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Samford

Back in school

Classes started back today. This is one of my favorite days, the syllabus day. I can just prattle on and on … but you have to find the right mix of that on the first day.

You have, precisely, a six-and-a-half minute margin of error there.

But things went smoothly. There was only one question after class, and just a few during. That means that everything has been explained perfectly in a triumphant victory for reason and straightforwardness. Or you’ve been tuned out. You can never tell.

One of my jokes didn’t get laughed at. But the rest got good giggles, so if you factor in the questions to chuckles ratio the day worked out well.

There were also two meetings. Important information was imparted. Tasks were distributed. Notes were taken. They were good meetings.

At dinner I stepped out of my comfort zone. I went to Jason’s Deli, which is perfectly normal. But! I read the menu, and with the nice lady who always sees me and makes small talk like we’re old friends waiting patiently, I ordered something else.

I’ve probably been going to one Jason’s Deli or another for five or six yeas. This is only the second time that I’ve deviated from my usual.

Usually when I go somewhere new I go with the menu item named after the place. That dish can’t be bad, right? So tonight I extended that idea a bit because Jason’s has a sandwich named after the founder’s dad. Pure winner, right?

Great sandwich. I may go back again tomorrow.

Things to read: Inside Advance’s Post-Standard newspaper as it transforms this week to digital first:

There hasn’t been the same level of outcry in Syracuse, but Rogers acknowledges that the cutbacks will take a toll. “There has not been outrage,” he said. “There’s been disappointment. There’s sadness. It’s the hardest for people who are not [digitally] connected. There are a lot of people … who are really going to miss the seven-day newspaper. I’m going to miss it.”

But while the dramatic reorganization may seem like a gamble, it’s the prospect of not doing anything that genuinely worries him. “To do nothing, that’s suicide,” he said, citing the industry trends. “Is this a risk? The risk is to not do anything. Have we found the right solution? I think we have. Time will tell. But I know that by doing what we’re doing, we’re going to be so much better off than if we hadn’t done anything.”

His optimism isn’t shared by everyone involved with the paper.

The three Newhouse papers in Alabama made the switch last fall, you might recall. They are growing into the new model right about on pace. There have been stumbles. There are critics, but there are a lot of positives.

Anytime you see a newspaper in the middle of a transformation you see quotes like this:

The new model doesn’t have a place for columnist Dick Case, 77, a Syracuse fixture for over 53 years who received word that his services would no longer be needed at the paper. “I think that all of us understood that the nature of the newspaper was going to change,” he said, “but I don’t think anybody had any idea of when that would happen. And it happened sooner rather than later.”

I love the idea of staffers who’ve worked at newspapers for decades. They have so much institutional history and community memory. They’re a gem to talk to and learn from. They are often vital and funny and crusty people with a lot to tell us all. But this quote just makes no since. Sooner rather than later? After all of these years, after your sister papers made this move, this caught you by surprise?

(Update: Case’s last column is here. He’s been doing this my entire life. He’s talented and will be missed by many. He’s going to volunteer at the historical society. And if you need to, you can reach him at his wife’s email. That’ explains that.)

CEOs Using social media: Statistics, facts and figures:

Four out of five employees (81 percent) believe that CEOs who engage on social media are better equipped to lead companies in the modern world, and 82 percent of customers are more likely to trust a company whose CEO and leadership team are active on these channels.

There’s one of those famously long Internet infographics there, too.

Now recording: Knight funds an app for collecting oral histories:

Knight News Challenge winner TKOH wants to create a solution for oral storytelling that would work for kids, grandparents, audiophiles — or, yes, journalists. As envisioned, it would be a lightweight app for mobile devices that makes the setup and recording of stories simpler. TKOH, a design studio based in New York, plans to use its $330,000 award from Knight Foundation to build out its prototype of the app and begin testing it in rural communities in New Mexico.

“It’s a need we all have,” Kacie Kinzer, of TKOH, tells me. “There’s someone we know, a friend, a family member, who has incredible stories that must be kept in some way.

