The New Yorker
Jan. 12, 2009
Can a remedy serve for both global warming and poverty?
By Elizabeth Kolbert
This is an excerpt from Greening the Ghetto about Van Jones, founder and president of Green for All.
The modern environmental movement is sometimes said to have begun in the eighteen-nineties, when John Muir founded the Sierra Club, and sometimes in the nineteen-sixties, when Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring.” Muir and Carson saw themselves fighting narrow, private interests on behalf of the public in the broadest possible sense-all people, including those who had not been born. But stop by a meeting of any of the major environmental groups, and you will see that the broad American public has yet to join up. Chances are that most of the attendees will be white, and the few who aren’t will be affluent and middle-aged. A 2006 study commissioned by Earthjustic, a nonprofit environmental law group, found that the “ecological base”-defined as Americans who report the environment as being central to their concerns-is “nearly ninety percent white, mostly college-educated, higher-income, and over thirty-five.”
“Your goal has to be to get the greenest solutions to the poorest people,” Jones told me. “That’s the only goal that’s morally compelling enough to generate enough energy to pull this transition off. The challenge is making this an everybody movement, so your main icons are Joe Six-Pack-Joe the Plumber-becoming Joe the Solar guy, or that kid on the street corner putting down his handgun, picking up a caulk gun."
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Introduction to David Allen & GTD
Dear Collaborators in Exceptional Learning,
For about four years I have been following the advice of David Allen about how to get things done--GTD, as he calls it.
I still have much to learn.
My wife and I went to his day-long workshop in Chicago and found it helpful. He has smart ideas--what he calls advanced common sense--about how to organize your time and your life to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
And yes he does live in California--Ojai, to be exact. But Wall Street and Fortune 500 companies rely on his advice. And now so do I.
I was introduced to Allen by an article in the Atlantic Monthly by James Fallows, former speech writer for Jimmy Carter and once the editor of US News & World Report.
Also my friend at Poynter, Chip Scanlan, told me about Allen's template--"Natural Planning"-- which is a set of useful questions to ask when you are doing a big project, such as a book.
Allen and his company are very tech savvy and has introduced me to many things, including a new brainstorming software--Mind Manager.
One of the strategies I have adopted is the Weekly Review. That is the time to go over everything--which I have stored mainly in my Entourage Tasks lists. There are about 480 items there today--anything from return a book to Amazon to write one hour today on an article. These are my Next Actions.
The idea of the Weekly Review is to review the things you need to do. This can take one to three hours. This is not time spent completing the actions. But the idea is to get all these things off your mind so you can then focus on what you need to do now and not be distracted by thinking: "I need to return the Amazon book" while I am drafting an article today.
Anyway, in this spirit, I ask you today to consider the rest of your semester.
What do you need to accomplish?
What are the discrete steps that you must take for each major project?
When will you do them?
When is the best time of the day to do these tasks?
And here are questions that David Allen asked me today in my Friday email I get from him:
=============
Do you need to be scheduling blocks of time for yourself in the coming two weeks?
Do you have any actions that require more than an hour of uninterrupted time, and which are "heating up" now in terms of urgency?
This is a very important benefit of your Weekly Review giving you tactical perspective and permission to bracket valuable space for yourself to get some of those things done.
"It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself." Johann Goethe
==============
May you move closer to getting done what you want to get done--including finding a balance in work and play.
BH
For about four years I have been following the advice of David Allen about how to get things done--GTD, as he calls it.
I still have much to learn.
My wife and I went to his day-long workshop in Chicago and found it helpful. He has smart ideas--what he calls advanced common sense--about how to organize your time and your life to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
And yes he does live in California--Ojai, to be exact. But Wall Street and Fortune 500 companies rely on his advice. And now so do I.
I was introduced to Allen by an article in the Atlantic Monthly by James Fallows, former speech writer for Jimmy Carter and once the editor of US News & World Report.
Also my friend at Poynter, Chip Scanlan, told me about Allen's template--"Natural Planning"-- which is a set of useful questions to ask when you are doing a big project, such as a book.
Allen and his company are very tech savvy and has introduced me to many things, including a new brainstorming software--Mind Manager.
One of the strategies I have adopted is the Weekly Review. That is the time to go over everything--which I have stored mainly in my Entourage Tasks lists. There are about 480 items there today--anything from return a book to Amazon to write one hour today on an article. These are my Next Actions.
The idea of the Weekly Review is to review the things you need to do. This can take one to three hours. This is not time spent completing the actions. But the idea is to get all these things off your mind so you can then focus on what you need to do now and not be distracted by thinking: "I need to return the Amazon book" while I am drafting an article today.
Anyway, in this spirit, I ask you today to consider the rest of your semester.
