They're Standing By Others with Music

In church this morning, we got to watch a snippet of a cool video, which also happens to be online for your own viewing pleasure:
It's a montage of musicians all around the world playing "Stand By Me," and it was made by an organization called Playing for Change, which is a foundation that's "dedicated to connecting the world through music by providing resources (including but not limited to facilities, supplies and educational programs) to musicians around the world. A documentary about the movement is coming next year, and a guest column by founder/director Mark Johnson may be found here.

And being the wonky musician type, one thing kept occurring to me as I watched the video: It must have taken a lot of preparation to get everyone used in the video to play in exactly the same key (especially considering the different tunings in different parts of the world) and tempo; either that, or some very clever editing techniques were used. (And the fellow musician sitting next to me in church--a bassoonist--was somewhat disappointed that her instrument didn't make it into the video. The saxophone was nicely represented by a guy in Italy.)

Anyway, it's a cool video. Give it a look, and feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Notes from the Road (Stephenville Edition, Part 5)

No matter how many times I take the trip to Stephenville, I always get a lot of, umm, mileage out of it as far as blogworthy material is concerned. This weekend's trip was no exception:

• The town of Bluff Dale, between Granbury and Stephenville, always provides a decent amount of interesting quotes; I guess there are just some really clever, folksy people out there (or it's just one guy and he gets around a lot). This time, on the outskirts of town, I noticed a steakhouse that touted its signature dish as being LARRUPIN' GOOD. I wonder just how good it has to be to qualify as that, and what the steak does when it larrups.


• Not too far away from that was a ranch called the Lion's Den, which also stated that it was owned by the DeLeon family. This makes sense, of course, because DeLeon is Spanish for "of the lion," or "of lion" if you wanted to be completely literal. (One of my sister's elementary school teachers married a guy named DeLeon, and I--taking Spanish at the time--jokingly referred to her as "Mrs. Of Lion." What's really crazy is that evidently some other students picked up on it (from my sister, I assume) and started calling her Mrs. Of Lion as well.)


• And in another "We're not in Dallas/Ft. Worth anymore, Toto" moment, one of the businesses out there is Bluff Dale Deer Processing. (As always, I saw more than a few people wearing hunters' camouflage jackets at the Hard Eight last night.)


• While on the subject of the Hard Eight, I finally managed to select a reasonable amount of food there, for possibly the first time. (If you've missed the earlier explanations, the meat is ordered from the outdoor pit, and everything looks and smells so good that it's easy to order way more than you can actually eat in one sitting--not to mention ending up with a $15-$20 meat bill in the process.)


• Most school zones in this area slow traffic down to 20 MPH. But in smaller towns like Bluff Dale and nearby Tolar (home of the Rattlers), the school zone speeds are 30 and 35 MPH respectively.


• Gas prices have continued to drop in the Metroplex (I happily paid 1.89 a gallon in Ft. Worth yesterday, and I saw it for $1.82 in Benbrook after that. But in Stephenville, I saw $1.74 gas on multiple occasions. (The most "expensive" gas I saw was $2.06, just outside of Granbury. I also noticed that nobody was at that gas station...)


• Speaking of Granbury: I griped in a previous post about the ridiculous number of stoplights on 377 in that town and how nice it would be to have a bypass loop. That may never happen, but I do applaud them for at least appearing to have worked on getting the lights in better sync, as I found myself stopping much less (in both directions) than any previous trip. But contrast that to the very small town of Cresson, whose one stoplight seems interminably long for a cross-street that's just not all that busy. What gives, folks?


• And finally, I found myself behind a vehicle that I'd never seen before: A Toyota FJ Cruiser. It's more car than I'd ever need at this moment, but it looked pretty cool.

And by the way, if you're wondering--I didn't see any UFO's on the trip. (That subject was discussed here a few times before, and it's been in the news again recently, when a Dublin High School student got some video footage of an unexplained "something" that he and a friend saw.)

Previous Notes from the Road (Stephenville Edition):
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Parts 4A and 4B

Travel Advisory

I'm off to Stephenville on fraternity business--a common occurrence for this time of year. It's a nice drive, as I've said before, and it may well spawn another "Notes from the Road" post, as I always seem to see interesting stuff on this trip. Blogging will resume sometime tomorrow.

