Advertising run amok

On my way home from Jackson this past weekend I noticed something interesting. Actually, it's quite a long drive to/from Jackson so I noticed lots of things, but this one caught my eye. Heading north on I-65, between Cullman and Decatur, I noticed a large billboard on the side of the road. Personally I'm not sure how effective billboards are as I have become so conditioned to them I simply tune them out. At least I thought I tuned them out, but maybe I don't. Anyway, there was this great big billboard advertising something called something like the "M3 MRI" at Cullman General (or whatever the actual name is) Hospital. According to the sign, the M3 is the most advanced MRI machine in ALL of North Alabama. As the sign was so large, I had time to read all the particulars. The machine did sound pretty darned amazing, but it raised a pretty obvious question in my mind.

Just who shops for an MRI machine from a roadside billboard? Never having had an MRI, I'd think you'd just go to the hospital your doctor worked at and have the MRI done there or the doctor would suggest somewhere else to go. I know some people (e.g., Caffeine Mom) have serious claustrophobia issues and so would prefer an "open MRI", but I still have trouble seeing potential users picking an MRI provider from a billboard. While driving down the road, do they have the following conversation:

Bob: Hey, check out that billboard describing all the advantages of the M3 MRI machine at Cullman General Hospital.

Tom: Yeah, that sounds pretty cool. I think I might just go have a full body scan.

Bob: Now that you mention it, I've been experiencing shortness of breath, a lingering cough, and a general sense of lethargy. [Sorry, all my medical knowledge comes from the TV show House.] I think I'll have one too.

I have trouble picturing that, but it seems to be the only way this would be an effective advertisement. Maybe take out an ad in the "health and wellness" section of a newspaper or something -- I see the potential advantage of that, but the billboard? I was flummoxed.

Oh, I saw the following comment to a post on curling over at Marginal Revolution:

I think curling is great - it's basically the same as bowling, except that your beer doesn't get warm.

See, I knew curling was the sport for me!

Weekend

Well the weekend visit with Ang and her brood was a lot of fun -- despite the fact that I left my nifty new Gore-Tex jacket in MS. A.K. was very happy that we got to go "treasure hunting". I was happy that we actually found the two we were seeking (thanks to eagle-eyed Ang for that). Anyway, here they are if you want to see the two caches we found:
Lost Rabbit.
Lost Rabbit Again.
It was a teeny bit chilly, but you really couldn't ask for a much better geocaching day.

As for the ulterior motive behind my invitation to MS, ... To my surprise, I enjoyed that (despite the humiliating Trivial Pursuit defeat) -- question is, did she?

Oh yeah, I also saw this story on "my" coffee shop in the paper when I got home. Cool! They told me someone from the Daily was in last week taking pictures and interviewing patrons, but alas, St. Caffeine was not there that day. Oh, the woman in the 2nd picture is one of the women who tried to get me to join the knitting circle. Yep, that would have been great -- they'd have convinced me to start knitting AND I just know that picture would have made it into the newspaper story!

Check the temperature in Hades?

Man, I never thought I'd see this! Alan Dershowitz and Bill Bennett writing a column together -- what the @#$%?!?! Yeah, I know y'all are tired of the whole cartoon debate. I am too, but it just won't go away.

Sorry blogging has been light of late. It's just been a really busy week. I had scads of tests and bunches of other stuff to take care of. An aside, ... I gave and graded the stats II test. This test covered hypothesis testing (1 and 2 sample) and one way ANOVA, so it's not the easiest stuff in the world. Hence, I was pleasantly surprised when the class average (mean and median were pretty close) was about 78%. I told the students this and they started laughing. I didn't understand so I asked if they were laughing because they thought the average would be a lot worse (they seemed to react badly the day of the test). No, they said, they were laughing about the fact that I thought a 78 average was "pretty darned good". I don't get that. Is grade inflation really so rampant that students expect the class AVERAGE to be a B or an A on a test? Seriously, I know I have different expectations than the students, but this sort of shocked me. Okay, I won't go off on another grade inflation rant, just wanted to share.

Anyway, blogging has been light, but I'm off on a road trip this weekend. A little girl in Jackson is hoping we'll get to go "treasure hunting" (aka geocaching). I'll let y'all know how it goes next week.

Kind of quiet

Not much going on here these days. I'm in the middle of grading my stats exams and they haven't been as good as I'd hoped nor as bad as I'd feared. I guess that's all one can hope for. The best student I've had since coming here, though, did almost have a complete breakdown during the test. Now this woman made it through both my econ classes and my stats 1 class without a hitch. Mind you, she did worry too much about the tests, but I never saw her flustered. Yesterday, though, she almost lost it.

She sits on the front row, so it was easy for me to watch her. About 30 minutes in I noticed that her hand was shaking as she worked with her calculator. Next I heard the little sighs of exasperation coming from her direction. Finally I heard her telling herself to BREATHE, JUST BREATHE! At that point, I really started to worry. I went over and asked if she was okay and she said she was. I think she was just stuck on one problem and she'd just figured it out. Anyway, that was the highlight of the day.

People who live in glass houses ...

Given all my verbal "slips" and incorrect word usages, I'm loath to correct anyone's speech. This morning at the coffee shop, though, I couldn't resist.

