Xeb passed me this, which was passed to her from someone who saw it on Boing Boing. (See this attribution?! That's a degree in journalism will do to you...)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Russian hairdresser rapist; pissed on while flying and pigeon carriers
My friend Xeb is pretty brilliant. (Though she's not brilliant enough to have permalinks on her blog. I can say that 'cause I've just learned how to put them in.) She's an anthropologist and here is an example of the interesting things she comes up with:
Check out her site at http://xebiliciouss.blogspot.com/.
The wonderful thing about doing what I do (socio-cultural anthropology) is that you can take voyeuristic delight in human absurdity and nobody can accuse you of procrastinating and being a flake (well they can, but you have valid counterarguments), because this is precisely what you've been trained to do. So for today, let me chronicle some of the more absurd, err, absurdities I have come across:
The Russian Times reports the fascinating story of a Robber, tuned into a Sex-Slave by a local Hairdresser: According to RT, "A hairdresser from the small Russian town of Meshchovsk subdued a man who tried to rob her shop, and then raped him for three days in the utility room. The incident occurred on Saturday, March 14. The working day was coming to an end at a small hairdressers, when a man armed with a gun rushed in and demanded the day’s earnings. The frightened employees and customers agreed to fulfill his demand, but when the shop’s owner, 28-year-old Olga, was handing the money to the robber, she suddenly knocked him down on the floor and then tied him up with a hairdryer cord. The 32-year-old Viktor couldn’t have known that the woman was a yellow belt in karate. Olga locked the unlucky robber in the utility room and told her colleagues that she was going to call the police – but didn’t do so. When everybody left home, she approached the man and ordered him to ‘take of his underpants’ threatening to hand him over to the police if he refuses to cooperate.After that Olga raped her hostage for three long days. She chained Viktor to the radiator with pink furry handcuffs and fed him Viagra. She eventually let the man go on Monday, March 16, saying: “Get out of my sight!” Viktor went straight to hospital as his genitals were injured, and then to the police. Olga was resentful when she was taken by the police. “What a bastard,” the woman said about Viktor. “Yes, we had sex a couple of times. But I’ve bought him new jeans, gave him food and even gave him 1.000 roubles (around $ 30) when he left.”. After that she wrote a notice to the police claiming the man tried to rob her shop. Both Olga and Viktor may now face prison terms. The woman could be convicted of rape, while the man of robbery".
In other parts of the world the Honolulu Advertiser tells the sad tale of a man who decided to take a bathroom break in an airplane and proceeded to urinate over his 66-year old fellow passenger. Not much of an advertisement for Honolulu as "Federal Court judge Leslie Kobayashi yesterday sentenced a 28-year-old man from Saipan to 21 days in prison for assaulting a fellow passenger on a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Jerome Kenneth Kingzio had pleaded guilty. The incident took place on March 21. U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo said court documents show the victim, a 66-year-old woman, was watching the in-flight movie when Kingzio stood next to her and began urinating on her. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The prosecution was handled by Assistant United States Attorney Marshall H. Silverberg.
If anyone doubts the value-added by resorting to the indigenous over the 'modern' let them consider the inherent genius behind this crime spree in Brazil, reported by Yahoo News. So, the story is that in San Paolo, inmates have devised an innovative way to smuggle in cell phones into a prison farm in Brazil: carrier pigeons. Guards at the Danilio Pinheiro prison near the southeastern city of Sorocaba noticed a pigeon resting on an electric wire with a small cloth bag tied to one of its legs last week. "The guards nabbed the bird after luring it down with some food and discovered components of a small cell phone inside the bag," police investigator Celso Soramiglio said Tuesday. One day later, another pigeon was spotted dragging a similar bag inside the prison's exercise yard. Inside the bag was the cell phone's charger, Soramiglio said. The birds were apparently bred and raised inside the prison, smuggled out, outfitted with the cell phone parts and then released to fly back.
Check out her site at http://xebiliciouss.blogspot.com/.
The machine is us/ing us...
The Internet is changing how we perceive and interact with information, and communicate. At the same time, how we use the Internet shapes its function. Here's a really brilliant little video I ripped off of my pal, Xeb's, blog.
Good grammar is sexy...!
OK, so let's see if I get this "embedding" thing. Here's a YouTube clip. It's features "Hot for Words" grammar sex kitten, Marina. Good stuff.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
I think I like ShareThis better...
