I was planning to write about my adventures in opting out of the STAR Enterprise test next, but it seems that the board and the superintendent with the assistance of The Huntsville Times reporter Challen Stephens has decided that today, without any prior public discussion of the issue, was a good day to announce to the city that we should “Get Ready for the Rezoning of Huntsville City Schools.” As such, the discussion of opting out will have to wait a day or so.

Today Mr. Stephens, as a mouthpiece for the superintendent and the board of education, told the city that, “it’s time to redraw school zones throughout Huntsville.” He went on to write:

But change itself should not come as a surprise. Huntsville almost two years ago hired a retired Army colonel to fix its school system, and the board made a point of asking him to end the 43-year-old court order to desegregate city schools. Rezoning is a small part of the plan to do just that.

It’s a shame that Mr. Stephens decided to reprint what basically amounts to a press release from the board announcing this as if the decision has long since been made about rezoning. But he went further by claiming that no one should be surprised by this necessity because we all knew this was coming when we hired Wardynski and the board made achieving unitary status one of his priorities.

This sounds awfully good on paper; it’s a shame that there’s so little truth in this statement.

No Mention of Rezoning

You see, I’ve attended all but three board meetings held during Dr. Wardynski’s tenure. The three that I missed, I watched from home or on the DVD recordings available from ETV.

I’ve heard every single public discussion concerning unitary status that has occurred at a board meeting. Every single one. And you know what, not once since Wardynski was hired has there been a single public mention of rezoning during a board meeting.

Not one single mention.

So, I’m not sure what Mr. Stephens is basing his claim that “change itself should not come as a surprise.”

When the district, when the superintendent specifically state that rezoning will not occur, I’m sorry, but it does tend to come as a bit of a surprise, no matter how the Times might wish to spin it.

Wardynski Told Public No Rezoning

On January 14th, Dr. Wardynski met with the public to discuss moving Grissom High School to a new location just behind Sam’s Club on South Parkway.

During this meeting, Dr. Wardynski was asked a question about rezoning that he responded to fairly (for him, anyway) directly.

Q: Are you considering rezoning with the new Grissom?

A: No. If there is [any rezoning], it will be for currently zoned students, not transferring students.”

Dr. Wardynski went on to say that he “will not have students transferring across town – students will go to new schools at Johnson or Butler in their home school zone.”

As I said, for him, this was a fairly direct and to the point response to a direct question. It’s a shame that Mr. Stephens was evidently unaware that Wardynski had long since told us that there would not be any rezoning of Grissom High.

So yes, it does indeed come as a surprise that rezoning is now being presented as a necessity.

And really, since evidently not even the board has seen the final plan (which is nearly impossible to believe, by the way), I do have to ask how Mr. Stephens knows that “Rezoning is a small part of the plan to do just that.”

And again, if the board hasn’t seen the plan yet (as the article claims), how does Mr. Blair know that “the current plan would not rezone Blossomwood into Lee High?” How does he know that “I think Huntsville High stays pretty strong” (quite a reassuring endorsement, isn’t it)? How can Dr. Robinson claim, “I’m not seeing anything that gives me a great deal of concern?” (And really, can anyone name anything that Wardynski has done that has given Robinson “a great deal of concern?”)

What we have here is another attempt by Wardynski to use “the press” and the board of education to push his agenda on the city without any public input at all.

Even though there has been zero mention of rezoning in a public meeting, even though Dr. Wardynski himself assured the public at the town hall meeting that there would be no rezoning, we’re already being told that anyone who has a problem with this “plan” simply hasn’t been paying attention.

It seems that it is instead the Huntsville Times that hasn’t been paying attention. Isn’t that actually the only job the paper has? Shame they refuse to do it.

This is Our City. These are Our Schools.

This city belongs to us, the people. It doesn’t belong to the Huntsville Times. It doesn’t belong to the Huntsville Board of Education. It doesn’t belong to Dr. Wardynski. It belongs to us.

It’s time to remind Dr. Wardynski, the feckless board of education, Mr. Brooks and the Times that this is our city.

If you wish to do this, you may wish to speak during the public comments section of the board meeting scheduled for Thursday night at 5:30pm. If you wish to speak on this or any issue, you have to sign up before the meeting. The easiest way to do this is to email Debbie Jennings the Superintendent’s secretary at debby.jennings@hsv-k12.org. Tell her that you would like to be placed on the citizens’ comments list representing yourself to speak to the issue of rezoning.