What do you need to accomplish?
What are the discrete steps that you must take for each major project?
When will you do them?
When is the best time of the day to do these tasks?
And here are questions that David Allen asked me today in my Friday email I get from him:
=============
Do you need to be scheduling blocks of time for yourself in the coming two weeks?
Do you have any actions that require more than an hour of uninterrupted time, and which are "heating up" now in terms of urgency?
This is a very important benefit of your Weekly Review giving you tactical perspective and permission to bracket valuable space for yourself to get some of those things done.
"It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself." Johann Goethe
==============
May you move closer to getting done what you want to get done--including finding a balance in work and play.
BH
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wright Thompson, GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI, ESPN MAGAZINE online
I draw your attention to Wright Thompson's strong reporting and writing in this ESPN Magazine.
Here is an excerpt of what I wrote to Wright, who received his undergraduate degree from the Missouri School of Journalism, who is married to another Mizzou journalism grad, Sonia Weinberg--Steve Weinberg's and Scherrie Goettsch's daughter.
I wrote to him:
Once I began reading, I knew I wanted to slowly read every word, and think about what you were saying, think about the 1962 Rebels football team and their intersection with history. Most of the 1962 games, (I can't recall if I went to the Mississippi State game), I heard in their entirety on the radio.
I read your story instead of writing a book chapter. But, in fact, I believe it will help me to now return to write that chapter, about magazines in America in 1880-1920 period.
The SATURDAY EVENING POST in November 1898, according to Frank Luther Mott, described football this way, before there was Buck Randall of Ole Miss:
"The capacity to take hard knocks which belongs to a successful football player is usually associated with the qualities that would enable a man to lead a charge up San Juan Hill or guide the Merrimac into Santiago Harbor."
There are many fine things about the 1962 story, including your own struggle with your family, the history of your state, our state. One of my brothers was in Meredith's biology class and lived a dorm or two away from Baxter Hall.
These days as part of my work, I deal with brutal photographs of racial violence in the 1930s in my hometown of Columbus. And at the same time I deal with images that are so sublime, pictures of black people and white people living their lives in the 1920s, 1930s & 1940s, in the era of "the little grocery stores and the guy pushing burgers off a griddle."
Great reporting. Great writing. You wove into this story so many specific, telling details that can resonate with people who know nothing about Mississippi and people who know a great deal about Mississippi.
I especially like how your handled the whispered phrase with the wives out of earshot: "The blacks..."
I will share your article with my Advanced Writing students at Mizzou.
Thanks for your care and insight, made manifest in journalistic writing.
Here is an excerpt of what I wrote to Wright, who received his undergraduate degree from the Missouri School of Journalism, who is married to another Mizzou journalism grad, Sonia Weinberg--Steve Weinberg's and Scherrie Goettsch's daughter.
I wrote to him:
Once I began reading, I knew I wanted to slowly read every word, and think about what you were saying, think about the 1962 Rebels football team and their intersection with history. Most of the 1962 games, (I can't recall if I went to the Mississippi State game), I heard in their entirety on the radio.
I read your story instead of writing a book chapter. But, in fact, I believe it will help me to now return to write that chapter, about magazines in America in 1880-1920 period.
The SATURDAY EVENING POST in November 1898, according to Frank Luther Mott, described football this way, before there was Buck Randall of Ole Miss:
"The capacity to take hard knocks which belongs to a successful football player is usually associated with the qualities that would enable a man to lead a charge up San Juan Hill or guide the Merrimac into Santiago Harbor."
There are many fine things about the 1962 story, including your own struggle with your family, the history of your state, our state. One of my brothers was in Meredith's biology class and lived a dorm or two away from Baxter Hall.
These days as part of my work, I deal with brutal photographs of racial violence in the 1930s in my hometown of Columbus. And at the same time I deal with images that are so sublime, pictures of black people and white people living their lives in the 1920s, 1930s & 1940s, in the era of "the little grocery stores and the guy pushing burgers off a griddle."
Great reporting. Great writing. You wove into this story so many specific, telling details that can resonate with people who know nothing about Mississippi and people who know a great deal about Mississippi.
I especially like how your handled the whispered phrase with the wives out of earshot: "The blacks..."
I will share your article with my Advanced Writing students at Mizzou.
Thanks for your care and insight, made manifest in journalistic writing.