[…]

The app, tentatively called Thread, would be a kind of all-in one app, pairing audio and video, giving the user a choice of how they want to record a story. Once the story is captured, the file would be archived in a non-proprietary format and made available on the web. With the money from Knight, the team at TKOH will complete the prototype of the app and build a web platform that would act as a repository for stories and enable sharing on other networks, Kinzer told me.

One more method never hurts.

What it feels like to be photographed in a moment of grief:

“I sat there in a moment of devastation with my hands in prayer pose asking for peace and healing in the hearts of men,” she recalls. “I was having such a strong moment and my heart was open, and I started to cry.”

Her mood changed abruptly, she says, when “all of a sudden I hear ‘clickclickclickclickclick’ all over the place. And there are people in the bushes, all around me, and they are photographing me, and now I’m pissed. I felt like a zoo animal.”

What particularly troubles her, she says, is “no one came up to me and said ‘Hi, I’m from this paper and I took your photograph.’ No one introduced themselves. I felt violated. And yes, it was a lovely photograph, but there is a sense of privacy in a moment like that, and they didn’t ask.”

Every journo should read pieces like that about every year or so. There’s a lot to learn in circumstances like this, too.

Friday / links / Samford / things to read / YouTube Cover Theater — Comments Off
25
Jan 13

The return of the YouTube Covers

I think I spent pretty much the entire (non-cycling portion of my) day planning out classes. The exotic life I lead sometimes, I tell ya.

The best part about it is that it becomes a multi-directional puzzle. What can I do on what day for logistical purposes? What part of DEF needs to wait until ABC has been concluded? After a while it all starts to fit together nicely.

The frustrating part is that I know, I just know, there will be something I’ll miss or forget or write up incorrectly. I won’t catch it until after the class starts. C’est la vie.

Classes start back on Monday, hence so much time on it all this week. I’m on a quest to make a wonderful experience for the students. Hopefully it gets a little bit better every time I teach this particular class. I think I’ve removed most of the busy work and refined the most confusing parts. Now I just have to add in some more extra material. There can never be enough work, he thinks to himself.

And now the correspondent will share two stories bearing no resemblance to one another.

First, Alabama Department Homeland Security confirms ‘cyber-intrusion’ of state computers:

The Alabama Department of Homeland Security confirmed there has been a hacking attack on state computers but declined to describe the scope or severity of the intrusion.

A spokeswoman said the incident was still under criminal investigation.

“The Alabama Department of Homeland Security acknowledges that there has been a cyber-intrusion of state government IT infrastructure. It is currently under criminal investigation and at this point there will be no additional comments,” according to a statement issued by the department.

It is not immediately known which agencies were involved or if any state records were compromised.

First, isn’t this what the state Department of Homeland Security — and aren’t you glad they put that office into motion? — is supposed to prevent? Their public mandate is “Working to prepare for, prevent and respond to terrorist activity within the state.” So maybe not. It is unclear if these were terrorists. But the meaning of that word has become fluid in the modern age. You know know what else isn’t clear? The way the reporter wrote the story, “It is not immediately known” suggests that maybe the state officials don’t know what was compromised. Of course it means “the state officials aren’t tell us who got hit,” but still. Maybe it is their job to protect against all threats, foreign, domestic, terrorist and baud modem. Maybe it isn’t their job. Maybe they should just unplug all of the computers when they go home at night.

I’d write more about the state Department of Homeland Security but, as of this writing, their site seems to be down. Vexing.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, there’s a sheriff many people would vote for: Wis. sheriff urges citizens to get gun training. Part of Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr.’s new radio campaign:

“I need you in the game,” he says.

“With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option,” he adds. “You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. … Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there.”

The ad has generated sharp criticism from other area officials and anti-violence advocates. The president of the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, Roy Felber, said it sounds like a call to vigilantism.

“That doesn’t sound too smart,” Felber said. “People have the right to defend themselves, but they don’t have the right to take the law into their own hands.”

