Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Election Day

If you’re here for the Catober bonus pics, this is the day for them. I have six photos here, the ones recently captured, too late to include, too delightful to ignore. These photos are our thanks — mine and Phoebe and Poseidon’s — for taking part in Catober all of last month. And if you didn’t — the very nerve! — you can click that link and see them in reverse chronological order.

These bonus photos are in no particular order, but the last one is from my lovely bride, it’s just about the cutest thing you’ve ever seen and is my all-time favorite Phoebe pose. (And she has a lot of great poses.) Please enjoy these, and thank you again for being a part of Catober. (More words are below.)

We had a governor’s race, and plenty of other things lower down the ballot. So, for the last several weeks I’ve been giving all sorts of info to my classes. Registration tips and deadlines. And then early voting links and, finally, the Election Day and the last big push. Make your voice heard! You are a part of one of our largest voting blocks! Politics, friends, is definitely interested in you! And, finally, if you’re in line when the polls close, stay in line and vote.

And then, like me, you can wonder how the local TV stations and YouTube will get by for ad revenue after today.

I, a person who studied political campaigns in grad school and covered (in some way or another) every campaign between 1996 and 2020, have never wanted a campaign cycle as badly as I wanted this one to end. On teevee, there’s a guy who looks like he can barely complete a sentence. And he’s running ads of his opponent doing the same. Her ads are all about a helicopter. Apparently she is a rotary aircraft enthusiast. On YouTube, it’s my local state lawmaker and there really should be a button that allows me to say “I know you. We’ve met. I like you. I’m going to vote for you. Please, please spend your advertising budget courting other people, because you’re wearing me out, to the point where I’m questioning my preferences.”

That’d be a big button, sure, but it would be worth it.

We drove over to the polling place, where I thought about that button while I pushed other buttons. We have electronic voting booths here. (I do prefer the old fill-in-a-bubble style, myself.) It took us a while to get there because there was some significant car accident that required two detours to get around. The voting was done in a municipal garage. It had the smell of grease, industry, and democracy — long may we have all three.

There were four folding folding tables set up. Two for each district, and then divided by names. Lacking any real originality, I went into the line that held the S names. I told the lady my name, and tried to sound convincing doing it. She asked for one other bit of information, as a verbal challenge to cross-reference the legitimacy of my being there, and I concentrated really hard to not stumble through it. She took a blood sample, a bit of hair and a retinal scan to complete the interview. Meanwhile, her colleague, a gentleman even older than she, pushed forward a paper pad. I had to sign here and print there. I’d just signed the digital screen, poorly as it turned out. Before she could take it back I was able to see my official signature under the new one. I’m surprised they let me vote at all, given the discrepancy. I worked really hard on the paper version, because someone will flip through that in a library or archive one day, and you’d like to be legible for that. (No one is ever going to scroll through digital signatures, let’s be serious about this. When all of this was done, and I explained to them the first 16-layers of my family tree, I was given a little key card. Put it in the slot arrow first, and leave it there until you see the green check mark.

Wave it in front of the screen and don’t leave until you see purple stars, got it.

We make these systems as simple as can be, and for good reason. People don’t see all the details, get in a hurry, get forgetful, they’ve never used a device like this before or, at best, once every few years. And some of these ballot selections require two votes. And what if your finger shakes?

Anyway, I voted. I took my little key card back. I thanked them both again, just as I had when I signed in. The enthusiasm of polling place volunteers is absolutely unmatched — Long may they come back and do this important work.

Now, we’ll just wait to see who wins these things.

(Update:Just an hour-and-a-half after the polls closed, a gubernatorial winner was declared. And the loser is now a three-time loser. After this drubbing, and it was a drubbing, it is safe to say the state has rejected the notion of him as a political leader.)

In my criticism class we discussed this story, NHL player Brad Marchand misses practice to fill in for junior hockey team after coach’s family tragedy:

Florida Panthers left winger Brad Marchand is missing time on the ice with his teammates to help out a friend.

Marchand, 37, offered his hockey expertise to the March & Mill Co. Hunters team on Wednesday, Oct. 29, by filling in as the team’s coach. The team’s usual coach, JP MacCallum, took time off after his 10-year-old daughter, Selah, died of cancer, per Marchand’s Instagram post.

Marchand missed the Panthers’ 3-2 Tuesday, Oct. 28, loss to the Anaheim Ducks after taking a leave of absence from team to attend Saleh’s funeral, according to NHL.com.

It was a simple curated piece, as you can already tell. I don’t think the class picked up on that as a whole, but we should notice these things, particularly as we undertake media criticism. What are the strengths of that style of writing? What are the weaknesses? Why isn’t this guy’s whole outlandish career (because he was that guy in his early days) also not included here. Was it a rehab piece? No. Was it a profile? Nope. Nowhere near complete enough for that. But it was something worth seeing and talking about for a few minutes.

This piece is a bit older, but the guy in it just retired, and it was a nice contrast to the hockey item, so why not? Malcolm Brogdon knows his impact can extend well beyond the hardwood:

After the 2014 season, during which Brogdon averaged a team-leading 12.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.2 steals in 31.4 minutes a game, he and his brothers joined their mother on a trip to Brazil. Adams had been working on an international science training program there and decided to bring the boys along for a family trip where they could all experience another country together as adults.

