Only in Florida

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It appears that I'm going to have to ease up on teasing Florida for all the whacky news it produces.  Apparently we here in North Carolina have our fair share of weird news too, and sometimes residents of our state even team up with residents of Florida to create unique news event. Exhibit A would be the folks from Hickory, NC who tried to bury a loved one at sea off the coast of Florida and it just didn't work out right:

They chartered a local fishing boat, the Mary B III, and Lasky's widow, Sharon, her pastor and other family members, along with the boat's captain and crew, motored four miles offshore from Port Everglades. They tendered their final goodbyes and consigned Lasky to the deep. Family members then fished for a spell in his memory…

But the sea proved no resting place. Though weighted down, Lasky's body resurfaced Saturday. About 9:30 that morning, a fisherman reported a man's body floating about four miles offshore. Its wrappings had come undone. Sheriff's marine deputies raced to the scene, along with the Coast Guard. Homicide detectives waited onshore…

Collins said his office usually handles three to four sea burials a year, most off the shores of Florida or North Carolina, whose Outer Banks are a popular area.

Who knew?

A College Dies

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I spent my freshman year of college in Nebraska attending Concordia Teachers College in Seward (now Concordia University).  I played on the school's soccer team and one of the schools we played against was Dana College in Blair, Nebraska so when I read this article in the Wall Street Journal about Dana's closing it kind of hit close to home. From the article:

Nestled amid cornfields in eastern Nebraska, Dana and Blair have grown up together over more than a century. Blair, population 7,700, was established in 1869 by railroad baron John Insley Blair. Fifteen years later, Danish Lutheran pioneers opened a seminary, which later became Dana College.

Dana's red-and-white Viking logo decorates the town. Many loyal locals dedicate free nights to whatever the "Dana kids" are doing, said Vaughn Christensen, 79 years old, who met his wife, Clarice, at Dana about 50 years ago and sent their three children there.

"We went to everything—all the music, the theater, the basketball. I don't think we missed one home game," Mr. Christensen said.Enrollment at Dana peaked in the 1970s at about 1,000. Before closing, the college enrolled just under 600 and employed about 175 faculty and staff. A 2003 study estimated that Dana contributed $20 million annually to the local economy, largely through payroll and local expenditures….

Investors proposed to buy Dana and turn it into a profitable operation. But an accrediting agency effectively pulled the lifeline away by denying the college's application to change ownership. Such accrediting agencies were facing pressure from federal education officials, who accused some of being too lenient in certifying for-profit schools with lax standards. Officials said such schools often pushed students to take on heavy debt loads without preparing them for careers.

"I feel like Dana was kind of collateral damage," said Jeremy Bouman, former vice president for institutional advancement at Dana (which rhymes with banana). "There was never a chance to be successful because of the political scrutiny."

Protecting Our High School Kids from the President of the United States of America

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Today I received the following message from our kids' high school:

West Forsyth families… this message is to inform you that President Obama will be giving a back-to-school speech on Tuesday, September 14  at 1 p.m. He gave a similar speech last year in which he encouraged students to work hard, stay in school and graduate.

The school system will be showing the President's speech again this year. If you would prefer your student not watch the speech, please send a note with him or her on Tuesday.

Thank you.

I truly, truly, truly don't get this.  What have we come to when a back-to-school speech from the President is treated like sex-ed?  And I don't say this just because it's this President.  I'd say it if we were talking about either President Bush, President Clinton, President Reagan, President Carter, etc.  

What's even more troubling is that these are high school kids we're talking about. I can't believe parents feel like their kids aren't mature enough to take what they hear from the President, evaluate it, discuss it and then make their own judgments. 

For the record I don't really blame the school administrators; they're obviously reacting to feedback they received last year and are putting a system in place in anticipation of a similar reaction from parents this year. I'm just supremely disappointed that some members of my generation feel like they've raised kids who aren't smart enough to figure out for themselves whether or not a speech from the President is an innocuous message of encouragement, or some sort of "liberal propaganda" disguised as a back to school speech.  

Getting Emotional Over Dirt

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You'd think that a blog about land use and zoning law would be, well, dry.  Maybe you'd be right, but when you stop to think about it there aren't many things people get more emotional about than what happens to their stuff, and the most important "stuff" they own is their land/house.  Trust me, if you want to fill the city council chambers just propose opening a landfill in the middle of a neighborhood, or changing the zoning from residential to commercial near an existing neighborhood.

Attorney Tom Terrell writes a very good blog about land use and I really like his most recent post, Getting Emotional Over Dirt.  An excerpt:

Land use, like the political cauldrons in which land use decisions are made, does not always follow logical and linear decision-making processes.  We study the legal and logical aspects of land in our universities, but the critical decisions that affect its development and changes are propelled, more often than not, through emotional decision-making.  I’ve written and spoken about this relatively unexplored phenomenon on many occasions.  The world of litigation is full of studies on how and why juries do as juries do.  Although they probably exist, I’ve never seen similar academic studies of how and why elected officials make certain decisions on land use following presentations at public hearings.