What's the Funniest New Thing on YouTube?a-ha! Here We Go!

Over the summer, I devoted a post to the hottest Internet meme of the time, Buffalaxing--a tip to the best-known practitioner of the genre, who took songs in foreign languages and added subtitles that didn't pretend to actually translate the words, but rather to express what the listener thought they sounded like in English. The best-known Buffalaxation is simply known as "Benny Lava," and it's still funny several months later. (And I'm not sure if I ever mentioned it on this blog, but another really funny Buffalax video is his send-up of a '70s German disco song called Moskau.)

And in the same spirit comes a new idea: the Literal Video Version of classic rock songs (limited thus far to the '80s and '90s). Creator Dustin McLean sums it up like this: "Ever wish songs just sang what was happening in the music video?" Well, now they do, and to me, the funniest Literal Version is set to one of the all-time classic videos, "Take On Me" by a-ha:



Other send-ups include "Head Over Heels" by Tears for Fears and "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Funny, funny stuff.

(Hat tip: Lileks at buzz.mn)

Did You Thank a Vet Today?

Veterans Day is one of those holidays that can be easily overlooked if you're not careful; nobody gets the day off unless they work for a government office or a bank, Macy's doesn't have a "white sale" for it, and it doesn't even get moved to a Monday to give the celebrants a long weekend. But it's obviously very important to this nation, because it honors the sacrifices made by those who have worked to keep this country free.

Here's a great quote that came across my fraternity's listserv today:

What is a veteran?

A ‘Veteran‘ — whether active duty, discharged, retired, or reserve — is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America,” for an amount of “up to, and including his life.”

The author is unknown, but thanks to Matthew Fuger of Mackenbach, Germany, for submitting it.

On the radio today, the listeners' poll question was "Have you ever thanked a veteran?" I'm pretty sure I had before, but I was able to answer "yes" just now, because, with two veterans among the older students in one of my ensembles at the college, I made sure to recognize their service at the end of rehearsal today. With so little attention paid to the holiday, it seemed like the least I could do.

Have you ever thanked a veteran for his or her service?

(And yes, this post is going out at 11:11 p.m. on 11/11. I may not be up that late, but I'm thankful for "scheduled posting" so that I can do the symbolism properly.)

Bailing Out Detroit's Big 3--Good Idea/Bad Idea?

One of the things in the news recently has been the recent meeting between officials of the Big 3 U.S. automakers and Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in an effort to get government help to shore up their dwindling finances (you may insert the B-word--bailout--here if you're so inclined). The automakers' angle is pretty much "We're too big to be allowed to fail," and the meat of the discussion went like this:

Among the topics discussed were a $25 billion loan to fund union-controlled trust funds that would be set up in the coming year to cover the health care costs of retirees and their family members. Shifting about $100 billion of those costs from the automakers' balance sheet to the trust funds was a key concession the companies won from the UAW in the 2007 labor deals.

The discussions also touched upon allowing the automakers to tap into the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street firms and the nation's banks that was passed by Congress last month. Treasury has so far rejected auto-industry inquiries about accessing that pool of money.

The automakers also renewed their pre-election request to double the $25 billion low-interest loan program approved by Congress, as part of energy legislation, to help automakers convert to making more fuel-efficient vehicles in an effort to meet the demands of car buyers and new federal rules.

I've weighed in on the U.S. auto industry--and why I chose a car from outside their ranks--in a previous post. Among my main points:

[D]uring all my recent car-shopping, I never once considered a domestic automaker, and I think the main reason was at least the perception of a lack of quality. Having just come off a year where my aging car was in the shop for three major issues, the last thing I wanted was a new car that had similar problems right off the bat.

But is it just a perception of low quality among domestic automakers, or is there any truth to that? (We'll set aside for the moment the question of which car is more "domestic"--a Ford truck made in Mexico, or a Honda Accord made in Ohio?) I can only go on anecdotal evidence, but it seems like the people I know who drive domestic vehicles have their cars in the shop more often than those with foreign--especially Japanese--ones.

[...]The jury's still out on what caused the once-mighty domestic auto industry to fall so far. Did they rest of their laurels while the once-upstart Asian companies took over the mantle of innovation? Are the unions here to blame? (I'd have little trouble citing that as a cause myself.) One of the presidential candidates blamed our own government regulations; it's probably a little of all of that.