You'll note that I've removed "Add to Any" and have added "ShareThis" instead. More an aesthetic decision than anything else. Plus, "ShareThis" has a few more options.
Monday, April 13, 2009
A better blog...
I have learned two things today. Neither of them have allowed me to advance on my assignments. However, they are pretty cool and very "new media," so I don't feel totally useless.
The first was to set my blog so that titles appear for each blog post. This allows for the creation of permalinks--dedicated unique addresses (links) assigned to each invidual post (as opposed to just one address for the entire blog). This means I can now send out links to specific posts.
The second thing I learned was how to add "Add to Any" to my blog. After each post, you will now see a little box that says "Share/Save." (It's also what you see in the image above.) This will allow readers to share my blog on Facebook or Twitter, as well as other social Web applications.
While I recognize this is pretty amateurish stuff for hardcore bloggers, I must say I'm pretty chuffed with myself for sorting this out.
So now, dear readers, share away!
J-school cover girl...
Wow, I'm on the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism's Career Services Web page! The school hosted a career fair two weeks ago, and to stand out from the crowd, I ordered a lei from Hawaii to wear to the event. I was noticed. You can check out the site at http://snurl.com/fo4ui. (You'll have to scroll along a bit...)
Friday, April 10, 2009
New School haters in the Twitterverse
(Photo taken from the Daily News Web site)protest at the new school? wtf. get a job hippies
desusnice, Fri 10 Apr 12:01
the socialist pieces of scum occupying the new school are the REAL pigs- not the policemen #NSIE
talster, Fri 10 Apr 12:23
I would love to know what is so atrocious at New School they feel the need to overtake the building. Seriously? Still doesn't excuse NYU.
sueelio, Fri 10 Apr 12:31
Okay New School kids, I understand you're upset, but no one is taking you seriously anymore. http://moourl.com/4wxl4
dayla, Fri 10 Apr 12:36
new school protesters-- if you are so anti-capitalism just move to a commune and stop bothering the rest of us #NSIE #newschool
talster, Fri 10 Apr 12:37
Spoiled New School kids lose. FAIL. http://tinyurl.com/cca6po
waityourarobot, Fri 10 Apr 12:38
Bored cops pepper spray bored New School students. Oh New York. http://tr.im/izFf
youLukas, Fri 10 Apr 12:38
Another revolution at the New School is apparently underway. I am feeling not revolutionary today so they better finish up soon.
andreagl, Fri 10 Apr 12:49
The college brats "occupying" a New School building got their heads swiftly beat in by the NYPD. I hope this protesting trend dies off soon.
gregchiasson, Fri 10 Apr 12:52
This gal talster was especially offended (and offensive). She kept her rants up while many tweeted, retweeted and moved on. (And get this, she's not some crotchety geezer shaking a cane at them youngins. Check her out here http://twitter.com/talster.) Here's more of what she said:
#NSIE you broke into a bldg,took down a cleaner&a security guard, hurt a policeman and NOW youre crying that they used mace?! gimme a break!Given the current state of affairs in this country, and in this city, especially, I'm surprised that there are still folks who take up these rather negative attitudes. I'm just impressed that the young protesters care enough about their cause to unstrap their wrists from the keyboard and pry their bottoms from chairs long enough to hit the streets (or take over a building). But that's my take on things.
talster, Fri 10 Apr 12:49
oh, BOOHOO... they deserve it!! RT @studentactivism: Campus paper says one New School arrestee was "bleeding from his forehead" at booking
talster, Fri 10 Apr 13:00
@tomaplomb how ab being disgusted at the students for breaking into a building, hurting an innocent cleaner&taking his phone, then a guard?
talster, Fri 10 13:04
Twitter coverage of New School protests
I can't get down to this site, but here are some Twitter feeds coming in from the New School protest!
Thursday, April 09, 2009
This is a little bit insane...
Higher Education
Journalism Bust, J-School Boom
Lauren Streib, 04.06.09, 3:00 PM ET
When the current class of optimists from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism prepared for their March job fair, some were stunned to learn that, along with The New York Times, Forbes, Dow Jones and other national publications, they'd also been signed up for interviews with Cat Fancy, a lively consumer magazine "for people interested in all phases of cat ownership."
