Evan Couzo

 

Couzo called me from the road the other day. He was driving from North Carolina (where he’s going to school now) back to Mississippi, because through some friend working for the Obama campaign he lucked into a ticket to the first debate. As far as I know, no other friend or acquaintance from Mississippi was able to get in. He told me he’d be wearing a blue Carolina shirt, as if I’d be able to see him! Ha!

Staring into the camera from the front row, lower right corner. (A few more screen grabs at flickr.)

September 27, 2008 · Moments, Photos · 1 comment

O brave new world

Yesterday, Michele remarked that the Clarion Ledger was following her tweets, and that this creeped her out. I’m one of the other 364 people currently being followed by the Jackson paper — I’m also tailed by Mississippi Public Broadcasting, on twitter and flickr, and by nearly 20 people on twitter who don’t know me (dozens on flickr) and who I must assume were interested just because they see I’m in Jackson or that I am a teacher here. I responded to Michele to say that I’m not much bothered. Maybe it’s somewhat generational: I’m probably among the oldest people who don’t remember not having at least a family email address (growing up in a fairly tech-y family in a fairly tech-y region, I remember playing on Prodigy and The WELL before the Web was invented, and when I had fewer years than fingers). In any case, if I don’t specifically and explicitly elect for privacy, I don’t expect that I have any, and I’m not particularly concerned with what the lurkers are doing. I lurk too, sometimes.

This subject came up yesterday. This morning, in the middle of final exams, the fire alarm went off, I instructed my students to leave their tests on their desks, and we marched outside. From the field, at 9:36, I tweeted:

middle of the exam, fire alarm, fire trucks, chaos. Recess on the field. Kids fighting.

Some time later (after we returned to class and resumed testing — before my administration had communicated to faculty what had happened) I saw that Ben had tweeted a reference to the Clarion Ledger, which, at 10:05, had posted maybe 100 words, including a quotation from the fire investigator.

I don’t doubt that in the 30 or 35 minutes from fire alarm to Clarion Ledger posting, people at the newspaper received more word than just mine; but mine was available to them, and they were allegedly listening.

It occurs to me in light of this that school districts will inevitably attempt to forbid the use of cellphones by teachers, and other nervous or inept employers will do likewise, and it may ultimately be part of a first amendment decision.

May 20, 2008 · Moments, Teachering, Technology, Twitter · 2 comments

Driving home late from Quitman County

A glow splattered green iridescent on my windshield, and glowed for seconds still. (We don’t have that where I’m from.) It was beautiful.

May 2, 2006 · Moments, The South · (No comments)

‘Shots fired’ in Sardis came from police dept.

By Jason C. Mattox
(from the Panolian)

A shooting inside the Sardis Police Department Saturday night left one officer injured, Mayor Alvis ‘Rusty’ Dye said.

According to the mayor, officer Robert Turner was shot in the foot when a shotgun being unloaded by officer Daryl House went off.

“They were in the back of the department unloading the gun,” he said. “When the gun went off, some of the pellets ricocheted and hit Turner in the foot.”

Dye said Turner was treated for the gunshot wound at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Oxford. He is now recovering at his home in the city.

“The Panola County Sheriff’s Department investigated the matter and determined the shooting was accidental,” he said. “Officer House will return to duty today (Monday) and will not be placed on administrative leave.”

[I clipped this article and had it sitting on my desk at school. A student saw it and said, "Shots fired! I hope it wasn't Daryl House!" Upon seeing that it was, he said, "That the second person he done shot!"]

November 10, 2005 · Culture, Moments, The South · 1 comment

Chappelle, Continued

So it was Friday the 1st, the afternoon after the infamous Chappelle sighting on the Square, and el Molino and I were sitting in the cigar shop downtown, having a smoke and watching The Royal Tenenbaums on the shop’s big screen. Then Dave Chappelle walks in.

Not many people had been in the cigar shop in the last hour, but of course a small crowd of men with cellphones enters a few paces behind Chappelle, suppressing grins and feigning some interest in cigars. The talk of the town himself walks swiftly and with purpose, is hawked some cigars by the proprietor, and walks out the door craning his head toward Dave Molina and myself to say something like, “Take it easy, fellas.”

Not being the sort of men to defy such an injunction from the likes of Dave Chappelle, we took it easy for the remainder of the day.

Some hours later, at a few minutes from eight, as we walked toward the Ford Center to see the Oxford Shakespeare Festival present The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged), Dave notices Mr. Chappelle walking ahead of us. He enters the building with a pretty woman (his wife, I think), sees the show, and leaves swiftly at the intermission; the two return as the second half begins, however, so they were presumably just hiding out in their car. When the show ended the lady walked outside talking on her cellphone, and Chappelle remained in the building for reasons I do not know.

July 2, 2005 · Moments · (No comments)

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