Monday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Monday

Line and pole rod

How was your weekend? Here it was … variable. Coolish on Saturday morning. It felt almost damp. (That’s a meteorological observation where I’m from, and it differs from humidity.) The mercury struggled to get to 67 degrees. The temperature peaked before noon and started falling away soon after. Sunday it was 81 degrees and it finally rained.

Recently a read a paper from a colleague who is an atmospheric scientist. She and her co-authors were discussing how highly variable springs are just the new normal around here now. Climate change in daily life. It’s hurting the crops. Because the agricultural sector needs more challenges right now.

Today we topped out at 69 degrees. Tomorrow we’ll have variable skies and be in the mid-70s. One of these things is late spring. They can’t all be late spring.

Saturday morning we went out for a ride with the neighbors. The guy up front lives just behind us. The woman closest to me in the photo lives about a mile away. There’s at least two other cyclists in between these houses. We could start a little roadie gang.

We should start a little roadie gang. Only, I, being neither fast enough or talented enough, am not the biggest fan of group rides. Three or four people is probably my comfort limit, and I like them to be spread a bit, rather like that photo. Some people are crowders, should bumping, handlebar rubbing riders, and I’m too frail for all of that.

Today, I woke up, sent a reminder note to my online class about their adjusted deadlines, and then went out to the creek. The purpose was to pretend to do a little fly fishing. But, really, I could just sit next to that, walk along the bank, or put on those waders and just go out there and stand in it for the better part of a day and be happy. And hey, that’s what i did.

I caught one good fish, a beautiful 16-inch rainbow trout. Slipped him right back in the water, and he went and told all of his friends to take a good look before trying to eat anything else. His messaging worked. I got a lot of nibbles, a few on the line, but couldn’t bring anything else in the rest of the day.

Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter at all. I’d probably rather not hook them if I’m not going to keep them, and these are catch-and-release. Some people like the gear — and there sure is a lot of it in fly fishing. Some people like the puzzle and the challenge. I could stand right here and listen to the woods and unwind until my toes grow cold from the water and I’ll get everything I need out of the experience.

It’s funny. I’ve been on this little body of water twice and our host is keen to coach me up. I think he thinks I’ve never been fishing before or something. I have now been fly fishing three times. Twice with him. But I grew up with a Zebco and spent a lot of time with bobbers and worms and liver bait and bass lures. Even then, I enjoyed the peacefulness and the company, most of all. But my guy here on this river — they call it a river, I’m not sure it rises to that level — was taking it personal that I wasn’t getting more fish. He’s a big technique guy. He feels the real thrill of bringing them in. I think he’s trying to appreciate every little part of his sport. And he’s a pretty good teacher, even if he has a lousy student. He’s got my casting and line management techniques down to an almost manageable level. There’s a real satisfaction in placing it where you want it to go, as opposed to in a tree. It’s satisfying when the cast feels just right. Just being under those trees is more so.

I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?

This is part of the view at Island Roy.

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4
May 26

Out here playing games

As a child, I got a bunch of these peg board games from my grandparents. They came as a set, but I guess they didn’t come with a way to store them, because I’ve always kept them in a cardboard King Edwards Imperial Tobacco box that my grandfather gave me. (Fitting them all into one box became a game itself.)

They’ve been sitting in a filing cabinet for a while, and I dug them out this weekend while looking for some class paperwork. (My filing system is a game of another sort.)

It seemed like a good time to not stare at a screen, so I pulled the games out and tried to figure out how they all worked. Most of them were a mystery to me, as a kid. Not that they’re overly complex, but I guess they were just beyond my patience at the time. There’s one game I knew well, because I’d been to a Cracker Barrel. I played a few rounds of that, trying to remember the pattern I devised to win. (I’d devised a pattern, which is a thing I would do, of course, but it’s been decades.)

All of which is to say, I’m telling myself it takes real talent to do this.

The good news is the other games now make sense. I need to play around with them a bit more to see which is the most entertaining.

Anyway, 144 more papers to read and grade. Two finals are due on Thursday. The rest come in next Monday. Suddenly peg board games seem like fun, don’t they?

In September of 2024 I devised a 25-mile time trial. It is a big circle with nine turns. Critically, eight of them are right turns. It involves going down the hill and back up past the haunted house, into town, by the park, through the sheep pastures, and then taking that left turn. Then you go a mile, turn onto a busy state highway, go 2.3 more miles and turn right, to get back into the countryside. Then you eventually get to the downhill that is always in the headwind, which makes the downhill feel like an uphill. You go by the crazy house and then into the woods, until the road ends. You turn right again onto another highway, one which you can absolutely fly on for four miles, before turning into another small town.

