By Sheila
Lennon
Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Fair and balanced, too!
April 9, 2004, 6:21 p.m. -- (Last
week's weblog)
Moving
image: A mosaic of soldiers who have died in Iraq. In the full-sized
version, you can see every face:
It's a mosaic composed of the photos of the American service men and women
who have died in Iraq. No photograph is used more than three times. (Small
version: 400 by 468 pixels) Here is a medium-sized
version, 800 x 925 pixels. Here is the full-sized
version,
1890 x 2209 pixels. I call the image 'War President'
The original creator has maxed out his bandwidth, so these links are to a
mirror at Photo Matt, and by Dan Shannon at !Blog, who
writes,
My eyes burn a little as I think about this. Some of these men stare into
the camera with a smile, some with determination, some with fear or sadness
at being taken from their families to fight a barely-justified war halfway
across the world. They all have one thing in common: they’re not
coming back.
There are 610 of them now. 610 brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers,
sons and daughters. They died in a war for oil and empire. I hope that President
Bush sees this picture sometime, because Joe may have created it, but the President
made it.
Related: Smell
the satire: Here's a picture of John Ashcroft's face, made
entirely
of little porn people.
Link
to this item | Comment
Bribing for a table: I have no idea why this
October 2000 story by Bruce Feiler
in Gourmet magazine (lamely headlines Pocketful
of Dough) is surfacing now
in the blogosphere, but it's at Epicurious.com and spreading
fast:
I would go to some of the hardest-to-penetrate restaurants in New
York armed with little more than an empty stomach, an iron-clad willingness
to be humiliated, and a fistful of dough. Most people (including the editors
of this magazine) assumed I would get turned down at half the places on
my list. "You'll never get into Daniel," said one. "Union Square
Cafe?!" said another. "Forget it."
My plan was to show up between 8:15 and 8:30 on varying nights of the week.
I would go with a different companion each night. I would try to get a reservation
by telephone that afternoon and go only if I were turned down. And I would
carry a twenty and a fifty in my left pocket, and a hundred in my right pocket.
I did have an incentive: I could eat at any place I could successfully finagle
my way into.
Link
to this item | Comment
USDA
Rejects Meatpacker's Plan to Test All Animals for Mad Cow:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Agriculture Department has rebuffed a meatpacker's plan
to test every animal at its Kansas slaughterhouse for mad cow disease.
The refusal quiets a firestorm in the cattle industry sparked by Creekstone
Farms Premium Beef, a small Kentucky-based meatpacking company that was seeking
to privately test each animal at its Arkansas City, Kan., plant.
"We are looking at what the consensus of international experts is when
it comes to testing, and that consensus is that 100 percent testing is not
justified," Agriculture Department spokeswoman Alisa Harrison said late
Thursday. "That's why we feel at this time we cannot grant Creekstone's
requested timeline for a decision."
Eat hearty, America.
Link
to this item | Comment
Reality’s
Apprentice: At The Morning News,
My reality collided with reality TV during episode seven of NBC’s The
Apprentice. The premise was a hyped-up competition over real estate.
The remaining participants were challenged to renovate and rent one of two ‘rundown’ Brooklyn
apartments in 48 hours. One of those apartments was a third-floor, one-bedroom
in a brownstone on Third Street, where my family and I live on the first
two floors. On screen, the team leaders stood outside our stoop and negotiated
for the apartment above us. Off screen, we knew a few things they didn’t.
A month before, for instance, the previous occupant and my upstairs neighbor
had jumped out the window....
Link
to this item | Comment
The Arts Exchange in Pawtucket has a new website. From the press release,
The website chronicles the Pawtucket Armory Association’s transformation
of the Pawtucket Armory into an avant-garde center for the performing arts
and arts education. Website visitors can also view upcoming events, take
a virtual tour of the historic Armory and sign up, online, to help support
The
Arts Exchange effort.
Very cool: Pawtucket
Red Sox Portraits. You may purchase one of a set of
45 original oil paintings of PawSox Baseball greats that used to line the
walls
of McCoy
Stadium. (Many of these players made the leap to the show up the road in Boston.
That's Nomar Garciaparra at right.)