There’s a joke among the Brogdon boys that Malcolm has no personality. Mostly, it’s a result of John’s and Gino’s strong personalities swelling over Malcolm’s, but it’s also a result of Malcolm’s intense focus on his goals.

“Sometimes I sound like Allen Iverson when I’m trying to get him to go out with us at nights,” Gino says. “I’m like, you’re talking about not going out because of practice. Not a game, but practice. But we did manage to get him to go out with us a couple times in Brazil.”

When Brogdon saw the poverty in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro right next to hotels that he knew would make hundreds of thousands of dollars a night at the Olympics and World Cup in the following years, it solidified in his mind what he wanted to do after basketball—start a non-profit or NGO (non-governmental organization). “After basketball is over, I want all my energy to go to that,” Brogdon says. “That’s my true passion. I want to transform people’s lives in third-world countries—give them clean water and food.”

This piece was more in the mold of a traditional profile. We also have the added benefit here of looking back, 10 years on. He seems as impressive a guy now as he did then, already devoting his post-basketball life to clean water initiatives had when he was running up and down the court.

In org comm we had a casual sort of day. The best part of it was an elaborate teamwork exercise. I broke the class into three groups and put them all on a deserted island. They were able to salvage a few things from their vessel before it sank. There was a huge list to choose from, and I gave them a very small amount of time to figure out what they would take. They encountered a deranged person, driven mad by solitude on the island, who was going to escape, and they had to bribe him with one of their salvaged items so that he would tell others where they were. They had to figure out how to feed themselves, how to treat their wounded, and so on. And then a big storm came along and they lost more of their items. Finally, weak and hungry and everything else, they had to use their remaining items to signal a passing plane for rescue.

They all made it off their respective islands. And this was my entrance into the next several days of class, which are about conflict and negotiation. For purposes of the story I’d told them that the crazed person they met was a prominent campus figure, putting the publicity shot on the screen. I said the fate of that deranged individual remained unresolved, and he was never seen again, that got an odd reaction. Tough room, I guess.

Think I’ll stay off boats and islands for a while, just in case.

cycling / Monday / photo — No comments
03
Nov 25

Stealing daylight

Did you enjoy Catober? I have a great time with that daily feature. A cat a day really makes the month go by faster, content-wise. Somehow. You might think it puts a lot of pressure on the process. A photo a day of cats doing cute things! You’d be wrong. The only hard part is catching them in various places among their routines. And then keeping all of that straight. Capturing the moments is the easy part. Choosing which ones to use, that’s the impossible part. There are only 31 days in Catober, after all.

It started like this.

And it ended like this.

You can see the full collection on the Catober, just scroll back to see the whole month.

Except it hasn’t ended yet. I still have some great shots to share, and I’ll put them up tomorrow.

But today there are other photos. We, too, are experiencing the time change, which means a lot of seasonal changes. Which means the sun went down at 4:52 yesterday. Which means that, for the next few months, it will really feel like we’re stealing daylight.

That’s what yesterday’s bike ride was like. Soft colors and blurry textures and stealing daylight. And also reed grass.

Quite a bit of reed grass. That just comes with being a little close to the water, I guess.

The cover crops in this field are shockingly green just now. I’m used to seeing corn in there, but the season has, of course passed.

And in its place things are turning a delightful series of yellows and browns. Oh, it is nice for a time. Even the vibrance and vigor of that soon will fade. It’s just around the corner, or the curve, if you will.

Now it may look like it is getting dark here, but that’s just the trees. Besides, I still have about 14 miles to go from here. I didn’t know that at the time.

At the time I was just starting to figure out where I was going to go from here. First up the king’s highway, then Main Street, and then the old road, back into town. From there, it was a four-and-a-half-mile tempo ride home. No longer stealing daylight, but racing it.

Stupid seasonal change. Why can’t it be light until 8 or 9 p.m.? And also warmer. Not much, just five or 10 degrees, for outdoor purposes.

It was a productive night. Watched a football game. Got most of Tuesday’s class prep done, got some things graded and so on. And it continued on into today. I wrote some things that needed to be written, including a job ad for a student employee role. And I was on a roll. My big to do list for the week is already down to just four things.

Two or three more days like this will feel like momentum.

That’s the opposite of what I had on the bike today. I set out to ride my 40 km time trial, but I simultaneously realized that I didn’t have the legs I wanted for that, or the time I needed for that. So I changed my route, mid-route to make it back before dark. Instead, I did 35 km.

I could have totally made it.

And, then after dinner I finished up tomorrow’s work. We’ll see how that goes.

Friday / photo — Comments Off
31
Oct 25

Happy Halloween

There is a metal bowl of candy on the bookcase nearest the door. The kids are coming up at irregular intervals. I can hear the entire transaction, which seems a lot faster than I recall as a kid. They are up the stairs and off the porch briskly, though each comes with a “trick-or-treat” and also a “thank you.”

