Pack your bags

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Speaking of books with a purpose (see previous post), the Diana Rehm Show , produced by WAMU, had science writer Alan Weisman on, discussing his new book, The World Without Us. Seldom does background radio draw me from the task at hand, but Weisman's story was so compelling and facinating, that I'm keeping my bags packed just in case Lisa, Lu and I have to blow this planet.

The book asks the simple question: What would the world be like if we suddenly disappeared?

Weisman's description made Night of the Comet, (1984), seem a little less exciting. Though the chapter on how New York City would slowly dissolve had a voyeuristic quality, for the deer and mountain lions who would return to their path that now lies beneath broadway. Did you know that the Plaza Hotel was a lake? Lexington Ave. would become a river? Could you imagine a school of Sea Bass waiting on the #6 platform after visiting the flooded basement of the Met?

The book puts a whole new spin in the environmental news-cycle. All we need now is a major Hollywood picture to actually get news coverage on Weisman's vivid image of the world without us.

One ofthese days

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Yesterday, I attended a day long workshop on writing through Mediabistro.com at their SoHo office. The workshop was for writers trying to get their first book published, and it pulled my mind from, "One of these days..." to "It's one of THOSE days..."

I've been fine tuning a memoir that surrounds my efforts to gain my father's love in the years following my blindness, and leading up to his death in Mexico City. It takes on a larger scope of Latin American violence, the turned up racial ground in Atlanta following MLK's death, issues facing the disabled, and a bunch of other stuff that probably needs to get edited out or tuned up.

The workshop was helpful, though a little stressful. Lisa (my Seeing Eye Dog) and I got caught in a heavy downpour going into the City. Then, in the middle of the workshop, Lisa started making those low stomach noises, the kind that send fear into any dog owner. It followed with me scurring to find a blast shield, grabbing my black H&M bag and muzzling her with it as she began upchucking. Didn't help that my Mac Book & agent letter were in the bag. I got up to quietly excuse myself to clean things up, and then got locked out of the building when taking her for a walk.

Is this some kind of sign?

This post isn't so much what to do when your dog begins to puke as you prepare to meet face to face with a leading industry agent and editor. Rather, it's how writers can continue to inspire you even when the dog days of summer weigh heavy on your spirit, literally...

I was moved by the number of aspiring authors who had a message they wanted to tell, and it was a message that needed to be heard. The room was full of pitches as diverse as New York. Latino issues, eating disorders, learning disabled issues, race issues, addiction, and so on. They stories were fused in memoirs, fiction, essays, and other spirited texts. What will be nice is to keep my years open onver the next year or two, to hear if one of them actually makes it onto the shelf. If anything, there will be a minimum of twenty copies sold.

Reductions Redux

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The New York Times reported today that colonialist moves are taking place in South America. The article points the finger not at multi-national corporations or armed conquistadors. But, rather, one of the world’s leading environmental nonprofit organizations.

The World Wildlife Fund has, according to the times, been making an assertive effort to place control of rain forest lands into the arms of an international body. Much to the distaste of Brazil leaders and interested corporate industries, such control threatens the lucrative mining and construction industry. Though environmentalists argue that Brazille is 4th in global greenhouse gas emissions, and ¾ of that comes from deforestization.

The word “Cololialists” is a loaded word in Latin America. And I’m sure the heavy handed corporate PR offices will try to use it to their advantage. I’d rather like to think of the WWF’s move is more nostalgic for the Jesuit Reductions of the 17th century, than the hostile colonization by European kings. The reductions, which The Mission portrayed in 1986, were a collection of communal villages that strived for a eutopian existence amidst the hostile Spanish conquistadors The villages, which shared property in common and provided public schools and services, were under the control of the Jesuit Fathers, who held no Sovran claim over South America. Instead, their focus was on preserving the lives of the indigenous peoples and trying to create, as they saw it, a Christian paradise on earth.

Now, I’m not suggesting that the WWF is trying to evangelize South America. They’re not in the business of saving souls, but saving trees. However, their efforts raise a vital issue in the global campaign to save the planet. How far can a nonprofit go to save the earth? Do they have the power to go up against military forces and corporate machines? The Jesuits eventually fell to king’s rule in the mid 1700s and were excommunicated from the Catholic Church for over fifty years. Even recent efforts for the little fish to take on the shark have failed. My mouth is still bitter with Columbian coffee. However, few nonprofits have been able to show their strength like the WWF. So, I remain hopeful that Brazille’s rain forests can be saved by this recent power play. Look what they did to the WWE. If that doesn’t show muscle, than I don’t know what does.

The quill & the nail

A long, long time ago, when big hair was replaced by flannel shirts and we celebrated our first victory in Iraq, I sat in the old oak desk in Evans Hall at Berry College and listened to my Journalism 101 professor tell us how the future of the newspaper industry rested on our sholders. Circulation for newspapers was on the decline, especially amongst younger readers, and it was up to us (the future journalists) to bring back the golden age of print. I was surprised, then, to read in today's Christian Science Monitor an opinion piece that cried wolf for the future of newspapers.

The article argues that over the past few years newspaper readership has been in decline, especially amongst teens and young adults. The article's author, Larry Atkins, a lawyer and adjunct instructor of journalism at Temple's Ambler campus, asserts that what newspapers need to do is start publishing more Op.Ed. pieces by young adults and teens. He targets high school and college newspapers as a source of Op.Ed. recruitment, siting that the 40-somthings holding down the editorial desks are out of touch. This, he argues, will bring young readers back and allow a future generation to be saved from the ravishes of an illiterate prolitariate.

With all due respect to Atkins, never having met the man, I believe his hypothesis on saving traditional print is off the mark (or, off the page). I'm not trying to write a treatise on how to save the NYT or WSJ. Looking at the ammount of unclaimed newspapers left in our CoOp lobby each weekend, I'd rather see newspapers completely reform themselves and save a few million trees in the process. What I would like to present is this.

Instead of us thinking that newspapers are the saviors of truth and democracy, the print media needs to realize that it is no longer a leading choice for mediated messages in our ever growing Global Village. The Newspaper Association of America should spend more time trying to develop a product and brand that speaks to young adults. And by this, I mean somthing different than a three color tabloid with news fonts and a catchy masthead slogan.

If newspapers were still in the business of empowering the masses through keeping thewell-informed, than I think they would have helped lead us into this new area of social media and citizen journalism. Instead, they continue to try to think of ways that they can get eyes back onto their print pages, where advertising dollars reallly count.

There is no doubt that young Americans get very little news in their daily diet (at least, news that feeds their political & social intellect). But to say that traditional newspapers are the future choice for our future generation of leaders?

Early American newspapers, like The Boston Gazette, shaped the American Revolution and were a major cause in drafting the First Amendment. But writers writers like Samual Adams and designers like Paul Revere were much more a mirrored image of today's bloggers. They didn't have degrees in journalism from Harvard College. Instead, they were just concered citizens looking for a way to journal their ideas for a mass audience. They were, if you will, the first citizen journalists. And their words changed the world.

I'm not against journalism schools and newspapers. I have two degrees from the Grady College of Journalism at The University of Georgia. I also loved working late nights for The Rome News-Tribune, when the presses would start to roll and shake the whole newsroom. My ability to write and decipher news and information is a great gift. But traditional media and schools of journalism can not be stuck in tradition. Technology, when it is unfettered, could care less about tradition. And having John Stewart start writing Op.Ed. pieces, or little Billy from Lake Forest, Illinois for that fact, is not going to sustain the print media in some 1945 bubble.

It's an exciting time to be engaged in something that is completely new. It is, after all, the "news" business. Right?