Thoughts on the talent of Gay Talese
As I read Gay Talese’s collection of “Portraits and Encounters,” I found myself asking just what it was about his writing that is so appealing. It would be tiresome to point to his attention to telling details, like Frank Sinatra’s toupee or the mambo kings, salsa dancers and copper-colored prostitutes that bring to life a “breezy, palm-flapping winter evening in Havana.” This kind of craftsmanship seems almost a prerequisite of Talese’s genre. It would be equally cliché to point to his interest in nobodies and losers; it would also be false, as he is just as happy to write about celebrities and champions at the top of their game. What I picked up from returning to Talese this time is that at the heart of his talent is a kind of simple wisdom: the faith of a storyteller, namely, that all he has to do, by virtue of his curiosity, is find his way to the story, notebook in hand. Then he just follows the story along as it tells itself.
Gay Talese doesn’t so much tell stories as look at and listen to them. Late at night, he stares through shop windows at the “strange fairyland of gangling goddesses, all frozen in the act of dashing to a party, diving into a swimming pool or sashaying skyward in billowy blue negligee,” and he wonders who makes the mannequins that way. He sees the stray cats under cars or by the waterfront, and he asks if indeed there are different clusters of cat culture. A random afternoon in a pool hall, an evening in a TV studio and a day at a movie set, is each itself a tale, and at the same time each a slice of the sometimes lonely, other times tense and often sweet life of Frank Sinatra. Talese shows up at boxer Floyd Patterson’s clubhouse in upstate New York, and within a day he is off to witness the one-time knockout king lose in a standoff with a group of tweens. He hears of how Patterson slinks off from his defeated bouts in a fake moustache and dark glasses, afraid to face the crowd.
What Talese brings to each of these stories is interest in the variety and richness of life, his thoughtfulness, and his wide open eyes and ears.
Gay Talese doesn’t so much tell stories as look at and listen to them. Late at night, he stares through shop windows at the “strange fairyland of gangling goddesses, all frozen in the act of dashing to a party, diving into a swimming pool or sashaying skyward in billowy blue negligee,” and he wonders who makes the mannequins that way. He sees the stray cats under cars or by the waterfront, and he asks if indeed there are different clusters of cat culture. A random afternoon in a pool hall, an evening in a TV studio and a day at a movie set, is each itself a tale, and at the same time each a slice of the sometimes lonely, other times tense and often sweet life of Frank Sinatra. Talese shows up at boxer Floyd Patterson’s clubhouse in upstate New York, and within a day he is off to witness the one-time knockout king lose in a standoff with a group of tweens. He hears of how Patterson slinks off from his defeated bouts in a fake moustache and dark glasses, afraid to face the crowd.
What Talese brings to each of these stories is interest in the variety and richness of life, his thoughtfulness, and his wide open eyes and ears.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Response to the Gay Talese Reader
Gay Talese Response
Charlotte Atchley
I found Gay Talese’s profiles insightful and easy to read. I think the beauty of his method is he writes these profiles in the most intimate way, by taking his readers through a day in the life of his subject. What is more intimate than the daily routines of our most famous athletes, entertainers and publications—what they eat, drink, who they see and talk to.
Talese doesn’t restrict himself to the monotonous events of a day, however. He uses those moments as jumping off points for deeper revelations and explorations into a his subject’s character and past, much in the same way that our minds will notice a friend’s red car and take us back to the last time we saw that friend’s car and the events that surrounded that sighting. This much more readable form of stream-of-consciousness writing draws us in because it’s so natural. It’s how our brains function, and Talese uses it to weave background and depth into present, moving events.
Talese’s choices in his presentation of a profile and the very subjects he writes about are surprising. In New York is a City of Things Unnoticed, Talese writes a profile of a city that has appeared in hundreds of writings but never from this angle, that surprisingly reveals a fresh side to the city’s character. Talese writes about the down and out, the stars who are fading—Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio and Floyd Patterson instead of profiling Mickey Mantle at the height of his career. By not following who and what is hot at the moment, Talese creates a profile so much more interesting and surprising than just another Mickey Mantle profile.
Charlotte Atchley
I found Gay Talese’s profiles insightful and easy to read. I think the beauty of his method is he writes these profiles in the most intimate way, by taking his readers through a day in the life of his subject. What is more intimate than the daily routines of our most famous athletes, entertainers and publications—what they eat, drink, who they see and talk to.
Talese doesn’t restrict himself to the monotonous events of a day, however. He uses those moments as jumping off points for deeper revelations and explorations into a his subject’s character and past, much in the same way that our minds will notice a friend’s red car and take us back to the last time we saw that friend’s car and the events that surrounded that sighting. This much more readable form of stream-of-consciousness writing draws us in because it’s so natural. It’s how our brains function, and Talese uses it to weave background and depth into present, moving events.