See, there's this incredibly loud young woman who hangs out there sometimes. She's in love with anything and everything from Scotland or Ireland and she will go on at length about these topics. I don't mind her obsession; I mind that she speaks in such a loud voice that everyone else must share in her conversation. Anyway, this morning she was over in "my" part of the coffee shop talking the high school kid who works there most mornings. During their conversation, the young kid made the mistake of saying something was "badder" than something else. Of course he should have said "worse" and it did sound odd, but the loud girl POUNCED on his slip.

The "correcting" was good-natured, but it was loud and it went on a bit too long, I thought. So imagine my surprise a few minutes later when she said something was "funner". I couldn't resist. I told her I was surprised, given her speech a few minutes earlier, to hear her use "funner". I figured that would be the end of it, but she couldn't figure out what point I was trying to make. In other words, she didn't understand that "funner" is not an acceptable word. When I suggested she might want to use "more fun", she looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign tongue. Finally, she admitted (grudgingly) that I was probably right.

Intrigued, I did some digging (well, metaphorically) and I was taken aback. No one has come out and admitted "funner" and "funnest" as acceptable, but the general consensus seems to be that these words will become acceptable in the not too distant future. I am appalled! Of course, one should take my language rants with a grain of salt. I am, after all, the guy who misspelled "BITE" in a spelling bee. In my defense, my error had MUCH more to do with my colossal fear (at the time) of speaking in front of an audience than my spelling ability. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Stupid ice and snow

Though we didn't really get any bad weather, there were some icy road conditions this morning. As a result, the powers that be decided that school would open at 10:00 this morning. Normally I'd be tickled at any school delay, but the 10:00 starting time hung me up. See, our class schedule runs 8:00-9:15, 9:30-10:45, 11:00-12:15, etc. Given that, what does opening at 10:00 mean? Was I supposed to meet from 10:00-10:45 with my class or do classes resume on the normal schedule at 11:00? I didn't know and I couldn't find anyone who did. The consensus seemed to be that we should have class from 10:00-10:45 IF ANYONE SHOWED UP. There's the rub. At 10:00 I had 4 students in class. Was I supposed to have class for 45 minutes and leave the other 85% of the class behind or was I to tell the 4 who showed up, "Thanks for coming, but go home now." Though I hated to, I basically took the latter approach. They did so poorly on test 1, I didn't want to do anything that would put them even further behind.

ARGH, stupid cancellation policy!

Overkill

This may not be a popular sentiment with some readers, but I honestly believe the Dems are going off the deep end with their Bush/Republican bashing. Not that he/they don't need some bashing, but seriously -- the hard core left is getting just as crazy as the hard core right was with Clinton. Remember the whole "they killed Vince Foster" thing? I'm afraid the Dems are following the same path. Evidence? Okay, I know this is anecdotal, but two things in the newspaper in the last week or so got me to thinking about this.

Exhibit 1: a letter to the editor in the HSV Times a week or so ago (sorry, no link). One Mr. Alan M. Heuiser took exception to Bush's claim in the State of the Union that we as a nation are addicted to oil. According to Mr. Heuiser:

In the State of the Union speech, President Bush said that Americans are addicted to oil. Once again he misspoke. Once again he tried to lay the blame on the average American. ... If Americans are guilty of anything it is an unwillingness to stop doing what we like and to sacrifice our way of life.

Okay, I can see that last point, but it doesn't really seem to refute the claim that we are "addicted to oil". Moreover, how is this Bush's or the Republicans' fault? Ah, Mr. Heuiser enlightens us:

This reluctance is what the oil companies are "banking" on. ... The people who profit from selling us gasoline and heating oil sure don't want us to use something else. Those same people spend a lot of time and money making sure Congress understands what they want and what they don't want.

Here's my favorite part, though:

If someone would come up with an alternative to gas that cost close to or a bit more than gas, Americans would never touch gasoline again - especially if it meant that we did not have to depend on foreign countries to get it.

Ahh, there's the rub. If someone would (magically?) invent a product that works just as good, costs about the same, and could be produced domestically, well then Americans wouldn't be addicted to foreign oil! Wow! I'm sorry, Mr. Heuiser, but that's just a useless comment. As noted above, Mr. Heuiser claims the real problem is an "unwillingness to stop doing what we like and to sacrifice our way of life." Yet his "solution" is a magical elixir that will allow us to keep doing what we like and not sacrifice our way of life. Plus, how does his solution reflect on Bush and the Repubs? Is he insinuating this "magical solution" is just lying around collecting dust while Bush keeps it under wraps to help his oil buddies? That's the only connection I can see.

Exhibit 2: a small story from the AP in Wednesday's paper (sorry, can't find a link for this either). H. Josef Hebert reported on a "quirk" from a 1995 law that is allowing oil companies to avoid some big royalty payments on oil even though oil prices have skyrocketed in the past year or so. Evidently there was some sort of law passed in 1995 that gave oil companies "royalty relief" in an attempt to encourage exploration when prices were low. Okay, that probably looks like a bad plan RIGHT NOW, so I understand trying to change the law today. What I don't get, though, is this remark by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA):

The American people are getting stood up and hung out to dry by an administration that favors sweetheart deals with big oil.

Excuse me Mr. Markey, but the law was passed in 1995 WHEN CLINTON WAS PRESIDENT! Note to the hard left: Not EVERYTHING is Bush's fault!

Everyone relax and have a nice weekend.

