Mahalo for staying in touch

It is hardly acceptable to let two weeks, less almost two months, come between posts, but it has been an interesting month for travel, Lady'Backs, family matters and emergency communications.

Travel took me from the Appalachian lowlands of South Carolina to the peak of Diamond Head on O'ahu -- with a side-trip to the heartland of Tennessee -- in the space of three weeks.

That was a part of playing 10 women's basketball games in 24 days, and all the complications of broadcast operations of those 10 games.

At the start of this November rush, it was time to form, execute and evaluate a major radio exercise for our county amateur radio operators.

To top it off, the health of my wife's adoptive mother took a turn for the worse.

So, as my Kahama aime family on the main island would say, mahalo for your patience.

This week is final exam for the team, and a forced 10-day break in the schedule. It allowed me to catch up on some correspondence, draft a new We're History on bowl games and -- tada -- make a new posting here.

There have been some serious events, particularly on the SNW world, and I will save that for a separate post today.

Word of caution for bloggers, SNW students

I have maintained from the outset that students who post details of their teams and departments are violating the proprietary information held by the University, and in turn are subject to sanctions. I get a lot of first amendment flak on that -- my counter is wait until you get into the real world. Well folks, here's the real world situtation; this is not a drill:

Blogger who posted Foley e-mails fired
BY LAURIE KELLMAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - A gayrights group has fired an employee who admitted posting the first publication on a Web site of Rep. Mark Foley’s emails to a former male page.
The e-mails and later disclosures of sexually explicit computer messages from the Florida Republican to other male pages sparked a campaign-season scandal.
“He inappropriately used Human Rights Campaign resources. He was fired,” Human Rights Campaign Vice President David Smith said of the employee.

You can go to your local newspaper for the rest of the details. This currently unidentified person -- cause that's coming by the end of this newscycle, I garr-OHN-tee it -- is supposedly a democrat who wanted to out the republican, and obviously did a good job at it. But oops, your private employer wasn't real keen on the potential blowback. No whistle blower act protection for you, private business employee.

Why? Because the bottom line is, nobody likes a tattle-tail. You can dress this up in whatever language and situational garb you wish, but some things don't change. People don't like people who rat others out. But what about those noble individuals who right a wrong? Depends on how many people are effected by the wrong. Now, this is no value judgment at all on what Foley may or may not have done. This is looking at the hard facts of secrets and the violation of trust. Think about your own life. Did you trust someone without reservation that you knew had once been a whistle blower?

Here's where it applies again to the SNW world and the millenials. How many friendships have ended because of Facebook, or some other service, because secrets were told to wide numbers of people that in the past would not have. Or more accurately, would have not been traceable to the source -- call that digital blowback cause you can't deny when they have your IP and account login; and there is no time for the poison pen letter to digest. Precious few people have the best of judgment at the speed of light.

Remember the old Harry Truman story about his daughter. She wanted to be a singer, and apparently wasn't very good. She got horrible reviews, probably from the combination of talent and who her dad was. Truman was mad about the media giving his daughter grief, but he usually wrote his letters to the editor complaints, sealed the envelope and stuck it into a drawer in his desk until the next day. The only one of those he regretted was the one he stuck into a mail slot instead of his desk drawer.

That was fun -- Let's hope it works

SEC Media Days were a little more fun than usual. Carting around the DV-cam to shoot footage of Brittney Vaughn's day made things different. It was amazing how much attention a simple idea like that generated.

Now, let's hope I didn't bung-up the audio. This was the first time in the field with that combo of GL-2 and wireless package, and I was the living embodiment of one of my greatest pet peeves: trying to perform without rehearsal.

Larger question remains of how we can regain some respect from the media. Granted, only 19 cared to vote on the women's poll and of that number I know only four that I would consider women's basketball beat reporters. You would think finishing in a tie for eighth WITHOUT your leading scorer who is back from knee surgery would count for something. Instead, we get dinged to 10th, and teams we handled last year are voted ahead -- significantly ahead. While many will complain that someone isn't getting the word out, the reality is this slap in the face from a group of media that will not take the time to learn about the game is a blessing. Any coach will tell you there's only two good places in a poll: first and last. With first, you can put the pressure on to maintain a high expectation. Easier with last -- or in this case way below expectations -- because team, you're much better than than, they don't think you can do it, etc.

Expect something different at media days

Our participant at the SEC Media Day, Brittney Vaughn, is a broadcast journalism major. To give her a chance to meet and greet among the press, as much as to promote our team, Brittney will show everyone what Media Day looks like to the players by wearing a wire. This should be interesting.

Oh my -- has it been weeks

Expletive.

First name reference to Judeo-Christian diety.

Compound expletive.

Now that the guide is off to the printer, I can get back to all that other stuff. Like sleeping.

Excuse while I veg another 24 hours in advance of tomorrow's soccer-a-thon.

Nothing like a press guide

. . . to get you behind on any other work. Along with preparing for the county's simulated emergency test and finishing the edits on the SNW paper for the CoSIDA Digest, doesn't leave much time for a blog.

