Edgar Lee Kirk

Edgar Lee Kirk (1923 – 2015) took up the clarinet in elementary school, but his interest soon turned to the bassoon. He received a scholarship to the Eastman School of Music and completed his first two years of study there before his U.S. Army service in World War II began in Germany from 1944 until 1946.

After the war, he went on to receive his B.A. and M.A. from Eastman and began his teaching career as a faculty member at Michigan State College.

Kirk later earned his Ph.D. in music theory from Eastman and became internationally known as a bassoon virtuoso and instructor.

Chatpong Tangmanee

Chatpong Tangmanee is an associate professor in Chulalongkorn Business School, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand). 

He received his Ph.D. in information transfer from Syracuse University. His research interests cover human-computer interaction in electronic commerce. His publications appear in the Australian Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Research and Practice in Information Technology, and the Journal of Applied Security Research. 

In 2020, he served at the PhD program director as well as the assistant to the dean in the research affair division at Chulalongkorn Business School.

Kopka Berets!

Yak wool beret

Kopka is a luxury knitwear brand, from the city of Brühl in the German Rhineland.

Kopka has been working in the hat industry since the 1950's - mainly as a supplier of hat bodies for hat makers worldwide and making quality (Basque) berets.

Kopka is innovative in both design and materials, having come up with the design for the roll-up beret, the tie dye and berets made of pure Himalayan yak wool.

The Kopka Classic and Classic XL berets are excellent wool berets for warmer weather and in-between-seasons.

Our full range of Kopka Berets can be found here.

Brenda Lee

Professor Brenda Lee is a distinguished professional with an impressive trajectory as a medical educator and medical school administrator who was appointed as the 2018 Frederick H. Minett Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Lee has previously served appointments at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School. In 1987, she was appointed as an assistant professor in the Division of the Medical Humanities and the assistant dean for medical education and student affairs at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry (URSMD).

Dr John - Professor Bizarre's Funknology

Dr. John, Professor Bizarre's Funknology is a hearty helping of gris-gris from New Orleans' resident guru of blues, funk, and just plain mystical, magical music. 

Mac Rebennack has been stepping into his Dr. John persona since 1968, when he released his first recordings on Atco Records after an already-impressive career around the Crescent City as a musician, songwriter, artist, and A&R man. 

Professor Bizarre's Funknology is a fine, curated sampler of that musical voodoo he does so well.

Flamingo Summer Wool SPECIAL

SPECIAL of the week: 2 top-quality wool beret models that are perfect for summer wear!

The Flamingo Basque in 9.5p is the standard Basque beret without lining and headband; easily stretchable to the largest head-size, made of soft Australian merino wool and very comfortable and easy to wear. The Japanese answer to the Italian Roma.

The W6200 is a 85 gram Australian merino wool beret best suited for warm and mild weather. The beret is a model without 'chobo' (cabillou), measures 30cm in diameter and is fitted with a comfortable elasticated rim which is size adjustable. The berets are unlined and fitted with the smaller Flamingo label in the rim of the band.

This week only in a limited number at a discount up to 50% @ $39.75 (as long as stock lasts).

Paul Brumer

Paul Brumer is a renowned Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto.

Paul Brumer's research group is focusing attention on several problems in theoretical chemical physics. Amongst these are:

• ·        Controlling Molecular Dynamics with Lasers
• ·        Quantum Dynamics on the Nanoscale
• ·        Issues in Quantum Mechanics

Lee Elliot Major

Lee Elliot Major OBE is Professor of Social Mobility at the University of Exeter, Britain's first professor in the field. His work is dedicated to improving the prospects of disadvantaged young people.

He grew up in Feltham, west London, and lived in a shared house on social security after his parents split up. He worked as a dustman and street cleaner, gained a BSc in physics and PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Sheffield, and an MSc Science Communication at Imperial College, London, in 1994.

Professor Major argues that social mobility is about securing decent jobs in local communities, not just catapulting a lucky few to the top.

Herman Th. Verstappen

Geomorphologist and Geographer Herman Th. Verstappen was born in 1925 at The Hague, The Netherlands.

