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2011 Week Four

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Testing the waters

The former director of the United Nations Environment Programme has said that “we used to think that energy and water would be the central issues for the next century. Now we think that water will be the critical issue.” “Water is the oil of the 21st Century,” a former Dow Chemical president told The Economist magazine.

With softball season in full swing, teams inch closer to championship

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When Chautauqua’s softball season kicked off at the end of June, players were often barefoot, enthusiastic and out to have a great time. Nearly a month later, not much has changed. With the championship games only two weeks away for both the men’s and women’s leagues, the season is in full swing. The games, while always maintaining a recreational atmosphere, have begun to heat up.

Transformer failure leaves Chautauqua in the dark

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Chautauqua Institution lost electric power throughout the grounds just before 3 p.m. Thursday on a sweltering and humid afternoon. A transformer at the local National Grid substation failed, and power was not restored until 6 a.m. Friday. George Murphy, vice president and chief marketing officer, described the scene on the second floor of the Colonnade after initial word reached President Thomas Becker’s office that the blackout might last for 24 hours.
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Anniversary in the Amp

The Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus will celebrate its 75th anniversary with Chautauqua in its season-opening-concert featuring Bach’s “Magnificat” and Leonard Bernstein’s “MASS.” Doreen Rao will conduct the chorus and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra at 8:15 p.m. Saturday in the Amphitheater. “Chautauqua is an exquisite intersection between the arts and spirituality,” she said. “It just exudes the kind of an enlightened energy that makes listening to and making beautiful music immediately understood in so many different ways.”

Nuland speaks on technology’s effect on med school training

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It’s unfortunate for modern Greece that there wasn’t an ancient resident who was interested in economics. If modern Greek financiers seem dicey, ancient Greek philosophers continue to influence modern thought. Why? Perhaps because they were first; perhaps because they were wise, and perhaps because as technology alters society, the question of what it means to be human, as opposed to machine, is being asked again. Arguably, the ancient Greeks began that conversation.

Muffitt to speak on students as 21st-century musicians

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Students in Chautauqua’s School of Music have more to learn than technique, intonation and timing. They also have to grasp time travel. “The difference is that, whereas the Beethoven symphony hasn’t changed since it was written in the early 19th century, the context in which it’s being performed and heard is dramatically different,” said Timothy Muffitt, music director of the Music School Festival Orchestra. “So we, as musicians, have to have an awareness of that.”

Annual Team Tennis event to bring together players of all ages

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Each summer, anywhere from 32 to 64 players ready their rackets, suit up in their team colors and hit the courts at the Chautauqua Tennis Center for its annual Team Tennis Tournament. This competition, the Tennis Center’s largest event of the season, will take place from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday. Team Tennis features four teams of 16 players — or eight, depending on participation — competing in a combination of men’s, women’s and mixed doubles, a formula that Lee Robinson, Tennis Center program director, said makes for a successful event year after year.

Conrad: ‘Do what is in your heart and soul and spirit’

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During her lecture at 10:45 a.m. Thursday in the Amphitheater, Barbara Smith Conrad did what she’s always done best: She sang. The small woman on stage approached her friend, pianist Patsy Sage, to decide which song to sing. The words that escaped her lips were much more booming than her voice had been before — even with the aid of the microphone.
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Lynch: Arts are an absolute necessity for the nation

Robert Lynch’s career began with a lie. It was January 1975. He’d had his hand in the creation of the New England Artist Festival and Showcase, today called the New England Arts Biennial. The team of founders — including Lynch — marketed it as “New England’s largest gathering of artists, craftspeople, performers, poets and other creators.”

Carnival Crews

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July 21 was what some might call a “scorcher,” with temperatures approaching the 90s even before 11 a.m. That didn’t stop campers and counselors from heading down to the Boys’ and Girls’ Club annual carnival and enjoying the scene.

No power? No problem.

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Weird night last night. I should have known that something was amiss at Chautauqua when I found a parking space at the bottom of the lot close to the exit. Paradoxically, the failure of a transformer earlier in the day and the resultant loss of electrical power increased the noise level on the grounds as gasoline-powered generators chugged away.

Soltes links art, religion and politics in ‘eternal triangle’

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“What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three legs in the evening?” If the average Chautauquan didn’t know the answer to this riddle, he would have been punished by the plague in Sophocles’ play “Oedipus the King.” What he also probably didn’t know was that this riddle highlights an “eternal triangle” of art, religion and politics.
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