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Category: Alumni and other friends (Page 17 of 38)

DJ Bobby D? Dylan on XM

The Washington Post (and about everywhere else) reports that Bob Dylan has signed on to do a show on satellite radio, XM.

The XM site says:

Bob Dylan on XM
Coming in March 2006 to Deep Tracks – XM 40

While Bob Dylan defines the poetry and imagination of our era, his radio program will humbly explore the music that moves him and engage the people who need to be heard. Without any boundaries or playlists, Bob’s show will cross genres and offer a peek into the musical soul of one of the most important songwriters and artists of the 20th Century. More show details coming soon.

XM is already airing fellow Traveling Wilbury Tom Petty weekly.

After spending hours in the car with the abridged version of Chronicles as read by Sean Penn (Thanks for the loan, Sri), I can only imagine Dylan as sounding like Penn on the CDs. And after hearing how Dylan completely rearranges almost every song of his own, I’m wondering what will end up being played and what versions. Of course this is the delight of Dylan — and in some cases the pain. He’s an eclectic and enigmatic presenter.

Will this push me over to paying for radio tho? Will it be the deciding factor for you?

Singing in Pittsboro on Friday Night

Sylvia writes to let us know that there’ll be music at the Pittsboro General Store this Friday featuring Alan Garr and Sylvia herself:

Alan Garr (Garrard) is playing original music with back up singers Sylvia Freeman Garrard and Deb Stewart Friday night December 16 at 8:30 at the Pittsboro General Store in beautiful downtown Pittsboro! A friend and member of Leastways, Ryan Groulx, will also play along and perform some of his original songs. Sylvia and Deb will sing a few standards as well. Come and join in the fun and support us at the same time. I’m told the food is great at this place. We’ll look forward to seeing you there.

How to get there: 39 W Street, Pittsboro is next to the downtown traffic circle, just across from the Pittsboro courthouse. Phone: (919) 542-2432 if you need further help in finding us. I’m told the orange cones have been removed from 15-501 so it’s easier to get to Pittsboro than it used to be!

100 songs by McGuinn

Camilla McGuinn’s Roadie Reports entries over on the Roger McGuinn Blog give us not only a nice history of the young Jimmy (later to be Roger) including pictures of his first band, The Frets, but also the story of mixing and mastering the 100 songs for THE FOLK DEN PROJECT. Roger began recording a different folk song each month back in November 1995 and giving them away on the Internet. We’ve been a part of this project of most of its life here at ibiblio by hosting the site and developing some software and procedures to support the work.
In celebration of the ten years of the Folk Den, Roger has made very high quality CD versions of 100 of the 120 songs which you can buy from him or from Amazon.com (just being put up there).

Stirred up over Stir up Sunday

Amongst American Episcopalians, this is Stir Up Sunday (see last year’s post). Others hold that Stir Up Sunday is the first Sunday before Advent, but we go with the American Prayer Book (the Commonality of the Book of Common Prayer is only national).
We are all astir as this is a very busy season for the North Carolina Boys Choir. Tucker and the Choir were in Raleigh singing the Service in Lessons and Carols at Saint David’s while Sally and I made the rounds to various School parties.
The Boys Choir big Christmas Concert is Monday, December 19th at 7:30 at Duke University Chapel.

Eugene McCarthy dies at 89

From Minnesota Public Radio.

McCarthy for President
In 1968, my friend Russell went “clean for Eugene” and took off to campaign for McCarthy. When he came back, we all pitched in to make posters and then to meet McCarthy as he stopped in at Charlotte’s Douglas Airport. I also helped (mostly stood around since is was 18 and shy) as we put on a fundraiser for McCarthy. I remember Ben Chavis (now Chavis Muhammad) dancing with Paula Prentiss. I remember having a sideways conversation with Elliot Gould — but what did he or I say? I was too shy to say anything likely. Whatever actually happened, I did get energized by Eugene even at a great distance. Like my favorite poster of him standing on a brickyard read “He stood up and something happened.” Not just movie stars visiting Charlotte, but the beginning of political awarenesses for so many people.

