Monday, December 4, 2023

Rambling on 2 - the 24 hour saga continued - RTC Meeting ends, Hitting the Museums - Morgan and Met

I began my report on an interesting 24 hour period with the Retired Teacher Chapter meeting on Tuesday which ended at 5:20.

Rambling on - A Packed 24 hours + - Here's the first 4 hours - UFT Retiree meeting, ICE comes alive, Marianne videos expose Mulgrew

Surviving almost two hours of Mulgrew and Murphy, I needed fresh air. There was a segment on how seniors can avoid scams right after Mulgrew spoke and took questions. The presentation didn't include how to avoid the Mulgrew/Murphy healthcare scam. Luckily Marianne broke down the Mulgrew lies with 4 videos that add up to almost an hour --- it took an hour to debunk Mulgrew. To set the stage:

Mulgrew: I believe in democracy

Marianne: Laughs out loud.

part 1: https://youtu.be/EzZKIwXrHFY?si=LVNE1iEMVEhrB6w2

part 2: https://youtu.be/dh5XkmWCaq8?si=QILNxZbcTzzEtQwR

part 3: https://youtu.be/dNXSP4khKDc?si=bVsSaqj37-MonlPT

Part 4: https://youtu.be/GjYf8WTX4SM?si=LrU2BIrK9c02gv0X

I needed to wash off the propaganda so I headed uptown where I had two conflicting events at 6. Oh the choices.

One was the tree lighting at Bryant Park winter village with entertainment and watching professional ice skating.

The other was a members' invitation to the Morgan library for a two hour special tour of various exhibits with an expert talking about each one. I chose the latter.

Lots about Gutenberg and the bibles and also some great stuff about books on nature from 500 years ago. Morgan is a great museum and only a few blocks from my place so I go often.

The Morgan

Then off to one of my favorite diners - Murray Hill Diner on 33rd and Lex. Soup and sandwich - but no rice pudding.

On way back to my apartment I passed a storefront with about 20 women doing what looked like yoga but on some machine - I went in to talk to the young lady in charge and she said it was Pilotes. Do any men take this class? One guy was in there. I told her ti do hot yoga and she slapped me 5. I may try it one day -- with women who could be my grandkids.

The Met

I had to get up early on Wednesday for a press event at The Met for their upcoming exhibits this year. I love these events and they serve breakfast. And best of all the museum is closed on Wednesdays so imagine empty galleries. They introduced the upcoming exhibits (see below) but also after the program was done we had the opportunity to explore the newly opened European painting gallery until noon. I wish I had read this article before but I had fun just roaming around. I will go back. Read this before you go:

700 Paintings, 45 Galleries: A Guide to the Met's New ...

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › Arts › Art & Design

Nov 24, 2023 — 700 Paintings, 45 Galleries: A Guide to the Met's New European Wing.

Shortbread cookies

entry to European painting

My new girlfriend

And an opera

For Immediate Release

Exhibitions

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Announces Exhibition Program for Winter and Spring 2024

Highlights include The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism (opening February 25); Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance (opening April 2); **and Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion (opening May 10)

The Museum also revealed the artists for the 2024 commissions series:** Petrit Halilaj will present a site-specific installation for the Museum’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden; Lee Bul will create sculptures for The Met’s Fifth Avenue facade; and Tong Yang-Tze will create two monumental works of Chinese calligraphy for The Met’s Great Hall

(New York, November 30, 2023)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced its schedule of exhibitions and programming that will activate the Museum’s galleries and featured architectural spaces in the coming months.

“The Met’s upcoming season will offer dazzling presentations of art from the ancient times to the present day and reflect the breathtaking scope of human creativity through new scholarship, commissions, and groundbreaking exhibition displays,” said Max Hollein, the Museum’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “We are excited for audiences to visit and take part in this thrilling next chapter of our programming.”