When we do study the emotional aspects of land use, chances are the fears and anxieties are hidden behind surrogate issues and the fearful and the anxious are elevated in stature by calling them “stakeholders,” almost as if they had an equal right to the use of the land as the person who owns it.

This past Sunday New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof blogged about public decisions being made because of fears of Islam (“Is Islamophobia the New Hysteria”), much the same as actions that were taken over the decades and centuries against Catholics and Germans and Mormons and Irish and Jews and Japanese where “fear spread in part because of misinformation.” When we are scared, he reminds us, we can do unconscionable things.

I Would Love to See Relay Race Here

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Those of you old enough to remember Webvan will likely greet news of any grocery delivery service with a healthy dose of skepticism, and rightfully so, but I think that the folks behind Relay Foods, currently in operation in Richmond and Charlottesville, are onto something.  Here's Bookofjoe's review of the service and here's the "How it works" page on their site.  Very cool and something I'd love to see in the Triad.

Karo Syrup

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For as long as I can remember I've had a hate-hate relationship with Karo Syrup.  My Granny used to serve waffles and pancakes with it and I found it absolutely revolting.  When my Mom ran out of maple syrup there was always a bottle of God-knows-how-old Karo in the back of the pantry to substitute, and I think that's largely why to this day I eat my 'cakes and waffles with almost no syrup.  I was reminded of my Karo-hate when I stumbled on this Boing-Boing post regarding an unbelievably disturbing vintage ad for Deep South Peanut Pie, which looks like a pecan pie with peanuts substituted for the pecans.  I don't think I'll be able to eat for a few days.

Day Waster

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The British Pathe website is a very good place to lose track of time.  From the site: 

The world's finest news and entertainment video film archive
 
You can view and buy films and still photographs from the entire archive of 90,000 videos covering newsreel, sports footage, social history documentaries, entertainment and music stories from 1896 to 1976.

Here's a taste:

( TITANIC DISASTER )


The Dad Life

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Considering the fact that this video has over two million views I'm probably the last Dad in America to see this, but just in case I'm not I'm gonna share.  Some of it is definitely relevant to me, although the line about a "weed in the fescue" would have to be reversed to say "a fescue in the weeds."  Enjoy.

Michael the Adult

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Each year I try to write a little something on each of my kids' birthday.  This year I'm kind of at a loss because the oldest, Michael, turns 18 today and that means that as far as the law is concerned he's an adult. An a-d-u-l-t.  What the hell happened to the last 18 years?

Whatever.  One of the reasons those 18 years have been such a blur is that time flies when you're having fun, and Michael definitely keeps things fun.  Whether it's imitations of his teachers (God help our schools if he's even remotely close to being accurate) or verbatim scene reenactments from Monty Python, the kid's a natural comedian.  Some day he may take his parents' advice and pursue his natural talent, but he's just as likely to do something totally unexpected.  He has a tendency to think for himself and do what he thinks is best, much to our frustration, but it's gotten him this far so who am I to second guess? Oh right, I'm his Dad and it kind of comes with the job description.

Right now Michael's trying to figure out how he's going to survive a senior year with a brutal AP schedule while figuring out which college he wants to attend and also keeping his skills sharp on Xbox Live.  I'm telling you life's much more complicated these days, what with figuring out AP science by day while playing Call of Duty against some ringer from the Ukraine at night. In my day we circled around the Atari and watched our buddies play Asteroids.  Ah, simpler times. But I digress.

Whatever he decides to do Michael will be good at it.  He's an amazing young man (I can't write kid anymore) and he has a heart of gold.  Hopefully whatever he decides to do won't take him too far from home and, whatever it is, it will make him as happy as he's made his Old Man and his Old Man's better half.

Happy Birthday Big Michael.

MichaelSpring10 

Michael before the prom last spring

P5311265 

Michael enjoying our house painting

 Michael9YearsOld 

9-year-old Michael with his Mom and sister climbing the Grand Tetons.

MichaelWarholized
  

Found on Flickr: Warholized Michael (I think he was fourteen)

My Kids Have Been Right All Along: Parents are Stupid

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From NPR:

Why such a big discrepancy between worries and reality? Barnes says parents fixate on rare events because they internalize horrific stories they hear on the news or from a friend without stopping to think about the odds the same thing could happen to their children…

So, what’s a worried parent to do? Barnes has a simple prescription: helmets and seatbelts. Yup, that’s right, helmetsand seatbelts. "I know it sounds boring," she says, but according to her research, making kids wear protective gear and buckle up in the car cuts kids' chances of death by 90 percent and their chances of serious injury by 78 percent. 

You should read the article to see the top five worries parents have, the top five actual hazards to children and the discrepancy between them. 

For the record I encouraged my children to eat things they dropped on the floor even if it took longer than five seconds to pick it up, to draw outside the lines and that making your bed is overrated.  I also encouraged them to watch PG-13 movies when they were 12 1/2.  On the other hand I've told my 16 year old daughter that all boys carry fatal diseases and that there's literally not a good one to be found on the face of the Earth.  

That's my definition of responsible parenting, what's yours?