Small Streams

Bash It out Now

A link from jill/txt on bloggers in the military in Iraq and Iraqi bloggers led me to the following quote from Army specialist Colby Buzzell:

I had no idea how to write or form a sentence (I still don't) but I figured what the hell, just do it. The Sex Pistols didn't know how to play their instruments when they started jamming, they just played, and that was the mindset I had when I started this blog thing, was to just go ahead and jump in the fire and do it and see what happens.

Memento Mori

Had a physical last week. Blood pressure down. Cholestorol down, but not by enough. Goodbye salami. The doctor also recommended I take a baby aspirin each day. Studies have shown that aspirin is just as good as anything for preventing blood clotting after a heart attack. I'm guessing then that taking an aspirin each day would make me less vulnerable to death. Why do I feel then that taking an aspirin will be a daily encounter with my own mortality?

Finishing the . . .

sentence should be easy sometimes but it's not. Sometimes finishing a paragraph takes longer than it should. And finishing a whole book, well . . .

Yesterday's NY Times Book Review had a great article on the extremely long gestation period of some manuscripts. My favorite phrase is Shelby Foote's "the artist's terrific affinity for the difficult, the thing he cannot do."

So take a break from that work of genius that's twenty years in the making and read the article.

I'm Scanning Now

Just thought I'd see what it's like to scan in images. No particular reason for this illustration of Incan Kings, other than it's graphically pleasing and colorful.

What Is a Print?

The Ellis School was getting rid of an old hand printer and I benefitted. As I sometimes say, a man could live on what others throw away. The printer, though, is still useless to me because I don't know how to use it. Here's the first link in my search for information, a flash tutorial on different forms of printing: etching, woodcut, screen, and lithography. Each tutorial comes with a gallery of outstanding examples of each form.

Thought that the graphics looked familiar and found out that the web designer also works on the They Might Be Giants' website.

Where Am I?

Liz just found a really cool link from Kevin Kelly: some ways of determining latitude and longitude from anywhere, that is, without a GPS device.

Another Storey

The P-G's Steve Urbanski provides another perspective on directions in journalism with this remembrance of Fayette County journalist Buzz Storey. Urbanski writes about how Buzz Storey emphasized journalism's role in the community, that is, its role regards people and place.

Buzz's style was not to cover the hot story of the day just because everyone else was covering it. He took care to show how those stories affected people and the larger dynamic of community.

How Much Does It Cost?

With the announcement that all of Philadelphia may provide wireless technology for the entire city, Technology Review addresses the role of government's role in providing service. The article "Who Pays for Wireless Cities" (registration may be required) explores the choices all of us will probably making. Absent in their argument are a few figures that I found eye-opening.

The wrinkle in the public-service spin on Wi-Fi is who will bear the cost for the service. The answer splits proponents into two camps, and both are problematic. On one side are those who see wireless broadband as a public amenity—a basic service that cities and towns should provide free to residents as they do, say, trash pickup. Missing from this scenario is consensus on how municipalities, perennially short on funds, will pay the Wi-Fi tab.

A little later in the article they mention the town of St. Cloud, Florida, which has over 7,000 households. The fixed costs are a $1 million. The ongoing costs are estimated between $150,000 and $200,000, including customer service. If only 5,000 households are served, that's about $200 in fixed costs per household, and $40 in ongoing costs. Compare that to commercial ISP broadband service of nearly $500 a year, and I just have to say, "hmmm."

Making up Stories

Eddie Adams' obituary in the New York Times reminded me of what great journalism does. Here's a quote from Adams:

I always tell photographers that you never know who is looking at your pictures or how your pictures are going to affect other people's lives. I wasn't out to save the world. I was out to get a story.

In his September 11, 2004 speech to the Society of Professional Journalists Bill Moyers reminds me that journalism may not be seen as a profession.

You will hear it said this is not a professional task—John Carroll of the Los Angeles Times recently reminded us there are “no qualification tests, no boards to censure misconduct, no universally accepted set of standards.”  Maybe so.  But I think that what makes journalism a profession is the deep ethical imperative of which the public is aware only when we violate it—think Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Jim Kelly.  Ed Wasserman, once an editor himself and now teaching at Washington and Lee University, says that journalism “is an ethical practice because it tells people what matters and helps them determine what they should do about it.”