Talese’s choices in his presentation of a profile and the very subjects he writes about are surprising. In New York is a City of Things Unnoticed, Talese writes a profile of a city that has appeared in hundreds of writings but never from this angle, that surprisingly reveals a fresh side to the city’s character. Talese writes about the down and out, the stars who are fading—Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio and Floyd Patterson instead of profiling Mickey Mantle at the height of his career. By not following who and what is hot at the moment, Talese creates a profile so much more interesting and surprising than just another Mickey Mantle profile.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Mark Twain's report on the Buffalo Female Academy's Writing Contest
My mentor Mel Mencher drew my attention to this report about writing, from Mark Twain. Note: LitJo master's student Charlotte Atchley is working on final paper about Twain's INNOCENTS ABROAD.
Excerpt from Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction Tom Quirk-University of Missouri-Columbia Copyright 1997 by Twayne Publishers Page 132-135
The paper we have chosen for the first prize of the graduates is very much the best literary effort in the whole collection, and yet it is almost the least ambitious among them.
It relates a very simple little incident, in unpretentious language, and then achieves the difficult feat of pointing it with one of those dismal atrocities called a Moral, without devoting double the space to it which it ought to occupy and outraging every canon for good taste, relevance and modesty.
It is a composition which possesses, also, the very rare merit of stopping when it is finished. It shows a freedom from adjectives and superlatives which is attractive, not to say seductive--and let us remark instructively, in passing, that one can seldom run his pen through an adjective without improving his manuscript. We can say further, in praise of this first-prize composition, that there is a singular aptness of language noticeable in it—denoting a shrewd faculty of selecting just the right word for the service needed, as a general thing.
It is a high gift. It is the talent which gives accuracy, grace and vividness in descriptive writing.
[I can send you a Word document with the full Twain report, if you want it. BH]
Excerpt from Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction Tom Quirk-University of Missouri-Columbia Copyright 1997 by Twayne Publishers Page 132-135
The paper we have chosen for the first prize of the graduates is very much the best literary effort in the whole collection, and yet it is almost the least ambitious among them.
It relates a very simple little incident, in unpretentious language, and then achieves the difficult feat of pointing it with one of those dismal atrocities called a Moral, without devoting double the space to it which it ought to occupy and outraging every canon for good taste, relevance and modesty.
It is a composition which possesses, also, the very rare merit of stopping when it is finished. It shows a freedom from adjectives and superlatives which is attractive, not to say seductive--and let us remark instructively, in passing, that one can seldom run his pen through an adjective without improving his manuscript. We can say further, in praise of this first-prize composition, that there is a singular aptness of language noticeable in it—denoting a shrewd faculty of selecting just the right word for the service needed, as a general thing.
It is a high gift. It is the talent which gives accuracy, grace and vividness in descriptive writing.
[I can send you a Word document with the full Twain report, if you want it. BH]
Friday, February 20, 2009
A Blog About Blogs: A Few Good Bloggers
I've had blogs on the mind lately.
Last semester, a few of us in this class were in a quantitative group together that produced a paper called "Be-Bop and Blog." We used the same article - a jazz review - attributed two different ways, to a blog or a magazine, and found that participants (college journalism students in intermediate writing) perceived bloggers as having more aspects of credibility and interest than magazine writers. The same article - only the attribution was changed!
Anyway, I don't think any of us are really confident that results we received were representative of national confidence in magazines, but like I said - them blogs have been on the brain.
So I thought I might point out a few interesting blogs out there. I'm only talking about sites for individual bloggers who have used their personality to make buzz. And I'm going to avoid the Gawkers and PerezHiltons of the world, but not to bash them.
I encourage everybody to comment with any blogs they enjoy. This seems like it could be morphed into an interesting paper topic, depending on the blog.
So, without further adieu (which, by the way, this guy told me was "ado"):
Last semester, a few of us in this class were in a quantitative group together that produced a paper called "Be-Bop and Blog." We used the same article - a jazz review - attributed two different ways, to a blog or a magazine, and found that participants (college journalism students in intermediate writing) perceived bloggers as having more aspects of credibility and interest than magazine writers. The same article - only the attribution was changed!
Anyway, I don't think any of us are really confident that results we received were representative of national confidence in magazines, but like I said - them blogs have been on the brain.
So I thought I might point out a few interesting blogs out there. I'm only talking about sites for individual bloggers who have used their personality to make buzz. And I'm going to avoid the Gawkers and PerezHiltons of the world, but not to bash them.
I encourage everybody to comment with any blogs they enjoy. This seems like it could be morphed into an interesting paper topic, depending on the blog.
So, without further adieu (which, by the way, this guy told me was "ado"):
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Son of Dith Pran Talks About Khmer Rouge Trials
Karen Ziner, my former colleague at the Providence Journal, has written an article of interest to those following events in Cambodia, now and in the past. Here is the link and top of article. I am unsure if you need to register to get on the ProJo site. Her email is kziner@projo.com
Karen is one of the finest journalists I know.
