Author Archive
hiatus
dearest eic-ers,
profuse apologies for the dearth of posts. its summer vacation and kyle and I have jobs and AP/SAT scores to exult in/mourn. alas, this leaves little time for blogging.
expect new blogs in the coming school year to correspond better with Hurricane Nation’s sections, such as ones on sports, arts, and others. also, the current hurricane nation website will be completely redesigned.
enjoy the summer. we’ll check back intermittently over the summer and when school starts up again in late august.
Red Devils Rejoice
Manchester United hoisted its 3rd UEFA Champions League trophy in Moscow today after narrowly defeating bete noire Cheslea FC 6-5 on penalty kicks, after a 1-1 stalemate in normal and extra time. The scoreline, however, belied Chelsea’s increasing domination of the game, especially towards the latter stages of normal and extra time.
Soccernet’s Richard Jolly comments on Chelsea’s loss and, in his eyes, United’s deserved the accolades. He points out eloquently,
“Tradition triumphed as, in a country overflowing with new money, the nouveau riche came off second best.”
Hubbard, one of Soccernet’s many erduite and insightful writers, is, of course, referring to Chelsea and its billionaire owner/oil magnate Roman Abramovich. Abramovich has spent truly inordinate amounts on new players during each of the transfer periods he has oversaw, and after this heartbreaking loss, this close-season will surely prove no exception, with beleagured Israeli boss Avram Grant eying a discontented Ronaldinho and Kaka.
Grant deserves more plaudits than his effusively praised counterpart, Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson. Admittedly lacking a personality comparable to charismatic predecessor Jose Mourinho, Grant has attained something the celebrated Mourinho never did: an appearance in the Champions League final. Although falling to United, Grant steadied the unsettled dark-blue London outfit to remarkable second place finish in the Barclay’s Premier League as well. In first place? Ferguson’s Manchester United.
Obviously winning the hallowed double, a Champions League and Premier League trophy, is no simple feat. Nevertheless, the more hands-off approach employed by the Glazer family has proved far easier for coaches to work with, juxtaposed against Abramovich’s intrusive, meddling methods towards managing his expensive team. Facing scrutiny from Abramovich and the media, former Chelsea boss Mourinho found his job untenable and and himself unable to develope the type of rapport with his aloof Russian boss that the Glazers and Ferguson have enjoyed.
Milestone.
On this rainy, unglamorous Sunday, as I began to restore some of the lost content/widgets on the blog (they’re all back now!), I thought to myself, how long have we been doing this?
So I peered through the archives and encountered an interesting statistic:
Today marks nearly the 6th month the EIC has been in business!
I started the blog at late on a Saturday night (or I guess Sunday morning) and proceeded to write post number one (click Nov. 2007 on the archives button on the column farthest right) at a truly obscene hour, even for mystandards – 4am I believe, on November 18, 2007. It’s been an interesting six months, and I think we’ve attained a certain credibility around the school with teachers and students that I didn’t envision when it all started that night. Our mission has changed however - as the whole blogging concept never caught on with most of the editors, Kyle and I have made it our own portal to disseminate snippets of what we’re reading, thinking, and doing.
Best Advert of the Year
Created by Madonna’s husband, Guy Ritchie, for Nike. Really unique: this was shot using a microscopic camera on a players head: what you see is what the player sees during a match. (I’m going to guess they used Theo Walcott or Robin van Persie as the player.) If your not attuned to soccer at all here’s a short primer to help you understand: Most players start off playing in lower leagues (there are several in a country like England, and teams get promoted and relegated each year based on performance) and get recognized by scouts. Arsene Wenger, who boasts an unequalled eye for talent, watches this player and signs him for his team, the world famous Arsenal FC…the player’s learning curve is profiled against teams like Manchester United and Barcelona…and culminates horatio alger style when he gets called up to play for his home country (im assuming), the netherlands – next to klaas jan huntelaar and against Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani. enjoy:
Is too much AP bad for everyone? Is senioritis actually good? Jay Mathews knows all.
Jay Mathews is probably the first person I’ve ever heard to extol the benefits of senioritis! Mathews, the creator of the renowned Challenge Index - a ranking system of high schools based on the number of kids taking AP and IB classes (but not taking into account if they pass or fail)- calls for seniors, who have already got into college and studied into inordinate hours of the night during their 3 and half years of high school to…have fun. This might be anathema to educators, who have tried to combat senioritis like the UN Food Program fights poverty and the starving in Africa.
