Odds and ends, 4/21/08

This news release came in this afternoon:

Earl Ray Tomblin, the longest-serving Senate president in West Virginia history, will be the featured speaker at Marshall University’s 171st commencement, Marshall President Stephen J. Kopp announced today.

Commencement begins at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 10 at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in downtown Huntington.

“As both an alumnus and a respected state leader, President Tomblin is well deserving of this honor, the highest that Marshall University can bestow,” Kopp said. “He has built an enduring legacy of outstanding leadership and public service as president of the West Virginia Senate. We thank him for his dedication to the citizens of West Virginia and for being a part of this year’s commencement.”

Tomblin, a native of Chapmanville in Logan County, has been president of the Senate since Jan. 11, 1995, having since been reelected six times. He began his legislative career in 1974, the same year he graduated from West Virginia University. He earned his Master of Business Administration from Marshall in 1975.

With all due respect to the people at Marshall, it's not hard to see the games they feel compelled to play. Here are their most recent commencement speakers:

2007: Homer Hickam
06: Robert C. Byrd
05: Joe Manchin
04: Nick Rahall
03: F. Selby Wellman (as in Cisco Systems)
02: Jay Rockefeller
01: Bob Wise
00 Harvey White (co-founder of QualComm)
99: A. Michael Perry

Notice a trend of recent years? Who will be the speaker next year?

I was always led to believe that college graudation ceremonies were reserved for ex-presidents or Nobel Prize winners, not politicians whose apples need polishing.

Maybe next year Marshall can do something radically different. Perhaps the couple that founded Hillbilly Hotdogs will be available. They can probably tell a lot better story that graduates can relate to than another politician whose ego needs stroking.

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Since I got a better camera, I've tried taking more pictures of birds. I'm still trying to get a hawk or an owl, but I'll settle for another bird that interests me: the buzzard.

Having said that, it's sad that some people turning against this repulsive yet necessary bird.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Maybe if they were pretty, the ubiquitous buzzards that soar over Texas and elsewhere on their way to dine on some carcass wouldn't be viewed with such repugnance or be considered nuisances.

"Unquestionably, they're as ugly as sin," says Ian Tizard, a Texas A&M University professor of immunology and director of the school's Schubot Exotic Bird Center.

The misnamed birds — they're really vultures, and either turkey or black vultures — range over much of the United States, and they're even welcomed as a sure sign of spring on their annual March return to Hinckley, Ohio.

But their proliferation is making them unwelcome, from high-rises in Florida to ranches in Texas, denying them the respect they may deserve as Mother Nature's vacuum cleaners. Think roadkill.

"We'd have a lot more smelly dead bodies around the place if they weren't there to clean it up," Tizard said.

But Texas ranchers increasingly are telling wildlife authorities that black vultures — the more aggressive version of the two birds and reaching 25 inches in length with wingspans of 5 feet — are killing calves, lambs and young goats.

I believe we are blessed with the turkey vulture in these parts. The next time I get a good photo of one, I will post it unless you all tell me not to.

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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — The panel investigating whether the daughter of Gov. Joe Manchin received a master’s degree she didn’t earn from West Virginia University has finished its work.

The report went to Provost Gerald Lang on Monday but has yet to be made public.

Lang says the report must first be reviewed by the general counsel’s office to ensure the university is complying with federal privacy laws that protect Heather Bresch and other students.

But WVU’s top lawyer, Alex Macia, was out of state Monday on another matter. It’s unclear how soon the report will be made public.Lang says WVU will move quickly to share the report with the Board of Governors.

After that, he says it will go to the Faculty Senate, then be made public.

The full report ought to be made public (okay, they can delete some grades, but you know what I mean). But it probably won't. If WVU is interested in clearing its name and upholding the value of its degrees, it will opt for openness over secrecy. But something in me says there will be more secrecy than necessary.