I sent letters today. Actual correspondence. With stamps and everything!
Now I’m exhausted.
I also had to prepare new copies of my transcripts for the dean at Samford. Once upon a time you walked into an office or made a phone call and started the process. These days, of course, it is all online. Also, this costs money. I have three colleges to send away to, so it costs a few bucks.
Interestingly the price varies. It seems my grades at one school are more valuable than the other two.
So, to review, you pay tuition to have the privilege to go to classes. You earn your grades. You pay to graduate. Years later, you must pay again, to retrieve the grades you earned.
Terrific scam.
One of my schools charged $11. Another $12. Another $15. The third-party firms will ship an electronic version of your grades, a PDF, which will self-destruct after three views. Printed “allowed.” Copying? Not allowed.
Linky things: Somebody had to do it, may as well be John Archibald, writing the “if only everything else were as important here as football” column:
And never, ever, accept mistakes you could correct.
Alabamians — Alabama and Auburn fans alike — accept no less from their football teams. It’s amazing what they accept off the field.
Alabama was fourth-worst in the nation last year in robberies, and fifth-worst in murders, according to CQ Press.
It ranked in the bottom five in overall health last year, according to the United Health Foundation. It was 49th in obesity, infant mortality and premature deaths.
The state was 47th in teaching math and science, according to the American Institute of Physics.
It was in the bottom 10 in traffic fatalities per vehicle mile, in poverty rates and energy consumption per person, according to the census.
Alabama is not No. 1. Unless you count our highest-in-the-country rate of diabetes.
If life in Alabama were football, somebody would be fired.
Alabama’s last daughter of the confederacy has died. Someone in the comments of the last daughter story says that her father was 81 when she was born. Apparently they have pictures, too. One presumes of sometime after her birth. She is survived by, among others, her brother, who is the last surviving son of the confederacy.
That’s a lot to wrap your mind around, but then the last Civil War widow died just eight years ago.
State of the Media: This is from Vocus, a media software firm:
152 papers ceased operations in 2011. Of the papers that closed, not one major daily went under—the first year since 2009 that a top-tier paper didn’t shut down.
[…]
(T)here were a total of 195 magazine launches in 2011 with the unveiling of new consumer titles taking a modest hit.
[…]
(O)nline streaming of television shows and newscasts continued to increase.
[…]
(T)raditional radio continued to prove it’s a survivor, despite evidence that the majority of people prefer to get their news elsewhere. In all four quarters, reports showed growth in radio listenership.
Vocus’ full, optimistic, report will be out later this month.
