Rate my Professor

    I was reading the Inside Higher Education website today and noticed this article. Extracting a quote:

An erstwhile associate kinesiology professor at California State University at San Bernardino remains on the lam after police raided his home last week and found a pound of methamphetamine and a cache of guns. Police are charging that Stephen Kinzey, who had been on the San Bernardino faculty for a decade, was leading a double life: teaching and researching by day; directing the local chapter of an outlaw biker gang, and its drug business, by night.

  Wondering how the Rate my professor website classified this academic, I checked the site and found that his overall quality was 4.2 (excellent), helpfulness 4.2 (ditto), clarity 4.2(ditto) and easiness 3.4 (not bad). Some of the student comments were as follows:

"Dr. Steve Kinsey is an amazing (professor), who helps his students in every situation, including in their greatest need. He is a good friend of mine and we continue to get together on a quarterly basis to catch up on life. Thank god for him, because I wouldn't be a graduate without him!!!!!"

kinzey is a great professor...he keeps it real with all his students and that is why I respect him so much. He lets his students know exactly what to expect from the very beginning. I wish more professors were as personable with their students as he is. =-)

Me and my younger brother. Nascent 1% er?

   When I was in high school, I had a motorcycle which I drove down the rural concessions of Ontario but didn’t have any ambitions to buy a bigger one and join a group. Why did he keep teaching? According to the article:

Barker says that it may have been a fallback in case the kinesiology professor ever wanted to get out of organized crime. Heading the Devil’s Diciples might pay well, but it lacks the stability and retirement benefits of a state teaching job, Barker says.

   How many of your colleagues/mentors live a double life? His time management skills must be the stuff of legend since the story stated that he was a great teacher as well as chairing academic committees for service. I can just see a retiring Hispanics professor at South Eastern Louisiana University doing comparative French and Catalan Symbolist poetry by day and turning into the Honey Island swamp monster, an infamous Slidell area cryptid by night - Poesia i sistema: La revolució simbolista a Catalunya (Ed. Empúries, 1989) meets the Cajun Chupacabra. (No doubt one of Z's Yankee whore/Calvinist devil hybrids.)

Restaurant review: C5

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  This restaurant is on the fifth floor of the new section known as the crystal wing of the Royal Ontario Museum and this is where it gets its name. I’ve been here many times with my oldest daughter when she was studying Latin and classical Greek at the University of Toronto which is adjacent to the building. I went today (September 2, 2011) before I explored the exhibits on the lower floors of the museum.

C5 dining area

My table



C5 bar



C5 bar area to the right of the last photo

Cocktail menu

2 oz. Romtini

  For a mixed drink to start the meal, I had two Romtini since one is barely enough to drink. It consists of  Vodka, late harvest riesling - a very sweet wine, smoked maple syrup, flamed orange zest and a nash of bitters. Very good but one is not enough.

Open but discrete kitchen

Bouillabaisse appetizer

  For my appetizer, I ordered an Orange and Fennel scented bouillabaisse with Dungeness crab, Littleneck clams and calamari.

grilled Berkshire Pork shoulder

  For my main course, I had a grilled Berkshire Pork shoulder with couscous, peach & cream corn, aspiration and pancetta. It was what is called portion controlled (small) and a bit over salted for my taste but all withstanding an excellent entre. Two 4 oz. glasses of a decent Shiraz wine to go with it.

lemon and jasmine Panna Cotta

  I chose a lemon and jasmine Panna Cotta with champagne and fennel jelly, lemon meringue and green apple fennel sorbet for desert with coffee - the best desert that I’ve had for a long time and it tasted as if I would like more.

Two 2 oz. cocktails at $12, two 4 oz. glasses of wine at $14, appetizer at $14, entre at $24, desert at $12 and coffee at $4 gave a total meal cost of $106 plus tax and gratuities. This is a lot to pay for Hobbit food but the overall dining experience was outstanding including the service. If you can afford the cost and are willing to leave the restaurant feeling like you need to eat another course or two or if you`re on a diet then this establishment is for you.

Royal Ontario Museum

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The ROM is the second largest museum in Canada after the Canadian museums in the capital, Ottawa. It`s located in the center of downtown Toronto which with a total population of 5.5 million is the fifth largest city in North America after Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Main entrance to the museum

Inside main entrance. New section

Main lobby in old section

Palaeontology gallery

Babylonian gallery

Egyptian gallery

Roman gallery

Indian gallery



Chinese gallery



Native copper, Mineralogy gallery

Native gold

If these photos engage your interest then there is a ten minute video tour below which is best seen in HD and full screen.

