The Alderdice household is a big fan of Jeff “Action” Woods, sportscaster extraordinaire, good pal, and just a generally great guy.

Jeff isn’t a fan of the fact that I’ve nicknamed him “Action” and petitioned him on several occasions to adopt the moniker on air.  Friends and gentle readers, I believe we can make that and more happen for old Jeffrey.

I sent myself an email reminder exactly one year ago so I wouldn’t forget about this. Nominations have begun for the 2010 Best of Bowling Green.  The contest recognizes favorite restaurants, stores, and individuals in the city of Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Most of all, I want to see Jeff “Action” Woods as a finalist for Category #104 — Best Local TV Personality.

Do you know who won this category last year?  Radar the Weather Dog.  I’m not even kidding.  A dog beat out a real-life human being for best local tv personality.  Had Jeff been nominated, this would not have happened.

Never again.

Here’s why I’m asking you to do this: Jeff has been one of my dearest friends since he helped me move into my dorm room sophomore year–when I didn’t even know him.  He was my roommate in college and suffered all manner of degradation at my hand.  For some reason, he even agreed to be a groomsman in my wedding.  He’s one of the nicest guys in the world, honestly.

I am asking all of my friends to participate in the nomination process.  There are lots of categories; however,you need only vote for 104. BEST LOCAL TV PERSONALITY. Please enter Jeff “Action” Woods in field number 104. You will have to cycle through a few pages to get to the page with this category.  It’s kind of annoying, I know, but there is no direct link for the page.

It’s that simple.  Please vote early and often.  To make the final voting round, Jeff must be one of the three vote-getters during the nomination phase.

Look how happy the little fella is in the photo below.  Imagine how happy he’ll be if he wins.

Before having Gatton Academy students in my life, I had never really heard of XKCD, the crudely drawn though almost always head-nod worthy bit of internet miscellany. Heck, Gatton Academy students even went so far as to stage an elaborate riff on one of its most famous cartoons. (Search “Justin Howell” on the page.)

It should come as no surprise, then, that this little jewel showed up in my Twitter feed this morning. What’s particularly funny is that this Venn-Diagram comes along just as WKU is planning and executing a major revamp of the main university website. Take a moment to study the cartoon diagram below and meet me after the jump.

University websites are generally terrible affairs thanks to the myriad interests that must be served and the quite literally thousands of pages of information found within those websites. Have a look at the current WKU homepage, which has been more or less the same for the past five years.

It’s all there, folks. Consider for a moment that 80% of the column space of the page is dedicated to extraneous information that serves very little purpose to an outsider. In may ways, I find I’m able to navigate the website because I’ve been doing so for the past several years. I think it would be extremely helpful to share the diagram with the folks in the Public Affairs office on campus. This is by no means something that is exclusive to WKU. I’d wager it’s a concern for 90% of higher education websites.

University websites are no longer placeholders on the Internet or simple news websites. They have to be everything to everyone, which is often the major cause of confusion and strife when it comes to managing the site. Creating a new website on this scale is a task that I do not envy. However, the state of Texas recently mandated that the University websites serve a much more important role: accessible information clearinghouse.

Texas House Bill 2504 (2009) includes several measures that mark higher education’s full transition into the information age. Under the law, state universities are required to post professors’ course syllabi, vitas, publications and salaries. Institutionally, cost of attendance and departmental budgets must also be easily available (defined as a searchable database no more than three clicks away from the university website homepage). In a time of calls for greater transparency in the use of public funds, the system seems somewhat innocuous. Most of this information is already viewable in one venue or another; however, objectors within faculty ranks insist the move is an attack on academic freedom.

Despite faculty resentment, ease of information is not a simple luxury among the current economy, it’s an outright necessity. While the Commonwealth of Kentucky may not be anywhere near close to mandating such a program, I think universities can take away some useful information about how to better serve their students not only in online classes but also on the homepage of their university website.

Yale University certainly needs very little help in getting students to apply. The prestigious Ivy League school is one of the nation’s most difficult schools to get into, after all.

That doesn’t mean their admissions office doesn’t know how to have fun. Hitting the internet over the past few days has been a 17-minute musical titled “That’s Why I Chose Yale.” The student-produced film has almost 118,000 at the time of posting.

