We’re waiting for our plane to take us to Orcas Island for the week. The neighbors are checking on our Dobermans while we’re gone, which is nice of them.
We’re looking forward to some time spent hiking, Orcas-watching, exploring the village of Eastsound, and generally relaxing for a while.
We’ll check in again once we’re destinated. The family is so excited!
On my daily dog walk through the neighborhood, I encountered an elderly neighbor I’d never seen before, also out walking her dog. After exchanging pleasantries and walking on, I hit upon a thought that should have been obvious all along.
When we were living in North Raleigh I saw the writing on the wall that one day I will be too old to drive safely around town. Since I expect to retire in Raleigh some day, I wanted to live where driving wasn’t necessary. Thus, we now live within walking distance of downtown, buying our house as much as an investment for our twilight years as much as an investment for right now.
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Since Wake County Board of Elections Director Cherie Poucher told the News and Observer that no one has stepped up to challenge Lent Carr’s candidacy now that he’s back in federal prison, at least one District C citizen has. The Board of Elections has received word that at least one citizen intends to challenge Carr’s candidacy based on his status as an active convicted felon.
North Carolina’s election law states as follows:
§ 163?55. Qualifications to vote; exclusion from electoral franchise.
[snip]
Except as otherwise provided in this Chapter, the following classes of persons shall not be allowed to vote in this State:
(1) Persons under 18 years of age.
(2) Any person adjudged guilty of a felony against this State or the United States, or adjudged guilty of a felony in another state that also would be a felony if it had been committed in this State, unless that person shall be first restored to the rights of citizenship in the manner prescribed by law.
Yesterday came news that Raleigh City Council District C candidate Lent Carr was sent back to federal prison for violating his probation.
While some folks on the WRAL message boards (okay, nearly all of them – WRAL’s boards are typically clogged with knuckle-draggers) think his predicament is funny, I think Carr should’ve been sent off to a mental institution rather than prison. Carr clearly has mental health issues and even today we as a society do not treat this issue seriously.
Then again, maybe prison is the best place for him. Maybe now he’ll get the help he needs. It’s a sad fact that if you want free healthcare in America you have to get locked up.
I got an email from Hani Durzy, LinkedIn’s Director of Communications, alerting me to a LinkedIn blog post by LinkedIn’s Ryan Roslansky, clarifying LinkedIn’s use of social media advertising. Hani said:
Heads up that we just published a blog post on the issue around social ads that has come up over the last few days. In it, we clarify a few inaccuracies that we’ve seen in some of the recent media coverage, and detail a change we are making to part of our social ad offering — specifically, the use of individual names and images associated with certain actions in ads served to their networks.
The description of this feature on LinkedIn’s account settings page (and referenced above) remains pretty vague, leaving open its interpretation. After reading Ryan’s post I feel much more comfortable with LinkedIn’s approach. I would hope LinkedIn would better describe its intentions on the settings page, too.
Also, kudos to LinkedIn’s PR department for its swift and proper reaction to the backlash. Well done.
I’ve been pondering the crazy state we find ourselves regarding politics in this country. Getting elected today (particularly to a national office but local ones as well) comes down to two things:
1. Raising gobs of money
2. Getting your message out.
This tends to get politicians chasing the big donors (i.e. large corporations when aiming for Congress or higher) when they really should be responsive to their constituents instead. Lately we’ve seen how that’s working out, aren’t we?
It’s obvious that we need to do something about the money. So, why are gobs of money needed? To accomplish goal #2: to get your message out. Buying broadcast time is hugely expensive but it’s the quickest way of reaching voters. What if candidates didn’t have to raise money for broadcast time, though? What if air time was made freely available in the name of patriotism?
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A new “option” appeared in the accounts of LinkedIn users, providing LinkedIn permission to sell their users’ names and photos in “social media” advertising without asking its users about it first.
Here’s what the option says:
LinkedIn may sometimes pair an advertiser’s message with social content from LinkedIn’s network in order to make the ad more relevant. When LinkedIn members recommend people and services, follow companies, or take other actions, their name/photo may show up in related ads shown to you. Conversely, when you take these actions on LinkedIn, your name/photo may show up in related ads shown to LinkedIn members. By providing social context, we make it easy for our members to learn about products and services that the LinkedIn network is interacting with.
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I got a physical this morning; the first one I’ve had in a few years. There are a million other things I’d rather do than get poked and prodded by a doctor so I put it off for as long as I can, but I figured I was now overdue.
I’m pretty darn fit for a 42 year old, it turns out. Blood pressure is an excellent 114/68, pulse 74 (though I took my pulse last week and clocked it at 50, lower than my previous best – ha!). Even my cholesterol is trending very nicely in a healthy direction, with only a slightly elevated LDL.
The one thing I’m looking at is a low white blood cell count and a low platelet level. Outside of my initial visit as a new patient it was the first time the doc quizzed me on my family history. That raised my eyebrows a bit, and later I found that these numbers can sometimes indicate something bigger. My doc didn’t seem overly worried, though. I’m due to get another lab run next month and hopefully these numbers will be back to normal.
On another health note, I reached my target weight today! I set a goal last year to drop back to 170 pounds and this morning I was there. I feel great!
With his failure to collar our country’s financial crooks, Barack Obama missed a big opportunity and let America down. As my friend Chris says, when given a choice between the working folks and Wall Street, Obama runs to the moneyed interests every time.
America needed someone to clean house on Wall Street after the mess the banks made of our economy. I suppose we’ll have to keep waiting.
IT was a blustery day in Washington on Jan. 20, 2009, as it often seems to be on the day of a presidential inauguration. As I stood with my 8-year-old daughter, watching the president deliver his inaugural address, I had a feeling of unease. It wasn’t just that the man who could be so eloquent had seemingly chosen not to be on this auspicious occasion, although that turned out to be a troubling harbinger of things to come. It was that there was a story the American people were waiting to hear — and needed to hear — but he didn’t tell it. And in the ensuing months he continued not to tell it, no matter how outrageous the slings and arrows his opponents threw at him.
Sealings ... nothing more than sealings.
SAFE ROOMS
A safe room is the best protection in a tornado. To build one using Federal Emergency Management Agency specifications, go to www.fema.gov and search “safe room.” Pre-fabricated rooms are available for less than $5,000. The National Storm Shelter Association ( www.nssa.cc) lists verified safe room vendors.
That’s all fine and good. We’ve got a “safe room” designated and the family has met there before during tornado warnings. However, the picture next to the article showed some genius taping the door of his safe room with duct tape. The caption reads: “Keep duct tape handy to seal a ‘safe room.'”
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