The Royal Ontario Museum shop

  The museum shop at the Royal Ontario Museum is a great place to purchase unusual historical or regional items which are hard to find other places. It’s open from 10 am to 6:30 pm every day except Sundays. You can also purchase items online at the museum store's website.

  Reproductions of some of the museum’s artefact collections as well as home accessories, clothing, kids toys and jewellery are available for purchase through the store.

Toronto Subway system

  A plebiscite on January 1, 1946 committed the City of Toronto to building a subway system and construction began on September 8, 1949. The Premier of Ontario, Leslie Frost, and Toronto Mayor Allan Lamport officially opened the Yonge street subway line on March 30, 1954. The University-Bloor-Danforth line as well as the Spadina line was started in 1959 and completed in 1966.

  As you can see from the pictures, the subway stations have been upgraded and designed to complement the local attractions where they are sited. Thus the station beside the Royal Ontario Museum reflects some of the components of the museum. This is the station from which I left the subway train when I went to the museum today.

Arizona Crazy

  The Pima County GOP is raffling a Glock pistol, the same brand that Jared Lee Loughter used to shoot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the head and kill six others including a six year old child, to raise money for the 2012 elections. Considering that Tuscon, the town where the shooting event took place is the center of Pima County, I find this highly inappropriate but then I’m just a Canadian who doesn’t understand American sensibilities. Maybe someone could explain this to me?

  According to the document, the gun comes with three magazines, adjustable grips and a case. If you think that I’m making this up then check the article in the Arizona Daily Star which had the following quote:

"Now it's an opportunity to remind people it's not the gun that kills people. It's the person with the intent," Shaw said. "The Glock has as little to do with what happened that day as a No. 2 pencil has when someone cheats on a test. Jared Loughner is responsible for what happened."

 

 

The farm at the back of beyond

My uncle with two of his geese

  One of the blogs that I read from time to time is called Gentle Otter.  The author is a 51 year old farmer’s wife, the mother of three children aged 28, 15 and 4 who lives and works on her husband’s remote farm in rural Perthshire, Scotland where they have a sheep herd as well as ducks and chickens. You might wonder why this particular blog interests me. My parents had a classic World War 2 story where she was in the British Air force and my father from this side of the pond was serving in the air force in England.  They met during the Battle of Britain.  I lived on my uncle’s farm in the Yorkshire Dales not far from Haworth where the Bronte parsonage is located when I was a boy. He had a goat herd, geese and chickens so I have a pretty good idea of her (the farm at the back of beyond) lifestyle. I remember that I had fresh goat cheese, milk and butter for part of my meals. Also my great grandmother was a Ferguson and two weeks ago I went to my cousin’s daughter’s wedding reception which was very Scottish as you can see from my post on the event.

Me (long hair version) and one of the goats

   Like most farmers in rural Scotland they are tenant farmers who rent the land from a landowner or laird. Her husband’s family have been tenants for 120 years and it may seem strange to North Americans but Scotland is still a feudal land in many ways. The roof of the 1800 house is in disrepair and needs replacing but the landowner after years of requests has always refused to fix it. On Monday of this week a member of the local county council informed them that a demolition order for the house had been given.

Once the demolition noticed was served, we would have 28 days to get out. After the 28 days, we would be put into a B&B, probably in Perth. The children may be removed to 'a place of safety', if we were to inhabit our farmhouse. Our farmhouse which we pay rent and full council tax for. Our farmhouse with the polluted water supply which we cannot purify due to the landowner demand that our electricity supply be disconnected.  Our farmhouse and our home.

   This is a modern day form of the Scottish Clearances. Like the Afro-Americans in the ninth ward of New Orleans, they are the forgotten ones. The best comment is in her words:

We are the people who you never hear about and we are merely a drop in the ocean. We are many.  Others will hopefully learn about our way of life and the culture we contribute to. I hope that it can provide other tenant farmers a platform to stand on and voice how they feel, how they live and how they are treated.  I don't want people to feel scared. Not in 21st Century Scotland.

 I want to hold my hand out to them and say "It's ok, you are not alone. Others care deeply for you even although you cannot see them. Take my hand because I am not scared'.

The Yorkshire Dales Farm

Another view of the farm

My Aunt and Uncle in the Farmhouse

Bronte parsonage in Haworth