Fox vs Deer

The real political battle in Georgia, the one that really matters, is whether the gray fox or the whitetail deer should be named the state's official mammal.

As this story explains, some kids at a school realized Georgia was one of the few states without an official mammal. Now you'd think maybe humans could be the official state mammal, but that's not the direction the kids took. They went fox, but the state leaned on them to go with deer instead.

In an "only in Georgia" moment, we have this:

The bill passed the House 163-2, with Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom McCall, R-Elberton, and Rep. Tommy Benton, R-Jefferson, voting no.

McCall had a serious concern about the bill and few kind things to say about the animal.

“If this aggravating nuisance of an animal becomes the state symbol, is it ever going to be where we can’t protect our property and crops just because it happens to be the state mammal?” McCall said.

Hugley assured him that the deer will gain no new protections from irate farmers.

First off, only in Georgia would an elected official think being the state (fill in the blank, such as official state reptile, or legislator) provides some legal protection. Sheesh.

So, isn't the fox superior? It certainly is if you check out how often "fox" characters appear in film and literature (scroll down here to see "fox" in popular culture). Other than Bambi, what cool deer characters come immediately to mind?  And here's another vote against deer -- they're apparently popular in hipster culture? Big. Vote. Heck, even Disney recognizes the superiority of foxes. One got to be Robin Hood (below).

But let's explore the "nuisance" argument. Deer certainly win. I've hit one deer in Georgia. They're like really large rodents that can destroy cars. By making them the official mammal, we're declaring war on all those late-night drivers who end up with Bambi splattered across their grill.

The only mammal more annoying than deer? People. I would put legislators, but there's some debate about whether they're mammals.

UGA Student

Interesting as to whether or not (as officials, including the University president, have said, and the local hospital has said as well) a UGA student died of bacterial meningitis. I'm guessing not. But I'm a bit baffled now.

Post by WTOC Elizabeth Rawlins.
 

AJC Gets SLOPpy

It's an old complaint of mine -- SLOPs.

That stands for self-selected opinion polls. They're entertaining, but they're bogus. And the AJC has one up and running for your journalistic enjoyment. I saw it via Twitter.

POLL: What can MARTA do to get you to ride the bus? http://t.co/QjT5FIhx36 pic.twitter.com/V73sDSg0L4
— AJC (@ajc) February 17, 2015

To be fair, this is a blog, not a news story, so I'm not gonna complain too much. The choices are

• Shorter wait times
• Routes closer to my home
• Extended hours of service
• More transit cops on board
• Better connections to trains

You can only vote once, which is good. I voted for routes closer to my home because, well, I live in Athens. Fairly sure MARTA does not have a route close to my home.

Oh, and on Twitter there were a few funny responses to the question of what MARTA can do. My favorite?  Not smell like pee

Polling (Un)Surprise

A poll by a Georgia transportation group found support for a tax to support Georgia transportation, according to this AJC story.

Here's a key graf:

The poll, conducted for the Georgia Transportation Alliance, shows strong support among Georgians for lawmakers to boost funding for transportation, according to an advance copy obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The alliance is an arm of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, which has made increased transportation funding a priority.

Beware when a poll coincidentally happens to support the sponsor's point of view.

It's a survey of 603 "likely voters" earlier this month. But what I can't tell, at least at first blush, is how the survey was conducted. The Chamber's vice president, however, defended the poll. “It’s scientifically accurate." The AJC notes, however, the results differ from one it conducted in January. That poll did use serious methodology that included both landlines and cell phones. This new poll, I can't tell if it's a robo-poll, whether it included cell phones, or anything at all of the methodology except they do provide the questions. On the site of the group that did the polling: "What separates us from the pack is the use of our innovative techniques both in conducting the survey and analyzing the results." I don't care from innovative. I care from the quality of the sample.

So let's look at the questions. At first look they seem straightforward, but think about the order here. I can't tell if the questions were rotated in any way, and the order in which they are presented could certainly prime a respondent to be more responsive to raising taxes for roads.

First Question:  How important are roads, bridges and public transportation to economic development and job growth?
 
You ask that one first, you've set up the rest of the answers to be more positive even if you say the choice is between killing kittens and taxes to improve roads (which, by the way, I support). Go to the bottom of this page and see the subsequent questions. They are designed, quite frankly, to elicit a positive answer to increased taxes for roads.

