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2
Dec 25

New look to the front page, btw

For fun, I made some certificates for colleagues. They’re all inside jokes for conference friends. Polite, smart, funny, kind-hearted people. One of them was about one guy picking on another guy. That second guy got one for being up for anything. Another certificate for was for someone running the circus. A third was for another guy, “and he knows why.”

He does not know why. But, you know, I don’t know why either. He’s just about the sweetest, most decent guy you could meet. If he’s ever done anything out of line no one knows about it and he’s buried it deeply in his subconscious. I could go on and on, but, really, we’re just lucky he’s a good friend.

Anyway, we all attend this one conference. And we’ve all held various leadership positions there over the years. We’re trying really hard to become the cool club within the club. Or just to amuse ourselves. One year, my lovely bride won the junior scholar award and at the conference and got a nice plaque. The next year, she won a top paper award and got a plaque. The year after that, I got a top paper award there. (I got nothing.) She also has some certificates from when she ran different divisions of that conference. I’ve run the same ones. (I got nothing.) In our text chat, the rest of the group realized they have been similarly shortchanged. So I made certificates.

Her certificate recognized her many conference achievements. So meta.

And so as to inoculate myself from a return joke, I made one for me.

That’s one of the two or three semi-notorious things I’ve said at that conference over the years. We were participating on a panel on the social constructs of this or that and I held up my phone and said something like, “We are all roaming little balls of hate with hate rectangles in our hands.”

Actually, I said exactly that. The quote was immortalized by someone who got a certificate today.

I get to see them in April, and I’m excited for it.

This evening I updated the images on the front page of the site. They look similar to the most recent version, but different. They look like this.

They are photos from a particular tree-covered road that I shot in October. And here I am, finally getting around to uploading them. This being one of my core hobbies, and being about five weeks behind on getting them here says a lot about my time management lately.

Maybe I’ll get better at it later this month, when the term is over, and the grades have been submitted.

At which time I’ll take three, maybe four deep breaths, and start planning for the spring term.

The good news is I only have one new class prep in the spring! (Three this semester was … a lot.) One class I have will be unchanged. The one will be new. And I’ll make some small adjustments to the criticism class. I’ll refine the details for that in a few days.

Yes, I have carved out two 15-minutes blocks of time, Thursday and next Tuesday, to figure that all out.

In today’s installment of the criticism class, we discussed this story. I chose it because it is a different sort of piece than anything we’ve read all fall. And I wanted the class to see the mechanics of how the writer wrote about the mechanics of deaf soccer. I played when I was a kid, and when I first saw this story last summer I thought, “How do they do that?” Soccer is basically played, and communicated, from behind you. But if no one can hear …

Soccer — and life — through the eyes of the U.S. deaf women’s national team

The first thing to know about deaf soccer is that it is soccer, and a match looks the same as at any level of the sport.

Instead of a loud, profanity-laced pregame speech from the most extroverted leader on the team, players gather in a circle and execute a synchronized movement of quick fist bumps and back-of-hand slaps. During the game, the center official raises a flag in addition to blowing their whistle for fouls and stoppages of play, and games are typically quieter than the average match that features more verbal communication.

From a technical standpoint, players must have hearing loss of at least 55 decibels in their “better ear” to qualify to play deaf soccer and, crucially, hearing aids are not allowed in games, ensuring all players are on a level playing field.

On a hearing team, communication often comes from the back. The goalkeeper and defenders see everything in front of them and can direct their teammates accordingly — and verbally.

“For us, that’s not possible, that’s not realistic,” Andrews says.

The process is more about inherent understanding and movement as a team. If a forward pushes high to chase a ball, everyone behind her must follow. Halftime or injury breaks become more important, Andrews says, because they represent rare opportunities to look at each other as a group.

One guy, at the bginning of class, wondered the same question. How does that work? I said, “You should read the story. It gets explained about 20 percent the way through the story, and it’s a good one, and you’d like it if you read it.”

He just smiled an embarrassed smile and put his head down for a while. We carried on.

We also read and discussed this story, How the Texans and a spa enabled Deshaun Watson’s troubling behavior, mostly for the troubling headline, so I could make some important points about headlines. But the copy is worth reading, too, if you can stomach it.

The accusations have been frequent and startling: more than two dozen women have said the football star Deshaun Watson harassed or assaulted them during massage appointments that Watson and his lawyers insist were innocuous.

Two grand juries in Texas this year declined to charge him criminally and, while the N.F.L. considers whether to discipline him, he has gotten another job, signing a five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed contract to play quarterback for the Cleveland Browns this coming season.

It is time, Watson and his representatives say, for everyone to move on.

Yet a New York Times examination of records, including depositions and evidence for the civil lawsuits as well as interviews of some of the women, showed that Watson engaged in more questionable behavior than previously known.

The Times’s review also showed that Watson’s conduct was enabled, knowingly or not, by the team he played for at the time, the Houston Texans, which provided the venue Watson used for some of the appointments. A team representative also furnished him with a nondisclosure agreement after a woman who is now suing him threatened online to expose his behavior.

