Scumbag, maybe, but not for taking flood pictures

Most of what follows is essentially true.

My old friend Freddie Wickham called me this morning. “I hear you had some bad flooding there,” he said. “How you doin’?”

We’re fine in my neighborhood, I told him. We were very fortunate.

“Count your blessings, Mr. Smith,” he said, quoting our fourth grade teacher, Sister Mary Holycard. I laughed, recalling her advice for almost all occasions.

I count them daily, Sister, I said.

“I also saw your Tweeter thing about not needing no stinking pain pills,” he said. “What’s that about?”

Twitter, Freddie. Not Tweeter. I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing.

“Kids,” he said. “My kids got me into it. Actually, their kids got them into it and they made me try it so they don’t have to call me on the phone. Tweeter tells me what they’re doing. I’ve been following your ‘tweets’ under an assumed name. So what’s with the pain pills?”

I really don’t need them, I told him. I had some minor abdominable surgery a couple of days ago and they told me I’d want these pain pills so the wife picked them up for me and I’m not having any pain. She accused me of flirting with the nurses.

“You probably were flirting with the nurses,” he said.

Well, maybe a little….

“Hey, were you in the hospital that was flooded a couple of weeks ago? Mercy, was it?”

I assured him it was. Everything was nice and clean and smelling fresh, and the fillet knife, er, scalpel that the nice doctor used on me seemed to have been honed specially for the occasion. I have three holes in my belly to show for it, not that anyone would want me to actually show them.

“They must have done a super job cleaning that place up so fast,” Freddie said. I allowed as how it was nothing short of magnificent, but that I was disappointed about not getting to blog through the operation. The anesleepiologist thought it would be best to knock me out entirely and I didn’t argue with him.

Freddie’s voice took on a more serious tone. “I saw where some people are trying to profit off the flooding. Scumbags! Low-lifes! Or is it low-lives?”

Yeah, some people were arrested for allegedly scamming FEMA out of some money, and there were a few cases of what might be called looting.

“And then all those people gawking and taking pictures of wrecked houses and businesses and so on. What a lack of respect. They have no compassion for people’s suffering? What a bunch of scumbags.”

Hold on there, Freddie. I took some pictures. I even sold one to a magazine, with a little story about how some banks were damaged. Does that make me a profiteering scumbag?

“Well….”

I’m trying to make a living here, my old friend. And I confess to gawking and even taking pictures while filling sandbags. Multi-tasking, you know. I don’t think it’s fair to call anyone a scumbag just because they’re taking pictures.

“OK, you’re right,” Freddie said. “You’re not a scumbag just because you were taking pictures.”

Well, thank you, Freddie.

“But you’re still a scumbag.”

I don’t think I ever said I wasn’t, Freddie.

Getting away for a few days, into thinner air

The Mrs. and I count ourselves most fortunate to have been able to go through with our long-planned cycling getaway to Summit County, Colo., for the past several days, during which:

• We read with interest a story in the local newspaper about a Marion, Iowa, couple who were spending some time with friends in Vail. (As wide as the river got, maybe it did seem to some like Marion is just across the Cedar River from Cedar Rapids…. OK, while the reporter may have missed on the geography a bit, the story seemed very familiar.)
• We read another story about an Aspen woman who wants a separate park there just for small doggies like hers so the big doggies won’t bother them. (Is the air maybe getting a little too thin out there? Someone official was actually looking for suitable properties while another said the little doggie’s owner should be caged.)
• We mourned the loss of the great George Carlin and recited the “7 Words” in his honor. (Now that I think about it, that was me and a friend saying the Forbidden Seven; I don’t think the Mrs. has them memorized as well as I do, at least not in the right order.)
• The air seemed a little more substantial and easier to breathe than it was at this time last year at 9,092 feet. Maybe it was just my imagination.
• We had more fun than felt quite right at times.

More about survivor guilt next time maybe.

Pedal on.

Flood will test viability of small Cedar Rapids businesses

Two community banks within four blocks of each other in downtown Cedar Rapids had dramatically different experiences during the devastating flood that reached its peak just about a week ago. Guaranty Bank & Trust, at the intersection of 3rd Avenue and 3rd Street, had nearly three feet of water on the first floor and had not been able to access the safe deposit vault. Thursday afternoon, upstairs tenants were allowed in but given protective masks and booties at a makeshift card table reception desk just inside the Third Street entrance. They had to show IDs to get in. Ruined furniture, wallboard and other debris continued to pile up outside under the watchful eyes of silent “Mr. Guarco.”

Two blocks north and two blocks east (not to mention a good many feet higher in elevation), Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust sat high and dry. Other than a loss of power and an evacuation order that temporarily closed the doors and moved personnel to a Council Street branch, the much younger bank dodged the destruction.