But, couple of items. First, I've got to say I'm a little peeved with CBS -- their new show Jericho made the ham radio operator in the town seem like a lunatic.

Second, one of the more interesting student newspaper rants against the "restrictions" put on athlete's Facebook usage comes from Ohio State. The Ohio State editorial hit the nail on the head. Does a university only care about its athletes, and not the general student body? Exactly. The students, not just the student-athletes, need to be warned, be warry and be afraid.

Read this News Feed

While considering cough syrups . . .

I have to laugh between coughs at the shock, shocked and appalled -- they are, at the latest "improvements" at Facebook. Chalk it up to yet another I told you so, kids, you gave up your rights to privacy when you signed up for most of these SNWs.

This is the quote of the day, from our own student newspaper at Arkansas:
"It's all about reading the fine print and people don't do it. People don't like it because it's boring," Chris Medrano said.

Hey, guess what -- the adults know that, and the smart kids, too. That's why they scammed you into giving up all your rights when you clicked OK on the EULA.

Here's your black helicopter moment: Did you catch the story last week about Project Strike Back? The FBI data mining of Department of Education financial aid records. It comes a couple of years after the outcry over Talon, the DoD's surveillance project to look for key words in emails. Then there's the continuing program for FBI direct access to Sevis records of foreign students. By the time this generation gets it, it may be too late to get off the grid.

Michael Ostrokenk with the Liberty Coalition summed it up in The Chronicle:
"This is another example of Big Brother gone wild. In the age of everything is a national security issue, we are destroying the very liberties and privacy rights which make our country unique and great in the history of the world."

Hey, but if you can get a free email account and free spam blocker, why not?

Random Thoughts

While considering why astronomers can't think of anything better to do than to revise text books . . .

You know it's not going to be a good parent-teacher night when by the third class visit, you are the only parent at the school. Out of seven periods visited, four had less than four parents attending.

And about Pluto, is there nothing else to discover in near space? Is that the best your field has got, revising the definitions? So you can feel superior to those stodgy old fogies that got it all so wrong. Here's a thought -- do something. Achieve something. Find something. Instead, let's get rid of the only planet discovered by an American. Hey, that's it. Along with high gas prices, flooding New Orleans, screwing up Iraq and generally ruining the Earth, the government is responsible for a false planet.

Last time I checked, the old farts with slide rules and crew cuts:
Went to the moon.
Send a probe beyond the solar system.
Created many of the current concepts of space.

This generation:
Space telescope that needed contacts.
Meters? The distance to the surface of Mars wasn't in feet?
Uh, . . . . OK, we've got XBox360; all they had was Pong.

Just when you thought the hard sciences would not be prone to revisionism, we have the anti-Plutoians who want to fix the errors of the past. Personally, makes more sense to add Xena and the other new "minor" planets. But, that goes against the gated community mentality of the world -- we must exclude those we don't want to be around.

More I think about it . . . here goes the next Ozarks at Large rant.

Last Weekend (sort of)

A nice weekend of house cleaning and grilling before the real big stuff begins to roll with next week. This will be an awkward year -- a home vb tournament and fb game before Labor Day weekend. It seems like things start earlier and earlier.

At least I can try to finish some side projects before throwing the 12-16 hour days at press guide season, which starts really next week. The Corona box project is me -- even with SP2 and patches it still locks when it gets on line. And I'd like to have that finished before the next road trip set -- soccer swings to Tulsa soon -- for the car computer stuff -- GPS tracking, mp3's, etc.

Next week also, finishing the first draft of a paper for CoSIDA Digest on the survey results from my SNW work this summer.

Messages from the Ungrateful

Most of the feedback from surveys on my SNW talk was positive, but as one would expect a few were less than enthused about the adults looking in. Coincided with some of the interesting profiles and photos -- surprise. The one that stuck with me, howevever, was I treated them like "ignorant little miscreants". I'll give props for the creative use of language, but as a colleague says, no good dead goes unpunished.

At the same time, they really are not getting the true message. You are giving up too much of your personal privacy.

I had to laugh at similar indignant comments from some media who are shocked, shocked and apalled to discover that big athletic departments are infringing on the First Amendment rights of students. And it's just because we're worried about our reputations.

Stunning ignorance -- are media members so unaware of the current culture to miss that if anything, athletic departments may be behind the curve on this? Go ask the frats and sororities if they have "house rules" about SNW postings. Check out the lock-step compliance required on political blogs. For that matter, do the same really believe they can rant to their heart's content against their employers and think they will not have an impact.

Look, NPR today added further confirmation with its Morning Edition story. HR departments across America are looking into candidate SNWs. You can whine all you want about this being an invasion of privacy, but is it an invasion of privacy if you stand in the public square drunk and half naked? And if that makes a police report, that's not fair game to ask about?

Consider the flip side. How many lawsuits to come when a predator gets hired, causes some injury and then the liable party is the employer because they did not look, or knew and did not act?

Think about this one -- 10, 15 years ago, who really verified every degree claimed on a resume? High security positions maybe, but rarely was that done across the board. There isn't a person hired in our department without a DegreeCheck run.

