May 2012

There were 43 posts published in May 2012 (this is page 3 of 5).

Tackles and tassles

As a Wolfpack fan and an alum of N.C. State, it might be easy for me to gloat about the academic scandal taking place with UNC’s football and basketball players. The vaunted “Carolina Way” that Carolina people love to preach has turned out to be amusingly hollow. It seems that academic performance takes a back seat to winning. It would be amusing under most circumstances.

Then I hear what N.C. Athletic Director Debbie Yow says about the Wolfpack teams and it makes me wonder: what’s to stop the Wolfpack from falling into the same trap? I don’t question Yow’s dedication to N.C. State at all but there’s more to winning than the win and loss counts. Is Yow equally dedicated to academic performance? If it came down to winning or looking the other way when academic shenanigans take place, what would Yow do?

The kind of money being thrown around in college sports is in doubt corrupting. I can only hope my school is strong enough to resist the urge to cut corners.

Wikipedia’s article on the USS Iowa turret explosion

USS Iowa's turret two explodes


My meeting General Shelton got me researching some flag officers I’ve known. On the way I happened to land on the Wikipedia article about the 1989 turret explosion aboard the USS Iowa. The article is one of the best I’ve read on Wikipedia. It’s as riveting as a novel. The book about the incident, A Glimpse of Hell: The Explosion on the USS Iowa and Its Cover Up, is equally compelling, as this excerpt shows.

I was in the Navy at the time and I remember well this incident and the subsequent whitewash. It was a lesson to me that the term “military justice” will always be an oxymoron.

The USS Iowa turret explosion occurred in the Number Two 16-inch gun turret of the United States Navy battleship USS Iowa (BB-61) on April 19, 1989. The explosion in the center gun room killed 47 of the turret’s crewmen and severely damaged the gun turret itself. Two major investigations were undertaken, one by the Navy and then one by the General Accounting Office (GAO) and Sandia National Laboratories. The investigations produced conflicting conclusions.

via USS Iowa turret explosion – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Cheap thoughts: the nose knows

Photo by David Selby


While watching my pooch sniff his way around the neighborhood this week, I pondered how he always seemed to know when a storm is coming – often much sooner than we do. Is it the vibration of the thunder? The sound of thunder? Could it be that he is more sensitive to the electrical charges, being that he wears more fur than we do?

Then I remembered the NOVA program on dogs and how a dog’s senses are inferior or equal to humans in all aspects except one: the sense of smell. A dog’s sense of smell is its meal ticket and is a bazillion times more powerful than a human’s. What if a dog can smell an approaching storm? Of course, rain has a distinctive smell and definitely changes the way the environment smells.

But what if it went further than that? What if dogs can smell lightning? Lightning and other high-energy electric discharges ionize air, creating ozone. What if dogs can smell this ozone?

And … if my dog is at his most compliant in the midst of a storm (or the threat of a storm), could a small ozone generator attached to his collar make him safely and painlessly stop in his tracks should he decide to escape on an unauthorized jaunt through the neighborhood?

Gen. Shelton

Me with Gen. Shelton


Tonight Kelly’s employer, Leadership North Carolina (LNC), held a graduation and awards ceremony for its 19th class at the State Capitol building. I rarely get to attend the LNC events as I’m either stuck working or parenting while she’s gone. Kelly needed a photographer for tonight’s ceremony, though, so I got to tag along.

LNC presented a leadership award to General Henry Hugh Shelton, USA (ret.) and (after my photography chores were done) I got to have my picture taken with him.

Bernie Sanders Warns Republicans that Sarkozy’s Fate Will Soon Be Theirs

Bernie Sanders is spot on. The American middle class won’t take kindly to shouldering the lion’s share of the economic recovery while the ultra rich get richer.

The backlash has already hit Europe. I would not want to be an incumbent when it hits America.

Sen. Sanders has it nailed. The American people don’t like extremism. Since the 2010 elections, Republicans have been pushing fiscal extremism, and the bill is about to come due in 2012. The Republican Party is out of step with what most Americans really want. They want their Social Security and Medicare left the way they are. They want taxes to be raised at least a little bit on those who can afford it the most, and they want the social safety net to be strong and left in place.

via Bernie Sanders Warns Republicans that Sarkozy’s Fate Will Soon Be Theirs.