Son of Dith Pran says father would have relished seeing Khmer Rouge brought to justice at trials
01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 15, 2009
By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer
Titony Dith and his father, Dith Pran.
Photo courtesy of Titony Dith
In April of 1975, as the Khmer Rouge advanced on Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, Titony Dith saw the rocket attacks and dead and wounded people lying on the streets. He was just a boy.
That was shortly before the Khmer Rouge captured his famous father, Dith Pran, whose story was immortalized in the film The Killing Fields. Dith Pran died of cancer last year, before Khmer Rouge leaders could be brought to trial.
“He would love to have seen the Khmer Rouge brought to justice,” said Titony Dith, 44, in a phone interview from his home in Virginia. “Before he became sick, he told me he’d like to see the trial go on, and for the Khmer Rouge to be brought to justice for all the people who died under the brutal regime of Pol Pot.”
Dith Pran had ties in Rhode Island’s Cambodian community — one of the largest in the country –– and made numerous visits here, including to speak about the Khmer Rouge holocaust. After his death, Cambodians here said that if not for Dith Pran, the world might not have recognized their suffering.
Karen is one of the finest journalists I know.
Son of Dith Pran says father would have relished seeing Khmer Rouge brought to justice at trials
01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 15, 2009
By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer
Titony Dith and his father, Dith Pran.
Photo courtesy of Titony Dith
In April of 1975, as the Khmer Rouge advanced on Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, Titony Dith saw the rocket attacks and dead and wounded people lying on the streets. He was just a boy.
That was shortly before the Khmer Rouge captured his famous father, Dith Pran, whose story was immortalized in the film The Killing Fields. Dith Pran died of cancer last year, before Khmer Rouge leaders could be brought to trial.
“He would love to have seen the Khmer Rouge brought to justice,” said Titony Dith, 44, in a phone interview from his home in Virginia. “Before he became sick, he told me he’d like to see the trial go on, and for the Khmer Rouge to be brought to justice for all the people who died under the brutal regime of Pol Pot.”
Dith Pran had ties in Rhode Island’s Cambodian community — one of the largest in the country –– and made numerous visits here, including to speak about the Khmer Rouge holocaust. After his death, Cambodians here said that if not for Dith Pran, the world might not have recognized their suffering.
Cambodia Hearings About Killing Fields
Here are two links from stories today that connect with our upcoming inquiry into news reporting and writing about genocide:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/world/asia/17cambodia.html?scp=1&sq=Cambodia%20killing%20fields%20Tuol&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/02/17/world/international-us-cambodia-rouge.html
BH
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/world/asia/17cambodia.html?scp=1&sq=Cambodia%20killing%20fields%20Tuol&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/02/17/world/international-us-cambodia-rouge.html
BH
Polk Awards. If You Are Serious, You Will Study Them: Talese, Bearak, Dugger
The George Polk Awards were announced Monday. The Polk Award is one of the highest accolades in journalism. They are named for Polk, who was a CBS correspondent killed in Greece during the 1948 civil war there.
For those of you who are serious about journalism, you will look up the original stories by writers such as Barry Bearak & Celia W. Dugger--of the NYT. Bearak is one of my favorites. He worked at the LAT when I was there and was amazing and is amazing as a reporter and writer. Gay Talese won a lifetime achievement award
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/nyregion/17polk.html?scp=1&sq=Polk%20Awards&st=cse
I read this article in the hard copy of the NYT today. When I went to the website to try to find it, by just looking for the words Polk Awards, it could not. So I put Polk Awards in the search box. Actual newspapers have a virtue in that you can scan quickly through sections. Scanning on a webpage is a different experience: sometimes better. Sometimes worse.
For those of you who are serious about journalism, you will look up the original stories by writers such as Barry Bearak & Celia W. Dugger--of the NYT. Bearak is one of my favorites. He worked at the LAT when I was there and was amazing and is amazing as a reporter and writer. Gay Talese won a lifetime achievement award
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/nyregion/17polk.html?scp=1&sq=Polk%20Awards&st=cse
I read this article in the hard copy of the NYT today. When I went to the website to try to find it, by just looking for the words Polk Awards, it could not. So I put Polk Awards in the search box. Actual newspapers have a virtue in that you can scan quickly through sections. Scanning on a webpage is a different experience: sometimes better. Sometimes worse.
