I mentioned in week 5 of this how I believed that quiz bowl's return will require help from forces outside what quiz bowlers consider as their community. The events of the past two weeks have only reinforced my outlook.
-- Transition at television stations hint at disruption in quiz bowl competitions in the fall.
-- The only clear message about schools returning in the fall is that every area will be running on a different calendar.
-- For schools which will still be in work-from-home areas, extracurricular activities will be the last things to come back.
-- The goal to increase minority representation in quiz bowl has moved from a stretch goal to a fundamental need.
So what do I mean by outside help?
-- There are competitions, including buzzer competitions, which have achieved higher levels of minority representation. We should be looking to build bridges and see where they have succeeded. We need to find where common ground can exist and see where competitions can build from each other.
-- There are events and competitions where people similar roles as in quiz bowl, which will need help to survive the disruption. We should look to help them to grow, and help develop connections so their event staff have opportunities in events of both types.
-- There are schools which compete in other competitions, whose teams are going to need practice competitors to keep themselves sharp.
-- And if a competition is going to collapse from this, we need to make sure the competitors who enjoyed that competition have the opportunity to transition to other events.
And why am I being so indirect?
Well, I'm sure I'm going to be tasked with talking with some of these, but part of that task is discovery, I don't know if I've found every group we will need to talk to. So I'm going to have to work at this before I can guide you to who you need to talk to.
Stuff to Look at
Tours of Artists' Homes and Studios, specifically Winslow Homer, Lee Krasner, and Jackson Pollock.
The Articles I Learned from This Week
The Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1921
Robert Hooke's secret laboratory
I don't know if you've followed all the sad recent history about the disposition of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West and the Foundation, but it's taken another strange turn.
The Articles You Could Learn from This Week
When I was 14, I ended up going with my family on one of my dad's business trips, taking us through Sweden, Germany, and England. Three things have stayed with me from that trip, the German language periodic table, which got me through chemistry classes, the Science Data Book I got in London, and the memory of trudging through the humid warehouse housing the Vasa. The story of it has always fascinated me, and its spectacular failure may explain a lot of my love (yes, love) of testing.
The biology behind sourdough — I confess that despite absolutely loving sourdough bread, I’ve had no impulse to actually get a starter going during isolation.
Explaining the renaming of Swaziland
Didn’t You Learn Anything From the Last Time?
1
Key to the processes developed by this man was using the steam from lower chambers to heat upper chambers, creating a more fuel efficient evaporation.
A. Name this New Orleans-born early chemical engineer who used a vacuum to further lower the boiling point of liquids in evaporation chambers.
answer: Norbert Rillieux
B. Rillieux's innovation in evaporation technology replaced the expensive Jamaica train system of refining this foodstuff.
answer: sugar
C. Rillieux's cousin on his mother's side was this impressionist painter, who in 1872 revitalized his career during a visit to New Orleans where he painted an office near the Cotton Exchange.
answer: Edgar Degas
2
As an spy for the Free French in World War II, she carried secret communications written in invisible ink on her sheet music.
A. Name this African-American dancer and singer who became famous in 1920's France for performing her Dance Sauvage.
answer: Josephine Baker
B. Baker was able to spy on the Axis as they believed her sympathetic to Mussolini after she once publicly supported the Italian invasion of this African nation.
answer: Ethiopia
C. After becoming a lieutenant in the Free French Air Force, Baker became the first American woman to recieve what military award?
answer: Croix de Guerre
3
"They'll see how beautiful I am/ And be ashamed--"
A. Name this short poem in which the title character "the darker brother" is sent to eat in the kitchen when company comes.
answer: I, Too
B. This Harlem Renaissance poet of "I, Too" wrote a book length Montage of a Dream Deferred, from which Lorraine Hansberry took the title "A Raisin in the Sun."
answer: Langston Hughes
C. This Hughes poem describes a syncopated tune played down on Lenox Avenue
answer: The Weary Blues
4
Edwin McCabe, who later founded the town of Langston in this territory, campaigned the government to have designated for African-Americans.
A. Name this state which had earlier been the endpoint of the Trail of Tears.
answer: Oklahoma
B. Oklahoma's largest city during its early statehood, this boomtown became divided along racial lines with a black North and a primarily white South, which boiled over into a massacre of black residents after false accusations of rape.
answer: Tulsa
C. This street in North Tulsa, namesake of the neighborhood that built up was termed the "Black Wall Street" for its prosperity.
answer: Greenwood Avenue
5
Its concluding paragraphs note that "the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT" and that in reading it one can find no reference to pro-slavery clauses.
A. Name this speech delivered July 4, 1852, by Frederick Douglass
answer: What to the slave is the Fourth of July?
B. In the speech, Douglass cites this legislation, signed as part of the Compromise of 1850, as making mercy to blacks a crime, and bribes the judge who tries them.
answer: Fugitive Slave Law
C. In the speech, Douglass quoted from a funeral oration in this Shakespeare play comparing the title character to George Washington.
answer: Julius Caesar