Don't get me wrong--I'd love to see the American auto industry rebound; I'd love for a lot more of everything we consume to be made over here. But for me personally, while Detroit was sleeping, Tokyo rose up and created something that a lot of us could wrap our hearts and minds around, and, having just bought my third Honda vehicle in a row I don't see myself going in a different direction anytime soon.

I'm not sure where I stand on this bailout idea. Part of me thinks that the government has given too much money to ailing corporations already, and I'm not a fan of $25 billion going to a union-controlled anything. But on the other hand, the government did bail out Chrysler in the late '70s/early '80s, and that move netted the Treasury some $350 billion when all was said and done.

L.A. Times writer Joel Stein had an interesting take on the situation: Test-drive a bunch of domestic cars to see if their makers are worth saving. Needless to say, there's some funny stuff in this column:

Shortly after getting to the Glendale Dodge dealership, I realized that evaluating cars was going to be more difficult than I'd anticipated, because the only thing I know about cars is that, after 19, women don't want to have sex in them. While waiting for a salesperson, I also realized that Phil Collins wrote many more songs than I remembered. Luckily, my method of car evaluation is exactly the same as most car buyers: Does it look cool and hook up to my iPod?

But among all this, Stein has a solid point to make as well:

[N]o matter how much I liked these cars, I don't think the government should use taxpayer money to give life-support to dying, poorly managed, market ignorant, technologically outdated industries other than newspapers. As sad as it would be for American icons like Chrysler to die, and for thousands of people to lose their jobs, propping up failure prevents innovation.

And of course, he threw in the "other than newspapers" clause because he works for one; your mileage may vary.

But really, the first thing that crossed my mind when I read about this situation was, "Why can't they just make cars that suck less?" Humorist Scott Ott says pretty much that in this Scrappleface post from today (and it's even funnier that he has those words coming out of Pelosi's mouth). Read the whole thing, which expresses the way I feel about unions in a nice package of biting satire. Here's a sample:

“You autoworkers think your big union bosses have your best interests at heart,” she said, “and so you march in lockstep to the polls where you vote for union-backed political candidates whose campaigns you funded through your union dues. Those politicians, many of them lawyers, then go to Washington and listen to the siren song of union lobbyists to increase the regulatory burden on U.S. automakers, driving up the cost of production so it’s tougher for your company to compete with foreign car makers.”

In the meantime, you have folks like myself driving around in Honda Fits and experiencing total satisfaction with same. (What's not to love? I've been filling it up for less than $18 a tank for the past week, I got just shy of 40 MPG on my recent roadtrip, and the sum total of my "maintenance" during the past ten months has been three oil changes and two tire rotations.) If a U.S. automaker made a car that could hold half an unlit birthday candle to mine, I'd certainly check it out...and if they do make such a car, either their publicity machine is sorely lacking, or they just need some more time to build a reputation for reliability like that which Honda has enjoyed for decades.

What do you think--should the Big Three get a bailout/loan/whatever? Are they really "too big to fail," or would the economy survive their loss? Feel free to chime in below in the comments.

A roadtrip for Rover: No matter who made the car, hilarity will ensue if the dog starts driving it.

Marching to the Beat of a Very Inspiring Drummer

When I was in undergrad school, I once heard a guest speaker deliver an inspiring story about a trombonist in a college marching band in Iowa who was blind. (He learned the music by ear, from listening to his section-mates, and then he memorized the number of steps in each maneuver.) But I never expected to see this: An entire marching band of blind members from Ohio.

Watch and enjoy the entire video; it's very cool. (Yes, they have a little help on the field, but it's still amazing.) And to top it all off, the band has been invited to march in the Rose Parade in 2010.

And speaking of drums: The old Holiday Inn Select on Central near Meadow (not far from the doomed Circuit City mentioned in yestereday's post) was imploded this morning, and the DMN shot a very cool video of the process. Note how the charges going off in sequence sound more than a little like a drum cadence...