My (almost) trip to jail

The closest I ever came (that I know of) to going to jail was one Sunday evening in Franklin, TN. For those of you who don't "know" Franklin, well they have a certain reputation for snootiness there. If you're a N AL person, it's sort of like the perception of folks in Hampton Cove. What once was a quaint, perhaps even rural, suburb was taken over by the money people and the money people don't like the non-money people. I'm not saying that's 100% accurate, but I think it is indicative of the perception many have about both communities. Anyway, back to jail ...

Back in my college days I was home for, I think, the summer break. I was hanging out with my old pal, Nate, and a classmate (from the architecture program at UT) he'd brought home with him for a visit. The classmate lived out the outskirts of Franklin and I rode along when Nathan took him home. Since they both were architecture students, the classmate wanted to show Nathan a couple of houses with interesting designs. I don't remember much about the houses, but I do recall that they weren't on one of the "main drags". Importantly, though, they weren't isolated streets in clearly residential, gated communities or anything like that. No, they were just a couple of houses on side streets. So, anyway, we took a little side trip to see these houses. I remember that Nathan, who was driving, slowed down a bit at each of the two houses, but we didn't pull over to look; heck, we didn't even slow that much -- just eased up on the speed a little bit so Nathan could see both houses

About the time we'd driven by the second house, we noticed a car behind us. No one thought too much about it as these weren't desolate streets or anything, but we did "perk up" when the car continued to follow us as we cut through some sort of office park type area to get back to the main drag that would take us to the classmate's house. Shortly after we got back to said main drag, the blue lights came on. If that wasn't bad enough, a second cop car came screeching to the scene, Roscoe P. Coltrane style, to "assist" the first car. So here we were, three early-twenties young men, sitting on the side of the road with two cop cars staring us down, wondering just what we'd done to warrant such attention. Soon we found out.

Cop #1 got out and approached Nathan, as I would expect a cop to do. Cop #2, meanwhile, snuck up on the passenger side and remained just behind the rear door while peeking all around trying to see just what malfeasance we might be up to. Cop #1 took IDs from all 3 of us and went back to his car -- never telling us just why we'd been stopped. Finally, cop #2 gave up his peeking and went back to join cop #1. After what seemed like half an hour (yes, I'm sure it wasn't that long, but it probably was 10 minutes or more), cop #1 came back all by himself and started quizzing us as to just what we were doing. Please keep in mind that, as far as I knew, we hadn't done anything approaching lawbreaking. We'd taken a short trip through some side streets in Franklin and then we'd cut through an office park area to get back to the main road. Anyway, the interview went something like:

Cop #1: Just what are y'all boys doing up here in Franklin?

Nathan: We were taking my friend, X, (turn and point to X) home. He lives up here and, since we're both architecture students, he wanted to show me a couple of interesting houses.

Cop #1: Hmm, ... [Pregnant pause.] Well see, we've had a bad rash of burglaries around here and I noticed y'all taking an unusual route. [Note: I didn't believe the crime wave story as I felt sure a string of home invasions in Franklin would have made it onto the Nashville news and if you lived in the Caffeine household you watched the Nashville news multiple times every day. Further, I still didn't see what we'd done that warranted our detention by the police.]

Nathan: Gosh, we didn't know anything about that.

Cop #1: Yeah, that's why I was suspicious of y'all.

Okay, up to this point I was offended, but I guess I could understand (if the burglary spree story was true) why the cop might have thought we deserved at least a look. I still thought it'd been overdone, but I COULD understand his actions -- maybe. What followed, though, really pissed me off!

Cop #1: (In my memory this was delivered a la sheriff Burford T. Justice from Smokey and the Bandit.) Well I'm gonna let y'all go, but we took down your information and if there is ANY trouble up here tonight we'll be getting in touch and you'll have to come back up here and explain more about just what you were doing here. We're real proud of our town and we appreciate that y'all wanted to visit, just make sure you come visit in the daytime the next time you want to look around.

Though I am a law-and-order type and I generally follow the Axl Rose rule of not confronting police officers, I was irate! How dare this guy threaten to haul us back in if "any trouble came up"? We had no burglary tools, we all had clean records, we had a perfectly legitimate story about why we were in Franklin, and we hadn't even really engaged in any suspicious behavior in the first place! The last straw, though, was his "y'all can come look around, but only in daylight hours"!!!!! Of course what we really did was say, "Yessir, thank you sir. We'll be leaving now, sir. Anything else we can do to improve your opinion of us, sir?", and got the heck out of Franklin. To this day, however, I curse Franklin cops every time I'm through there.

Point of this ramble? This story and, more specifically, that I wasn't a bit surprised by it. Though I dislike most zoning laws in principle (it's the libertarian in me), I sort of view it as an "it's your own fault" thing if you have a conflict with a neighborhood's covenants. Hello, (most of the time) they were in place when you moved in. Did you think the prohibition against porch couches would apply to everyone but you? This, though, strikes me as a little over the top -- banning parking in YOUR OWN front OR SIDE yard as a citywide policy! You can bet I'll be reading tomorrow's edition of the Williamson A.M. for more details.

Sci-Fi nerd post

Which sci-fi crew would you feel most "at home" with? Click here to find out. [Warning, the quiz is a little long.]

I will admit that I was a little disappointed. I really wanted to end up on Serenity, but I guess being on the Millenium Falcon is not such a bad gig. I think my results might have been overly biased by question 1.

Anyway, give it a shot (hat tip to Dan Drezner).

