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A learned man says things to us, let’s listen

This morning we heard historian David McCullough speak. He filled up a little under one-half of the Arena, which demonstrated that there’s not a good mid-sized venue on campus:

I’ve read McCullough since I was in college, Truman was his first work I bought. He read letters from Mary Jane Truman, complaining to her brother, the president, about how much of an imposition all of this president business had become, his point being “History is about life, not about boring textbooks. It shouldn’t be taught with boring textbooks. It is about humans.”

McCullough also discussed John Adams, the subject of his other Pulitzer winning book. Adams was brilliant, even though most of what you learn about him in school — if even this — were the alien and sedition acts. An unfortunate series of legislation, for certain, but not all the man was by a long stretch. Perhaps you’ve heard about him on HBO. But that wasn’t the extent of the second president, either. McCullough mentioned reading the works of his subjects, and discovering that in his diary Adams would often write one line, “At home thinking.”

“Oh to know what was going on in that wonderful mind,” which gave his audience a little insight into the romantic notion of knowing the people he’s writing about better than he knows anyone else.

History is the best trainer, he said, no matter your field. It was a tough speech, in a way, because there were plenty of older folks in the audience, a few college students and a large group of high schoolers. The landscape was far and wide, then, but he had some universal lessons. I liked this one, which he directed at the large group of high school students who were there, “What a delight to be caught up in the love of learning.”

I use a similar line from time to time. Learning the joy of learning is the true education.

“History is an anecdote to the hubris of the present. It is an aid to navigation in difficult times.”

And then he got chipper. He’d already talked about how we are soft compared to our ancestors, comparing our troubles with previous generations. Think of any medical example and you’ll be on the same page. Everyone with any age on them in the crowd knew what he was getting at. (Meaning people who’ve never used the #FirstWorldProblems configuration before.)

“A lot of people feel our country is in decline. I don’t think so. Our history shows when we have problems we solve them … I am an optimist. I feel the best is yet to come. And on we go,” he said, wrapping up a nice little 40 minute talk.

(Some other good McCullough books I’ve read: 1776, The Great Bridge and The Path Between the Seas.)

Got in a quick 20 mile ride in the evening, suffering the entire way. It has been too long since I’ve been in the saddle and it felt like it, especially in my knee. What does it mean when there’s a numbed, hollow feeling where you’d expect a ligament to be?

But it was a nice ride, out through the neighborhood, past the state park and down the waterfall hill. That let’s you cost for almost a mile. But then you have to ride back up another side of that hill, which is about two miles of gentle climbing which is topped by church where there is frequently lots of praying: Please let this hill end. Another turn and then you fall down to the creek bed, over a new bridge and then back out again. A few more miles puts you back in the neighborhood and then you’re just racing daylight.

Tonight I made recruiting calls, which I am convinced are one of those things that make the world go ’round. Think of it. The world is a big place. It takes a lot of things to move the world around. Me calling students and singing praises about our beautiful campus and all of the potential in our program is one of them.

Twice tonight I called, got the voicemail, started leaving a message and then had that person return my call before I’d completed the voicemail. I do not understand this. I prefer to allow a moment to pass, discover what, if anything, the person on the other end of the call would like to share with me. After which, of course, I can turn to the mediated correspondence of choice and contribute my portion, as necessary. Otherwise I’m just making people repeat themselves.

Things to read which I found interesting today … Someone found an 18-foot-long creature in the sea and thought “I must physically haul this monster to the surface and shore, so that others might note its splendor.” So, naturally, you run the smallest version of the photo possible. The monster is big, the photo is tiny and that dog has no camera sense.

It all makes sense if you click the link. And squint.

This is a bit old, but … House members forced to reuse gym towels. I do not think they realize how these quotes play at home, or with the people that are currently out of work — and, thus, at home — because of the shutdown. Politics aside, there’s something to be said about thinking about the quotes you offer media. Skim some of the comments, by the way.

This fellow, hopefully this hale fellow, is shocked by what he’s lately learned. Obamacare will double my monthly premium (according to Kaiser):

My wife and I just got our updates from Kaiser telling us what our 2014 rates will be. Her monthly has been $168 this year, mine $150. We have a high deductible. We are generally healthy people who don’t go to the doctor often. I barely ever go. The insurance is in case of a major catastrophe.