After conversations with executives of both banks today, I’m left sadly imagining a much different city here in the coming weeks, months and years. The small business community, in particular, may be in for a major shakeout, although the extent of the shakeout is no more predictable today than the record-setting crest was 10 days ago.

The banks, of course, must operate in a safe and sound manner to avoid regulatory action. At the same time, the feds will likely encourage them to “work with” borrowers as other banks and lenders were encouraged to do in the wake of Katrina and other catastrophes. Small businesses that were highly leveraged may have a hard time getting new loans, let alone paying off existing debt.

Said one banker: “We want to do everything that we can, but we also have to think about what’s best for the business, as well. If we think they’re a viable business, we’re going to do everything that we can to help.”

Recovering from a natural disaster isn’t always a test of will, as the optimistic sound bites of some officials would seem to have it. Of course, the community will survive. We’ll be back, better than ever, as some like to say.

Just keep in mind that “we” doesn’t actually mean everybody. It doesn’t mean “all of us.” It can’t. That’s what happens in a disaster; not everyone survives. For many small businesses, and maybe some bigger ones, it will come down to that test of viability.

Will gets you so far. Cash flow keeps you going.

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Flooding, escapes from reality, angry motorists

Amid the disastrous flooding here in Cedar Rapids, life incongruously goes on in many ways, especially for those of us whose neighborhoods have been spared. We can pretty easily conserve water and we can find much more active ways to help those who are real victims. We can even take some time out for a bike ride or other exercise. We can go to a movie or out to dinner, and we readily understand why the restaurant serves the food on paper plates and why the movie theater has portable toilets outside to reduce water use in the restrooms. Devastation is only a couple of miles away.

It was harder to understand why so many more motorists than usual were so overtly hostile as we bicycled to Mount Vernon and back yesterday just to get out of the city for a little while. One can only guess that it was unfortunate coincidence, or maybe the result of understandably increased stress in the atmosphere, that made so many so angry at us. We can be understanding to a point, but when their anger boils over into dangerous driving and passing us within a couple of feet, we have trouble remaining polite.

For the record, such record as might exist, one of the angry motorists was driving a red Toyota Tundra pickup truck with IA plate number 785TKT (Linn County). It would not be a surprise to read about this driver in the newspaper someday as a prime suspect in some awful hit-and-run accident that leaves bright red paint on some mangled bicycle. Keep an eye out for him and stay out of his way. That was the only plate number I could get. There should have been others.

Coincidentally, this morning the Cedar Rapids Gazette published a guest column I submitted a week or so ago: Long road to C.R. becoming bicycle friendly. You can read it in the e-edition (if you log in first, but it’s free), or you can go here to read it if you like: http://bjsmith.us/essays.html.

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Cycle in good times and bad

Mark Wyatt noted on his Iowa Bike Blog that flood conditions prompted the University of Iowa to suggest walking or bicycling to help alleviate traffic problems. Seems like a great idea, as long as the motorists who are out and about do their part to avoid colliding with the walkers and cyclists.

Here’s to promoting those venerable old forms of transportation even in non-emergency, non-flood situations.

Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition that Mark so ably executive directs. Not that I see anything controversial about promoting bicycling, but I thought I’d mention it. Anybody see a reason not to ride a bicycle to work or class? (Just stay off of I-80 and I-380, which should go without saying. See article links just below.)

P.S. I may return to the “chaos” and social media discussion at some point. Then again, maybe not.

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Followed by amazon — and some motorists would like to kill me

Image by jmtimages via Flickr

I’ve been caught up in the clutter again somehow. Herewith some notes about recent explorations:

A few weeks ago I started following Barack Obama on twitter and he quickly turned right around, busy as he was, and started following me. I thought that was kind of cool, being followed by quite possibly the next POTUS. I followed a few friends and relations, too, then quick twittering for a while. Tonight, I decided to follow a few cedarrapidians whose descriptions sounded interesting in one way or another and I sat back to see what would happen.

Within 30 minutes I was being followed by amazon_com for some reason. Curious, I bit, at least enough to see who else might be on their list (2,427 stalkees) and how many were following amazon_com in return (43). Not wanting to be #44 getting ads every day, I decided to block this following thing, but not until I checked to see what it wanted me to buy: A bunch of books and DVDs to help me celebrate Gay Pride Month. Um, does amazon_com know something I don’t?

I also spent some time searching through facebook to see what I could learn about banks and credit unions and how they’re using or trying to use social media. (MySpace is next in that particular quest for knowledge.) Not many of them are doing anything, as it turns out, other than posting their URLs. There are probably more anti-Bank-of-America groups and pages than there are groups/pages set up by banks themselves.