It was, of course, a prank. But it's easy to understand the confusion. The Pew Research Center estimates 5,000 newspaper jobs were lost in 2008. Since 2001, more than 10,000 newspaper journalists have lost work, leaving the total count of those still employed at 47,000 nationwide. It's getting worse, fast. Erica Smith, who runs the online layoff tracker Paper Cuts, counts nearly 7,500 newsroom jobs lost so far this year.
Yet punishing times for journalism have been an unlikely boon for journalism schools. Would-be Woodwards and Bernsteins hiding out from the bad economy or learning new skills to compete stormed the admissions offices of top-tier programs last fall. Columbia, Stanford and NYU applications increased 38%, 20% and 6%, respectively, from the previous year. Same thing at state schools. The University of Colorado (up 11%), University of North Carolina (up 14%) and University of Maryland (up 25%) all saw gains. "I'm amazed that enrollment continues to be so healthy," says Associate Professor Stephen Solomon at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
Costs are up too. The average price for graduate school and living expenses has reached $31,000 per year. This despite earnings for journalists with a graduate degree averaging just $40,000 in 2007 ($10,000 more than for those with just bachelor's degrees).
"I've never met a single person in 35 years who went into journalism out of pure economic reason," explains Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. "It doesn't make us recession-proof, but it makes us less recession responsive."
What are all these people going to do for a living? Some may actually get jobs in journalism. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2016 the number of positions for entry-level reporters and news anchors will increase 2%, while those for experienced writers and editors will grow 10%. Expect trade publications, freelance work and digital media to supply the bulk of the jobs.
And, perhaps, academia. Old media expatriates looking for a life after layoffs and buyouts are flooding schools looking for work. Brooke Kroeger, director of the Carter Journalism Institute at NYU, says interest in teaching has tripled in the last five years. Columbia's Lemann says he receives several e-mails every day. Says Neil Henry, interim dean and professor at the Berkeley School of Journalism: "It's becoming increasingly common and it is difficult emotionally to deal with."
Luckily, all those new students should create need for more professors. And, it turns out, Cat Fancy is hiring. Parent company BowTie, Inc., has openings for an associate book editor and summer magazine/book editing interns. Interested? http://www.bowtieinc.com/bowtieinc/joblist.aspx
Original link http://snurl.com/fkd5
Higher Education
Journalism Bust, J-School Boom
Lauren Streib, 04.06.09, 3:00 PM ET
When the current class of optimists from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism prepared for their March job fair, some were stunned to learn that, along with The New York Times, Forbes, Dow Jones and other national publications, they'd also been signed up for interviews with Cat Fancy, a lively consumer magazine "for people interested in all phases of cat ownership."
It was, of course, a prank. But it's easy to understand the confusion. The Pew Research Center estimates 5,000 newspaper jobs were lost in 2008. Since 2001, more than 10,000 newspaper journalists have lost work, leaving the total count of those still employed at 47,000 nationwide. It's getting worse, fast. Erica Smith, who runs the online layoff tracker Paper Cuts, counts nearly 7,500 newsroom jobs lost so far this year.
Yet punishing times for journalism have been an unlikely boon for journalism schools. Would-be Woodwards and Bernsteins hiding out from the bad economy or learning new skills to compete stormed the admissions offices of top-tier programs last fall. Columbia, Stanford and NYU applications increased 38%, 20% and 6%, respectively, from the previous year. Same thing at state schools. The University of Colorado (up 11%), University of North Carolina (up 14%) and University of Maryland (up 25%) all saw gains. "I'm amazed that enrollment continues to be so healthy," says Associate Professor Stephen Solomon at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
Costs are up too. The average price for graduate school and living expenses has reached $31,000 per year. This despite earnings for journalists with a graduate degree averaging just $40,000 in 2007 ($10,000 more than for those with just bachelor's degrees).
"I've never met a single person in 35 years who went into journalism out of pure economic reason," explains Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. "It doesn't make us recession-proof, but it makes us less recession responsive."
What are all these people going to do for a living? Some may actually get jobs in journalism. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2016 the number of positions for entry-level reporters and news anchors will increase 2%, while those for experienced writers and editors will grow 10%. Expect trade publications, freelance work and digital media to supply the bulk of the jobs.
And, perhaps, academia. Old media expatriates looking for a life after layoffs and buyouts are flooding schools looking for work. Brooke Kroeger, director of the Carter Journalism Institute at NYU, says interest in teaching has tripled in the last five years. Columbia's Lemann says he receives several e-mails every day. Says Neil Henry, interim dean and professor at the Berkeley School of Journalism: "It's becoming increasingly common and it is difficult emotionally to deal with."