In org comm we talked about crisis and conflict. Specifically, what are the differences between crises and scandals. This is one of those classes where you get to use popular instances of players the class knows and try to understand why things transpired as they did. For us, it is all building to next week’s work. And toward the final, but they don’t know that yet.

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21
Jul 25

Barbecue, batteries, books, bikes, and also batteries

Saturday night was date night. This was our date. We went out for dinner, barbecue at one of the better places around. Barbecue is one of the only things I’m legally allowed to be a snob about, and I take that seriously. What we had was flavorful, and moist. It was probably slow cooked. It was not over an open flame. If there’s no chimney stack coming out of the building, it isn’t technically barbecue. But, here, and in a pinch, it’ll do.

My lovely bride order the brisket, and there was some modifier on the order, which threw me for a loop. What did that mean? So I just said, Order whatever you usually get for me, because I was struggling to understand the variation in her order. She gave me a look. “You change your order so infrequently, how do you not know what you get? For some reason this amused the young woman running the register. She thought it was undeniably cute, and asked us to please come back often. I did a little joke or two and The Yankee wisely, but slowly, said, “Don’t encourage him.”

Wise because, of course, she knows better. Slowly because, of course, the encouragement had already happened.

I took this as my cue to get the drinks.

I got the drinks. And then there was our food, which we enjoyed.

And then, to cap off date night, we went to Lowe’s.

The store closes at 10, we got there at 9 and picked up the things we needed, filters for the air conditioner, some plumbing supplies, steak seasonings.

We did not get steak seasonings, but they had an entire end cap devoted to some of your finer mid-range shake-on condiments. We were in the market for a weed eater, because ours recently died, and the weeds did not stop growing out of respect for our loss.

So there we stood, trying to figure out the thises and thats. And an employee walked by. Volunteered to help, and was very helpful. (When was the last time either or both of those things happened at a big box store?) Helpful for the most part. Some of the things he said weren’t accurate, it turns out, but that’s OK. He was helpful in the ways that mattered the most. Then he gave us a brief bio on the 1960s-1980s band Badfinger. He was definitely the sort of guy that could do that. And then he gave us his testimony. He also saved us $20 on the list price.

We decided that going late at night is the time. Because the guys might help, and they’re really just trying to get you out of the store, of course.

So we bought a battery-powered weed eater. The selling point, to me, seems to be the battery life. Otherwise, dig out machine, machine turn on, machine chop up green things. Store machine. So the little tags at the store said this battery runs for 25 minutes, this one for 70 minutes, and this one works for 45.

I figured that the 45-minute battery is sufficient for our needs. And if it’s not, I could buy another battery. The batteries are expensive, so rationale number two. If I run down the battery, I simply go inside, charge the battery, cool off and live to eat weeds another day.

Sunday afternoon, buzzing after our successful date, I assembled the weed eater, glanced at the manual, and went outside already sweating from building the thing in the garage. I ate about six weeds, and then went inside to charge the battery. (The guy said it was 70 percent charged out of the box. It was not.)

I charged the thing. And then went out later and gave those weeds the what for.

Right away, the battery-powered element of this new tool paid for itself. I didn’t have to collect the extension cords. I didn’t have to run them to an outlet and plan my attack based on cord length and outlet placement. And, when I was done, I didn’t have to roll cords back up. Two or three more rounds, I figure, and this will have paid for itself based on convenience alone. And when has anyone ever been enthused about running a weed eater.

So now I’m rethinking my positions — not strongly held, mind you — about battery-powered power tools.

Today, buzzing after my successful weed eating efforts, I spent the afternoon at one of the local libraries doing school work. Being a public library, it was only somewhat useful. But nevertheless, I got something for my efforts. See if you can guess which one of these books was the most helpful.

The one in the middle. I picked it up as a flier, and eventually decided it will define an entire day’s worth of lecture. Then I bought the book. Not from the library, which would make it a store. But through the powers of the 21st century I found it on e-bay and had it sent directly to the house. Next week, I guess, I’ll start making slides.

As I write this, there’s a back-to-school commercial on, which isn’t bumming out anyone.

Anyway, this class will meet 28 times in the fall term. I think 19 of those meetings are now accounted for, so I have had some productive summer work.

But there is much more to do!

We got invited for a bike ride by our neighbor. The guy that lives behind us is also a big fan of the self-propelled two wheel experience. He’s of the sort that must decide which bicycle he wants to ride today. It’s a problem to which I aspire.

He bought a new computer and the Varia radar, which we have and enjoy. It’s a light that you attach to the seat rails. It sense cars and communicates with the headset and you when cars are coming up from behind. Or, as one Reddit reviewer wrote, it’s “The peace of mind I didn’t know I needed.”

We coached him through it, though he had most of it figured out in the brief ride around the neighborhood to our place. Then my lovely bride found she had a flat, so she had to switch bikes. (It’s a problem to which I aspire. The bikes, not the flats.) Not wanting to hold us up, she didn’t put her Varia on her bike. And, of course, after about half an hour mine died. (So, after all that about battery-powered tools above, I’m now looking for an extension cord version of the bike radar.) That meant our neighbor had the only running radar.