Finally, I set up a “Bike Lane Friday” group in facebook (ditto in MySpace) and started joining other cycling-related groups to see if there might be some cross-pollination benefits. (It’s possible I’ve been reading too much about viral marketing lately, or simply have too much time on my hands. Jury is still out.) I didn’t keep an actual count, but it’s safe to say the cycling advocates are way, way outnumbered by the “keep that bicycle out of my way or I’ll run you over, jerk” types. Scary people are on the loose out there driving big cars and SUVs at high speeds. Some not only want cyclists off the roads, they would like us dead.

No doubt they would cheer at the sight of this from Fox News. Thanks to the Riletts for sending it along to me.

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Getting friendly with cycling

Image via Wikipedia

Speaking of bicycling, Rick Smith reports in his Eye on the Island blog that Cedar Rapids wants to become more friendly to it. Worthy goal, not easily accomplished. The League of American Bicyclists takes its “Bicycle Friendly Community” designation pretty seriously, as it should. A city doesn’t get that rating easily and without some serious commitment.

Anyone and everyone in the cycling community should get behind this effort and help make it happen. There are obvious benefits for cyclists, but there are benefits for the rest of the citizenry, too, in terms of improved image that attracts businesses, jobs and people. A quick look at some of the “best places to live” stories that come out now and then will show that many of the best places to live are friendly to cycling. (The names Portland, Fort Collins and Madison, WI, come up a lot.) To paraphrase Lance Armstrong’s book title, it’s not just about bicycling. Being bicycle-friendly is one highly visible sign that a community is vibrant and interested in quality of life issues.

Give the city leadership a yellow jersey if they can get this done. They’ll need help from some cyclists.

Pedal on.

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In search of cycling photos and Danica Patrick

Image via Wikipedia

Straying for a bit from my original intent in setting up this blog (I seemed to be the only one in my “community” who didn’t have a blog at the time), I thought I would throw a few syllables out about one of my favorite activities — bicycling.

Among other reasons, I want to see what Zemanta will suggest for illustrations and related articles. Z-ta, as I’ve seen it called somewhere, relies heavily on Wikipedia for its “Gallery” of photos and graphics. (If I had the time right now, I would investigate to find out just who the hell are the Sorell twins and what that shower scene is all about and why are they on Wikipedia.) A casual survey of the illustrations Z-ta suggests seems to indicate that there is a dearth of freely available artwork out there in the Wild World Web. Most of them seem to be labeled something like “license unknown, so go check it for yourself” and the indefinite “may be fair use” but then again may not be.

So far in the writing of this post, Z-ta has suggested not a single picture of a bicycle but a healthy assortment of articles and bloggings about Zemanta. Of about 50 suggestions for me in the Gallery so far, I can figure out the connection between my post and only three or four of the pictures.

Last try for the night, since she represents the company (Go-Daddy) that powers my websites: Z-ta, show me a picture (one that I can use without getting sued and without checking myself) of Danica Patrick! (Clicking for an update….)

Bingo! If you squint real hard you can see her behind the wheel (I think). And a few bicycles finally showed up, too!

More about bicycling another time, maybe. Pedal on.

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Still more on challenges for journalists, journalism

Interesting report on a speech by Joshua Micah Marshall, founder of TalkingPointsMemo (TPM). I came across it in The Huffington Post by blogger Ari Melber, so it’s something like 3rd-blog from the source (is there a real blogger term for that?).

read more | digg story

It’s pertinent to discussion of community-augmented content, and a good reminder that any traditional journalist who isn’t already nervous or getting up to speed on how journalism is evolving (or morphing, mutating — pick your own term) certainly should be.

This changing world brings to mind a scene from the film “Sneakers,” in which bad guy Cosmo (Ben Kingsley) explains the new facts of life to Martin Bishop (Robert Redford). I can’t swear that the quote is accurate, but here’s how I’ve found it reconstructed in various web sources.

“There’s a war out there, old friend. … It’s about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think…. It’s all about the information, Marty!”

The thing is, nobody controls the information. Someone may be able to organize some of it to increase its usefulness and value, but from here it looks like it’s way, way, way beyond control.

Challenges in community-augmented content

Image via Wikipedia

I read an article today on The Atlantic Online (”Weni, Widi, Wiki” by Wayne Curtis, read more below) about visiting Seattle using only “the hive mind of the Internet” for travel information. The writer found, as one might expect, many good, useful tips along with a good bit of information that was incorrect or out of date.

The article graphically (OK, well, digitally) illustrates the daunting challenge of getting maximum value from community-augmented content in a Local Information Utility (or Local Information User Community, as some might call it). Who will check it and keep it up to date so users don’t have to sort through all the debris?

Well, I guess you can read the rest yourself if you like. Gotta go.

read more | digg story