Glassblowing

Art Discovery for 5th Grade

Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa


Portrait of Lydia Delecktorskaya, the Artist's Secretary by Henri Matisse

This is a special post to help me with teaching my daughter's fifth grade class.

The subject is Women in Portraiture.

Here are the links I will show:

Women in art
A wonderful compilation of 90 portraits of women, displayed through a rapid morphing process. For a complete list of artists and paintings visit 500 Years of Women in Western Art.

Getting to Know Mary Cassatt
A brief look at American impressionist Mary Cassatt from a children's art awareness program.


Works of Mary Cassatt
A video of many works of Mary Cassatt

Women such as Amelia Earhart are featured in the online exhibition

Women of our Time
The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery is pleased to present "Women of Our Time: Twentieth-Century Photographs." The exhibition is a selection of 90 images, drawn exclusively from the Portrait Gallery's collection, that celebrate women who have challenged and changed America over the past century.

Image in Advertising - Dove
I used this to start a discussion about how we view people and ourselves, and how advertising manipulates many portraits of women.

Links from our Speakers

As promised, here are the links to the materials and sites referenced in Tuesday's class.


The Kaiser Family Foundation website is an excellent resource.

Make sure to check out this section:

Health Reform Comparison Tools Now Include Senate Leadership Bill
The Foundation's interactive side-by-side health reform comparison tool now includes the Senate Leadership Bill as introduced on Nov. 18 as well as the House Leadership Bill approved on Nov. 7.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) site has many good online publications, analyses of budget and economic information. Here's a small sampling:

Promotional Spending for Prescription Drugs
December 2, 2009 pdf blog
Economic and Budget Issue Brief

An Analysis of Health Insurance Premiums Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
November 30, 2009 pdf blog
Letter to the Honorable Evan Bayh

H.R. 3962, Affordable Health Care for America Act
November 20, 2009 pdf blog
Revised cost estimate for the bill as passed by the House of Representatives

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
November 18, 2009 pdf data blog
Cost estimate for the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 3590, as proposed in the Senate on November 18, 2009

The Latest News on Health Care Reform

There's no dearth of news about our subject on the internet. A Google search of the term health care reform a moment ago yielded 41,623 news results. Here's the top story:

Will healthcare reform drive costs down? A little, report says.

Christian Science Monitor - Gail Russell Chaddock - ‎1 hour ago
‎

A report released Monday by the Congressional Budget Office suggests that the Senate healthcare reform bill would have a modest effect on average Americans' ...

Here are some others:

Divided US Senate starts healthcare reform bill debate BBC News

After Long Wind-Up, Senate begins health care debate Baltimore Sun

White House Pushes for Passage of Senate Health Care Bill CBS News

How do you choose which news to read? There are lots of media outlets. Some clearly hold to higher journalistic standards than others. There's a good overview with links to discussions about journalism ethics and standards here.

Did you hear about the brouhaha regarding the FOX News report about Rep. Michele Bachmann's anti-health care reform rally? It's quite a tale. Comedian Jon Stewart pointed out that Sean Hannity exaggerated the turnout for this rally and that FOX showed footage from an earlier rally to give a false impression. You can watch the clip here at Media Matters or here at Mediaite, or here at Yahoo News.

As it is, it's questionable ethics for FOX to be "sponsoring" such rallies; a legitimate news outlet does not make news (Wm. Randolph Hearst's infamous quote "You give me the pictures, I'll give you the war!" notwithstanding).

My high school aged son and I discussed this issue. He felt strongly there should be some action taken against FOX. After all, when a "wardrobe malfunction" results in a $550,000 fine from the Federal Communications Commission against CBS, isn't there a precedent for protecting the public from indecency? If a newscaster falsifies information and misleads the public, isn't that indecent too?

Out of the mouths of babes...

What do you think?

Political Action Groups/ 7 Principles from the AMA

I frequently receive action alerts from various organizations about many different issues. One such group is Care 2 Make a Difference. They advocate for many things, including the reform of health policy, and recently sent out a call for people to send a letter to their congressional representatives urging the enactment of reform based on 7 guiding principles sponsored by the American Medical Association.
The action alert posted by Patients Action Network can be found online here.
These principles are:

1. Repeal of the Medicare physician payment formula that would trigger steep cuts and threaten seniors' access to care.

2. Provide health insurance coverage for all Americans.

3. Enact insurance market reforms that expand the choice of affordable coverage and eliminate denials for pre-existing conditions or due to arbitrary caps.

4. Assure that health care decisions are made by patients and their physicians, not by insurance companies or government bureaucrats. This sacred bond should include the right of patients to privately contract with physicians, so that their health care choices are respected.

5. Provide investments and incentives for initiatives that improve quality and enhance prevention and wellness.

6. Implement medical liability reforms to reduce the cost of defensive medicine.

7. Streamline and standardize insurance claims processing requirements to eliminate unnecessary costs and administrative burdens.

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When I was doing research for this course, I found numerous other groups who seek to engage citizens in lobbying on health care reform. Two examples are MoveOn.org
and Mad As Hell Doctors.

There's a good list of some advocacy groups here.

Have any groups contacted you? Have you discovered any organizations who appear to be particularly effective?
view more

Scare Ads Parody

If you know me at all, you know I love to laugh and I love politics. Like Jonathan Swift, I believe that it's sometimes effective to use humour to get your point across.

Will Ferrell is best known for his comedic roles on Saturday Night Live and in popular films. He and some friends put together an ad about health care reform entitled Protect Insurance Companies. Do you think this might get someone to look at the issue differently, or is it just a way for advocates of reform to snark* at the opposition?

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Credits: Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde, Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant, Masi Oka, Jordana Spiro, Linda Cardellini, Donald Faison
Written by Lauren Palmigiano, Chad Carter & Peter Koechley
Directed by Drew Antzis
Produced by Chris Bruss, Lauren Palmigiano, Laura Dawn of MoveOn.org & Peter Salett
Edited by Drew Antzis & Laura Dawn


*snark: to make snide remarks

The Doctor Prescribes These Readings

Dr. Lisa Morrison shared some thought-provoking stories about problems with our current American health care system. She recommended three readings for further information. Here are the links.

Economic View: A Public Option Isn't A Curse, Or A Cure, by Richard H. Thaler
New York Times, August 16, 2009

Why We Must Ration Health Care, by Peter Singer,
New York Times, July 19, 2009

Annals of Medicine: The Cost Conundrum, by Atul Gawande,
The New Yorker, June 1, 2009