Happy V-Day

Full disclosure, I didn't even realize today was Valentine's Day until I walked into the department office and saw a tray of "goodies". Though I have no reason to celebrate this day, I didn't pass up the opportunity for cookies!

Speaking of Valentines, I did get an e-card yesterday from a student. Now such things tend to make me a tad nervous as I never know if it's a sign of infatuation, a death threat, or something else altogether. Fortunately, this one turned out to be the latter. In fact, it was an econ-themed V-day card! How cool is that? Well probably not much, unless you're an economist.

Oh, speaking of Valentines again, the subject sort of came up in today's stats lecture. I was trying to explain, for the 487th time, the CORRECT way to interpret the results of a hypothesis test. Basically, you can REJECT or FAIL TO REJECT the null hypothesis (the baseline, status quo, ...). For some reason the students are really having trouble grasping the exact implication of the "fail to reject" option. Anyway, I was going over that again when I said something like, "Yeah, rejection -- an appropriate subject for Valentine's Day, at least for me." That got a good chuckle and then I told them, "No, I'm alone because I choose to be alone." After that, things pretty much went downhill. It took a while to get them back to the idea of hypothesis testing.

Anyway, those have been the highlights of my V-day so far. Oh, I remembered at least one book I omitted from my list yesterday. I think it was a quarter and it looked fairly interesting. I used to read A LOT of short stories, but the modern short story tends to disappoint me. Nothing really happens in today's short stories. Still, this collection looks like it might have potential. I don't know, though; those Iowa Workshop writers sometimes let me down.

Oh, another update on yesterday's book post. It looks as if I may have found a home for my new 1st edition copy of Sex & Sunsets. I am, though, going to make him post a comment on the blog before he gets the book. Hey, Caffeine Bro, you've been a blog mooch for too long!

I'll try again

I'd written out a full post a little earlier, but blogger made it all disappear. Alas ... I'll try again.

I started by pointing out that today has been busy, but that's mostly been my fault as I've been wasting a lot of time. How I don't know, but the day has gotten away. I did, though, want to mention the outcome of my trip to the Decatur Library book sale on Friday:

• The find I was most proud of was a hardcover first edition of one of my all-time favorites: Sex & Sunsets. While this book illicits strong negative opinions from some, I absolutely love it. C'mon guys, it's NOT glorifying stalkering [er, I guess that should be "stalking" or "stalkers" -- oh well, I did once "win" a $1.50 prize from a magazine for inventing a new word]! I already own an identical copy of this, but I'm trying to forget that I paid MORE than cover for it at some shop in Nashville. Grr.

• Someone must have been dumping Tim Sandlin because I also found a hardcover copy of Sorrow Floats -- the second volume in his GroVont Trilogy. Yet again, I already had a copy of this, but it's an oversized paperback. I'm perfectly happy with the oversize paperback, but this one was 50 cents and I just couldn't pass it up.

• Finally, a book I did NOT already own: The Beans of Egypt, Maine: The Finished Version. I tried to read this book once before, but that was years ago. Maybe I'll have better luck this time. Small thing, I'm not sure what makes this version "finished". The Amazon reviews, though, make it sound as if the author tacks on a postscript to help "explain" the book -- never a good sign.

• A shiny quarter got me a nice oversized paperback copy of Pete Dexter's The Paperboy. I wrote a paper on Paris Trout for freshman comp and I've always wanted to read some more of his stuff, I just never got around to it. Now I guess I have no excuse.

• I already know I wasted 12.5 cents (it was listed as a quarter, but the sale was "half off") on this one: Two or Three Things I Know for Sure. I really enjoyed Bastard Out of Carolina, so I figured I'd try Dorothy Allison's slim (96 pages) memoir. It was oddly written, but that wasn't what bothered me. Nor do I think I was discomfited by the discussions of lesbianism. No, I think what put me off was that after the first few pages, there seemed to be nothing but discussions of lesbianism. I realize Ms. Allison had a traumatic upbringing and I know I'm not an unbiased reviewer, but after a while I got tired of the "yeh lesbians, boo men" routine. Sorry, but that was my take.

• Finally, there's at least one (I think two) books that I'm forgetting. I've been mentally reviewing my "shopping cart" from Friday, but I just can't come up with them. See, the problem is that I'll buy almost anything that sounds remotely interesting at the book sale and I tend to do just that. As a result, I sometimes have trouble remembering just what I bought. Oh well, I'm pretty sure I got my approximately $3 worth from them. Now I just have to get around to donating some of my books to them. That would free up some shelf space for me and lead to even more book buying. Yippee!

Books, books, books

As you may remember, the Decatur Library has really good book sales. Well this weekend they're having another one. I shudder to think of what will happen, but I reckon I'm going. Anyone have any requests? Things you'd like me to look for for you, suggestions of things I might like, books you'd like me to buy and destroy so as to prevent some innocent soul from going through the pain of reading them, etc. I don't know when exactly I'll be going, but I welcome any input.

Note later in the day:
I almost hate to do this, but I have to put in a good word for the Amazon Prime service. If you shop at Amazon, I'm sure you've seen this. Basically, you pay $79 (I think) a year and you get free 2-day shipping for every order, regardless of size, and $3.99 overnight shipping. I was ordering something a few weeks ago and Amazon offered me a free 3-month trial. This appealed to me for two reasons:

1. It was free!
2. I hate the fact that when I want to order one item I usually end up ordering more stuff just so I can get the free "super saver" shipping.