“Silent Spring” among today’s critics
In addition to the recommended readings for class, I came across different video clips on youtube and just wanted to share it with the class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vstRuRYcDA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=548tzMJjtro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vstRuRYcDA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=548tzMJjtro
Monday, February 16, 2009
The Fog Machine of Silent Spring
About the time Rachel Carson published SILENT SPRING in September 1962, I rode my bicycle behind the "fog truck" as it made its way through the streets of Possum Town. The gray, chemical mist that blew out from behind the machine in the bed of the pickup truck aimed to kill the mosquitoes that blanketed our humid, hot, Mississippi landscape. The fog smelled tart. It tasted bitter and burned my eyes as I weaved my three-speed Schwinn along the streets by the banks of the Tombigbee River.
BH
BH
Silent Spring and the current crisis in environmentalism
Have you ever had the nightmare where you are staring into the very teeth of doom, and you try to scream ... you scream and scream your head off ... but no sound comes out?
That's what it feels like covering the environment in South Florida for a community newspaper.
In class, we have asked what story would Woodward and Bernstein be working on today. My vote goes to the scoop about how the world's oceans are in crisis and will soon be nothing but viscous tubs of toxic algae if we don't take dramatic steps immediately, according to a consensus of scientists.
A series about this in the Los Angeles Times, entitled "Altered Oceans," won the Pulitzer for explanatory reporting in 2007. But have any of you seen any press about this?
Here's the Fresh Air interview with one of the reporters of the series.
And here's a report from the Naples Daily News about how the Gulf of Mexico is dying.
Here's the executive summary of the Pew Oceans Commissions report, in which scientists announce that the oceans are in crisis.
And here's the report from U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, a massive government study that essentially says the same thing.
That's what it feels like covering the environment in South Florida for a community newspaper.
In class, we have asked what story would Woodward and Bernstein be working on today. My vote goes to the scoop about how the world's oceans are in crisis and will soon be nothing but viscous tubs of toxic algae if we don't take dramatic steps immediately, according to a consensus of scientists.
A series about this in the Los Angeles Times, entitled "Altered Oceans," won the Pulitzer for explanatory reporting in 2007. But have any of you seen any press about this?
A Primeval Tide of Toxins
Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.Here's the Fresh Air interview with one of the reporters of the series.
And here's a report from the Naples Daily News about how the Gulf of Mexico is dying.
Here's the executive summary of the Pew Oceans Commissions report, in which scientists announce that the oceans are in crisis.
And here's the report from U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, a massive government study that essentially says the same thing.
Tom Junod’s biography. He will be at Mizzou, March 5-6, 2009
From John Fennell:
Tom Junod started his journalism career at Atlanta Magazine, before moving on to Life, Sports Illustrated, GQ, and Esquire.
At GQ, Junod won two National Magazine Awards, the first for a profile of an abortion doctor, the second for a profile of a rapist undergoing therapy while enduring what is known as "civil commitment."
In eleven years as Writer-At-Large at Esquire, Junod has written profiles of Kevin Spacey, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Fred Rogers, FBI counter-terrorist expert John O'Neill, Steve Jobs, and Nicole Kidman, among others, and reported on American hostages in Ecuador and American snipers accused of murder in Iraq. His noted 2003 piece, "The Falling Man," was a finalist for a National Magazine Award, as was his 2007 story, “The Loved Ones.”
A 10-time National Magazine Award finalist, Junod, 51, whose first job out of college was selling handbags, splits his time between Atlanta, Ga,. and Shelter Island, N.Y., with his wife, Janet, and their daughter Antonia Li.
Tom Junod started his journalism career at Atlanta Magazine, before moving on to Life, Sports Illustrated, GQ, and Esquire.
At GQ, Junod won two National Magazine Awards, the first for a profile of an abortion doctor, the second for a profile of a rapist undergoing therapy while enduring what is known as "civil commitment."
In eleven years as Writer-At-Large at Esquire, Junod has written profiles of Kevin Spacey, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Fred Rogers, FBI counter-terrorist expert John O'Neill, Steve Jobs, and Nicole Kidman, among others, and reported on American hostages in Ecuador and American snipers accused of murder in Iraq. His noted 2003 piece, "The Falling Man," was a finalist for a National Magazine Award, as was his 2007 story, “The Loved Ones.”
A 10-time National Magazine Award finalist, Junod, 51, whose first job out of college was selling handbags, splits his time between Atlanta, Ga,. and Shelter Island, N.Y., with his wife, Janet, and their daughter Antonia Li.
Diane Arbus as a Revelator
Here is part of the Guggenheim application statement by photographer Diane Arbus in 1963. I saw a phenomenal Arbus exhibit in New York in March 2005. The book DIANE ARBUS REVELATIONS represents some of the images in that show.
The show included a space in the museum that replicated her darkroom with her books and a photographic enlarger that allowed you to see with a safe-light how an negative image appeared when she was printing it.
