Around the Web

For Saturday, July 10 through Saturday, July 17.

1) Nigel Biggar in Standpoint asks, "What are Universities For?"

2) In the WSJ, P J. O'Rourke with a modest proposal for improving a dull game.

3) At Pileus, James Otteson shares a short, sad story from the world of academia.

4) George Will gives the keynote at the Cato Institute's 2010 Milton Friedman Prize dinner, mentions James Madison, Heraclitus, baseball. [Youtube]

5) In the WSJ, Gonzalo Ruiz and transcribing Bach's Orchestral Suit No. 2 into an oboe-friendlier key.

6) The Economist reviews, "Why Mahler?: How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed Our World" by Norman Lebrecht.

7) In the WSJ, Earle Hitchner with Mike Raffert, Irish Traditional Flutist and National Heritage Fellow.

8) In The American, Michael Barone on "The Return of the Jeffersonian Vision and the Rejection of Progressivism."

9) In the WSJ, Christian C. Sahner at "a glittering crossroads;" in Damascus' Umayyad Mosque, Roman paganism, Christianity, and Shiite and Sunni Islam all intersect.

10-12) Even more on technology and education. (That is, in addition to items [1] [2] [3] [4])

• Patrick Kingsley in The Guardian on "The Art of Slow Reading."
• Nicholas Carr in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
• In City Journal, Daniel J. Flynn reviews' "Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age" by William Powers.

13-14) Remembering:

• Sir Charles Mackerras, (1925-2010), the American-Australian-British conductor famed for his conducting of the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and Gilbert and Sullivan. (via The Well-Tempered Ear)
• Cesare Siepi, (1923-2010), Italian basso. In the WSJ, Barry Laurence Scherer reflects on the qualities that made him outstanding in his prime of the 1950s and 60s.