The future of journalism

I turned around at the end of a talk I attended with my journalism class today, and I saw this inspiring scene -- the students interviewing each other so they can write about audience members' reaction to it.

I hope they found the talk by John Nichols and Robert McChesney as rousing as I did. The two are co-founders of Free Press, a Northampton- and Washington D.C.- based pro-democracy organization, and authors of the new book "The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again."

Their premise is that journalism that helps citizens govern themselves is a "public good" that should be subsidized with our tax dollars -- just like it traditionally had been when the Founding Fathers were around and is now in many other countries considered relative bastions of democracy. (Here, advertisers had underwritten the news for the last 150 years or so, but, these days, they're taking their message directly to their target audience -- on Facebook, for instance.)

A typical reaction to McChesney's and Nichols' argument is that government subsidies will inevitably lead to "Pol Pot, death camps and gulags." But, in fact, before the emergence of advertiser-subsidized news, the Post Office underwrote the news by distributing it for free. If the federal government similarly funded journalism now the way it did in the 1840's, it would amount to $30 billion a year.

In McChesney's and Nichols' view, all the other ideas floated for underwriting serious reporting -- paywalls, NPR-style fundraising etc. -- will only get us to the "10 yard line -- and it's the wrong 10 yard line."

Some of their ideas:

-- Journalism doesn't have to be "for profit."

-- There could be an Americorps for reporters graduating from college much as there is one for teachers

-- Dramatically expand funding for public local media, which are already reporting the news to the extent they can on shoestring budgets.

--Increase funding for student media.
Brian pointed out this barred owl when we were running on the Norwottuck Rail Trail recently.
A lot has happened since I posted to AboutAmherst last. For one, Republican Scott Brown was elected to succeed Ted Kennedy as our U.S. senator. I'm promoting Matt Damon on my Facebook page to run against Brown in 2012 when Kennedy's term would have ended. I'm hearing that people would like Matt to campaign door-to-door and pledge to work to make robo-calls illegal.
In other news, I am training to become a fitness instructor -- Well, it doesn't look like I'm going to get a reporter's job, until McChesney and Nichols convince the country that news is a public good worth spending our tax dollars on, does it? And my siblings have been sending me some great photos of my nieces. Here's Olivia, of Fort Lauderdale.
And Evangeline, the queen of make-believe.

Note to Martha

Mitt Romney (right) and son frolicking on a dock in the 2002 campaign commercial called "Ann," after his wife. It was an effective commercial that introduced Romney and his good looking family to Massachusetts. I thought it was hilarious and kind of exhilarating, actually, that he could be seen in his bathing suit in the ad. Romney went on that year to beat the Democratic contender, Shannon O'Brien from Easthampton, who I, a political reporter at the Daily Hampshire Gazette at the time, was convinced would win.

Shannon, who was state treasurer at the time, was very charismatic and down to earth. She grew up in a political family and her father Ed was one of the most supportive and nicest people I ever interviewed. I covered Shannon's victory party when she was elected state treasurer and I remember Ted and Vicky Kennedy sitting on the stage with her and that the two of them were SO bubbly and clearly excited about her winning.

I mention it now, because Massachusetts is in the political spotlight now, according to the New York Times, because another western Massachusetts Democrat appears to be struggling, Martha Coakley who is running to fill Ted Kennedy's United States Senate seat. Coincidentally, as I write, I just got an automated call from Vicky Kennedy in support of Coakley. I and many, many people have complained that we've gotten TOO many such calls about this election. I, for one, will always be interested in hearing from Vicky Kennedy. I'm NOT so much interested in hearing from all the other people who I've gotten robocalls from and who I've never even heard of!

Just an observation: We've noticed that Coakley's advertisements have not been very personal and have not humanized her the way Romney's did him. She's from my neck of the Massachusetts woods, but I don't even know if she's married, has kids, any hobbies or anything that would make me feel connected to her other than that she obviously shares some of my values.

