In the NYTimes:

When 17,000 people pour into the heart of New Jersey’s largest city on Thursday night to hear Bon Jovi perform the first of 10 shows, they will undoubtedly be impressed by the glimmering Prudential Center, the first new sports arena in the metropolitan region in 25 years.

The question that many people here are asking is whether the millions of visitors expected to traipse through Newark on their way to and from the $375 million arena in the coming years will be equally entranced by a city that might be charitably described as a work in progress.

For now, when they look out through the arena’s soaring glass facade or make the two-block hike from Pennsylvania Station, they will see a landscape of parking lots and ramshackle buildings. Their dining choices on Broad Street near Market Street, the city’s storied but tattered main intersection, will be limited to a Burger King, a Popeyes and a Bojangles’. If they want to grab a beer or a wine spritzer after the show, they will have to satisfy their thirst at Arena Bar or Scully’s Publick House, the only new drinking establishments within four blocks.

City officials and arena executives take pains to point out that downtown Newark is a flower about to bloom. A hotel is planned for a parcel just across from the arena’s front door, and next spring, an adjacent parking lot will be transformed into the $19 million Triangle Park.

As officials tell it, there is a hungry band of real estate developers jockeying to construct new residential buildings in the forlorn blocks that surround the red and gray brick-faced arena, which is nicknamed “the Rock” and will be home to Seton Hall’s men’s basketball team in addition to the Devils.

“Things are really shaking. There’s a lot of energy coming in,” said Mayor Cory A. Booker, who opposed the arena’s construction before he was elected but who was reborn as a booster after he realized he could not reverse the previous administration’s decision to contribute $210 million in public money toward construction.

There has already been some gain for Newark residents. More than half the arena’s 1,200 ushers, custodians and concessionaires have local ZIP codes, and eight of the outlets in the Taste of Newark food court will bear the names of popular local establishments.

Of course, not everyone expects such change to be beneficial. Many owners of jewelry and clothing stores on Broad Street who cater to African-Americans are skeptical. They say hockey fans, an overwhelmingly white demographic, have little need for the hip-hop clothing shops and hair weaving services that dominate the Broad Street strip. There is also widespread concern that the arena’s success will lead to soaring rents and the demise of many longtime businesses.

Sabina Smith, who owns the Calabash African Food Market in the shadow of the arena’s facade on Edison Place, said she was pleased that a year of disruptive construction was finally ending but also fearful of what the future will hold. Since opening in 1995, Calabash has been the only business on a very forbidding block, although her rent, an affordable $1,300 a month, has made it easier to stay afloat.

Standing in her shop, the air heavy with the aroma of smoked mackerel, the shelves heaving with giant yams and sacks of potato starch, she said she would try to appeal to concertgoers and sports fans with Doritos and bottles of cold Sprite. But she admitted that it might all be for naught. “This project is just too big for a little African shop like me,” she said, growing tearful. “I can see the landlord wanting me out of this place.”

City officials acknowledge that some displacement is inevitable, but they say the new apartments and stores they hope will revive Newark’s largely desolate downtown in the coming decade will create hundreds of new jobs and churn out desperately needed tax revenue.

The Police Department has been figuring out deployments for the 80 extra officers who will walk the street when the arena is open.

“My biggest battle right now is dealing with the perception of crime,” said Deputy Chief Daniel Zieser, who is in charge of operations within a quarter-mile radius of the arena.

Among hockey fans, who will be arriving on Saturday for the New Jersey Devils’ home opener against the Ottawa Senators, the biggest concern right now is parking and traffic. Sam Schwartz, a transportation consultant hired by the city and the arena’s owners to plan for the expected onslaught of cars and pedestrians, said there would be 10,000 spaces within a half-mile of the arena.

During a news conference last week, Mr. Schwartz urged people to take a train or bus to the city, although he predicted that fewer than a quarter of those coming to the arena would do so, at least in the beginning. He said the police would operate traffic signals by remote control and would favor foot traffic over cars.

From Reuters:

Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador's Pacific coast.

Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for counter-narcotics surveillance operations on Pacific drug-running routes.

"We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami -- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy.

"If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States."

Well Said!!!

The U.S. embassy to Ecuador offers a fact-sheet on the base here.

You can get more information about the empire of US military bases at the National Priorities Project

Su repubblica ho letto di questo "assalto" alle iscrizioni per la SSIS - le domande sono di gran lunga superiori al numero di posizioni disponibili - anche se non viene specificato il numero di iscritti per la matematica...

Ho due commenti da fare.