You should demand to see the rezoning plan. You should insist that the public have input into developing the plan.

The district employees and the board of education work for us. They owe us specific answers without pushing for acceptance of the “plan” before we’ve even seen it.

The post Rezoning Without Involving the Public appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Congratulations are in order to Superintendent Moore. On your way out the door, with the cover of Dr. Richardson and the complicity of the Board of Education, you have successfully implemented your plan to segregate our children without any oversight or accountability.

Dr. Moore is using her power to force segregation upon a segment of the student population without input from the parents, teachers, administrators or even the Board of Education. And while I greatly appreciate that Dr. Robinson and Mr. Blair worked to get even a modicum of accountability from Dr. Moore and Ms. Sledge, they have not done nearly enough to provide the oversight that they are supposed to provide of the superintendent.

This is a colossal breakdown of the system that is designed to serve students not segregate them.

On Thursday, May 5, 2011, while hundreds of people still did not have power in their homes from the worst tornados to hit the state in perhaps it’s history, the Board of Education received an oral report from Ms. Amy Sledge, the Director of Special Education, and Dr. Moore, the Superintendent about the concerns that have dominated my life and the lives of thousands of families in Huntsville for the past six weeks.

The timing was quite fortunate for Dr. Moore. Not only did the recovery efforts keep the majority of the city from paying attention to the school board meeting (students had only just returned to school for the first time in a week hours earlier), but also the first round of interviews for the new superintendent had happen just moments earlier that day distracting the press.

Yet, Dr. Moore’s attempts to segregate our children without oversight were perhaps best aided by the decision of the Board at the previous meeting to only allow public comments if they were included on the agenda.

No public comments were allowed at the conclusion of this meeting.

It is also clear from the final moments of the Board meeting video that I linked to yesterday that Dr. Moore had no intention of discussing her plan until after the plan had been implemented. She stated on Thursday, May 5th:

I think that what would probably help, Amy, is once you get all of the schedules settled, and all of the students moved, then you can present that information to the board with the exact locations of specific programs and how many students now that the IEP has been written. (She stated this in the third clip at about the 9 minute mark.)

The truly disturbing part of this is that both Dr. Robinson and Mr. Blair may be heard in the background stating that waiting until the implementation of the plan was completed would be “very helpful.”

Respectfully, waiting until after “all of the students [are] moved” is anything but “very helpful.” It is, frankly, like waiting until the world has exploded to begin talking about ways to avoid a war.

By waiting until all of the students are moved, Dr. Robinson, Mr. Blair, Mr. Birney, Ms. McCaulley, and Ms. Morrison have abdicated their responsibility to provide oversight to the Superintendent of Huntsville City Schools. (This is the very thing that Mr. Blair stated on March 16 that would never happen when he pointed out, “that no decision could be made without the issue coming before the board.”

Mr. Blair: The board hasn’t heard, review the plan, or approved the plan, but Dr. Moore will not actually present any details of what will happen (let alone, why it is happening), until after all the students have been moved.

In addition, Dr. Moore’s description of the order of events does not tell the complete story. She claims that any decision to move students is being made in the IEP meeting. As you can see from this letter which showed on April 15th that Dr. Moore was issuing directives to the school administration representatives on the IEP team to tell parents that their child will be moved in the coming year.

On April 21, 2011 at about 4:30pm, I spoke with Ms. Sledge via phone and asked her what directives were being sent out to the IEP teams from the central office. I specifically referenced the Matus’ letter and my own experience of being told that “we cannot write aides into IEPs without prior approval from the central office.”

Ms. Sledge denied that this was happening and claimed that she would immediately send out notices to the principals that they do not have to seek prior approval for items written into an IEP. I am still being told that aides cannot be written into IEPs without the approval of the central office.

Parents are still being told that their child will be moved to a new school next year.

Additionally during my conversation with Ms. Sledge she informed me that if parents did not like the segregation plan, that they could request a mediation over the issue.

The central office is daring parents to take legal action against the segregation they are forcing on our kids.

Dr. Moore also repeatedly made the implication in the May 5th meeting that we’re all having to make cuts to address the financial situation the school system, under her direction, has experienced. What she has not said to the board, and what the board seems slow to recognize is that Special Needs have already been the primary group affected by the cuts that have taken place so far. The majority of the layoffs that have already occurred have been from Instructional Aides, the majority of which work with Special Needs students.