Luckily, all those new students should create need for more professors. And, it turns out, Cat Fancy is hiring. Parent company BowTie, Inc., has openings for an associate book editor and summer magazine/book editing interns. Interested? http://www.bowtieinc.com/bowtieinc/joblist.aspx
Original link http://snurl.com/fkd5
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
In writing this, I am avoiding a very heavy assignment due tomorrow morning. Around the corner from 29, even I am proof that old habits die hard.
Some musings... There is a panic, among journalists and people who care about journalism, about the state of the industry. Papers are collapsing. Newspaper people are getting laid off. Veteran journos are looking to 12-year-olds for advice about Twitter.
Everyone wants to know how to make money with the Web. Is it possible? How do we do it? Some people say that non-profits are the way to go. But then those opposed to the .org model believe non-for-profit endeavors will eventually fall victim to the desires of whoever does provide the money (as if that doesn't happen with corporate news organizations already).
All of the chatter is rather maddening and it's clear that no one has a clue. Everyone says some "out-of-the-box" thinking is in order, but all anyone is doing is repeating and reorganizing various elements of tired ideas IN the box.
But let's say this: Let's say that newspapers as a concept are dead. Then what? Let's accept that NO ONE in the future will ever read a newspaper. THEN WHAT?
OR
Let's say advertising CAN'T make papers profitable anymore. It's just not an option. Then what? Where does the money come from? Doesn't anyone think that having a business model effectively based on ONE form of revenue INHERENTLY FLAWED? So now what?
I think if we start to imagine a world without newspapers, we'd get much closer to real solutions. Because right now, most people are trying desperately to cling to the notion at the other end of the idea spectrum. If the truth (or solution) is somewhere between the extremes, let's start at the polar opposite of a world WITH papers, then work our to the middle.
And in terms of money, let's cut out the whole notion of advertising. Surely there are products that rely income generated for its value and not for it's power to distribute tag-along information. So how do we make news more valuable? A very tough question...
So I guess the point of my ramble, aside from avoiding my work, is that I haven't really heard too many new ideas about the direction of journalism from anyone in the field. They are all too terrified, or too trapped in their own panic, to start asking the scary questions that might lead to real solutions (not that I am suggesting I know better, or even that my two measly ideas mean anything). But I do think it would be good to start hearing a little dialectic about all this. It just doesn't make sense to feel more secure clinging to a crumbling cliff than taking a leap, possibly into the unknown, for the chance of a new and different landing.
Some musings... There is a panic, among journalists and people who care about journalism, about the state of the industry. Papers are collapsing. Newspaper people are getting laid off. Veteran journos are looking to 12-year-olds for advice about Twitter.
Everyone wants to know how to make money with the Web. Is it possible? How do we do it? Some people say that non-profits are the way to go. But then those opposed to the .org model believe non-for-profit endeavors will eventually fall victim to the desires of whoever does provide the money (as if that doesn't happen with corporate news organizations already).
All of the chatter is rather maddening and it's clear that no one has a clue. Everyone says some "out-of-the-box" thinking is in order, but all anyone is doing is repeating and reorganizing various elements of tired ideas IN the box.
But let's say this: Let's say that newspapers as a concept are dead. Then what? Let's accept that NO ONE in the future will ever read a newspaper. THEN WHAT?
OR
Let's say advertising CAN'T make papers profitable anymore. It's just not an option. Then what? Where does the money come from? Doesn't anyone think that having a business model effectively based on ONE form of revenue INHERENTLY FLAWED? So now what?
I think if we start to imagine a world without newspapers, we'd get much closer to real solutions. Because right now, most people are trying desperately to cling to the notion at the other end of the idea spectrum. If the truth (or solution) is somewhere between the extremes, let's start at the polar opposite of a world WITH papers, then work our to the middle.
And in terms of money, let's cut out the whole notion of advertising. Surely there are products that rely income generated for its value and not for it's power to distribute tag-along information. So how do we make news more valuable? A very tough question...
So I guess the point of my ramble, aside from avoiding my work, is that I haven't really heard too many new ideas about the direction of journalism from anyone in the field. They are all too terrified, or too trapped in their own panic, to start asking the scary questions that might lead to real solutions (not that I am suggesting I know better, or even that my two measly ideas mean anything). But I do think it would be good to start hearing a little dialectic about all this. It just doesn't make sense to feel more secure clinging to a crumbling cliff than taking a leap, possibly into the unknown, for the chance of a new and different landing.
