A fellow named Joshua Weiland offers up two papers that dig into Winston-Salem's urban landscape. It's interesting stuff, especially if you like to think about how a city can be made more accessible and "pedestrian friendly."
AMR emailed to let me know about a cool weather blog he's found that called for a significant weather storm here well before the local weather experts did. In reading his most recent update about tomorrow's projected storm I was stunned to find this:
A major winter storm is about to slam Virginia and North Carolina as a
s/w trough diving down the front range partially or potentially fully
phases with a an area of low pressure in the Gulf of Mexico and
produced a rather potent storm which will move just of the southeast
coast tomorrow and Saturday. It is still unclear as to how much phasing
will occur and exactly who gets the snow. The idea I am working on is
that much of Virginia and western and northern North Carolina see a big
snow, perhaps 10-15 inches in parts of those states.
A little later in the post he writes this:
Beyond this Christmas week looks cold for most of us and like I have
been saying all week the Christmas storm is a threat for the southern
and eastern US. I didn’t like the lakes cutter idea and still don’t
thanks to the massive block over eastern Canada. I still think we could
see a disruptive winter storm Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
potentially for the southern and eastern US.
A white Christmas…in NC? Methinks hell hath frozen over.
It was only a matter of time before used car dealers, they of the 100 decibel commercials, discovered the art of blogging, Facebooking and Tweeting. It ain't subtle, but I can almost guarantee it's effective.
I was heading into work today when a gleaming, canary yellow Hummer pulled in front of me. Nothing extraordinary about that, but then I saw the vanity license plate: HRDTIME$. Obviously I don't know the owner, or anything about the owner, but I can tell you that the first words that popped into my head were "What a jack***."
The rest of my drive into work I speculated as to what the owner was trying to say. Maybe he's made a killing in flipping foreclosed properties. Maybe he's a franchise owner of a consumer credit counseling concern and has more business than he can handle. Maybe it has nothing to do with the economy and he's simply sharing an inside joke. Who knows, but putting a plate like that on the most obnoxiously over-the-top vehicle in the history of man during times like these just seems to be the equivalent of wearing a t-shirt that says "I'm a big fat *******."
Kim Underwood has an article in today's Winston-Salem Journal about the Winston-Salem Forsyth County School Board exploring the possibility of laying people off due to budget issues. The part of the story that caused my jaw to drop was this:
If individual cuts are necessary, the potential list of criteria
presented for the board to consider included evaluations;
student-performance data; length of service, giving preference to
teachers with National Board Certification; and level of degrees.Tripp Jeffers, the president of the Forsyth County Association of
Educators, which represents the school system's teachers, urged board
members not to include such subjective elements as evaluations and to
rely more on seniority. Board members Buddy Collins and Jeannie Metcalf
expressed reservations about having evaluations and data that included
student performance too high on the list."The part that bothers me is the subjectivity of some of these things," Metcalf said.
What kind of fairy tale universe do these people live in? The rest of us in the working world are evaluated by our bosses, peers, customers, etc. and have our employment tied to these highly subjective measures. Should I expect to continue to be retained, even if I do crappy work, just because I've been around longer than the highly competent person working next to me? I don't think so. As both a boss (taxpayer) and customer (my children are students) I would like very much for the teachers to be retained based on their performance and not on their ability to breathe the air between the schools' four walls for a longer period of time than anyone else.
Here's something I can definitely get into. It's Triad Restaurant Week from November 13-22 and there are plenty of good restaurants participating in Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point. The participating restaurants are providing specially priced three course meals. Since I hit all three cities at some point in any given week this gives me a great excuse to eat out. A lot. Like I need an excuse.
Thanks to Sarah South for the link.
Every weekday I get an email from West Forsyth H.S. that contains the school's daily announcements. In today's announcements I found this:
FYI, Dr. Martin is the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools' superintendent.
Seriously, am I the only one who finds this lame? I'm not sure what the normal protocol is for the school system during the holidays, but if they normally keep their offices open the day before Thanksgiving and all of Christmas Break, and if the school system's office employees are not getting paid for those "energy conservation" days, then they ought to just call this what it really is: a furlough. On the other hand if the office employees are going to be paid for those "energy conservation" days then they ought to call it what it really is: a paid holiday.
On a side note, someone at the school is getting entrepreneurial. Here's the next announcement:
I've been meaning to write about the local newspaper for the last couple of months, but I'm just now getting to it. Anyone who's read this blog over the last few years knows that in the past I've been somewhat critical of how the newspaper has approached competing the modern information era. Well I'd like to take a moment to give them kudos for two recent changes:
I also think the Journal is trying hard with their online efforts. I'm a fan of some of their blogs, Dan Collins' in particular, and they're even trying some live online chats. Unfortunately the live chat with Mayor Joines to discuss the Dell situation seemed to have attracted about four people judging by the number of people who submitted questions (I think there were two of us) and I don't sense that many of them get a lot of active engagement.
What I'm hoping is that the paper will keep plugging away and somehow find gold in the online hills, and do it ASAP, because their print circulation is looking pretty dismal. Numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulation show the number of M-F subscribers for the six months that ended 9/30/2009 to be 67,169 and the number of Sunday subscribers to be 82,959. As those print numbers continue to plummet so will the advertising revenue derived from them, and unless it's replaced with revenue from some other function I don't think the paper will be a viable business for many more years.