Some Circuit City Stores to "Unplug"--But Not RIght Here

Some portions of corporate America continue to fall on hard times, and cutbacks have ensued. A few months ago, we talked about the doomed Starbucks list, and now I've had the chance to read the doomed Circuit City list, which doesn't include nearly so many stores (though it's not like there's a Circuit City on every corner, nor do they build across the street from themselves). There are only four stores in D/FW on the list (and that's if you expand the metro area to include Sherman), and only nine in Texas, period (though one of the ones that's closing is a store in Mansfield that's been open for little more than a month.

I was of course happy to see that the one here in Firewheel was not among the doomed stores; though the center has been pretty good about replacing tenants both large and small that have closed (such as the forthcoming Hollister that's being built in the old Sharper Image spot underneath the clock tower), it would have been a blow to the area to have such a big store go out, especially with the impending loss of Linens 'n' Things. (And besides, I want some shopping options whenever my vintage 1991 TV finally gives out.)

One of the ones closest to here that is on the list is an older store at Central and Meadow in north Dallas; it's so old that it still has the original "plug-in" design. That didn't ring a bell with one of my younger friends until I found a picture of one here, in a forum on the site Groceteria, which usually discusses--you guessed it--grocery stores. (Scroll down about halfway to see the picture, and check out this shot of a former CC store with the plug painted blue!) And a bit later, I found a video of the old "plug" commercial as well (from '94, if the YouTube commenters are correct).

What's your favorite "retro" commercial? And is the company that it's, umm, plugging still in business?

UPDATE: Did I speak too soon? As of Monday, Circuit City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and will eventually close more stores.

And in other electronics news: The iPhone (which I'm still contemplating purchasing soon) does lots of things, but did you know it can be used as an ocarina? (More Apple news here; hat tip: Instapundit.)

Oops...

I only intended to take a short nap tonight, heading over to the couch at around six o'clock. It's been a long week, and I figured that a good half an hour would do me some good.

Unfortunately, I just woke up...after five hours of napping. I was a little disoriented at first, wondering why it was 11:00 and still dark; yes, I thought it was tomorrow morning already.

I had a topical post to do tonight, but I guess I'll save it, unless I can't get back to sleep here in a bit.

Funny Election Headline of the Week

Bacon defeats Fries--at least in a state senate race in Colorado.

(The comments--from Amazon's "Al Dente" food blog--are funny as well. And to prove it's not a joke, read this story, which calls it a "tasty" race.)

Good News for Local Drivers

After seeing it to the south this past weekend, it appears that $1.99 gas has finally arrived in Plano. Yay!

(This is a busy, busy week--not much time for blogging. More later.)

Kids Say the Darnedest Things...About the Election

As I've said on many occasions, I don't talk about politics on this blog. But on this Election Day, first and foremost, I encourage any eligible person who hasn't voted yet to go out and do so--it's your fundamental duty as an American. (And besides, if you don't vote today, you informally waive the right to gripe about the people who get elected today. And I'm not saying that your free speech will be suppressed, but rather that you lose a lot of credibility if you don't participate in the process.)

And to stay topical without actually being topical, I offer you these election slogans, found on a series of posters at one of the public schools where I teach:

• ONCE YOU GO BARACK, YOU NEVER GO BACK


• VOTE FOR McCAIN--HE'S GOT THE BRAIN


• BARACK TO THE FUTURE


• McCaIN...PalIN...JOIN THE "IN" CROWD


• OUR COUNTRY IS IN TRAUMA, VOTE OBAMA


• CATCH THE TRAIN, VOTE McCAIN

And there was at least one less-whimsical, more "serious" one:

• McCAIN & PALIN: WE DON'T JUST HELP THE POOR, WE HELP ALL

And one that just generates a "Huh?":

• IT'S TIME FOR A DIFFERENT "B.O." IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Kids really do say the darnedest things.

And tomorrow morning, when this is all over--take a walk, call a friend, read a good book. No matter what happens tonight, I think we all need a vacation from politics for a while.

Notes from the Road(trip)

This was a great weekend. I hadn't done an out-of-town roadtrip since late March, and I hadn't really gone out of town, period, since July. It was time. And even though, in less than 24 hours, I managed to pull a muscle in my leg, got my first speeding ticket in over 17 years, and got my car stuck in the sand--twice--I also got a free dinner, walked on a beach for the first time in years, and played both a marimba duet and a saxophone/piano duet, the latter with one of my nephews. It was truly a superb time.