Of course, we put him the front, as you see the shadows pictured here.

It would, of course, make sense for him to be in the rear, so he could call out the cars. But it was in the evening and we were on some mostly abandoned roads and it wasn’t a problem. Plus we can watch out for vehicles the old fashioned way, listening and looking.

There’s not really a good point or resolution to this story, other than we enjoyed a nice ride. As we got back to the neighborhood they turned right and I kept on riding, just to add a few more miles before dinner.

There are always more miles ahead.

OK, that’s 1,220 words, and the best ones were about bikes and a weed eater. I should probably wrap this up.

adventures / friends / Monday / photo — Comments Off
7
Apr 25

Back from Old Dominion

We are back from the conference, and I will now try to get back into the regular routine. Two conferences so close together, and at this high-volume stage of the semester … It will probably take weeks, if it ever happens at all. The nice thing is that Wednesday is group presentation day. We’ll learn about 10 new countries and I don’t have to do the prep work.

Why, I may as well go to another conference! Or back to Norfolk. The views were lovely.

This is from the VIP lounge atop the conference hotel. We aren’t I, and hardly VI, but we found ourselves sneaking in using the argument that we are, in fact, Ps.

The guy working the desk at the VIP lounge didn’t care, either way. It was as if knowing of its existence was the password. And so we had commanding sight lines of the waterfront.

So we went back another time. Because they also had some pretty good cookies.

They also had a clip-art-photo-ready conference table. We sat around that and enjoyed our powerful position dominating the skyline and talked about … nothing of importance. It was great.

We had a great view on Saturday evening, too, at a business meeting. As the discussion of the mass communication was discusseed, you could look right over the table and see this view behind the speaker.

Being on the water does have its charms.

We drove home yesterday. All of our friends caught their flights — indeed, we took one to the airport — outside of which I saw this modern art masterpiece.

Some of them made it home on time. Others got diverted because of weather, but they are eventually got in safely. And we’ll see them again next year, I hope. At least once a year is better than once every seven.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go come up with some presentation ideas for next year’s conference.

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4
Apr 25

Another day of saying things in thoughtful ways

Today at the conference I was on a panel titled Mediated Fandom in Turbulent Times. The panelists talked about how movies, TV shows, podcasts, sports teams, and social media channels offer us versions of mediated fandom, which can serve as places of mooring. A recurring theme was about how we retreat to things we know, which everyone understands on a modern practical level.

I said one of the basic concepts of trauma is a loss of control, and how watching Friends or Gilmore Girls or the like for the 90th team is a means of re-establishing a bit of that control, if only for a short while. We know the characters, the plot points, and the outcomes. This, I said to the room of academics, is another reason why you see a lot of movies from the students’ youth as on-campus activities.

The rest of the panel was better, because the panelists were great.

The whole conference is really good. Here’s a panel I watch from the audience. These are some of our friends, representing universities in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi. These are some of the brightest and most thoughtful minds in political communication, talking about the last two election cycles.

Bill, Brian, Melissa, and Barry, talked about political realignment, overcoming hyperbole, socially mediated politics and memes. They’re also our friends, and the best part about the whole trip is hanging out with them. Everything is a joke, or incredibly insightful, or both. And they’re all so kind; just lovely people. Why they put up with me I don’t understand, but I’m grateful for it. And they have to put up with me for another day-and-a-half.

adventures / friends / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
2
Apr 25

Conferencing

After I did the monthly cleaning of the computer — updating some spreadsheets and other documents, deleting stuff from the desktop and the downloads folder, and so on — I returned to the equally exciting task of packing for this afternoon’s road trip.

But before we left I got a stern talking to. Poseidon pointed out I was behind on the site’s most popular weekly feature, the check-in on the kitties. And he was also upset that, last week, Phoebe got a closeup and he did not.

They are jealous cats. So here you go, Poe, a recent closeup, to keep things equal between the two of you.

Phoebe also noticed we were two days behind. She was gearing up to tell me all about it, you can tell.

Next week he’ll probably want a photo in a bag or box, too. They are very jealous of one another. Him more so, but only because they haven’t yet realized that jealous is a thing they can compete for, too.

And, so you see, the are doing just great. Now they’re hanging out with a sitter, because we are just under five hours away, in beautiful and scenic Norfolk. Here’s a blurry shot from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel route. See if you can guess which this part is, bridge or tunnel.

We’re in Norfolk for the 95th convention of the Southern States Communication Association. This is our 10th time to this conference, and then second time we’ve attended it in Norfolk. The first time, my lovely bride won an award there. We’ve won two others, too. These days, we go back to point that out a little, but mostly to see our friends.

This is our first time at SSCA since 2017, though, because of other obligations, travel budget reasons and Covid.

Most everyone got in in time for dinner tonight, so we had some catching up today. We had blueberry french toast at this restaurant near the hotel.

And it was great, but seeing our friends was even better. You can text people and have group chats and do all of that, but when youget to see them in person you realize keenly what’s been lacking. These are sweet, sassy, incredibly smart people, people we have worked with and presented with and laughed with and so on since grad school. We get to spend a long weekend hanging out with them, and call it work.