Steven D. Krause

Back at the beginning of April, I posted about my goals of losing weight by being on the “non-diet diet.” So, how’d I do? Well, so-so. For a variety of different reasons, I had more troubles than I would have preferred staying with my goals of exercising, not eating empty calories, and not eating too much. Still, I did lose three or four pounds, which isn’t too bad for not trying too hard.

My basic goals are pretty simple and modest, I think: I’d like to lose about five or six more pounds by the end of June and total of about 10 or 12 pounds by the end of August. If I can do that, then I’ll be at the weight I was last summer when we went to Hawaii, which was my weight lowpoint when I was being dedicated to the South Beach Diet. And then in the fall, when I have work schedule that will literally allow me to go to the gym every single day and when I will have few excuses for getting into much better shape, I’d like to lose a lot more.

At the same time, I’ve noticed a series of articles in the paper lately that make me think that is perhaps best to not worry so much about the weight and to worry more about the exercise. For example, there was a piece in last Sunday’s paper about the fact that lots of people who regularly exercise are still pretty fat. There were these reports that people who are overweight but who are otherwise practicing healthy habits (exercising, not smoking, eating healthy food, etc.) live longer than people who have a BMI of “normal.” And I also saw one study that confirmed what I’ve believed all along: it’s the people who are really REALLY fat (that is, folks 90 pounds or more overweight) who are the ones most at risk for various obesity related diseases.

Now, I’m not going to kid myself into thinking that all of this means I don’t need to lose any weight at all; that’s clearly not true. But given that the BMI calculator puts my “ideal weight” as somewhere around 135-140 pounds, a ridiculous weight I haven’t been at since I was in junior high and a weight I am highly unlikely to return to as I make the last lap of my 30s, it does make me feel better about my long-term “ideal weight,” which will put me in the merely “overweight” category.

My friend Chris sent me a link to this article, “Munch Masterpieces Destroyed?” which appeared in a Norwegian web publication called Aftenposten. In the nutshell, the article suggests that, according to one source, the people who took Munch’s paintings “The Scream” and “Madonna” burned them to destroy the evidence. As the subject line of my friend’s email put it, “this would suck.”

Still, it wouldn’t suck quite as bad as it could suck. For one thing, the newspaper article suggests that the source of this information isn’t terribly reliable; I kind of get the impression it’s the Matt Drudge of Norway who is saying the paintings have been burned. For another, Munch actually painted a couple of different versions of “The Scream” (which is also frequently enough translated as “The Cry,” too). I mean, there is the Scream, but there are other screams out there.

And besides all that, isn’t the current cultural value of the “The Scream” kind of tied to all the sort of weird re-presentations of it, the blow-up dolls, the mousepads, posters, etc?

Okay, maybe that’s a reach. Just trying to look on the bright side, which is kind of hard to do when talking about the artwork of Edvard Munch.

I’ve been spending this weekend recovering from the term just ended, preparing a proposal for the upcoming CCCCs in Chicago, and planning a section of first year composition I start teaching on Monday. And to tell the truth, because I’ve spent more time “recovering” from the last time (e.g., not doing the other things I have to do by Monday), I think I’ll probably be getting to work this afternoon and put The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy off to another day. Just as well; I’ve heard kind of so-so reviews that make me think it’s worth a rental.

Anyway, through the course of web surfing this weekend, I came across two different yet related web items having to do with the conflicts between privacy and ubiquitous-computing. Via Johndan’s blog, I came across an article called “All watched over by machines of loving grace: Some ethical guidelines for user experience in ubiquitous-computing,” which was written by Adam Greenfield and published at site called Boxes and Arrows. Greenfield is a computer expert writing to other computer experts, and while the technical capabilities for “ubi-comp” is progressing rapidly, the ethical and privacy implications of all this hasn’t worked out quite as fast.

Earlier in the weekend, I came across this flash video about ordering pizza in the future from the ACLU, which more or less depicts a logical extreme example of the kind of thing that ubiquitous-computing would make possible. (BTW, I am apparently quite behind the curve in catching up on this ACLU pizza meme).

