Samford

Monday / photo / Samford / video — Comments Off on Defective isn’t the first word I’d use
16
Sep 13

Defective isn’t the first word I’d use

So I’m just driving to campus today and there’s a loud bang and a big yanking shudder to the left and all of the rocking of the car that comes with that and the fluttering out the back of part of my tire.

Or all of it.

There was a minivan just almost in my blindspot in the next lane and, fortunately, the entire tread of the tire managed to not hit them. Inside the minivan was a guy who does tires for a living. (It is true what they say in the South. Someone will be along directly to help you. Don’t get in their way. They live for this.)

So I pull things out of the truck to pull out the spare. I dig out the jack. Without a word he pulls that piece of junk off the car and puts the extra in place. I have changed more than a few tires in my life, but I was glad he was there to help put the old one in the trunk so I didn’t have to pick up something heavy after just having therapy and ice on my shoulder.

It was, he observed wryly, defective. And Goodrich has warranties. The tire isn’t that old, after all.

Here is a still shot, so you can admire the damage in detail.

tire

That’s at the place where I got a new tire, where one guy said he’d never had a job like this. And another guy said “God was riding witchou.”

The weird thing is, aside from the bang and flop and jerk of the car was that as soon as that was over the ride was perfect. Of course I immediately slowed, changed lanes and stopped on the shoulder of the freeway. You drive with a tire like that and all deities major or minor will find they have other plans.

There is no tread anywhere on the tire, save that one little thumb-sized piece in the bottom left corner.

But, hey! I got a discount on the new tire. It seems this one had failed. And become defective.

In class we discussed the basic news story and I sent the students on their way to get quotes and write some brief copy. Exciting times in the classroom, to be sure. Afterward I spent the evening counting all of the stars, lucky and unlucky.

The day started with physical rehabilitation where my trainer put me on a device borrowed directly from the Spanish Inquisition, which allows us one of the few still-good Python bits.

Mostly, I think, because it doesn’t spend the entire scene deconstructing the British culture. (Which they did.)

My torture device wasn’t designed for torture, but it had the look. (“Oh. The one in the corner?”) It did involve knobs and slats and springs and straps and rack and pinion steering. It was a modular device that, one presumes, does many things. For me it meant being on my stomach, reaching above to grab leather straps, pulling down, arching back and so on. It was yet another set of muscle groups I didn’t know I was supposed to have.

It occurs to me that much of physical therapy, set to music, could be a post-modern expressionist dance.

I’m actually doing some of these things. Maybe we’ve been missing the point all along.

Check your tires, drive safely and have a great day.

collarbone / cycling / Friday / journalism / links / Samford / things to read — Comments Off on A brief one
13
Sep 13

A brief one

Late in the day I got out for a little bike ride and found myself on a bad road. Six miles from home and everything in my shoulder locked up again. So, about that idea of a journal, one of the stimuli may be physical tension. I’d just spent a bit of time with my elbows locked, and my scapula pinched, after all.

In the last month or so I’ve just gotten mentally tired of the entire thing. I can’t explain it, but when it hurts it feels like it all hurts differently.

So I continue to do my exercises because I’m otherwise a healthy boy who should be able to overcome this.

All of this because of a big stick on a bike path. Funny, really. I’m almost never on a bike path. And I never run over sticks, nor do I ever intend to again. (This is also why I don’t ride a mountain bike.)

Things to read and listen to. This is what space sounds like, way, way out there. On the one hand Voyager has made it beyond the solar system. And this latest amazing achievement is another reminder that we have all but taken the people out of active space work. Robotics are interesting, but we should be out there taking steps to see and hear these things ourselves.

No doubt we’ll search each other when we do finally go. That’ll be all your fault. Ask this guy.

Well, fasten your flipping seatbelt because, according to a former DHS official, if you’ve been groped by TSA agents, you “can’t blame the TSA;” instead, he implied that you should blame privacy advocates.

[…]

“Unlike border officials, though, TSA ended up taking more time to inspect everyone, treating all travelers as potential terrorists, and subjecting many to whole-body imaging and enhanced pat-downs. We can’t blame TSA for this wrong turn, though. Privacy lobbies persuaded Congress that TSA couldn’t be trusted with data about the travelers it was screening. With no information about travelers, TSA had no choice but to treat them all alike, sending us down a long blind alley that has inconvenienced billions.”

What happens when the government tries to define journalists:

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., complained that the definition of a journalist was too broad. Pushing back, Feinstein said the intent was to set up a test to determine a bona fide journalist.

“I think journalism has a certain tradecraft. It’s a profession. I recognize that everyone can think they’re a journalist,” Feinstein said.

The government has no real place in saying who is a journalist.

These are people trying to define your freedoms. Think on that. Ed Morrissey, and then Matt Drudge, continue the thought:

“The entire approach is misguided. I think that journalism is an action, it’s not a status, it’s not a membership. And I think they’re treating it like a membership and they’re doing it in a way that is intended to be basically rent-seeking for the larger players in the field,” Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey told POLITICO. “It’s just a bad idea.”

