Amanda Ripley: What Makes a Great Teacher? (theatlantic.com)
For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can't.
Holocaust survivors' stories (guardian.co.uk)
As the number of survivors in the UK dwindles to 5,000, Stuart Jeffries commemorates Holocaust Memorial Day by hearing the stories six of them have to tell.
Gary S. Chafetz: Pernell Roberts, 1928-2010 (huffingtonpost.com)
A Broadway actor, Pernell had a commanding presence. He was charismatic, intelligent, and well read. Hence, he could speak with great authority on many subjects. He was energetic, curious, and had a booming laugh.
A sporf is a single eating utensil combining the properties of a spoon, fork, and knife. It was invented by William McArthur in the 1940s in Australia and sold with the brand name Splayd.
Source
Marian the Teacher was first, and correct, with:
a knife, fork and spoon in one untensil
mj wrote:
Sounds like
One of those bizarre combination utensils that has characteristics of a spoon, fork (which combined make a spork), and knife (one end has a bit of a blade - at least as much as cheap plastic will hold).
~ Tony in Philly said:
a spoon, knife and fork hybrid ... ?
Alan J answered:
A spoon, fork, and knife hybrid.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, replied:
A sporf is an eating utensil that is part spoon, part fork, and part knife...
BadtotheboneBob responded:
Hmmmm... I'm gonna guess on this one... It's what happens when a spectator at a football game (or baseball, for that matter) drinks too much beer... Yeah... That's it!
Charlie replied:
A single eating utensil combining characteristics of the usual three. There are other variations on the theme.
Sally said:
This is a sporf:
And, haven't we all had one of these at one time or another in our lives? Having lived in Colorado, where hiking and camping is so popular, they are often giveaway's at the annual, "People's Fair" in the early summer there.
PS: Now B2BB will see what drew me to Colorado, Socialist that I am! Hahaha! (Get it? "Peoples Fair?")
MAM wrote:
Spoon + Fork + Knife = Sporf. Available in sets of 10 for $24.99 at Target.
And, Joe S's answer hasn't arrived, it's after 2am and I gotta get to bed:
CBS begins the night with a FRESH'Ghost Whisperer', followed by a FRESH'Medium', then a FRESH'Numb3rs'.
On a RERUNDave (from 1/6/10) are Sigourney Weaver, Marv Albert, and Julian Casablancas.
Scheudled on a FRESHCraig are Jon Heder, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Dana Eagle.
NBC starts the night with a RERUN'Law & Order', followed by 'Dateline', then a FRESH'Leno' (Howie Mandel and Adam Carolla).
On a RERUNConan it's TBA.
On a RERUNJimmy Fallon (from 1/13/10) are Freddie Prinze Jr., Anthony Anderson, and Ke$ha.
On a RERUNCarson 'The Scab' Daly (from 10/14/09) are Charlie Hunnam, Erin Hamlin, and Phoenix.
ABC opens the night with a FRESH'Supernanny', followed by a FRESH'Shark Tank', then '20/20'.
Scheudled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Josh Duhamel, Shorty Rossi, and John Mayer.
The CW offers a FRESH'Smallville', followed by a RERUN'Smallville'.
Faux has a FRESH'Dollhouse', followed by a FRESH'Kitchen Nightmares'.
MY fills the night with a FRESH'WWE Friday Steroid SmackDown!'.
PLEASE check local PBS listings for a FRESH, but soon to be gone, 'Bill Moyers Journal', the BEST program on over-the-air TV.
