I learned last week that my replacement was finally appointed to the Parks board. Thus, the October meeting I attended was indeed my last one. I was humbled by the kind remarks my fellow boardmembers shared with me. It’s been a great ride, that’s for sure.
I do also want to wish my replacement, Shane Malun, all the best!
In September we learned that the Wake County Public School System was considering shifting our neighborhood’s school assignment away from nearby Enloe High School and to Millbrook High School. Millbrook is a great school, don’t get me wrong, it’s just much farther away than Enloe. What’s more, this was the sixth proposed or actual reassignment we’ve had since we’ve been here (six years). Hearing of the plans gave me whiplash.
Kelly and I worked to rally the neighborhood to advocate for our cause. We reached out on the mailing lists, explaining the situation and providing links to the resources so our neighbors could see for themselves. With a good understanding of the guiding principles of the reassignment (proximity, stability, operational efficiency, and student achievement), we suggested our neighbors politely point out how these points were not being supported by the change. A number of neighbors followed our lead, repeating the points we offered on the school system’s feedback site. We also suggested polite emails be sent to the board members. I heard back from some boardmembers that they had received quite a bit of feedback on the issue, which is a good sign.
Bottom line? The school system opted not to shift our neighborhood, we got what we wanted, and everything stayed civil.
I thought of this when I came across a friend’s Facebook post, showing how she was working to change her reassignment:
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Over the past few days debate has popped up about what to do about healthcare workers returning from fighting Ebola in West Africa. Politicians vow to quarantine anyone returning from the affected areas, regardless of whether they show symptoms or not. Asymptomatic healthcare workers who are being “voluntarily” quarantined are rebelling against the restrictions placed on their activity. Nurse Kaci Hickox blasted politicians for falling for hysteria rather than following science.
“I’m not willing to stand here and let my civil rights be violated when it’s not science-based,” she said.
She’s right, of course. The only thing scarier than Ebola is succumbing to mob rule and hysteria.
The most worthless news items, though, are the polls being touted. The latest one says that 80 percent of respondents favor quarantining travelers to West Africa. Well, if polling had taken place during Galileo’s time, the majority would’ve favored the Earth as the center of the universe. What the majority wants, of course, does not make it so.
It does not matter what 80% of those polled think about Ebola if those 80% are not experts. When it comes to Ebola, disregarding science is a good way to get us all killed.
Back at the end of July I became curious about a mysterious cell phone tower that sprouted behind the Adventure Landing business on Capital Boulevard. The fresh paint on the box, the fresh dirt around the bottom of the utility pole, and the new electrical meter box that still had the plastic cover on it led me to believe this site had just been installed. Instead, less than three months later the only sign it was there is a small patch of dirt where the pole once was. The site has vanished!
That patch has so much grass growing over it now that if you didn’t know where to look you could easily overlook it. That makes me think that the pole could have been removed perhaps a one month ago or longer.
I had convinced myself that the strange site was simply a micro-cell site but I was flabbergasted when I found the site has gone missing. I never expected to revisit the site and have it just be … gone. Why would a company dig up a cell tower site just a few months after installing it? Hell, maybe even before it had been fired up? I have to say that any company in the business of installing cell towers that would suddenly change its mind about a site after so much work had been done runs a piss-poor operation. At the very least.
I can only wonder again if the site was a Stingray site all along and either
Real cell towers don’t disappear practically overnight. Not even micro sites. This is just weird.
If we’re only looking for fever while screening Ebola victims, we may be missing 13% of cases. Yikes.
For public health workers screening more than 1,000 air travelers who arrive each week in the United States from Ebola-stricken West Africa, one symptom above all others is supposed to signal danger: fever.
So long as an individual’s temperature does not exceed 101.5 degrees and there are no visible symptoms of Ebola, health authorities say it should be assumed the person is not infectious.
