Shimer College and the Future: May 2012

Friday, May 25, 2012

New Shimer viewbook

Here is the new 2012 Shimer College viewbook. Quite an impressive job has been done:

Between this and the Shimer video, Shimer's marketing materials are really getting somewhere.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

After-action reports on climate rally

Here are some reports from the "Turn up the Heat" rally in downtown Chicago on Tuesday:

Daily Kos

Atlanta Progressive News

People's World

Video from Samwise

Photos on Facebook

More photos on Examiner

If you're feeling the need for alternative perspectives, you can also sift the dregs of the right-wing blogosphere, where you'll find some views from the other side. These are always informative reading, although I think I'll refrain from honoring them with any direct links. One report is on the Forbes website, of all places, and can be located by Googling the phrase "the Heartland Institute, for whom I work".

For credible reports from inside the Hilton, check out Suzanne Goldenberg's pieces in The Guardian: "Heartland Institute in financial crisis after billboard controversy", "Heartland reflects on its beating".

(In particular, the remarkable late-breaking news that Heartland is suspending these conferences indefinitely, due to insufficient funds and poor attendance, deserves special mention.)

Monday, May 21, 2012

Rally for climate science in Chicago, Tuesday 5/22 -- updated with poster

Shimer's very own student activist group, SMELT (Students Mobilized for Equality Liberation & Transparency), will be taking a leading role in a rally to be held against the Heartland Institute's denialist anti-science conference in downtown Chicago this coming Tuesday, May 22.

With Heartland's brand growing increasingly toxic after its impressively ill-advised billboard campaign -- apparently too toxic even for the likes of renowned douchebag James Sensenbrenner -- this could be your last chance to heap well-deserved opprobrium on the hapless Joe Bast, extremely former member of the Shimer Board of Trustees. So don't miss it! Come one, come all!

Here is the event description, from co-organizer Ben Bornstein:

ITINERARY:

10am-- Meet-up at the "Bean" in Millennium Park to rally and begin a march to...

11:00am-- the Hilton Hotel and the Heartland Institute's Conference on Climate Change Denial at 720 S Michigan Ave.

11:15am-- Speakers will begin the Local Conference on Climate Change in the park across the avenue from the Hilton.

12:30/1:00pm--March from 720 S Michigan to the Heartland Institute's headquarters at 1 S Wacker in the Loop.

We, the climate change believers, will be holding an impromptu conference on a Local Assuredness that Climate Change Exists Conference outside of the Heartland Institute's International Climate Change Conference in the Hilton next Tuesday, May 22nd, from the late morning until the early afternoon.

The Heartland Institute began an effort to forward climate change skepticism a number of years ago and have been holding an International Conference on Climate Change ever since. Topics addressed include implications for the catastrophe insurance industry in accepting or denying aspects of climate change, the overbearing attitude of the federal government in dealing with global warming, and the negative effects of alternative energy on free-market enterprises.

In short, it's a conference dedicated to affirming the worldview that alternative energy is a bad idea, capitalism and free-market principles protect the environment, and a conspiracy is afoot to keep the general population worried about “human-made climate change”... Capitalist and their lawyers...

Come out and yell about the REAL climate change you learned about in SCHOOL.
Chalk the sidewalk, hand out leaflets, listen to local experts, and make sure the corporate toadies hear you inside the Hilton.