For some reason I see my newspaper job as the BARRIER that keeps me from voicing my opinions publicly and LOUDLY. Ironic that the media silences me like a blanket. Expect letters to the editor, from a distance, about the coal ash spill...why doesn't my paper ask for outside opinions on the spill? This is HUGE.
This excitement and enthusiasm is my essence; it is time for me to exert it, effectively and with force, where ever I go.
THAT IS MY DRIVE. That is who I am.
And now, a word from Simone de Beauvoir's "America Day by Day:"
"...I notice that all the intellectuals I know talk in an animated way and discuss things passionately whenever they're given the chance. American muteness is certainly not an innate choice, but the result of numerous complexes: it is reinforced in everyone by the silence of all the others. Many people are happy when they can escape from it, and then they willingly let themselves go. Another observation seems important: L.W.'s satiric truculence is exceptional, but this critical attitude is familiar to me -- it's common to all my American friends. Yet one shouldn't be misled: there is a tradition of self-criticism in America, as there was not long ago in France. And the people who speak most harshly of the country here are not those who are least attached to it. ... The Americans who attack a certain moral, political and economic position are showing that they insist on a destiny worthy of this great land where they are citizens; their demands and their lucidity are the highest forms of love. ... To label as anti-American books, films and statements that imbue Jefferson's ideal with a living reality -- that is to mutilate America. The day America is forbidden to question itself, America will be no different from the totalitarian regimes it claims to oppose."
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Best Breath
Unmet affection, an unguided guise, un un un done.
It wears on me, it shows on my face. It hit me on my bike, I was yelling about IT at the intersection of Henley and Clinch, waiting for the light. Slowing down, going uphill. Who am I kidding?
Cause Laura Jane, I'm not falling for your jokes today.
Keep movin forward, I suppose, lady, and remember what YOU want.
It wears on me, it shows on my face. It hit me on my bike, I was yelling about IT at the intersection of Henley and Clinch, waiting for the light. Slowing down, going uphill. Who am I kidding?
Cause Laura Jane, I'm not falling for your jokes today.
Keep movin forward, I suppose, lady, and remember what YOU want.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
/rant
Working in the news industry makes me sick.
S-I-C-K.
And it's a seemingly accurate prediction for our culture, if you ask me. The day my well-established daily publishes a photo NOT for their monetary benefit, NOT to court readers or online commenters, I will claim this a journalistic endeavor. BUT NO. Some journalists happen to work here. We also happen to have loads of reporters who PRETEND to write a fair story, but who are really more concerned about making it a SLANTED, SENSATIONALIST few shitted-out inches to take up space on A1!
Honestly, living with my sister and learning a little more about laws, the judicial system, enforcement, penalties, etc., has changed many of my viewpoints on stories we run and SLANTS the paper takes. Her legal experience has opened my eyes to the holes and gaps many stories leave. We remove the humans from the most human of stories. It is insulting.
Though after taking a step back, I know I will miss "my" paper and only speaking of it with loving praise. Or grumble about it when I realize life is better when I don't work for a newspaper-selling company. Maybe not working here (or anywhere!) will serve as encouragement to continue my own journalistic efforts, and my ideals of treating more people with the fairness and respect they deserve, not by being upstanding citizens or anything, but just for being ALIVE.
So, I guess, just for the record and the raving rants:
NO, KNS, I DO NOT SEE IT APPROPRIATE to pair a picture of said mother being CUFFED on the jump page about the year's top stories. It is more relevant that her screw-ball husband practically didn't serve time for shooting and killing some motherfucker! Put a photo of that on the jump, not some woman who is going to be lambasted till she dies!!!!! Why not call more attention to the horrendous environmental disaster in Harriman!? Maybe that will encourage people to LOG OFF YOUR WEBSITE and save energy and stop leaving stupid comments about the story we deemed the "loooove triangle?!"
I would love to say this is a Southern phenomena -- local newspaper and rednecks team up to ruin subject's life -- but I'm sure it exists in idealist land/Portland, too.
... we shall see. 31 days and counting, though I get to QUIT TWO JOBS about a week before that. My brain needs a healthy dose of unemployment. So does my body.
S-I-C-K.
And it's a seemingly accurate prediction for our culture, if you ask me. The day my well-established daily publishes a photo NOT for their monetary benefit, NOT to court readers or online commenters, I will claim this a journalistic endeavor. BUT NO. Some journalists happen to work here. We also happen to have loads of reporters who PRETEND to write a fair story, but who are really more concerned about making it a SLANTED, SENSATIONALIST few shitted-out inches to take up space on A1!