Well, now, because of Obamacare, my wife’s rate is gong to $302 per month and mine is jumping to $284.

[…]

I never felt too good about how this was passed and what it entailed, but I figured if it saved Americans money, I could go along with it.

I don’t know what to think now. This appears, in my experience, to not be a reform for the people.

Lot of that going around these days.

Me? Still haven’t been told, which is nice. (Is anyone running a Tumblr on these then and now prices? Someone should.)

Most important: Syrup Sopping is this weekend. Grab some biscuits, get to Loachapoka.

Can’t wait.

history / journalism / links / Monday / things to read — Comments Off
14
Oct 13

Happy Columbus Day

Happy Columbus Day!

I’ve never been to a town named Columbus. To my recollection I’ve never met anyone named Christopher.

I’ve known several Italians. As far as I know none of them worked for any Spanish royalty.

I’ve seen the ocean, but usually on a motorized vessel, and never in ships of three.

I’m not a fan of subjugation, tyranny or any of the other things that we’ve lately come to attach to the explorer.

He was apparently tall. Six feet says the Internet. He weighed 237 pounds. Or 159 pounds. These things all seem difficult to know, particularly since we don’t know what he looked like.

Clearly I have nothing.

Things to read, which I found interesting today …

We live in the future. ‘Bionic Man’ Walks, Breathes With Artificial Parts

Well, yeah. Walmart shelves in Springhill, Mansfield, cleared in EBT glitch:

Shelves in Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA were reportedly cleared Saturday night, when the stores allowed purchases on EBT cards even though they were not showing limits.

The chaos that followed ultimately required intervention from local police, and left behind numerous carts filled to overflowing, apparently abandoned when the glitch-spurred shopping frenzy ended.

The “Salute Seen Around The World” Wounded Ranger Salutes Commander Despite Injuries:

Despite being in intense pain and mental duress, Josh remained alert and compassionate to the limited Rangers that were allowed to visit his bedside. Prior to Josh being moved to Germany for his eventual flight to America, we conducted a ceremony to award him with the Purple Heart for wounds received in action.

A simple ceremony, you can picture a room full of Rangers, leaders, doctors, and nurses surrounding his bedside while the Ranger Regimental Commander pinned the Purple Heart to his blanket. During the presentation the Commander publishes the official orders verbally and leaned over Josh to thank him for his sacrifice.

Josh, whom everybody in the room (over 50 people) assumed to be unconscious, began to move his right arm under the blanket in a diligent effort to salute the Commander as is customary during these ceremonies. Despite his wounds, wrappings, tubes, and pain, Josh fought the doctor who was trying to restrain his right arm and rendered the most beautiful salute any person in that room had ever seen.

Maybe because he is a Ranger, but that story reminded me of this one, from 2009.

And they are both stories we should never forget.

On the other side of the spectrum of the human condition, email is hard. Technology and the College Generation:

Morgan Judge, a sophomore at Fordham University in New York, said she thought it was “cool” last semester when a professor announced that students could text him. Then she received one from him: “Check your e-mail for an update on the assignment.”

“E-mail has never really been a fun thing to use,” said Ms. Judge, 19. “It’s always like, ‘This is something you have to do.’ School is a boring thing. E-mail is a boring thing. It goes together.”

[…]

Brittney Carver, 20, a junior at the University of Iowa, said she checks her e-mail once a day, more if she’s expecting something. Before college, she used e-mail mostly for buying concert tickets. She said she would never use it if she could avoid it.

“I never know what to say in the subject line and how to address the person,” Ms. Carver said. “Is it mister or professor and comma and return, and do I have to capitalize and use full sentences? By the time I do all that I could have an answer by text if I could text them.”

I feel bad for these students insofar as they don’t realize how these quotes come off in the story. But the piece’s general observation is sound. Students don’t often react to email the way that email senders would want them to. That’s a real problem, though I’d never considered email as hard.

Soon we’ll be Snapchatting all of our coursework, one supposes.