Also interesting here: I was able to view a PowerPoint
presentation
there in my browser.
Link
to this item | Comment
MixedFolks.com:Representing Multiracial People. Interesting.
About MixedFolks.com
(Please read before e-mailing me)
1.) First of all let me state that the purpose of MixedFolks.com is simple,
to celebrate your multiracial heritage. I try to provide information that multiracial
people will find relevant and interesting. It is not meant to be divisive.
2.) You will notice that most of the people on this site are mixed with African
or African-American and something else. The reason for this is that when I
first started the site it was just going to feature half White and half Black
people because that's what I am. But as I started working on the site I decided
to add anybody who was half Black to add diversity. Once the site went up I
got a lot of e-mail from people asking me to add other people who were of Mixed
race origin but not necessarily Black. At first I wasn't going to do that because
I thought it would be too much work adding all those people and also because
I felt that I could only relate to issues affecting those who were half Black.
But as I talked with more and more biracial people of other races I learned
that we all have similar issues, both positive and negative. ...
Link
to this item | Comment
Mysterious End of an Era: At San Diego Reader,
Last week's surprise departure of Neil Morgan from the (San Diego, Calif.) Union-Tribune after 54 years as a Copley scribe was shrouded in about as
much confusion
and
contradiction as many of the columns he authored. A six-page statement written
in the third
person was handed around Morgan's lawyer's office during a late-afternoon
news conference on Wednesday, March 31. It portrayed the columnist as
a journalistic gigolo, cast off after decades of service to a mistress whom
he had helped
raise from poverty to the pinnacle of the city's most powerful institution.
"The man many consider San Diego's most trusted voice was treated like
a miscreant," the statement said. "On Friday afternoon, February
6th, he was handed a letter by editor Karin Winner. It read: 'Your job as
associate editor and senior columnist will be eliminated and your employment
will end
effective March 31.' Neil shook his head and looked at Winner. 'It's time
to cut the chain,' she said. He reviewed the 'Release of Claims' which accompanied
the letter. It gushed legalese. Sign it, the letter said, and he would get
one year's pay. Refuse, and he would get two weeks."...
Pretty racy stuff to be about a grizzled 80-year-old newsman, huh?
Here's the AP story: Neil
Morgan, veteran San Diego columnist, says he was fired
The other side, at E&P: Copley
Exec Discusses Neil Morgan Firing
Link
to this item | Comment
Last-minute
tax-filing tips: Have a nice weekend.
Link
to this item | Comment
Java-based slider tile puzzle: Have a better weekend.
Link
to this item | Comment
'Little Prince' Mystery Solved: They've found St. Exupery's plane.
AP:
It
was one of French aviation's enduring mysteries: Antoine de Saint-Exupery,
the flying ace and author of the beloved tale "The Little Prince," took
off on a World War II spy mission for the Allies and was never seen again.
After 60 years, the twisted wreckage of the aviation pioneer's Lockheed
Lightning P-38 has turned up on the Mediterranean seabed, not far from the
rugged cliffs of Provence, Air Force Capt. Frederic Solano said Wednesday.
Tests show it's a match.
It was a stunning revelation: Teams have been searching up and down the
coast for decades, and many experts believed the plane was probably too far
out to sea to be recovered.
In France, the discovery is akin to solving the mystery of where Amelia
Earhart's plane went down in the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
"This was our holy grail," said Philippe Castellano, president
of an association of aviation buffs who helped authorities identify the debris. "We
never even imagined this."
The plane, smashed into hundreds of pieces, lies 60-90 meters (100 to 300
feet) below the surface, about three kilometers (1.86 miles) from the coast
between Marseille and Cassis. The key find was a tail piece bearing a tiny
serial number, 2734 L — the same as Saint-Exupery's, Castellano said.
A piece of the puzzle remains unanswered: What caused the crash? Theories
have ranged from hostile gunfire to suicide. The debris has so far yielded
no clues....
Here's the
Guardian's take on the same story.
