The James Logan Courier

MISCELLANEOUS
Happy Birthday to our 15th President, James Buchanan, born this day in 1791.

STAR Testing is next week and we need every Logan student to take the test and do their best! ASB Leadership is sponsoring a daily raffle of prizes for students who can tell themselves: “I took the test and did my best!” That means get to your testing room on time, give your best effort on each section and each problem, and you will receive a ticket for a chance at winning fabulous prizes. Daily prizes include gift cards to local restaurants and businesses, and grand prizes at the end of the week include a yearbook, digital camera, iPod, and a notebook computer. Let’s show our community that we can do it!

By Lisa M. Krieger
San Jose Mercury News (MCT)

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Fifty years ago this month, California promised a low-cost, high-quality university education for every qualified high school graduate in the state. But that promise — inflated by growing populations and academic aspirations — expanded beyond the state's willingness to pay for it.

What went wrong? How did the university system that was long the envy of the world suddenly become the focus of angry street protests, overcrowded classrooms, soaring tuition and a monumental debate over whether the state can ever make good again on its groundbreaking mission?

By Robert Lloyd
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

You are no longer loved, TV Theme Music, at least not by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which is threatening to decommission your category from its Emmy Awards. In its place, more or less, will be a new prize for "music composition for a non-fiction program." As if you could ever hum that.

Many of us, I'll wager, had forgotten, or never knew, that they were giving you an Emmy at all — even before it was eliminated, your category was shut out of the prime-time telecast. The stated reasoning behind this bruited change is the fact that fewer and fewer series are mounting a "traditional" TV theme, although just what "traditional" means is unclear, and fewer does not yet mean "none."

MIAMI — Before he became an internationally lauded jazz musician, before he learned to play the guitar, Pat Metheny fell in love with the player piano in his grandparents' basement in Manitowoc, Wis. At 9 years old, the multi-Grammy-winning jazz composer was fascinated by the clumping, old-fashioned wooden invention that he'd play on family visits.

"It was ancient and really old-fashioned. It even had that smell of something from the 1800s," Metheny says. "At the same time it was like science fiction, Jules Verne, it had that quality to me. You kind of invented stories to go with it ... What is this thing, and how is it doing this?"

From wikipedia:
Charles Mingus (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and human rights activist.

Having released numerous records of high regard, Mingus is considered one of the most important composers and performers of jazz as well as a pioneer in bass technique. Dozens of musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. Mingus was also influential and creative as a band leader, recruiting talented and sometimes little-known artists whom he assembled into unconventional and revealing configurations.

Visit Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, the official website of Charles Mingus.