[…]

“Gov’t declaring who qualifies for freedom of press in digital age is ridiculous! It belongs to anyone for any reason. No amendment necessary.”

Morrissey calls it a licensing law, which it may well be. Also, it is outrageous.

It will, as it always does, come down to control. And there’s plenty of control of journalists already.

Meanwhile, in a separate but related story:

The US FISA Court has ordered the government to declassify some aspects of its phone and internet surveillance program, the most recent of several disclosures in the past month. In the wake of leaks over the summer, the ACLU and many others have filed suit against the US government, looking for everything from more transparency to a way to take down a powerful surveillance program. The latter goal is still far from fruition, but the ACLU and Yahoo have both made progress in the former with a pair of recent court decisions.

The government would like to define and then restrict by shield law manipulation who can safely report on pressing issues of the day. What could go wrong?

Some nice news from Samford:

Samford University’s fall enrollment has reached an all-time high of 4,833 students, university officials announced today.

The total exceeds last year’s record-setting enrollment of 4,758 and marks the fifth consecutive year of record-setting enrollment for the university.

Explains the parking.

collarbone / journalism / links / Samford / Storify / Twitter / Wednesday — Comments Off on A lot about today’s news
11
Sep 13

A lot about today’s news

Not the way they’d anticipated this playing, I’d bet. On 9/11 the newspapers of the Alabama Media Group ran their cloned front pages to celebrate the 100th birthday of Paul Bryant. He died in 1983. Ignored was the 12th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. The reaction on Twitter was awkward. I’ve collected them on Storify. (Blogging continues below.)

That isn’t cherry picking. I searched Bryant’s name and the names of the papers and AMG. I didn’t add one which was linkbait. I chose not to include one which was tangential at best. I avoided anything that was purely directed at the University of Alabama. (They had their own unfortunate public response after today asking people to honor the former coach by changing their Facebook photos, but that’s not relevant here.)

Furthermore, of the 13 dailies from the state I surveyed today (via newseum.org) two localized 9/11. Two offered skybox teases to 9/11 content elsewhere in the paper. Four ran some elements of a wire story about New York’s current mayor Michael Bloomberg. There was not as much Syria on the collected front pages as you might imagine, either.

Meanwhile, talk radio host Matt Murphy had his way with the newspaper. You can hear that segment here.

As for the Crimson the paper looks impressive considering this is the new staff’s first paper. I’ve challenged them to start strong and become great quickly, and they’re answering. Here are the first two pages. They have plenty they can concentrate on, but I do believe this is the best first issue paper I’ve seen in my six years at Samford. And we’ve seen some fine starts, too.

They worked on it until almost daylight.

You can see the rest of the stories at samfordcrimson.com.

The department’s Twitter account liked it:

The day marched by quickly. Lunch at my desk. People talking about the paper. Phone calls, emails and so on.

There were meetings. Meetings where one ended so another could begin. Talking with students, an advertising meeting, the paper’s critique meeting.

Left work to go on step two of the tuxedo rental odyssey. Stopped by a place last week to try to match a rental with someone (whom I’ve yet to meet) who owns a tux with a fair description and one photograph. The guy last week said it couldn’t be done. The guy this week, in step two, told me to go back to step one.

Good thing everyone will be busy staring at the bride and not me. Maybe they won’t notice if I go with the blue ruffles.

Got home and everything seized up on me again. Went immediately to the foam roller and abandoned that for the flat floor. That helped a bit, but I ended up in such a state I didn’t know how to get up.

But, more therapy tomorrow, so there’s that.

collarbone / journalism / links / Monday / Samford / things to read — Comments Off on The day I couldn’t turn my head or move, really
9
Sep 13

The day I couldn’t turn my head or move, really

Started the new physical therapy routine on my shoulder today. Met with the nice lady who is going to make me all better. She asked what brings on the problems and I wish I knew, because I could stop doing them. And not knowing is unusual because I am typically very causal about what brings about the things that hurt.

Maybe I should start a journal.

So I have these movements and those stretches. Basically today was all about using my arm and my body against itself in ways you don’t normally use your muscle groups. Which means the entire thing is shaky and humorous. And I have homework of stretches and flexes and things.

She gave me an ice pack and sent me on my way. Twenty minutes later my shoulder spasmed hard. (Note to self: You did it, lady! You’re the cause!)

And then my other shoulder and my neck. Such that by the end of the night I could only barely move my upper body. That was a lot of fun. Still is, really.

In class we talked about Associated Press style. We discussed the front pages stories in a national newspaper, a small town community rag and a campus publication.

What makes this story important? What makes it unimportant? Should it have been placed here? There were good answers to these questions, even for the stories that, probably, weren’t really front page stories.