Honestly, living with my sister and learning a little more about laws, the judicial system, enforcement, penalties, etc., has changed many of my viewpoints on stories we run and SLANTS the paper takes. Her legal experience has opened my eyes to the holes and gaps many stories leave. We remove the humans from the most human of stories. It is insulting.
Though after taking a step back, I know I will miss "my" paper and only speaking of it with loving praise. Or grumble about it when I realize life is better when I don't work for a newspaper-selling company. Maybe not working here (or anywhere!) will serve as encouragement to continue my own journalistic efforts, and my ideals of treating more people with the fairness and respect they deserve, not by being upstanding citizens or anything, but just for being ALIVE.
So, I guess, just for the record and the raving rants:
NO, KNS, I DO NOT SEE IT APPROPRIATE to pair a picture of said mother being CUFFED on the jump page about the year's top stories. It is more relevant that her screw-ball husband practically didn't serve time for shooting and killing some motherfucker! Put a photo of that on the jump, not some woman who is going to be lambasted till she dies!!!!! Why not call more attention to the horrendous environmental disaster in Harriman!? Maybe that will encourage people to LOG OFF YOUR WEBSITE and save energy and stop leaving stupid comments about the story we deemed the "loooove triangle?!"
I would love to say this is a Southern phenomena -- local newspaper and rednecks team up to ruin subject's life -- but I'm sure it exists in idealist land/Portland, too.
... we shall see. 31 days and counting, though I get to QUIT TWO JOBS about a week before that. My brain needs a healthy dose of unemployment. So does my body.
Friday, December 26, 2008
no sleep
Being with my family is amazing. Truly amazing.
I am always awestruck at the conversations and interactions that happen in such a short period of time. And they have such great emotional IMPACT, the encounters seem to mean so much...
till I step back for an hour or two and remind myself that everyday life isn't always like this. These emotions are buzzing with such high frequency as to buzz me right out of my shoes and seat. Laying in bed in my parent's house is feeling surreal, too. I feel like I should be in my home now. But this is where I'm FROM. These folks gave BIRTH to me...
buzzing thoughts as all the lights buzz out in the house.
Haaaahahaha..
The cookies also are a nice touch for the holidays. I really, really enjoy cookies. They might possibly be my favorite desert. Not as rich and creamy as cupcakes, but a high-impact desert. Perfect consistency, great for dipping in drinks and easy to carry around or balance on the top of my coffee.
WHAT?!?! The Mercury is hiring a news editor? Jesus christ, I can't rest a fucking minute. I gotta get that reusme up and runnin' and out the door... like, tomorrow! Even if it means I'm doing more grunt work at some lowly publication. I'm doin it!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Two Years Comin'
One holiday party for a friend skippin' town, two piles of stuff to get rid of by the end of 2008 and an empty refrigerator.
Eggs, spinach and tortillas stared back at me before work today as I scurried around to prepare for gift giving this evening. Excuse me, the evening has passed - it is night, oh night, darkness run AWAY, sweep in the spring time and more seconds, minutes, hours of light!
Festive parties, attitudes, cookies and drinks put me in mood, dude, for holiday lovin' from friends and the folks. I'm headed to Chatty to see the whole fam, giving them some sentimental things, doing the best I can. For obsession with cash flow consumed me all year, I find it hard to consume anything other than beer (whiskey).
Stupid rhymes, excellent gifts!!!, ridiculously late nights and fights, making up and living through the most chaotic time of year. Incomplete sentences...
complete me.
Maybe one day I can string them together
more appropriately.
Eggs, spinach and tortillas stared back at me before work today as I scurried around to prepare for gift giving this evening. Excuse me, the evening has passed - it is night, oh night, darkness run AWAY, sweep in the spring time and more seconds, minutes, hours of light!
Festive parties, attitudes, cookies and drinks put me in mood, dude, for holiday lovin' from friends and the folks. I'm headed to Chatty to see the whole fam, giving them some sentimental things, doing the best I can. For obsession with cash flow consumed me all year, I find it hard to consume anything other than beer (whiskey).
Stupid rhymes, excellent gifts!!!, ridiculously late nights and fights, making up and living through the most chaotic time of year. Incomplete sentences...
complete me.
Maybe one day I can string them together
more appropriately.
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