music

Plotz steps in some Aggie Poo

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I was listening to the Slate Magazine Political Gabfest: The Never Alone edition as I do every week.  Their third topic (30:00) was the affirmative action case brought by Abigail Fisher against The University of Texas and race-based admissions policies being accepted by the Supreme Court.

At some point in to it (38:00) David Plotz supports the policy of automatic admission to the university by the top 10% of graduating high school students (in the state) as a nice alternative mechanism to obtaining diversity.  The truth of the matter is the 10% isn’t as automatic as it was in the 80s, and the 10% policy has been around for a long time – though I’m not sure if it predates affirmative action laws.

“The 10% idea, taking the top 10% of a class, is a really appealing one. … I presume that at Texas A&M, which is sort of second tier, maybe it’s the top 20% or something. …”

A a child of two UT alumni, and the 4th generation graduate of the UT, I laughed heartily at that one.  It’s been a few decades since I’ve had to deal with college admissions, but I recall their policies being relatively the same (I was accepted by both).  I can’t  wait to hear if John’s inbox filled up with letters from Aggies.

Then Plotz turns around and calls the top 10% of the class “ten percenters” which is generally a term for people who don’t put in more than 10% effort.  And it of course make Frank Black‘s voice stream through my brain singing about a slacker soda jerk:

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Summertime Music

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I was listening to NPR’s All Songs Considered and it reminded me of a particular summer and the music that came with it.  In 1986 I was a sophomore in college and took a job at Mo Ranch.  Which is past Hunt, Texas – which you might otherwise think was the last thing on Earth if you were driving off the end.

We had 16 or so summer staff living in one large cabin.  I was working maintenance, groundskeeping, and life guard.  The schedule was: wake up, eat breakfast, labor harder than i ever have (leaving me at 165 lbs.), lunch, half the time: labor in the afternoon, the other half life guard, dinner, kill 6 hours before midnight and bed time.  We had no chaperones or house rules, we were all college kids able to patrol ourselves.  Yes, I could write a whole book about that summer, pre WWW, pre cell phone.  But for now, just the music.

I often spent time in a truck with one of the regular maintenance workers, i forget his name. [Edit: after chatting with a friend from that summer, we’ve decided: Richard.]  He also often spent time in the evenings at the low water crossings with us.  Almost every night included lots of beer, sometimes with a claw foot bath tub full of ice.  Usually with us hanging out in the water.  (We ran the water moccasins out the first week.)  Infrequently, I and one or two others would end up at his house.  He had a single cassette tape that had two albums on in, depending on mood it was on one side or the other.

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KTRU’s Passing Will Mark the End of the End

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Radio in Houston has been going downhill for decades.  And when I say radio, I mostly mean music radio.  I still use the radio to listen to news, or the odd Astros game (though I stopped tuning to 740 AM because I would find myself so disgusted by its content on off-sporting hours).

KTRU is the only radio station I will tune in to listen to music anymore.  It hasn’t been a lot of late, but it’s comfortable knowing it’s there.  Student run, student programmed, and with a huge broadcast area, I hope it’s a beacon to non-conformist youth throughout the region.

That will all change soon.  The news of University of Houston purchasing the transmitter from Rice University leaked out last week when UH had to approve the “up to $10M funding” to purchase it.  The actually sale cost has been reported as $9.5M.  You would have thought their would be an announcement or some discussion over on the Rice campus before this happened.  The lack of discussion about the decision is the biggest punch in the gut.

In a day, the Save KTRU site popped up, and today is their first protest.  I saw a lot of student protests at The University of Texas in the late 80’s, but I don’t remember any of them getting what they wanted.  I don’t think this sale will be stopped either.

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