Comprehensive Educational Platform

Bloomsday — Barry McCrea on Family and Form in Ulysses

June 30th, 2011

In In the Company of Strangers: Family and Narrative in Dickens, Conan Doyle, Joyce, and Proust, Barry McCrea shows how the reconception of family and kinship underlies the revolutionary experiments of the modernist novel. This is particularly true, as McCrea shows, in Ulysses, wherein Stephen and Bloom, who meet each other as strangers develop a distinct kind of family. Below are excerpts from McCreas book that focus on the Ithaca chapter, which famously includes the question-and-answer format:

The narrative duty of marriages is to produce a new family, to incorporate the stranger in order to promise a reproduction, with a difference, of the basic structures of the present. As the English formula “happily ever after” and the French “ils eurent beaucoup d’enfants” clearly suggest, fairytale marriages are supposed to guarantee the future through biological fertility. “Ithaca,”

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Tags: Barry Mccrea, Family

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Tech-savvy kids take skills up a notch at computer camp

June 30th, 2011

More than 200 Sacramento teens and tweens on Thursday explored computer technology with an eye toward tech-based careers at Geek Squad Summer Academy, a two-day immersion program sponsored by electronics retailer Best Buy.

At John Still Middle School in the city’s Meadowview neighborhood, the students known here as “Junior Agents,” broke down and reassembled computers; wrote songs using music software, crafted digital videos and experimented with digital photography.

“It really teaches you about technology and what you can do at home things that a normal, average person wouldn’t be able to do. It’s really a life skill,” said Julian Knox, a 12-year-old at Fern Bacon Middle School, during a break between a PC assembly class and a digital video session.

Many youngsters at the academy are steeped in consumer technology, from mobile devices to home game consoles to social networks. The Geek Squaders hope the workshops will prompt students to think about technology as a career path.

“We want them to have that exposure.

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Tags: Computer, Computer Camp

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Pro-voucher group joins Dougco fight

June 30th, 2011

DENVER A national pro-voucher law firm joined the legal battle over Douglas County’s voucher pilot on Tuesday, filing to intervene in two recent lawsuits on behalf of four families who want to use state funding to help send their children to private schools this fall.

“The opponents of choice, who have a political axe to grind, have attempted to make this about religion,” said Michael Bindas, attorney for the Arlington, Va.-based Institute for Justice. “We ar

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Varsity Vignette: Flanagan Starts Hot

June 29th, 2011

 

Flanagan High of Pembroke Pines, Fla. has lofty expectations for its baseball program. The Falcons have three state titles since 2005 and have made it to the semi-finals four times. In addition to the 6-A title in 2010, Flanagan was named Baseball Americas Team of the Year after losing just two games to perennial powers Farragut High (Knoxville) and American Heritage High (Plantation, Fla.) by a total of three runs.

It would be easy to take Flanagan lightly for 2011 after seven seniors went on to play baseball in college and 150 out of 180 innings on the mound were lost to graduation. But head coach Ray Evans has his team off to an 10-2 start after sweeping the Tournament of Champions in Jacksonville this past weekend.

“We werent too sure what we were getting into,” Evans said. “It would have been easy to walk out with three losses. We played three games in two days. It was a difficult format.

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Tags: Flanagan, Flanagan Starts

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Free food for New Haven area kids

June 29th, 2011

In an effort to combat childhood hunger, New Haven will be providing kids in Hamden and New Haven free breakfast and lunch.

There are 41 sites that will be open July 5-August 5.

The program is available to children under the age of 18.

In 2009, more than 12 million children in America went hungry.

 

 

Tags: Kids, New Haven

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San Diego military kids help peers adapt to new schools

June 29th, 2011

SAN DIEGO Ciarra Stroud, 13, has faced a school cafeteria filled with strangers and the fear of sitting alone at lunch.

While her father was in the Navy, Stroud attended six elementary schools. Now, she helps other children in military families who are new to her school adapt.

“It’s never fun to be the new kid,” said the seventh-grader at Jean Farb Middle School in San Diego. “There’s no one to eat lunch with, and there’s no one you can talk to because you don’t know anyone.”

Children in military families often are the new kids, prompted by a parent’s new assignment or deployment. The moving around and the separation can take its toll on students, a new study found. As wars continue in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military also is boosting efforts to help meet children’s needs.

San Diego County, with its large military population, is the only one in California with a peer support program to help military children in both middle and high schools.

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Tags: San Diego, Schools

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