As always, here's a random list of things I noticed on the trip:

• A funny sign seen in Jarrell, just north of Austin: "THIS IS GOD'S COUNTRY. PLEASE DON'T DRIVE LIKE HELL THROUGH HERE."


• Coming into greater Austin near Friday afternoon rush hour, I decided to try the new SH-130 tollway, which goes around Austin. It's a nice route, save for one problem: The connecting road back to I-35, SH45-SE, is not done yet, so I detoured onto SH 71 near the Austin airport--and got caught in some of the traffic I'd hoped to avoid. (It turns out that 130 is now open to SH 183--which is not yet acknowledged by either Google Maps or Mapquest--and a far better way would be to take 183 south to SH 21 and rejoin I-35 in San Marcos. Of course, I discovered this route after my trip was over.)


• I participated in the Chipotle "Boo-Rito" promotion again (that's three years in a row for me and my Fit Brother, Coop), and it seems like the costumes were more minimal than usual this year (maybe it's the economy?), though people did make a lot more elaborate hats. It was funny to see the looks on the faces of people who had no idea that the promotion was going on.


• If you're in the airport area of San Antonio and need to kill some time, Alamo Quarry Market is a pretty cool place to visit. (And yes, the iconic smokestacks are original equipment from back when there really was a quarry at the site.)


• There's no way to sugarcoat it: Interstate 37 between San Antonio and Corpus is boooooorrring, especially at night (yes, this was the area where I got the ticket). Thank goodness for the iPod...


• On the way to Austin, I noticed that the new "Safety Rest Area" had opened near Salado, at least on the southbound side of I-35, and indeed, it does look a lot nicer (and, yes, safer) than the old, cruddy ones. But it was funny when we stopped at one along I-37 and noticed a sign reading, WATCH FOR SNAKES. Somehow, I don't usually think of "safety" and "snakes" in the same sentence very often.


• On the other side of the coin, there are usually two types of rest stops in Texas: a Rest Area (facilities, picnic tables, vending machines, maps) or a Picnic Area (picnic tables without facilities, which always sounded silly to me). But on the way to Corpus, I saw yet a third classification: a Parking Area (pavement, pretty much). It appears that a Parking Area is to a Rest Area as a Yugo is to a Jaguar.


• The beaches at Mustang Island require a parking permit, which is available at any local convenience store. It's 12 bucks for a year, but there doesn't seem to be a day pass of any sort. Good thing I was with a local who could use the pass later...


• During the weekend, I had the chance to visit a pair of two-story versions of places that are usually limited to a single story: Whataburger by the Bay in downtown Corpus, the flagship restaurant of the locally-based chain, and a Starbucks with a loft (and a "green roof") in south Austin.


• On the way to Austin on Saturday night, I made "a short Schlotzsky's stop in Schertz." Say that ten times fast...


• And finally, it was a good weekend to take a roadtrip, since gas was so cheap. I paid $2.00 a gallon just north of Waco on Friday afternoon and $1.99 in Corpus the next morning. I also saw the same Waco stations showing $1.94 in on my way back on Sunday. But why was it around $2.19 when I got home? I had to go a few miles away to find it in the $2.10's, and I didn't see anything approaching sub-$2 prices.

It was great to get away for a weekend, and I look forward to the next time.

The return of DWT: Another thing that happened during this weekend was the traditional switching of the clocks to Daylight Wasting Time. I was at my sister's in Austin by that time, and by then, I was quite tired. This was probably the first time since early high school that I didn't stay up for the time change.

Travel Advisory

I'm taking a quick weekend jaunt that will include stops in several locations: San Antonio, Corpus Christi and Austin. (What lengths I will go to, just to avoid passing out candy!) I'll see friends and family and, of course, dress up like a burrito tonight just like in previous years. Blogging will resume Sunday evening.

Blowing out the candles: Happy 39th birthday to KNTU, one of my old haunts (heh) in college. (They're planning a big celebration for the 40th next year.) And speaking of haunts, if you're new to this blog, be sure and check out my ghost story, which involves a former UNT building which once housed the radio station.

The Stars, Last Night, Were Big and Bright...

...deep in the heart of North Texas, of course.