You go through three towns on this route. You pass many more warehouses. And I need to rename this. It’s not really a time trial if you’re just getting slower on the thing.

I am getting slower on the thing. Twice I’ve done it so far this year, and these are the slowest times in the series.

Much of that is about me, of course. But I can blame the weather, too. Today I had headwinds from three different directions!

If you’d like to go there, ask around for directions to Tulan Strand.

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27
Apr 26

The bridge between here and there

This is the last week of class. The last week for my two in-person classes. My online class runs another week. I don’t set the schedule and I’m not sure how this works. They start on the same day, the classes end a week a part and the finals are six days a part.

In a practical sense I don’t mind this; I know about all of the things I must grade in the next three weeks. (The official count: a lot.) I wonder if a student taking both online and in-person classes notices. I have one student this term in one of my in-person classes and one online, she hasn’t said anything about it. Maybe the students don’t mind it because, in a practical sense, they have a fair amount to do, of course.

The online students are now working on social media platform audits. This is a four-step process that we spread out over five or six weeks. It is a substantial portion of their grade. With each of their submissions I send them a lot of feedback. We are between steps two and three, with the third being the dress rehearsal, if you will. There’s a lot I try to offer, most importantly it must be done quickly since they don’t have a big turnaround. Also, they have a final to worry about.

This week in my in-person classes I have one final lecture on Tuesday and group presentations on Thursday in my Rits and Traditions class. In criticism we’ll have one final conversation tomorrow about some written content, and one final documentary on Thursday. They’ll both have finals due next week.

Then grading, and some grading, and probably some grading. Also, there are meetings.

So, busy-busy.

Late this afternoon we tore ourselves away from work for a quick 60-minute lollipop route. There was no candy, sadly. It just looks like a sucker on a map. I noted that it felt sluggish, but mostly because the last few miles felt that way. In the early going, I was as happy as could be.

We went down a road we haven’t been down since last July or so. I’ll give you one guess why.

The bridge is still closed, but not closed-closed. If you are properly motivated that sign is just a suggestion. If you go over the bridge right now you’re traveling over firmly packed dirt. It’s just a highway overpass, so it’s probably safe as can be. Hearing all the cars and trucks roar beneath you as you’re on an out-of-order overpass might be unnerving.

It’ll probably be another year before they get done with this project. No one seems to be in a hurry to fix it.

That beautiful spot is Dún na mBó

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20
Apr 26

Open for business

And by business, I mean the usual. Cleaning. Fixing problems. Waiting for it to warm up.

But, already, the change in color is an immediate thrill.

Until the chores and the bills and the replacing the thises and thats begin.

Elsewhere, this is the pentultimate week of classes, which means busy busy!

This is Doran’s Point

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13
Apr 26

Wrapping up my last conference of the spring

On Saturday I took part in two panels at the conference. The first was the now traditional roundtable discussion of issues in the upcoming midterms. We decided there was not a thing at all going on, the republic is safe, the economy is great, we are at peace and universally beloved, our style of representative democracy is health, and no one need pay attention.

That last sentence is in code. The key to breaking the code is in realizing that the opposite of everything listed there is true.

In the afternoon I also participated in a more structured panel. I believe I pitched the idea for this one, in face. The premise was that modern media has changed the format of the foundation and persuasion components of political campaigning. Basically, comparatively inexpensive equipment and online platforms are changing the messaging we’re seeing. (To say nothing of AI.)

I talked about how Jerri Green, who is one of the seven prominent candidates running for governor in Tennessee. The Memphis City Councilor is introducing herself with an extensive bio video.

There are strengths and weaknesses to the spot.

I talked about Fred Wellman, who is his socials (and some genAI that is both clever and weird) to show his family’s military heritage (dating back to the French and Indian War) and his time as an Army aviator to explain how his career of service began.

He’s one of nine people (and no incumbents) running for the 2nd Missouri seat. The primary is in August.

I explained the social media efforts of Zach Wahls, who introduced himself as an Eagle Scout, and then a state senator, and then a sixth-generation Iowan. And then a new generation of Democrat. He’s campaigning for the U.S. Senate.