Sex and the SNW

OK, now that I have your attention . . .

I wish I had thought of this before my presentation with our athletes on Friday, but consider this analogy for the students.

Social networking websites are like sex. The only sure thing is abstinance, but since that's not really acceptable to a lot of people, you better have a lot of protection and education. If you post without security and without regard to what the content is, it's no different than unprotected sex -- it can lead to unintended consequences, and if you get involved in some really rough stuff, better believe you might get hurt.

Descending to a new level of hell

--

Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

Is it Good News or Bad News

So in advance of Friday afternoon's orientation session with all the Lady'Back athletes on social networking, I created an on-line questionnaire to get a gauge of what they thought about SNWs, security, etc.

Of 170 athletes, about 70 had responded by midnight Thursday. Less than half.

A) Great, nice survey sample. Less than half cared.

B) No, really great. More than half had something better to do than read their email.

Hmm. Nah, it's bad news -- they didn't pay attention.

By the way, I'm offering up that questionnaire to anyone else who wants to administer it to their athletes. It is a private, stand-alone 25-question survey. I'll give to anyone who wants in an excel file of the answers. I just want the data for some research.

There's also a follow up survey in the works for the Lady'Backs who filled out the initial survey to gauge changes in opinions after my presentation.

And It Keeps Getting Better

So, your campus has the anti-virus patches, the Windows system updates and the anti-spyware/spamware software.

Guess what -- the SNW as vehicle of virus delivery. According to industry chatter, one in 600 MySpace pages are trying to place spyware or adware on the users computer through the browser. That might sound like good odds, but there are millions of MySpace pages.

This isn't to single out or pick on MySpace, several others were also cited.

New Warning for SNW

As your incoming freshmen join your university network on Facebook, their previous SNW data often comes with them. Make it a special point of emphasis that these individuals need to do some extra editing to conform with your department.

For example -- it would be swell if you got all the pictures from the recruiting visits made to other schools.

The other big freshman transition -- what's acceptable. Inside jokes with friends back in high school were funny. The internet is pretty tone deaf, and those things don't read the same if you weren't there to be a part of the event.

Another what's acceptable: many campus codes of conduct include appropriate speech limits. Slang, ethnic references, gender references that were allowed to slide before college could come back to haunt a student.

Finally, on your incoming students, make sure to check and clean the MySpace accounts as well as the Facebooks.

Sharing SNW Notes

Thank you to everyone who has shared events that transpired at your campus related to the SNWs. I want to give a few sanitized notes to add to the summer presentation at CoSIDA, and to let you know that our finished department written policy is available for request (email me at the office). The policy is much more detailed than any of the previous documents.

But, you wanted the titilating stories, so . . .

Student-athlete disciplined by athletic department and eventually expelled from public university for unauthorized taking and posting of photos of another student-athlete on Facebook.

Several students taken before campus discipline boards after campus enemies narc'd on photos posted on line. Various levels of punishment, including expulsion.

Individuals outside university gaining more and more access to the "closed" world of Facebook.

Surprise -- you closed your Facebook profile but one of your friends "tagged" out a photo of you into an open area of the network.

Twisted Euphemism of the Week

This might be hall of honor stuff as the NCAA is suggesting that we stop using the terms I-A and I-AA to refer to the differing level of scholarships, etc., that define college football in the top ranks.

I-A will be the Bowl Subdivision. I-AA is the Championship Subdivision. The FBS and the FCS, not I-A and I-AA.

That's some quality work, but the best one is reserved for the renaming, excuse me, branding, of the championship formerly known as I-AA: The NCAA Division I Football Championship.

Ta-da -- just like that I was a staff member of the 1987 NCAA Division I Football Champions.

Schedule Soon

To answer the repeated requests of fans, the full women's basketball schedule should be out within the week. The SEC has been having, well, some challenges getting it finished.

Guide Season Approaches

Today we ship out the first of our press guides to the printers -- always hectic on the first ones. Orientation looms on Friday, and final prep on the SNW presentation is underway.
In travel news, I see now that TSA has made taking off shoes manditory. Odd, you'd swear it had been since 9/11 at certain airports. Staff member reports that gel is being very broadly interpreted -- one of their kids had to throw away some gel-ink pens as they flew home from vacation this weekend.

Back on the Blog

Long week of catch up from vacation work has kept the Dr. from his appointed rounds here. Now, it's prep for the incoming athletes' orientation next weekend.

One of the big items -- finishing of our departmental policy on SNWs. This is something several others have asked for a copy, and I will provide it on request. Just hit the office email. While we are allowing SNW to continue, it will be monitored and the consequences are very bluntly laid out for the athletes.

On the travel front, I must say I'm happy to be done with flying for the next few weeks. In this field, if you cannot travel with the electronics required for work, there's no point in traveling.

If the airlines change their conditions of carriage to cover electronics in checked luggage, OK. If the airports will add the surveilance in the baggage areas to prevent unauthorized appropriation of my electronic gear, OK. Until then, I'll stick to the highways and byways of America rather than the airports.