Hooray!

We got a letter today letting us know that Colleen's name came up in the lottery used by Sussex Technical High School to select in-coming ninth-grade students for next year. She's in.

Colleen really wanted to get into Tech. Most of her friends are planning to attend there, and she'd like to continue with them.

Karen and I are quite pleased as well. Despite starting life as a Technical Vocational School, Sussex Tech has become one of the better academic high schools in our area.

Part of the reason for this, I think, is that the technical school districts are county-wide. There's one in all three of Delaware's Counties. And the school is well-funded. The tech districts collect school taxes from the whole of the county and (if I understand this correctly) can change their tax rate without referenda.

Sussex Tech's reputation, and the occasional problems of the other high schools in the County, has meant that in recent years there's been a strong demand for places at the school. That has led to the institution of a lottery system. Younger siblings of current students get a free pass.

At least three of Colleen's best friends got that free pass, so we were worried about her not getting in via the lottery. But she did. Yay.

Good For You, Dr. Hattier

Dr. Donald Hattier, a member of the Indian River School Board, has a letter in the Delaware WAVE today. He's responding to recent concerns (ours among them) about budget-cutting in the district and the effect it might have on the Southern Delaware School of the Arts (SDSA).

In his letter (Clearing things up about SDSA), Dr. Hattier responds to several letters in the February 8 edition of the WAVE. Interestingly, he responds equally to a letter from a supporter of SDSA and (though not explicitly) to the letter from a new Board member who I think has stirred up much of the fuss.

Dr. Hattier explains that the Board is looking for places to save money across the District, not just from SDSA.

The intent was never to cut the school or eliminate it. I do not believe that the board as a whole ever considered that, notwithstanding comments made by a board member. I do not consider SDSA dessert, nor do I think that represents the thoughts of most of our board. The intent was in fairness to look at everything, period.

Fair enough. We can respect that and work with it.

Update: Karen pointed out to me that Dr. Hattier is not the head of the Board, but only another member. I must have been fooled by his willingness to lead. I have updated this post as of 6:00 p.m., 2/23/06.

"He was clearly exploited by somebody," she said. "We just don't know who."

There's an update in today's Washington Post column The Reliable Source about my nephew Nick. (Registration probably required, and you'll have to scroll down a bit.)

Nick was written up in the December 1 Reliable Source column after his brother and several other sharp-eyed movie-goers spotted him in the movie version of the musical "Rent."

He'd been filmed while playing his melodica on the street in New York City. The camera-folk claimed to be making a student film and gave him only a few bucks for his trouble.

They may have been only making a student film, but the footage found its way into "Rent" and the story made its way into the Washington Post.

That led to some results:

Several outraged actors who read our story contacted the Screen Actors Guild, which called the film's producers at Sony Pictures. "They were terrific," said Jane Love , assistant executive director for SAG's Washington area branch. Though it was unclear whether Church was entitled to compensation, Sony settled the matter immediately. A check to him for $122, the day rate for a bit player, is in the mail, she said.

I have to wonder where they'll send the check; Nick is intentionally living a nomadic life right now.

In Fifty Years, This May Require a Footnote of Its Own

I've just finished reading the latest Flashman installment from George Macdonald Fraser. The 12th in the series, Flashman on the March is a story of the Victorian British expedition (invasion?) into Abyssinia (now Ethiopia).

The Flashman books feature an almost unbelievably amoral rogue named Harry Flashman, a minor character that Fraser liberated from the 19th Century novel Tom Brown's School Days. Fraser places Flashman, Zelig- or Gump-like, into a variety of major historical events of the Victorian age. He's a coward, but through luck and bluster always manages to emerge a hero. The books are great fun, and I recommend this latest as well.

My eye was caught by the end of the Explanatory Note, which included an interesting echo of today's history.

This section is part of the conceit that Fraser is simply editor of the recently discovered Flashman Papers. Fraser, a British writer, sets up the historic context of the story -- an apparently insane Abyssinian monarch has taken the British envoy hostage and is massacring his people. The British send in a limited force to free the hostages and depose the tyrant. Not to stay, not to create a new democracy. A limited mission.

All of which [Flashman] records with his customary shameless honesty, and it may be that along with the light he casts on a unique chapter of imperial history, he invites a comparison with a later and less glorious day.