The Dallas Stars have been in Texas since 1993, but until last night, I had never attended a game, nor even set foot in American Airlines Center. (Don't get me wrong--I became a fan by the time they won the Stanley Cup in '99; in fact, I hosted the game-watching parties for my group of friends at my house. Star Wars: Episode I had recently come out, and we spent each intermission having a hellacious continuing Pod Racer tournament on the Nintendo 64--fun times!). But I'd never quite made it out to a game, either because of scheduling or the (not entirely accurate) notion that tickets were just too pricey for what I could afford at the time. So when the team ran a special that offered $15 tickets for all the games in the month of October, I had to jump at the chance.

It seems that I picked a good game for my first one, as the Stars beat the Minnesota Wild, 4-2. I missed the very first goal (which happened just 13 seconds into the game) because I couldn't get my teaching schedule and the train schedule to properly converge, but I still got there in time for a decent amount of the first period (and in fact, the Stars would score their second goal within mere minutes of my being seated).

As I said, I'd never been to the AAC before last night (though I did walk up to it on a visit to Victory Park one time), and I was quite impressed with the facility, especially compared to its predecessor, Reunion Arena. Although it's over seven years old now, it still looks sparkling and new. They've done a clever thing, advertising-wise, by having a lighted center ring that can host a variety of corporate logos and also be used to generate crowd excitement, announcing things like goals, power plays and so on. The seats were comfortable, and the sound was loud and clear.

As for the atmosphere of the game itself--the best word to describe things would be "rowdy," in a good way. The PA announcer may have been a bit over-the-top (in a Michael Buffer sort of way), but otherwise, they did a fine job of stirring up interest, using lights and music to get the crowd riled up. There's a lot of time between goals in hockey, but the presentation comes off as "constant entertainment," which fits well with the current Internet/gamer generation. (The use of lights was especially effective, with that center advertising bar flashing maniacally at some points--though I wonder if it might cause Pokémon seizures in little kids.) The Stars scored some more and kept up a good defense, so my first game ended with a W.

The one thing that really surprised me was how nice our seats were, especially only being $15. I didn't expect to have to go past a guard to get to the escalator, for one thing. Also, we were right next to the luxury boxes (so much so that I could turn my head just a bit and watch the final pitch of the World Series on the TV in the suite next door), and the food was not only really good (if expensive), but servers had come through the seats before I got there. As we were leaving the concourse, I asked my friend who had gotten the tickets how much the seats usually were. His answer? $115! (I guess they did the $100-off promotion because a lot of the October games don't draw as many people as the ones later in the year.) And it turns out that there really are $15 seats in the upper, upper deck on a regular basis. I'll definitely have to remember that in the future.

All in all, a great night. I'll be back.

This Fine Young Band Is About to Become Asia's Business, Too

I've written about the band Nobody's Business in a short post last spring, when I first was turned onto their music by my friend Colin, who plays drums in the band (and is also the first-call drummer for any project that I have these days). Since then, I've purchased their debut CD, Forward Momentum, and I've seen them live at a Denton club last month.

And now, their music is about to go not just far beyond Denton, but far beyond our shores, as they embark on an Asian tour starting tomorrow:

"Every musician wants to play internationally and show other cultures their music," [pianist Roberto] Verastegui said. "We thought Asia would be good to start with."

Soon, Nobody's Business will play a two-week tour in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

The tour covers nine gigs from Oct. 30 to Nov. 8, including stops at Hong Kong Baptist University, jazz clubs and an artist showcase for jazz and blues music.

And perhaps the coolest part is that their professors are very much OK with the fact that they'll be missing two weeks' worth of class and, for the most part, letting them make up missed assignments. As Colin said in the article, "After all, we're doing what we're supposed to be doing."

Be sure and check out the video at the bottom of the linked article for a quick impromptu video of the band jamming. And in two weeks, on November 14, the band will host a fundraising show for a future trip to Mexico by splitting a gig with the UNT jazz faculty at the Syndicate on campus.

Bon voyage, guys! They should love you over there...

Yes, I Read the Story...

...about the 15 UNT football players who failed drug tests recently. An anonymous commenter to my post about the passage of the stadium referendum a few weeks ago asked me about it in the comments to that post:

I saw a tv news blurb about your precious UNT atheletes....15 tested positive for drugs! Now is this more embarassing than the condition of Fouts Field? And I hate to say this but a new field will not cancel out (especially in parents' minds) the drugs in the team!

