Song of the Week: 50 Mission Cap

Here's a fun song from one of Canada's best bands of the last 25 years:  The Tragically Hip.  Recounting in brief the strange story of the disappearance of Maple Leaf star Bill Barilko, it is one of the best songs on Fully Completely, a real masterpiece of an album.  Not much else to say, except "enjoy."

Movie Friday--On Saturday!

I finally saw Skyfall today.  Not a bad movie as entertainment, but hardly deep.  The Mendes effect seemed to be negligible, apart from fairly stylish direction.  There were a couple of surprises, which I will not discuss as they are legitimate spoilers.  But I will say, Javier Bardem was truly great, the best part of the movie for sure.  Of course, he won an Academy Award for No Country For Old Men, but he was equally great in so many other roles, ranging from a bad guy in Collateral to the main character in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.  Really, he is one of the most versatile actors working today.

Kids Today

So I'm in the locker room today and there are two chemical engineering students down the way bitching about some exam.  (I presume they were ChemE's because they were talking about conversion factors for barrels of oil and the Carnot cycle.)  It was painful to listen to them griping about the unfairness of the marks they lost, and it made me feel thankful that I don't have to teach whiny-ass titty babies like this on a regular basis.  I mean really:  one of them got a question marked down because his answer had 10 to the 6th instead of 10 to the 7th.  How long does this guy think he would keep his job if his calculation is off by an order of magnitude?

Slacking Again

No MOTW today, since I have not really watched anything over the last couple of weeks.  Still have hopes of seeing Skyfall, but for now I got nuthin.

The Superstar Fallacy

Wikipedia defines a fallacy as "an error in reasoning often due to a misconception or a presumption."  I believe that the federal government's ill-conceived Canada Excellence Research Chair program and the U of A's enthusiastic buy-in illustrate a fallacy.  The specific fallacy that I have in mind is known as "affirming the consequent."  In the case of the CERC program, it goes like this:  

•The best universities, such as Harvard, have many academic superstars on their faculties.

•U of A is given several CERCs from the federal government.

•U of A will become one of the world's top universities.

Of course, this argument makes the mistake of assuming that having academic superstars is the reason that a university such as Harvard is great.  A more compelling argument might be that Harvard being great is the reason why it is able to attract academic superstars.

This program is based on the idea that only established researchers from elsewhere can bestow "ambitious research programs" upon a university.  That's interesting when one looks at Alberta's Steacie Fellow awardees, or at a more senior level, the University Cup and the Kaplan Prize.  Most of these people have spent much or all of their academic careers here.  This indicates that it is possible to establish world-class programs by simply attracting excellent young researchers and providing them with a nurturing environment that permits success.

So, the CERC program throws money at a goal that could be met with patient building of academic research programs across Canada.  But our elites are not patient; they are looking for quick fixes.  Moreover, they are predisposed to favour situations that increase stratification, as that conforms to their world-views.  So they reallocate funds from proven programs to pay for boondoggles such as CERCs.

I bring this up because of yesterday's story in the Edmonton Journal about the abrupt departure of one of U of A's CERC recruits.  It's an embarrassment, and terrible PR for the University, regardless of Indira's efforts at spin control.  Think of the good those millions could have done, supporting excellent researchers who are already in Canada.  Programs like this, as well as the equally ill-conceived Banting Fellow and Vanier Award programs, are not only a waste of money, but a sure sign of a raging inferiority complex:  our own researchers are not worthy; let's bring in someone really good from elsewhere.

Update:  On the plus side, while Edmonton may be getting some bad publicity out of this, at least no one has (recently) labeled us the earth's rectum, a distinction that Windsor and Winnipeg cannot claim.

Late Song of the Week: The Rain Song

What can I say about The Rain Song that hasn't already been said?  One of the real landmarks in the storied career of Led Zeppelin:  in some ways as epic as Stairway to Heaven but without the fatigue that comes with decades of over-playing.  Robert Plant wrote some of his best lyrics here:  "This is the mystery of the quotient...upon us all a little rain must fall."  A complex and fascinating melody and chord progression, and sophisticated orchestration.  The song was used to great effect in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, in a scene near the end backstage at a Stillwater concert.

Here's a very nice live version by Page and Plant:

Movie of the Week: American Beauty

I'm hoping to see Skyfall this weekend.  In general, I have been happy with the Daniel Craig era of the James Bond films, but what really has me intrigued is the fact that Sam Mendes directed this latest one.  I consider him to be a talented an thought-provoking director.  Revolutionary Road was a little hard to take, though that was more about the subject matter than the way it was filmed. On the other hand, I really loved Road to Perdition.

Since I haven't seen Skyfall yet, I'll highlight a different Sam Mendes film, and one of my top ten all-time favourites, for sure:  American Beauty.  This was an extremely well-received film when it came out, and in my opinion deservedly so.  However, there seems to have been a certain amount of revisionism since then, and its Rotten Tomatoes score currently sits at only 88%.  I consider that to be a travesty--this movie has everything:  sharp writing, a great directorial debut, fantastic acting, an amazing score by Thomas Newman, and most of all, some really important messages.  I like to periodically view the final scene when I find myself in need of some perspective.  How can you not be affected by the things Kevin Spacey says:  "I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me...but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world.  Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, and my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst.  An then, I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."

Here's that final scene:

Song of the Week: I Will Possess Your Heart

Sorry for the delay in posting.  I was beset with onerous deadlines and travel, and something had to give.  Now that things are settling down again, here is a song of the week.  I don't have too much to say about it, other than it is one of my favourites as a consequence of the long, droning intro that is found on the longer album version of the song.  Give it a chance!