In addition during this poorly attended presentation, we now discover that Adaptive PE, which Mr. Blair correctly described as a central part to inclusion for special needs children, is also being cut. Dr. Moore claims that all PE teachers are trained to offer Adaptive PE, but she avoids answer any questions concerning how these already overworked teachers are supposed to teach both their regular students as well as their special needs students.

She claims that to be a “staffing issue,” and that Instructional Aides (whom have already been pink slipped) will be able to assist.

While special needs kids are being asked to bear the heaviest burden of cuts, there still has not been a single cut, nor even a plan to cut, from the bloated central office.

If you agree that one person should not be allowed to implement her own private agenda against the will of the public, and without oversight of the board, please contact the board and insist that they order Dr. Moore to halt the moving of students to new schools until she provides a written and public justification for doing so.

You may contact the board via Ms. Gail Kiker, Administrative Assistant to the Board at (256) 428-6940 or via email at gkiker@hsv.k12.al.us.

You may contact Dr. Moore directly at (256) 428-6810 or via email at armoore@hsv.k12.al.us.

Perhaps if there is a mass outcry, the Board (who aren’t leaving office in July as is the Superintendent) will begin to finally hold Dr. Moore accountable.

There is always hope, but there is little time. The next board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at 5:30pm. School will dismiss for the year on Wednesday, May 25, 2011.

The post Hold the Superintendent Accountable appeared first on Geek Palaver.

This is a three part video of the May 5, 2011 Huntsville City Schools Board of Education Work Session dealing with Amy Sledge’s Presentation on Special Education. Specially, Dr. Robinson questions Ms. Sledge and Dr. Moore concerning the Special Needs segregation plan that Ms. Sledge and Dr. Moore are currently implementing.

Here is the first part:

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XezRvX7CMZM']

Here’s the second part:

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GROvPMyl8ZM']

Here’s the third and final part:

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DZz7pbAAlM']

I’ll be sharing my thoughts about this presentation tomorrow.

The post Huntsville City Schools Board Work Session: Special Education Presentation appeared first on Geek Palaver.

To the Honorable Dr. Ann Roy Moore, Superintendent of Huntsville City Schools
And to the Huntsville City School Board of Education Members:

District 1: Laurie McCaulley, Vice-President
District 2: David Blair
District 3: Dr. Jennie Robinson
District 4: Topper Birney, President
District 5: Alta Morrison

Dr. Moore and the Board:

I am one of those “confrontational” parents who are making your life difficult.

It seems only natural and frankly desirable that a parent adopt a confrontational attitude when his children are being attacked. For that, respectfully, I will never apologize. And neither should the brave parents who stood up to speak truth to power last night. I am proud of each and every one of them, and frankly you should be, too. They are standing up for all children and grandchildren, including yours.

Since, as the Honorable Mrs. Alta Morrison has decreed that it would be physically impossible for you, the Board, or seemingly anyone in the Huntsville City central office to actually return a phone call, and since the Board is moving to alter the by-laws to reduce the time allotted for citizen comments from four minutes down to three, I have decided to put my comments concerning your plan to segregate my child from other children on the basis of his autism in writing.

I have only two requests:

First, parents are currently being told in their IEP meetings that their children will be moved to either the Academy for Academics and Arts (if they live north of Governors Drive) or to Challenger or Hampton Cove (if they live south of Governors Drive). This is in keeping with what Mrs. Sledge told parents on Wednesday night.

This isn’t a “rumor” as you stated two weeks ago.

This isn’t a plan that is “still being developed” as you responded to Mr. Blair’s question last night. (By the way, thank you, Mr. Blair.)

This is a plan that is being implemented right now without parental input and without the Board’s knowledge and consent. Two weeks ago, we were assured that nothing would be implemented without the discussion and approval of the Board. That statement was incorrect.

Since this plan is currently being implemented, please, share this plan with the Board and with the parents in writing so that we may attempt to understand it. If you want parents to be supportive of you and the Board, the first step is not to reprimand us for being “confrontational,” as you did last night, but rather to try communicating with us. Put this plan in writing so that we may attempt to understand you. I think you’ll find that parents of special needs children are actually quite gifted in understanding others.

We cannot and the Board should not wait until May.

