The Illusion of Growing Up…and a Big Tornado

The Graduate:
I am the very proud father of a graduate. Amongst a large mix of gleaming grandparents, crying pre Ks and frazzled but pleased parents, the Overbrook Baptist Church preschoolers took to the stage Thursday singing a mix of traditionals before teachers handed out graduate certificates.

I can’t believe that at the end of this summer my little girl will be going to big school. Right now she’s on-the-books for Mitchell Rd. Elementary.

I’m still hoping for Stone Academy. We’re 3rd on the list to get in. As a graduating present, Mom and Dad gave REW her own (Wal-Mart special) digital camera. Surprisingly, it works fairly well. She’s thrilled…as am I.


Visions or Illusions:
The things that I take for granted are amazing to me, and it’s take a child to make me understand.

The RER clan, REW and I made a quick trip to Greer Family Days last Saturday. Both Otis and I spent about $30 on $5 worth of food before spending another $7 to ride the jumpy things.

Who knew that God was about to go bowling after the first bouncing fiesta?

Our first refuge seemed great until we discovered the wind was blowing in our direction. The brick overhand didn’t help much. We then darted across to the shallow awning of the Greer Citizen.

This is where we stood for the next ½ hour making reference to Caddy Shack and joking about the citizenry of the town while rain torrents rotated to pesky drizzles and back again.

Otis the Younger learned to mimic the fearful sounds of REW after each major clap despite his daddy’s pleas to raise the arms in victory and then punch it home. Having a daughter, it’s always fun for me when a friend’s male child exhibits girly traits.

Digressing: Most adults would wash the day with a stroke of bad luck. The treat actually came after the rain. After nearly five years of reading in various books about them, REW saw a rainbow for the first time. I think it was probably The Younger’s first as well.

Judging from REW’s expressions, I would have to conclude that the prismatic colors are both visions and illusions…at the cost of $74.



On a Completely Different Note - Before and After:
Pictures are many words, but I’m going to give you a few words anyway. If you’ve been dead to the world for the last couple of weeks, you may not have heard.

A large tornado caused extensive damage in Greensburg, Kansas on May 4th. Okay, large is a bit of an understatement. Reports claim that the tornado was 1.5 miles wide. ONE POINT FIVE MILES WIDE!

Imagine a destructive whirling mass filled with cows and cars, light posts, two by fours and aunt Janet’s dentures rapidly advancing on your position.

I can only imagine that it sounded like a freight train traveling through my back yard.

However, I don’t have to imagine the destructive force. These before and after photos give me a pretty good mental image.

Hey Joe Died

It was me a hundred times over during the course of nearly ten years in the TV news industry. Somewhere on a highway shooting the scene of an accident was where I cut my teeth, or at least learned how to always white balance. When the weather was bad and driver visibility lessened was when I was dispatched the most.

I once did a 11p live shot in the sleet/rain on I-385 at the intersection of I-85. We were stationed at the apex of a blind hill so we could get microwave reception. The on-coming drivers saw nothing until cresting. They would then be blinded by the frezzi on my camera and any extra lights I could set up before deadline. Mix in with the weather and the bright lights the ohhh & ahhh factor of a big TV news van and a reporter. What you get is nothing but a journalists’ nightmare.

To me his name was Hey Joe. That’s what I said every single time I called the assignment desk at Fox Carolina. The response was always the same; a semi-husky and friendly tone of, “Hey Tim, what’s going on? How are ya?”

Joe Loy was one of those embedded Upstate journalists with nearly an entire career covering local news. Like most journalist that work in this market for more than five years, Joe knew everyone…and their phone numbers. He knew how to get from here to there no matter either location. He understood news and he understood Upstate news. There is a difference. He was a very sweet man who always had time for conversation, and he always cared, or at least seemed to care, about the hack pitch du jour.

Joe worked the assignment desk at Fox but would pick up a camera from time to time. He was certainly no stranger to it. While covering the subsequent gawker wreck of a major accident on I-85 in Spartanburg County yesterday, an impatient driver recklessly cut off a van along that stretch of highway. The van driver overcompensated trying to keep his vehicle out of danger. Investigators are uncertain right now if the van hit Joe or if it slammed into the news vehicle and the news vehicle hit Joe.

