A dog and a guy

Who can understand the love and affection between a dog and a man?

The dog makes messes, chews up furniture and barks crazily and annoyingly during thunderstorms.

The dog is never satisfied. He always wants to romp and run and chase and play. With a herding instinct bred into him, he's never met or seen a moving vehicle that he doesn't like to pursue.

His owner, the man, tires easily in this, his 63rd year of life. His heart is out of rhythm and he breathes laboriously when he has to run after the dog and coax him back to safety.

And yet, the connection between the man and his sheltie dog--Little Joe--remains tight. The dog seems to live to be petted. His tail wags happily and his big slobbery tongue flops about freely when life is good.

Little Joe and me.

Me and Little Joe.

Who can understand or make sense of it?

(Photo courtesy of Jonathan McFadden, senior mass communication major at Winthrop University)

Another Monday night

What defines America?

Is it some politician or leader in Washington, D.C.?

Is it the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution?

Is it our country's great cities or even it's remote hamlets?

Is it our language or buildings or monuments or food?

Our stunningly beautiful national parks, blue, teeming-with-life, come-play-in-me and rollick-on-my-sandy-beaches oceans? Our towering snow-capped, majestic mountains?

Well, maybe it's a combination of all these things, but it's also something that happens at night once a week throughout the fall and winter.

We call it "Monday Night Football" and it's unique, I believe, to the USA.

Its anthem is sung with gusto by Hank Williams Jr. If you're an American, you've tuned in many times. Hank's song says it all. And his pulsating rendition has transformed Monday evening in America into a night of energy, excitement and entertainment.

I love Monday Night Football.

Sing it, Hank!

Made in America (or NOT?)

ABC News has been covering the deal that hundreds of colleges and universities in the USA have made with a catalog company that has very, very few items that are made in America. (Hundreds of thousands of college students shop from this catalog and are unknowingly damaging our already-hemorraging economy.)

Likewise, the ABC news coverage has touched on the number of items in college bookstores that are NOT made in America.

This might make a very good and interesting story for The Johnsonian, our campus newspaper, to localize to Winthrop.

Has Winthrop cut such a deal with this same catalog company?

Also, what's the status of goods that are for sale at our university's bookstore?

I took a casual stroll through there yesterday and saw some apparel that was "Made in Honduras."

Reason this is an important story is that hundreds of thousands of American jobs could be saved or restored if USA colleges and universities were more "Made in America" conscious.

Winthrop talks over and over about being globally conscious.

All well and fine, folks, but let's not forget to buy American whenever it's possible.

Here's the ABC News video (worth watching for sure):

Yours truly 60 years ago...

Oh how the years slip by so quickly.

Here I am (in photo accompanying this blog post) in 1951.

I'm with my first cousin, Marcella Rowe.

Can you see the resemblance between then and now?

This blog's for Little Joe...

I have a sheltie. His name is Little Joe. And he's 34 pounds of love, playfulness and rambunctiousness. He's my best friend and partner.

And wow, can he ever run!!

He relishes a wide open space to go at full speed--like a furry bullet.

When I saw this video, I thought of Little Joe; the video (of another sheltie) captures his spirit.

10-year anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001

I meant to blog about this last week, after students and I played these tapes (of conversations between those on board the hijacked jets on Sept. 11, 2001, and persons in air traffic control).

Turn up your sound and click here for powerful, unforgettable reminders of the chaos and drama of that fateful day 10 years ago.

Student shares this song with me

I was working in the Mac lab today next to a student (Kendria Houseworth) who was listening to this beautiful song by Kenny G

Really soothing.

Turn up your sound and have a listen:

QR codes back in the news

I blogged about QR codes back on April 29, 2011.

Knew they were here to say and we'd be confronting more and more of them.

Now comes this news, from the S.C. Press Associaton eBulletin, about who really scans those codes:

"A demographic analysis of those who scanned a QR code with their mobile phone in June revealed an audience that was more likely to be male, young to middle-age and upper income. More than half of all QR code scanners were between the ages of 18-34. Those between the age of 25-34 were twice as likely as the average mobile user to engage in this behavior, while 18-24 year olds were 36% more likely than average to scan. More than 1 of every 3 QR code scanners had a household income of at least $100,000, representing both the largest and most over-represented income segment among the scanning audience. The most popular source of a scanned QR code was a printed magazine or newspaper, with nearly half scanning QR codes from this source. Product packaging was the source of QR code scanning for 35.3% of the audience, while 27.4% scanned a code from a website on a PC and 23.5% scanned codes from a poster/flyer/kiosk."

Don't know anything about QR codes? (That's a QR code that accompanies this blog post.)

Best you Google them now and get in the loop if you're serious about digital communication.

I continue to wish I had a "smart phone" so I could start scanning them.

Maybe soon.