Looking in at Iowa

From Chronicle of Higher Education:

To catch college students trading copyrighted songs online, the Recording Industry Association of America uses the same file-sharing software that online pirates love, an RIAA representative told The Chronicle at the organization’s offices during a private demonstration of how it catches alleged music pirates. He also said the group does not single out specific colleges in its investigations. …

Here’s how the process works: The RIAA maintains a list of songs whose distribution rights are owned by the RIAA’s member organizations. It has given that list to Media Sentry, a company it hired to search for online pirates. That company runs copies of the LimeWire program and performs searches for…

For the University of Iowa connection, see this Looking in at Iowa post from March: Record companies suing 20 University of Iowa Internet users accused of file sharing.

From Press & Dakotan:

Gartner’s third story involved the a performing act in Iowa called the Cherry Sisters. These five sisters couldn’t act, dance or sing. They managed, instead, Gartner said, “to exert a ghastly fascination over their audiences. And that was exactly what the great Oscar Hammerstein was looking for.”

Gartner explained that back in 1896, Hammerstein was in debt, and going broke, and the acts he brought to Broadway weren’t doing well.

According to Gartner, Hammerstein said, “I tried the best, now I’ll try the worst. So he sent for the Cherry Sisters from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.” …

“As you go through life, as you build relationships, as you take risks, you’re liable to have a few cabbages thrown at you along the way,” Gartner said. “There are always folks who are against things, and those folks will be shooting arrows, if not throwing melons, at you and your plans.” …

For additional information about the Cherry Sisters see Dave Rasdal’s interesting column in yesterday paper (or related blog post) about 90-year-old Don Hanson, who talked with the Cherry Sisters.

Here’s a Gazette account of an ugly scene at a Cherry Sisters performance in 1895:

The Cherry Sisters
La Porte, Aug. 26 — Last Saturday evening occurred one of the must disgraceful riots ever witnessed in La Porte City’s opera house. The Cherry Sisters occupied the boards for the evening and quite a large audience was drawn out by the La Porte City cornet band. The crowd began hissing and howling the moment the show commenced and kept it up throughout. Toward the Iast it became worse and worse and when Miss Jessie Cherry came out with her song and roast on Editor Faulkes of the Cedar Rapids Gazette the climax was reached. Onions, cabbage and rotten watermelon rinds were showered upon the stage and then a pail of dirty black water was thrown at her from the back window of the stage. During all the show a terrible din was kept up with tin pans, horns, etc. Miss Jessie Cherry became exceedingly wrathy at this stage of the performance and came down in front and struck Frank Fritz over the head with a stove poker. Fritz “made a joyful noise” and the crowd all made a rush for the front of the hall. The rest of the performance was a blank as nothing could be heard except the loud talking and hissing of the audience.
After the performance was over Fritz swore out a warrant for Miss Jessie Cherry before Mayor Holph and she was arrested and fined $5 and costs amounting to $7.30.
The mob all stood around the opera house which was locked until after 12 o’clock waiting for the sisters to return to the hotel but they did not up to that time so the crowd dispersed. It is thought that several arrests may follow this morning.

Image by Dulimaman via Flickr

From New York Daily News:

… thanks to a new schools program just announced by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“Picturing America,” this project is called - 40 large posters, soon to be delivered to every one of New York’s 1,400 public schools, and, eventually, to every school and library in the country. American masterpieces all, vividly depicting great scenes from the nation’s storied past: Grant Wood’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”; Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware”; …

Large image of Grant Wood’s painting here.

Description at Picturing America page:

Grant Wood (American, 1892–1942), The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, 1931, Oil on Masonite; H. 30, W. 40 in. (76.2 x 101.6 cm): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Arthur Hoppock Hearn Fund, 1950 (50.117) Photograph © 1988 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art © Estate of Grant Wood / Licensed by VAGA, New York.

More information about Eastern Iowa artist Grant Wood available from Encyclopedia Britannica.

From Complaint and Jury Demand at U.S. Courts - Northern District of Iowa:

CASE No. 1:08-cv-45

MARIA TERESA LIZAMA LIDON, Plaintiff, vs. ANAMOSA COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT and STEVE GOODALL, Defendants. …

8. Plaintiff was subjected to harassment by students and parents as a result of her national origin. The harassment included but was not limited being told that she should be dead, that she should not be working in America, and that she should be deported. Complaints were also made regarding Plaintiff’s accent. The harassment, which was unwelcome, objectively and subjectively made the working environment hostile.

9. The harassment was severe and pervasive enough that it made it extremely difficult for Plaintiff to effectively do her job.

10. Plaintiff complained to Defendants and in fact some of the harassment was in the form of emails from parents to school administration. Nothing was done in response to the harassment, and things never improved.

