Knox in the News

From The Register-Mail:
Bruce Polay, professor of music and chair of the Knox College Music Department and artistic director/conductor of the Knox-Galesburg Symphony will return to guest conduct the Orquesta Sinfonia de la Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico, for a single performance March 11.

The program is an all-orchestral concert of overtures and interludes by Bizet, Mascagni, Puccini, Bellini and Verdi. The OSUG is one of the leading professional orchestras in Mexico. It is co-sponsored by the University of Guanajuato and the state of Mexico. This will be Polay’s fifth appearance with the ensemble.

A three-time recipient of the Illinois Council of Orchestras Conductor of the Year Award, Polay most recently received the prestigious Illinois Conductor of the Year, Professional Orchestras Award in April 2010. In addition, Polay has been awarded the ICO Cultural Leadership and Programming of the Year awards. During his tenure, the KGS has been consistently recognized by the ICO 17 times in nine different categories including Illinois Orchestra of the Year Award for an unprecedented third time.

When U.S. Sens. Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski introduced legislation last month seeking to ban Aquabounty’s so-called Frankenfish, they put the interests of Alaskan citizens over corporate plutocrats and near-sighted regulators. We should applaud the senators for their intervention on behalf of our state’s most important economic, cultural, and natural resource.

But the simple fact is this: nearly all the food we put into our bodies contains the same genetically modified organisms that we supposedly decry in our debates about this salmon. The corn that finds its way into products as diverse as breakfast cereals and filet mignon has been reengineered by biotech firms to resist a host of pests and pesticides that might otherwise damage the country’s most valuable agricultural good. The soy products that extend meatloaves and enhance soups have undergone similar manipulation in the past two decades. At this point, 90 percent of all soy grown in the United States — 60 million acres or so — is genetically modified, most of it to withstand the application of glyphosphate, a toxic herbicide.

If we expect consumers down south to pay a premium for our wild Alaskan salmon, we too should make a similar sacrifice to purchase products that guarantee that we are not eating genetically modified organisms. Certainly, we can push our food producers to utilize non-genetically modified food stuffs; we, too, can purchase foods certified organic by the USDA. Such sacrifices will be difficult, of course, but we will be taking a stand against the biotech oligarchies that have a stranglehold over our food system.Anything else would be unjust to our fishermen.

• Mink teaches environmental studies at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. and is a summer resident of Sitka, where he runs the Sitka Conservation Society’s Salmon Tours program.

From Media-Newswire.com:
A guide to Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act is now available online from the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Recent changes to the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, make it important that not just working journalists, but public officials and also citizens have a primer on current provisions in FOIA and the state’s Open Meetings Act, said David Yepsen, Institute director.

The guide is an “advocacy tool that will hopefully help people with the law,” Yepsen said.

“We need to make sure that citizens are empowered to use it,” Yepsen said. “Some of this can be a little intimidating.”

The 29-page “Citizens Guide to Using the Freedom of Information Act,” is available for download from the Institute’s website, http://paulsimoninstitute.org/. Written by former veteran Illinois political reporter Adriana Colindres, now a public relations specialist for Knox College in Galesburg, the Institute received input from Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office, William Freivogel, director of SIUC’s School of Journalism, and Josh Sharp, director of government relations for the Illinois Press Association in preparing the guide.

 From The Quad Cities Online:
Press release submitted by MidWest Writing Center

What: Humor Writing Workshop: “Are you laughing at me?”

When: February 26, 2011 from 1-3 p.m.

Where: Midwest Writing Center, 225 East 2nd Street, Davenport , Iowa 52801

Learn how to leave your readers in stitches! Attend “Are you laughing at me? Creating comedic character in your fiction and nonfiction” with Cyn Kitchen on Saturday, February 26 from 1-3 p.m. at the Midwest Writing Center located in Buctown Center for the Arts in Davenport. In this workshop, participants will discuss elements of creating humorous characters and learn more about the basics of writing humor. Cost to attend is $25 for non-members and $20 for MWC members. Call the MWC at 563-324-1410 or visit www.midwestwritingcenter.org to register.

Kitchen teaches creative writing and literature courses at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. She has developed and taught a course in beginning humor writing and has published several pieces of humor writing in such places as “Opium” and “The Dead Mule” and has work forthcoming in the anthologies “Bless Your Heart” and ‘Mamas and Papas”. Her first book, “Ten Tongues: stories”, was published in 2010 by MotesBooks of Louisville, Kentucky.

From The Register-Mail;

By Lisa Coon

The unrest continued in Egypt on Friday as tens of thousands packed central Cairo in a movement to oust President Hosni Mubarak, ending his nearly 30-year authoritarian reign.

“The problem is,” said Sue Hulett, chair of Knox College’s political science department, “is it seems Mubarak has just lost all support and the fear is what will replace Mubarak.”

The campaign to oust the ruler has been violent in recent days as Mubarak supporters have retaliated against the protesters by hurling concrete, metal rebar and firebombs, sending in fighters on horses and camels and releasing barrages of automatic gunfire.

Protesters labelled Friday’s rally the “day of leaving,” the day they hope Mubarak will go. The U.S. was pressing Egypt for a swift start toward greater democracy, including a proposal for Mubarak to step down immediately.

Various proposals for a post-Mubarak transition floated by the Americans, the regime and the protesters share some common ground, but with one elephant-sized difference: The protesters say nothing can be done before Mubarak leaves.

The 82-year-old president insists he will serve out the remaining seven months of his term to ensure a stable process.

“You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now,” Mubarak said he told President Barack Obama. He warned in an interview with ABC News that chaos would ensue.

But the Obama administration was in talks with top Egyptian officials about the possibility of Mubarak immediately resigning and handing over a military-backed transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman.

Such a government would prepare the country for free and fair elections later this year, according to one U.S. official.

“Change has to happen, but it’s not going to be an easy change,” said Hulett, who specializes in international relations and foreign policy. “It’s not going to be one without problems for the U.S. We have to be on the side of the people in this and try and be a force for good in easing the transition in Egypt.

 From The Register-Mail:
What are perhaps the largest photographic prints to be exhibited in the area will be featured at the Buchanan Center for the Arts.

The exhibit, “Ancient Echoes in Stone,” is the product of Galesburg photographer and Knox College faculty member Michael Godsil. It opens Friday and runs through March 5. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at the center, 64 Public Square.

Godsil will be exhibiting 30 traditional, analog black and white prints and five very large color prints on photo canvas. The large prints each measure 4 feet by 5 feet. They were made on traditional, analog color transparency film but were scanned on a high-resolution drum scanner to digitize the images so that they could be output to photo canvas by a large inkjet printer using archival pigment inks.

Godsil’s work is inspired by the first photograph he took 25 years ago of Anasazi ruins sites in Canyone de Chelly in Arizona. All the images are of the ruins sites and Inca ruins sites in Peru, including Machu Picchu.