Getting there – to the Grind and in the Triangle

First important news! The Daily Grind is accessible again. We’ve had to weave through Student Stores for coffee and tea for what seems like forever, but now the fence that blocked us from the beloved Grind is down and you can walk right into the Grind! But all is not completely clear, according to UNC ConstructionWatch work on the Daniels aka Student Stores Building will continue through December 2006.

Second, Councilman, Triangle Transportation Board member, and Goodmon Award winner Bill Strom replies to my forwarding him notice of Google Transit’s Portland only transit planning maps by sending me a link to RideTTA which does the same thing for the Triangle and does, to my mind, a better job too. Unfortunately, the maps all tell me to walk over a mile to get on the transit grid just to get started. Others might be better situated to take advantage of RideTTA.

Update: Bill writes again to say that if there is no bus stop within .25 miles of you, Chapel Hill Transit will send a shuttle to you. I don’t mind a little walking but I might try a shuttle to start a trip to Raleigh.

DocSouth and Jones on BoingBoing

The Boing Boing post “19th c. book: Geography for Dixie Children” from Documenting the American South
got a lot of quick attention. It should have. The book is raw history, reflecting the mind of the South. And that mind was not so pretty in today’s light. BB has excerpts (see link above) or go directly to the item at DocSouth (hosted by ibiblio). I sent Xeni a note about the context and a reference to a contemporary echo in Cary that she added to the posting. I’ve included that below.

The textbook, Dixie Children, was printed to provide “education” during the Civil War. UNC holds a lot of material from that period. People who read it are outraged. They should be. These texts are evidence of what the war was all about and of the thinking of the Confederate elite.

At a time when a church school in Cary (just beside Raleigh where the 1863 book was published) is teaching from a pamphlet titled “Southern Slavery: As It Was” which tells us that “slavery was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence”, we need to blunt force of historical evidence to impell us to face the sad facts.

See this earlier posting on the Cary school slave pamphlet.

The contemporary authors have tried to hide their book but Amazon’s “search inside” feature lets you know what’s in it.

Tar Heel on Seigenthaler issue and Wikipepdia

Just took a phone call from a Daily Tar Heel reporter, Kyle Chorpening, who is doing a story on Wikipedia and the Seigenthaler issue. He had already spoken to Seigenthaler and to Jimmy Wales before calling me. What the heck could I add after that?
Well, maybe a pointer to the video of Jimbo’s talk here at UNC in October and some talk about owning your own words harking back to the WELL and over to Brin’s Transparent Society as a tension point with the American history of anonymous pamphleteering going back beyond the Federalist Papers. A brief mention of the Hitchhiker’s Guide site at BBC as a peer-reviewed encyclopedia too.
My take is that wikipedia is in process. It will change to meet challenges and it has already begun some changes to address problems such as this one. A year ago, Wikipedia was less good than it is today. In five years, it –or it’s online successor– will be much better.
Kyle also asked if I would accept wikipedia as a source in a paper. The answer is that academic papers should use primary sources, not encyclopedias, not Britanica, not World Book, not wikipedia. Wikipedia is a great starting point and often points to primary sources. In that way, it’s great. I would even accept wikipedia as a source for one of several definitions, but not as a major source. Not because of reliability but because good research should go to the source whenever possible.
UPDATE: Kyle’s article is here. I get the last words, but not (appropriately) the most words ;->

Paul Jones, a journalism professor at UNC, said people should be held accountable for content but can’t reasonably be restricted from publishing it.

“What are you going to do? Make people get an Internet driver’s license?” he said.

As Wikipedia has grown in popularity and reliability, students often are using it as a source for research, especially for term papers.

“I use it for general ideas, but not for specifics,” said freshman Russell Johnson. “It gives me a comfortable understanding of the topic.”

Jones said Wikipedia is useful for directing students to good information but should complement other sources.

“Last semester, I returned a paper that was comprised almost solely of Wikipedia entries,” he said. “I think by the time you’re in college, you should be using primary sources.”