(I'm guessing that this Anonymous is not Anonymous #1, who engaged in a civil discussion with me even though we disagreed, but it could be Anonymous #2, who came in dropping F-bombs, or even a third, completely different one. Should I start requiring people to make up screennames yet?)

Anyway, I'll address Anon's question: First of all, he's talking about this story, the main points of which are as follows:

Fifteen University of North Texas football players failed a drug test conducted this fall at the request of head coach Todd Dodge, according to documents obtained by the Denton Record-Chronicle through the Freedom of Information Act.

Drug tests were conducted on a pool of 86 football players selected by the coaching staff. UNT tested members of the team who were contributing on a regular basis. Fifteen of those tests, or 17 percent, were positive.

The university did not release the names of the players or what drugs they tested positive for.

First of all, take note that this was something that Coach Dodge requested on his own; the story notes that it's distinct from the tests done by the NCAA. Dodge has high standards, and if some players are falling short of those standards, it's good to nip the problem in the bud and get the players the help they need. Dodge said as much in the article:

“I don’t think we have a problem with drugs, but I will say that it’s every coach’s prerogative to test his team,” Dodge said. “It’s a great tool to help players stay away from drugs and temptations. When I talked to my team about drug testing all of them, I told them that if there was one young man on our team who secretly needed help, if it saved one young man from getting in trouble or ending up dead, then it is worth it.”

[...]The school normally tests athletes on a random basis.

“We call ourselves a team and it was appropriate to test the entire team,” Dodge said. “I don’t go by the protocol of what every other team has done.

“We are past it now and can go down the road.”

So to the Anon who's trying to turn this into some sort of "I told you so!", all I can say is this: We get it. You don't think that the UNT students should have voted for the stadium fee. But something like this incident does not mean that those students, or the alumni who support the idea--were wrong to do so. If anything, it just goes to show once again what a stand-up guy Todd Dodge is, and it's good to know that the new facility might well play a role in helping to keep him in Denton for a long time.

And in the meantime, since the voters (albeit a small percentage of them, but still larger than any student election in recent memory) have spoken, it's probably about time to apply the coach's wisdom to this subject: Get past it, and go down the road. (Anyone want to take bets on whether or not that will happen?)

UPDATE: A later story notes that what Dodge had his players tested for were "recreational" drugs, while the NCAA tests are for performance-enhancing drugs. That doesn't make what the players did any better, but it does clarify some things.

Also, a commenter at the original linked DRC story raises an interesting question:

Anyone that thinks this problem is isolated to the football team is ignorant. I would be curious to know how many of the 34,000+ student would test positive if tested today. Though not right, this goes on at every school, on every team and in all parts of society. Those that cast stones better not live in glass houses.

Good point.

Another Call for Saturday Elections

A few days ago, I pondered the questions of why Election Day was on a Tuesday and what was keeping it from being moved to a weekend. In a single op-ed column in this morning's paper, I got answers to both...

• Why is it on a Tuesday? According to Steven Israel, a New York Congressman, and Norman Ornstein, co-founder of Why Tuesday? (a nonpartisan group that seeks to increase voter participation), it has its roots in our agrarian past:

  [I]n the United States, for more than 150 years, we've voted on Tuesday. Why? It's not in the Constitution. It isn't to avoid holidays. And it's not because people hate Mondays.
  
  The reason makes perfect sense – at least it did in 1845. In early agrarian American society, Saturday was for farming, Sunday was the Lord's day, Monday was required for travel to the county seat where the polling places were, Tuesday you voted, Wednesday you returned home, and Thursday it was back to work.
  
  It's a safe bet that today most Americans don't follow the same schedule as our farming forefathers. In fact, for many, Tuesday is one of the most inconvenient days to hold an election. One in four people who didn't vote in 2006 said that they were "too busy" or had "conflicting work or school schedules."

  That makes sense to me. As I said in the earlier post, I took advantage of early voting last Friday just to ensure that I didn't end up running out of time on Election Day, but I'm aware that lots of people don't even have that luxury.