Current students applying to college have grown up accustomed to individuals breaking into song and dance for no reason whatsoever. Think about it: High School Musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and the TV series Glee all rely heavily on bits of the old song and dance.

What’s particularly fun for forensicators is that the star of Yale’s YouTube sensation is Kobi Libii, a 2003 NFL National Finalist in Original Oratory. Check out Yale’s official YouTube channel to see the viral hit, or hop on over to NFLtv to see his final round speech titled “Spin Cycle.”

p.s. Don’t miss the cameo from NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams at the 6:50 mark.

It’s not the claim of opponents of the President’s healthcare reform efforts. Instead, it seems to be the allegorical underpinning of ABC’s reimagining of the early 1980s television miniseries V.

Anyone who has sat through an honors high school English class where they read George Orwell’s Animal Farm can attest to the power of achieving political commentary through the use of allegory. As it turns out, a pig is not always just a pig nor is a horse always just a horse. In the case of V, a story about an alien invasion is not just a sci-fi yarn about visitors from another planet.

An article from Slate this week poses the question “Is V a political allegory?”:

More than a few journalists and bloggers have remarked that it’s possible to read V as an allegory hostile to President Obama and sympathetic with the birthers and other nutcases who believe him to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The charismatic Visitors load up their “bandwagon” by “spreading hope.” In using their sophisticated iguana technology to provide free medical services, they promise “universal health care.” Indeed, if the show is to have the symbolic import that we expect from a science-fiction story, this is the only possible way to read V as a coherent text.

The original miniseries, which aired in 1983-84, did not seem to hide its message. The Visitors from the series were painted as Nazis, building upon a generation still very familiar with the ramifications of WWII and the Nazi occupation of Europe. Still entrenched in the Cold War, it had a resonate message for American audiences.

The Wikipedia entry for the series details it as such:

The story became a Nazi allegory, right down to the Swastika-like emblem used by the Visitors and their SS-like uniforms. There is a youth auxiliary movement called the “Friends of the Visitors” with obvious similarities to the Hitler Youth, and Visitor broadcasts mimic Nazi-era propaganda. The show’s portrayal of human interaction with the Visitors bears a striking resemblance to stories from Occupied Europe during World War II with some citizens choosing collaboration and others choosing to join underground resistance movements.

Where the Nazis persecuted primarily Jews, the Visitors were likewise depicted to persecute scientists, their families, and anyone associating with them. They also distribute propaganda in an effort to hide their true identity. Some of the main characters in the initial series were from a Jewish family and the grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, frequently commented on the events of the past again unfolding. Once they are in a position to do so, the Visitors later declare martial law to control the scientists (and resistance fighters) as well.

Before we get too caught up in things, it is important to note that only one episode of the series has aired. However, based on the events of that episode, the plot of the original series and teasers for upcoming events, it’s not too hard to guess where this thing is going. Don’t ask the producers, though, as they’ll play coy on the matter.

What is particularly unique about V is that this marks the first overt critique of the Obama administration in the mainstream media. We are all certainly aware of the back-and-forth between the White House and Fox News; however, one year into his presidency, it seems as though Obama is finally being examined with a less-than-favorable eye in Hollywood entertainment. The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel muses on some characteristics of the Visitors’ leader, Anna, and her message to the people of Earth that might seem familiar:

Promotional teasers have been running for weeks on ABC with the tagline, “They gave us hope. We gave them our trust.” Hope, of course, was a keynote buzz word during last year’s presidential campaign.

Isolated, this coincidence would not be an issue. However, the parallels to contemporary politics are relentless.

Visitors, whose case is made by an extremely telegenic leader, endear themselves to the people of Earth with, among other things, the promise of universal health care.

Their leader, Anna, is a proponent of one-world government.

Anna also is a compelling speaker as well as a master at manipulating media. Though a smile never leaves her face in public appearances, behind closed doors she is ruthless and controlling. One of her decrees is she will deal with only friendly TV news organizations. Any tough questions and the interviewer and his network will be ostracized.

What, then, does this mean for an Obama administration that is struggling to build consensus on healthcare reform, yet to shake off claims by “birthers” regarding his citizenship and reeling from Republic gains in this week’s elections? Maybe very little. Maybe a whole lot. Only time–and additional episodes of the series–will tell.

In the meantime, check out this lovely piece of propaganda in favor of joining the Visitors.