What Arbus wanted to explore reminded me of some of the ideas you might pursue.
May her work and the work of others such as her inspire you to achieve your wildest dreams.
-------------
1963
Plan for a Photographic Project
American Rites, Manners and Customs
I want to photograph the considerable ceremonies of our present because we tend while living here and now to perceive only what is random and barren and formless about it. While we regret that the present is not like the past and despair of its ever becoming the future, its innumerable inscrutable habits lie in wait for their meaning. I want to gather them, like somebody’s grandmother putting up preserves, because they will have been so beautiful.
There are the Ceremonies of Celebration (the Pageants, the Festivals, the Feasts, the Conventions) and the Ceremonies of Competition (Contests, Games, Sports), the Ceremonies of Buying and Selling, of Gambling, of the Law and the Show; the Ceremonies of Fame in which the Winners Win and the Lucky are Chosen or Family Ceremonies or Gatherings (the Schools, the Clubs the Meetings). Then there are the Ceremonial Places (The Beauty Parlor, The Funeral Parlor or, simply the Parlor) and Ceremonial Costumes (what Waitresses wear, or Wrestlers), Ceremonies of the Rich, like the Dog Show, and of the Middle Class, like the Bridge Game. Or, for example: the Dancing Lesson, the Graduation, the Testimonial Dinner, the Séance, the Gymnasium and the Picnic. And perhaps the Waiting Room, the Factory, the Masquerade, the Rehearsal, the Initiation, the Hotel Lobby and the Birthday Party. The etcetera.
I will write whatever is necessary for the further description and elucidation of these Rites and I will go wherever I can to find them.
These are our symptoms and our monuments. I want simply to save them, for what is ceremonious and curious and commonplace will be legendary.
------------
BH
The show included a space in the museum that replicated her darkroom with her books and a photographic enlarger that allowed you to see with a safe-light how an negative image appeared when she was printing it.
What Arbus wanted to explore reminded me of some of the ideas you might pursue.
May her work and the work of others such as her inspire you to achieve your wildest dreams.
-------------
1963
Plan for a Photographic Project
American Rites, Manners and Customs
I want to photograph the considerable ceremonies of our present because we tend while living here and now to perceive only what is random and barren and formless about it. While we regret that the present is not like the past and despair of its ever becoming the future, its innumerable inscrutable habits lie in wait for their meaning. I want to gather them, like somebody’s grandmother putting up preserves, because they will have been so beautiful.
There are the Ceremonies of Celebration (the Pageants, the Festivals, the Feasts, the Conventions) and the Ceremonies of Competition (Contests, Games, Sports), the Ceremonies of Buying and Selling, of Gambling, of the Law and the Show; the Ceremonies of Fame in which the Winners Win and the Lucky are Chosen or Family Ceremonies or Gatherings (the Schools, the Clubs the Meetings). Then there are the Ceremonial Places (The Beauty Parlor, The Funeral Parlor or, simply the Parlor) and Ceremonial Costumes (what Waitresses wear, or Wrestlers), Ceremonies of the Rich, like the Dog Show, and of the Middle Class, like the Bridge Game. Or, for example: the Dancing Lesson, the Graduation, the Testimonial Dinner, the Séance, the Gymnasium and the Picnic. And perhaps the Waiting Room, the Factory, the Masquerade, the Rehearsal, the Initiation, the Hotel Lobby and the Birthday Party. The etcetera.
I will write whatever is necessary for the further description and elucidation of these Rites and I will go wherever I can to find them.
These are our symptoms and our monuments. I want simply to save them, for what is ceremonious and curious and commonplace will be legendary.
------------
BH
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
James Baldwin in the New Yorker, Feb. 9 & 16, 2009
I went to my mailbox this evening and opened the New Yorker to find this story below, which I encourage you to read in hard copy or online. It dovetails nicely with many of the topics we discussed today. BH
Another Country
James Baldwin’s flight from America.
by Claudia Roth Pierpont
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/02/09/090209crbo_books_pierpont
Feeling more than usually restless, James Baldwin flew from New York to Paris in the late summer of 1961, and from there to Israel. Then, rather than proceed as he had planned to Africa—a part of the world he was not ready to confront—he decided to visit a friend in Istanbul. Baldwin’s arrival at his Turkish friend’s door, in the midst of a party, was, as the friend recalled, a great surprise: two rings of the bell, and there stood a small and bedraggled black man with a battered suitcase and enormous eyes. Engin Cezzar was a Turkish actor who had worked with Baldwin in New York, and he excitedly introduced “Jimmy Baldwin, of literary fame, the famous black American novelist” to the roomful of intellectuals and artists.
