November « 2014 « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

November, 2014

Monday / photo — Comments Off
17
Nov 14

An actual Monday

My first job out of college was traffic reporting. I think I did that four about four months before finally landing in news. One guy there once reported a car fire on the freeway as a carbecue. It sounded clever but I found it mean-spirited. Here was someone having probably one of the worst days of their year, losing who knows what and, for an encore, having to deal with insurance people. Making jokes just seemed like piling on.

I think of that every time I see a car fire, like I saw today.

And then, some time later, I changed lanes, topped a little rise in the road and found myself parked on the interstate. Three lanes going nowhere, for about an hour.

Turns out, just up the road, a dump truck lost its load.

As I told a colleague, even if I’d wanted to make up a reason to not be in the office I wouldn’t have thought of that. Who’s ever heard of a dump truck throwing dirt and gravel all over the pavement as the poor guy is driving from A to B?

In one of those philosophical cases of one-never-knows it is entirely possible, I suppose, that had someone’s car fire not slowed traffic down back there I could have had dirt poured all over my car further up the road. Sitting on top of the overpass and feeling it wave and whomp whomp with traffic coming from the other direction doesn’t seem so bad in comparison.

Rather than worry about a Monday — hey, the guy in the car fire wasn’t hurt and there didn’t seem to be any ambulances at the inadvertent dump site — let’s look at some pictures.

Here’s a mini-essay on tree doughnuts:

More tomorrow, on what will not be a Monday.

photo / weekend — Comments Off
16
Nov 14

Catching up

The post with extra pictures, things that didn’t fit elsewhere or are just looking for a good home. You know the type, and you know the post. On with it, then.

We took a little hike, and I saw this young oak tree:

Sometimes the little things jump out at you. Sometimes you don’t even realize it until you get back home. That was the case with this one, I was shooting color, but now I see the edges:

Should I really be walking on something made by a company called Biltolast?

Only kidding. A small, local company. They’ve got about 80 employees and pedestrian bridges in Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Oregon, California, Connecticut, all over.

We went to see a play today:

And here’s the cool part, we discussed the show with the editor this evening. How often do you get to do that? I asked questions about the lighting and the sound, the deliberate anachronisms and the symbolism. He may never again tell us when he is directing.

football / video / weekend — Comments Off
15
Nov 14

South! Alabama

You can’t get tired of these stories, I won’t let you get tired of these kinds of stories. This one has a cute addition to it. South Alabama’s football team signed a kid, Colby Sawyer, and name dropped Alabama and Auburn.

When you’re out-recruiting the Tide and Tigers, good things happen. As you’ll see in this video, the Jaguars are bowl eligible:

South Alabama is bowl eligible for the first time in just their second year in Division I. Some bowl better pick up this program.

Update: How awesome is this? They named Sawyer player of the week.

Pardon me, I have to go put on my Jags shirt.

food / Friday / links / things to read / video — Comments Off
14
Nov 14

Comet: Avoid green beans, eat doughnuts

Back to that comet for 90 seconds. USA Today offers us the chance to hear the spooky-beautiful “sound” the thing makes.

Sure, those are clicks and pops in the magnetic field, amplified for the human ear’s range. But why is it, Mr. Smart Space Guy, that science fiction always has a similar sound to the creatures who are chasing the protagonists?

Isn’t that neat? You just listened to a comet. The 21st century is a pretty amazing place. I’m happy to be here in it with you.

Today’s post is brief because there was class — we discussed aggregation and curation — and then reading a bunch of paper that had to do with a news story and then a flurry of emails about it, the last weighing in at something like 1,500 words, with three footnotes. (Pro tip: When you go back to revise and shorten the email and it just keeps growing, press send and walk away.)

Got home just in time for dinner, so we went out with our friend Sally Ann and had a wonderful Pie Day.

The vegetable of the day was green beans. I mention this because, even if you are a huge supporter of the vegetable of the day concept, there’s no way you can stand by green beans as being worth a mention.