Monday, March 30, 2009
If you were unable to watch the blog live, go here to see it in its complete form. http://snurl.com/eveao. Kind of neat, right?
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
OK, OK, I know it's not healthy to dwell on bad news, but I had to share this Facebook message I just got from my friend, Andrea, who works at a newspaper in St. Louis.
In an interesting sidenote, another ex-West Hawaii Today reporter, a young lady originally from Hilo, who wound up in New Mexico, is also attempting to get into law school.
Duuuuuude!I met Andrea five years ago when she came to Kona to work for the West Hawaii Today. She stayed there a year or two, then took the gig in St. Louis.
I totally forgot you were going to J-school! Holy buckets. Didn't you get the news flash? Journalism's dead, baby. Even still, I'd have to imagine a degree from Columbia's gotta get you a pretty sweet gig somewhere. Weren't you looking into magazine writing or something? I can absolutely, unwaveringly tell you that newspapers are dead. We've had three layoffs in the past six months, and we're now being forced to take weeklong, unpaid furloughs... and our contract with XXXXX is up in June.
Needless to say, I'm over it. I have been for more than a year, but I didn't get my shit together enough to transition to another profession until last fall. That's when I started studying for the law school admissions test. I'm now shockingly neck-deep in acceptances (I may have applied to a few too many schools...) and trying to decide between Portland, Denver and Seattle.
In an interesting sidenote, another ex-West Hawaii Today reporter, a young lady originally from Hilo, who wound up in New Mexico, is also attempting to get into law school.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
OK, OK. I know I haven't been too enthused about journalism school of late, or even just journalism, but look at this! Can you really blame me?!
If you want to check out the full page and see the answer to "How does a young, laid-off journalist recover?" (that was verbatim), go here http://tinyurl.com/db874h .
I just don't know what to say...
If you want to check out the full page and see the answer to "How does a young, laid-off journalist recover?" (that was verbatim), go here http://tinyurl.com/db874h .
I just don't know what to say...
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
I am endlessly amazed at how small the world can be.
So yesterday, I met up with a classmate from Emerson, with whom I studied film. Troy was in town working on a television series, a fact I learned from his Facebook status message. (He, in the last 9 years, or so, has become something of an expert on childbirth and he has produced several series for places like the Discovery Channel.) We met at the bus station because he was pressed for time and had to get to a location in New Jersey, but we did have a good chance to catch up.
Troy is doing this TV stuff, which is neat, but more interestingly, he's become a medium. (Read about him here http://www.troyparkinson.com/) Like the kind that receive messages from dead people. He started developing his medium skills in Boston ("Everyone can do it--it's like a muscle that can be exercised," he says), unbeknownst to me, and others, and now he's got a Web site, does a radio show, is writing a book and has been featured on Fargo (where he's from) news.
Random, right?
Then he tells me he was just in Hawaii for five weeks, waiting for a baby to be born (so he could tape the process). Not only was he in Hawaii, but he was in Kona, my home town!
Troy stayed at the Dragonfly Ranch and loved it. He said he also really loved Hawaii because, unlike in Fargo, where he is a somewhat cautious about with whom he shares his spiritual work, people in Hawaii really dig stuff like crystals, tarot cards, aura readings and talking to dolphins. He became the in-house medium and it was good.
Now, among the guests at the Dragonfly Ranch for whom Troy read was Ian Usher. Mr. Usher, an Englishman, sold his life on eBay and is aiming to achieve 100 goals in 100 weeks. (Learn more at http://www.100goals100weeks.com) However, oddly enough, I had already heard about Mr. Usher because my friend Karin, a journalist in Hawaii, wrote about him here http://www.hawaii247.org/2009/01/18/man-with-a-lot-of-goals-visits-big-island/ .
But to top it all off, Mr. Usher was quite impressed with Troy's reading, so he blogged about it here http://100goals100weeks.blogspot.com/2009/01/mystic-reading-with-troy.html !
So to sum up: We're all connected and the Internet is amazing.