I wonder if the impatient driver was hurrying home to see his kids. Joe has kids, too. I’m sure the driver learned this information on the 11p news last night. He certainly didn’t stick around scene to find out. When the police find him (or her) and take him to jail, I wonder if his kids will miss their father. I also wonder if this man (or, again, woman) has enough integrity to step up to the plate and turn himself in. I wonder if he even knows it’s his time to bat or did his impatiens leave him blind to everything that happened, everything except that which was in front of him.

Joe died doing that for which his professional life was dedicated. He will be deeply missed.

More about Joe | More about Joe | More about Joe

Take a Cell from W. D. Griffith When Parenting

There isn’t one all-encompassing answer when situations like the recent shooting at Virginia Tech happen. However, prophylactic protection for such random acts of violence begins at home, and it’s the duty of all parents to participate.

The causes of such situations are rooted in many different aspects of life. Mental health is one of them. Mental health is certainly real and an issue in both children and adults. But there are many other factors at work; proper parenting from day one is the most important.

If a child doesn’t feel loved by his parents, it has a dramatic affect on the child. He/she will never have the ability to love. Subsequently, such people will mimic those relationship aspects with their children.

Parenting is also involved in teaching respect for everyone and the opinions of others regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or body type. Children tease other children, but it can certainly be minimized by teaching what is and what is not proper respect for others.

Active participation in a child’s life by both mother and father is essential. Every child must learn specific roles or traits from a man and a woman. If the child doesn’t receive any one of these numerous characteristics, an instinct jones will cause them to seek until they find. A prime example is that one girl that you knew; you know the one about which I’m speaking. She’s the one who lacked a strong male influence in her life, and probably the one with whom you know a lot better than the other girls in your class.

Children’s thoughts and feelings need to be respected and validated. Telling a child that he/she is wrong without an explanation doesn’t work. Essentially, it’s nothing more than rejection. Positive reinforcement works indefinitely. Negative reinforcement creates a cycle passed on through generations of intolerance.

Proper parenting also involves teaching children how to deal with their problems, no matter the size or circumstance. If you come from a family that sweeps problems and issues under the carpet, your children will again mimic this attribute in their lives unless the cycle is broken. Hear no evil, see no evil, ignore, repeat is not a healthy way to live life and not a healthy thing to teach children.

Respect for diversity is a hot topic right now, and for good reason. It is the golden rule, it’s the second part of the Great Commandment (Mark 12: 29-34), and it’s the proper way to live your life and teach your children how to live their lives.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not throwing stones. I have no right because I’ve made mistakes. I can assure you that I will make more. However, recognition of those mistakes, learning from them and breaking the cycle of intolerance must be the cornerstone for building the next great generation.

Idiots Have Their Places In The Newsroom

A career telling the story of others’, as you might expect, brings you in contact with thousands of people over the years. As such, it doesn’t take long to figure out the world is teaming with idiots.

Becoming jaded is, in part, a resultant defense mechanism of the profession. You simply have to become hardened to horrible things that happen to good people as well as seeing good people do horrible things. Having a front-row seat to the world in which you live isn’t always as good as it sounds. Tragedy happens. I’ve seen it; women get raped, children die horribly by accident and purposefully at the hands of another, and psychos walk into offices and start shooting. I ain’t talkin’ bout no puppy-kitty love-in fest feature story.

The idiots are the part of the profession that keeps us all grounded. They are the ones who distract us after weeks of telling the detailed story of a woman who straps her children in the car and drowns them. They are the ones who give us stories to tell while having a tall frosty, and they also help us dissipate any journalist-on-journalist flap that happens daily (“Just jazz it up a bit with some nats.”)

There are several variations of idiot, and we love'em all simply because they make us laugh.
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THE DAILY IDIOT: This is the most common. He’s the one who calls the newsroom on a daily basis to either talk or complain about something. Most of the time this person is lonely and wants to talk to someone.

One South-Carolina hot August day my buddy receives this call.