My sister Maureen and her baby Evangeline. We need to see Martha holding a baby! And, Martha, can you put a stop to the robocalls?

Washington D.C. -Baltimore- Philadelphia

Anemones at the Baltimore Aquarium, a place I highly recommend. Brian and I visited Wednesday, as part of our 5-day-long trip to Washington D.C. and back. We were going to drive cross-country but scaled back to Washington-Baltimore-Philadelphia. It turned out to be an inadvertently water-themed trip.

First stop: Washington, D.C., to visit my brother Bill and wife Lena (seen here). We had a therapeutic sauna in the basement of their condominium complex then visited the National Museum of Natural History, so Brian could finally experience the insect zoo there, a stop I had been instrumental in seeing that we avoided on past trips to D.C. There we saw a 3-D movie about the Wild Coast of South Africa, where huge schools of swimming sardines attract all sorts of ocean and terrestrial, that is to say human, predators.


Billy and Brian at the insect zoo.


The museum is full of skeletons, ranging from tiny in size to huge.


And the famous Hope Diamond is there.


Then, using our new GPS, we went to Baltimore to see my friend Ellie, who I met in Thailand this summer. She spent another five months traveling around Asia before staying with her father in Maryland for a month. Next, she's thinking of joining the Peace Corps! But before she's off to her next adventure, we went to the Baltimore Aquarium and then to lunch, where she showed a couple of inlanders how to eat oysters. (I was a wimp and declined to actually eat them, although I paid close attention in case I ever do.)


There's a small, enchanting exhibit at the aquarium now called Jellies Invasion, featuring beautiful, translucent jellyfish in dramatically lit tanks. After we toured the aquarium, which includes a wonderful arboretum on the top floor, we watched a dolphin show and a 4-D movie with special effects like wind, splashes of water and something that felt like beans hitting your feet.


Late afternoon in downtown Baltimore. Next stop: Philadelphia.


Philadelphia City Hall, topped off by William Penn, the city's founder.

We went to the
Reading Terminal Market, a very good example of an indoors farmers market, which we like to visit wherever we go.


Turduckens for sale.


Pretty produce.


Brian got his shoes shined -- just $3 -- then we decided to take a 90 minute-bus tour for $25 each -- We got the "senior discount" -- Oh God, we're in our early 50's!


We learned that our vivacious tour guide Aaron grew up in Queens, used to have a girlfriend in Pelham and is going to library science school in Philadelphia.


Patti Labelle mural in the neighborhood she grew up in. Aaron told us the world class mural arts program in Philadelphia was started to help counter graffiti and that graffiti artists caught in the act are pressed into service painting the murals of which there are some 3,000 or more!


Neighborhood mural.


Mural detail.


Another mural detail.


We discovered The Latham Hotel, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, by reading a travel book in one of the stores at a Jersey Turnpike rest stop. It was an extremely unassuming place with great amenities for $118 a night plus taxes. Sadly for me, it didn't tout any of its amenities, so while we discovered the free wireless access I didn't realize there was a beautiful fitness center full of windows until it was too late to work out. D'oh!


I imagine this dresser would be in the Federal style what with the golden eagle.


The view standing across the street from The Latham looking left.


Continuing the water theme, we tried the signature waterwheel-shaped dessert at Water Works restaurant in the old waterworks on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. Afterwards we visited the water works museum below, which reminded me of going to the fish elevator in Holyoke which is open to the public every Mother's Day through Father's Day.
We learned in Philadelphia, by the way, that the former was the invention of Anna Jarvis, of the City of Brotherly Love, who swore at her mother's grave in 1905 that she would create a day to honor mothers, living and dead.
Next stop: Amherst!

Holiday tales

Christmas night we went to see "Avatar" in 3D at Cinemark in Hadley. Trouble is, if your vision is not 100 percent, the glasses may not work, we discovered. Nicky, who hasn't filled his new glasses prescription, and Brian couldn't see the 3D effects. I'd have to give "Avatar" a thumbs up, although I usually don't like fantasy or action movies. The 3D forest scenes are enchanting.


