was in boot camp, all the men in his unit (platoon?) were housed in one barracks. At the end of the day, the shower room could handle half of them at a time, so one half remained in the barracks while the other half cleaned up.
At the foot of each bed in the barracks sat a Marine's footlocker, housing all the possessions he was allowed to have at the base. The DI said that a Marine must keep his footlocker locked. The DI said that the very first day.
Of course, someone forgot as he went with his group to the shower. When he got back, his footlocker was upended and all of its contents scattered throughout the barracks, courtesy of the DI. I guess it happened just that once.
The point of the rule and the stringent enforcement of the rule was to keep temptation out of the way of the other men in the unit. It's fine to talk about honor and self-enforcing codes and the like. But the DI didn't look at it that way. His view was that each of the men had a responsibility not to put a stumbling block in the way of his comrades.
I have thought about that principle a good bit as I have read what is going on in Durham with the Duke lacrosse team criminal proceedings. Certainly, we can all lament the fraudulent action of the prosecutor, the abandonment of the young men by their professors, and the cynicism of the test-the-wind-first administration, but what about the Jarhead footlocker principle? What responsibility does the Duke lacrosse team bear for making possible the theft of their reputations by the stripper? What responsibility does the Duke community bear for developing and sustaining a culture where off-campus parties like the one involved in this case have been tolerated since I was at Duke? Those who rejoice in their righteous indignation over the miscarriage of justice for the young men should temper themselves a bit and consider who is responsible for setting the stage for the unfortunate, perhaps inevitable drama that ensued.
At the foot of each bed in the barracks sat a Marine's footlocker, housing all the possessions he was allowed to have at the base. The DI said that a Marine must keep his footlocker locked. The DI said that the very first day.
Of course, someone forgot as he went with his group to the shower. When he got back, his footlocker was upended and all of its contents scattered throughout the barracks, courtesy of the DI. I guess it happened just that once.
The point of the rule and the stringent enforcement of the rule was to keep temptation out of the way of the other men in the unit. It's fine to talk about honor and self-enforcing codes and the like. But the DI didn't look at it that way. His view was that each of the men had a responsibility not to put a stumbling block in the way of his comrades.
I have thought about that principle a good bit as I have read what is going on in Durham with the Duke lacrosse team criminal proceedings. Certainly, we can all lament the fraudulent action of the prosecutor, the abandonment of the young men by their professors, and the cynicism of the test-the-wind-first administration, but what about the Jarhead footlocker principle? What responsibility does the Duke lacrosse team bear for making possible the theft of their reputations by the stripper? What responsibility does the Duke community bear for developing and sustaining a culture where off-campus parties like the one involved in this case have been tolerated since I was at Duke? Those who rejoice in their righteous indignation over the miscarriage of justice for the young men should temper themselves a bit and consider who is responsible for setting the stage for the unfortunate, perhaps inevitable drama that ensued.
The South Florida Underground Weirdness Magnet
I say, send it to Austin, to mate with the one there.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Alleged Wikipedia Source Sued for Libel
The Miami Herald has an article this morning about the pro-golfer Fuzzy Zoeller suing a Miami law firm, alleging that the defendant is the source of defamatory material about him posted on Wikipedia. The reporter does a nice job of describing the legal issues involving liability for defamatory information on the internet. Zoeller's attorney, Scott Sheftall, is a Davidson grad and a friend of mine. I don't know anything about the firm that is being sued and have never heard of it.
Monday, February 19, 2007
New Formatting
In case you hadn't noticed.
I'm sorry that we lost the comments, but now I hope that comments will last longer than they used to, and that we might get a bit more functionality out of the comments.
Stay tuned!
I'm sorry that we lost the comments, but now I hope that comments will last longer than they used to, and that we might get a bit more functionality out of the comments.
Stay tuned!
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