Over the years, our furry friends from that fictional New York borough have built quite the pedigree (122 Emmy wins and broadcasts in 140 countries worldwide). In addition to being woven into the very fabric of American culture, the folks at the Workshop have another milestone to celebrate next week: 40 years of television history. Since it’s inception four decades ago, Sesame Street has made a lasting impression on countless children who are now well into adulthood. When the show began, the landscape of both television and culture were very different.

The New York Daily News sums it up nicely:

The groundbreaking show, produced by the Children’s Television Workshop and a staple of public broadcasting, was years ahead of its time in promoting values that are now taken for granted in many places – accepting and appreciating diversity, not making assumptions based on gender, and being sensitive to cultural and economic differences, are all ideas the show emphasized before it was fashionable to do so.

The show has changed over the years in many ways. What was once a program intended to supplement learning for inner city children has become a cultural mainstay.

In time, most people and things grow up. It just so happens that Sesame Street has gotten younger over the years. As a wider variety of children’s programming has developed thanks to the dearth of cable channels, the show has shifted its target audience to younger and younger populations. Today, the intended viewership is someone in the ballpark of a four-year-old.

A CNN headline today boldly proclaims “Seasame Street‘s been swept but the magic of the show remains“. Can you imagine it? The show I watched as a kid featured a blue monster who smoked from a pipe and had a serious eating disorder. Even the recently released DVD collection of early episodes carry the following disclaimer: “These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

I guess the producers didn’t get that message when the show lampooned the popular AMC series Mad Men.

If you really want to spend some time walking down Memory Lane–which is probably only a few blocks off Sesame Street–be sure to check out The Christian Science Monitor’s collection of their 11 favorite clips from the show’s history. (I still find myself humming the 1-2-3-4-5 pinball song randomly from time-to-time.)

There’s a lot of great stuff on the interwebs today. I hope you don’t mind a variety of sachhrine tributes.

Sesame Street: 40 Years Of Sunny Days David Fear, Time Out New York Kids

Sesame Street: Google Celebrates 40 Years Of Big Bird And The Gang Jack Schofield, The Guardian

How We Got To ‘Sesame Street’ Tim Murphy, New York Magazine

That leads us to the questions: Can entertainment effectively serve a dual purpose of education? Does our contemporary cultural sensitivity challenge nostalgia? Is Sesame Street still relevant?

Finally, check out the following preview of the new season before it premieres of November 10. Jazon Mraz, Michelle Obama and other novelties abound.

Talk about a bad of case of being 2 steps behind on things! Today, while browsing a favorite blog of mine, The Curvature, I came across the charity event, Blogathon. Mmm. Bloggity blogalicious blogging! The rules, according to the site, are as follows:

Now, remember when you were in school and you would bowl for charity? And for every pin you knocked down you got, say, ten cents? Or run for a dollar a mile? During the Blogathon, people update their websites every 30 minutes for 24 hours straight. For this, they collect sponsorships. Pledges can be a flat donation, or a certain amount for every hour the blogger manages to stay awake.

How nifty is that? If I had known, I definitey would have at least tried to sponsor a site. There are 161 participating blogs, go check ‘em out!

BoingBoing posted a link to the online game Pick the Perp. You’re posed a question, such as “Who was charged with Robbery?” then you pick from a series of 5 photographs who you think the perp is.

According to the site:

Booking mug shots and related information is gathered from arrest records from open sheriff’s web sites in the United States of America. Those appearing here have not been convicted of the arrest charge and are presumed innocent. Do not rely on this site to determine any person’s actual criminal record.

What’s interesting (that BoingBoing and Pick the Perp don’t point out) is how quickly this game goes from amusing to slightly stomach turning. Whenever you find yourself staring at five complete strangers and wondering, “Who looks like a heroin user? Which one of you look like you’d be involved in a domestic dispute?” only to guess wrong (or sadly, right) you can’t help but wonder if it’s an educated guess or a profile in socio-economic/racial/gender profiling. I secretly started to wonder if this was an elaborate ruse being conducted by psychology or communication scholars to test how people associated crimes with certain demographic factors in photographs…that would prove very interesting when discussing profiling and jury bias, perhaps?

In defense of educated guesses though, look for orange jumpsuits on serious offenses and wonky eyes for those who were charged with being under the influences.