Christmas Eve with friends before we did a little salsa dancing.

Lucy, our instructor, (seen here) teaches salsa on Tuesdays at Dance Northampton.

Who's that under the tree?


Paul and many other people, no doubt, got a Snuggy.

Tiger Woods walking through the tall grass at Chicago O'Hare on our long journey home from Boise. The pre-holiday snowstorm closed Dulles International Airport in D.C. where we were to have flown on Saturday. Happy holidays all!

Greetings from Colorado

We're wrapping up our trip to Boise -- I think -- in a few hours, when we fly out of Denver, where we've been since Saturday. Many eastbound passengers like us have had to make other arrangements after Dulles airport, where we were headed, and others closed due to snow. Luckily for us, Brian's childhood friend Jeff Jefferson and wife Carol live outside Denver with their Newfoundland dog and three cats.

We ate Carol's outstanding holiday food and visited the Rocky Mountains, where we saw the Stanley Hotel, in Estes Park, the inspiration for Stephen King's "The Shining." The classic Stanley Kubrick version of the movie was shot at a different hotel the Timberline lodge in Mount Hood, Oregon in 1980, but King didn't approve of it and produced a 1996 version set at the Stanley Hotel.

Before leaving Boise, we had met up with Dan Guild, a longtime family friend from Pittsfield, who owns a great pizzeria called Casanova. I highly recommend it if you're ever in Boise. We got the Idahoan, which has sausage, hot peppers and potatoes and another pizza with figs, blue cheese and pineapple.


Dan said a lot of Easterners come into Casanova, including Billy Buckner, a former pro baseball player. According to Wikipedia, Buckner's playing career "lasted over twenty years and he accumulated over 2,700 career hits. However, despite his productive career, he has gained infamy for his crucial fielding error during Game Six of the 1986 World Series, a play that has since been prominently entrenched into American sports lore."
I wonder if Tiger Woods will similarly be remembered for his Thanksgiving fender bender and what happened next.
Isn't this a cute gargoyle-in-a-suitcase in the Denver airport?

Not quite lost in Boise

Brian and I went for a hike in back of my brother's house in Boise today. It was about 36 degrees and sunny.

Brian did some bird watching along the way and saw some goldfinches, magpies and a kestrel.

When we got to the top of the hill, Table Rock, where a large cross looks over Boise, fog started rising up from the valley.

It made for some otherworldly scenery.



And then the sun started to set and we couldn't see the trail. We joked about some movies we have seen about people getting lost. The one that is never far from my mind at times like these is "Blair Witch Project" about the would-be filmmakers who get horribly lost in the woods and end up walking in circles for days.



We also discussed "Open Water," about the couple who get left behind on a group snorkeling trip. The boyfriend makes a few bad choices and let's just say things don't end well. And of course "Gerry," by my favorite director Gus Van Sant, about two friends who get lost hiking in the desert, although they're only a few hundred yards from their car at the (bitter) end.
Long story short, Brian and I got back to Mike's house without too much ado.

We're visiting Mike's family, including the most recent addition to the extended family, Alanis, seen here with her mom Clare.



More later!

Snow day

First snow day of the season today.


The snow turned to rain and by the time I went to the last journalism class of the semester, there was thunder and lightning.

Students seemed to be in high spirits.

And our friend Ramari's wife Sabita and son Ruchon have arrived from Nepal. Just in time to enjoy the snow!

Who won the cookies?

I won Amherst Bulletin columnist Phyllis Lehrer's annual postcard contest for having been the one whose card was sent from the farthest point from the place we don't pronounce the "h." My wonderful trip to Thailand this summer just keeps giving. Here I am with my prized cookies -- seven different kinds -- in front of Town Hall. (You can see my "going gray" hair is really going.)

The day has gone gray too, but it was 66 degrees earlier, as noted on the Amherst Cinema marquee.


