“A federal advisory panel studying the high cost of college texts was offered a simple suggestion Monday for keeping down expenses: Don’t use so many books. Or, at least, not books in the conventional sense. The idea is to prod professors to develop more courses that take advantage of articles, lecture notes, study guides and other materials available for free on the Internet.” One unresolved question: “Who is to blame for textbooks that often cost more than $100?”
Tag: 03.06.07
Help The Troops: Protect Iraqi Antiquities
“Americans are increasingly reluctant to risk American blood to save Iraqi lives. So it’s a pretty tough sell to ask people to care about a bunch of old rocks with funny writing. But what if they understood that the plunder of Iraq’s 10,000 poorly guarded archaeological sites not only deprives future generations of incomparable works of art, but also finances the insurgents? … And what if Americans understood that our failure to appreciate the importance Iraqis place on their history has added to the chaos faced by our troops?”
French Writer Henri Troyat, 95
“Henri Troyat, the Russian-born French writer whose novels and biographies earned him an immense following in France and considerable recognition abroad, died here on Sunday. … As Le Figaro wrote Monday, ‘the favorite writer of the French is dead.'”
Diagnosing Philoctetes (And His Physicians)
What does Sophocles’ “Philoctetes” have to teach medical students about their troubled patients and themselves? “We have created a subclass of patients like Philoctetes with modern medicine,” said a director who staged a reading for some first-year Cornell students. “They are abandoned on their islands to live long, but have we risen to the challenge of taking emotional care of them?”
Today’s Russian Oligarchs Want: Galleries
“In the Eighties, every oligarch who wanted to occupy his wife bought her a beauty salon. In the Nineties he got her a shop. But now art has replaced the diamonds. What every 21st-century Russian woman wants is a gallery and a foundation. What does this mean for Russian art?”