Il primo: ho il sospetto che questo "assalto" sia dovuto in (larga?) parte alla precarieta' che c'e' in tutti gli impieghi.

Il secondo: i ragazzi della scuola di Barbiana ci hanno insegnato molto riguardo agli "oneri" associati al ruolo di insegnante di scuola pubblica in italia. Diciamo semplicemente che c'e' una bella differenza tra chi insegna e chi lavora in fabbrica, o nei campi...

Malpagati, in calo nella scala della considerazione sociale, chiamati in causa in prima persona in vicende che mostrano solo il lato oscuro della scuola. Eppure il mestiere dell'insegnante sembra ritrovare nuovo appeal tra i giovani laureati
O, almeno, a guadare i dati sembra sia così: una vera corsa alla cattedra. Quest'anno, il numero di coloro che desiderano insegnare in una scuola media o superiore è di gran lunga maggiore ai posti messi a disposizione dal ministero dell'Università. Un fenomeno che assomiglia tanto alla "lotta" per conquistare un posto nelle facoltà a numero chiuso, come Medicina e Architettura.

I numeri sono ancora provvisori ma l'incremento di richieste rispetto allo scorso anno si aggira attorno al 15/20 per cento. Notizia sorprendente e in contgrotendenza. Che già solleva una prima preoccupazione: se infatti tutti aspiranti professori dovessero riuscire nell'intento le graduatorie dei supplenti non si esaurirebbero mai.

Secondo i primi dati forniti dal giornale on line "La Tecnica della scuola", a fronte di 820 posti disponibili nelle Ssis (le Scuole di specializzazione per l'insegnamento secondario), in Toscana agli scritti si sono presentati in 2.895. Le cose non cambiano se ci si sposta a Milano, dove il numero di chi desidera sedersi dietro una cattedra è due volte e mezzo superiore alle disponibilità.

The information below comed from Education Week:

Teachers in the United States spend more hours at work than their counterparts in 29 other countries, but are among the lowest paid, according to an annual survey comparing the education systems in some of the world’s leading economies.

The report, released Sept. 18 by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, says that primary-level teachers teach an average of 1,080 hours each year in the United States—well above the average of 803 hours for all countries surveyed.

The average salary of just over $40,000 for a U.S. primary teacher with 15 years of experience ranked the United States 12th among the countries surveyed. In Luxembourg, the average salary for a teacher with similar experience was $88,000 in U.S. dollars. In Hungary, it was $16,000.

Although the average U.S. teacher salary is above the OECD average of $37,603, the report points out that relative to the gross domestic product, “per capita teachers’ pay in the United States is among the lowest in OECD countries.”

The report ranked the United States 10th for its efforts to control class sizes, with 23.1 students per classroom at the primary level, higher than the OECD average of 21.5.

Of course, these are AVERAGES, which say a lot by saying little about the internal differences between schools in the 'burbs and schools in the cities, for example. But still worth noting. Oh, before I forget:

I sent in a form and donation to become a member of both the washington state and national Green Party - because i believe in supporting institutions that challenge power and authority.

And I was glad to have done so when I read the following snippet from the great NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman:

the [Hillary] Clinton campaign is holding a “Rural Americans for Hillary” lunch and campaign briefing — at the offices of the Troutman Sanders Public Affairs Group, which lobbies for the agribusiness and biotech giant Monsanto. You don’t have to be a Naderite to feel uncomfortable about the implied closeness.

Monsanto is one of the worst corporate criminals in history (and that's saying something, given the competition for that title): they produce Agent Orange, which was used in Vietnam to destroy the forests and has caused untold suffering to civilians (and US vets). They push Genetically Modified crops on US consumers and on other countries (Brazil, Argentina, and India to name a few). They produce and mass-market the recombinant bovine growth hormone which induces untold damage to cows and human consumers. There are better candidates for the corporate death penalty, but not many.

Thanks for the head's up, Paul. And screw you, Hillary.

When i say that something is racist, i do not mean to imply that the people involved in it are bigots. rather, it means that the net result of that activity (in this case, mortgage lending) produces results that reinforce white supremacy. Now on with it.

From the NY Times

Home buyers in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods in New York City were more likely to get their mortgages last year from a subprime lender than home buyers in white neighborhoods with similar income levels, according to a new analysis of home loan data by researchers at New York University.

The analysis, by N.Y.U.’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, illustrates stark racial differences between the New York City neighborhoods where subprime mortgages — which can come with higher interest rates, fees and penalties — were common and those where they were rare. The 10 neighborhoods with the highest rates of mortgages from subprime lenders had black and Hispanic majorities, and the 10 areas with the lowest rates were mainly non-Hispanic white.