UGA Jobs That Pay The Same

In my never ending quest to analyze UGA's byzantine salary system, I've discovered many unrelated jobs are in the same pay scale. In other words, the position of fry cook may have the same minimum and maximum salary as a mechanic. Or journalism professor. No, wait -- this excludes faculty positions. So, what are some of the fun jobs that have the same pay range? Glad you asked. I only take two or three jobs in each category. Many have 10 or more listed in a particular pay range.

• herdskeeper II, snack bar supervisor, and TV programming specialist are all listed as "pay range 45" with an annual minimum of $22,750 and an annual maximum of $43,831. Herdskeeper. Neat.

• A fire extinguisher inspector, a video editor, and (I am not making this up) "post conviction relief assistant II" are all at range #47, from $22,750 to $46,051.

• A welder, a lab animal health technician, and a sheetmetal worker are all #53 ($25,383 to $54,977).

• My favorite: "first mate" is #68, along with business manager II and parking operations manager and police corporal and, of course, others. Range is $36,760 to $79,620. First mate? Ahoy, skipper.

• A police sergeant, a project architect, and a TV news director are all #74, ranging from $42,629 to $92,334. I should insert some snark here about TV news directors. Insert your own.

• At the very tip top end of the scale, at range #123, there's only one job -- "senior associate CIO & Technology Officer" with a range from $85,000 to $195,500. My guess is, only one person is exactly that. And UGA being UGA, I wonder if it's not near the top of that scale.

What does this mean in the greater scheme of things? That I need to get the hell out of the office on a Friday afternoon, that's what. Or at least walk away from the spreadsheet.

Rush Limbaugh Reveals J-School Secret

I'm a huge Rush Limbaugh fan. Talk radio, with Limbaugh as its longtime star, helped me get tenure. For a while I was (modestly) among the top scholars in the country researching the effects of talk radio. It didn't get me rich, but it did get me enough publications in top academic journals to win promotion and tenure.

So Limbaugh the other day revealed one of the deep dark secrets of j-schools. I've been teaching at a j-school for 23 years and, to be honest, I'd never heard this. Someone's been keeping it a secret from me, I suppose.  So here's the text of the bit I'm focusing on. It's a caller to his radio show talking about Hillary Clinton. The caller has worked at a TV news station and they agree about how the news media create hooks or narratives, in this case about Clinton and her candidacy. The full text is here if you want context, but this is the bit I'm interested in:

RUSH:  No.  What's new is, the journalism industry acknowledging that there is such a thing as the hook to the consumer, or acknowledging that there is such a thing as the narrative to the consumer.  This is one of the deep, dark secrets that they taught in J-School, that the news consumer was never to be told and never to know.  Anyway, Jackie, I gotta run.  I'm a little long.  I appreciate the call.  

Let's give Limbaugh the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's quite knowledgeable about what's taught in journalism schools. Maybe he has a mole in a j-school somewhere, learning the "deep, dark secrets." Or maybe he's just making shit up.  In a way, I think he's on to something. In storytelling, you generally don't tell people "oh, this is my hook, here it comes, wait for it." That gets in the way of the story, unless of course you're into some postmodern stuff in which structure overwhelms narrative.

So maybe he's right -- in a way -- though for all the wrong reasons. It's not a "deep, dark" secret that you don't tell the audience "hey, this is my hook" because, well, it'd be damned stupid and it would get in the way of the news and interfere with the storytelling. That's what media critics are for.

Best Paid UGA Faculty

And in my final post on UGA salaries (see previous days for other stuff), I look at the best paid faculty who are not also administrators (deans, departmeht heads, etc.).

Now keep in mind that the top salaries belong to the UGA president, a few coaches, and you have to get to #11 for the first professor who is not in charge of a department or college. In that case, he holds an endowed chair -- in the business school -- which explains the hefty salary. As is the second highest, also a chair, also in the biz school. Sigh. And the third. You see a trend here? And yes, the fourth highest salaried professor is also a chair in ... wait for it ... the business school. And the fifth name? Yup, she's in the Terry College as well. It goes on that way for a while. I got bored checking but you have to go down the list a ways to find, yes, someone from the law school where, if you publish two law review articles, that'll get you tenure.

Professor Name	Department	Salary 2014
Jason Colquitt	Management	$332.980.09
Stephen Baginski	Accounting	$320,673.50
Sundar Bharadwaj	Marketing	$310,999.70
John Hulland	Sales Management	$297,999.80
Annett Poulsen	Banking and Finance	$297,830.79

Where's the data from? The State of Georgia makes it available online. Look for yourself.  And in fairness, if we had a medical college tied to the university, like UF, odds are those salaries would top the list. 

Oh, and I am the 1,240th best paid employee at UGA. Fear me.