Author: Shawn K. Quinn

…and back up again

My apologies for the recent downtime and delay of the posts I had planned to make. The blog (along with my other sites) may go down again briefly before the end of the month but I should have everything stable by March.

Hopefully I’ll have time to make at least one or two brief posts tomorrow while I have Internet access. The now overdue wrap-up post about the WordCamp Houston scholarship (which has now been awarded) is still on the agenda, but I may not finish it until the middle of the month.

I had also planned originally to weigh in on the Sandy Hook shooting; since that tragic event, there has been another shooting incident right here in Houston at Lone Star College, which primarily due to its timing also made national headlines. Both the shooting and its resultant press coverage do affect my viewpoint, and indeed the press coverage of what ordinarily would not make national headlines may be worth a separate post in and of itself. I haven’t decided how I’m going to approach this, I may do a multi-part series or something.

I do plan to return to a somewhat regular posting schedule. I’m not happy about the circumstances which have led to not being able to even keep my sites online; indeed, that’s been the least of my problems until recently.

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and holiday shopping

I’m not going to cite a specific news article for this post, because the news on this one is rather widespread and should easily be found. There has been a huge controversy over the past couple of weeks about retailers starting their Black Friday sales as early as 8pm Thanksgiving Day, effectively cutting into their employees’ Thanksgiving dinner time and complicating any travel plans they may have had to visit family in other cities.

This wouldn’t be so bad except for one thing. I, personally, have noticed a trend in recent years for seasonal merchandise to be out earlier and earlier. The Halloween season starts not all that long after Labor Day in September, and the Christmas/Yule merchandise is already out the first week of November. I’m all for marketing, in general, but it’s no secret that retailers profit handily during the Christmas/Yule shopping season and the greed inherent in promoting the season a whole two months in advance is quite palpable.

It comes down to basic economics. The retailers will not start Black “Friday” sales as far back as Thursday evening, or even Friday at midnight, if the demand isn’t there. It only takes one time for a retailer’s management to get burned by unnecessary labor costs on top of the headache of finding employees willing to blow off their Thanksgiving dinner to work (which, even in retail, is not quite as easy as it sounds), to realize they made a mistake. Hitting a retailer’s bottom line will make a much more profound and meaningful statement than a petition ever will. On the other hand, as long as there are enough people attending the early Black “Friday” sales the evening of Thanksgiving Day, they’ll be here to stay. Again, it’s all about supply and demand.

Brief note re: WordCamp Houston scholarship

For those that missed it, nominations are open for the WordCamp Houston scholarship per this post to wordcamphouston.com. That post also contains the link to apply for the scholarship if you qualify. This has been a long time coming and I regret that it took so long for me to get this post up to help spread the word. Anyway, nominations will remain open until December 1, so there’s still plenty of time both to apply and to spread the word to any interested students.

I am aware of the discrepancy between the announced amount of $2,500 versus the $3,000+ figure from Ms. Danna’s speech on video in 2010, and have inquired as to what’s going on. I thought about it for a while and to me, $500 is enough of a discrepancy that it needs to be accounted for, and I also feel it’s not right for the community to be left in the dark. Were it, say, $100 or so, it’d be a different story. I’ll follow up with what I find out in a final followup post on the topic slated for 2013 January.

What does it mean to be a Boy Scout in 2012?

I can’t believe some of the things I’m reading about the Boy Scouts in recent days. I am not a former Scout myself, though I was a short-time member of what at the time known as the Sea Explorers (now Sea Scouts). However, I think the issues at hand affect us all and the way they are being handled put a huge black mark on the entire Scout movement in the US.

First, this article about sex abuse involving Boy Scout troop leaders in Sonoma County. Quoted in part below:

An Oregon court made public Thursday thousands of pages of confidential records compiled by the Boy Scouts on sex-abuse allegations involving more than 1,200 adult leaders from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. The database, a blacklist known internally as the “perversion files,” contains dossiers on six alleged molesters on the North Coast — four in Sonoma County and two in Mendocino County.

