one of the benefits of going to an independent high school with lots of money...
http://www.latinschool.org/academics/special_initiatives/life/
sometimes really good important things can happen.

The most powerful dance i've seen has combined the power of visual art and music as an essential part of the work. Martha Graham did it well--Applachain Spring, for example, with music by Copeland and sets by Noguchi. In ballet, it is the Ballet Russe, Fokine, and Diaghlev. Last night I saw the Kirov do Scheherazade and Firebird. The most amazing thing about it was the overall scope and quality of the production. Everything was detailed, ornate, and other worldly--the costumes, sets, music, and of course the dancing. The richness of the colors of scheherazade were incredible, thanks to Leon Bakst (http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/bakst.html).

why more people should use the web as a fundraising tool...
www.giveboobs.com

"Polls by the National Science Foundation perennially identify contradictions. Its latest numbers show that 90 percent of adult Americans say they are very or moderately interested in science discoveries. Even so, only half the survey respondents knew that the Earth takes a year to go around the Sun."
"For any man to abdicate an interest in science," Jacob Bronowski, the science historian, wrote, "is to walk with open eyes towards slavery."

Does Science Matter?
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and JAMES GLANZ
Published: November 11, 2003, New York Times

lunar eclipse:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/04nov_lunareclipse2.htm?list864556

ah yes...the wonderful world of mental health research...

"According to a DPPC report, patients' medications were switched without informed consent and without a clear medical need, the changes were made more than two months before the human-studies review boards approved the research protocol, and the patients involved were clearly not eligible under the criteria for the study, which specified that subjects be outpatients.

One of the four patients whose medication was switched, a man who had been stable for 10 years on the drug Clozaril, became so ill and acutely psychotic that he spent months in and out of hospital wards. He was diagnosed with neuroleptic malignant syndrome, a rare, sometimes lethal side effect of medication changes, according to the commission's report.

Institutionalized patients, like prisoners, may feel pressure to become subjects, and researchers, as well as their institutions, could benefit financially from recruiting subjects, Lurie said. As soon as medication changes were made, the clinical trial was effectively underway, without oversight to protect subjects' rights -- "a flagrant violation of clinical ethics," he said."

Drugs of 4 patients subbed without OK
Switch at Fuller mental health clinic aimed at research
By Ellen Barry, Globe Staff, 11/10/2003

"She drank to still her mind. The first thing Caroline did? She would open up a bottle of vodka and throw the cap away." Charles Krewson on Lady Caroline Blackwood. Fantasy of darkness is a drug in itself, a crutch.

the FDA is being pressed into making decisions about cloning. is this really how we want this to be decided--a bunch of government people sitting a room, making little decision after little decision that will evolve into a policy that will change everybody's lives before anyone even took notice? this is when the european idea of scientific forums would be a thing to consider if anyone took the time to look out of the protective american bubble for a second.
this is the same with art. do we want the government making decisions about who gets money to make art, essentially handpicking artists? i think not. slash government funding for the arts.

this has been bothering me for a couple of weeks...
in the case of Terri Schiavo, whether to remove or not remove the feeding tube when it is somewhat unclear as to whether she is in fact brain dead or not, it seems to me that whatever this woman wanted, death or life, she would not want video footage of her unconscious floating around the web as evidence.

it is sort of a sad time for dance when a work that is about something, anything is interesting. i don't even have to get what it's about, as long as i know it is something greater than people dancing around for no reason. if a conscious decision is made to have people dancing around for no reason, then there is reason, but that is an entirely different matter. the goal of course would be to work that changes people, but dance right now is so far from that at a consistent level.