So, anyway, I figured I'd give it a shot. While I don't think I'll "pony up" the $79 once my free trial expires, I have been impressed. I've taken advantage of the free 2-day shipping for gifts for two folks -- one in MS and one in AL -- and both items have arrived THE VERY NEXT DAY! Yes, you read that right. I ordered the items one day and they were delivered the next day. Seriously, that level of service might be worth $79 a year. Nah, I'm too cheap, but it's nice while it lasts.

Quick thoughts

Not much time today, but I did want to point out a column in the WaPo on the bizarre stadium game the Washington, D.C. council is playing with MLB. I don't have time today, but one day I'll post a full-scale rant about the idiocy of almost all publicly funded sports stadiums (this from a devoted sports fan). For today, you can read Marc Fisher's comments. He actually seems to think the stadium will be a "good deal" for D.C., but he points out some of the strange twists in the whole "we need a new stadium" saga:

After the council rejected the stadium lease that has paralyzed city politics for more than a year, the phones started ringing with top-shelf real estate developers on the line, the mayor (remember him, the bowtie guy?) resorted to begging, the big boys from baseball started making threats about leaving town (again), and, lo and behold, the council reversed itself.

Who switched? Carol Schwartz and the three council members who were elected in 2004 by running against the stadium deal: [Marion] Barry, Kwame Brown and Vincent Gray. Never mind that the stadium deal they campaigned against was considerably cheaper than the one they've now approved.

...

Nothing made sense on the night the baseball insanity finally (maybe) ended, except this: All along, council Chairman Linda Cropp and some of her flip-flopping colleagues wanted to have it both ways. They wanted voters to see them both as the politicians who brought baseball back to Washington and as guardians of the public accounts who stood tall against the fleecing of the District by baseball's zillionaire barons.

It's just that no one ever conceived they might try to establish both reputations in one night. Sorry, folks, but the council comes off instead as an erratic wild card, a barrier to good business.

That's all for today. Oh, Cousin Kari sent me some Sipsey photos (since my camera was out of commission for most of the day):

My 2 cents

Though not the result of a conscious decision, I have neglected to opine about the dustup over the Danish cartoons. I would like to say, though, that I have been VERY disappointed in the U.S. State Department and the British Foreign Office (or whatever it's called). I can't believe the wimpy approach they've taken to free expression. Anyway, Melusina and Vol Abroad both have covered the controversy in a way that pretty much sums up my feelings. Then of course there was the column by Mark Steyn (if you haven't already, read the whole thing) that pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned:

Jyllands-Posten wasn't being offensive for the sake of it. They had a serious point -- or, at any rate, a more serious one than Britney Spears or Terence McNally [read the whole thing to get this reference]. The cartoons accompanied a piece about the dangers of "self-censorship" -- i.e., a climate in which there's no explicit law forbidding you from addressing the more, er, lively aspects of Islam but nonetheless everyone feels it's better not to.

That's the question the Danish newspaper was testing: the weakness of free societies in the face of intimidation by militant Islam.

Anyway, there's been a lot of stuff out there like that, so I didn't feel the need to weigh in. The longer the controversy drug on, though, the more I felt compelled to speak up. Today was the breaking point. Actually today was the first day I'd had time to poke around and read lots of different takes on the issue. Regardless, what has caused me to speak out is the impression I get that almost everyone is missing the point.

I've read "letters to the editor" from mainstream Muslims (and non-Muslims) pointing out how offensive the cartoons are. I've read "opinion pieces" from papers' editorial boards about a lack of sensitivity and how much their papers have debated whether to reprint the cartoons. I've also read a lot of folks defending the Danish paper. Again, these folks are missing the point as far as I'm concerned. Of course I think the Danish paper had the RIGHT to print the cartoons. I understand that you can debate that point, but what I'm amazed about is that the majority of the coverage is focused on the wisdom of publishing the cartoons in the first place!

Would a Danish newspaper have published similar cartoons relating to the Christian or Jewish faith? That's irrelevant to me. To me, the real issue is the reaction in the Muslim world. So I've printed something and that has offended you. Well you can not buy my paper. You can write a letter to the editor complaining. If you feel strongly enough, you can boycott advertisers in my paper and stuff like that. What you are not justified in doing is threatening murder and terrorist attacks by Bin Laden because you didn't like something in my newspaper! It really is that simple! If you want to be treated with respect and understanding, don't threaten to behead someone you disagree with! Here's my favorite piece from a letter by one Tarana Alam (a self-professed educated Muslim) of Laguna Niguel, CA:

If the West is really interested in making lasting peace with the Muslim world, it needs to learn about the fundamentals of Islam and respect for the spiritual values of others.

Ring, ring, ... Hello, Pot, it's Kettle!

Since the Muslim world seems intent on making this a "you wouldn't do this with a Christian cartoon" issue, think about the reaction the last time Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, etc. made one of their loony condemnations. Was there a mainstream debate about whether society should have taken the actions that led to the offense? No, there was widespread ridicule of Falwell/Robertson and then the world moved on. Why are we not holding the offended parties to the same standard this time?

To me, the West's cautious reaction to the Muslim over-reaction proves Jyllands-Posten's original point about self-censorship.

Map Heaven

Okay, right up front: I love maps! I guess I've always been fond of maps, but my fondness turned to fanaticism when I read The Mapmakers. It's a wonderful example of history mixed with adventure -- at least that's how this nerd read it. Anyway, I love maps.