Bill Graham Presents

Bill Graham. (Photo by Mark Sarfati)

I just read the autobiography Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock And Out and I have to say that Graham led one spectacular life. I was interested in learning about how concert promotion is done, but Graham’s life went far beyond that.

Graham was a Holocaust survivor who was spirited out of Germany to France and then to America. Graham spent time as a youth in an upstate New York orphanage, where he became dejected after repeatedly being passed over for adoption. Some say that drove his need to feel loved, which he worked to do every day of his life. He always gave the extra effort, which made the musicians he worked with very happy but often annoyed the musicians’ managers, who paid for Graham’s largesse.

Graham had an extraordinarily keen business sense, which showed itself early in his life. When he signed up for Army duty in the Korean war, he put this ability to use by selling food from his troop transport ship’s galley to other hungry soldiers. He also ran gambling on the ship. Any time he saw a need, he was angling for a way to fill it and make a profit.
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The Raleigh Rays?

After our fun Sunday spent at the N.C. State baseball game and today’s column by Caldon Tudor about the rising popularity of baseball, I got to thinking of big things. Like, major league things.

Raleigh can’t have its own minor league team, but what if it had its own major league team? What if Raleigh wooed the Tampa Bay Rays here and built a gorgeous baseball stadium overlooking downtown? Wouldn’t that be great?

Update 7:50 PM: Looks like I’m not the only one to think this was a good idea. From this site (date of posting unknown but Google Cache snapped it five days ago):

Is it true the Tampa Bay Rays are moving to Raleigh, NC?

by Baseball Fan
in Tampa Bay Rays

I heard they are moving because of terrible attendance to Raleigh. Also, their farm team is in Durham. The Raleigh Technicians?

Ubuntu 12.04 disappoints

Finally heeding the warnings that my version of Ubuntu was out of date, I upgraded my Thinkpad T42 laptop to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

Bad move. It seems the ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 video adapter which has been supported for many years is now no longer supported. My laptop is now infuriatingly slow and there’s apparently no cure except to reinstall an older, less-douchey version of Ubuntu.

Between this and Ubuntu’s dumping of the Gnome desktop I’ve about had enough of Ubuntu’s boneheaded design decisions. Looks like I’ll be taking a look at the latest Fedora. At least it’s a hometown Linux company (i.e. Red Hat).

Tidal wave of cool

I’ve been considering all of the cool little projects that are going on in Raleigh: Artsplosure, Hopscotch, CityCamp, SparkCon, First Friday, Kirby Derby, the Benelux Cafe Cycling Club, TriangleWiki, 1304 Bikes, Music on the Porch, Little Raleigh Radio, Oak City Cycling Project, greenways, a future whitewater park, a skate park, and many, many others. Each of these is a decent project on its own. Each creates its own little ripple. In Raleigh right now, these little ripples are coming together with other ripples to create little waves. Those little waves will combine with other little waves to make big waves, and soon those big waves will come together to create one gigantic wave that can’t be ignored.

Few might be paying attention now, but the waves are building that will soon wash over Raleigh in a tidal wave of cool.

Oskar Blues coming to NC

Oskar Blues's G'Knight

Hot on the heels of two other breweries moving into the North Carolina mountains, Colorado-based Oskar Blues announced that it will be building a brewery in Brevard, NC:

In a statement released late Tuesday, founder Dale Katechis, a mountain biking enthusiast, said he has kept a bike in Brevard, on the edge of the Pisgah National Forest, for years, and travels there frequently to go mountain biking and to attend the annual Mountain Song Music Festival.

“This place rings true with the same eclectic mountain charm that inspired Oskar Blues to put Dale’s Pale Ale in a can back in the day in Lyons,” Katechis said in a statement announcing his plans.

I’d never heard of Oskar Blues’s beers until Kelly and I enjoyed a pint of Gordon (now G’Knight) in Fredericksburg’s Capital Ale House. I remember that it tasted amazing. That beer will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Welcome to North Carolina, Oskar Blues! I hope to visit your brewery when it opens!