AMC offers the movie 'Pitch Black', followed by the movie 'The Fugitive'.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] Cash in the Attic - Ep 6 Buchanan
[1:00 PM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 7
[2:00 PM] Antiques Roadshow - Episode 24
[3:00 PM] Antiques Roadshow - Episode 8
[4:00 PM] Antiques Roadshow - Episode 25
[5:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Revisited - Ep 4 Bonapartes
[6:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 6 Seascape
[7:00 PM] BBC World News America
[8:00 PM] Transvestite Wives
[9:00 PM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 1 Sarah Ferguson, Ed Byrne
[10:00 PM] Friday Night with Jonathan Ross - Ep 2 Billie Piper, Alan Carr, Alicia Keys
[11:00 PM] Transvestite Wives
[12:00 AM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 1 Sarah Ferguson, Ed Byrne
[1:00 AM] Friday Night with Jonathan Ross - Ep 2 Billie Piper, Alan Carr, Alicia Keys
[2:00 AM] Transvestite Wives
[3:00 AM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 1 Sarah Ferguson, Ed Byrne
[4:00 AM] Friday Night with Jonathan Ross - Ep 2 Billie Piper, Alan Carr, Alicia Keys
[5:00 AM] How Clean Is Your House? US - Episode 20
[5:30 AM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 12
[6:00 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep 4 Hardiman (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives of OC', another 'Real Housewives of OC', followed by the movie 'Along Came Polly', then the movie 'Along Came Polly', again.
Comedy Central has last night's 'Jon Stewart', last night's 'Colbert Report', followed by the movie 'Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie', 'Comedy Central Presents' (Lynne Koplitz), and another 'Comedy Central Presents' (Andrew Kennedy).
Jon Stewart Colbert Report
FX has the movie 'Fantastic Four', followed by the movie 'Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer'.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Gangland', another 'Gangland', and 'American Pickers'.
IFC -
[6:05 AM] Dinner With the Band
[6:35 AM] Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart
[8:05 AM] Monty Python's Flying Circus
[8:35 AM] Dinner Rush
[10:20 AM] Danny Deckchair
[12:05 PM] Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart
[1:35 PM] Dinner Rush
[3:15 PM] Danny Deckchair
[5:05 PM] Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart
[6:30 PM] Made
[8:05 PM] Kill Bill: Vol. 2
[10:30 PM] The Whitest Kids U'Know
[11:00 PM] Monty Python's Flying Circus
[11:30 PM] Arrested Development
[12:00 AM] It's Alive!
[1:30 AM] The Whitest Kids U'Know
[2:00 AM] Ideal
[2:30 AM] Monty Python's Flying Circus
[3:05 AM] Kill Bill: Vol. 2
[5:30 AM] Made (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[05:15 AM] Swimmers
[06:45 AM] Chalk
[08:15 AM] On the Road with Judas
[09:55 AM] Jeu
[10:00 AM] Bright Future
[11:35 AM] A Prairie Home Companion
[01:20 PM] Chalk
[02:50 PM] On the Road with Judas
[04:25 PM] Bright Future
[06:00 PM] Be Good Johnny Weir - Episode 1: Pop Star on Ice
[07:30 PM] Be Good Johnny Weir - Episode 2
[08:00 PM] Quinceanera
[09:45 PM] Pen Pusher
[10:00 PM] Shameless - Episode 10 - Season 5
[11:00 PM] Live From Abbey Road - Season 2: Live from Abbey Road: Season 2 - The Subways, Gnarls Barkley & Herbie Hancock w/ Sonya Kitchell
[12:00 AM] Fierce People
[02:00 AM] Christmas on Mars
[03:30 AM] Quinceanera
[05:15 AM] Pen Pusher (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has 'Caprica', followed by a FRESH'Caprica', then 'Warehouse 13'.
Actress Anne Hathaway (C) rides with Hasty Pudding Theatricals President Clifford Murray (L) and Vice President of the cast Derek Mueller, both dressed in drag, during the parade to honor her as Hasty Pudding Theatricals Woman of the Year at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts January 28, 2010.
Photo by Brian Snyder
Some of the last of Mahatma Gandhi's ashes, kept in secret for decades by a family friend, will be scattered at sea off South Africa's coast on Saturday, 62 years after his assassination, his family said.
Normally, ashes are immersed in rivers or the sea within days, but for Gandhi, his remains were divided to many urns and sent around India and across the globe so his followers could hold memorials.
One urn came to South Africa, where Gandhi had come to practise law in 1893, living in the country on and off for 21 years.