That's why I am so enthralled by Google Maps -- an amazing mapping tool. You can do almost anything with Google Maps if you have the patience. Unfortunately I don't have that attribute in sufficient quantities, so I've mostly mooched off the work of others. Now I find that mooching may be a whole lot easier than I would have imagined. Yep, there's a Google Maps blog! The blog itself doesn't interest me that much, but down the right side of the blog is a list of all kinds of things others have asked Google Maps to do:

Geology.com has a clickable map showing meteor impact craters around the world. [Should that be meteorite impact craters? Hey, I won't pick a fight with a site called geology.com.]

Someone has a map of the results of a 5-week study on whale sounds. You can see where the sample was collected and click on the balloon to listen. Cool idea, though I couldn't really hear many whales.

The Ontario Beer Hunter has a real-time map that shows open stores in various cities/towns where you can buy alcohol RIGHT NOW. As of 3:17 today, there are 172 open retail booze outlets in Toronto.

Of course there's at least one site that claims to show baseball teams across America, though they omit my favorite league. The coolest map of all, though, may be this one. You can type in a zip code and see a blue/red breakdown of folks who contributed to the 2000 Presidential campaigns. There are limitations, but it's still amazing. Not only does the site provide a blue/red breakdown, it shows where individual contributors' locations. Further, you can click on an individual balloon and see who it is, who he/she contributed to, and how much the contribution was. Now that amount of info being available freaks me out a little, but it's still a cool feature. Hey, Vol, I checked L'burg but I didn't see any radical contributions from the VolMom. What's up with that? I did, though, see that a current neighbor (just one block down the street) gave $2000 to John Kerry.

Anyway, poke around on the blog and I guarantee you'll find something that makes you go wow.

Oh, update from yesterday, I think my cheap digital camera has come back to life. So it looks like I got a good story out of the trip and I'm not even going to have to replace my camera. I'm on a roll.

More fun in the woods

Yes, I know the Super Bowl was this weekend (way to go Steelers), but the highlight of my weekend was another trip to the Sipsey Wilderness Area. If you're a regular reader, you already know of my love for the Sipsey. This time, though, I wasn't exploring the Sipsey by myself. No, this time I met up with Cousin Kari and her husband, Jason. We tentatively planned the trip last week, but we were waiting to see if the weather was going to cooperate. Saturday morning at 7:00 we decided it was "good enough" -- highs in the mid-40's and blustery winds. The TV weather guy kept saying, "If you have to be out, make sure you bundle up as the wind chill may be down in the 20's. Still, we figured we could handle it so we set out.

Our first task was to find the Kinlock Shelter -- a rock formation/cave/overhang that we'd all heard about but never visited. Thanks to a handy guide book, I had a set of GPS coordinates so we figured we could find it. We did and it was quite spectacular. Of course I failed to take a "front on" picture so you could get an idea of the scope of the formation, but here it is:

The only problem with the Kinlock Shelter was that it was too close to the road, so we didn't feel we'd really done a hike. Given all the rain the past few weeks, though, we figured it'd be a great day to seek some waterfalls. [Insert ominous foreshadowing music here.]

So we then headed out to the Caney Creek Falls -- upper and lower. Kari and Jason had been to the Upper Falls, but they wanted to find the Lower Falls as well. Of course one reason they hadn't been to the Lower Caney was the lack of a distinct trail there, but that didn't stop us. No we headed for the Lower Falls, basically making our own trail at times. Everything was fine and dandy until we came to a place where another creek came into the Caney. We were going to have to cross some creek, so we figured we might as well get on the "right" side of the Caney. Jason found a downed tree that we agreed could be used to cross. The problem was it was a tad narrow to walk across, yet too "branchy" to scoot across easily. Jason had already crossed and Kari was contemplating her route when I discovered a third option -- falling in the creek and wading across!

Again, you may remember on my earlier Sipsey trips I have often felt like the "don't be this guy" guy in the old outdoor safety films? Well to make a long story sort of short ... I tried to edge across a narrow ledge of land to get to the tree. My narrow ledge, though, was quite narrow, muddy, and leaf-covered. Surprisingly, the narrow, muddy, leaf-covered ledge did not provide the best footing. I had taken one step, maybe two, when my feet just zoomed out from under me. I seem to recall that I had time for a short YELP and then I plunged, straight as an arrow, into the water. It was about an 8-10 ft. drop (though I threatened to exaggerate to 25 or 30 feet) before I hit the water, so I had a bit of momentum. I don't remember the fall, but I do remember going under (Jason says I didn't go completely under because he never lost sight of my cap) and going into an immediate panic as I didn't know how deep the water was and I swim like a rock in the best of conditions.

In just a flash, though, I had found the bottom and the water turned out to be ONLY about chest deep (temp in mid-40s, mind you). After Jason alertly yelled for me to go to the other side, I managed to get out of the creek without drowning. Still, I figured that just made me a nominee for the "hypothermia man" role rather than the "drowning man" role in the safety films. Kari and Jason offered to cut off our trip and rush back to the truck -- as sane people would have done -- but once I calmed down and the adrenaline stopped rushing through my body, I decided it wasn't that bad.