I’m not exactly sure about the straw Felber is standing on. If you conflate protecting your family and vigilantism, there’s not really much point in even locking your doors, right? Here’s the sheriff’s actual ad:

I’m sure he’ll be a hit on Fox News before the weekend is over.

You know, it is Friday. We haven’t done this in a while. Here, then, is the impromptu return of YouTube Cover Theater, the segment where we discover the amazing talent of people sitting in their homes with an instrument, a camera and an Internet connection. This week’s covers will feature the great Same Cooke.

My favorite part of this one is where she gets a little frustrated with the bridge. And also the light and sound in the room. Also, the cover is pretty great:

Some guy laid all of that tile in this kitchen and never guessed it would be seen online more than 70,000 times. But you get a good sense of why:

I always thought this song worked better as a harmony. The ragged parts in this version help it, too. A lot of fun for what is, presumably their first try at it:

(I don’t think it was the first time they tried it, but it is a nice idea.)

Sam Cooke, himself:

Still brilliant pop tunes, 50 years later.

journalism / links / music / Samford / things to read / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
23
Jan 13

Voices of the past

I am not sure where today went. I’m going to blame the emails, literally hunders of them, that I wrote today. Also there was reading materia. Reading my material and then reading for a class I’m teaching. Somehow the day disappeared.

So, here, have some interesting links.

As ESPN Debated, Manti Te’o Story Slipped Away:

Some inside the network argued that its reporters — who had initially been put onto the story by Tom Condon, Te’o’s agent — had enough material to justify publishing an article. Others were less sure and pushed to get an interview with Te’o, something that might happen as soon as the next day. For them, it was a question of journalistic standards. They did not want to be wrong.

Bless those hearts full of integrity. What’s that ESPN? Yet another bizarre update in the bizarre story? OK:

A source close to Te’o gave ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap documents that the source says are Te’o’s AT&T phone records from May 11 to Sept. 12, the date that the woman was supposed to have died. The logs are not originals, but spreadsheets sent via emails, and could not be independently verified.

They re-wrote it, but I recorded the original passage on Twitter. The earlier version said “Their veracity couldn’t be independently confirmed, but the source insisted they are genuine.”

The source insisted. In a story about hoaxes. Journalistic standards.

Jobs: Recession, Tech kill middle-class jobs:

Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over.

And the situation is even worse than it appears.

Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market.

On the other hand, Lowe’s is hiring 54,000 and 9,000 permanently. And union membership is down in Alabama.

Finally, A 1951 home recording from Hazel Street. Kim and Herb are celebrating 25 years, and all of their friends recorded a message on a Wilcox-Gay Recordio.

That’s via James Lileks. And since he didn’t, I’ll wonder why it is that this recording fascinates in ways 60 years from now that nothing we produce on Instagram or Pinterest or anywhere else won’t in 2075.

Here’s Bill Wagner, a coal man, who — think about this — was about to hear his recorded voice for the first time ever.

Here’s a raucous group sing:

Here’s evidence that teenaged girls have giggled for generations. This song is from 1935, the first country song by a female artist, Patsy Montana to sell more than one million units. So maybe this was recorded by amateurs now lost to history in the 40s or 50s.

Here Albert is recording a message in California for friends or family back home in the midwest during World War II:

Those were all thrift store finds. This one is a family heirloom:

There are at least several dozen of these on YouTube. I could listen to them all day.

That is not where my day went.

adventures / cycling / friends / photo / Samford / Tuesday / Tumblr / Twitter — Comments Off
22
Jan 13

Dropping off, if only

I am going to stop following my lovely bride as she moves her bicycle about town. She wants to do challenging things like “Hills.”

So we did an hour of that this afternoon. Take two of the biggest hills in town — “Big” being relative, of course, we live at the place where geographers would say the upland begins to give way to the coastal plain. So the hills are small, but we are in the sweet spot: be on the beach in a few hours, be far enough away from the water to be safe … from the water — and ride them. Get to the top, turn around and drift down. Turn around and ride up them.