For Flashman's story is about a British army sent out in a good and honest cause by a government who knew what honor meant. It was not sent without initial follies and hesitations, in high places, or until every hope of a peaceful issue was gone. It went with the doubt that it was right. It served no politician's vanity or interest. It went without messianic rhetoric. There were no false excuses, no deceits, no cover-ups or lies, just a decent resolve to do a government's first duty: to protect its people, whatever the cost. To quote Flashman again, those were the days.

To steal a phrase from characters in another set of favorite books (the Aubrey/Maturin series), he can't say clearer than that.

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Oh, For Heaven's Sake

Many of us in the world of geospatial technologies have been waiting for the new offering from ESRI, the top GIS software company. They have been working on an answer to Google Earth - expected to be an update to their freeware GIS viewer.

This past week, folks involved in beta testing for ESRI were asked to see if they can access the URL "www.arcgisexplorer.com." The test request specifically asked for reports from people who are blocked from seeing that URL. Seemed odd.

James Fee, who writes the blog Spatially Adjusted, has found out why the test was needed: to see whether our IT systems are too hung up on the "sex" in the www.arcgiSEXplorer.com.

I guess that could be a problem.

A New Photo Project

I've wandered into a new photo project: Exploring the small roads east of Route 1/Route 113.

I've started taking short side trips down the roads that lead off of my commute route between Lewes and Dover and over to the Delaware Bay or the marshes along the Bay.

There are some great things to see.

Knowledge, Openness, Responsibility, Civility

Adena Schutzberg's All Points Blog pointed me today to an entry at TechDirt (The Internet May Be A Different World, But It Still Maps To Home) that suggests that knowing each others' locations makes for more civil blog commenting.

Topix.net has started plotting commenter's locations, and offers a map of commenting activity. I think this is cool on several levels, but I was interested in the effect adding very basic location information seems to have had.

Since adding the user's location to each post, we've noticed a marked lift in the overall tone of the conversations. To be sure, there is still a lot of heat, but it seems like naming the town that someone is posting from has helped humanize some threads. It's not just a flamewar with faceless forum handles, there's a real person on the other end of the keyboard, they actually live somewhere.

I have been thinking about the issue of on-line civility lately.

Delaware blogger Delathought recently announced that he (or she?) was shutting down, in part because "Now that I've established a pattern of behavior, people are making arguments based on what I've said previously, and so I have to go."

In the discussion that followed, I mentioned my misgivings about trying to maintain an on-line presence under a "nom-de-blog." I was reminded that almost every time I've written, broadcasted, or blogged under an assumed identity, I've ended up not liking who I became. I'm convinced that being on-line as myself, entirely in the open, requires me to maintain a certain level of civility and responsibility. I think my output is worth a bit more for that.

Delathought has returned to blogging, by the way. We don't yet know the name behind the screen-name.

What Day Is It Today?

At lunch today I stopped by the Safeway in Dover for a salad. I like their selection; they always seem to have plenty of sunflower seeds and I really like sunflower seeds on my salads.

But that's not the point of this post.

The cash register in the Deli section was not open, so I wandered down the front of the store to the "12 Items or Less" Express Check-Out. I was annoyed to find a long line.

But when I looked along the line, ahead of me and behind, I saw almost all men. Men sheepishly holding bouquets, boxes of chocolates, and cards for Valentines Day.

"Gentlemen," I wanted to say, "we must learn to plan ahead!"

Snowy Fields, Full Moon

This evening I noticed anew a phenomenon that I always enjoyed when I lived in the frozen north.

We didn't have nearly as much snow as others in the northeast had this past weekend, but we got enough to cover the fields. Tonight there are a few high clouds, but the skies are clear enough for a nearly full moon to shine down and reflect a silver glow off the new snow.

When I lived in Maine, I used to love the clear nights that sometimes followed a heavy snow. When the moon was full, or full enough, and the skies clear, and the snow unbroken, the night had a special luminance.

It was nice to see it again, if only for one night.

Michelle Kwan is My Hero

Michelle Kwan pulled out of the Turin Olympics today. She had a groin pull and decided that she would not be able to compete at full strength. Other skaters in the past have kept competing with injuries of this sort.

Rather than struggle on in pursuit of her last shot at a gold medal, however, Ms. Kwan decided to do what is best for the US Olympic Team.

"This injury prevents me from skating my best, and I've said all along that if I couldn't skate to the level that I expected from myself, I'd withdraw from the team."

That, my friends, is class.