An excellent day to eat cookies and read the last batch of papers from journalism class. The semester wraps up next week. And thank God the primary election for U.S. senator to succeed the great Ted Kennedy finally transpires on Tuesday. NEVER have I received so many automated calls -- from the Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano and Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca campaigns. Enough already!!! I'm tempted not to vote at all in protest.

Some Thanksgiving snapshots and the yarsagumba

This year we were joined by our three Nepalese friends, Bikram, Ganandra and Ramari, who told us some fascinating stories about their homeland, including about the yarsagumba, a combination caterpillar-fungus known as the "Himalayan Viagra," said to cure sciatica and other ailments.




As it says at Weird and Funny World:

 "Just earlier to the rainy season, spores of cordyceps fungus infect these Himalayan caterpillars that live on moist grass and hollow soil. After the fungus buries itself in the caterpillar’s body, it works its way out through the insect’s head. The parasite gets the energy from the caterpillar. The fungus parasite gets so much into the body of the caterpillars’ that it drains all the energy from the insect and ultimately it dies."


Back to Thanksgiving. Cora and Zena played classical music and Russian folk songs (at least I think they were) on the organ Brian and company found for free on Craigslist.

We visited my sister Maureen on Saturday.


Evangeline, the Queen of Make Believe (as it says in the Los Lobos song).


Megan and Alina.



My brother Billy and wife Lena.

Journalism class fun etc.

One of our most engaging guests ever came to journalism class yesterday -- Amherst Police Capt. Jennifer Gundersen. Students barraged her with questions and her answers were way more informative and sometimes entertaining than I expected them to be.
"Great transparency," Julian, our Hampshire College student, commented at one point.
A Westwood, Mass. native, Gundersen said she wanted to be a police officer because she likes to be "in the know on things." She picked Amherst, because she likes interacting with people and she wanted to feel like part of a community, she said. She's been here for about 15 years, having begun when she was 24.
Gundersen is second in command of the department of 45 officers, six of whom are women, or about 10 percent which higher than the East Coast average, she said, but lower than on the West Coast. The homeless are a particular interest of hers and she's trying to get a warming station established in town. She encouraged students to lock their doors and not to drive drunk. Police receive at least one report a day of break-ins, in which the thieves just walked inside and helped themselves to laptop computers and other expensive items. About 140-150 people are arrested for operating under the influence in Amherst every year.
One of the worst experiences for Amherst police is when young people start throwing beer bottles at them when officers approach large, unruly parties, Gundersen said. "Everyone we can put our hands on will probably go to jail," she said, adding, "We do recognize that this is the minority of people who will do something like that."
A surprising thing she told us is that public urination is becoming a problem and it's not just men, anymore. D'oh! I hope this can be nipped in the bud.



Sunderland sky.


I love old-fashioned postcards like this one. I wonder if my siblings would mind if I dressed up my little nieces and nephews and tried to recreate postcards like it.


My newest niece, Alanis, of Boise, Idaho, born Monday!


Rez, the owner of Moti, a new Mideastern restaurant in town, and his dad. I'm going to be writing a review for MassLive next week. In the meantime, I highly recommend the rose-water lemonade!

My favorite vegetable, the romanesco cauliflower, and the state of journalism etc.

Brian brought my favorite vegetable, the romanesco cauliflower (or broccoli, if you prefer) home from the Hampshire College farm, Tuesday. It was already dark, so I couldn't get a great photo of it. As I suspected, Hester was very interested. I still recall the first time I saw one, a miniature version, in a Korean supermarket in Los Angeles full of similarly bizarre items. Its spirals are said to be a fine example of the Fibonnacci sequence, and/or a fractal form. (See "Fractal Food: Self-Similarity on the Supermarket Shelf")


Close-up

I love it for its looks, but it also tastes delicious -- more refined than broccoli and tastes fresher and greener than cauliflower. I put it in a big pot with about an inch of water and steamed it whole before somewhat reluctantly dismantling it and putting it in a spinach salad.