Verstappen joined the Netherlands Youth Association of Naturalists (NJN) that made him a real outdoor man keen on walking, swimming, cycling. He later became an enthusiastic mountaineer, climbed in the Alps, two first ascents in the Central Range of West New Guinea (one of which to the eternal snow, 4700m) and all volcanoes in Indonesia above 3000 m. 

He was staff member of the Geographical Institute of the Government Survey Department, Jakarta, Indonesia during 1949-1957; Head Geomorphology Department at the International Institute Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences, 1957-1989 and since 1968 full-professor of geomorphology at the International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC), Delft/Enschede, the Netherlands. He was part time lecturer at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta (1953-1957), University of Indonesia.

Richard Ingersoll

Richard Ingersoll was born near San Francisco in 1949 but has spent half of his life in Italy. He earned a Ph.D. in architectural history at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1985. 

Ingersoll served as the editor-in-chief of Design Book Review from 1983 to 1998, and taught at Rice University as an associate professor from 1986 to 1997. Ingersoll left Rice to return to Tuscany, where he taught at Syracuse University's Florence architecture program.

Richard Ingersoll died at the age of 72 in Spain following complications from a femur fracture, which led to complications with COVID-19.

Ted Goossen

Ted Goossen is a Professor in the Department of Humanities at York University, Canada.

His interests lie largely in modern and contemporary Japanese literature, the Asian Canadian experience, Asian film and cross-cultural analysis. e is editor of The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, and has translated numerous modern and contemporary Japanese writers. He is Founding Editor, with Motoyuki Shibata, of MONKEY New Writing from Japan.

Jan Oort

Jan Hendrik Oort (1900 –1992) was a Dutch astronomer who made significant contributions to the understanding of the Milky Way and who was a pioneer in the field of radio astronomy.

His New York Times obituary called him "one of the century's foremost explorers of the universe"; the European Space Agency website describes him as "one of the greatest astronomers of the 20th century" and states that he "revolutionised astronomy through his ground-breaking discoveries." In 1955, Oort's name appeared in Life magazine's list of the 100 most famous living people. He has been described as "putting the Netherlands in the forefront of postwar astronomy."

Russian Berets #6: Aleksey Mozgovoy

Aleksey Borisovich Mozgovoy (1975 – 2015) was a commander of the self-proclaimed pro-Russian Luhansk People's Republic in Ukraine. He was the leader of the Prizrak Brigade and also served as "judge" on the "People's Court", notorious for issuing controversial death sentences.

In 2020 he was found guilty posthumously by a separatist “court” of a murder-for-money of a family, which also resulted in the crippling of a ten-year-old child. He was assassinated in Donbas, with conflicting reports on who was responsible. 

The information cannot be dismissed as “Ukrainian propaganda” as it comes from a ‘court’ in the self-proclaimed ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’.

Russian Berets #5: The Luhansk 'People's Republic' Forbids Women to Enter Bars

The wise men of the "Luhansk People's Republic" shown at a public meeting where the concerns of mothers (and women in general) drinking in bars and other establishments was brought up.

Their answer to this question was simple: mothers need to stay home and take care of their children and not go out drinking!

This harsh stance was also taken up with harsh punishments including arresting any woman found on site of a bar. Harsh words too: "rape them all to hell."

Support Ukraine.

Russian Berets #4: Women of St. Petersburg

As the women protest Putin's invasion of Ukraine, reactions are varied from passersby: some stop to whisper their gratitude, others castigate them as traitors. St Petersburg’s anti-war protesters want to send a message to those ‘who are still silent’.

A prominent role in this video is for boinera Yelena Osipova (see previous posts here and here). 

Vytautas Landsbergis

Vytautas Landsbergis (1932) is a Lithuanian politician and former Member of the European Parliament. He was the first Head of Parliament of Lithuania after its independence declaration from the Soviet Union.

He has written 20 books on a variety of topics, including a biography of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, as well as works on politics and music. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, and a member of the international advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

In January 2005, Landsbergis, backed by Member of the European Parliament from Hungary Jozsef Szajer, urged that Communist symbols be banned in the European Union, in addition to Nazi symbols.

The First Vicespeaker of the Russian State Duma called the proposal "abnormal", a Russian Communist MP commented that "somebody in Europe became insolent and forgot who saved them from the fascists".