Though I never was one, I pack like a boy scout. Hence, I had a dry fleece pullover, a dry pair of socks, etc. in my bag, which fortunately didn't take on too much water. Consequently, I was able to get dry feet, a dry upper body, and a warm head (I had a "boggan" in my pack too), so I wasn't in too bad a shape. I did, though, have to deal with the discomfort of wet pants. Fortunately, I'd put on "long johns" that morning (thinking it was going to be colder than it was) and they were about 50% polyester, so they basically insulated my lower body from my wet pants. Yes, a smart man still would have left the woods, but I've never claimed to be smart in the woods.

So, we continued. I figured if nothing else, I'd have a good blog story for Monday. Unfortunately, that turned out to be the high point of our Caney trek. We did make it to the Lower Falls (after much bushwhacking through deadfalls), but we couldn't find a way down into the canyon where we needed to be for a good view. Actually, we did eventually find a way down, but we were about a quarter mile beyond the falls and the high water kept us from just walking back up the canyon. Plus, someone (Kari) had the good sense to suggest that old Wet Pants (me) might want to get out of the woods before dark. Have I mentioned I really like Cousin Kari?

So, we cut the trip a little short, but we had a memorable story. Yep, you can bet I'm going to get some mileage out of this as a campfire story -- especially the part about continuing the hike! It looks as if I may have to replace my cheap digital camera, but in all seriousness I guess I was pretty darned lucky.

Oh, the most amazing part, ... I broke down and told the Caffeine Parents about my fall -- I figured Cousin Kari's mom would blab -- and they acted as if it were no big deal. They freaked out about me camping when it was so cold, yet they were amazingly calm about my plunge into the icy waters of Caney Creek! Go figure. Anyway, the "picture posting" seems to be working now, so here's a shot of the Upper Caney Falls:

Kaye Gibbons, Grrr

I think Kaye Gibbons is out to make my life miserable! Seriously, that's the only explanation I can conceive to explain her behavior the past couple of years.

As some of you know, I spent 4 years at the University of Mississippi and I loved most every minute of my time there. Mostly I just loved the town of Oxford. One of the few things I did NOT like about Oxford (well besides overly eager cops who would make a student PUSH his bicycle home because he deigned to ride it after dark without a headlight), though, was the "Village" clique. I can't describe them perfectly, but they were the type to hang out at Square Books (the greatest bookstore EVER) wearing their berets, sipping their fancy coffee drinks, and bemoaning all the backwardness in the state. I won't try to explain just why they bothered me so much (sort of like Vol Abroad's recent encounter with the faux Southern accent woman). Anyway, Kaye Gibbons is now firmly a member of that group.

If you don't know old Kaye, she once wrote a classic Southern novel -- Ellen Foster. The novels that followed were good, but she couldn't top Ellen Foster. The last couple of years, though, Kay has just gone bonkers. I really do think she's become a bitter, angry, hateful woman.

The first strike against her was her debut column in the inaugural issue (of the 3rd or 4th incarnation) of The Oxford American magazine. She spent the entire column complaining about how some morons had the audactity to attend her sessions at writing conferences (where she was paid to appear) and dare ask her QUESTIONS ABOUT WRITING! Didn't these people know the great Kaye Gibbons couldn't be bothered by such trivialities? Yes, I understood her main point, that there is no "magic formula" for writing. There is no correct answer to, "How many metaphors should be in a literary novel?", but these folks had paid their bucks and, I imagine, showed up for two reasons: First, I bet, they simply loved books. Second, they wanted to write something and they just couldn't figure out how. Sure, lots of their questions probably were annoying and sort of stupid, but no one forced Kaye to take those gigs. I can even see how Kaye might chuckle with her fellow "real writers" about the morons, but how dull do you have to be not to realize that was an inappropriate topic for a column in a magazine geared to Southern folks who love books and might want to try to write one? I would imagine that lots of those folks Kaye lampooned were the very folks the OA wanted to lure into subscribing. Needless to say, Kaye wasn't back in issue 2.

I had almost put that out of my mind until good friend and blog reader, Ang, told me she had attempted to read the sequel to Ellen Foster. According to Ang, and the reviewers at Amazon, it is impenetrable rot (not her exact words).

Still, I figured Kaye had just made a miscalculation by trying to write a sequel to a beloved novel -- a peril that has tripped up many a writer. Yesterday, though, I received the latest issue of Paste magazine in the mail. Sure enough, there was an essay by Kaye titled, "Calling Existential Movers & Storage, or Why I'm Leaving the South". The title itself was not a good omen, still I went ahead and read the piece. I don't know how else to explain it; Kaye Gibbons has lost it!

In this piece, Kaye attempts to explain why she is leaving NC for NY -- at least I think that's what she's attempting. She begins by fantasizing about dropping writing in favor of her other obsession: cleaning. She imagines that she can sneak off and get a job as a maid at the local Holiday Inn.

Mabye it's fume-induced, but soon I'm inventing answers to justify my overqualified presence to the manager.

Okay, Kaye, don't start your essay by pointing out how overqualified you are for your dream job. A few paragraphs later she imagines she'd be fired from her cleaning job pretty quickly.

I imagine being hired and then rapidly fired by the Holiday Inn on some measly and unmemorable grounds, when I suspect the other maids have plotted my departure. On the verge of cleaning paint off baseboards, I'll tell myself I surely hadn't been perceived as snobbish, only stubborn ...

Nah, Kaye, no way you could have come off as snobbish!

After that, she moves on to her I get no respect lament.

This particular Holiday Inn is in Raleigh, N.C., so the eye-rolling attitude he'll likely express toward my plight will no doubt arise from an incredulity that I could've been making a living writing, being Southern and female and all. At the most, I could be a dabbler in mysteries or romances.

