Social media add new dimension

By Martin Hackworth

It’s a probably just a little early to be guessing as to what will eventually end up as the invention of the 21st century, but unless we achieve warp drive a little ahead of schedule I’m going to get behind social media online: Facebook, YouTube, Skype and the like. As far as I’m concerned, social media is about the best thing to come around since the invention of sliced whole wheat bread.

I am big into social media. I create Facebook groups for each of my lower-division classes at the University so that students may confab in a relaxed, informal environment. MotorcycleJazz.com and The Tour of Idaho both have extensive, well-subscribed Facebook (and YouTube) pages that serve large communities. Those communities, in turn, have spawned other communities with more narrow interests. It’s amazing to see how these grow. I’ve met folks through social media that I would have never had the opportunity to meet any other way and my life is better for it. The ability to easily and rapidly share photos, video, messages and other information has done more to build and strengthen communities than anything since the decline of the sidewalk and front porch. As far as I’m concerned social media is like one long home town street that goes all the way around the world.

One of the best features of Web-based social media is the ability to stay connected with those far away. I’ve managed to keep up with service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, family members all over the country and friends scattered to the four corners of the Earth. I’ve used Skype and Facebook to close gulfs of time and distance over events ranging from births to deaths and about everything between. The ability to communicate instantly and easily has made social media both ubiquitous and indispensible in my life (the Android phone hasn’t hurt the cause either). In a few cases the last thing that I have from someone isn’t a photo or a letter but a private message or a photo/video comment. I’m looking at one of those right now from Colton Aiken. Rest well, friend.

Alas, even paradise probably has a few harps out of tune and so it is with social media as well. I’ve noticed that there’s an awful lot of jawboning and snarky talk that occurs freely online at a safe distance of many miles that probably would go down differently at a more intimate distance of a few feet. My friends and I refer to that as “sixty mile smack” which is generally more, shall we say, audacious, than the much less common six inch smack. All of the forums, pages and blogs I manage online are moderated and as a member you’ll be polite (or absent that, at least funny) or you’ll be gone. Your first amendment right to free speech may apply in a public square but it does not apply in any forum where my colleagues and I determine you to be more of a pain-in-the-butt than you are worth. Be seeing you.

I am particularly emphatic on that last point concerning my personal Facebook page – something I set up for the express purpose of relaxed, friendly communication with family and friends. This page is set up so that just about anyone can subscribe and view updates (though I’m a little frightened as to why anyone would be interested in that if I don’t actually know them) but is fully available only to those with whom I have some actual connection beyond casual. If you are a friend on my personal page it’s because you are an actual friend (generally someone I’ve known for many years), someone I like and respect professionally, or occasionally someone I added for other reasons (generally temporary in nature) and I just haven’t gotten around to you in my routine list maintenance yet. I have no desire for thousands of Facebook friends that either I don’t know well or don’t know from Adam. I much prefer a quieter, more intimate personal space.

Along that line, though it pains me (honest and no lie) to break the news to you I don’t actually care what you thought of my last Facebook post if you are not part of the posse. This is, I assure you, nothing personal, it’s a matter of Ch’i! I receive, I assure you, more than enough unfiltered feedback from the world in the course of my daily routine. So I employ some bodacious filters with very high signal to noise ratios in my personal space. That’s just the way that I roll and you can like it or not as you please. And no, I won’t explain to you why I am ignoring your friend request. If you have to ask…

Award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth, of Pocatello, is a senior lecturer in physics at Idaho State University and the publisher of motorcyclejazz.com.

Let’s hope Kodak gets mojo back

By Martin Hackworth

Eastman Kodak, the 132 year old company that invented a line of products which allowed the 20th century the first to be completely chronicled through photography, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last Thursday. Kodak, a once formidable juggernaut that established itself by creating the standards in analog film and paper stock, had fought for more than a decade to adapt to an increasingly digital world. Unfortunately Kodak has been know for the past decade more for filing patent infringement lawsuits than for any of the technical innovation that it once stood for. This must not be the greatest 21st century business model for them as Kodak has produced an annual profit only once since the turn of the century.

