John McCain in 2006 (see bottom of the page) re: DADT:
The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, senator, we ought to change the policy, then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to.
So that would be now, no?
An excellent historical find by one of my favorite Ephs, Jessica Mahoney, ‘10 (current manager of GQ!), concerning the name that was inscribed on the fireplace in her room in Perry:
Gov. Pennoyer’s Only Son Dead - A Bright Young Student of Williams the Victim of Peritonitis
Williamstown, Mass., Nov. 25. – Horace Nathaniel Pennoyer, aged nineteen years, the only son of Gov. Pennoyer of Portland, Oregon, died here at 2pm yesterday of typhoid fever. He was a member of the freshman class at Williams College and had been sick about two weeks.
He caught cold at the Williams-Cornell football game at Albany, Nov. 10, and was taken to the college infirmary. he was convalescing until Saturday morning, when acute peritonitis set in.
…
Young Pennoyer fitted for college at Lawrenceville, N.J., and was a classmate of Lewis Perry, the youngest son of Prof. A.P. Perry of Williams College. He passed the examinations for the Sheffield Scientific School, but decided to enter Williams. He was an exceptionally bright student, very popular with his classmates, and a member of the Alpha Delta Pi Fraternity. At a recent class election he was chosen Vice President of the class of ‘98. He was an earnest Christian and deeply interested in religious work.
Gov. Pennoyer’s Only Son Dead – New York Times, November 26, 1894 (PDF)
An awesome slideshow accompanies the Times’ review of Michael Benson’s Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle, a new compilation of space images notable because Benson has, based on our now more accurate knowledge about the chemical makeup of many phenomena, redone the colors on each picture to try and recreate how the image would actually appear if you saw it with the naked eye. Those “Pillars of Creation” are actually red, not the green-brown you’ve seen in posters.
An odd line, however, caught my attention:
Take the Witch Head Nebula, for example — a puffy purplish trail of gas in the constellation Eridanus. When a picture of it is turned on its side, the nebula looks just like, well, a witch, complete with a pointy chin and peaked hat, ready to jump on a broomstick or offer an apple to Snow White.
Call me a smartass, but I don’t think you can meaningfully turn a picture of outer space on its side.
Money quote on the William T. Wiley exhibition we saw earlier this fall down at the SAAM:
He applies an expansive, satiric imagination to all manner of subjects, from the stains on his studio floor to concerns about the environment and international politics to Buddhist metaphysics. But his works can also be self-indulgent and needlessly obscure.
That last sentence, I believe, sounds more redundant than Ken Johnson meant it to. We were farily dubious throughout the whole thing; I believe it was Ruth who made the comment, “Oh, I was wondering when a 9/11 painting would show up. There it is, I guess.”
Incidentally, last night we watched Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. Of course there were many little technical points (a large section of the movie actually takes place in the National Gallery of Art…?; Smithsonian storage is mostly in Suitland, MD, not underneath the mall) but it was quite entertaining, especially when a Jeff Koons balloon animal came clanging through the West Building rotunda.
Some great photos by Ruth documenting our response to the D.C. Snowpocalypse 2009 (also known as Thundersnow) which mostly included playing in Lincoln park. Not documented – us mercilessly mocking the Capitol area newscasters for their lack of New England saltiness.
Also, watch me decorate our tree!
Great NYT profile of Carmen Herrera, a recently-successful painter who happens to be ninety-four years old:
Recognition for Ms. Herrera came a few years after her husband’s death, at 98, in 2000. “Everybody says Jesse must have orchestrated this from above,” Ms. Herrera said, shaking her head. “Yeah, right, Jesse on a cloud.” She added: “I worked really hard. Maybe it was me.”
Carmen Herrera, "Untitled" (1950)
See today’s Hate the Future
(additionally good: Going Vogue)
In addition to collecting all the standard press releases about new research by Williams profs, the Faculty Notes page also provides a (partial?) list of Eph faculty blogs. I’ve followed Mike Glier’s along a long line for a while, but you can also find Sam Crane’s conjecture as to Confucian and Taoist perspectives on zombies, the PoliSci department blog, and Kim Gutschow’s anthropological study of obstetrics. Let the record state that my parents did not conceal, but rather paraded out at every birthday party the story of how I was two and a half months premature and “sooo tiny!” and I do not believe that such statements have pathologized me.
N.B. Not included on that page: The antics of Bernie Moore, or the faculty participation in the Hardy House occupation.
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