Ricky Mathews and the Nazi Toht

My nemesis Ricky Mathews writes today that the reason the Times-Picayune fired half the employees and will reduce this great weekly publication to 3x per week is because of the 21st century and they had to do this "before we faced economic doomsday." For once in my life, I enjoyed reading the comments for this article on nola.com. My favorite was by Louis Hernandez, who noticed that Mr. Mathews looks like the Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He's right. So here's a visual quiz involving two of my favorite topics: New Orleans and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and two of my least favorite villains: Ricky Mathews and Major Arnold Ernst Toht. But which one is Ricky, and which one is the Nazi? See how well you do:

Note: Today James Gill has a very entertaining piece carefully comparing the reaction by New Orleanians to both Mathews and Spoons Butler. His point was that people in New Orleans hold grudges. Not surprisingly, I can't find Gill's piece on nola.com.

A Hymn to Shamash for the Times-Picayune

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

New Orleans will soon become the largest U.S. city without a daily newspaper. The Times-Picayune, one of the best newspapers in the country, and one that helped New Orleans immeasurably after the flood, will soon be delivered only three days per week.  One third of the Times-Picayune employees were fired yesterday. One half of the people in the newsroom were let go. Kevin from the Gambit did a good job covering the devastation. The villain in all of this is Advance Publications, and especially publisher Ricky Mathews, who is my new nemesis (I'll deal with you later Adrastos!). The paper is profitable, and it has the highest saturation rate of any newspaper in the country. Despite calls to sell the newspaper or keep it daily, Advance Publications is determined to move forward. It's a good day to be one of the many corrupt people in New Orleans, as your chances of escaping justice improved dramatically thanks to Mr. Mathews and company.


What we need is for the Mesopotamian sun deity Shamash to open up a big can of solar whoop-ass. Here's a picture of Shamash traveling round the sky in his solar tent:

Shamash from a tablet in the British Museum


Shamash, like most sun deities, is responsible for justice. He shines light on dark situations, and he's in charge of law and order, as well as prophecy. He gave Hammurabi his famous law code. He allows us to see clearly what is transpiring. Ultimately, in my opinion, he solved every mystery on Scooby Doo. Below is a portion of the Assyrian text known as the Hymn to Shamash. It's about 2,900 years old. In my mind, it's what journalism is meant to do. Most important though, notice that Shamash brought his solar disinfectant DAILY, not three times per week with an enhanced web presence.

Hymn to Shamash 

Translation B. Foster 

Illuminator of all, the whole of heaven,
Who makes light the d[arkness for mankind]
            above and below,
Shamash, illuminator of all, the whole of heaven,
            and below,
Your radiance [spre]ads out like a net [over the
 world],
You brighten the g[loo]m of the distant mountains.
…
Your beams are ever mastering secrets,
            At the brightness of your light, humakind’s
            Footprints become vis[ible].
            You blunt the horns of a scheming villain,
The perpetrator of a cunning deal is undermined.
You show the roguish judge the (inside of) a jail,
He who takes the fee but does not carry through,
            You make him bear the punishment.
The one who receives no fee but takes up the case
            of the weak,
            Is pleasing to Shamash, he will make long his
            life.
The careful judge who gives just verdicts,
Controls the government, lives like a prince.
What return is there for the investor in dishonest
            dealings?
 The feeble one calls you as much as his speech
            allows him,
The meek, the weak, the oppressed, the submit-
            sive.
Daily, ever, and always come before you.
            He whose family is far off, whose city is dis-
            tant,
The shepherd [in] the afflictions of the wilderness,
The herdsman in trouble, the keeper of sheep
            among the enemy, come before you.
O Shamash, there comes before you the
            fishermen with his net,
The hunter, the archer, the driver of the game,
The fowler among his snares comes before you,
The skulking thief comes before Shamash,
The bandit on the wilderness paths comes before
            you,
            The wandering dead, the vagrant spirit come
            before you,
O Shamash, you have listened to them all.
You did not hold back (?) those who came before
            you, you heeded them,
For my sake, O Shamash, do not despise them!
You grant wisdom, O Shamash, to humankind,
            You grant those seeking you your raging,
            fierce light.