Another Country
James Baldwin’s flight from America.
by Claudia Roth Pierpont
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/02/09/090209crbo_books_pierpont
Feeling more than usually restless, James Baldwin flew from New York to Paris in the late summer of 1961, and from there to Israel. Then, rather than proceed as he had planned to Africa—a part of the world he was not ready to confront—he decided to visit a friend in Istanbul. Baldwin’s arrival at his Turkish friend’s door, in the midst of a party, was, as the friend recalled, a great surprise: two rings of the bell, and there stood a small and bedraggled black man with a battered suitcase and enormous eyes. Engin Cezzar was a Turkish actor who had worked with Baldwin in New York, and he excitedly introduced “Jimmy Baldwin, of literary fame, the famous black American novelist” to the roomful of intellectuals and artists.
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Power of Documentary Film and Its LitJo Connection
Throughout the semester I encourage you to pay attention to documentary films and how they connect with our subjects and discussions.
How does the work of documentarians intersect with that of print or photojournalists in terms of reporting, writing, revising, and thinking?
We will likely watch a film by Frederick Wiseman, perhaps Titicut Follies.
See www.zipporah.com
We may watch or talk about documentarians Errol Morris http://www.errolmorris.com/or Barbara Kopple. http://www.cabincreekfilms.com/barbara_kopple.html
Morris writes regularly for the NYT webpage.
Also I encourage everyone to find a way to attend the True/False film festival.
See www.truefalse.org
Here is a film I read about recently but have not seen:
http://www.farmingvillethemovie.com/playTrailer.html
Farmingville
Documentary
78 minutes
USA
Premier 2003
Directors Statement
To tell this story, we lived and worked for nearly a year in Farmingville, New York, where we experienced firsthand the tensions in this small Long Island town. Farmingville’s story reflects the challenge facing many communities as the Latino population not only spreads across the nation farther than any previous wave of immigrants, but also bypasses traditional immigrant gateways and heads directly to suburbs and the American heartland.
Crew
Directors: Catherine Tambini and Carlos Sandoval
Producers: Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini
Cinematographers: Catherine Tambini and Karola Ritter
Screenwriter: Carlos Sandoval
Editors: John Bloomgarden and Mary Manhardt
Composer: Steven Schoenberg
Sound Recordists: Peter Miller and John Zecca
Broadcast
PBS: P.O.V. 2004 (Season Opener)
CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation): Passionate Eye, 2004
BH
How does the work of documentarians intersect with that of print or photojournalists in terms of reporting, writing, revising, and thinking?
We will likely watch a film by Frederick Wiseman, perhaps Titicut Follies.
See www.zipporah.com
We may watch or talk about documentarians Errol Morris http://www.errolmorris.com/or Barbara Kopple. http://www.cabincreekfilms.com/barbara_kopple.html
Morris writes regularly for the NYT webpage.
Also I encourage everyone to find a way to attend the True/False film festival.
See www.truefalse.org
Here is a film I read about recently but have not seen:
http://www.farmingvillethemovie.com/playTrailer.html
Farmingville
Documentary
78 minutes
USA
Premier 2003
Directors Statement
To tell this story, we lived and worked for nearly a year in Farmingville, New York, where we experienced firsthand the tensions in this small Long Island town. Farmingville’s story reflects the challenge facing many communities as the Latino population not only spreads across the nation farther than any previous wave of immigrants, but also bypasses traditional immigrant gateways and heads directly to suburbs and the American heartland.
Crew
Directors: Catherine Tambini and Carlos Sandoval
Producers: Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini
Cinematographers: Catherine Tambini and Karola Ritter
Screenwriter: Carlos Sandoval
Editors: John Bloomgarden and Mary Manhardt
Composer: Steven Schoenberg
Sound Recordists: Peter Miller and John Zecca
Broadcast
PBS: P.O.V. 2004 (Season Opener)
CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation): Passionate Eye, 2004
BH
Sunday, February 8, 2009
More on Wideman
In 1997 Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on Jamila Wideman, the baby in Brothers and Keepers, that profiles her relationships with her family, teammates at Stanford and with her incarcerated brother.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Booker T. Washington and Du Bois
The February 2, 2009 issue of the New Yorker has an article about Booker T. Washington that mentions W.E.B. Du Bois' criticism of him in "The Souls of Black Folk."
Friday, February 6, 2009
Top 100 Works of Journalism, According to NYU
Here is the link http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Top%20100%20page.htm
What's missing? Why?
What books, articles, and authors would you add to make your own Top 100?
What books, articles, and authors would you remove to make your Top 100?
BH
What's missing? Why?
What books, articles, and authors would you add to make your own Top 100?
What books, articles, and authors would you remove to make your Top 100?
BH
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