Whatever the status of journalists, Moyers' view of the field of journalism is encouraging.

Looking back on that experience and all that followed, I often think of what Joseph Lelyveld told aspiring young journalists when he was executive editor of the New York Times .  “You can never know how a life in journalism will turn out,” he said. “Decide that you want to be a scholar, a lawyer, or a doctor…and your path to the grave is pretty well laid out before you.  Decide that you want to enter our rather less reputable line of work and you set off on a route that can sometimes seem to be nothing but diversions, switchbacks and a life of surprises…with the constant temptation to keep reinventing yourself.”

What a career Moyers has made of telling stories and inventing himself. Read the speech and find out yourself.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and vice chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, has written two great articles on changes in media.

People have said that freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press. The definition of what constitutes a press is taken up in this article.

And in this Washington Post article Rosenstiel describes how the emergence of cable networks has degraded journalism on television.

Cable news is a live and extemporaneous medium built around talk. Only 11 percent of the time is devoted to edited stories. Eighty percent is given over to in-studio interviews, studio banter, "anchor reads" and live reporter stand-ups, in which correspondents talk off the top of their heads or from hasty notes.

What is lost in the cable obsession with "live" is the chance to double-check, to rewrite, to edit -- and often to even report. What is lost with the passing of network TV, in other words, is the journalism of verification. It is gradually yielding place to a journalism of assertion.

Wired News correspondent Adam Penenberg describes what is happening outside the (television) box, and how the web enables verification.

What this is all leading toward is the blogosphere as one huge peer-reviewed journal, which is how blogger Matt Stoller thinks of it. Anyone who has posted anything online knows that if you ever get anything wrong, you'll hear from irate readers, who can broadcast their dissatisfaction to the farthest reaches of cyberspace.

Does that mean our stories will be more powerful or truthful? Hey, I just report. You decide.

This Week in Pittsburgh

Just figured I'd amuse myself by noting some of the news in Pittsburgh and noting some of the noting of the news.

Fester weighs in on Downtown housing and transportation. While Michael Madison's opinion on the subject has generated a good bit of commentary.

Inner Bitch's Vanessa and Christina have noted the arrival of Café Scientifique, a chance to think big thoughts and drink beer at the same time.

Speaking of drinking beer, it's something you'll be able to do this weekend in Pittsburgh. Although Pittsburgh Buzz, Pittsburgh Events, and This Is Happening note a few other things like looking at houses in my neighborhood.

And one of my favorites, Jason Togyer, at Tube City Almanac, writes in his September 14th entry (Notice how I didn't superscript the letters? This might come up later.) why it's so hard to preserve such treasures in declining cities.

Rich Engel points out that a new city weekly is on the way — The Front. As Bullwinkle says, "This time for sure."

The P-G's Sally Kalson comes up with one more argument for the elimination of television, that is, its ubiquity. She hasn't seen any televisions in elevators in Pittsburgh, and believes it might be a "lamentable trend" we might not latch on to too quickly. I personally would like to see an elevator full of a whole bunch of cracked monitors, just like the artfully cracked glass in PPG One elevators.

I'll leave you with a picture by photoblogger Albert Song. It looks to be on the corner of McKee and Bates, the one corner I don't think I've ever been on.

Our Grievances against George

If one had any questions about the sentiments of the Post-Gazette editorial board they should be laid to rest with this open lettter to John Kerry. The P-G puts together four cogent points on military service/character, Iraq, the economy, and Kerry's motivation, and makes one of the most appealing cases for electing John Kerry as our next president.

I've had friends tell me they don't trust Kerry. Trust him to not do what? To not take a budget with a surplus and start running half-trillion dollar deficits? To not squander hundreds of billions of dollars, the good will of the world, and the lives of our citizens, on misbegotten overseas wars? To not make laws created by the lobbyists of entrenched corporate interests?

I'd be very happy if we had a truer and steadier hand at the tiller come January.

The Revolauction Begins Now

If you want an interesting way to join in on the Kerry campaign, check out Revolauction, an effort started by my former neighbor and current Lawrenceville resident Jason Vrabel. Jason is happy to auction off any of your goodies for the cause, and donate the proceeds for the purpose of regime change.