Second, I am fully aware that the Huntsville City School system budget is facing a budget crisis. I am willing to do my part in alleviating that crisis. There has never been a single vote concerning raising taxes for schools that I have not supported and campaigned for.

Furthermore, I’m willing to volunteer my time, as are numerous other parents, to aid you in finding ways to trim our budget. Perhaps one place where we could trim our budget would be to cease the hiring of outside consultants to provide cover for you and the Board, such as Dr. Richardson. Parents, not outsiders, should be at the table with you. If you would be willing to share with us the same public information that you have shared with Dr. Richardson–namely our budget–we will be happy to work with you in addressing the budget issues we (not Dr. Richardson) are facing.

I love Huntsville. I love our public schools and our dedicated teachers. The parents who spoke to you and the board last night do too. Use us. Involve us in this process of making our schools better. We cared enough to attend a three hour meeting on a Thursday night. We did not get paid to attend that meeting. We took off from work to attend. We arranged for child care for our special needs children. (If you want a difficult task, try finding a baby-sitter for an autistic five-year-old sometime. Budget discussions are simple by comparison.) We missed a night we could have spent playing with our kids. We are committed to making our schools better for all children. Use us. We’re free.

Finally, I want to wish you well in your job search. I know how difficult the process of having to relocate one’s family to new schools and new lives can be. Hopefully the school system you’re moving to makes the transitions more transparent for you than you are doing so for us.

Sincerely,

Russell Winn
2501 Glen Echo Circle, SE.
Huntsville, AL. 35803

The post An Open Letter to Dr. Ann Roy Moore and the Huntsville City Schools Board of Education appeared first on Geek Palaver.

So we went to the Tennessee Aquarium this weekend. And once again, my six year old son proved he’s smarter than me.

On the way there, he saw a sign for the Aquarium that advertised their penguin exhibit.  Very cool, and he got excited.  He asked me if they had “Macaroni Penguins.”  I tried not to laugh, I mean really… Macaroni?  But told him we’d have to see.

We get there, and our tour guide takes us first to see the Penguins.  Now this is an overnight trip where we slept at the Aquarium and got to see all sorts of stuff behind the scenes.  So the boy asks again…  ”Will we see Macaroni Penguins?”

Since the tour guide would be dealing with kids all night long, I figured this is a good chance to see how she handles silly questions.  So I told the boy to ask the guide.  Which he did.

Imagine my surprise when she said “We sure do.  We have 11 adults and a baby.”

Wait.  There really are Macaroni Penguins?

So I ask the boy where he heard about them.  ”Diego.”

Score one for Nick Jr.

The post Why my boy is smarter than me. appeared first on Geek Palaver.

A good friend of mine in Chicago posted an excellent article about God speaking to us in unusual and unlikely ways. In this case, Brian makes some good points about this likely not coming from God himself/herself/itself.  Brian, God bless him, is a devout Catholic, so his point of view is a bit different than my own liberal baptist, but I have to agree with him on this one.

Seems the Joilet Jackhammer’s minor league baseball team wants to get a celebrity spokesperson of the highest order, and inked a deal with the Lord to support the team.  I don’t know the specifics of the contract, but apparently the deal, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, includes a a tithe of 10% to the church (or charity of the customer’s choice) for every ticket sold in December.

Now the campaign seems to be successful.  They are nearly double their normal December season ticket sales.  But on the whole, I think the campaign is in poor taste.  I guess it just goes to show you that there really is no such thing a bad publicity.

But it does make me wonder, if God was to really ink a deal with an advertiser, who would it be?  It’s a fun exercise in ethical and moral thinking that is, of course, meaningless and therefore perfect fodder for Geek Palaver.

I’m sure Mr. Ed and Russ will have vastly different opinions on the matter than my own.  After all I’m the token pro-business conservative on the site.  So in the interest of what will hopefully be an exciting discussion, here’s my top ten (we love top tens here at Geek Palaver) ad deals God is most likely to sign.