Yeah, Kaye, there have NEVER been any serious, successful, respected, Southern female writers. Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Ellen Gilchrist, etc. -- hacks!

From there, Kaye, complains about her McNeighborhood: a place where neighbors DARE to ask how she's doing or express concern that she's working too hard. How did Kaye end up in the McNeighborhood? Yep, she CHOSE to move there after she fled the "old-money neighborhood" she'd been living in (also voluntarily, I might add):

The blandness of suburbia was a relief after years of living absurdly beyond my means in an old-money neighborhood in a house I would've needed to write excellent porn to afford. Living there required living a lie or finding peace as the 'hood character, both unnecessary enterprises and wastes of time.

Once again, bless your heart, Kaye. I don't know how you stood it!

Finally, she explains why she is moving to New York. As near as I can figure, she's moving to the Big Apple because some local kids (maybe students who'd been reading Ellen Foster in class?) broke into her home and rummaged around her writing room. Now I understand her being pissed about that and about the fact that the kids' parents didn't take it as seriously as she did. Still, does she think a move to New York will reduce the chance of home invasion? I'd speculate that if a group of locals break into her New York abode, they'll likely do more than rummage around and take pictures with Kaye's camera (which they didn't steal by the way).

The whole thing just reinforced my opinion that Kaye Gibbons has gone off the deep end. Good luck with your move to NY and good luck with your writing. St. Caffeine, though, will not be reading your future work.

Random thoughts

Blogging has been light lately. It's been a busy week and nothing big has caught my attention. I'm a political junkie, but I didn't watch the State of the Union. I hate political speeches. They're all full of fluff and soundbites and no one ever says anything truly eye opening, at least in my opinion. So, anyway, I've been out of the loop. Today, though, I noticed a couple of stories that touch on one of my favorite subjects: free speech.

First, there is this report from the Christian Science Monitor. I've long thought the speech restrictions in high schools were loathsome, but this is just too much. I certainly understand taking action if a student makes a credible threat of violence on his blog and I can even understand a school's refusal to let students blog using school computers. What I don't get at all, though, is how a school thinks it can, by fiat, stop students from blogging about school matters from home! The obvious "overstep" by schools comes at the end of the story:

One Pittsburgh senior is currently suing his school district on free-speech grounds, with the help of the ACLU, after he was suspended for parodying his principal on his MySpace site.

C'mon, school, you know better than that. That example seems so obviously wrong that it doesn't worry me. The more disturbing parts of the article, again in my opinion, are the ones where school administrators want to censor student blogs because students might be mean to others. Hello, it's high school! Of course kids are going to be mean to each other! Is it nice? No. Would it be nice if kids didn't behave that way? Yes. Should the school try to police what kids say to each other off campus in order to stop such teasing and bullying? HELL NO! I'm speaking as a kid who was the "smart, fat kid" on a school bus full of less than sensitive souls -- I've got street cred.

The article then tries to point out the potential positive aspects of student blogging -- an outlet for the new kid in school, a student in crisis was able to get peer support for his pain, etc. Those are nice, but to me irrelevant, aspects of teen blogging. You shouldn't have to PROVE that free speech is good! In the absence of evidence to the contrary, just what gives schools the idea they can "ban use of some blogs even at home"? It's just crazy, I tell you.

On a sort of related note, I saw this column by Sebastian Mallaby at the WaPo. I've sort of followed the debate about Yahoo, Microsoft, and lately Google capitulating to the Chinese government's demand to "filter", "censor", "insert favorite euphemism here" internet content in China. Philosophically I am opposed to such actions, but I do realize it is a business decision and there's the old standby argument of engagement rather than isolation; something like, "A little freedom is better than keeping them completely cut off." Anyway, that's the argument that companies and administrations have been using (at least) since Nixon. Mallaby, though, points out:

Google's answer to the China dilemma is better, and more subtle, than that of other Internet firms. It does not simply assert that engagement with China is always good. It recognizes the arms race between China's repressive state power and China's liberating economic growth, and it accepts the conclusion that follows: Some forms of engagement hasten liberal trends; others empower jailers

So what is Google's answer? Basically, Google agreed to let the government filter results, but:

Google has negotiated the right to disclose, at the bottom of its Chinese search results, whether information has been withheld -- a disclosure that may prompt users to repeat their search using google.com instead of google.cn. Of course, the second search might be frustrated by Cisco's routers. But disclosing censorship is half the battle. If people know they are being brainwashed, then they are not being brainwashed.

A pretty cool trick pulled off by Google.

Anyway, all this came to Mallaby's attention when he received an inquiry from a Chinese publisher wanting to publish his latest book on the World Bank, with modifications. He first wanted nothing to do with the offer, but then he asked, "Was it better for Western books to circulate in China in censored form, or was it better not to circulate?" But then he worried that if the Chinese government cut his criticisms of China's use of prison labor and its overall dictatorial system, the reader would be left with only his praise of the country's aggressive poverty reduction programs -- a seriously unbalanced picture. Mallaby's solution -- he Googled:

And so, thanks to Google, I have come up with my answer. I'll accept the Chinese offer on three conditions: The translation should include a note warning the reader that it's been censored; the note should say which chapter has been changed; I'll give the proceeds to a human rights group. It feels good to have resolved that, but I don't really expect this deal to go through. The Chinese offer may mysteriously vanish now that I've written this column.