“Newsroom.”
“Yeah, uh….is this the newsroom?”
“Yes sir, how can I help you?” (side note: it’s 5:30 p.m.)
“I see you guys doing stories on how to keep cool. Well, I just got out of the shower and had a towel wrapped around me but didn’t have anything else on. I walked past my fan, and that blew right up my towel. Boy, that sure is keeping me cool. Just wanted to let you guys know.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll pass that along.”
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THE STUPID IDIOT: This person simply doesn’t think before speaking.

“Hey, what newspaper is this going to be in,” he asks the photojournalist who is shouldering a 35-pound Betacam, schlepping a 15-pound metal tripod, and wearing the photog equivalent of Batman’s Bat Belt.

For those not in-the-know, a huge Betacam with mentioned accessories looks nothing like a standard 35mm still camera.
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“Channel 4”
“Yeah,….uh, is this Channel 4?”
“Yes sir, how can I help you?”
“Hey, does my kid have school today,” the caller asks the wet journalist who picked up the newsroom phone after coming in from his 5 a.m. snow-coverage liveshots.

Silently the journalist waits for more information. Silence…..silence……silence……nothing except the caller saying, “Uh, hello.”

“I’m not sure,” says the journalist.
“My kid’s school said that channel Foe would tell us if we had school or not.”
“What is my name,” asks the journalist.
“How should I know your name,” says the increasingly frustrated caller.
“How should I know if your kid has school if you don’t tell me which school he attends.”

Again back to those not in the business. This happens 1000 time every single time we have a threat of snow.
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For Part II of the Idiots Have Their Place In The Newsroom series, we’ll explore several more types of idiots who help keep the newsroom running smoothly.

On a completely different note, I’ve noticed through my blog tracking stats (which tracks IP addresses, by the way) that someone is googling my last name and “Greenville Hospital System” in an attempt to find my blog? STOP IT!

Study: U.S. Population Finds Insensitive and Thoughtless Slurs Thoughtless and Insensitive

Yes, I too am jumping on the blogarazzi free-speech wheel of contemporary racial linguistics.

What the hell is going on? Why isn’t the media focusing on the actual issue at hand, the patently racist remark by Imus producer, Bernard McGuirk? His comment that refers to the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as “jigaboos” is by far more offensive and true as defining of a racial slur compared with the thoughtless and insensitive comment by Imus.

Ho, in case you don’t understand, is a gender slur aimed at half of the world population. Jigaboo is racial slur aimed at the entire black culture of the United States.

So there, the line is drawn. On which side do you stand? Are you accepting of ho and not accepting of jigaboo? Is there a difference?

The mass market, in general, would say that there is a difference. Call any woman a ho and you might get a verbal lashing, maybe a slap. Call a man of the black community a jigaboo and the odds are that you’re about to get an ass whoopin’.

[Chorus] Hooooooooo (Ho) / Youza Hoooooo (Ho) / Youza Hoooooo (Ho) / I said that youza hooooo (Ho) - [Repeat 1x] ~Ludacris

[Chorus] I can't believe that she's real... (it was a ho-down) / The way she makes me feel... (another ho-down) / If you knew what I knew... (it was a ho-down) / You would be down in there too... (another ho-down) ~Nappy Roots with The Barkays/Skinny

Why aren’t these people being boycotted, fired, or at least suspended for two weeks? Where are Al and Jesse, and why aren’t they banging on the doors of the company presidents? These types of lyrics are incredibly more damaging than anything Imus said, true? What the hell is going on, I say again. Should efforts not be put where they are most effective?

Look, I’m all about teaching and acting cultural harmony. Honestly, I am. And as a matter of fact, I will not tolerate it within any situation over which I have at least some control. But I’m not going to form a skirmish line outside the neighbor of the intolerant bastard who made the comment.

McGuirk is the idiot. He’s the one who should be fired.

Does Imus deserve a two-week suspension for the ho comment? Sure, that’s fine. Taking into account the context of his radio program, my comment is actually more along the line of “whatever”.

I do have a piece of advice for any of those people who are not on the Rutgers basketball team but are yet still offended by the Imus comment. I suggest that you boycott everything NBC, CBS and General Electric. Go ahead, show’em who’s the boss. You may even want to call the advertisers and complain.

However, I believe that once you realize how such a boycott would take away some of your creature comforts, I bet that you might see a slight tip in the scale of your moral judgment.