I will not be Snapchatting coursework.

Happy Columbus Day!

errands / journalism / links / running / things to read / Thursday — Comments Off
10
Oct 13

Downloading a tux pattern to avoid this in the future

And I ran. I ran not far away. Really a jog, just a little ways …

Enjoy those seagulls in your head. They chased me for 2.5 miles today. And then I was finished running. It was, as they say, one of those bad days. I would have previously thought you’d need a series of good days with which to surround a bad run, but this is apparently not the case.

The Yankee said later to think of it this way: You ran 2.5 miles and you think that was bad, which you wouldn’t have thought at the beginning of the year. Which is true, but also missing the point. It was not a good run.

But it was fine. The sun and shade were delightful mixtures. The pavement was suitably hard. The body parts weren’t in a terrible amount of discomfort. The breathing was no more labored than normal. I was just finished. My body seemed tired and my mind didn’t bother to try to convince me otherwise. So I stopped running.

Need to make sure that doesn’t happen again anytime soon.

Physical therapy today, where we moved up to the two-pound weights and added some new muscle movements, which together really wiped me out. I hope that is the saddest sentence I write today.

You stick a towel under your arm, pinch your shoulder back and move your arm in and out or up and down, depending on the routine. My amazing physical therapist had me do something today with both hands, which was new. Interestingly enough my bad shoulder felt better about that exercise than my good shoulder did.

Told you she was amazing.

There are the famous Thera-Band exercises. (We look like a physical therapy office at home, by the way, with my many Thera-Bands.) There are row exercises and bicep curls and lateral movements and so on. Then I get to repurpose a chair and use it for something approaching a push up. I dislike this exercise because it hurts my hands and wrist.

After all of that there’s the torture table where I go from resting on my stomach to arching out in such a way as to make a close-parenthesis mark that has fallen over. There is pulling on nylon and rubber straps that are attached to springs which lock into pulleys and eye-hooks. I try not to think of all the things on this table that could accidentally hurt me by pretending I’m doing a snow skiing long jump. Sometimes this distraction actually works.

We closed the session with an exercise I get nothing out of, which more than likely means I’m doing it wrong. You take a ball and roll it around in little circles on the wall while I pondering the now timeless dictate: wax on, wax off.

Picked up my tux this evening. This is the fifth visit to the rental store, each a more silly waste of time than the last visit. The first drop in was punctuated by a helpful gentleman who left you cold with the feeling he may or may not know what he’s doing and it may or may not be realized on your transaction. The second was the opposite, a man who knew his stuff, but with an air that suggests you might be leery of letting him park your car. The third visit was the first man, and this time came the measurements and he knew about this stuff. The fourth visit was Monday, because in true guy fashion, as soon as you get the thing arranged there will be a change in the parameters, necessitating a further visit, and a third and fourth person plugging aimlessly through software that was a bad idea for Windows 3.2.

So today was the fitting, double-checking the size and making sure no last minute alterations were needed. Which, if that were the case, would of course require a sixth visit. Happily that was not the case. A fifth person was there to make sure everything fell just as it should. She struggled in vain through this tedious software which would see semaphore as an upgrade to find me in the cobweb filled corners of the computer system.

What I’m saying is Jos. A Bank could do a better job of this if they wanted too. The staff have been helpful and polite, how they maintain that attitude in dealing with their software is a mystery.

So the tux is in hand. Looks nice. Fits well. Tomorrow it gets to travel.

Things to read which may be of interest …

Patriot Act author preps Freedom Act to rein in NSA:

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the original author of the USA Patriot Act, said Wednesday that he plans to introduce legislation in the “next few days” to restrict the National Security Agency’s surveillance power.

[…]

In a speech at the Cato Institute, Sensenbrenner argued that the Patriot Act’s “relevance” requirement was meant to prevent the kind of bulk collection the NSA is now conducting.

“This is something that Congress would have never authorized,” he said. “And since the administration has assumed this authority, Congress should not hesitate to stop it and stop it quickly.”

Long overdue. Here are more details, from The Guardian, which has seemingly beaten all of the traditional American media to the story. Curious.