The analysis showed that even when median income levels were comparable, home buyers in minority neighborhoods were more likely to get a loan from a subprime lender.

In Jamaica, Queens, for example, where the majority is black and the median household income was $45,000 in 2005, 46 percent of the mortgages were issued by lenders who specialize in subprime loans, the second highest rate in the city. In Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, which had a median income of $50,000 and is mostly white, the rate was among the lowest in the city, with 3.6 percent of home loans coming from subprime lenders.

The analysis provides only a limited picture of subprime borrowing in New York City. The data does not include details on borrowers’ assets, down payments or debt loads, all key factors in mortgage lending. And comparing neighborhoods is inexact; the typical borrower in one may differ from a typical borrower in another.

But the Furman Center study, a summary of which is being released today, still raises questions about the role of race in lending practices. A separate analysis of mortgage data by The New York Times shows that even at higher income levels, black borrowers in New York City were far more likely than white borrowers with similar incomes and mortgage amounts to receive a subprime loan.

“It’s almost as if subprime lenders put a circle around neighborhoods of color and say, ‘This is where were going to do our thing,’” said Robert Stroup, a lawyer and the director of the economic justice program at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc.

The New York State Division of Human Rights is investigating whether subprime lenders have been engaging in discriminatory practices by singling out minority communities.

Ehm... what about the PRIME lenders? shouldn't they be investigated for NOT giving loans to people of color? and will these "investigations" lead to people being able to KEEP THEIR HOUSES?

So, there was a washington state math convention. The State Superintendent spoke, and said some things. The Seattle Times article included this snippet:

That buzz comes, in part, on the heels of a review of Washington's standards for mathematics that found them sorely lacking, especially when it comes to the basics. The report echoed concerns expressed by parent groups such as "Where's the Math?" which have criticized math curricula taught in local school districts, including Bellevue and Lake Washington.

This "review", i presume, is the one published by the pro-privatization (i.e. pro voucher) group "the Fordham Foundation."

So, I wrote back. these were my comments:

I was baffled by Ms. Tuinstra's unqualified remark about a "review of Washington's standards for mathematics that found them sorely lacking, especially when it comes to the basics."

Should all of the state's children undergo a rigorous, rich, and engaging math education? of course. Are Washington State's standards "lacking" in that regard? Perhaps.

But if the standards are "sorely lacking," why do our children in grades 4 and 8 score above the national average on the National Assessment of Education Progress, "the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know?"

Does it have anything to do with the fact that the organization that conducted this "review" - the Fordham Foundation - supports the privatization of public schools (through so-called "vouchers")?

Ms Tuinstra does her readers a disservice by not addressing these issues.

Oh, i guess i haven't said this in a while:

From the Times:

The Pentagon has paid more than $100 million in bonuses to veteran Green Berets and Navy SEALs, reversing the flow of top commandos to the corporate world where security companies such as Blackwater USA are offering big salaries.

The retention effort, started nearly three years ago and overseen by U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., has helped preserve a small but elite group of enlisted troops with vast experience fighting the unconventional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Defense Department statistics.

Should i mention that there is NO such program in place for teachersor doctors in high-need urban and rural areas?

Oggi sul NYTimes c'e' un articolo sulla disputa che si sta sviluppando tra l'ENI e il governo del Kazakistan (qui c'e' il rapport di Amnesty International su questo paese).

In sostanza, l'ENI sta facendo miliardi grazie a un accordo firmato anni fa, e il Kazakistan vuole rinegoziare il contratto per ottenere condizioni piu' favorevoli.

Rtengoche sia perfettamente legittimo per il Kazakistan fare richieste del gener. Ma non  posso fare a meno di pensare che il governo Kazako sia meno che liberale e che sarebbe meglio se l'Italia (e il mondo) prendessero misure ben piu' drastiche per eliminare la propria dipendenza dal petrolio.

In buona sostanza, troppi regimi repressivi si sostengono grazie ai profitti che ricevono per "fortuna" (o sfortuna, a seconda dei punti di vista) geologica. Non ultimo di questi paesi e' la Birmania, sotto scrutinio in questi giorni, che si mantiene al potere grazie ai soldi che riceve dalla statunitense Chevron e dalla francese Total.

After many years of studying math, on friday i finally used an important result proved by a woman mathematician: Emmy Noether.

I won't state the result we proved in class (because it is so far removed from everyday experience) - but it deals with modern algebra (which was my nemesis as an undergraduate).