Transits of Venus

I'm looking forward to watching the Transit of Venus tomorrow. We're heading over to Bart and Xy's house, and we've got our cocktail picked out: The Blond Venus. This is my last shot to see the Transit of Venus, as it won't occur again until 2117.

All of this has me thinking quite a bit about the planet, partly because I've been reading Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder. It's a book about "science" during the Romantic Age at the end of the 18th century. The first chapter is about Captain Cook's voyage to Tahiti in 1769 to measure the Transit of Venus. England also sent out expeditions to North Cape Norway and Hudson Bay Canada, with the idea that through triangulation they could then measure the distance to the sun. This concept of solar parallax is credited to James Gregory who published Optica Promota more than a century prior to Cook's Tahitian voyage. Cook's team measured 4 "phases" of this transit: when Venus first appeared to touch the outer solar sphere, when Venus was entirely within the solar sphere but still touching the outer rim, when Venus had crossed the solar sphere and first touched the outer sphere, and finally, when Venus had exited the solar sphere but still touched the solar rim. Using the data collected from this 1769 transit, 2 years later Thomas Hornsby published that "the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun (is) 93,726,900 English miles." That's pretty accurate, given that today it is believed that the distance is 1/8 of one percent shorter: 92,955,000.

The Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, British Museum

Observing the planet Venus is also key to understanding chronology in the ancient Near East. This is mostly because of a cuneiform tablet known as the Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa which was part of the library unearthed at Nineveh. While copies of this text tend to date to the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, the text is believed to have been composed much earlier during the reign of Ammisaduqa, who ruled Babylon about a century after Hammurabi. The tablet records the exact date of the heliacal rising and setting of the planet Venus for 21 years. Modern astronomers use these dates to reconstruct when the referenced 21 year period occurred. The problem is that there are questions about the accuracy of the recordings, and that the events recorded accurately fit into three different time periods. Thus scholars must choose between the so-called High Chronology, Middle Chronology, and Low Chronology. Thus Hammurabi's reign begins in 1848 BCE, 1792 BCE, or 1736 BCE. I'm personally a Middle Chronology kind of guy. So Hammurabi was reigning in 1769 BCE, and James Cook recorded the Transit of Venus in 1769 CE, and in another 1769 years, I'll be dead.

Magic House

While I do not suffer from Alzheimer's disease, I spend many hours per week looking for things. Things like keys, remotes, and tools disappear for good, or more frequently, they wind up in places very different from the spot in which I originally placed them. Nobody I live with claims responsibility, so the only logical conclusion is that the house must be magic. I wish there were a way to reverse the spell though, so that instead of things disappearing, new stuff would magically appear. Cash would be nice.

Grendel Gander the Sinister Goose

I wrote a story about a self-centered goose named Grendel. As Grendel himself puts it,

"I'm mean & I'm nasty, I'm full of abuse. I'm evil incarnate, a most sinister goose! If you think I am kind then your idea's absurd, I am a low-down stinking fowl-feathered bird!"

So if you were asking, will there be rhyming? The answer is yes. Grendel Gander is inspired by the many adventures I had on the Platte River while growing up in Nebraska, as well as the epic poems I love teaching, including the Iliad, the Aeneid, and Beowulf. What makes the book special is the amazing artwork done my talented cousin-in-law Peat Duggins. From the cover you can just tell that Grendel is a fowl bird:
 
 Duggins has a great eye for detail in his images. Here is the part where the goose hero/villain destroys Buck Tooth Billy's dam
 
 Those of you who are goose experts I'm sure are curious if there will be swimsuit grabbing. The answer is yes, there is some grabbing of swimsuits:

 It's available from Amazon for $14.95. The same deal can be had (and it's far better for me) by going straight to the publisher: Writelife. Many thanks to Cindy Grady and Writelife for publishing the book.
Finally, the book is dedicated to my children Kalypso and Gilgamesh and maybe, one day, their sinister offspring.

