{"id":573885573,"date":"2013-11-07T22:45:32","date_gmt":"2013-11-08T04:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573885573"},"modified":"2013-11-11T18:35:45","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T00:35:45","slug":"over-the-river-through-the-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2013\/11\/07\/over-the-river-through-the-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"Over the river, through the woods"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;re always so cynical about the maple trees. They&#8217;re full and verdant and prolific. Their shoots can only barely be controlled. The leaves, on the ground, are a big hassle. And you&#8217;re always cutting back the branches. Oh they give great shade. So good even the grass won&#8217;t grow in spots underneath that lush, cool canopy. <\/p>\n<p>For all of that, you just know they&#8217;ll be the first ones to give the great heave, the shrug of the shoulders and the big sneezing sigh that means hours of rake time.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, for now, they&#8217;re still hanging on:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/nov13\/nov18.jpg\" alt=\"maple\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/nov13\/nov19.jpg\" alt=\"maple\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>But those are at home. This is one of our views on campus, looking from Samford&#8217;s Centennial Walk up to Shades Mountain:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/nov13\/nov22.jpg\" alt=\"campus\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I get to work at a beautiful place. <\/p>\n<p>After the links you&#8217;ll find some nice pictures. So scroll on down if you aren&#8217;t interested in today&#8217;s collection of extra words.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>Things to read &#8230; <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Remember when the government encouraged you to go to transfat? <a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Health\/wireStory\/fda-ban-artery-clogging-trans-fats-20814618\">Never mind<\/a>. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Heart-clogging trans fats were once a staple of the American diet, plentiful in baked goods, microwave popcorn and fried foods. Now, mindful of the health risks, the Food and Drug Administration is getting rid of what&#8217;s left of them for good.<\/p>\n<p>Condemning artificial trans fats as a threat to public health, the FDA announced Thursday it will require the food industry to phase them out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When in doubt, never forget that someone in Washington knows more about what is good for you than you do. <\/p>\n<p><a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.al.com\/wire\/2013\/11\/obama_i_am_sorry_some_lost_ins.html\">Right?<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,&#8221; the president told Chuck Todd of NBC News during an interview at the White House.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I liked the part where he said the whole thing <a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/usnews.nbcnews.com\/_news\/2013\/11\/07\/21352724-exclusive-obama-personally-apologizes-for-americans-losing-health-coverage?lite\">burned him &#8212; err, the American people<\/a>. The guy just can&#8217;t help himself. <\/p>\n<p>I really, <em>really<\/em>, <a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/pro-obamacare-team-trains-reporters-on-covering-obamacare-website-problems\/article\/2538638\">hope this gets soundly refuted<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Reporters with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers received &#8220;training&#8221; on how to cover Obamacare&#8217;s rollout from a policy expert who works with President Obama&#8217;s former health information technology adviser.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Otherwise what you&#8217;re saying is that, essentially, government is telling you how to report on the government. Debacle or not, that would be embarrassing and should be more than a small problem for journalism. So I hope it gets convincingly refuted.<\/p>\n<p>Quick links:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.al.com\/business\/index.ssf\/2013\/11\/grants_topping_800000_aimed_at.html#incart_river_default\">Grants topping $800,000 aimed at creating jobs, improving economy in Alabama&#8217;s Black Belt<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/source.opennews.org\/en-US\/articles\/boyer-interview\/\">NPR\u2019S Brian Boyer on building and managing news apps teams<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.journalism.co.uk\/news\/study-96-of-uk-journalists-use-social-media-each-day\/s2\/a554687\/\">Study: 96% of UK journalists use social media every day<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a TARGET=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/11\/07\/business\/media\/internet-kills-the-video-store.html?smid=tw-share&#038;_r=0\">Internet Kills the Video Store<\/a> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Made it to my grandmother&#8217;s<\/strong>, just in time for a few twilight pictures:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/nov13\/nov23.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/nov13\/nov24.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/nov13\/nov25.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/nov13\/nov26.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/nov13\/nov27.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/nov13\/nov28.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/nov13\/nov29.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>More stuff tomorrow. And by stuff I mean the big family present I&#8217;ve been alluding to for days. Come read all about it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;re always so cynical about the maple trees. They&#8217;re full and verdant and prolific. Their shoots can only barely be controlled. The leaves, on the ground, are a big hassle. And you&#8217;re always cutting back the branches. Oh they give great shade. So good even the grass won&#8217;t grow in spots underneath that lush, cool [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,25,10,7,44,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573885573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-links","category-photo","category-samford","category-things-to-read","category-thursday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573885573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573885573"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573885573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573885579,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573885573\/revisions\/573885579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573885573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573885573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573885573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}