[…]

“It’s a double whammy: First that this happened, and then that nothing was done about it,” said Cheney, a deputy with 22 years at the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

The story goes on to detail what has been done to keep this from happening again. I’d certainly like to know why someone sat on this for as long as they did. We, the people of decent society, have the right to timely justice.

And then, Ryan Anderssen being denied the Eagle Scout award he earned fair and square, simply because he is gay. Ryan rejoined scouting after dropping out due to bullying due to his sexual orientation. Leaders of his troop encouraged him to come back. And now that he does, it’s the adults in effect doing the bullying by refusing to approve his Eagle Scout award.

This is nothing short of outrageous, and is clearly un-Scout-like and un-American on the part of the local troop and Boy Scouts of America. The BSA enjoys a unique status as one of the few Title 36 Federally chartered organizations. The fact that the BSA’s spokesperson cited a breach of “Duty to God” on Ryan’s part (a stretch at best, and a creative interpretation of the Bible at worst), may very well push the boundaries of church and state. I am disgusted that an organization which claims to be about establishing character in our nation’s youth would discriminate in this fashion. I also believe we don’t need to reference a specific religion to teach values; to keep Title 36 status, the BSA should be required to strike out all references to God and/or the Bible and replace them with what they really mean to say.

As a sidenote, Little League Baseball is also Title 36. If they tried the same thing, the cries of outrage would be deafening from coast to coast. So why is the BSA getting away with it?

Does a professional have to be paid to have credibility?

After my recent election-related post, the Houston Chronicle published a piece regarding the Precinct 1 Constable election. And I couldn’t help but notice this quote:

“We don’t need a volunteer running the constable’s office,” [Danna] said. “We need a full-time, professional peace officer, and that’s what I’ve been for 18 years.'”

The reference here is to Alan Rosen’s status as a reserve officer, which is a volunteer position. The implication is that Alan is less qualified simply because he is a volunteer, not being paid for his current job. As someone with a lengthy volunteer history, I find the implication a bit offensive; one can take pride in one’s work and do it in a professional manner, even if not being paid for it.

I originally was not going to bring this up, but it is worth noting that Mr. Danna’s daughter and the treasurer of his campaign, Monica Danna, was the lead organizer of WordCamp Houston 2010 and in fact was just mentioned in this blog not too long ago for her dubious handling of the proceeds from that event, which were to be awarded as a college scholarship. The difference between my criticism of Ms. Danna as an organizer and Mr. Danna’s attack of Alan Rosen, however, is that my criticism was based on an evaluation of the merits of Ms. Danna’s performance and the facts I had available at the time. I further believe that Mr. Danna could and should have made a better choice for the treasurer of his campaign.

Originally, my criticism of Ms. Danna’s handling of the WordCamp Houston proceeds was based on the assumption that she and the other organizers simply sat on the funds without looking for a student for the scholarship to be awarded to. I have since learned that there was an attempt to publicize the search for a student to award the scholarship so, but if I was looking for this and never saw it, I question whether or not it happened. My formal inquiry as to where and when this was publicized has yet to be answered, and may have been ignored. (I will follow up on these later developments in more detail in a later post, but I suspect whichever organizer(s) ultimately received the inquiry may be intentionally withholding answers until after the election, realizing full well it’s relevant to political commentary. I’m not going to fall for that, and any publicist with the experience level comparable to that of Ms. Danna should know better than to do that.)

If Monica Danna cannot handle simple publicity better than a rookie flack, she has no business running an event like WordCamp Houston or the treasury of a political campaign, even if it is her father’s.

If Joe Danna lacks the good judgment to not attack his opponent based merely on whether that opponent’s current job is paying, he has no business being the leader of a law enforcement agency, and dare I say it, may well have no business even carrying a badge and a gun himself.

And my response to Mr. Danna’s tweet, stating in part: “Pct. 1 needs a law enforcement professional; NOT a volunteer/investor”? It reads as follows: Precinct 1 needs a law enforcement professional, not a politician. Alan Rosen is a law enforcement professional; Joe Danna is a politician, and not even that great of a politician at that.