Michelle to Ellen: Let's Move

Michelle- Let's Move in pictures: Guardian

Mexican Accordion band

I used to give them money, but they haven't changed their songs."

Break dancing on the A Train

The A train run from 125 to 59 mid-day is primetime for break dancers.  Here's a great one from the Times.  And YES, I do reward the performance.

How to make a Spanish Windlass

From Fine Homebuilding: how to make a Spanish windlass

slideshow here

getting started

MVP

Giants 21
Patriots 17
Best super bowl ad: Chrysler

Renewable Energy in Iceland a Top Priority

Renewable Energy in Iceland a Top Priority: "Iceland is reckoned as a forerunner in the field of renewable energy. The country is generating around 81 percent of its primary energy needs from renewable sources. There are even plans to go fully green. Figures in 2007 said that geothermal energy accounts for 66 percent of primary energy, hydropower 15 percent and fossil fuels 19 percent."

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Tattered safety net: heating oil assistance cut

A New York Times reporter headed north to Dixfield, above Lewiston, Maine.  It's cold there.  A slideshow and article tell the story of two retired and disabled Mainers struggling to heat their houses, living on $1,200/month in Social Security benefits.  As the economy improves will Congress restore the funds cut from federal heating oil assistance to the poor?

Black bear Lugnut gives birth - video

The Wildlife Research Foundation in cooperation with the Maine Department of Fisheries and Wildlife has established a live streaming video in a bear den in northern Maine.  As you know bears do more than shit in the woods.  They give birth there! As did Lugnut, one of the bears they are following.  The link above will bring you to the video archive.  the home page ahs video live from the den where the bear sleeps, but doesn't shit, so except for lucky moments not much is going on.

One More Thing about Paterno - George Vecsey

George Vecsey - the recently retired Times sports columnist - and wise observer of men's lives, observes that by making Paterno king those who shouted "We Are Penn State" left him isolated and unguided. - GWC

One More Thing about Paterno - George Vecsey:

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At Brooklyn Prep, Paterno Learned Latin and Bravado - NYTimes.com

This building at 1150 Carroll Street in Crown Heights
- was Brooklyn Prep which closed in 1972

Mens sana in corpore sano was the maxim of the school. Neither was easy to achieve. Like everyone interviewed in this article I remember Brooklyn Prep as the most demanding school I attended. College at Holy Cross, grad school at BU, law school at Rutgers. None was as challenging as high school. None as rewarding. The study of the classics encouraged a Homeric self-image. If we were good enough to study Cicero and read the Odyssey in the original Greek we were good enough for anything. Just don't be late to class. - GWC

At Brooklyn Prep, Paterno Learned Latin and Bravado - NYTimes.com:

"At the Jesuit high school Joe Paterno attended in Brooklyn, students wore jackets and ties and were taught by priests or by lay teachers in academic robes. The curriculum was also rigorously Old World: students took several years of Latin and many added three years of Greek, with three hours of homework per night the rule.
If they were late or forgot a notebook, students might find themselves detained after school for what Jesuits called “jug,” spending an hour in the courtyard walking in circles.

Fr. Engel was Prefect of Discipline

The prefect of discipline was the Rev. Frederick W. Engel, a tall priest with the fists of a trained boxer who could instantly silence an auditorium filled with 300 shouting boys.
“It wasn’t hell you were afraid of, it was Father Engel,” said Gerry Uehlinger, class of ’67, now a trial lawyer in Maryland."

 The school is well remembered in Charlie's Prep the book sponsored by NYU President John Sexton.   Charlie Winans introduced us to James Joyce.


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