1. Jack Daniel’s Distillary – I hesitated to put this one at the top, but I think it really would be right up there at the top of the list.  After all, the good book says to Eat, Drink and be Merry and a bit of Jack’s finest would help that along.  My concern is that Jack isn’t owned by the Daniel’s anymore, so God may balk at signing with an international megacorp like Brown-Forman.  But I don’t know much about that company, so I’m going to pretend they are good people and God would give them the endorsement.
2. Five Guys Burgers and Fries – Again, eat drink and all that jazz…  but its more than that.  It’s a successful family business, started to put kids through college.  But they surpassed their father, took over the business and turned it into a national sensation.  And they make good fries.  I have to think God likes good fries.
3. Samual Adams Brewery – See a theme yet?  Good beer, available pricing for the masses…  If not Sam Adams, then some other fine craft brewery.
4. Hebrew National Hot Dogs – Do I really need to explain this one?
5. Apple, Inc. – Secretly, I think God owns a part of Apple.  No other megacorp could pull off near obscurity to national prominence the way Apple has.  If God’s not involved, then the competition is.  But I tend to think the competition is in bed with Microsoft.
6. Tesla Motors – Look, the company needs the endorsement.  They make eco-friendly electric cars.  One is a sports car.  It’s hyper-fast AND green?  Has God’s name written all over it.
7. Mike Rowe – Dirty Jobs AND the voice of Deadliest Catch?  Mike Rowe is awesome.  And has the second best voice in the business.  Next to God himself, which I have on great authority sounds just like James Earl Jones.
8. The Roman Catholic Church – No, not so much for what it is NOW, but for what it is in people’s hearts and minds.  At least, the faithful’s hearts and minds.  And I think the deal would obligate some radical changes in the church, much needed changes.  (Sorry Brian)
9. Trojan Condoms – I said there would be changes in the church, didn’t I?  Well, here’s one.  Plus, the widespread availability of condoms is one of the single greatest combatants in the war on poverty, overpopulation and human misery.  Read Chuck Yeager’s autobiography for an example.
10. GeekPalaver.com – Cause yea, I’m that modest.  I put it last, see?

The post God Speaks! appeared first on Geek Palaver.

"Dogs and Cats, Living Together!"

The post Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone! appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Ok.  If we are going to be geeky, let’s get geeky.

My top 10 (ok, 11) Zombie Movies:

1. Shaun of the Dead
2. Zombieland (loved it)
3. Dawn of the Dead (Snyder)
4. Planet Terror
5. Dawn of the Dead (Romero)
6. Night of the Living Dead
7. Land of the Dead
8. Dead Alive
9. Day of the Dead
10. Return of the Living Dead
11. Resident Evil (the first one.  I know—video game movie, but it is a cool Zombie flick, you have to admit)

Interesting . . . I couldn’t help but notice that when I put this together, 4 of my top 5 have been within the last few years (all this decade), and looking at upcoming releases, there are some real promising ones on the horizon.  The world is looking up if you’re a Zombie lover (no necrophilia puns intended).  As the Zombie Survival guide warns: never attempt to have sexual relations with the recently re-animated–as they tend to bite.

Gotta give a shout out here to George Romero (well represented on my list).  He defined this genre (though others have far surpassed him in it).  My top four are the Zombie flicks I have the most fun watching.  And while Romero’s may not be as much fun, his are still among my favorites.  Got to love a guy that take a bunch of walking dead and make a smart and relevant political and social commentary out of it.  That was one of my favorite things about Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead: hilarious and gory, yet some of the sharper social criticisms I have seen.  Rule #1: Cardio.  You got to appreciate the little things. Etc.

Zombies are a metaphor for us.  They are us at our most base.  When we battle them, we battle ourselves.  They are harmless (relatively) if you meet one alone.  In a mob, they are truly deadly, almost unstoppable.  None of us are as dumb as all of us.  Zombies feed on human flesh (in some versions, just the brain), and they can be killed by destroying the brain.  When our reason and logic fails us, we are doomed.  We feed on each other’s flesh and brains; we are in constant warfare; we tend to be gluttonous—focused only on ourselves and not the greater good.  Romero uses the zombie to make insightful social comments and criticism.  That is why his films, albeit technically and “narratively” (my spell checker is saying this is not a word, but it should be) inferior, belong in anyone’s list.  They may not be as fun as some of the other zombie flicks, but they are relevant.

Night of the Living Dead dealt with the paranoia surrounding the “space-race” in the fifties and sixties (a meteor was the cause),  Dawn of the Dead with rising commercialism (as represented by the shopping malls—which were popping up all over the place at the time) of the 70’s and early 80’s.  Take a good look at the mall next time you’re there.  To Romero, mall shoppers looked like zombies wandering around, slaves not to a zombie appetite, but to their credit cards.

