I don’t recall Daylight Saving Time having this much of an impact on me. Maybe I’m just not sleeping well. Maybe my diet is off. For one of these, or some other, reason, I have been battling a terrific laggard feeling today. I’m blaming Daylight Saving Time. That’s what I said getting out of the pool after a lousy swim this evening.
That’s also why I’m saying I’ve staggered through the entire day. The clear parts, the hazy parts. The warm parts and the mild parts. It has all felt like syrup.
So I swam 1,350 yards tonight. It was unremarkable except that I have discovered if I go slower each lap I actually go faster in the long run. And now I have to develop a routine that makes it all work — for when I am not in molasses.
Things to read … because other parts of the world are moving at normal speeds.
Joran Van der Sloot to be extradited in 2038 to face charges he defrauded Natalee Holloway’s mom: Beth Holloway — whose name is never actually mentioned in the story, oddly enough — will be in her mid-70s by then.
Found: A Corner of the Cosmos:
When I first saw this 1919 picture of nebulae in the Pleiades, I was surprised to see such an old photograph of distant stars. To think that an image like this was published just a year shy of the end of the first World War and over 40 years before the first man stepped foot in outer space seems almost beyond comprehension.
There are some incredible photos there.
David Carr: Journalism Is Still Serious, Just Different:
There are so many models out there. We’re at Bloomberg now, where a core terminal business is funding journalism, and it’s something that is of use to the users, giving them real-time information that’s going to be efficacious and useful. That’s one way to go. You have Huffington Post at the other end, where it’s not a narrow user base; it’s the broadest user base possible. You have BuzzFeed, which is taking viral content and then overlaying it with a skin of serious news. You have a lot of mainstream journalists like Ezra Klein, formerly of the Washington Post, Kara Swisher, and Walt Mossberg leaving Dow Jones and striking out on their own or in alliances with nonlegacy companies. There are all these bets all over the table and nobody knows what’s going to work and what’s not going to work.
Here’s the full video, which has some nice, thoughtful conversation throughout:
Two editorials that go together. The first, from Freedom of Information Law is a powerful tool to demand accountability from government:
“The legislature hereby finds that a free society is maintained when government is responsive and responsible to the public, and when the public is aware of governmental actions. … The legislature therefore declares that government is the public’s business and that the public, individually and collectively and represented by a free press, should have access to the records of government …”
We’re quoting from the preamble of New York state’s Freedom of Information Law. It requires governments to release records of their activities, with some exceptions, so that taxpayers know where their money is being spent and how their government is performing. FOIL is a powerful tool for demanding accountability.
Alas, saying “government is the public’s business,” and acting like it is, are two different things. Government agencies and officials routinely resist public disclosure.
The second, A newspaper and its place in a community:
The press-freedom portion of the First Amendment is a compact between the Founders and future generations. A strong democracy depends on journalism to keep government honest. This applies from the top all the way to the bottom — from details about the federal government’s expansive domestic-spying program all the way down to the goings and comings of a county’s criminal justice system.
“Democracies die behind closed doors,” wrote a federal judge in 2002. A journalist’s job is to pry those doors open. Someone should keep an eye on the courts, the city council and the streets department, to cite a few local examples.
Human nature tends to cut corners if no one is looking. And the kind of corners we’re talking about — public safety, criminal charges, proper bid processing involving taxpayer dollars — can come with a steep price, in terms of money and, occasionally, human life.
And, lastly, from the Department of The Children Are Our Future, comes another fine tale of the generous spirit of young people:
Trinity Classical was up over 20 points against Desert Chapel with time winding down in the California section championship. Trinity Classical brought in Beau Howell, a player on the team with autism who had never scored a point.
Take your eye off the ball. Watch number four. And then, at the very end, the winning championship team is giving Beau the ball.
Kids these days.
