http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/artact/Pigeons ch 1-4001.pdfhttp://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/artact/Fast Boat to China001.pdf
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February 8th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
I found the Fast Boat to China reading extremely interesting since it is written by a professor at NYU who was also assisted by a professor Doug Guthrie who has written a similar book China and Globalization that I had purchased but not yet read. China is definitely an interesting anomaly, in that, although large and densely populated, the effective transformations within the country seem to have occurred at a relatively alarming pace. My interest in China has begun rather recently due to two separate articles I read in “The Week†magazine and some previous knowledge about the social and economic influences that have affected much of the contemporary art that has come out of the country. I did a piece last semester that lightly touched on the consequences of capitalism and the economic boom in China that centered around the discrepancies between the cost of the penny and the market value of the scrap metal. The first article I had come across is about the price of penny manufacturing, and the second is of riot that occurred in early December (2006) where college students had conflicted with security guards at a job fair. Apparently students became angry at the lack of available jobs and panicked over the fear of not being able to find employment (I don’t know how to scan this stuff in so I’ll bring them in later to class).
The pigeon chapters were really intriguing, despite highlighting the many idiosyncrasies that I was relatively unaware about of the species the author is charming and I like the information. What strikes me the most about this type of reading is the in-depth and vast abilities that some people have cultivated with different species. What’s more, is that much of this information, for example the cross breeding of pigeons, is available yet relatively outside the much of the science world. Taking for example the correspondence between Mendel and Darwin, it is increasingly difficult for multiple individuals, and communities to access and be knowledgeable of everything that is taking place in the world. Thanks to the internet the gap is decreasing, but at the same time cumulative knowledge in all areas is relatively incomprehensible. I also was interested in the this book in conjunction with another I picked up “animals in translation†which has a lot of good information about communication between animals and people (bordering on a “how to train your dog the right way†style) but makes an interesting comparison between animal communication and autism.
February 20th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I think someone may have outsourced the meaning of a noPark here… but someone got the message mixed up. Mountainside painted green to fake afforestation ( $51,000 spent to paint a mountain green in southwestern China to make it look like it has trees. )
April 29th, 2007 at 10:28 am
I was a little bit dissappointed with the Pigeon reading, I suppose I had lofty expectations, though thorough with its extensive heaping of facts in various categories and personal accounts, it did not answer my one question that has been plaguing me about pigeons how do you teach pigeons to deliver messages. I understand that its done and with remarkable feats involved, but how?