Steve Fox, the UMass journalism department's go-to multimedia guru came to class yesterday and underscored my own cheerleading about what an exciting, if financially uncertain, time it is for young people to be in journalism these days. "It's not overstating it to say the profession is going through a revolution right now," he told them. As for the big wigs telling everybody else what's news, how to cover it and where to get it, good luck! "The Alpha telling the masses what's important -- that role is gone." The commenter/reader, photographer, videographer are all in it together and teamwork is key, he said. "The era of the lone, crusading journalist has come and gone."
Steve repeated this several times like a mantra: "The death of print does not mean the death of journalism."


The much-anticipated new recreation center at UMass is open, and it looks like it's packed!

As I sit waiting for the penultimate episode of Mad Men, Season 3

I thought I'd post some pics. Full moon over the Norwottuck Rail trail late this afternoon.


My beautiful sister Maureen and baby Evangeline, born Oct. 13 in a photo by my brother-in-law Marc.


I love this photo by Marc of Meghan, Evangeline and Matt. (I think they're going to call her Angie.)



I sent them a basket with these chocolate mice which have totally captured my imagination although I've never seen them in the, um, flesh.


We went to Tony and Penny's, a Portuguese restaurant in Ludlow, on the recommendation of my blogging friend Tony and this pot of rice with seafood (for about $18) was the largest meal I have ever gotten at any restaurant anywhere -- bar none.

Other people's adventures

This is my friend Ellie, 49, a world traveler I met on my teaching English as a foreign language course in Thailand, this summer. While I came home after the course ended and am now a volunteer ESL tutor through the Jones Library, many of my classmates went on to exotic locales to teach. When I met Ellie in Thailand, she had just completed an intense, month-long yoga teacher certification course. She's also a registered nurse and had spent a year in Malaysia and a year in England working for a health care-related company. After our ESL course, she traveled to Japan, Taiwan (where she experienced a typhoon) and China and then I lost touch with her for a month when I think she was in India and beyond. Here, she is learning to surf in Bali.
Another friend I met in Thailand is romance writer Sue Swift, 54. Her next stop was China, where she plans to remain until July teaching Kindergarteners. I asked her if she is learning a lot about teaching English as a foreign language and she wrote "I'm learning more about how small children learn than anything else."

I'm plotting to do something adventurous like my role models Ellie and Sue this summer, but I don't know what it will be. Meanwhile, here are some of the last of the fall photos, I suspect. The red, red tree is on Sunset Avenue.
The yellow ones are on Strong Street.
And this is last weekend on the Norwottuck Rail Trail.
Don and Betty Draper of "Mad Men." Tomorrow is Season 3's penultimate episode. Some of the chatterers at the Slate chat group I check in with think it's going to involve the assassination of JFK. In anticipation, my fellow "Mad Men" fans have been recalling where they were when they heard the terrible news. I remember talking about it excitedly at Sacred Heart School, in Pittsfield -- I would have been 6 -- and an anguished nun telling us to stop it.
I see this year's First Night New Year's celebration poster is a view of Northampton by local artist Randall Diehl.

Creature Feature

Thought a bug and other creature post was in order, as a lot of my Facebook friends and UMass students have been receiving unwanted visits from these Asian ladybugs the past few days. They're known as Halloween bugs, according to About Amherst's entomologist, because this is about the time when they usually descend on people's home looking for a place to hibernate. They're a "minor agricultural pest" in some places, I learned at Wikipedia's excellent Asian ladybug page. I vacuumed up dozens of them a couple of days ago, but this is not advised as they secrete a smelly chemical that can cause the vacuum cleaner to smell. D'oh.


This brazen character was eating all the bird food this morning.


The noyve.


Meanwhile, my brother-in-law Marc sent this snake photo yesterday for Brian to ID and Brian in turn, sent it to his friend Bart, a bug and snake man, who said it's No it is definitely a "juvenile black rat snake." Says Bart, "The pattern on the bottom and the keel scales which are barely discernible give it away."


On another note, I had a delicious lunch with Ana's friends Jeff and Carla at Miss Saigon today which I plann to write about soon at MassLive.