School sports and luxuries

They're called "Extra-Curricular" sports for a reason. The bankrupt Minneapolis Star-Tribune has been stirring up trouble with an article:

School sports now a Minnesota luxury?

"Cut from the team" means something different in these economic times. Extracurricular activities are hurting.

The economic crunch is coming to high school sports.

Faced with budget problems, some schools are raising fees while cutting back on equipment, transportation and other expenses. Others are voluntarily cutting back on the number of games their teams play.

In early February, the Minnesota State High School League could decide to make reduced schedules mandatory starting in the 2009-10 school year as a way to save money.

Administrators use words like "bleak" and "troubling" to describe the outlook for high school activities....

My wife disagrees with me vehemently on the role of sports in school. She is quiet persuasive. For kids that are not on the Honor Role, eligibility for sports can be an incentive to sit through the drudgery of a public school education. And truth be told, yes, I do agree that rising activity fees means it can be very difficult for middle class kids to participate throughout the year. My wife's kids play softball, baseball, basketball, and football; they participate in cheer leading and choir. On top of their hefty activity fees, parents are expected to pay to get into games and concerts (yes, they charge for high school and junior high choir concerts, too).

I also agree: a well-rounded education requires a broad exposure to the arts and sciences in addition to core academics. I am a long-time participant and advocate of Scouting for youth. It is a game with a purpose. However, it would never occur to me to ask the taxpayers of Minnesota to help pay for our Scouting adventure.

Scouting isn't cheap, but there is value in Scouting and a Scout is Thrifty. We try to work with families to give our young men the opportunity to earn their way. We sell popcorn and wreaths. We work during the County Fair. Our parents dig deep to send their own sons to summer camp each year and the community supports our Council programs with Friends of Scouting.

In difficult times, we may have to say No. Sorry, not this year. I would love to send our Scout to the centennial National Jamboree next year. That's not likely to happen no matter how much popcorn he sells. In times like these, we need to work harder, plan better, save more. Get back to basics. Do your best.

(Re-posted from JohnScout 2.0)

Blogger Toolbox: 100+ Tools and Themes

Here's a Mashable post on Blogger.com toys. Mostly themes, some tools.

WordPress receives a lot of love from the blogging community, but Blogger.com is still a perfectly viable
blogging platform for the majority of people.

In an effort to help those devoted Blogger users, we’ve gathered up the best of our lists about tools,
themes and shortcuts for your preferred platform. Take a look through and you are sure to find something that will help you, even if you didn’t know you were looking for it!

Blogger Toolbox: 100+ Tools and Themes

So I clicked the Blog This link there, and got into a much bigger editing window. I like this. I'm also frustrated by the limited formatting options up in the window. Now if I knew HTML coding, that would be no problem. But I'm on a coffee break, and mostly this post is a bookmark to come back and read this later. So ta ta for now.

A River, Young Men, and Fire

Gapers Block Book Club blog out of Chicago highlights Norman Maclean today—specifically his book, A River Runs Through It. You might remember a little Robert Redford film was based on it.

If I didn't dislike Redford's politics so much, this would be my favorite movie of all time. I have tried to disassociate the movie from the men, and the screeplay from the story.
When I lived in Bozeman, Montana, I met some of the folks who worked behind the scenes and visited shooting locations. I tried to imagine the Rev. Maclean preaching behind the same pulpit at First Presbyterian Church in Bozeman many years ago.

Never took.

We only have one chance to make a first impression. My first impression of A River Runs Through It originated in the movie, not the story. I visualize an actor, not a writer and professor. I see the Gallatin River, not the Big Blackfoot. I see Hollywood under the Big Sky.

I have the opposite experience with Maclean's also excellent book Young Men and Fire. A friend who had visited Seeley Lake told me about the event and recommended the read. I have yet to visit Mann Gulch myself. Yet I can visualize the location in my mind like I lived there.

Someday somebody will put this story on film. There's a script in circulation. They will probably shoot in Canada or Southern California because they have no respect for the role of Place in our lives. The images will blur, but not for me. And not for you if you go read the book now.
Friends don't let friends see movies before they've read the book.

In My Goggle Library: A River Runs Through It Young Men and Fire

Rural Broadband, the Stimuli, and You

Infonaut Ann Treacy does a blog at Blandin on Broadband, focusing on broadband use, access and trends as a project of Minnesota’s Blandin Foundation. She had an interesting post this weekend on including rural broadband projects in President-elect Barack H. Obama’s proposed economic stimulus package.

I have been interested in applications of broadband technology since I was in college, in particular when I worked for the now-defunct Center for the New West think tank in Denver. This makes it all the more ironic that I’m still mired on dial-up at home, but that is a post for a day to come.

The post brings in two other salient points.

• “broadband is all rural areas have seen or heard from Obama up to this point.” (ref. Daily Yonder)


• “we’re pouring more money into a solution that didn’t work the first time around” (ref. Public Knowledge)

I have personal issues with the stimulus packages we’ve seen last year and this; however, aside from that, on a professional level we should be concerned about larger issues present. Broadband is great, but it’s just a tool. We need broader rural development strategies. We also need much better research benchmarking economic development tools that work. You know that. I know that. It’s just not cheap nor easy to accomplish.

Treacy’s packing alot to think about into this focused, tightly-written blog. I suppose I ought to take notes.

-john shepard

(cross-posted at jcshepard.com: “it’s great that he mentioned rural and broadband”)

One other point on original post this morning that I missed, Art Brodsky at Public Knowledge uses the term "connectivity". This, to me, implies more than just "broadband". It better connects the use to the tool. Words have meanings, if we mean them or not.

Blogger v. WordPress

Evaluating weblog platforms.


Actually, I was signed into Google Reader and thought the gray bar across the top was WordPress, so here I am now on Blogger an hour later.... with another blog, and another other blog (JohnScout). Talk about a time sink! With so much clutter across the big wide web, the variety of options can be overwhelming.

• Basic tools--platforms, widgets, wedgies & wonderbar


• Presentation--style; does form follow function? go encyclopedic (everything and the kitchen sink) or zen simplicity.


• Purpose--and of course this last should be first. It's the "so what?" question. What is my purpose in undertaking this task? By what results will we judge success?? What time is lunch???

So OK. Let's play a bit. Try new things. Test the limits. I think maybe I'l make a quesadilla for lunch today instead of my usual Progresso.

-john

Howdy

John C. Shepard, AICP, is Development Planner at the Southwest Regional Development Commission in Slayton, Minnesota. He holds degrees in Urban & Regional Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Colorado at Denver.

Shepard has worked as a policy analyst, economic developer and land use planner in several states in the Midwest and Rocky Mountains. Currently a GOP Precinct Committeeman in Minnesota's First Congressional District, John is a Scoutmaster and enjoys camping, hiking and fly fishing.