2013 archive
The Old College Try 0
Bill Maxwell is not impressed with colleges’ moving to the on-line model:
“Much more importantly, a string of courses — online or not — does not add up to a real college experience, even if these courses do add up, at some places, to a degree,” he said. “As the Wizard of Oz says to the scarecrow, ‘I cannot give you a brain, but I can give you a diploma.’ “
Stray Thought 0
Nothing shakes my faith more than the antics of those who loudly anoint themselves the “faithful.”
Facebook Frolics 0
On the way to the MySpace space:
More about the shiny new things at the link.
Droning On 0
The Roanoke Times predicts dollar signs.
On the other hand, Ellis has been approached by business people with a vision to sell legitimate aerial services. One was a home inspector who wanted an alternative to climbing roofs for inspection. Another was a wedding photographer.
Once drones are approved for commercial use, “it’s going to generate a massive number of business opportunities for people,” Ellis said.
I used to work with a dron—never mind.
Firebugs 2
I grew up on Pine View Farm in Northampton County on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the peninsula between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, the bit of land that makes the Chesapeake a bay.
Shoremen do not forget the Shore. It is part of us wherever we go.
You know the peninsula.
It’s the one that Virginia Tech left off its map of Virginia on its helmets for one game many years ago. (For only one game. The Eastern Shore alumni–and they are many–were not happy. They protested with their wallets. Virginia Tech may not remember, but we do.)
The world is divided into two parts.
The Shore and “across the bay.”
You are from one or from the other.
We always joked, “Virginia forgets about us except for taxes and elections.”
The Shore has two counties, Accomack and Northampton. (Southampton is on the Western Shore, that is, “across the bay.” We used to play them in high school sports. It was a damned long drive in a school bus to get to the games with the cheerleaders in the back of the bus and no canoodling–too many kids for canoodling and I would have missed out on any canoodling anyway. Dammit. If I knew then what I know now . . . . oh, never mind.)
Accomack is on fire.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite in the big box.
Authorities say he entered Dick’s Sporting Goods in Fairless Hills after 7 p.m. Saturday and asked to see a shotgun and ammunition. McCarpy pulled out a handgun , later found to be unloaded , and ordered the worker to undo the shotgun’s gun lock. He then barricaded himself inside a bathroom.
Also, when you go to college, be polite to your roommates:
Police found the male dead from what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It was not immediately clear if the male is a student.
(snip)
Law-enforcement officers investigating the incident found a handgun, an assault weapon and and improvised explosive devices, a campus spokeswoman said.
No Sympathy for Empathy 0
Much like Historiann, whom I cited yesterday,* Jonathan Chait is not impressed with Senator Rob Portman’s about face on gay marriage, asking whether it is pro-gay, or simply pro-Portman.
Buried in the article is this nugget:
The Republican Party, the party of “I’ve got mine.”
____________________
*When I wrote the post and scheduled it to post today.
Hawkocrites, War and Deficit Depts. 0
Excerpt:
Here’s a very simple economic formula that works: People who supported the Iraq War don’t ever, ever, ever get to complain about deficits or spending.
Via C&L.
Droning On, or Not 0
What’s in a name?
Virginia Tech apparently thinks, “quite a bit” (emphasis added).
Improving the study of agricultural disease and the assessment and mapping of special environments, such as forests and explosion sites, are major project drivers.
(snip)
These flying machines, the accessories such as cameras and sensors that they carry, and the control mechanisms are referred to by Tech engineers as unmanned aerial systems — UAS for short — and not “drones.”
Drones, unmanned aircraft, model aircraft with electronics are here to stay. They can no more be made to go away than, in their times, the automobile or the choo-choo.
They need to be regulated and restrained, as were the automobile and the choo-choo.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Outside investors scarf up properties.
As the metro housing market begins to rebound after a dizzying fall, investor-buyers like Fundamental REO are driving an outsize share of the activity. Their purchases help stabilize prices but also foster concerns about the longer-term effect of neighborhoods filled with bulk-purchased homes owned by out-of-state investors.
Last fall, investor-buyers accounted for 26 percent of all Georgia home purchases, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Once attended mainly by smaller mom-and-pop buyers, monthly county foreclosure auctions have — since last summer — been overrun by industrial-scale buyers with millions to spend.
Not good news.
I can’t find the links right now, probably because the stories have passed into the archives of my ex-local rag, but in Philadelphia, many vacant and dilapidated properties are owned by New York investment outfits who are just sitting on them. (Others, of course, are owned by the city, which got stuck with them when the owners disappeared, and by local citizens down on their luck.)
Remember, it’s the New York boys who got us into this mess with their phony securitized mortgage bags of air.
More at the link.
The Hollow Men 2
Much fuss attends Senator Rob Portman’s about face on the issue of gay marriage now that it affects someone he personally knows and cares about.
Historiann is not impressed.
Whatever. I’m done with that old Pharisee, Rob Portman, and his “faith tradition” of screwing over every one of his constituents to whom he’s not related.
She has a point.
Roach Coach 0
And here I always thought that term was reserved as playful slang for mobile hoagie vendors.
Swampwater 0
The swamp gas continues to stink.
Cocktailgate 0
Amidst public fainting spells about the percentage of Wisconsinites (Wisconsians?) reputed to be binge drinkers, Jim Stingl offers a helpful diagnositic checklist. A nugget:
If you look at a map of Wisconsin and think the Door County peninsula looks like a bottle opener, you might be a binge drinker.
If you find all the girls (or guys) really do get prettier at closing time, you might be a binge drinker.
All seriousness aside, as much as I like my tipple, I find the present glorifying of sports palace “tailgate” parties to be a bit outre.