The View From Kalamazoo

Recently Approved and Disapproved TV Programs for U.S. Department of Education Captioning Support includes merely 5 BET Classic Movies AND 9 AMC Documentaries (a mong a host of other documentaries); Nascar, Major League Baseball, College Football, PGA Golf and the US Open Tennis; Bed Bug Bible Gang (!?!?!);VH1′s Behind the Music; Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie; CNN en ESPANOL Deportes (again, !?!?!?!!?); Courage the Cowardly Dog, Fairly Odd Parents, The Simpsons, Teen Titans, Rocket Power, Jimmy Neutron, Ed, Edd ‘n Eddy, Justice League and Dexter’s Laboratory (what do deaf kids get to watch?!?!!!); Disney Monthly Original Children’s Movie (!?!??!?!!!); Emergency Vets and K9 to 5; Law and Order series just to name a few!

What do they have against Scooby-Doo, duffers, and the Powerpuff Girls, anyway?

On Dread: I haven’t heard anything from any schools. I realize that it’s somewhat early, but 2 of the schools had Dec. 1 deadlines, so you’d think something would have happened in the last 2.5 months! I’m not panicking, but I’m jumpy every time I get the mail.

On MFA: so far the last few weeks I’m standing pat on weight and only making it to the gym twice a week. Bleah. I’m doing all the usual machines – have gotten bored with some so am switching around, using Keiser equipment where I wasn’t and switching from Keiser where I was. I’m debating going back to the one-legged squats that targeted my glutes (I have a fantasy of eventually actually having an ass!) since they were hard on my long-cranky and weather-predicting knees (thanks to vainly subjecting myself to high-impact aerobics 4 days a week in my early 20s). Bleah. I should be doing crunches at home, but after I actually get the living room floor cleared of toys and other kid debris who has the energy?!

On stuff: Bubonic Plague fans note: Black Death vaccine developed

Interesting software: Scholar’s Aid. Appears to be rather like EndNote, from their site:

• Manages all your bibliographical data and all your notes associated with the sources.
• Generates footnotes, endnotes, parenthetical references, bibliographies, and reference lists automatically.
• Cites in the style of your choice directly into your word-processor.
• Manages all your notes associated with their sources.
• Automatically cites the text with page numbers for you when you transfer all or part of a note to your document
• Lots of convenient features such as AutoText, InputAid
• Customize your copy with the included Style Editor, Toolbar Editor, Caption Editor, and other handful of editors.
• Make your data available to your friends using the export function. You can format the output with the included Template Editor.

You can download a free (“lite”) version, which is largely why I’m posting about it, since free is a lovely thing for students and junior faculty (and people like me – in no-man’s-land), alike.

And France is endearing itself to scholars and educators: Greek and Latin appears likely to disappear from secondary schools.

(Hope these will be more convenient to read for those who don’t read French) From l’Humanite’ and Le Monde.