Link
to this item | Comment
Try your hand at balancing the federal budget: The
National Budget Simulation. BoingBoing describes
it this way:
This simulation asks you to adjust spending and tax expenditures in the
the 2004 budget proposed by the White House in order to achieve either a
balanced budget or any other target deficit...According to the White House,
the 2004 fiscal deficit is projected to be $307 billion. This does not include
the costs of the Iraq War, so it has been increased by a base estimate of
$50 billion for those costs in this simulation (which can be increased, lowered
or eliminated depending on peoples views of the costs or likelihood of the
war.)
Link
to this item | Comment
Blazing
mystery is straight from the ‘X-Files: Sicilian village spooked
by seemingly spontaneous combustion.Reuters:
CANNETO DI
CARONIA, Sicily - The gate at the entrance to this tiny Sicilian village
has come off its hinges and swings in the wind as cats wander into homes
abandoned after a series of mystery fires.
Spontaneous fires started in mid-January in the town of Canneto di Caronia,
in about 20 houses. After a brief respite last month, the almost daily
fires have flared up again — even though electricity to the village
was cut off.
An endless flow of scientists, engineers, police and even a few self-styled “ghostbusters” have
descended on the town, searching for clues to the recent spontaneous combustion
of everything from fuse boxes to microwave ovens to a car.
The blazes, originally blamed on the devil, have not hurt anyone.
“We’re working in the dark. We don’t have a single lead
so far,” said Pedro Spinnato, mayor of the trio of Caronia towns.
“Every time some new scientist comes to town, they arrive thinking the
whole thing has been invented or that they’re going to solve the mystery
in two minutes. They’ve all been wrong.”...
Link
to this item | Comment
April 8, 2004, 7:00 p.m. -- (Last
week's weblog)
Yanksfan
vs. Soxfan: Battling it out in a blog. Here's a sample (from the
Sox fan, of course):
Calling All Sponsors
Tonight listening to the Yankees radio broadcast, Charlie Steiner cited "Krispy
Kreme, the official doughnut of the Yankees radio network". What exactly
does that mean? How can a radio network have an official doughnut? Does the
doughnut make appearances at all Yankees radio network functions? Does the
doughnut donate money to charity each time the Yankees radio network hits
a home run? Does the doughnut put in personal autograph signing appearances
at
local convention halls? How can radio waves have an official pastry? The
mind boggles...
via Side Salad
Link
to this item | Comment
Good local eating: One of my favorite seafood restaurants, Carrie's on
Douglas Avenue, was reviewed today
by Michael Janusonis, who usually does movies. (Meridith Ford, our restaurant
reviewer, left for a full-time job at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)
Carrie's is reasonably priced good food -- not pricy architectural tidbits,
no raspberry sauce on the fish, just very fresh ingredients well prepared.
Another big favorite of mine: Ran
Zan, a mom and pop sushi joint on Hope Street
just before Pawtucket. (I always have sashimi there.)
And yesterday, we shared two appetizers at Spain in
Cranston and were so full we skipped dinner: Vieras Rellenas -- stuffed scallops
with crabmeat,
shrimp and provolone
cheese -- was wonderful. I often don't care for scallops because they're sweet.
These weren't, they tasted like they came from the ocean.
Our other choice, mussels or clams in garlic, parsley & white wine sauce
(we did mussels) offered the perfect sauce in which to dip the dense, moist
bread that came to the table. (A low-carber's downfall, but worth it.)
Link
to this item | Comment
Resonance
Fine Art by Eric Heller:
These images render electron flow paths in a "two dimensional electron
gas". Inspired by the experiments of Mark Topinka, Brian Leroy, and
Prof. Robert Westervelt at Harvard. Theory performed by Scot Shaw of my group,
and
me.
These two images are based on the actual electron flow patterns for electrons
riding over bumpy landscape. The electrons have more than enough energy to
ride over any bump in the landscape, and the concentrations of electron flow
(white/pink in Dendrite, and darkest streaks in Transport III) are newly discovered
indirect effects of that bumpy ride. The channeling or branching was unexpected
and has serious implications for small electronic devices of the future. These
two images are excellent examples of the wonderful way nature emulates herself
in different contexts. Thus, the folding of the electron trajectories looks
like looking through translucent kelp, or like ridges on a mountain.
via Ye Olde Phart
Link
to this item | Comment
Magnetoids:
They came from outer space - possibly! Think of Mexican jumping
beans, when these magnets meet.