So yesterday, I met up with a classmate from Emerson, with whom I studied film. Troy was in town working on a television series, a fact I learned from his Facebook status message. (He, in the last 9 years, or so, has become something of an expert on childbirth and he has produced several series for places like the Discovery Channel.) We met at the bus station because he was pressed for time and had to get to a location in New Jersey, but we did have a good chance to catch up.
Troy is doing this TV stuff, which is neat, but more interestingly, he's become a medium. (Read about him here http://www.troyparkinson.com/) Like the kind that receive messages from dead people. He started developing his medium skills in Boston ("Everyone can do it--it's like a muscle that can be exercised," he says), unbeknownst to me, and others, and now he's got a Web site, does a radio show, is writing a book and has been featured on Fargo (where he's from) news.
Random, right?
Then he tells me he was just in Hawaii for five weeks, waiting for a baby to be born (so he could tape the process). Not only was he in Hawaii, but he was in Kona, my home town!
Troy stayed at the Dragonfly Ranch and loved it. He said he also really loved Hawaii because, unlike in Fargo, where he is a somewhat cautious about with whom he shares his spiritual work, people in Hawaii really dig stuff like crystals, tarot cards, aura readings and talking to dolphins. He became the in-house medium and it was good.
Now, among the guests at the Dragonfly Ranch for whom Troy read was Ian Usher. Mr. Usher, an Englishman, sold his life on eBay and is aiming to achieve 100 goals in 100 weeks. (Learn more at http://www.100goals100weeks.com) However, oddly enough, I had already heard about Mr. Usher because my friend Karin, a journalist in Hawaii, wrote about him here http://www.hawaii247.org/2009/01/18/man-with-a-lot-of-goals-visits-big-island/ .
But to top it all off, Mr. Usher was quite impressed with Troy's reading, so he blogged about it here http://100goals100weeks.blogspot.com/2009/01/mystic-reading-with-troy.html !
So to sum up: We're all connected and the Internet is amazing.
Monday, February 16, 2009
I keep the Merriam-Webster Online Web site open almost all the time when I read or write. At a fancy-pants school like Columbia, I double my efforts to be sure that I am using a word accurately, and that I look up words I don't know to expand my vocabulary.
So today I went to the site to find something and this was at the top of the page, in the "Open Dictionary" section:
red bottomosity
noun:
State of humiliation
I am clearly not the only one who invents words and phrases.
So today I went to the site to find something and this was at the top of the page, in the "Open Dictionary" section:
red bottomosity
noun:
State of humiliation
I am clearly not the only one who invents words and phrases.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
There's a lot happening with me in New York these days. The new semester has just started. I have piles of work to do and I'm preparing for life after j-school, which I look forward to tremendously. I'm in a pretty good mood these days, though; this can be attributed to finally seeing the back end of my miserable reporting class (I won't moan about it here, but not to put to fine a point on it, it was was shit) and having a very good break. I played tourist in New York, finally, then my old pal, Kev Dogg, came out from Los Angeles. Together, we drove up to Boston to see Heather, my college roommate, and some of the gang from the Emerson days. Few in my current life--which is filled with fresh-faced 22-year-olds--realize that when I went to school, I was the baby. With the old crowd, I was the baby again, and that was nice.
Being back in Boston also gave me the chance to kind of think about how life seems to progress for most people. Kev Dogg is a reasonably successful production manager in Hollywood, but he often finds his work unrewarding and is frustrated with his personal life. Heather lives in the sticks with her fiancé and they have a nice home, lots of furniture, regular jobs, a small business detailing cars and a bearded iguana named Pete. Mike, another of the crowd, recently married a chemist (I think--she does something with science) and was Manager of the Year at the hotel where he works. Of course, all this life stuff went on while I was out travelling and generally getting into mischief. It was a bit weird to see how much our lives had diverged, but it was also very reassuring, comforting even, that it's still so easy for all of us to hang out. It was also interesting to realize that despite our very different experiences, none of us has changed especially, nor were we certain about the future. It is as if we had all fallen into our situations by chance and were waiting for a nudge into whatever is next. There is an anxiety in that and we all feel it. Somehow, this made me feel better about taking out a lot of money to attend a school I don't particularly like and having doubts about what I am doing.