I am, nonetheless, pulling for Kodak to emerge from Chapter 11 and for them to get some of their old mojo back. I’m very sentimental when it comes to the Eastman Kodak Corporation because just like the 20th century itself a lot of pieces of my own life are preserved in 35mm color images. Among all of the wonders made possible by Kodak nothing stands out more than Kodachrome color film. Though Kodachrome was first introduced in the 1930’s, it wasn’t until the introduction of Kodachrome 64 slide film (and the K-14 development process) in 1974 that color photography really began to pop.

I have a large selection of black and white snapshots from years past in various albums and shoeboxes. Among them is a century and a half old photograph of my great, great grandfather coming home from the civil war. Even though this is a historically important image it just doesn’t convey much, in a visceral sense anyway, to me. When it’s Ansel Adams or Ralph Eugene Meatyard creating a black and white image for artistic purposes I’m down with the plan. But black and white snapshots generally just don’t do much for me – there’s too much missing from a world lit with color. Trying to experience or even to relive a moment captured in a black and white 3 x 5 image is like trying to get your golden retriever to read the directions on a can of dog food for himself, it never works, but not for lack of trying.

Anyone born before 1960 with an interest in photography will probably remember the moment they first laid eyes on a Kodachrome 64 image. Not only were the colors (especially the reds and greens) bold and rich and beautiful, but the film itself was thin enough that it didn’t scatter a lot of light. This resulted in images that were sharper and more dramatic than what had previously been the available in mass-produced developing and printing.

Kodachrome 64 was what made it possible for me to image the world and my journey through it in a way that was poignant and meaningful. And I’m not the only one. Among the most well known images ever produced was Steve McCurry’s 1984 photograph of a young Afghan girl at a refugee camp in Pakistan that appeared on the cover of National Geographic.  If a normal picture is worth a thousand words then this one is an entire novel. In terms of creating a stunning visual image for the ages I’ll put McCurry’s Kodachrome 64 photograph up against Alfred Stieglitz’s black and white masterpiece “Georgia O’Keeffe – Hands” any day of the week and twice on Sunday. And all of you black and white zone system snobs can plant one right on my rosy red bum.

My family and I have been going through my old collection of Kodachrome 64 slides to see which ones we’d like to digitize. Although the least stable dyes in Kodachrome 64 stock (the yellows) are estimated to have a shelf life of over well over 100 years, our 35mm Carousel slide projector is about as useful as a View-Master in the modern age of digital frames and Facebook. As we’ve sorted through hundreds of images, some approaching 40 years old, I am blown away by their freshness. Every time I get into a new box it’s as if I had just stepped back several decades and was opening the mailer from Kodak for the first time – a time when the image effortlessly conjured not only the arrangement of light, but the sounds, the smells and the emotions that existed the instant the shutter opened and closed.

So thank you Kodak. For a few moments at a time this weekend I get to remember exactly how scared I was at key moments in my climbing career, how carefully I dressed to impress a girl in high school and how beautiful I thought the sunset was over western Kansas one long ago August evening. Now, how about getting back to work giving us the next Kodachrome 64?

Award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth, of Pocatello, is a senior lecturer in physics at Idaho State University and the publisher of motorcyclejazz.com.

How do dogs become family?

