NCAA -- Being and Nothingness

You may have read a couple years ago about a deal where some classes on the schedule at the University of North Carolina turned out to be, strictly speaking, fake. They didn't really meet or exist or anything, but students signed up for them, got course credit for them and often posted pretty good grades.

Oh, and almost half of those students were also UNC student-athletes. You probably don't need me to tell you that student athletes make up nowhere near half of its student body. But if you do then it might be that you work for the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which earlier this month decided that the fraud UNC committed against academic standards, the idea of education, the taxpayers and supporters of UNC and its own students was not its problem.

You see, it turns out that because half of the students who gained from the fake classes weren't student athletes, then by gosh and golly the NCAA sees this as a matter for the school to decide itself. After all, it says "Athletes" right there in the name and far be it from the NCAA to get itself mixed up in the academic side of university life. That's "school stuff," and the NCAA knows it's out of bounds. And the outsized role UNC plays in men's college basketball has absolutely nothing to do with it, you nattering nabob of negativism.

Shannon Watkins, who wrote the Noble Center article linked above, brings the proper amount of dripping scorn to bear on the mummer's dance of a university at Chapel Hill. She points out that even though the fake class mess has been cleaned up, all of the conditions that spawned it still exist. Student athletes are still admitted to UNC even though their grades and test scores fall below the minimum standards for college readiness. They're still expected to achieve above-average marks in classes paced for students with higher scores who don't have the equivalent of a full-time job in the form of athletic practices and competitions. And they're brought on without any concern for what this might mean for their future if they aren't among the microscopic percentage of athletes who play their sports professionally.

Sure, the chances are good that someone would sue the NCAA if it went ahead and dropped the hammer UNC earned right smack in the middle of its Tarheel tail. And given the technicality around which the organization wound its invertebrate self, the chances are also good that a judge would toss any sufficient penalty and rend the tattered sackcloth of its credibility even more.

So UNC will be allowed to keep the gasoline and matches that started this fire as long as they promise to never play with them again. And the kids who signed up for the fake classes get to keep their fake A and B's.

Whether or not they can identify any of the letters that come after them, though, is apparently not anyone's concern.

Switching On or Off

This "storymap" shows some of the differences in nighttime lighting around the globe between 2012 and 2016. It's a pasted-together version of some satellite photos, as obviously the entire world can't be in darkness at the same time.

Physically, that is -- metaphorically is another matter entirely.

As the text shows when you scroll down, there are several areas that change in between the two different maps. Northern India lights up big time, indicating the arrival of electrical power to that part of that country. Some areas of North America lose nighttime brightness, which has more to do with improved lighting technology than actual loss of lighting.

Syria, unfortunately, goes dark for an entirely different reason, that being the brutal war waged by its dictator against his people. And North Korea remains dark for much the same reason, althought it's less from an outbreak of a dictator's war against its people than the continuation of it.

Countdown

Halloween is a cool holiday for kids who get to shift their imaginations into overdrive an pretend to be just about anyone or anything within the limits of Mom and Dad’s budget and craft skill set. I like it for them.

Me, I’m just glad when it’s over so Hollywood will slow down its rollout of crappy horror trash for awhile and I can watch television without an ad for one of those excreta showing up every five minutes. Am I a humbug? Maybe. But I miss the appeal of movies that view human beings as talking squibs who scream on cue.

A What Hat?

Back in 1315, a physician in Valencia wrote to his sons, studying in Toulouse, with some practical advice on how to dress warmly now that it's getting cold.

Most of the ideas are ones we'd be familiar with and some of the advice is pretty good. Although I have to confess I might have been wearing a "sausage hat" without knowing it, since I have no idea what one is.

Handwritten!

The online Master Boddington's stationery shop created a new line of products designed for kids in order to help them learn how to actually write letters with their pencils or pens, called the "Secret Society of Letter Writers."

It's kind of like the old pen pall setup, I guess, but I can see where the idea of the "secret society" part might loop in some kids. And training to actually write by hand a whole letter instead of tap out some texts is kind of cool. Makes me wish I was young enough to join.

Happy Birthday, World!

More exactly, a happy birthday to all of creation, at least as far as James Ussher, Church of Ireland Bishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, was concerned in 1650.

He reported that the creation of the world, as described in the book of Genesis, happened at 9 AM on October 26, 4004 B.C. The actual date he picked was different, but it was on the old Julian calendar and it becomes Oct. 26 when converted to Gregorian.

Although Bishop Ussher's supposed precision earns mockery today or at least a mild chuckle, it actually represented a considerable scholarly endeavor for his time given what people in 17th century England and Ireland knew of the world. He studied ancient histories of the Roman, Persian and Babylonian Empires and several different Hebrew texts of the Old Testament to make his calculations. His method was more or less sound, but his data inputs were suspect.

Which means Bishop Ussher gave us an early description of the "Garbage in, garbage out" principle of bad data skewing a good process into producing bad results. So although he did not fix the date of creation, he did predict the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

It Is Indeed a Shame

The death of Antoine "Fats" Domino Tuesday at the age of 89 leaves just two of rock music's earliest drivers still kicking -- "Little Richard" Penniman (84) and "The Killer" Jerry Lee Lewis (82). They're not the only two early rock musicians who survive today, but they are by far the biggest names and influences from the mid-to-late 1950s on that list.

Like them, Domino was primarily a keyboard man, but was quite a bit smoother and more sedate although every bit as talented. His genial nature (and size) made the kind of acrobatic ivory work that defined the other two men just not at all his style. Even his hits were more easy-going, with 1957's "I'm Walkin'" and 1958's "Whole Lotta Loving" probably the speediest tempos he released. He scored more sales in rock and roll's early years than anyone besides Elvis Presley.

Domino varied from the rock norm in some other ways as well -- he married Rosemary Hall in 1947 and stayed with her until her death in 2008. They had eight children, all of whose names begin with the letter "A." At first missing and rumored dead after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Domino was discovered to have been rescued and was able to move back to the area when it was cleaned up. He played occasionally at different benefits and also at New Orleans' famous Tipitina's concert venue.