Three Dog Night (and Day)

We added a third dog to our pack. Gilgamesh had been wanting an English bulldog, and yesterday we decided to add a new puppy to our family. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my privilege to introduce to you, Colonel Enkidu:



and a video:

John Kennedy Toole: The Omega Point

I spent the afternoon watching a fantastic documentary about the author of one of my favorite books: A Confederacy of Dunces. The film is entitled John Kennedy Toole: The Omega Point. Through interviews with Toole's friends and colleagues, as well as footage from interviews/performances from Toole's mother, it paints a background for Toole's creative yet disappointing life. I learned many interesting things, such as the book was written in Puerto Rico, and that only a couple of people attended Toole's funeral because of the shame his suicide brought his family. He's buried close to my house. The film also has some philosophical aspects, as you can see from the "Omega Point" in the title. One of the best has to do with a mysterious third manuscript that was found in Toole's car when he died. It was in the Biloxi police headquarters but got washed out into the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Betsy.

Thankfully, film maker Joe Sanford has the film online for free: http://www.jktoole.com/viewthefilm.html

Finally, Sanford ends with the following quotation, one of the best I've heard about New Orleans:

"The older I get, the more I realize, that living here isn't a conscious choice anyway. It's the first joyful step on an elegantly worn staircase to oblivion."

Rewarding Quality Teachers in Louisiana

“Shouldn’t we reward the truly excellent teachers and incentivize others to achieve excellence?”
Bobby Jindal speaking about his education reforms.

I'm married to a public school teacher. Or as Editor B noted, I am married to a public school widow. I won't see her much until June. While Therese hasn't taught me anything during 21 years of marriage, people who know about these things say she is excellent at the craft. This includes former students, parents, fellow teachers and school administrators. She has a Masters degree and more than 10 years of classroom experience, and more important these days, her students score well on standardized tests. So by any standard she would be considered one of these "excellent teachers" of which Governor Jindal speaks. Last year she earned $43,000 in one of Louisiana's highest performing charter schools. Governor Jindal wants to use her charter school as a model, and thereby get school boards and government out of "public" education, and turn over control of charter schools to private companies. This is where he always brings up that excellent teachers are rewarded in these types of systems.

Schools that are not chartered in New Orleans are often governed by the Recovery School District. There the average salary for someone with her education and years of experience is $49,000. It's slightly higher for non-chartered schools in Baton Rouge. So in my wife's case, the "reward" of which the governor speaks does not have to do with salaries. Perhaps Therese's "reward" pertains to longer school years and more work, both of which are par for the course with charter schools.

I should add charters are definitely rewarding for some people. Private education companies are making a fortune from taxpayer money. Also, the person at Therese's school whom they used to call the principal is now the school's C.E.O. with a salary jump from $60,000 (before charter) to more than $200,000. That's what I would call a reward.

Doubloon Death Clock

During Mardi Gras, various parading krewes throw plastic coins called "doubloons." They often have images on them, typically the year of the parade and its theme. I've been collecting them since we moved to New Orleans. We store them in a large glass container. I have a theory that when the container is full of doubloons, that's the year that I will die. It's like sand in an hourglass but with a New Orleans twist. Here's the container after this Mardi Gras:

Goat Kicking To Improve College GPA & Retention

My university, like many, struggles to retain Freshmen students. It's a major problem, and with Congress looking to tie government funding for education to graduation rates, it's more serious every year. Many students don't continue to their second year due to a variety of reasons, with academic and financial issues being the top two. The powers that be have convinced themselves that Saturday life-skills lessons are the answer. Our own collected data in fact shows that students who show up to these Saturday meetings outperform the students who skip these sessions. But I'm cynical, and think that there's something else going on here. So here's my alternative plan, and it's not good news for goats and their human advocates.

I would email all Freshmen students and tell them to meet me the first Saturday of every month at 7AM. We'll then kick a goat for two hours. I can guarantee you the Freshmen students who read their emails and made the effort to show up will have a much higher GPA than the the students who missed the goat kicking, and more of the goat kickers will thankfully be around at graduation. In fact, I'd bet that the goat kickers will earn 10 times the incomes of the students who missed this valuable pedagogical tool.