One pair of kids came up to the porch, one stumbling up the stairs in their costume. And the the other stumbled down the stairs in their costume.

Maybe those miniature pumpkins we put out are really crash buoys, and I didn’t realize it.

I think we missed at least one kid in the sugar distribution process. Maybe she came back around later. Surely she did not do without.

This ritual gets out of control in some places. Once we lived in a neighborhood where people literally bussed in their kids from afar. They’d deplete your candy stores right away, and that was before the chainsmoking teens showed up. Here, we had one set of young teens, the neighbors we may never otherwise meet, but the rest were fairly young from the sound and looks of things. That’s nice, some of the older folks in the neighborhood have noticed, with a sigh, that the place is aging around them. The sigh comes because they realize it is aging with them. But lately there’s been a youth movement, witness the Halloween traditions! And maybe people are coming from afar.

There may be leftover candy.

We played our part in tomorrow’s sugar coma until about 8:30, and then the door was closed, the lights were off, and the ninjas were deployed from their barracks out back to return to their evening surveillance.

There is leftover candy. No, the ninjas can’t have any. We need them hungry and light on their feet, just in case there are any tricks over night.

Before all of that, I took the recycling to the inconvenience center. When we first moved here I had to take the garbage there, to the place across town, hence my clever little nickname. After a year we got curbside garbage delivery, finally. And now I just take the recycling. Today I loaded the car up with a repurposed outdoor garbage can, an oversized storage bin, a kitchen-sized garbage can and two big armfuls of cardboard.

I tried, and failed, to remember the last time I went there. Maybe it’s been a month. That’d be great. And it would also make sense. The recyclables were threatening to push us outdoors.

Anyway, it’s easy there. You drive up, back in. There’s a great big bin for cardboard. (Break down your boxes! Sometimes I do.) There are two bins for garbage. Another for scrap metal and one for mixed use stuff. This is where the plastic and glass go and I assume it’s all just melted in a weekend bonfire down past the tree line. But it makes me feel better. I have saved the earth. I have dispensed and disposed of all of that, so that some of it may be reused again.

I think we now send out almost as much recyclable waste as garbage, which is … good? We’re pretty streamlined on both. And the cats help with repurposed cardboard.

On the way back home, I was stopped at one of the two red lights right by this temporary installation.

This was set up right in front of the bank. Across the way is the little local performing arts center, and the store front of a nice guy who makes high end fountain pens. He’s currently selling 10 pieces with wood and copper that came from Old Ironsides. You can purchase one for $1,250. As much as I appreciate the novelty and historical heft that you can apply to that, I don’t understand that income bracket. I don’t understand how anyone could lay that out and then put a pen on their desk, or in their coat pocket. Or use it. Or put it in a display case some way. Or even a safe.

One day I hope he’ll let me come in and bring non-historical wood and turn a pen of my own. He invites students to see the process, because junior high kids are always ready throw down big bills for fountain pens, why not the rest of us? Surely he has slow days. Surely this could be an easy way to make a few extra bucks. Surely that chunk of wood I picked up that one time, from that special place, can make a nice, personal piece in no way approaching the price of a mortgage payment.

Maybe I could compensate him with leftover candy.

Happy Halloween!

Catober / photo — Comments Off
31
Oct 25

Catober, Day 31

photo / Rowan / Thursday / video — Comments Off
30
Oct 25

Ethics always saves the day

A full afternoon of classes. In my criticism class we watched three short pieces. Usually, on Thursdays, we settle in for a long documentary, but I wanted to try a few shorter packages. We talk about specific themes in all of these programs, but I wanted to hopefully make a point about how stories get necessarily compressed, and what might be accentuated, or omitted, in these shorter pieces.

So we started with Chris Nikic making history in Florida.

That one worked pretty well. And then we watched this NFL propaganda about new helmet technology, featuring former wide receiver Steve Smith Jr.

I thought that one was interesting because we spent a day earlier this term discussing the NFL’s CTE settlement, via a Washington Post story. It is interesting in a “how it’s done” way, but it is 100 percent a piece intended to make fans feel good about the what the league is doing for player safety. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s not a subtle thing, either.

Then we ended with this public television package trying to understand and explain Philadelphia sports fans.

And that’s where I lost them. Not exactly sure how that happened.

But in org comm we continued our talk about ethics, which is always a really exciting time. Fortunately, we have a big gambling scandal in the NBA to talk about. I had them read this Joon Lee opinion column and we discussed several elements of that. I had them look up a few other interesting points for some more context. We talked about their own impressions about gambling in sport. And then we ran through some different sorts of hypotheticals. They were largely into it, which is a great result in a week when you’re talking about ethics.

In the office, way up high on the sixth floor, I noticed the trees were looking lovely.

Last week might have been the peak leaf turn here. Maybe it is this week. Probably it won’t be next week. Nothing about foliage fits into the old calendars anymore, but admire them when you can. And from above, if at all possible.

And admire Catober, while you’re at it. The month ends tomorrow. (But there will be some too-good-to-omit photos next week for a Catober bonus post.) You can see them all by clicking that link and scrolling through a month of cozy kitty photos.