The 80’s bought with it its own brand of paranoia, the cold war and the impending threat of nuclear holocaust.  Many films in the 80’s dealt with this, but none as directly as Day of the Dead.  C’mon, a bunch of army guys held up in a bunker with hordes of the living dead outside?  It is the paranoid fantasy of the 80’s embodied.  The future we all dreaded.  But what we really dreaded weren’t the bombs, it was ourselves.  Outside.  Wanting to eat us.

Land of the Dead addressed the social elitism of the late nineties and into the 21^st century.  You don’t have to be a genius to see Bush in Dennis Hopper’s role there, protecting the wealthy on an island while everyone else is kept out, using others to achieve his own ends.  Even Diary of the Dead (which I haven’t seen yet), deals with our current fascination with reality shows.  We’d rather spend our time watching others live their lives out on TV than live our own.  We can sit for hours on end focused on the tube.  Hmmm . . . sounds like a zombie.

That’s one thing I love about Shaun of the Dead.  It is a real and intelligent comment on social lethargy (and it’s fun as hell).  We get into a routine, we procrastinate; we have jobs we hate, so we escape into alcohol, TV, and video games.  We won’t grow up.  We have a sense of entitlement, yet no will (or means in many cases) to earn the things we feel we should have.  So we finance them, or pretend to have them by focusing our lives around Brad Pitt (who’s a damn fine actor, don’t get me wrong).

Zombieland was equally insightful.  Comments on obesity, love of and dependence on materialism, the way we ignore life’s finer fruits in the pursuit of material possessions.  All of these things mean nothing in the face of apocalypse.  That’s what makes the zombie such a relevant metaphor.

That and they’re scary as hell.

Good “Zombie” movies that aren’t technically zombie movies but deserve consideration:

• Heavy Metal, story “B-17″
• 28 Days Later (haven’t seen the sequel yet.  28 Months Later is scheduled for release next year.  Not sure about that one))
• Slither (this one’s a hoot)
• Evil Dead Trilogy (Evil Dead, Evil Dead two, Army of Darkness)
• C.H.U.D. (Classic)
• Night of the Comet (worth seeing is you like bad acting.  Loved it as a kid)
• Pet Cemetery (a zombie cat?  What’s not to love about that?)

The post Zombie Movies . . . appeared first on Geek Palaver.

I have to admit, I’m a Mythbusters geek.  I absolutely adore the show.  But I adore busting myths myself.  Myths are the result of sloppy thinking, something akin to superstitions, and I can’t abide it.  Oh, I’m guilty of it, but it makes me angry when I do.

I could give you a list of my favorite myths that have been busted on the show, but it really doesn’t matter.  It isn’t particular myths that attract me to the show, although anything that ends in an explosion is nice.  It’s the process.

I particularly like it when the hosts, be it Jamie and Adam or the mythterns, are just plain wrong.  Where they get caught up in the myth and make predictions that are just silly.

One myth that particularly messed with everyone’s head was the airplane on a conveyor belt.  The myth is an airplane attempting to take off on a treadmill like conveyor belt will never take off.  At first blush, if you don’t think about it and rely on your own experiences, you might believe the myth.  After all, you could put a car on a treadmill and it won’t move forward.  And if a car won’t move forward, a plane won’t either.  And if a plane doesn’t move forward, it can’t take off.

Only a plane isn’t a car.  It’s the leap from car to plane that the thinking gets sloppy.  As humans, we tend to do that leap regularly.  We use this tendency in communication regularly.  We call it metaphor.  The thing we forget is that metaphors are only looking at the surface.  Just because prior to take off an airplane is like a car, doesn’t mean it is a car. A completely different set of physics apply.

But when I’m honest, I leap to the same erroneous conclusions too.  I assume because a is like b, then b must always be like a.  And it simply isn’t the case.  In fact, it often isn’t the case.

For those of you wondering, a car uses friction between its tires and the ground to move forward.  So if you move the ground backward at the same speed, the car stays still.  A plane uses its engines to push or pull through the air.  The plane doesn’t care how fast the ground underneath it is moving at all.  The wheels have nothing to do with its forward propulsion.  So move the ground backwards at the same speed as the plane moves forward and nothing happens.  The plane moves forward and take off in the same distance as if the ground wasn’t moving.  The only difference is, the wheels are rotating twice as fast.

The post Mythbusters Geekdom appeared first on Geek Palaver.