Did this for an hour, uttering things in different languages that I didn’t realize I could say. Several more weeks of this and I might be able to do something better than just drag myself over a hill.

Drag is a great word for riding a bicycle. Sometimes the bike drags you along. Sometimes you’re doing everything you can to get from here to there, or emptying your mind so that nothing in it prohibits you from getting from here to there. Drag is a great word. But it wasn’t the proper word to describe my third trip up the second hill. It really needs a full phrase rather than a simple word.

“Avoiding falling over from the combined effects of gravity, friction and inertial mass” would have been more appropriate.

But a lovely, sunny, slightly coolish day to ride for an hour. Sadly the total elevation gained was nothing to brag about, and I’ve already spent four paragraphs on this.

Did work. I wrote things. Emailed people, solved problems, caused other ones. I fleshed out lesson plans, assignments and a few readings. I have some more of those to do.

I did research. I held the cat.

I wrote a letter of recommendation. I like these; the students that ask for them manage to be great students and I’m happy to say “He is a young man of fine character” or “I give her my full recommendation.” Great students deserve the kudos.

Also wrote a letter, an honest to goodness piece of correspondence. I typed it, because I like the recipient and I wouldn’t wish my handwriting upon her. She is an elderly lady that my mother semi-adopted, one of those sweet grandmotherly types you’d like to hug up and squeeze and she wouldn’t complain about the pressure because, you know, hugs. Figured I’d send her a little note, realized I don’t have much to say — but you knew that already, right? — made a resolution to do interesting things and then just summed up January. Play with the font and size for longer than necessary — as is my right — printed it and folded it up in an envelope.

Now, stamps. They still make those, right? He said in that coy way that suggests his habits and patterns have yielded to an ignorance which surpasses the need for understanding an ancient device thereby rendering it culturally irrelevant. There are stamps around here somewhere. At least you don’t have to lick them anymore, and for that I say the USPS should get whatever subsidy they want. The downside is that you can’t buy stamps at many post offices anymore, we get ours at the grocery store of all places, so I say we take away every subsidy the USPS has ever been granted.

I think I’ve just taken a step toward solving the nation’s financial problems.

I dropped off a prescription in the drop off line at the pharmacy. They have two lanes for cars. “Full service” and “Drop off only.” There was one car in the drop off lane and three on the full service side. No brainer. Four cars passed through the full service line while I waited for the one to finish in the drop off only lane.

But there was a nice lady on the other end of the magical speaker when I finally made it there. Put your date of birth and phone number on the script. Drop it in the magical drug provider tube, press send. (Note to self, the pharmacy tube system does not have the plastic container like banks use. Also, they do not hand out suckers.) The pleasant voice said she had the doctor’s note.

Would you like to wait?

No.

Would you like me to text you at this number when your prescription is filled?

Yes, that would be great.

OK, will do and thanks.

Ninety minutes later my phone buzzed. Someone in a pharmacy 1.5 miles away had counted out pills and put them in a plastic bottle and placed that in a paper bag and stapled on a little page of information and directions and it was all ready for me to pick up any time. And I haven’t seen anyone.

What a world we live in.

Visited the grocery store for potato salad purposes. We made ribs tonight, had a guest and I had to pick up a side item. I wandered around looking at cans of things, bags of things and boxes of things.

For no reason other than that I was standing there, here is a picture of the tea section:

On the top left there is a Candy Cane Lane tea, which sounds far better than the green tea it actually is. There’s Black Cherry Berry and Country Peach Passion (The neighbors WILL talk about that one.) There are samplers and the regional and national brands. They show off the tea, delicious and mouth-watering in those carefully focus grouped and air brushed photos of tea pitchers.

Some of those generics are steeping in pots, so you can’t see their shame.