After Boston, I went up to Canada with a very nice Frenchman, Romain. We caught a rideshare up and stayed with one of his high school friends who has been studying aeronautic engineering in Montréal for the past four-and-a-half years. She lives just outside the city center and played a brilliant tour guide. We also went up to Mont Tremblant, a ski resort area an hour north of the city. This was the result of whim, on my part, to go dog-sledding, which was an excellent, though irresponsibly costly, pursuit. It was also viciously cold in Québec--the intensity of which I had never experienced before in my life. For the dog-sledding adventure, I wore three pairs of socks, including one, heavy, wooly pair, tights, under wool long-johns, under jeans, under a rented pair of ski pants, as well as several sweaters and a snow jacket.
Exhibit A:
Yes, that's frost on my hair and ice on my eyelashes.
So here I am back in school now. I've decided to make more of an effort to keep up with my blog. While I believe my writing has improved here, I see the need for a daily habit, just to keep at it. Plus, there's an awful lot going on at Columbia, so it's not that I suffer a lack of subject matter. However, my new aim is less to be a journalist and more to be a writer. Given the current state of the journalism industry, I am starting to think that I may not be well-suited for the cut-throat, alcohol-soaked and surprising shallow world of reporting. Thus, to come closer to my personal aims, I am focusing more on developing a keen eye through which to observe the world, a unique voice with which to describe it and lastly, an active mind, connected to a human heart, through which process it all. I assure you the last mentioned is not, generally speaking, ever addressed at the mighty, mighty Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, much to my naive chagrin.
Now let's talk about yesterday.
Gwen Ifill came to school. She's on a book tour (she's got a book called The Breakthrough: Race and Politics in the Age of Obama) , but showed up at Columbia for an 8:15 a.m. session. The student center where she spoke was full, most impressive given that journalism students tend not to be (sober) morning people (myself, proudly, excluded).
She talked about all sorts of things--how she got her start, about being a black reporter and how one goes about covering politics--then she opened the floor for questions. None of these were particularly earth-shattering. They mostly were about race and the fact that I can't remember them without referring to my notes means that they are probably not worth repeating. But Ms. Ifill was super sharp, very charming and down-to-earth.
Something I had hoped she would address was Obama's bi-racialness. There is so much talk about the "black man," we forget altogether, so it seems, that Obama is just as white and he is black. Not only that, his father was from Africa. This, to me, makes Obama, not at all an African-American in the traditional sense (though clearly the literal sense). As a half-Chinese/half-Irish American, I'm a bit put off by all this: It makes it crystal clear that race is PURELY a matter of color and only color. Now, of course, Obama himself might identify himself as being an "African-American," but really, that would have been a choice he made. In theory, he could have just a legitimately declared himself a "White-American," though few others would have accepted this. For all this talk about progress this country has made when it comes to racism, here is a bald example of how we really do only think in terms of color. And that's just sad.
However, I didn't ask Ms. Ifill about this. The conversation flowed away from this subject by the time I had the courage to speak up, I asked her what she thought about Sarkozy's plan to inject 600 million euro into France's print media industry by modernizing the presses, cutting delivery costs and giving a subscription (of choice) to every French citizen when they turn 18 (I particularly like this last aspect). This notion rubbed Ms. Ifill the wrong way and she jokingly asked, before I clarified, if he was giving out subscriptions to government-run papers (of which I don't believe France has any).
"This is a business," she stated firmly, bristling at the thought the government might get involved with the media, even as its industry is collapsing. (And this is not to say I agree with the current proposed bail-outs. Generally, I don't. But then again, I don't really see the auto industry playing the same cultural role as the media, which I believe to be the greatest engine for creating a well-informed public.) Ironically, my question came right after a comment she made about the dangers of a public becoming increasingly specialized in their consumption habits because of the Internet and how we have to somehow think of a solution to increase a vital readership. When I pointed this out, she just repeated that media is a business and it behooves us as journalists to figure it out how to reach our audiences.
Good luck, America.
But in all events, life is good and things, for me at least, look up.
Being back in Boston also gave me the chance to kind of think about how life seems to progress for most people. Kev Dogg is a reasonably successful production manager in Hollywood, but he often finds his work unrewarding and is frustrated with his personal life. Heather lives in the sticks with her fiancé and they have a nice home, lots of furniture, regular jobs, a small business detailing cars and a bearded iguana named Pete. Mike, another of the crowd, recently married a chemist (I think--she does something with science) and was Manager of the Year at the hotel where he works. Of course, all this life stuff went on while I was out travelling and generally getting into mischief. It was a bit weird to see how much our lives had diverged, but it was also very reassuring, comforting even, that it's still so easy for all of us to hang out. It was also interesting to realize that despite our very different experiences, none of us has changed especially, nor were we certain about the future. It is as if we had all fallen into our situations by chance and were waiting for a nudge into whatever is next. There is an anxiety in that and we all feel it. Somehow, this made me feel better about taking out a lot of money to attend a school I don't particularly like and having doubts about what I am doing.