Link
to this item | Comment
PC
Problems? Fix 'Em Yourself: At PC World:
Taming tech glitches is easy--once you know what to do. Our troubleshooting
guide shows how to solve them like a pro.
via Liz Donovan
Link
to this item | Comment
FCC
Proposes $495,000 Fine for Howard Stern Show -- but the bill is going
to Clear Channel, which suspended the show in February and canceled it today. Jeff
Jarvis owns the thread.
Link
to this item | Comment
Blog Service
Pinger at
Geek Ramblings. If you -- like me -- are blogging in html, not using blogging
software, you have to notify by hand the computers
that track blog updates. This page lets you ping seven at once, or any you
choose.
You may bookmark the resulting url so you don't have to start over every time.
It's a very specialized tool, but just the one I need.
Link
to this item | Comment
Recharge
your phone or laptop with light: From ABC Science Online:
Bags with their own solar panels will allow people to recharge mobile phones
on the run, a conference on sustainable technology has heard.
Mobile phone covers, laptop cases and bags with photovoltaic cells will be
available later this year, according to Len McKelvey, director of their Australian
supplier, Air Water Australia.
The technology, which has been used by the Israeli military, was on show at
last week's Enviro 04 conference.
"Photovoltaic cells have been integrated into products for the fashion
conscious as well as for the business market, which needs a reliable power
supply," McKelvey told ABC Science Online.
The bags and cases have a built-in flexible, plastic photovoltaic cell on
the outside to convert solar to electrical energy, which then runs to a plug
inside the bag.
A variety of adapters connect the plug to different brands of mobile phone,
electronic diaries, personal devices and laptops.
The bags weigh about the same as a normal bag, and although electronic devices
will charge quickest when left in direct sunlight, they will charge anywhere
there is light, McKelvey said.
A mobile phone, which usually takes an hour to fully charge on a standard
charger, may take four hours with solar power. But this could be done while
walking, in the car or just leaving the bag by the window, McKelvey said.
"You can even use a desk lamp at a hotel or motel to charge your phone," he
said.
There are about 20 different styles from black leather wallets to coloured
shoulder bags and they should cost between A$30-150 (US$23-113), he said.
...
Link
to this item | Comment
Cyber Paperboy found dead: From Mike
Wendland, blogger and
Detroit Free Press technology columnist.
Link
to this item | Comment
April 6, 2004, 10:05 p.m. -- (Last
week's weblog)
No blog tomorrow -- I'm off for a family celebration. Back Thursday.
A Pulitzer nod for sweat and tears: The Providence
Journal and projo.com have been named finalists for a Pulitzer Prize for
Public Service for our joint
coverage of the Station nightclub fire (reg.req.). This includes the Station
Fire Blog, which I wrote with the help of dozens of people
who found themselves with a piece of this story and a way to get it out there.
The Pulitzer
citation (pdf) reads,
...The Providence Journal for its comprehensive coverage of the causes and
consequences of a nightclub fire that killed 100 people and spread anguish
across America’s smallest state
The death of 100 people is no occasion for celebration, and some here have
said it's for the best that the usual champagne corks won't be popping here.
I'd trade any prize -- even a winning Powerball ticket -- if doing so could
have prevented that fire.
The New York Times won the top award for its series headlined, Dangerous
Business: An investigation into one of America's most hazardous employers.
Here's Editor
& Publisher's list of winners and finalists, part of their comprehensive
Pulitzer
coverage.
Related: The
Pulitzers That Got Away by Roy Harris at Poynter.org. Harris was here
in the Journal newsroom yesterday reporting this story.
Link
to this item | Comment
Spooky: This very strange photo accompanied a Boston Globe story (Iraqi
cleric hints at
violence against US) yesterday. What it is:
Yesterday, members of Sadr's (that's Moqtada al-Sadr, a 30-year-old
cleric popular with poor, urban Shi'ites) militia, the Army of the
Mahdi, paraded through Baghdad's mostly Shi'ite Sadr City section, wearing
green
headbands and black
ski masks that were labeled "martyr."