By Michael H. O’Donnell

We’re all going to die. And that’s not so bad. It’s the painfully sharp fact that people and the pets we come to love face the same fate that shatters our mortal bubble of comfort.
We deflate inside.
Tears fill the void for a while, but the space remains forever empty. Only pet owners can fully understand why this powerful vacuum transcends the loss of human life to that of animals and leaves a missing warm spot on the sofa of our souls.
Pet owners like my sisters know. Beth and Rosanne shared space with each other and a four-legged mop of a Silky Terrier named Irish for 17 years. Arthritic and suffering from a host of ailments that took the fun out of living, Irish stopped being a friend and became a dilemma. My older sister was forced to make a decision last week. Live in denial and ignore the pain or free the puppy lost inside that little dog.
With tears in her eyes and a heart heavier than the furry family member she took into her arms for the last time, my sister Beth did the right thing. That last trip to the vet is one all pet owners fear and most must take.
Deep down, I believe that’s why my mother never allowed us to adopt a dog—at least not long enough to love one.
When I was a little scruff and Beth was a baby, my parents did succumb to a momentary lapse in the “no dog” rule. We lived in the Michigan countryside and he was a beagle. There was lots of space for that black and tan barking machine to roam. He chose to roam into my mom’s closet.
There’s something magic in women’s shoes that draws a puppy. It is my firm belief you could stack a fence made of rawhide chew toys and milk-bones six feet high and a puppy would burrow under it or climb over it just to snack on a pair of high heels.
One day that young beagle slobbered on one instep too many and was banished from the family forever. We gave him to a farmer down the road and let his wife deal with tooth marks on her pumps. Actually, according to legend, that beagle became an “outside dog.” He roamed the fence lines of life until a steel trap robbed him of a limb, but continued to hunt for stray shoes for many years.
After we moved to Colorado, another pooch tried to nose his way into our family. This fine Heinz 57 just showed up, lean and looking for a meal. Before mom could nix any feeding operations, a bowl of scraps sealed his presence. But, before any real bonding could take place, that mutt was relocated to a farm somewhere out of “Here boy!” range.
My mom finally began to soften her stance against pets when we obtained our first parakeet which is French for “dead on arrival.” We tried two of the winged weaklings before the cage was relegated to the tool shed. It’s hard to get attached to something confined to a wire prison with a death sentence hanging over its head.
Finally we acquired a cat, thanks to the expert negotiating skills of a neighbor. It remained a mystery what promises were made at the other end, but Snowball the white tomcat became our pet—for a while. Male kittens are terrific until their instinct to roam sets in. When it came to a budgetary choice between a fix job at the veterinarian or breakfast cereal for a month, the tom maintained his swagger.
One day he vanished into the night to pitch woo and never came back. My dad and I suspect he fell victim to the dangers inherent with romance in the open sage of Colorado. Not all coyotes are as intellectually impaired as Wile E.
There would be another cat enter the family domain, but Sir Charles was never really ours. We inherited him from a grandmother who lost patience. There are many adjectives to describe this cat’s demeanor, but loving wasn’t one of them.
It wasn’t until my sister Beth left the nest and ended up caring for our younger sister, who had fallen victim to a crippling auto accident, that a dog was truly elevated to family status. That dog was Irish.
Brought home as a puppy, she became an equal partner with my sisters. She became their friend and terribly undersized defender. Irish could never forget her name because she heard it loud and often around that home. The name was sometimes wrapped in affection and other times swung like a hammer.
Not hearing it spoken or shouted will leave a strange silence in their world – broken only by the yip of a new pup.

Michael H. O’Donnell is assistant managing editor of the Idaho State Journal.