I like green beans, but they hardly win any given day. But if you have a recipe to jazz them up, I’m ready to hear about it.

Adding almond slivers does not constitute jazzing up green beans.

I plan on being asleep before it gets late, so you can see why I’ve so quickly come to the green bean portion of the festivities.

I did not have green beans.

Things to read … because you have to provide nutrition for the brain, too.

This is a fine, worthwhile essay about events taking place at the high school level. There are a few issues on some college campuses, but nowhere near as many and, thankfully, not on ours. At the high school level is where you see the pernicious influence. Still, ever vigilant, First Amendment: In land of the free, why are schools afraid of freedom?:

In one community, for example, school officials ban coverage of student religious clubs while permitting coverage of all other student clubs. But in a very different community, administrators instruct students not to report on LGBT issues because a few parents once complained about a profile of a gay student in the school paper.

Under current law, school officials may review what goes into school publications (though they aren’t required by any law to do so). But they may not turn “prior review” into “prior restraint” with overly broad and vague restrictions on what student reporters may cover.

Unfortunately, many public school administrators are either unfamiliar with the First Amendment or simply ignore it.

It must be serious, the AP is writing about it, Facebook’s privacy update: 5 things to know:

Facebook doesn’t just track what you do on its site. It also collects information about your activities when you’re off Facebook. For example, if you use Facebook to log in to outside websites and mobile apps, the company will receive data about those. It also gets information about your activity on other businesses it owns, such as WhatsApp and Instagram, in accordance with those services’ privacy policies.

[…]

Everything is fair game. Facebook explains it best: “We collect the content and other information you provide when you use our Services, including when you sign up for an account, create or share, and message or communicate with others.” Plus, Facebook says it also collects information about how you use Facebook, “such as the types of content you view or engage with or the frequency and duration of your activities.”

This defies excerpting, but it confirms a lot of what you might have read soon after the recent fence jumper, Secret Service Blunders Eased White House Intruder’s Way, Review Says.

I’m trying to imagine my grandparents doing this. Go ahead, give it a shot, Adults Apparently Wanted Underoos So Badly, They’re Already Sold Out.

No?

Last week I was talking with a student and somehow we came to discover the Krispy Kreme Challenge. He’s a sprinter, but now I’m trying to talk him into doing this race — 2.5 miles, a dozen doughnuts and then 2.5 more miles. I’m going to do it in my neighborhood I said, just to see. I found the 2014 times of the race. If I can finish it, I at least won’t be last.

Well. Turns out there’s a Krispy Kreme Challenge in Huntsville, too. The 2-time Krispy Kreme Challenge champion explains how one prepares for 12 doughnuts and 4 miles in 1 hour:

“It’s mostly being in general good shape. There’s two components–running and eating. You can do one or the other, but the skill is to do both. This kind of race is hard to train for.”

This could be a mistake, but I think I might be that kind of guy. This could be a further, more grievous mistake, but next weekend I have a date with the track and a dozen glazed.

history / iPhone / journalism / links / photo / Samford / things to read / Thursday — Comments Off
13
Nov 14

History, the leaves of the present, and the news of the future

A little cool, out, and yet bright and sunny. From the parking lot to the office I get to pass under and by a few bright trees, here are some maples I picked up in Talbird Circle — named in honor of the antebellum president of the university.

He accepted a captain’s commission in the 11th Alabama, stepping down after three months in 1861. The 11th Alabama fought in Virginia, but Talbird, older and not in the proper condition, mustered out before the shooting began.

He returned to Marion, to the school, and then took a colonel’s commission in the 41st Alabama infantry in May of 1862. The 41st marched and skirmished and fought in Tennessee, Mississippi and, briefly, in Virginia, but Talbird wasn’t around for all of that. He served for only a year, primarily at a prison camp, and then perhaps went with the regiment where they fought at Murfreesboro, before leaving the 41st because of a disability.