There’s a lot clever production techniques in each of these. They’re professionally done, but not overbearingly so. In each of them you see longer stories you can’t get in a pricey 30-second spot.

I also mentioned Andrew Cuomo’s published an AI-generated negative ad while running for mayor of New York. It might be the worst spot I’ve seen in my life. It’s certainly the most grotesque attack ad.

Andrew Cuomo’s campaign just posted — and quickly deleted — this AI-generated ad depicting “criminals for Zohran Mamdani.”

Features a Black man in a keffiyeh shoplifting, an abuser, a trespasser, a trafficker, a drug dealer, and a drunk driver all declaring support for Mamdani.

[image or embed]

— Prem Thakker ツ (@premthakker.bsky.social) October 22, 2025 at 8:08 PM

Depicting “criminals for Zohran Mamdani” highlighting shoplifters, domestic abusers, pimps, drunk drivers, drug dealers, speaking directly to camera it finally ended with an entire city block on fire. It was quickly, and quietly, deleted. Here’s some coverage of this from last October. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/23/cuomo-zohran-mamdani-ai-ad”>Cuomo condemned over racist AI ad depicting ‘criminals for Zohran Mamdani’:

This video follows a trend from the Cuomo campaign, who have published a handful of AI-generated videos in the lead up to 4 November. In one early October video, Cuomo was seen performing various jobs around New York City including driving a subway car, trading on the New York stock exchange and washing high-rise windows.

In response, Mamdani posted on Instagram: “In a city of world-class artists and production crew hunting for the next gig, Andrew Cuomo made a TV ad the same way he wrote his housing policy: with AI. Then again, maybe a fake Cuomo is better than the real one?”

Just this week, Cuomo shared a video featuring an AI-generated Bill de Blasio and, again, Mamdani. That video attempted to paint Mamdani as a “mini” De Blasio and emphasize a moment from the first debate where Cuomo compared the former mayor to the mayoral hopeful.

Cuomo, of course, lost convincingly.

I touched on the Hell Cats, four female veterans of the American armed forces now running for Congress in New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Arizona. Their introductory ad was a 68-second montage piece featuring all four of these accomplished women leaning into their service, and the proud history of the Hell Cats name (the first all-female Marine unit, dating back to WWI). I also mentioned Doug Jones’ stumbles out of the media gate in his gubernatorial bid in Alabama (Update: he won his primary and will be trounced in the general) and the Mr. Rogers-esque feeling of some of Brad Landers’ congressional content in New York (they primary in June).

It’s been interesting to watch the evolution of campaign messaging in these last few cycles. The notion of what is effective is changing on every media front, and is different, in subtle ways, from platform to platform and format to format. I could talk on the finer points of that, the evolution, the concerns, the consultants, and the grassroots feel of authenticity in politics all day. We could also talk about the use of AI in this messaging.

But what you really missed were the campaign efforts that others discussed. Derek Dooley — famous for being his father’s son and an underwhelming football coach — stepped into the senate race in Georgia. And this is how you introduced himself.

The Georgia Democrats, a few days later, ended Dooley’s political career and any hopes he might have of returning to big time football, in a 95 second spot without saying an actual word.

The Georgia Democrats didn't just destroy Derek Dooley they buried him 100 feet under the earth.

[image or embed]

— Dan Weiner (@danweiner.bsky.social) February 4, 2026 at 8:14 AM

(Update: Dooley finished second in his primary.)

And you’ll absolutely want to read up on Aaron Spencer, who is running for sheriff in Arkansas … in the same county where he’s facing second degree murder charges. It’s a real Walking Tall story. He handily won the Republican primary, and is currently in pre-trial motions for his murder charges.

Things I saw before the conference ended … this delicious noodle bowl.

I want some more, please and thank you.

This colorful tunnel.

This cup of M&Ms. One of our colleagues found a giant jar, produced a huge plastic bag and took his fill. We just borrowed this little cup from the juice and coffee stand.

This awesome mural. The only not-awesome thing about this is that someone has places crowd control ropes right up next to the wall, crowding the whole mural. This is awesome. Fred should just be reaching out of the wall, all fierce and kind.

The problem with this conference ending is the idea that we won’t see some of our dear friends until next year’s conference. This is an unfortunate and unacceptable annual realization.

Back to it tomorrow. Back to classes, back to whatever else comes to mind, and back to those great Irish videos. (We’ve only just begun to recollect.)