11. Towards the end of the 2006-2007 school year, Plaintiff was informed by Defendant Steve Goodall that Plaintiff was being forced to leave her position and that her contract for the upcoming year was not going to be renewed. …

5/3 UPDATE - Gazette article, Former Spanish teacher sues Anamosa district, claims harassment

Background on intelligent design from Encyclopedia Britannica.

From IMDB.com:

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Release Date: 18 April 2008 (USA)

This Wikipedia page about the film lists Iowa State University professor Guillermo Gonzalez (recently denied tenure) among those featured.

According to the Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed film site, it is showing locally at Galaxy 16 in Cedar Rapids, and Sycamore 12 in Iowa City.

Found a 7+ minute trailer at YouTube:

From La Crosse Tribune Saturday:

Holmen High School placed second and La Crosse Aquinas was fourth Friday in the Grand River concert choir competition at the La Crosse Center.

Holmen finished behind grand champion Jefferson High School of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which won all four choir section awards. …

From Abovethelaw.com:

As we reported earlier this week, the latest U.S. News & World Report law school rankings are out. And some schools are flipping out over their falling rankings. A tipster at the University of Iowa College of Law writes:

[B]elow is an email the Iowa law students received yesterday from Dean Jones about the new US News & World Report rankings. Apparently our dean is setting up small group meetings with the students. No faculty. No other administration. Methinks this may be somewhat of a divide and conquer strategy. These meetings may be in part a result of the newly formed Facebook group “Stop the Bleeding at Iowa Law.”My favorite part, though, is that the “faculty” have dubbed their concern about the rankings “Project Apollo.” Well, if they’re not going to do anything about it, at least they can come up with a secret, clever code name, so it looks in hindsight like they’ve been planning D-Day part 2. Bravo profs and administration, you’ve really impressed me this time.

E-mail excerpt:

Please be assured that the law school administration has not been asleep at the switch on this issue. Indeed, we have been studying the US News rankings at a very high level over the past year. Hundreds of hours of sophisticated thought by alumni, faculty and staff have gone into this project, informally dubbed the Apollo Project. We have been considering ways of bringing new resources to the law school that will enhance our rankings and – more importantly – substantively strengthen the institution. …

Additional information from UIOWA Law Blog - Unofficial Student Blog at the University of Iowa College of Law.

From U.S. District Court - Southern District of Iowa:

… The true names and capacities of Defendants are unknown to Plaintiffs at this time. Each Defendant is known to Plaintiffs only by the Internet Protocol (“IP”) address assigned to that Defendant by his or her ISP on the date and time of that Defendant’s infringing activity. See Exhibit A. Plaintiffs believe that information obtained in discovery will lead to the identification of each Defendant’s true name.

21. Although Plaintiffs do not know the true names of Defendants, each Defendant is alleged to have committed violations of the same law (e.g., copyright law), by committing the same acts (e.g., the downloading and distribution of copyrighted sound recordings owned by Plaintiffs), and by using the same means (e.g., a file-sharing network) that each Defendant accessed via the same ISP. …

Reviewing the 20 Internet Protocol addresses in “Exhibit A” (all between 128.255.0.0 and 128.255.255.255) the Internet Service Provider apparently was the University of Iowa. The document claims this happened between October and December of 2007.

3/30 UPDATE: Additional information from Quad-City Times.

From U.S. District Court - Southern District of Iowa:

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH
FOUNDATION, INC.,
Plaintiff,
v.
SENJU METAL INDUSTRY CO., LTD.,
Defendant.
)
Civil Action No. 4:08-cv-119
JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

… Defendant Senju is a Japanese business entity, having its principal place of business at Sunju Hashido-Cho 23, Adach-Ku Tokyo, Japan 1208555. ..

ISURF has been assigned the patents, including the right to sue, emanating from the research of Iver E. Anderson, Frederick G. Yost, John F. Smith, Chad M. Miller and Robert L. Terpstra relating to lead-free solder. …

Senju is infringing certain claims of United States Patent 5,527,628 and has induced others to infringe this patent by making, selling, distributing, importing and/or using within this judicial district and elsewhere throughout the United States product that infringes ISURF’s patent which has not been accounted for or paid for under Senju’s sublicense. …

More information about Patent 5,527,628 from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

From The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal:

Texas Tech’s departing president Jon Whitmore is one of three finalists for the Portland State University presidency, Oregon University System officials announced on Thursday.

Whitmore, who did not return phone calls Friday, resigned as the president of Tech on Feb. 1. He agreed to lead the university until 2009 or until his replacement is hired.  …

He came to Tech from the University of Texas, where he was the dean of the College of Fine Arts for five years.

He resigned less than two months after regional accreditors put Tech on probation for failing to prove student competency in a report. He has repeatedly said his resignation was not tied to the probation.

In his resignation letter, he told Tech Chancellor Kent Hance new presidential leadership was needed to carry out the university’s goal of 40,000 students by 2020. …