I’m a geek, but I’ve never claimed to be a genius.  I have plenty of friends who rank up there, but I’m not one of them.  One of the smarter of the bunch (not counting my fellow geeks here at Geek Palaver, of course) is my blogging friend Sarah Lena of  the blog, The Anvil Tree.  Sarah wrote a very thoughtful and insightful post about the recent rash of shootings.  She argues that with the current economic environment, that desperation in the country is at a high point, and the shooting in Fort Hood may have been the tipping point for the man behind the shooting in Florida.

The argument is compelling.  You’ve got two men on the edge, for whatever reason.  They aren’t aware of each other, they don’t really care.  But one of them snaps.  Does the deed he’s contemplated.  And the other now has  permission to do the same.  One feed the other.

I’m not convinced it’s quite that simple, and at the same time not so complicated.  I like to bring up a couple of things whenever these tragedies come up.  The first is to go to the New York Times of 1948.  Specifically July 8th, 1948.  On the front page are two stories of interest to me.  The first is the headline that the United States Army had recovered a flying disc, but that doesn’t really add anything to this story.  The second is an article about the continuing muggings and murders by wild gangs of teenagers in central park.

You’ll not find the story about “Wilders” elsewhere in American media, but if it happened today you would.  It would make headlines on CNN, Fox, and most of the big three nightly shows.  Wild gangs running loose in Central Park!

Add to the mayhem the citizen journalist, and things get dicey.  When Captain Sullenberger expertly landed his bird struck Airbus A320 on the Hudson River, Twitter reported the ditching a full 6 minutes before any other outlet.  The crash quickly trended, and the information was not exactly reliable.  Imagine witnessing the crash… maybe not entirely, but seeing the plane going down, hearing it hit.  Pulling out twitter… announcing the crash.  What’s your first assumption?  Everyone is dead!  It’s a plane crash, by God, no one survives it.  But this time, Twitter was wrong.

In the case of the Fort Hood Shooting, Twitter was again wrong on many issues.  But this time, news outlets used Twitter as sources, and look used them as “eyewitness” accounts, further increasing the problem.  Now we can get our bad news instantaneously and potentially incorrectly on Twitter, and glorified and in full detail, 24/7 on cable.

So yes, it is possible that Fort Hood caused Florida, in the sense that it pushed the guy in Florida over the edge.  Put it is just as likely that the non-stop blood and guts in mainstream and social media put him on the edge.  It’s a horrible circle of doom.

Now I don’t have an answer.  Well, other than knowledge.  Knowing that twitter is unreliable as a primary source may keep you skeptical of what is posted.  Keeping perspective on the awful news story of the day, and remembering that for every cute white girl abducted, there is one or two cute black girls that don’t make the headlines.  For every child abducted, several million got home perfectly fine.  For every grisly murder, millions of fathers hugged their children with genuine love.  And for ever crazy that takes a gun to make a scene, thousands decided today wasn’t the day to go on a rampage.

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Ghost stories around a campfire. It all started with ghost stories around a campfire.

We were young, so it was just easier to re-tell the scenes from Friday the 13th, but they were still effective. Most of us hadn’t even seen the movie, but there was always that one kid whose parents would take him to the R-raters. The one kid who could spread the thirteen different ways a psychotic could kill you in the woods; supposing, of course, that you needed killing. My favorite was the arm coming out from under the cot, holding the head of the guy who just had the misfortune of having had pre-marital sex.

What idiot came up with idea of bed skirts? Didn’t they understand (as Stephen King said once) that the skirt makes a perfect hiding place for the boogie man (and a child’s imagination)?

Eventually we moved away from retelling the movie to simply chanting “che he he, ha ha ha.” Fear is more contagious than the flu.

Which left us, alone, in our tents, with only our imaginations and the sounds of the living, breathing, thinking world around us.

A place to tell stories. A place to let the imagination run wild. A place to indulge that little boy who wants a new toy. A place to put away childish things and think like a man (“or a woman if you are one”). That’s what the campfire was for me. That’s what Geek Palaver is for me now.

Yes, I am a geek, and I want to talk. Sometimes it will be useless chatter. Occasionally our palaver will be interesting and helpful. Rarely, the counsel might be inspiring, but we will have a place to discuss our opinions. To see the world as it is, and as we hope it will be.

Perhaps to discover our destiny: our ka.

Join us around the campfire as we bring the 19th century into the 21st.

This has all happened before, for Ka, is a wheel.

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