Issa Eimish, 1989.
Only in a more innocent time could a nosestall on a mini-quarter be worthy of film.

I’ve been reading so much lately about the looming energy crisis, and how nearly everyone seems to have their heads in the sand. While I don’t advocate the doom and gloom theory put forth by James Howard Kunstler in “The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century“, I can’t figure out why the mainstream media isn’t constantly attacking our politicians over this. Could it be that their noggins occupy the very same sandbox?

In a rare moment of clarity, MSNBC.com published an article discussing the recent claims by agri-giants Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland that corn-produced ethanol can replace our soon-to-fade hydrocarbon economy. With corn prices rising, they have the most to gain in the short term, but surely they know this is not sustainable…or do they even care?

Here are some of the key points from the article:

• Last year the U.S. produced just under 4 billion gallons of ethanol, serving just 1 percent of U.S. fuel needs.

• If we used all the corn produced in the United States to produce ethanol, it would provide only 7 percent of our total vehicle fuel use.

• If every car in America was fully powered by ethanol, it would take 97 percent of U.S. soil to grow enough corn to support it.

• About 30 percent more fossil energy is required to produce a gallon of ethanol than you actually get out in ethanol.

• Corn causes more soil erosion in the United States than any other crop.

• Corn uses more nitrogen fertilizer than any other single crop, and it’s the prime cause of the dead zone down in the Gulf of Mexico.

• Corn also uses more insecticides and herbicides than any other crop.

• Each acre of corn drains 500,000 gallons of water over three months.

I know to the militant energy watchdog these bullets are old hat, but it was refreshing to see a corporate news wrangler actually willing to write against the current of complacency and wishful thinking.

Cheers to you Dylan Ratigan.

For my second installment of key takeaways from Jan Venolia’s Write Right!, I want to focus on her notes for style. This section of the book is full of useful nuggets, so it would be next to impossible not to learn something from her writerly wisdom.

Here are some notes I jotted down in my Moleskine. Many may seem routine to you, but to me they were eye-opening.

• An acronym is pronounced as a word. “NASA, OPEC, OSHA”
• An initialism is pronounced letter by letter. “NBA, YMCA, NSA”
• Choosing the correct article (a or an) before an acronym is determined phonetically.  Use ‘an’ if it proceeds an F, H, L, M, N, R, S, or X.
• Abbreviate social titles only when the full name is used. “Rev. Jesse Jackson. Reverend Jackson.”
• Abbreviate country names, such as United States and United Kingdom, only when they are used as an adjective. “U.S. Ambassador, U.S. Foreign Policy.”
• Use italics for foreign words when they are not normal.

Here are a few notes on capitalization:

• Capitalize the first word after a colon if it’s a complete sentence; lower if not.
• Do not capitalize the word city in “city of Toronto”.
• Seasons are not capitalized.
• Capitalize African Americans and Caucasians, not blacks and whites.

And finally some notes on using numbers:

• Write the words (1-9) when using them for journalism, science, or business. “Two, nine”
• Write the words (1-99) for literary writing. “Seven, fifty, sixty-one”
• Write the words if they begin a sentence. “Four score and seven years ago…”
• Write the words for decades. “The twenties”
• Write the numbers larger than nine for journalism, science, or business. “29, 88″
• Write the numbers larger than ninety-nine for literary writing. “102, 1054″
• Write the numbers when it’s a mix of these rules, such as “8 to 30 employees.”
• Write the numbers when referring to a part of a book, such as “Chapter 9, page 71.”
• Write the numbers for all dates and times. “21st Century or 10 P.M.”

You can check out other key takeaways here.

This was a quick image I whipped up for a Flashkit.com Arena post.

Dr. James Naismith developed the game of basketball as a winter diversion for the Springfield, MA YMCA. His original 13 rules remain mostly intact to this day. Little known to most hoops fans are the 13 donut rules he applied to another New England winter treat - Dunkin Donuts.

The 13 donut rules.

1. The donut can be thrown in any direction with one or both hands.

2. The donut can be batted in any direction with one or both hands, but never with the fist.

3. A coworker cannot run with the donut. The coworker must throw it from the spot on which they catch it.

4. The donut must be held in or between the hands. The arms or body must not be used for holding it.

5. No shouldering, holding, pushing, striking or tripping a coworker.

6. A foul is striking at the donut with the fist.

7. If a comworker eats three consecutive donuts it counts as lunch.

8. A foul shall be made when the donut is thrown or batted from the box into the hall and stays there.

9. When the donut goes out of bounds, it shall be thrown into the hall and eaten by the first coworker touching it.

10. The umpire shall be judge of the team and shall note the donuts and notify the referee when three consecutive donuts have been eaten.

11. The referee shall be the judge of the donut and decide when it is in play in bounds, to which cowrker it belongs, and shall keep the time.

12. The time shall be two 15-minute halves with a five minute rest between.

13. The coworker eating the most donuts in that time shall be declared the winner.

The schools of Carmel, Indiana have always reflected its slot in the state’s pecking order, but none were more telling than the 1921 building. “Old North” was a classic Hoosier K-12; from the brick and limestone exterior to the cramped interior gymnasium. This small town on Indy’s north side slowly evolved into a middle class suburb, and this building helped get it there.

Occupying the property’s northwest corner, Old North was dwarfed by the post-consolidation factory I attended. During its retirement years, I played my youth hoops games in the gym and imagined all the Chuck Taylors and hot winter crowds that came before me. Old school Indiana hoops is no joke, and it happened in that building.

Prior to it’s demolition in the early 1990s, I captured it using a classic pinhole camera - Quaker Oatmeal box and all. If you have access to a darkroom, I urge you to build one and do some experimenting. It’s a great way to learn more about perspective, distortion, paper negatives, and ad-hoc darkroom techniques.