Until recently, Gandhi's family had no idea that any of the remains were still in Africa. But because so many urns were sent around the world in 1948, no one knows if any others are left.
The last immersion ceremony for Gandhi was two years ago in Mumbai. Those remains had been kept for decades by an estranged son before being donated to a museum, which had wanted to display them. At the family's request, they were spread in the Arabian Sea.
In this photo released by PictureGroup, Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson and Robin Zander, left to right, of Cheap Trick, perform at Hard Rock Cafe on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010, in New York, as part of SIRIUS XM's 'Artist Confidential' series. The band's new album 'The Latest' is out now.
Photo by Diane Bondareff
The Spike cable network is looking to get into late-night television, but Conan O'Brien need not apply.
The network geared to young men said Thursday that it was developing a new late-night talk and comedy show with Thom Beers, who helps make the network's "1000 Ways to Die" series. The new late-night entry hopes to scour the country for talent.
Sharon Levy, head of programming for Spike, said she wants the show to go beyond the typical late-night fascinations of movie stars and politics. She said Spike will seek out ordinary people doing extraordinary things, like a convenience store clerk who faced down robbers or a stockbroker who quit his job to fight in Afghanistan.
The show has no air date, host or even title. It will air once a week at first, although Levy said that if things go right, it could become a daily show.
Organizers of the Bakersfield Business Conference announced Sunday that 2008 Republican Primary Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney and legendary entertainer Ronnie Milsap will address the Business Conference on October 9, 2010.
Last week, Conference organizers announced that 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and academy-award winning actress Goldie Hawn will also appear at the 2010 Conference alongside former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Second Lady Lynne Cheney, former First Lady Laura Bush, and impressionist Rich Little. Conference organizers will continue to announce the names of speakers confirmed to address the 2010 Conference in weeks to come.
A city in a scenic part of southern China has denied renaming a craggy peak after the floating mountains that appeared in Hollywood blockbuster "Avatar," after an online backlash, state media said on Thursday.
The "Southern Sky Column" in Zhangjiajie in southern Hunan province formally had its named changed to "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain" in a ceremony Monday, according to the Zhangjiajie government's website (www.zjj.gov.cn).
The government said the floating "Hallelujah Mountains" in the movie were inspired by the "Southern Sky Column," as a Hollywood photographer spent time shooting there in 2008.
But Zhangjiajie has now denied doing so, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Syrian painter Maha Omary sits near one of her works at her exhibition entitled "Phoenician symbols and Pharaonic "at the Arab Cultural Center in Damascus January 28, 2010. Omary is a professional artist specializing in glass painting.
Photo by Khaled al-Hariri
A city in Russia's south is selling its bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, as it can no longer afford the cost of repairs, Russian media reported Wednesday.
The 14-tonne, balding figure has stood upright with one arm outstretched -- one of several typical Lenin poses -- in the main square of Voronezh, some 500 km (311 miles) southwest of Moscow, for 60 years, state-run Vesti-24 television showed.
But the city-owned company responsible for his upkeep has gone bankrupt and is looking for a new owner who can afford present repairs costing 1.5 million roubles, popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
The city council of Voronezh, which has a population of around one million, was offered a brick statue of Lenin from another Russian region for the modest sum of 5,500 roubles last year, but rejected it at the last minute.
Sly Stone is suing a former business manager and others claiming tens of millions of dollars in royalties were kept from the singer.
Stone, whose real name is Sylvester Stewart, was the frontman of the 1970s funk group Sly and The Family Stone.
He sued former manager Gerald Goldstein and several companies in Los Angeles on Thursday, claiming they kept 20 years of royalty payments from Stone and leveraged his work and rights to pay for their lavish lifestyles.
The lawsuit claims Goldstein and others set up several companies to divert the royalty payments and borrow against Stone's work.
In this photo taken Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010 and made available Thursday, Jan 28, 2010 Adam Buczynski carries a dog found floating cold and alone on an ice floe 15 miles off the Polish Baltic Sea coast in Gdynia, Poland. Buczynski, a sailor from the ship 'Baltic' pulled out the dog from the ice floe.