A group of women covered completely in head-to-toe burkhas also marched. Militia
leaders signaled plans to block roads and to launch a strike.
Link
to this item | Comment
A
Sorry State of Affairs: Humorist
Art Buchwald in the Washington Post, about Richard Clarke's apology before the
9-11 Commission for the attack:
...When Clarke apologized at the hearing, black smoke came out of every
government building in Washington.
"He really didn't mean it," Arkin said.
"But," I replied, "he apologized under oath. If he really
didn't mean he was sorry, he could be charged with perjury."
Arkin said: "He only apologized so he would sell books. He is a disgrace
to every national security adviser. He is a traitor in a class with Benedict
Arnold."
"Do you think, now that Clarke said he was sorry, other people in the
government will start doing the same thing?"
"Not if they want to keep their jobs."
Link
to this item | Comment
E-voting: My unofficial Canadian correspondent,
Eric Lilius, sends this along from The
Internet Tourbus, a newsletter that requires a free subscription:
During California's primary election earlier this month my polling place used
an electronic voting machine--Hart InterCivic's eSlate electronic voting
system to be specific. I found the electronic voting process to be strangely
unsettling, mostly because there wasn't a paper trail.
It turns out I had reason to feel uncomfortable. According to the LA Times,
7,000 Orange County voters were given the wrong ballots. And in 21 precincts,
there were more ballots cast than there were registered voters. [There's a
Lyndon Johnson joke in there somewhere.]
You can read the LA Times' complete story at
http://tinyurl.com/2wqqb
And the problem isn't just with the voting machines in Orange County. Over
the past month, Kim Zetter at Wired Magazine has investigated electronic voting
in the United States. I know that we shy away from political issues in Tourbus,
but considering that 50 million Americans will be using paperless, electronic
voting machines this fall--and countless other millions will be using these
machines in elections around the world--I thought you'd be interested in seeing
Zetter's article. You can find it at
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,62790,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_7
Whether you agree or disagree with Zetter's assertions, the article is a fascinating
read.
Related: from Wired, How E-Voting Threatens Democracy
In January 2003, voting activist Bev Harris was holed up in the basement
of her three-story house in Renton, Washington, searching the Internet for
an
electronic voting machine manual, when she made a startling discovery.
Clicking on a link for a file transfer protocol site belonging to voting
machine maker Diebold Election Systems, Harris found about 40,000 unprotected
computer
files. They included source code for Diebold's AccuVote touch-screen voting
machine, program files for its Global Election Management System tabulation
software, a Texas voter-registration list with voters' names and addresses,
and what appeared to be live vote data from 57 precincts in a 2002 California
primary election.
"There was a lot of stuff that shouldn't have been there," Harris
said.
The California file was time-stamped
3:31 p.m. on Election Day, indicating
that Diebold might have obtained the data during voting. But polling precincts
aren't supposed to release votes until after polls close at 8 p.m. So Harris
began to wonder if it were possible for the company to extract votes during
an election and change them without anyone knowing. ...
Bev Harris's site is Black Box Voting;
her book, with the same title, can be read there free.
Link
to this item | Comment
Rolling Iraq: While
I was away, Doc put together a fine list of blogs from Iraq, voices of people
on the ground, some Iraqi, some not.
Link
to this item | Comment
Outsourcing blog moves: Gina Minks of Milford, Mass., has been covering
outsourcing
in her No Really blog;
now she has set up a separate blog just for that issue called Displaced
Techies, with a blogroll of related
resources.
Her lead
right
now:
Who is checking
your tax return?
Or maybe I should say, where is your tax return getting checked?
There is a good chance it's being done in India...
She notes that this Time of India link reports that a US tax preparer would
cost $3,000 a month, an Indian $300, and asks, "Do you think the consumer
will ever see those cost saving passed on to him? Isn't this strange that companies
lower costs at the expense of our privacy, and don't pass on the savings to
us?"
Link
to this item | Comment
Bob Dylan news:
The good: Reggae
pays tribute to Bob Dylan, in the Jamaica Observer,
Is It Rolling, Bob? an album of Bob Dylan songs featuring a roll call of reggae's
most popular acts, will be released this summer by Sanctuary/RAS Records, Gary
Himelfarb, founder of RAS Records, told the Observer last week.