Winter highlights include Women Dressing Women (opening December 7), a timely exploration of the creativity and artistic legacy of women fashion designers; Don’t Forget to Call Your Mother (opening December 18), examining how artists use family photographs and archival material to reflect on the complicated feelings of nostalgia and sentimentality; Cycladic Art: The Leonard N. Stern Collection on Loan from the Hellenic Republic (opening January 25), a landmark international loan exhibition presenting 161 Early Bronze Age sculptures from the esteemed private collection; Vision and Verse: The Poetry of Chinese Painting (opening February 3), exploring the interconnection of painting and poetry in Chinese culture; Indian Skies: The Howard Hodgkin Collection of Indian Court Painting (opening February 6), presenting the Museum’s recent acquisition of Indian paintings from the 16th to the 19th century from the collection of artist Howard Hodgkin; and The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism (opening February 25), a groundbreaking exhibition exploring the comprehensive and far-reaching ways in which Black artists portrayed everyday modern life in the 1920s–40s in New York City’s Harlem and nationwide.

In the spring, The Met will present Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art (opening March 5), analyzing the striking connections between textile artists of the ancient Andes and artists of the 20th century; The Art of the Literary Poster: Works from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection (opening March 7), introducing audiences to a subgenre of posters from the 1890s publicizing magazines, journals, books, and other types of literature; The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography (opening March 11), illustrating how commercial camerawork contributed to the visual language of modernism; Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance (opening April 2), the first exhibition to examine the Renaissance tradition of multisided portraits in which the sitter’s likeness was concealed behind hinged or sliding covers; Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion (opening May 10), reactivating the sensory capacities of masterworks in the Museum’s Costume Institute collection through first-hand research, conservation analysis, and diverse technologies; and Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co. (opening June 9), displaying the work of the silversmith for Tiffany & Co. alongside his expansive personal collection of global decorative arts, which inspired his creations.

The Met also announced new artist commissions for the 2024 season. Petrit Halilaj will present a site-specific installation for the Museum’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden (April 29); Lee Bul will create four sculptures for the niches of The Met’s Fifth Avenue facade (September 12); and Tong Yang-Tze will create two monumental works of Chinese calligraphy for The Met’s Great Hall (November 21).

Programmatic highlights include a series of talks about cultural heritage sites in Africa, Oceania, and the Americas presented in partnership with World Monuments Fund and leading up to the reopening of the reenvisioned Michael C. Rockefeller Wing in 2025, as well as the return of two popular celebrations—Lunar New Year (February 3) and Teens Take The Met! (May 13). The Museum also previewed its winter MetLiveArts season, which will include the world premiere of Handel: Made in America (February 15 and 16), a new work written and performed by Terrance McKnight with opera stars Davóne Tines, J'Nai Bridges, and Noah Stewart.

Visitors arriving at The Met during the current season can explore the must-see exhibitions Manet/Degas (through January 7) and Africa & Byzantium (through March 3) as well as Look Again: European Paintings 1300–1800, the renovated suite of 45 permanent collection galleries situated atop the Great Hall stairs. Through January 2024, The Met’s holiday season is in full swing with comprehensive festivities at both The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters, including beloved annual displays and seasonal dining and shopping opportunities.

###

November 30, 2023

Contact:
Communications@metmuseum.org

I got the ferries back to Rockaway Wed afternoon. 24 hour away and it felt like a week.

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News Update: So what's a little mistake? Or was it a mistake if you are a conspiracy theorist?

The New York Times reports on how Israel knew about the Hamas plan a year ahead and did nothing. Not exactly nothing. Bibi actually withdrew forces and sent them to the West Bank to protect the murderous settlers. If I were a conspiracy theorist I might say the attack is exactly what he wanted as an excuse to destroy Gaza.

The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named 'Jericho Wall,' outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people. ...

Then, in July, just three months before the attacks, a veteran analyst with Unit 8200, Israel's signals intelligence agency, warned that Hamas had conducted an intense, daylong training exercise that appeared similar to what was outlined in the blueprint.

But a colonel in the Gaza division brushed off her concerns, according to encrypted emails viewed by The Times.

For the pro-Putin crowd:

Russian Supreme Court Bans the 'International LGBT Public Movement' Activists are advising "LGBTQ+ Russians to flee the country, and call[ing] on international rights organizations to help people from those groups find refuge outside Russia." via the Washington Post and the Guardian.

No comments:

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Extended