• But most of us aren't farmers now. What's keeping it from changing? Well, I guess the easiest answer would be "tradition." But that could very well change soon:

  Legislation now before Congress would finally tailor our voting system to modern American life by establishing weekend voting for national elections. (Steve Israel is sponsoring the bill in the House.) The presidential election would be held on the Saturday and Sunday after the first Friday in November, while for those who aren't often home on the weekends, there would be a few days of early voting.
  
  Our current system penalizes single parents, people working two jobs, and those who have to choose between getting a paycheck and casting a ballot. Two weekend days of voting means those working families would have a greater chance of making it to the polls. It means easing the long lines during rush hour at the polling sites. It means more locations, more poll workers and more voters.

  Seems like a good idea to me. I'm not 100% sold on the Saturday and Sunday idea (it seems to me like it could all get done on a Saturday alone, and having the returns come in on a non-school/work night would spare a lot of people a groggy morning the next day), but moving it to the weekend would certainly be a good idea--that, or, as I said earlier, making Election Day a new Monday holiday.

Israel and Ornstein also point out that, no matter how high a turnout we have this year, the U.S. is still in the middle of the pack in that area, behind Iceland, New Zealand and Sweden--all of whom have their elections on the weekend.

So can this change really happen? The authors think so:

Making a change like this won't be easy, but it's not unprecedented. In 1968, Congress passed the Monday Holiday law, which moved Memorial Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day and Washington's Birthday from their original dates to Mondays. If we can alter our federal holidays to benefit shoppers and travelers, surely we can change Election Day for the benefit of our voters.

I hope this works; it certainly wouldn't hurt to try it.

Monk Day

No, we're not celebrating the music of Thelonious here today (but feel free to do so in my absence). The "monk" part has to do with the fact that I have to complete several full combo arrangements today, for the concert that a few of my groups are doing in less than two weeks. My groups have big front lines and unusual instrumentations, so it's best to write some backgrounds, harmonies, shout choruses and so on, so as to spare the audience a constant "wall of unison" for the entire set.

But there are a few challenges to doing this: I find it hard to get "inspired on demand" to write; I get very little work in this area done at home (too many distractions); and I have a shared office at school that often gets quite noisy. (Oddly enough, the most inspiration to write that I've gotten in the past several months took place at a Starbucks one afternoon last week; I didn't have time to finish everything, but I at least wrote the ideas down to finish up now.) Since I can't do this on demand on a regular basis, I told my groups that there would have to be a weekend where I just "became a monk" to get everything done. This is that weekend.

So this is a roundabout way of saying that I won't be blogging much today, even though I'm behind on a few days' worth of posts. I might duck in later with a progress report, but anything that doesn't get done today will have to be done by Tuesday afternoon (for one group) or Thursday evening at the latest (for the other one).

UPDATE: Seven hours later, the two most time-consuming arrangements are done. Everything else can wait, as my hand is cramped beyond belief (you should see the typos I'm correcting while I do this post). If I don't put up anything tomorrow, it means I've gone back to the "monastery" for a little bit more.

An Early Report From the Polls

As I said a few weeks ago, I don't talk about politics on this blog, but I certainly don't mind talking about non-specific parts of the process--more specifically, early voting.

I did this today at lunchtime, and I'm happy to report that I was in and out in fifteen minutes, despite double digits' worth of people in line. The process was pretty efficient, the touch-screen machines worked easily, and the workers were very helpful (it didn't hurt that the one who brought me to the machine was the mother of a former student). Quick and painless.

So why vote early? In my case, I might have had time to vote on Election Day, but why push it? My mind was already made up on everything, and nothing between now and then could make me vote differently. There's talk of big lines at the polls on that day, and my polling place is an elementary school with minimal parking, so there might be issues there. And, knowing me, I might space out and completely forget on that day, since I don't pass that school once it's open. It's just much easier to be safe than sorry.

But this brings up an interesting point: How did Election Day ever get to be on a Tuesday in the first place? And, perhaps more importantly, why does it continue to be there? As people work longer and longer hours, and two-income households are the norm, what's the point of having it on a workday? (And don't get me wrong--I'm definitely not suggesting that the polls stay open later to accommodate the working folks; it takes long enough to finalize results as it is.) I say it should either be moved to the first Saturday in November or be made a holiday (which would likely bump it back to a Monday).

Agree or disagree? Cast your "ballot" in the comments.