After Boston, I went up to Canada with a very nice Frenchman, Romain. We caught a rideshare up and stayed with one of his high school friends who has been studying aeronautic engineering in Montréal for the past four-and-a-half years. She lives just outside the city center and played a brilliant tour guide. We also went up to Mont Tremblant, a ski resort area an hour north of the city. This was the result of whim, on my part, to go dog-sledding, which was an excellent, though irresponsibly costly, pursuit. It was also viciously cold in Québec--the intensity of which I had never experienced before in my life. For the dog-sledding adventure, I wore three pairs of socks, including one, heavy, wooly pair, tights, under wool long-johns, under jeans, under a rented pair of ski pants, as well as several sweaters and a snow jacket.
Exhibit A:
Yes, that's frost on my hair and ice on my eyelashes.
So here I am back in school now. I've decided to make more of an effort to keep up with my blog. While I believe my writing has improved here, I see the need for a daily habit, just to keep at it. Plus, there's an awful lot going on at Columbia, so it's not that I suffer a lack of subject matter. However, my new aim is less to be a journalist and more to be a writer. Given the current state of the journalism industry, I am starting to think that I may not be well-suited for the cut-throat, alcohol-soaked and surprising shallow world of reporting. Thus, to come closer to my personal aims, I am focusing more on developing a keen eye through which to observe the world, a unique voice with which to describe it and lastly, an active mind, connected to a human heart, through which process it all. I assure you the last mentioned is not, generally speaking, ever addressed at the mighty, mighty Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, much to my naive chagrin.
Now let's talk about yesterday.
Gwen Ifill came to school. She's on a book tour (she's got a book called The Breakthrough: Race and Politics in the Age of Obama) , but showed up at Columbia for an 8:15 a.m. session. The student center where she spoke was full, most impressive given that journalism students tend not to be (sober) morning people (myself, proudly, excluded).
She talked about all sorts of things--how she got her start, about being a black reporter and how one goes about covering politics--then she opened the floor for questions. None of these were particularly earth-shattering. They mostly were about race and the fact that I can't remember them without referring to my notes means that they are probably not worth repeating. But Ms. Ifill was super sharp, very charming and down-to-earth.
Something I had hoped she would address was Obama's bi-racialness. There is so much talk about the "black man," we forget altogether, so it seems, that Obama is just as white and he is black. Not only that, his father was from Africa. This, to me, makes Obama, not at all an African-American in the traditional sense (though clearly the literal sense). As a half-Chinese/half-Irish American, I'm a bit put off by all this: It makes it crystal clear that race is PURELY a matter of color and only color. Now, of course, Obama himself might identify himself as being an "African-American," but really, that would have been a choice he made. In theory, he could have just a legitimately declared himself a "White-American," though few others would have accepted this. For all this talk about progress this country has made when it comes to racism, here is a bald example of how we really do only think in terms of color. And that's just sad.
However, I didn't ask Ms. Ifill about this. The conversation flowed away from this subject by the time I had the courage to speak up, I asked her what she thought about Sarkozy's plan to inject 600 million euro into France's print media industry by modernizing the presses, cutting delivery costs and giving a subscription (of choice) to every French citizen when they turn 18 (I particularly like this last aspect). This notion rubbed Ms. Ifill the wrong way and she jokingly asked, before I clarified, if he was giving out subscriptions to government-run papers (of which I don't believe France has any).
"This is a business," she stated firmly, bristling at the thought the government might get involved with the media, even as its industry is collapsing. (And this is not to say I agree with the current proposed bail-outs. Generally, I don't. But then again, I don't really see the auto industry playing the same cultural role as the media, which I believe to be the greatest engine for creating a well-informed public.) Ironically, my question came right after a comment she made about the dangers of a public becoming increasingly specialized in their consumption habits because of the Internet and how we have to somehow think of a solution to increase a vital readership. When I pointed this out, she just repeated that media is a business and it behooves us as journalists to figure it out how to reach our audiences.
Good luck, America.
But in all events, life is good and things, for me at least, look up.
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