And now a series of journalism pieces:

The rise of the reader: journalism in the age of the open web

Student newspapers in Northampton, South Hadley follow news industry trend with online editions

Report: Obama brings chilling effect on journalism

The Effects of Mass Surveillance on Journalism

And today’s Dumb Thing Which Is Dumb, which is threatening to become a regular feature here, Student stopped from handing out Constitutions on Constitution Day sues:

On Sept. 17, Robert Van Tuinen was passing out copies of the Constitution in honor of Constitution Day at Modesto Junior College in California when he was asked to stop. Officials told Van Tuinen that if he wanted to pass out literature, he could only do so in a designated “free speech zone” on campus and under college policies would be required to get permission in advance.

[…]

After the incident, Modesto Junior College President Jill Stearns issued a statement saying the school apologized to Van Tuinen and was working to clarify with campus officials that policies allow students to distribute printed material “as long as it does not disrupt the orderly operation of the college.” Stearns also said the school was reviewing its policies.

Is there video? Yes, there’s video:

First of all, the guy should be cited for holding his phone incorrectly, but that’s secondary.

I understand the concept. I appreciate what the universities, and Robert Van Tuinen’s Modesto Junior College is far from alone here, are trying to do. The application of “free speech zones,” however, leaves something to be desired.

One of those appeared on campus when I was in undergrad. It was a small square on a campus of 1,841 acres. They were, I’m sure, trying to balance the school’s real need to fulfill educational and research goals while limiting distraction. (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education may disagree.) Regardless, the solution is poor. One must also be aware of the supposedly largest free speech zone in the world, the 3.794 million square miles that is the United States.

Oh look, the local chapter of Young Americans for Liberty just had a demonstration at Auburn. It reads like a success. And, it turns out, the president of the YAL chapter at Samford is one of our photographers. Good for him.

Anyway, every campus being different — the layout, the culture, the traffic patterns and so on — there is no blanket solution. Some moderate to high traffic areas, some respectful distance away from classroom doors and windows and no amplification technology seem like a good place to start. Bring in too many opinions on the question and you run the risk of getting “That green space behind the alumni building” as a working policy.

Finally, someone distributing the U.S. Constitution should always be acceptable. We have enough problems with civics in this country as it is. We shouldn’t hamper it further.

journalism / links / Samford / things to read / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
9
Oct 13

Tips on how to excuse parenthood

Sometimes the day gets away from you. Sometimes you get away from the day. Others, one supposes, are pleasantly predictable, moving at just the right pace, each thing approaching as you expected, addressed, completed and reflected upon. In between there are days that have some combination of all of those attributes.

Today was none of those things. Which is not bad, or good, just a thing.

The students at the Crimson went strong until about 3 or 3:30 this morning. That is imprecise, but chronometer precision isn’t a necessary function of my world at that time of day. The late hour, being an early hour, also informs the day.

That’s what I’m getting at here. It was late. Today was early. Things moved accordingly.

Have I told you I work at a special place?

“The Samford University men’s basketball team added a new member this weekend, 7-year-old Nathaniel “Biggie” Henderson.”

I work at a special place.

That little boy has a disease that has only been diagnosed about 100 times worldwide, and he’s already endured a host of surgeries. Now he’s got a new team on his side:

Had a fun critique meeting today. The silliness overwhelmed us, but work was done. A little more levity in the middle of the week never hurt anyone, and don’t you think that cutline needs better punctuation?

You can see the online version of this week’s issue of course.

Ran into a former student this evening. She’s graduated. She completed a high profile internship in D.C. She now has a distinguished sounding title at her new job. Charming young lady and talented, with a great future ahead of her. I wonder how many times I say that a year.

Things to read that I thought you’d enjoy. Here’s your daily dose of silly. I remain of the opinion we’re going about this all wrong, but, this story got to use “‘Gestapo’ tactics” in an American headline, so there’s that unfortunate development:

Vaillancourt was one of thousands of people who found themselves in a national park as the federal government shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1. For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard.

The tourists were treated harshly by armed park employees, she said, so much so that some of the foreign tourists with limited English skills thought they were under arrest.