Russian Berets #3: Kadyrovtsy

Some of the worst thugs fighting for Russia in Ukraine are the Chechens who form the ‘Kadyrovites’ or ‘Kadyrovtsy’, a paramilitary organization in Chechnya, that serves as the private army of “president” Ramzan Kadyrov (not to be confused with the pro-Ukraine Chechen fighters of the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion and the Sheikh Mansur Battalion).

The Kadyrovites have been accused of committing widespread human rights abuses such as kidnapping, forced disappearances, torture and murder. Kadyrovites use extrajudicial punishment to cement Kadyrov's autocratic rule, and now surpass jihadist insurgents as the most feared organization among Chechnya's civilian population.

Under Kadyrov's orders, the Kadyrovites commited the Anti-gay purges in Chechnya, including operating concentration camps for gay men. The Kadyrovites have also been involved in the Syrian Civil War in 2017.

Kadyrov’s troops have been used as barrier troops, to address low morale by executing Russian deserters. There are reports that Chechen troops were executing Russian troops who were too injured in field hospitals.

Chechen troops were also accused of perpetrating the Bucha massacre by intentionally targeting civilians.

Kadyrov was widely mocked online as a "TikTok warrior" after a picture meant to show him traveling in Ukraine showed him praying at a gas station whose brand only exists in Russia.

Russian Berets #2: The Sparta Battalion

The Sparta Battalion is a Russian separatist military unit of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine. It has been fighting against the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donbas War and the 2022 Russian invasion.

Vladimir Zhoga

Formed in 2014, it was initially led by the Russian-born Arsen Pavlov (nicknamed “Motorola”) until his death in October 2016, and then by Vladimir Zhoga from Sloviansk, until his death in March 2022.

Arsen Pavlov (“Motorola”)

The Sparta Battalion has "a reputation for ruthlessness". It has been accused of war crimes in Donbas. In February 2015, Ukrainian SSU started an investigation into allegations of war crimes committed in January 2015 by the Battalion and its leader Arsen Pavlov, with charges including murder, bullying, torture and forcing people into slave labor.

The battalion flies the black-yellow-white flag of the Russian Empire and, according to the European Eye on Radicalization, the unit "uses a combination of symbols of the Spartan military culture, well-known drivers of the far-right, and from the Tsarist era".

Its flag includes a letter M. According to a fighter interviewed by The Independent, this is "because it is dedicated to Motorola, our commander... a DPR hero".

Putin and Zhoga on 9 May 2022

Some observers had noted how the stylized red "M" looks identical to the logo of the Sparta Rangers, a fictional faction of elite soldiers from the Metro franchise, a series of books by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky and videogames by Ukrainian developer 4A Games.

Russian Berets #1: Russian National Unity

The "denazification" campaign / "Special Military Operation" / Invasion of Ukraine by Russia is much supported by neonazi and other fascist organizations and militia in Russia. The mysterious ways of Putin's thinking...

Sadly many of these nationalist groups have adopted the (French!) beret as their headgear of choice, spiced up with badges that carry a strong resemblance to Nazi symbols like the swastika and SS symbols.

Once such group is 'Russian National Unity' or 'All-Russian Civic Patriotic Movement', an unregistered neo-Nazi and irredentist group. 

The movement advocated the expulsion of non-Russians and an increased role for the Russian Orthodox Church. It collaborated on a limited basis with the Federal Security Service. The group was banned in Moscow in 1999 after which the group gradually split up in smaller groups and their webpage became defunct in 2006.

More on their beret-wearing offspring to follow...

David Teniers the Younger

David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II (1610 – 1690) was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist, and art curator.

He was an extremely versatile artist known for his prolific output. He was an innovator in a wide range of genres such as history painting, genre painting, landscape painting, portrait and still life. He is now best remembered as the leading Flemish genre painter of his day.

Teniers is particularly known for developing the peasant genre, the tavern scene, pictures of collections and scenes with alchemists and physicians.

He was court painter and the curator of the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the art-loving Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands. He was the founder of the Antwerp Academy, where young artists were trained to draw and sculpt in the hope of reviving Flemish art after its decline following the death of the leading Flemish artists Rubens and Anthony van Dyck in the early 1640s.

And most interesting, his paintings show how prominent the beret featured in 17^th century Flanders.

Thank you, Miriam