Less obvious were the answers to this question: Who else should have been quoted in this story?

What was fun was trying to find those newspapers. Like pay phones, newspaper boxes have disappeared. And, yes, I understand the business. What I mean is that in places where you saw boxes earlier this year, they are often gone today. The day was coming. The day has quietly come. If by day you mean a big truck with someone throwing newspaper boxes in the back.

Things to read, or items that interested me today.

There was a fireball in the sky here tonight. Twitter — watch what I do here — lit up with the news. Here is a record of some of the sightings. Four meteor cameras spotted it. Some observers noted a sonic boom, which demonstrates how long and low into the atmosphere the object survived.

Poor dears in Texas are having trouble because they booked their wedding in the fall and the date coincides with the later booking of This Week’s Game of the Century:

“The game will probably be ending right around the time I say ‘I do,’ ” sighed the bride-to-be.

[…]

“Trying to schedule a wedding on a home-game weekend is nearly impossible,” said Susan Keough, a wedding coordinator in College Station.

[…]

The wedding of Ms. Mies and Logan Parker is set for 6 p.m. at Astin Mansion, a venue in Bryan, Texas, that employs its own chefs and florists. The unusual circumstances, Ms. Mies said, will be an unexpected test for her 100 guests: Some men will be scurrying over for the reception from the stadium, where the game has a 2:30 p.m. kickoff, while their wives come early for the ceremony.

“You find out who your friends are,” Ms. Mies said, “and who loves you the most.”

Also, your friends find out if you consider things that may be important to them, like locally important cultural events, before scheduling your big day. This news is not news in our beautiful corner of things, but surely looks very eccentric and odd to every other part of the country.

Here’s more news: Spring weddings are beautiful and summer weddings are possible, despite the heat.

I attended a wedding held during the Iron Bowl one year. The wedding was held in a private home, so they could have moved things up a few hours. But, nooooo.

I wonder why someone doesn’t get married actually at a game. With the big HD screens in stadiums these days you’d have an entertaining and unique experience. Maybe the coach comes over afterward and gives you a game ball.

And, finally, Samford moves up a step in the (sometimes dubious) U.S. News and World Report’s rankings. Number three in the South.

adventures / Friday / Samford — Comments Off on A Friday spent largely in the car
6
Sep 13

A Friday spent largely in the car

One of the few perks our paper’s editorial staff gets is a free lunch, which was today. These students work hard and they get a few meals and small checks and loads of experience and clips and a big resume builder out of the arrangement. Not a bad deal when you think about it.

So today was the lunch that the marketing and communication office arranges. They meet each other, students-journalists and PR pros, and each talks about what they do. In the case of our university almost all of the people who work in that office are Samford grads. Most of them were in the current students’ position some or several years ago. So there is a commonality.

There is also a lot of “This is what we do” and “This is how we can help you.” That’s mixed with “This is what we won’t do” and “We look at you like every other media outlet we work with.” And they do, by and large. We’re very lucky, as a newsroom, to have the circumstance that we do with the administration and the media relations folks and the department and all the dynamics that interact with students toiling away in their learning laboratory.

Also, at lunch there is variant of derby pie, and you don’t turn that down.

Because so many people joined us today we could not dine in the Rotunda Club, which is where this lunch is typically held and where the silverware is more shiny, the food more tasty and the linens more … lineny … than anywhere else on campus. (They also serve, in the Rotunda Club, the best fried chicken I have ever had. And, being from the South, I know from fried chicken.)

The Rotunda Club is the only place on campus that serves that particular pie, but our colleague who arranged the meal said “the pie must be brought to me,” and so it was. And it was good.

After that someone took promotional pictures. I found my way into a brief meeting. Then I had a long chat with the new editor, a sharp, hardworking and thoughtful type.

There was one other administrative conversation, another errand and then back in the car.

Because now we are in Georgia.

There is a race tomorrow. I am not racing as I have not felt right all week, but The Yankee will be taking part in the aquabike — the swim/ride race — in the morning. We will wake up before sunrise and we will be on the way from the hotel to the event before the sky gets bright. And she is going to have an amazing race.

I know this because she almost always does, and because we had Italian tonight. We visited La Trattoria, which was pretty good for small town Italian food. The hostess was the waitress. She might have also had to go out back and grow the vegetables that eventually made their way into the minestrone and in the lasagna. They offered a spicy marinara, but there are worse things. Like the wait. They thought they were serving in Rome, where the wait is part of the meal.

In Georgia? Well, you’re in Georgia, aren’t you?

Random observation: I’ve never been on a trip to central or northern Georgia in my adult life where they weren’t currently wrecking the roads. We know the work is orchestrated by Georgia Tech grads — engineers and all.

The shoddy condition can only be because they have to employ Georgia grads, right?

Uga

Ahh, the liberating season of football season jokes.

Have a great weekend! We’re going to race!

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