Throwing Drones for a Loop

Shy of a Load

The City Wire in “Citing Privacy and Protection, UA-Fayetteville Prohibits Drone Use over Campus” joins other news media and social media in ricocheting the University of Arkansas’ news release that “unmanned aircraft systems” such as drones as of now may not be flown over campus without approval (“prior approval” though that’s redundant).

The City Wire took the information and expanded it noting that UA-Fort Smith already having a ban in place and added further research and some interviews.

The Fayetteville campus’ reason is “public safety” (or just safety).

For the sake of the students, I sincerely pray that this regulation does not extend to paper airplanes.

One small but memorable mainstay of my years at Stanford was launching paper airplanes off the mezzanine in the now-razed Meyer Undergraduate Library. My bible was The Great International Paper Airplane Book, which my parents bought me probably in junior high school years when it was new and I brought to Palo Alto. I must’ve lost it in a move as it’s nowhere in the Shady Hill manse, darn it.

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Hooray for North Dakota, which for nearly a year I called home! The Poynter Institute picked up an Associated Press story — “New Press Freedoms for Students in North Dakota (Yes, North Dakota)” —  that the northern Plains state has expanded media freedoms for student media, both high school and college level. It is allowed under a new law that went into effect in August.

News producer was my first job after graduation, at NPR affiliate stations KFJM-AM and KFJM-FM  in Grand Forks, “Public Radio for the Upper Red River Valley.” They were owned by the University of North Dakota, with the studios on campus in an old three-story classroom building, and the station (the AM seems to have been dropped) now is part of Prairie Public Broadcasting.

UND was a basic land-grant university with several outstanding departments, many good professors and an self-deprecating sense of self. Also, public AM radio stations were unusual then and rare now. It’s been many years, but I still remember that Grand Forks winter. Tough for an Arkansas boy arriving in the frost belt after four years in California.

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Sermonette?

Hook-and-loop fastening systems — the Velcro brand is the most famous — are to apparel as high fructose corn syrup is to food.

Discuss.