The 16-track compilation hears performers such as Beres Hammond, Sizzla,
Gregory Isaacs, Michael Rose, Yellowman and Abijah re-working some of the
folk singer's
most cherished songs which are played by a top-notch band that includes drummer
Sly Dunbar, keyboardist Robbie Lyn and guitarist Earl "Chinna" Smith.
Beres
"Bob Dylan has always been my favourite artiste, he was a voice of
the oppressed in the 1960s just as Bob Marley was a voice of the oppressed
in the
1970s," said Himelfarb. ...
...Three of the songs from the album have already been released in Jamaica
through Dynamic Sounds. They are Subterranean Homesick Blues by Sizzla, Knocking
On Heaven's Door by Luciano and Just Like a Woman, which is covered
by (Beresford) Hammond.
The other songs on the set are The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carrol (Michael
Rose); Maggie's Farm (Toots Hibbert); Blowing In The Wind (Don
Carlos); Mr
Tambourine Man (Gregory Isaacs); One Too Many Mornings (Abijah); The
Times They Are A-Changing (Apple Gabriel); Gotta Serve Somebody (Incline); The
Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest (Yellowman); A Hard Rain's
A Gonna Fall (Billy Mystic); Don't Think Twice, It's Alright (J C Lodge)
and I And I, a song from Dylan's 1983 Infidels album which featured Sly and
Robbie.
There is also a dub version of I And I.
The wierd: The Virginian Pilot has a roundup headlined, "Bob
Dylan sells: The times,
they are cha-chingin’" that includes some material about Dylan's
Victoria's
Secret ad, and his new wine line, as reported by Wine International magazine::
Vintage Dylan – “Planet Waves” will be the new label of
a wine in a joint venture between Dylan and established winemaker Antonio
Terni of le Terrazze estate.
“Planet Waves” 2002 is a blend of 75 percent Montepulciano
d’Abruzzo and 25 percent Merlot. It’s slated for release in October.
“It’s a smooth, full-bodied, structured red,” said Terni.
...
Terni says it all:
Dylan has been my life long idol – he has accompanied me through my
youth and entire life. Who would ever think that one day we’d produce
a wine together?”
Who indeed? In the background I hear, "They're
selling postcards of the hanging..."
So whatcha gonna do with all that money, Bob?
Link
to this item | Comment
Before Tush was bigtime: Doc
Searls links to yesterday's Florida symposium item, and adds a bit of
his own about entertainment-journalism panelist Bill
Tush:
Back around the turn of the 80s, "Tush" was a small ensemble comedy
program on WTCG, Channel 17 out of Atlanta, which hadn't yet turned into
The Turner Network and all its spawn.
"Tush" was
one of the funniest shows I've ever seen. Here are some
clips.
Link
to this item | Comment
Poisoned? Shocking
report reveals local troops may be victims of america's high-tech weapons.
New York Daily News does some investigative reporting:
Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq
are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted uranium
shells fired by U.S. troops, a Daily News investigation has found.
They are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police,
who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last
summer in the Iraqi town of Samawa. ...
Link
to this item | Comment
Take the Money
and Run is a good story at American
Journalism Review about
the buyouts at the Washington Post -- including speculation about why the Post's
offer was so generous:
Why did about 130 Washington Post staffers -- 54 of them in the newsroom and
two from the editorial page staff--take an early retirement deal?
How about, because they'd be stupid not to?
Metro columnist Bob Levey says he would've been "a total fool" to
leave that kind of money on the table. Claudia Levy, a writer on the obituary
desk, calls the decision a no-brainer. Edward Walsh, a political reporter on
the national staff, says, "It would have been irresponsible not to do
it, frankly."
These people aren't dummies. In fact, many of them are the cream of the crop,
stellar journalists who built themselves into experts after decades of covering
everything from Congress and the Federal Reserve to the space program and horse
racing. Others established themselves as brand-name columnists or massaged
copy and made the trains run on time, getting that fat paper out every day.