This is a war and attacks are justified

Idaho State Journal Editorial

Has al-Qaida been weakened by the killing of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone attack in Yemen? President Obama says that is so, and that the deaths of al-Awlaki and another American, Samir Khan, “are a devastating double blow to al-Qaida’s most dangerous franchise.”
Since the pair had made no secret of their hatred for this country and their attempts to inflict terror disasters on American citizens, few would side with the civil liberties groups who have questioned the government’s authority to kill an American without trial. That happens in wars.
Obama was specific in outlining al-Awlaki’s involvement in planning and directing attempts to murder Americans. “He directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009. He directed the failed attempt to blow up U.S. cargo planes in 2010. And he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda.”
So, the chickens have come home to roost, as they say.
For Americans discouraged by 10 years of war against terrorists, it’s heartening to see the tide turning at least slightly. For instance, al-Awlaki was killed by the CIA working in concert with the same U.S. military unit that got Osama bin Laden in May. And there is good news that al-Qaida’s affiliate in Iraq has been severely weakened by a money squeeze, internal squabbling, a shortage of volunteer suicide bombers and more effective Iraqi efforts to snatch the terror group’s foreign recruits when they slip across the border from Syria.
The Associated Press reports that Maj. Gen. David Perkins, commander of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division and of all U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said al-Qaida has suffered a “dramatic decrease” in local and foreign fundraising, to the point where members of the group are fighting over shrinking pieces of the financial pie.
“They’re resorting to what I would call extortion, black marketing, robbery of jewelry stores, things like that,” Perkins told reporters. “And it’s devolving more into almost gang mafia-type activities. And they are starting to, in some instances, turn against each other, which from our point of view is a good sign.”
Here’s the best news, however.
Most of the 5,000 U.S. troops based in northern Iraq will be gone by the end of October. All U.S. forces are to leave by the end of the year. In Yemen, the U.S. has made a good start toward what President Obama promises will be a vigorous campaign to prevent terrorists from finding a haven — anywhere.

Burying a friend in ink

By Michael H. O’Donnell

You can expect a lot of the unexpected the first day you show up for a
new job. Read more…

Need for community heart to heart

By Roger Bray The growth of Bannock County and an even greater increase in the use of our ambulances persistently places us all in perilous circumstances. The handwriting on the wall is clear. We are on the verge of tragic outcomes because we are overextending our emergency coverage for ambulances and correspondingly for the Pocatello Fire Department. We are at the breaking point with no immediate resolution available. State law puts this issue in the hands of the voters to address the needs of their ambulance district. A positive vote in November means that in December 2012 those taxes are first collected and available for use. I present the most important fact. Frequently, there are no ambulances available for an immediate response to your medical emergency, which extends to a delayed emergency response time for the Pocatello Fire Department.

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Marsh Valley School District needs to revisit issue of transportation to athletic events

By Kelley Packer My teen-age son and three of his teen-age friends were in a rollover accident Tuesday afternoon, around 2 p.m. just south of Swan Lake. Many would ask what they were doing out of school at that time, but parents in the Marsh Valley School District would likely assume, and they’d be right, that they were on their way to an athletic event for the high school. Two years ago, the school district decided to quit providing transportation for athletic events as a way of trying to save the school district money. So, students and parents now have the responsibility of making sure those that are participating in school sports are to all of their games on time, without the aid of school resources.

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Professionalism not good fit with today’s society

By Martin Hackworth I’ve always thought that one of the best compliments that one could receive is to be referred to as a “pro.” The concept of professionalism means a lot and it pains me to see it evaporating alongside good manners, tact, decorum, selflessness, courage, wisdom and a lot of other qualities that used to be a lot more common than they are now.

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Holt remains best place for football

Idaho State Journal Editorial Holt Arena is a wonderful place to play football, and to watch football. But it primarily serves Idaho State University, and local high school teams play there at the sufferance of ISU. Because it costs $100 per hour for District 25 to rent the arena for football, the cost is causing the local district to consider possible alternatives, such as developing a lighted field at Hawthorne Middle School at a projected cost of a half-million dollars.

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Solution exists for deer in headlights

Idaho State Journal Editorial Acting like a deer in the headlights is a great tag line for generating chuckles, but it's no laughing matter for the hundreds of motorists who have collisions with big game animals on Idaho's highways. A stretch of Interstate 15 south of Pocatello is a major kill zone for mule deer. At least 100 deer are killed on this section of I-15 between Pocatello and Inkom each year, according to the Idaho Fish and Game Department. These deer-car collisions also cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage and send motorists to the hospital.

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