Photo by Maciej Czoska
A judge has scheduled a hearing to decide if Michael Jackson's father should receive a monthly allowance of more than $15,000 from the pop star's estate.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff said Thursday he would hold an evidentiary hearing on May 26 regarding Joe Jackson's petition.
Michael Jackson had an often-strained relationship with his father. He omitted Joe Jackson from his will and trust, which benefits the singer's mother, three children and various charities.
Joe Jackson sought the stipend in November, saying he had little monthly income. The administrators of the pop star's estate have opposed the motion, and an attorney for Michael Jackson's children says she has concerns as well.
Argentina's president recommended pork as an alternative to Viagra Wednesday, saying she spent a satisfying weekend with her husband after eating barbecued pork.
"I've just been told something I didn't know; that eating pork improves your sex life ... I'd say it's a lot nicer to eat a bit of grilled pork than take Viagra," President Cristina Fernandez said to leaders of the pig farming industry.
She said she recently ate pork and "things went very well that weekend, so it could well be true."
Argentines are the world's biggest per capita consumers of beef, but the government has sought to promote pork as an alternative in recent years due to rising steak prices and as a way to diversify the meat industry.
A woman makes cookies out of mud to sell in the Cite Soleil neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010. Made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening, the cookies were already one of very few options for the poorest in Haiti even before the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.
Photo by Rodrigo Abd
Mexican archaeologists have found an 1,100-year-old tomb from the twilight of the Maya civilization that they hope may shed light on what happened to the once-glorious culture.
Archaeologist Juan Yadeun said the tomb, and ceramics from another culture found in it, may reveal who occupied the Maya site of Tonina in southern Chiapas state after the culture's Classic period began fading.
Many experts have pointed to internal warfare between Mayan city states, or environmental degradation, as possible causes of the Maya's downfall starting around A.D. 820.
But Yadeun, who oversees the Tonina site for Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, said artifacts from the Toltec culture found in the tomb may point to another explanation. He said the tomb dates to between A.D. 840 and 900.
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by the Nielsen Co. for the week of Jan. 18-24. Day and start time (EST) are in parentheses:
1. "ICarly" (Monday, 8 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 6.89 million homes, 11.16 million viewers.
2. "Hannity" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), Fox News Channel, 4.87 million homes, 6.8 million viewers.
3. "On the Record With Greta Van Susteren" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.), Fox News Channel, 4.58 million homes, 6.39 million viewers.
4. "Big Time Rush" (Monday, 8:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 4.41 million homes, 6.77 million viewers.
5. "ICarly" (Monday, 7:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 4.25 million homes, 6.29 million viewers.
6. Movie: "The Pregnancy Pact" (Saturday, 9 p.m.), Lifetime, 4.18 million homes, 5.85 million viewers.
7. "The O'Reilly Factor" (Tuesday, 8 p.m.), Fox News Channel, 3.94 million homes, 5.22 million viewers.
8. "Wizards of Waverly Place" (Friday, 8 p.m.), Disney, 3.93 million homes, 6.21 million viewers.
9. "Burn Notice" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.81 million homes, 5.35 million viewers.
10. "ICarly" (Monday, 7 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.608 million homes, 5.08 million viewers.
11. "NCIS" (Friday, 8 p.m.), USA, 3.607 million homes, 5.03 million viewers
12. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.6 million homes, 5.41 million viewers.
13. "NCIS" (Monday, 7 p.m.), USA, 3.56 million homes, 4.73 million viewers.
14. "The O'Reilly Factor" (Thursday, 8 p.m.), Fox News Channel, 3.51 million homes, 4.83 million viewers.
15. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.49 million homes, 4.93 million viewers.
J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.
Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's longtime literary representative, Harold Ober Agency. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.
"The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight - and concern."
Salinger was writing for adults, but teenagers from all over identified with the novel's themes of alienation, innocence and fantasy, not to mention the luck of having the last word. "Catcher" presents the world as an ever-so-unfair struggle between the goodness of young people and the corruption of elders, a message that only intensified with the oncoming generation gap.