Podcastercon – Getting iTuned

One nice thing about the upcoming Podcastercon as an unconference is that you can propose a session on a topic that you know something about but want to know more about — sort of like Birds of a Feather sessions. TJ and I have proposed a session on iTunes and podcasting.
We were early in getting Roger McGuinn’s Folk Den registered and working with iTunes so we learned a lot about the iTunes extensions to RSS, but there are a couple of things that still drive us nuts. Like, how do you get the image to show in the “Drag Album — Art Here” area under Selected Song? LeShow from KCRW gets their picture there most, but not all, of time. We have the same RSS extensions that we see coming from KCRW but we can’t get our image in place. Not that Roger has a “Drag Album” ;->

Podcasterconpodcasterconpodcastercon
Where: 116 Murphey Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
When: Saturday, January 7, 2006 11am – 4pm

Napoleon Byars on O’Reilly Factor

When Napoleon Byars retired from a long career as a Public Affairs Officer in the military, he didn’t imagine that he be raked over the coals on TV for advocating that both the military and the press have important but different jobs and that we need to be well served by both. But last night this on air and on the O’Reilly site:

Talking Points Memo & Top Story
Mainstream media & the terror war
Guest: Journalism professor Napoleon Byars

“Today The New York Times ran a story pinpointing countries in Europe that have allowed CIA planes to land on their soil in ongoing operations after 9/11. That story gives America’s enemies information and it could encourage Al Qaeda to attack the countries that helped the USA. That’s speculative, but there’s no question European countries are under pressure not to help the CIA. Does that help you and your family? If the world will not cooperate with the Central Intelligence Agency, doesn’t that make it easier for terrorists to operate? Of course it does. This never would have happened during World War II; Franklin Roosevelt created an office of censorship in 1941 and pressure was put on American news organizations not to publish information ‘that the enemy might be interested in.’ Today we’re fighting World War III, but every day the American press puts forth information the enemy might be interested in. Now this is very difficult territory. The American public has a right to know how the Bush administration is waging the war on terror. But there comes a point when the media has to decide if the information they are disseminating is going to damage the war effort. We are appealing to the American press to help fight the terrorists rather than to use the conflict to promote a political point of view. Let’s do what’s good for the country; is that too much to ask?”

UNC Journalism professor Napoleon Byars had a different perspective. “I think they both have a job, the media and the military. Let’s face it, the American public is better served, I think, when it gets information and it can make its own choices about how the war is going.” The Factor said that the media could certainly draw a line with its reporting. “CIA landings pinpointed by The New York Times? I don’t mind any exposition on policy, but on tactics and pinpointing what the CIA, where they’re going, I think that puts us all in grave danger.”

Monks Make My Day

In a day of strange visitors to town, it was good to get down to University Mall and to Tyndall Galleries to see the monks mash their magnificent mandala. After the mashing, the mandala sand was swept into a vessel and carried across to Booker Creek. There was a nice collection of spirited kids kicking leaves and chasing each other as we walked along with the monks their cymbals clashing and the monks themselves chanting. Once at the bridge over the creek, we paused. The chanting continued for a while. Then the sand was dumped in the creek., returned to the earth. Sally took pictures.
Ruby’s pictures taken in 2003 at the Temple Ball in Carrboro are of the same monks that we saw today.
Sylvia and Erica took these great pictures of the monks visit to Tyndall Galleries in January 2004 on Jane’s Birthday.

Google Map overestimates OBX trip time

With the blazing new roads that now take us to the Lone Cedar Restaurant at legal speeds of up to 70 mph, the trip out to Ocracoke is a much faster one than advertized. Of course the reduced ferry schedule nearly makes up for the time savings. We made it to the Ocracoke – Hatteras ferry at 4 past 7 am this morning. In time to see the ferry round the end of the island. The next ferry was at 8 am. Luckily the friendly station mistress was generous enough to share some of her coffee and some talk.
We still made it to Chapel Hill in record (for us) time and in time for Tucker to get to his afternoon meeting.

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