The Post deal was pretty sweet: Anyone in the newsroom (there were further
stipulations for the commercial side) who was at least 55 years old with
10 years of employment at the Post was eligible. The takers walked away with
a
payment of up to two years' salary, an additional five years of service credit
for pension benefits and, for those under 65, a pre-Medicare health plan.
Those who racked up 30 years at the paper got the full two years' salary;
the rookie
10-year employees got one year's worth; the payment was prorated for the
years in between. ...
Link
to this item | Comment
Hunter
Thompson watch: Tom Mangan's Prints
the Chaff, a blog for newspaper
editors, has spawned a new branch -- sniffing out stories about the crotchety
gonzo journalist.
Link
to this item | Comment
Toilets of the World: Really.
At right is the type I was most familiar with
in Africa, although this one's in a gas station in Turkey.
It's easier and more comfortable than it looks. There's usually a source of
running water and a large tomato can instead of toilet paper. Left-hand only,
please.
Bonus: How to say, ``Where's the toilet?'' in many languages, farther down
the page
April 5, 2004, 7:20 p.m. -- (Last
week's weblog)
Tomorrow, back to blogging as usual -- and a whack at the backlog of links.
Today, a quick take on the Florida symposium plus 4000+ emails and lots
of details to handle.
Good times with newsies in sunny north Florida: We had a great
time last week in the Gainesville area of north central Florida, where I hung
out
with
journalists
whom I had previously known only by their work. The occasion
was the
University
of Florida's Symposium on Converged Journalism.
The blogging
panel was fun to be a part of, but Photojournalism
in a War Zone was stunning.
David
Leeson of the Dallas
Morning News (your projo password will work here, otherwise reg.req.),
who today won a Pulitzer
Prize for
his work as an embedded photographer and videographer in Iraq, aims to
tell the truth. Here are some of David's words.
Photographer Lucian
Perkins of the Washington Post was a unilateralist -- not embedded. You
can see some of his Iraq work in this
Flash presentation; I can't link directly to his section, so you'll have
to select him from a list of photographers after it starts playing.
My fellow blogging panelist Jennifer Balderama gives a nice
summary of their
stories, but you can hear them yourself and see their photos: Although attendance
was sparse, the event was webcast
and archived
here, so it will find a larger audience. I can't find an archive of Julie
Jacobsen's work for AP. I'll keep looking. Meanwhile, it's in the archive of
her panel.
J.D. Lasica, moderator of our
blogging panel, has more here,
here and here.
(After wind shear closed Atlanta airport for a while, the captain of our heavy
Delta flight announced we didn't have enough fuel to circle, so we detoured
to Chattanooga, and spent an hour on the ground with a smallish hose refilling
the tank.) We missed the connection to Gainesville and arrived about 10 for
dinner, joining a lively table of students and panelists, where I met J.D.
and Mark
Glaser of Online Journalism
Review in the flesh for the first time, as well as fellow blog panelist Kevin
Roderick, with whom
I was instantly comfortable. The gracious Mindy
McAdams was our host, and she credits grad student Kaye
Trammell (whose husband Mark waited for us to arrive at the airport)
with all the heavy lifting.
Among the fun moments: Sneaking out for some
spring sunshine between panels; J.D. and my husband Joe playing pool at the
hotel; Mrs. Bill Tush -- Lisa -- has the biggest diamond I've ever seen.
We had arranged to rent a car and a house in the woods for the weekend, and
shared the ride to the airport to pick up the car with David Leeson, Lucian
Perkins and Dirck Halstead of The
Digital Journalist. We talked about blogs, Orkut, hits, spammers and the
great nature photography site, Field
and Forest, that David makes with his wife, Kim
Ritzenthaler. Just shooting the breeze with people I admire greatly.
A final note: We emerged from the woods Sunday afternoon to find no one at
Gainesville airport but 3 fishermen and their 300 lbs. of fish. Our flight
had left. There are no daylight savings warnings in the woods.
We -- and one fisherman -- got later flights (the other two rented a car and
drove the fish home), and I blessed the gift of free wi-fi at the airport,
new in February. (pdf
of
the press
release)
(I fervently hope free wi-fi becomes standard in public places, and soon.)
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