Both of these pieces are interesting and kind of alarming, too. At the same time, I kind of feel like that this might be a bit further into the future than is being implied. Frankly, I have a hard time getting the place I order pizza from to bring me something with the right ingredients in a timely fashion.

Gee, with finals week and all, I totally missed Tuesday’s story in the Ann Arbor News that EMU Board of Regents member Philip Incarnati is now the former chairman of the board. To quote from the opening paragraphs of the article:

Citing increased responsibilities at work, Eastern Michigan University Board of Regents Chairman Philip Incarnati has decided to step down as board chairman.

Incarnati, who led the board during the approval and construction of the controversial University House project, will remain a regent until his term ends in 2010.

In a letter to board members Monday, he cited an increasing workload as chairman and chief executive officer of McLaren Health Care Corp. of Flint as his chief reason for resigning.

Huh. Well, if you believe all that, I have a president’s house to sell you.

Anyway, I think today’s Ann Arbor News editorial sums up my thoughts on the whole matter. To quote:

Incarnati’s stone-cold contempt for public accountability dragged the painful episode out much longer than was needed, and his silence (except for a written statement to other board members) continues as he nestles into a spot out of the limelight.

Ideally, Incarnati should have given up his seat on the board as well as his leadership post. But his script continues the face-saving that was so important as Kirkpatrick left campus, armed with an agreement that the regents would not criticize him. And, in return, he would be mum about them.

This afternoon, I wrapped up the grading for my last class of the term, Writing Research, Theory and Practice. I have to say was one the best teaching experiences I’ve had in a long long time. This is the graduate course our MA students take toward the end of their program of study as they are preparing to work on their MA project or thesis.

For reasons that are too complicated to explain, I only had five students. Usually, I don’t like classes that are this small, but this was a great group. I thought the way I put this class together worked out too, and I’ll probably do something similar when (or if, I suppose) I teach this course again in a year or so. But to be honest, what really made the difference is we met at Bombadill’s, which is a cafe/coffee shop in downtown Ypsilanti. It’s a great place, and meeting there beat the hell out of meeting in Pray-Harrold, which is one of the worst academic buildings on the planet.

Anyway, I won’t be blaring Alice Cooper out the window anytime soon because I start teaching in spring term (which is what they call the first half of summer school around here) on Monday, May 2. I don’t know who planned this schedule, but I really think that everyone needs more than one week between terms. But I digress.

But it is still the end of the year– the school year, that is– nonetheless. Here’s a brief reflection on it:

• Things got off to a rocky start in late August with “fun” with the EMU-AAUP, for which I was once the web site manager, and a faculty strike that lasted about 7 hours. Incidentally, the union’s web site hasn’t been updated since January.
• This election thing back in November that didn’t turn out quite the way I’d hoped.
• I went to MLA, and really REALLY enjoyed the eating in Philly.
• I tried and failed to use WebCT (we’ll see about eCollege, the software I’ll be working with to teach an online class in the Fall).
• I really thought I was going to end up moving away from EMU, but I’m glad to say that my wife and I are staying.
• I had a great time at the CCCCs in San Francisco, though I didn’t eat as well as I did in Philadelphia.
• Realizing that I will likely be here for the next 30 or so years, I decided to move books into my office at EMU. I had some books before, but I had a lot more toys and miscellaneous hunks of junk. I’m hoping to post a new photo of my school digs soon.

This summer promises to be busy with teaching and a big push on finally wrapping up a long-standing textbook project (keep various things crossed). But in the short-term, I think I’m going to try to plow through The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy before the movie opening on Friday.

A colleague of mine with a real job alerted me to a book called Integrated HTML and CSS: A Smarter, Faster Way to Learn by Virginia Debolt that he said looks interesting. The description on amazon.com makes it sound pretty cool too; maybe if I end up teaching a version of Writing for the World Wide Web next year….