After the war, Talbird did not return to the university, but went back to the pulpit.

James E. Sulzby, Jr., a Samford grad and lay historian, wrote of Talbird:

It may be said that during the presidency of President Talbird, the college enjoyed its greatest prosperity until that time, yet experienced discouragements and disasters. President Talbird worked diligently on the endowment funds in an attempt to relieve the college of any indebtedness and to guarantee its future success. President Talbird, by his consisten Christian spirit, his fine administrative qualities, and his devotion to the Confederate cause, won in the estimation of all who him a position of wide influence.

Sulzby quotes an 1857 clipping from the Marion Commonwealth where a student wrote “There are not three students in the College by whom President Talbird is not dearly loved.”

And, hey, if only two people don’t love you, that isn’t so bad.

The modern campus has the cul-de-sac named after him. And there are pretty trees, with pretty leaves. I am sharing five of them with you here, having picked them up and carried them into my photo studio. There is more to read, after these:

Things to read … because sometimes words are worth a thousand words.

I hope we’re pleased with ourselves, Rural hospitals in critical condition

Since the beginning of 2010, 43 rural hospitals — with a total of more than 1,500 beds — have closed, according to data from the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. The pace of closures has quickened: from 3 in 2010 to 13 in 2013, and 12 already this year. Georgia alone has lost five rural hospitals since 2012, and at least six more are teetering on the brink of collapse. Each of the state’s closed hospitals served about 10,000 people — a lot for remaining area hospitals to absorb.

The Affordable Care Act was designed to improve access to health care for all Americans and will give them another chance at getting health insurance during open enrollment starting this Saturday. But critics say the ACA is also accelerating the demise of rural outposts that cater to many of society’s most vulnerable. These hospitals treat some of the sickest and poorest patients — those least aware of how to stay healthy. Hospital officials contend that the law’s penalties for having to re-admit patients soon after they’re released are impossible to avoid and create a crushing burden.

So this sounds bad, Hearing aids stolen from 88-year-old retired naval pilot, but the update suggests one of two happy endings. Company to replace hearing aids reported stolen from 88-year-old veteran plus, the end of the story says the hearing aids were miraculously found. I thought, in reading the first story, that that would ultimately be the case. Funny how calling the police and finding the news media is calling the office can make that happen.

This is one of those shame-it-happened-but-the-timing-was-good kind of stories, Alabama team doctors help save life of LSU policeman struck by car after game:

Alabama team doctors Lyle Cain, Norman Waldrop and Benton Emblom climbed into a motorcade leaving Tiger Stadium on Saturday night, expecting to chat about the Crimson Tide’s thrilling 20-13 overtime win over LSU on their way to the airport.

Less than a mile from the stadium, however, they found their skills needed to save a life, as a car had struck an LSU campus police officer who was escorting the motorcade on a motorcycle.

“Our first thought goes from, ‘Wow, we just won a huge game,’ to ‘Wow, we need to try to save this person’s life,'” Waldrop said.

You don’t say … Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program:

The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations.

The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program.

Is it just me, or have you noticed fewer “But if you aren’t doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about” replies to news like that these days? Seems like you get a lot more “Meh,” instead.

An idea whose time has come, StoryTracker is a new tool to track how news homepages change:

Hopefully you know about PastPages, the tool built by L.A. Times data journalist Ben Welsh to record what some of the web’s most important news sites have on their homepage — hour by hour, every single day. Want to see what The Guardian’s homepage looked like Tuesday night? Here you go. Want to see how that Ebola patient first appeared on DallasNews.com in September? Try the small item here. It’s a valuable service, particularly for future researchers who will want to study how stories moved through new media. (For print media, we have physical archives; for digital news, work even a few years old has an alarming tendency to disappear.)

I wish there was the same sort of thing for old broadcasts. When you invent your time machine, take something like this back with you and just scoop the radio and television signals out of the air, would you?