[…]

The bus stopped along a road when a large herd of bison passed nearby, and seniors filed out to take photos. Almost immediately, an armed ranger came by and ordered them to get back in, saying they couldn’t “recreate.” The tour guide, who had paid a $300 fee the day before to bring the group into the park, argued that the seniors weren’t “recreating,” just taking photos.

“She responded and said, ‘Sir, you are recreating,’ and her tone became very aggressive,” Vaillancourt said.

The seniors quickly filed back onboard and the bus went to the Old Faithful Inn, the park’s premier lodge located adjacent to the park’s most famous site, Old Faithful geyser. That was as close as they could get to the famous site — barricades were erected around Old Faithful, and the seniors were locked inside the hotel, where armed rangers stayed at the door.

The longer this goes on the more absurd the stories will get, it seems.

This young woman is studying to be a classical soprano in Scotland. She started following my campus blog today. I’ve been listening to some of her performances. It isn’t every day you meet talented singers. She fulfills the requirement. That link takes you to her performance as Eponine.

And now a few paragraphs pulled from this unfortunate essay about the nature of parenthood:

Parenthood, like war, is a state in which it’s impossible to be moral. Worse, the moral weakness of parents is always on display, for children bear witness to their incessant ethical hairsplitting. It may be delicious fun to tut-tut over the corrupt child-rearing customs (and to pity the progeny) of the aggressively rising class: the mother who, according to Urban Baby legend, slept with the admissions officer (with her husband’s consent!) to get her child into the Ivy League, or the one who sued an Upper East Side preschool for insufficiently preparing her 4-year-old for a private-school test. But such Schadenfreude elides a more difficult existential truth, which is that ever since Noah installed his own three sons upon the ark and left the rest of the world to drown, protecting and privileging one’s own kids at the expense of other people has been the name of the game. It’s what parents do.

Your child constantly puts you in quandaries, but everyone is right there, so ignore the lice, do their homework, hold your kid back, game the system. Everyone is doing it!

Not being a parent, I can only pretend to understand. Surely I’d want the best, and to see my child was well prepared for this and that as possible. But I’m also fairly certain that, on the off chance I did not have a perfect child, I’d want them to learn from any struggles and imperfections, so that they could, maybe, appreciate the things that come easier to them and see those less ideal moments for what they really are.

But, then, I have probably fewer answers than the author of that piece, I know. I’m only trying to be a member of her “aggressively rising class” a frame through which she portrays the most condescending examples of life you’d find in almost any other magazine, but just feel so delightfully tacky here.

Most parents don’t think of themselves as the kind of people who prize winning above all. Most hope to teach their kids what used to be called “good values,” which a previous generation learned in scouts or church: kindness and compassion, respect and responsibility, to “do unto others” and be grateful for small things.

Society now looks back and down upon solid values as quaint relics of a past age, because moral equivalence has diminished even the Golden Rule.

And then: “All the data show a generation far less ethical than their parents.” Soon after we’re learning of “a hazy space where right and wrong seem porous” which is just a logical excuse to allow for more modern superiority through the ill-defined virtues of a mantra that says no one is wrong, unless their righter or wronger than me: “There’s lots of room to wiggle here. Especially when the transgressions get you where you want to be.”

So we suggest that parents do all for their kids yet haven’t transferred a moral foundation which just makes things somewhat foggy and non-descript, but, hey, it’s for the children and so then all bets are off.

This is an article indulging our judgmental lapses. So you think I don’t raise my children according to what I read in New York Magazine, thank heavens. And you read the wide-ranging examples offered by this mother of a 9-year-old and you wonder about the ethics of others. It is, as she says, tough out there. You get the feeling it is the most difficult when she intervenes, though.

Finally, a few things from the multimedia blog that I forgot to mention yesterday:

Protip: Think before pressing “tweet”

Why geography is important in newsrooms

Release your inner RebelMouse And, now, an evening where I’ll be in bed before midnight.

I do not know what is happening. / iPhone / journalism / links / Samford / swimming / things to read / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
8
Oct 13

You’ve no choice — you will like the video at the end

I can write my day in one sentence.