Unfortunately I think the Journal gave up its greatest competitive advantage years ago when it started laying off reporters. I'm not saying that the folks at the Journal did it light heartedly or without a great deal of consideration, but those very same reporters would be the people that could create the locally focused product unique to the Journal whether in print, online, or written in chalk on the road for that matter. That content could then be packaged and sold, whether to advertisers or directly to consumers, and would hold what I consider to be the best opportunity for the Journal to survive or even thrive. Unfortunately that horse is long out of the barn and it's a little late to shut the door.
My friends, the demise of the Journal would be bad for all of us because local newspapers have traditionally been the most effective watchdog of local government and without them we'll have a vacuum to fill. Sure, we could have "citizen journalists" step in and do some of it, and local TV will do whatever it can in two minute chunks, but local newspapers offer a level of expertise that will be very difficult to replace in the short term and as we've seen recently here in Winston-Salem, even the best intentioned and most respected politicians need some looking after.
Sometimes the comments provide more entertainment than the stories at the Winston-Salem Journal. An example from this story was submitted by AverageCitizen in response to a comment left by ThePossum:
The only cliche is in the critisism.I think the Journal deserves a better class of commenter.
Perhaps one that can spell? Maybe that's why he/she is just AverageCitizen and not SuperiorCitizen.
53 Republican members of the US House of Representatives are calling for President Obama to remove Kevin Jennings from the position of 'safe schools czar'. From an article in The Hill:
The lawmakers accused Jennings of "pushing a pro-homosexual agenda" and said that Jennings's past writings exhibit a record that makes him unfit for the position.
"We respectfully request that you remove Kevin Jennings, the Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, from your Administration," the Republicans wrote. "It is clear that Mr. Jennings lacks the appropriate qualifications and ethical standards to serve in this capacity."
Apparently Mr. Jennings is a native of Lewisville. I'm not really up on this issue, but it sounds like they're trying to get rid of him based on problems they have with his background, not anything he's actually done in his position. We'll have to wait and see how it plays out.
Below's the full text of the letter that the 53 House Republicans sent to the President. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about their logic:
October 15, 2009
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President,
We respectfully request that you remove Kevin Jennings, the Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, from your Administration. It is clear that Mr. Jennings lacks the appropriate qualifications and ethical standards to serve in this capacity.
As the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Mr. Jennings has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America’s schools—an agenda that runs counter to the values that many parents desire to instill in their children. As evidence of this, Mr. Jennings wrote the foreword for a book titled Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue About Sexualities and Schooling. Throughout his career, Mr. Jennings has made it his mission to establish special protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students to the exclusion of all other students. The totality of Mr. Jennings’ career has been to advocate for public affirmation of homosexuality. There is more to safe and drug free schools than can be accomplished from the narrow view of Mr. Jennings who has, for more than 20 years, almost exclusively focused on promoting the homosexual agenda.
Equally troubling is Mr. Jennings’ self-described history of ignoring the sexual abuse of a child. In his book, One Teacher in Ten, Mr. Jennings recounts a 15-year old student confiding in him that he had a sexual relationship with a much older man. Mr. Jennings’ only response was to ask if the underage boy used a condom. As a mandatory reporter, Mr. Jennings was required by law to report child abuse, including sex crimes. Mr. Jennings cannot serve as the “safe schools” czar when his record demonstrates a willingness to overlook the sexual abuse of a child.
As the “safe schools” czar, Mr. Jennings is also charged with ensuring our schools and students are drug free. It is clear that Mr. Jennings is unfit to serve in this capacity, as well. His own history of unrepentant drug and alcohol abuse indicates that he is of the opinion that getting drunk and high as a young person is acceptable. In his memoir, Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son, Mr. Jennings describes his use of illegal drugs, without expressing regret or acknowledging the devastating effects illegal drug use can have on a person’s life.
Everyone that deals with the education of the most vulnerable must be a positive role model. Our children are not blessed with the wisdom to discern and reject. Children presume the adults who educate them are approved by the larger society and their parents. Kevin Jennings cannot gain the approval of parents who want their children safe and their schools drug free. You should replace him with someone who has a record of educating children in a safe and moral environment.
Given these very serious issues with Mr. Jennings’ record, we urge you to remove him immediately.
Sincerely,
KING
Alexander
Aderholt
Akin
Austria
Bachmann
Bachus
Bartlett
Barton
Boozman
Broun
Brown, H.
Carter
Chaffetz
Coffman
Cole
Conaway
Davis, Geoff
Fallin
Fleming
Foxx
Franks
Garrett
Gingrey
Gohmert
Hunter
Issa
Jordan
Lamborn
Latta
LuetkemeyerMarchant
McClintock
McHenry
McKeon
McMorris
Mica
Miller, J.
Myrick
Neugebauer
Olson, P.
Pence
Pitts
Posey
Rogers (AL)
Rooney
Ryan, Paul
Shuster
Smith, C
Smith, L.
Wamp
Westmoreland
Jones, Walter
Befuddled 