The Book Is the Book

The book is the book.

It is what it is.
On challenges to "Abe" Rosenthal's account of the Kitty Genovese case:

"'It would never enter a publisher’s mind that they [sic] were [sic] obliged to add material,' said Jane Friedman, a co-founder and chief executive of Open Road Media, which specializes in digitizing and marketing backlist books. 'The information may have changed, but we are not journalists or academics. The book is the book.'”

Leslie Kaufman, Timeless Book May Require Some Timely Fact Checking, NYTimes (January 30, 2013).

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The Politics of Personal Destruction in Australia?

23 December 2012 Last updated at 20:22 ET

  Australia: A poisonous year in politics By Nick Bryant BBC News, Sydney

Political passions burned bright in Australia in 2012

This was the year in which character assassination became the modus operandi of Australian politics, and when all-out attack became the default setting of parliamentary life.

 

Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Opposition leader Tony Abbott. Former Speaker of the House Peter Slipper. Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. All have been the target of withering assaults on their reputations, and subject to the kind of sustained ferocity seldom witnessed in Australian politics.

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Australian Election Announced (well in advance)

Gillard sets Australia poll date of 14 September

 

Ms Gillard said the move allowed for a "reasoned" campaign

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Cape Verde Islands v. Angola

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Cape Onion July 2011

 

  





Closing of Perth Observatory

Research at Perth Observatory axed, news.com.au (January 21, 2013):

RESEARCH programs at Perth Observatory have been axed as part of the WA government spending cuts, leaving the 116-year-old facility purely for public tours.

The revelation came on ABC local radio today, prompting astronomy boffins to flood talkback lines to vent their outrage.

Peter Birch, who was the observatory's senior astronomer for 35 years until 2005, told the station that the decision had "been in the wind" for several months.

"I think it's an absolute disgrace that the state government is going to cut out science at Perth Observatory altogether - it's not just being cut, it's being cancelled," he said.

"The reason that it's so important that Perth Observatory does science is that it's located in an isolated place in the southern hemisphere.

"The next observatory to the east is on the east coast of Australia and the next observatory to the west is in South Africa, so we fill a big hole as far as longitude and time goes in astronomy.

"If you take away the expertise of the staff that work there, it's lost forever because they'll have to go elsewhere to find work."

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This news reminded me how sad I felt at the news that Ohio State University's "big ear" radio telescope had been sold to make way for a golf course.

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Megastructure of Quasars

Pete Spotts, Astronomers report largest structure in universe. Will it upend theories? Christian Science Monitor (January 11, 2013): 

What could be the largest structure yet seen in the observable universe has emerged from data taken during a 12-year survey of the night sky. 

The discovery is an apparent cluster of quasars some 4 billion light-years across. If it holds up to further scrutiny, it could challenge a long-held assumption that at the cosmos's largest scales, the physical processes at work and the distribution of matter and energy are the same, regardless of an observer's location. 

That's the view of the team formally reporting the results Friday in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Green and Blue

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Fracking

Danny Hakim, Gas Drilling Is Called Safe in New York, NYTimes (Jan. 3, 2013).

Whatever one thinks about fracking (I favor it), one should hesitate to attach the epithet "courageous" or "farsighted" to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

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Economic Turmoil and Recovery in Latvia

See Andrew Higgins, Used to Hardship, Latvia Accepts Austerity, and Its Pain Eases NYTimes (Jan. 1, 2013)

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