Mathews also advocates slowing the growth on AP enrollment in another article of his for the Washington Post. He notes that, with the continued rise in enrollment nationwide, the percentage of students passing is decreasing and all classes with the “AP” nomenclature aren’t taught at the same level. For example, he juxtaposes an AP Literature class at the storied St. Albans School in DC to one in an inner city school – St. Albans’ is most likely the more rigorous of the two, but are the kids in the city schools benefiting from the class as well, even if they don’t pass? Mathews says yes. What do you think?
how inglorious the end
John Arne Riise’s late own goal in the 95th minute (the last minute of stoppage time!!) doomed European giants Liverpool to a 1-1 draw withLondon rivals Chelsea just a few hours ago. To be fair, a lucky bounce coupled with an uncharacteristic comedy of errors helped Dutch winger Dirk Kuyt’s opening goal bounce under Petr Cech, but then again, Kuyt’s immense work rate facilitated the play in the first place.
The match at Anfield proved a cagey one, as the British commentators on ESPN2 would say — that is, not exactly the most exhilarating. Tomorrow’s affair at the Camp Nou between hosts Barcelona and the sublime Manchester United will hopefully be more entertaining. United enter the match led by their supremely confident talisman, the scintillating Portugese winger Cristiano Ronaldo, while their Catalan opponents are in disarray, as clubhouse factions between the Brazilians and others at the club have escalated in recent weeks, climaxing with revelations from the team’s economic adviser (and really famous Columbia university professor) Xavier Sala-i-Martin. (Please click that link – his webpage is incredibly funny for such a venerable economist, replete with outrageous pictures of him and beavis and butthead, among other things) The economist reported that the club has been labeling players such as the (previously) irreplaceable Ronaldinho as injured in order to keep the out of the squad –when they are actually not. Ronaldinhois set to put pen to paper with AC Milan at the season’s close.
Tomorrow: Manchester United v Barcelona. 2.30 ET. ESPN2. Prediction: Man Utd 2-1.
Ah Finally: Here’s video of the tremendous own goal. Wow. Hopefully this video will still be working in a few hours, UEFA and the Premier league are notorious for taking down soccer videos due to copyright claims.
visitors
The clustr map above shows that the majority of EIC viewers are from the US (as we expected), but we have surprisingly landed hits from every continent except for Antarctica. The most hits in the US are from the NYC area, LA, San Francisco, a major Texas city (either Houston or Dallas I’m assuming), and our own DC area. We’ve registered a few hits in Brazil and a few African countries. The EIC is relatively popular in major European cities (madrid, london especially) and even Dubai! Even Iran has checked in on us!
both ends of the education spectrum
The New York Times reports that the elite, Ivy-league schools have admitted a fewer percentage of applicants than ever before. Harvard accepted 7.1% of the 27,462 applicants – letting in about 7 students in a 100! This notwithstanding, admissions rates are expected to climb higher in the coming years after hitting all time lows this year – just in time for when I mail out my applications.
The Times also documents 3rd graders’ poor performance on the writing section of a national standardized test. About one-third of America’s eighth-grade students, and about one in four high school seniors, are proficient writers according to the test. Students have lamented the emergence of the SAT writing section, replete with a short essay, and perhaps this explains their chagrin — they are truly woeful writers!
pariah!
(photo credit: the new yorker)
Ah, the acrimony! As you all know, Eliot Spitzer’s well-documented escapades in downtown DC with “Kristen” have duly left him unemployed, for the time being, and perhaps quite awhile.
The New Yorker offers an interesting perspective on the scandal, juxtaposing the draconian ramifications for America’s libidinous politicians against those of their European counterparts, who find no reason (in the case of Nicolas Sarkozy for example) for punitive action towards their dissolute leaders. Another New Yorker correspondent laments that Spitzer has hoodwinked us all with his Barack Obama-esque rhetoric and promises. Remarkably, those New Yorker pieces are only one page – most I’ve encountered are an incredibly thorough 6+ pages.
We’re off on spring break. Watch this space.
Shaj Mathew
kahutzler
