December 2, 2006

A window on Bascom Mall.

It's a hard call when you're sitting at a faculty meeting in the big law school room that overlooks Bascom Mall and you see students out there on skis. Do you pull out your little camera and grab a couple shots or must you maintain the appearance of 100% concentration on the task at hand?

Skiing on Bascom Mall

I took the picture. If you think I'm the bad law professor for it, just know I'm saying "hi" to all the former students who come by this blog sometimes and like when it's a window looking back into their beloved college town.

There was some really cool skiing on the hill yesterday!

15 comments:

Beth said...

Beautiful. My meeting view yesterday was blue sky over a placid Lake Pontchartrain.

Why do we have so many damn meetings in the last weeks of the semester?

chickelit said...

May I suggest you send a photo to Andrew Sullivan for his "View from Your Window"? (don't forget to work in a little window frame though- he likes that- LOL)

Seriously, I love your UW photos.

AmPowerBlog said...

I love the pictures! You're not a bad law professor! Maybe some of your colleagues should start blogging! It's been cold here in California, and the skiing locally here is picking up as well. Hope you're safe and sound -- the Midwest weather made all the evening news headlines last night.

Burkean Reflections

Link said...

thats great!

loved my time in madison.

Fitz said...

Here are my thoughts on “the bad law professor”

Initial thought #1. Of coarse she’s not a bad law professor; she’s just snapping a picture during yet another (laborious & trite) committee meeting.

Important premise. (foundation for thought #2) People all around the Blogs seem to routinely label (& then dismiss) Ann Althouse’s thinking as of the dreaded “conservative” kind. {I don’t but it myself }

Thought #2. Even the perception of her as such means she’s under constant scrutiny in an academic environment.

Thought #3. Any hint of her lacking professionalism will be used as an excuse to diminish her status and career.

Thought #4. Gosh I hope she’s got tenure.

Anonymous said...

I remember reading at one point that some CEO (or could possibly have been Admiral Hyman Rickover) decreed that no meeting was to include refreshments or chairs.

The story continues on to say that meetings shortened from hours to a max of 15 minutes; with nothing to consume and nowhere to sit people lost interest in hearing themselves chatter, got the business over with and went back to work.

Maxine Weiss said...

Susan Sontag's book of essays 'On Photography':

"There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera," --Sontag

"The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own." --Sontag

"What renders a photograph surreal is its irrefutable pathos as a message from time past, and the concreteness of its intimations about social class."-- Susan Sontag

(Althouse and her agressive camera--definitely a class thing!)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19650

Peace, Maxine

Unknown said...

You had a faculty meeting on a Saturday morning? Oh, the horror!

AllenS said...

You have no respect for the classroom. I think it goes all the way back to kindergarden, when you used to propel yourself around the room on your little rug.

Bad Ann.

WV: owbutq
Meaning: I must have been going too fast on my little rug.

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of my tour in Madison, circa 1966-1971 (the "good" years).
BTW, when you got the paper the other morning, were you in flannels or flimsies? Just asking. . .

Joe Giles said...

If you want to really raise hell, take a picture of the meeting and post that.

Dactyl said...

Skis? You're supposed to use trays from the chowhall.

Ann Althouse said...

Todd: They used to tray in the old days, but I don't think I've ever seen people tray on the hill. I don't see regular sledding either. And I think yesterday was the first time I ever saw people ski.

Click on the photo to get to an enlargement if you have trouble seeing the skiers in the picture.

MadisonMan said...

I was in Middleton today -- it's amazing how little snow is on the ground 5 miles west of the UW.

Anonymous said...

I go to school in Charleston, SC. Seeing pictures like this makes me miss snow!