This is an interesting consequence of the sexism that has historically shut women out of the mathematics profession. By the time women were (grudgingly) admitted to the mathematics community (not without resistance) the kinds of things they could study was so advanced that undergraduates don't really have a chance to be exposed to them, thus preserving the myth of the white male mathematician.

In another math class the professor announced that our "hero" (for the math he derived) will be one Alexander Grothendieck. I looked up his bio, and found out that

"Grothendieck's political views were radical left-wing and pacifist. He gave lectures on category theory in the forests surrounding Hanoi while the city was being bombed, to protest against the Vietnam War."

- - - - - - - - - -

Dopo molti anni di studio della matematica, venerdi in classe abbiamo finalmente usato un risultato importante dimostrato da una donna: Emmy Noether.

Non sto nemmeno a spiegare quale fosse il torema (perche' tratta di oggetti matematici troppo astratti), ma l'argomento e' l'algebra moderna, che era il mio punto debole all'universita'.

Qui abbiamo un risultato interessante della storica esclusione delle donne dalla matematica: quando finalmente sono state ammesse alla professione, lo studio della matematica era talmente avanzato che gli studenti universitari non raggiungono quel livello a meno che non seguano corsi di matematica di alto livello. Quindi si propaga lo stereotipo del matematico come maschio bianco.

In un'altra classe di matematica il professore ha annunciato che il nostro "eroe" (per la matematica che ha sviluppato) sara' Alexander Grothendieck. Ma la sua biografia include questo fatto:

Grothendieck aveva opinioni politiche pacifiste e di sinistra. Diede lezioni di matematica vicino ad Hanoi mentre la citta' veniva bombardata, per protestare contro la guerra in Vietnam.

Ho trovato quanto segue qui:

Sono sempre meno i giovani che decidono di impegnarsi attivamente nel volontariato. Lo si nota anche in un territorio come il nostro, che dell’impegno nel sociale aveva fatto in passato una specie di bandiera. Per capire quale sia la causa, la Banca di Pistoia ha indetto il bando per una borsa di studio, del valore di 2.500 euro, che verrà assegnata ad un giovane (under 35) laureato o laureando in discipline sociali. L’iniziativa è stata illustrata in conferenza stampa da Andrea Amadori, vicepresidente della Banca di Pistoia, Annalisa Cipriani, presidente del Comitato di finanza etica e da Paolo Giovannini, vice direttore generale della Bcc pistoiese. «Vogliamo capire – ha detto Amadori – alcune incongruenze. Intanto, perché, in un territorio come il nostro che da sempre è molto attivo nel volontariato sociale, sta avvenendo questo calo di interesse da parte dei giovani. In secondo luogo, vogliamo approfondire il perché questo calo è meno accentuato, se non addirittura assente, in alcune associazioni, mentre altre lo subiscono in maniera più forte». «Ci sono associazioni – ha detto Cipriani – che hanno dovuto diminuire drasticamente il loro impegno, proprio a causa della difficoltà a reperire volontari. Una di queste è l’associazione «Acqua cheta», che gestisce un negozio di commercio equo e solidale in via della Madonna: prima era aperto dal martedì al sabato, adesso dal mercoledì, perché mancano i volontari. Lo stesso problema riguarda molte altre associazioni pistoiesi». I candidati alla borsa di studio potranno inoltrare la loro domanda, come indicato nel bando pubblicato sul sito www.bancadipistoia.it, entro il 26 ottobre. Il tema è una ricerca di carattere sociologico al fine di evidenziare le cause che negli ultimi anni hanno condotto il settore del volontariato giovanile pistoiese a subire una costante decrescita nei suoi valori quantitativi. «Una volta individuate ed analizzate le cause – prosegue Amadori – sarà possibile, auspichiamo, intervenire per invertire la rotta». I risultati della ricerca saranno presentati a febbraio, durante gli eventi che la Banca di Pistoia sta programmando per commemorare la figura dell’indimenticato presidente Renzo Zelari, a 10 anni dalla sua scomparsa.

Sarei curioso di sapere cosa ne pensano i Pistoiesi che mi leggono. In particolar modo, mi piacerebbe sapere quali credete ne siano le cause.

From the NY Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study to be released Monday. Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers.

The study makes clear also that the United States has signed weapons-sales agreements with nations whose records on democracy and human rights are subject to official criticism.

In 2006, the United States agreed to sell $10.3 billion in weapons to the developing world, or 35.8 percent of these deals worldwide, according to the study. Russia was second with $8.1 billion, or 28.1 percent, and Britain was third with $3.1 billion, or 10.8 percent.