I love tea. We have a cabinet full of the stuff. We just accumulate it somehow. Really, the store should visit us to keep their tea aisle stocked. I even used it once in a science experiment in high school, dropping an egg from great height. Tea leaves, if you didn’t know, are a great insulator. Arthur C. Clarke taught me that in Ghost from the Grand Banks, a story which should have culminated in 2012. (We’re now out-pacing near-future science fiction, think about that.) My egg survived the drop, by the way. Seems tea leaves can do other things, too. Tea leaves, they are multipurpose.

Anyway. Potato salad, babyback ribs for dinner, company for the evening, seconds because of the hills. Had a great time just sitting around the dining room table telling stories. Lovely way to end a day. Helped rest the legs, too.

There’s a new picture on the Tumblr today, and more on Twitter. Do check them out, if you like. Now, to go read.

Samford / Tuesday / Tumblr / Twitter / video — Comments Off
15
Jan 13

Orange on orange existentialism

I did laundry today. I looked for a little bottle of touchup paint. Not for the laundry, of course, but as a separate instance of doing something tangible. Going to a hobby shop and saying “I need something vaguely the shade of the car from Dukes of Hazzard” was, naturally, less productive than I’d hoped for.

Cool place, though. He had model planes and model cars. He had Normandy invasion dioramas right next to models for the Enterprise. He had a plane that, at first, I thought had been buried to give it that aged look. When you leaned it you could see it was painted on. Incredible.

Anyway, I had pictures on my phone, but they were only so helpful I should have just taken my bike. On this topic the Internet is not very helpful, but that’s more the bike maker’s fault than the Internet. The Felt site says “Gloss Orange.” Having said “This one … No … This one … No … ” at least six times today I’m sure there is more variation in orange than I’d like. For a moment I’d convinced myself that the paint in the red-orange bottle was the right color. Life is good; these are the sorts of dilemmas that vex me.

I spent the afternoon at the library, where I was when a high school student called to ask me about the journalism and mass communication program at Samford. I stood outside in the beautiful sunshine — it was about 70 degrees — and talked on the phone.

I went inside, wrote emails. Did research. Looked up and wondered it had possibly become that vaguely defined “evening.” It was only 4 p.m., but what was sunny now looked like the gloaming. And then the rains came, that good Hollywood stuff that just appeared and saturated everything. The weather reports say we got about two-tenths of an inch. Certainly seemed like more.

About the time the rain let up I began to wonder if I’d rolled my window back up. (I had.) I got in the car and was fiddling around with my phone and backpack and various things and listened to sirens go up and down the road in a big hurry. I got engrossed in an email on my phone when a police officer parked next to me.

They’d found me!

It is important that he parked next to me, and not behind me. And that he helped his son hop out of the passenger seat. They were going to look for things at the library together! The child was the age when it would be So. Cool. to ride in a police car. Just a Tuesday with dad for this guy, though.

At home I looked at journals. I ate two tangelos and thoroughly disproved the efficacy of the peeling method I’d used just the night before. I listened to music while I dripped juice down my fingers. At one point the first orange was just drenching the second, unpeeled, orange. In that first moment, that orange dripping on an orange moment of watching-something-fall-and-not-being-able-to-stop-it was full of bizarre thoughts.

Should I move that orange? Should I move this one? Do I need to rinse it off? That’s a lot of juice. Why am I even going to eat this one now? There’s nothing left to it. Just look at it all over the place.

My hands were sticky for a long time after that.

To the grocery store, where we bought dinner and forgot our “Save The World” bags. The very nice cashier helpfully pointed out that we could use this plastic one to line the garbage can in our bathroom. Why has this cashier been in my bathroom? How did she know that was this bag’s fate?

Watched some episodes of Parks and Recreation. I want a DJ Roomba:

And also a ghost Roomba:

Also watched this, because this is always right:

I wonder why those tux ties didn’t stick around longer.

Much more on Twitter, including CBS and CNet, the reinvention of the baby boomer, an interactive map of drones being used for law enforcement in the U.S. today and a cat listening to Bob Marley. A few things on Tumblr today, too.