Yet the largest study of the current outbreak found that in nearly 13% of “confirmed and probable” cases in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and elsewhere, those infected did not have fevers.
via Ebola research: Fever not a surefire sign of infection – LA Times.
I just wrote this to the N&O:
Thanks to the N&O for advocating again for a whitewater park. I recall the excitement I felt when the Falls Whitewater Park Committee appeared before Raleigh’s parks board with its proposal to fund construction of this park. I urge whitewater enthusiasts to visit www.fallswhitewaterpark.org and give generously to make this spectacular park a reality.
USAirways flight attendants had a full-fledged freakout Sunday at RDU Airport over a passenger they suspected of having Ebola, according to one local blogger. How did these superhero flight attendants, presumably not experts in infectious diseases, diagnose Ebola you ask? The woman had an African accent and asked for a club soda.
Yesterday I took a US Airways flight from Raleigh-Durham to Washington, DC to drive some Hellcats. So far so good, right? Across the aisle from me was a woman, from Boston, who was feeling a bit queasy. She asked the flight attendant for some club soda. They responded by trying to kick her off the plane. Any idea why?
If we’re absolutely being honest, there were two very simple reasons why: the woman was black, and had an African accent. In the popular culture of panic, those two factors seem to be enough to turn an entire plane full of people around and return to the gate to attempt to kick a paying traveler off a plane.
via I Saw Firsthand How Nuts Airlines Are Getting With Ebola Fear.
Gary Pearce weighed in on the News and Observer’s recent print changes so I figured I should do the same.
During our fair visit Friday, I stopped by the N&O booth and chatted with one of the reps there. I volunteered that I liked the new changes to the paper (the local section and front section have been merged) and was told that I’m “one out of a million.” Apparently the feedback from subscribers has been mostly negative.
I pay more attention to the local stories since that’s something the N&O can cover better than anyone else. I like that the local coverage is getting more prominent.
On the other hand, though, I do have to fight with my daughter (mainly) for a section of paper to read in the mornings. Not having a front and local section makes it difficult to share.
I certainly don’t blame the N&O for experimenting, though. I think any newspaper that doesn’t try to change and adapt in these times is at risk of extinction in these fast-moving times for journalism.
A Facebook friend (one who does not share my political outlook) forwarded a photo that illustrated the value of spanking. It showed a kid getting beat, with the caption “with more of this, there would be less of this,” showing a trio of young men dressed as gang members. I shook my head.
It reminded me of a spectacle I came across as I was on my way to the Player’s Retreat Saturday afternoon. As I was pulling into the parking lot, a father was loading his kids into his car. The father was shouting at his misbehaving kids to get in the car. His young son, probably four years old at the most, was defiantly yelling back at his dad, echoing his very same tone. As I rolled by, I saw the father’s hand smack the boy’s rear hard before the father loaded his son into the car. I thought the show was over but when I got out of my car I was appalled to hear the father screaming at the top of his voice “that is enough!” He was so loud I heard him across the parking lot even with his windows rolled up. He then drove off and I just shook my head. If his kids weren’t terrified before, they were now.
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My initial optimism about the magnesium supplements helping with the muscle twitches I’ve had has worn off. The twitching has continued, spread out all over my body now. In fact, one night last week I felt the muscles between my shoulder blades twitch when I was sleeping – waking me up. It’s the biggest damn pain in the ass.
To top it off, we had only walked about the fairgrounds for about an hour before I started feeling very fatigued. I felt like my arm and leg muscles were slow as molasses. It dawned on me that night that I am finally able to effectively define fatigue versus simple tiredness. Fatigue is like tiredness but without the mental urge to sleep. Fatigue is not having any energy while still maintaining the will to do something. The mind is willing but the body unable. It seems that the fatigue that would once make a visit to me for a few weeks every year or so has begun to occur far more frequently and persistently. And it really sucks. I’m tired when I have no right to be and it’s starting to affect my quality of life.
I hope to revist my doctors soon to discuss next steps. This journey is obviously not over yet.