In the morning I read, in the afternoon I worked in the library, in the evening I was in the pool and tonight I’m with the student-journalists who are putting their newspaper together.

Which, in the scheme of things, makes this a pretty great day. Dinner could have been healthier, but I promised myself a Milo’s burger if I swam a lot. So it was that I caught up on the morning’s news. I sat in a deep leather chair and watched the reflection of the world in the dark corners of my computer screen poring in from the window behind me.

It was a beautiful day. I had a conversation about it while I was trying to make this panorama. A colleague and I decided we shouldn’t be inside, but rather on the quad:

Photosynth, showing me the errors in my panoramas, but only after I uploaded the thing, ever since I got the app. However, if you are in a picturesque place, that’s a pretty good free app.

I made it to the pool just in time to spend that sunlight-twilight-dusk-darkness period carefully avoiding drowning.

I swam 1.5 miles tonight. I’ve been told by the best swimmer in my house — and probably the best swimmer on our side of town — that I should note these measurements in a different unit. So I swam 2,700 yards.

I do not know what is happening.

Every third lap I did freestyle, so 900 free. And remember, I couldn’t do half a length of any pool like that this summer on account of my shoulder and collarbone.

The last 200 yards or so were even more ragged than usual. I am slow, and it isn’t pretty, but I am pleased.

Then a burger and fries. Finally back to the office for a night enjoying the editors put their paper together. It’ll be done sometime after midnight. It’ll be on newsstands tomorrow. I’m sure it’ll be another strong edition.

Things to read, which I thought you might enjoy …

This is, perhaps, the best thing I’ve ever read on HuffPo, Nadine Schweigert, North Dakota Woman, ‘Marries Herself,’ Opens Up About Self-Marriage

The marriage took place among friends and family who were encouraged to “blow kisses to the world” after she exchanged rings with her “inner groom”, My Fox Phoenix reports.

“I feel very empowered, very happy, very joyous … I want to share that with people, and also the people that were in attendance, it’s a form of accountability,” Nadien Schweigert told Anderson Cooper.

So long as you now feel accountable to yourself and, one presumes, for yourself.

This is just about the most offensive story of the day, I should think. Mother of fallen soldier denied death benefits: ‘I won’t ever understand it’:

Collins said she feels lucky to have a job and supervisors who will allow her to take paid time off to take care of her son’s return. For those who aren’t as fortunate, the death gratuity may be critical to their survival and sense of closure.

“While that benefit may not be urgent for me, it’s urgent for somebody. There’s somebody who needs to fly their family home. There’s somebody who needs to have expenses covered, or be able to take off work to handle the affairs of their loved one,” she said. “And to know that the government shutting down will delay their ability to handle their business, some people just won’t be able to do it.

While, financially,she is able to address her son’s return, Collins said she still could use help in paying for his funeral.

“I don’t necessarily have $10,000 to bury my son,” she said. While she is working with the funeral home to make arrangements, she wondered: “Am I going to be on a payment plan for the rest of my life so that my son can have the services that he deserves?”

You also have this feeling that this particular cruelty will be remedied right quickly now that Congress sees it played out in the media. And that should tell you everything you need to know about how the government works.

The best story of the day is an easy one. North Haledon quadruple amputee teen happy to play soccer, motivate others:

Jorge has lived with amputated limbs since he underwent a life-saving procedure at the age of 14 months because of an infection — most likely meningococcal meningitis, Dyksen said. “His skin was just rotting away,” she said. Today, he’s healthy.

It’s not only on the soccer field that Jorge has looked past his physical constraints. He’s also a member of the school bowling team, using both arms to roll a ball without holes. And he’s also prolific at text-messaging, family friend Carla Nash said, hitting away at keys without his prosthetic right hand. In the classroom, he holds a pencil between both arms.

[…]

He said he hopes to be a motivational speaker as an adult. “Because I know there’s people out there that really need motivation and everyone says I always motivate other people,” he said. “I help them get happy in their lives. I’m always smiling and I just feel like that’s the right thing for me.”

Good for Jorge.

You want video? They’ve got video.

“Nothing is impossible,” his teammates say. Special young man, there.