Salinger's other books don't equal the influence or sales of "Catcher," but they are still read, again and again, with great affection and intensity. Critics, at least briefly, rated Salinger as a more accomplished and daring short story writer than John Cheever.
The collection "Nine Stories" features the classic "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," the deadpan account of a suicidal Army veteran and the little girl he hopes, in vain, will save him. The novel "Franny and Zooey," like "Catcher," is a youthful, obsessively articulated quest for redemption, featuring a memorable argument between Zooey and his mother as he attempts to read in the bathtub.
Salinger also wrote the novellas "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" and "Seymour - An Introduction," both featuring the neurotic, fictional Glass family that appeared in much of his work.
His last published story, "Hapworth 16, 1928," ran in The New Yorker in 1965. By then, he was increasingly viewed like a precocious child whose manner had soured from cute to insufferable. "Salinger was the greatest mind ever to stay in prep school," Norman Mailer once commented.
Jerome David Salinger was born Jan. 1, 1919, in New York City. His father was a wealthy importer of cheeses and meat and the family lived for years on Park Avenue.
Like Holden, Salinger was an indifferent student with a history of trouble in various schools. He was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy at age 15, where he wrote at night by flashlight beneath the covers and eventually earned his only diploma. In 1940, he published his first fiction, "The Young Folks," in Story magazine.
He served in the Army from 1942 to 1946, carrying a typewriter with him most of the time, writing "whenever I can find the time and an unoccupied foxhole," he told a friend.
Returning to New York, the lean, dark-haired Salinger pursued an intense study of Zen Buddhism but also cut a gregarious figure in the bars of Greenwich Village, where he astonished acquaintances with his proficiency in rounding up dates. One drinking buddy, author A.E. Hotchner, would remember Salinger as the proud owner of an "ego of cast iron," contemptuous of writers and writing schools, convinced that he was the best thing to happen to American letters since Herman Melville.
The world had come calling for Salinger, but Salinger was bolting the door. By 1952, he had migrated to Cornish. Three years later, he married Claire Douglas, with whom he had two children, Peggy and Matthew, before their 1967 divorce. (Salinger was also briefly married in the 1940s to a woman named Sylvia; little else is known about her.)
Salinger became famous for not wanting to be famous. In 1982, he sued a man who allegedly tried to sell a fictitious interview with the author to a national magazine. The impostor agreed to desist and Salinger dropped the suit.
Five years later, another Salinger legal action resulted in an important decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court refused to allow publication of an unauthorized biography, by Ian Hamilton, that quoted from the author's unpublished letters. Salinger had copyrighted the letters when he learned about Hamilton's book, which came out in a revised edition in 1988.
Against Salinger's will, the curtain was parted in recent years. In 1998, author Joyce Maynard published her memoir "At Home in the World," in which she detailed her eight-month affair with Salinger in the early 1970s, when she was less than half his age. She drew an unflattering picture of a controlling personality with eccentric eating habits, and described their problematic sex life.
Salinger's alleged adoration of children apparently did not extend to his own. In 2000, daughter Margaret Salinger's "Dreamcatcher" portrayed the writer as an unpleasant recluse who drank his own urine and spoke in tongues.
Margaret Salinger said she wrote the book because she was "absolutely determined not to repeat with my son what had been done with me."
Three baby pigs rests next to their adoptive mother, Sai Mai, an eight-year-old tiger, at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Thailand's Chonburi Province, nearly 100 km (62 miles) east of Bangkok January 26,2010. Tiger numbers have fallen by more than 70 percent in slightly more than a decade in the Greater Mekong, with the region's five countries containing only 350 tigers, according to a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report released on Monday.
Photo by Sukree Sukplang
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
The idea is to have fun.
Do you have something to say?
Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better, amused or entertained?
Do you have a great album no one's heard?
How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
A popular artist that just plain pisses you off?
A box set the whole world should own?
Vile, filthy rumors about Republican hypocrites?
Just plain vile, filthy rumors?
This is your place.
wrote:
