from the brilliant burning books folks

Here are the long-awaited posters featured at IPI that I wrote about here. There will be more about IPI in the upcoming paper.

I'm so there

As in how soon should I pack my bags?.

i love me some friday

Whew, what a week. My eyes feel like they are about to fall out of their sockets. Wait—ok, no, still in the socket.
Tonight I'm going to Toots and the Maytalls. Tomorrow I'm doing as little as possible. I may have to get, in SF vernacular, some "bodywork," as I've managed to tweak my leg in a weird way. I have no idea what I did. It feels like I slept for 36 straight hours with my legs in some kind of weird yoga position. Is very painful. Thank goodness for Advil.
I like the sunshine. I like that it's Friday. I wish I hadn't answered this call, which has just begun, "I won't give you my name, but I have a story I want you to run because the new mexican has disappointed me."
Sigh.
Later y'all.

copying is the sincerest form of...

Loved The New Mex's story on the battle over the peace conference. I mean, we had the same story yesterday but, whatever. Actually, I think it's nice in a day and age in which most media outlets are so concerned with breaking news, being the first and having original reporting that the New Mex is content to just follow us. It's very peaceful of them. Competition, you know, is bad for the skin. Honestly, I don't know why The Journal didn't have the story first, given that Cimino wrote the op-ed that made it public in the Journal. (Actually, I heard about the conflict through Mother Media).
In other naval-gazing news, Terrell cites our reporting on the contest for the new chairmanship of the state Dem Party, although he didn't link to our story. Here's the link. I like the part of Terrell's story that reads:

Colon, an Albuquerque lawyer, said of Olguin in the Santa Fe Reporter a couple weeks ago: “His clients are fundamentally in opposition to the tenets of the Democratic Party of New Mexico and its platform.”
Interviewed Wednesday, Colon said he didn’t want to discuss his opponent. He didn’t dispute what he said to the other newspaper but said he’s trying to stress his own qualifications.

This is pretty much the only reason we're mentioned, because Colon wouldn't repeat what he said for Terrell, so the only way to make the point was to cite him making it to us (glad to hear he didn't dispute what he said. Although we pretty much record all of our interviews for just those types of occasions).

in my free time

I am reading dozens of alternative newsweeklies that have applied to be members of Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. It's my first go-round serving on the membership committee, which I said yes to doing last year... because apparently I just say yes whenever anyone asks me to do anything. Thus I recently served as a judge for the NOW writing contest. and agreed to read a friend's screenplay this weekend and also will be reading another friend's book of poetry (actually I offered to do that). So the real question is, why doesn't reading pay more?
Wait, that's not the real question. Anyway, it's fairly interesting reading all these weeklies from all over. Right now I'm reading one that has advertisements for Budweiser on all of its covers. Why didn't I think of that?
Speaking of covers, if you've seen our cover this week, then you're probably wondering about the photo shoot, yes? Well, here's the behind the scenes shot from the cover shoot, during which David Alire Garcia, SFR staff writer, and myself, attempted to hold up flags in front of our cover model while Ursula shot him. I like the look on my face, which kind of reads, to me, as, "Maybe I should have gone to law school."

Parking one's car might be worse for the environment than driving it. Ah Slate. Is it possible to have a crush on a Web site? Cause I kind of think I'm in love with you.

apparently dogs also have left brain/right brain activity. I will have to monitor Nero when I get home, although he frequently exhibits no brain activity whatsoever.

in between waiting for proofs

Reading an interesting article from LA City Beat about the commonalities in school shootings. That April thing is, um, weird.
I know Earth Day has passed, but I want to share Grist's green roundup. I love Grist. They are so very very clever.
The crapola image below, from IPI, is a super cool poster made by the super cool owners of Burning Books in Santa Fe, Michael and Sumner Carnahan, or maybe their names are Michael Sumner and Melodie Carnahan? Anyway, they claim they are sending me better images to post, since the one I took on my camera phone at IPI was, as you see, sucko.
IPI, which we went to on Saturday night, was interesting. A performance/tech-driven, interactive art exhibit, the conceit of which was "what if Homeland Security ran a nightclub?" Answer: it would be kind of like going to the airport. (that's my answer). I was not, however, "randomly selected" for any fear-based behavior modification or death by firing squad. The boy was selected for both. A kind of strange way to spend a Saturday night.

Ipi

show and tell

When I left for work this morning, the TV news people were just starting to eat shit about the incessant loop of the video and pictures of the VT gunman. Last night, on CNN, (sorry no link, it would take me an hour to dig through the Internet to find the interview) Anderson Cooper had an FBI profiler on who told Cooper that the network needed to stop playing the video over and over again, because it was just going to encourage copycats. Cooper thanked him for his comments, told him that had been a topic of discussion and then CNN went right back to playing it over and over again.
By morning, as I said, it seemed to be looping a bit less. By the time I went home for lunch to get lunch for El Nero, the two newscasters on MSNBC were talking to one another about how sensitive they were trying to be (seriously, I mean, is that news? Two newscasters discussing their own sensitivity?). Then one interviewed two VT students, not about the killings, but about how they felt about the videos of Cho being shown on TV. They managed to find two students who were OK with it to explain why they were OK with it. Honestly, it was really bizarre. MSNBC also made a point of pointing out that they were only showing a fraction of the materials, but went no further in describing what they weren't showing (which, in my mind, is a good argument for just showing all of it, since you really can't count on the networks to ever explain anything with any real detail or meaning).
My other meta-media observations today:
The Times has a fairly weak story about what a tough decision NBC had to make when it received the killer's materials, although the story basically tells one nothing about what that decision consisted of and how, specifically, they chose to handle it.
I've just downloaded a podcast from Poynter with a discussion of NBC's decision, which I'm hopeful will contain the real indepth media analysis I'm not going to get from the TV (or The Times, apparently, at least not today).
The DART Center is offering tips to journalists covering VT from journalists who have covered other large tragedies. I found the "tip" about how the media begins creating myths about such tragedies from outset particularly interesting and insightful.

hating the media

Jack Shafer's column today on the role of the media when covering tragedies, such as that at Virginia Tech is very interesting (his columns always rock; I wish he'd write something about how the AP rips off other papers, but apparently I'm the only one who finds that interesting). His column was of particular interest to me right now, not just because of VT, but because of Zane's column in our paper today about the ethics of war photographers panel we both attended. That panel was mostly, it seemed to me (though I'm sensitive) hostile to the media, particularly about the media photographing tragic events. And yet, it's true, as media consumers we expect to see, get, tons of information when these things happen. If there was a blackout: no ongoing coverage, no interviews with victims, bystanders, what would we think? I know, for me, I definitely have this automatic response to want to see everything, to know what's going on, and I get frustrated when the news starts looping and there's nothing new... at the same time, I was pretty grossed out watching Paula Zahn interviewing students, particularly one whom I felt she was desperately trying to get him to assign blame, like the night of, when the kid was in shock and had already said he wasn't ready to assign blame.

something that confuses me

I've never really understood the justification for The Weekly Alibi continuing to run Jerry Ortiz y Pino's column now that he's a state legislator. We used to run a column by Jerry as well, but when he decided to run for office, we stopped. I don't think public officials should get a regular forum in the newspaper, and candidates can't either, as it's unfair to the other candidates. Ortiz y Pino writes a nice column; we enjoyed having him in SFR, for sure. But, ya know, you want to be a politician, you can't be a journalist. This view, which I hold, is not, as far as I know, unusual. So I'm perusing Altweeklies.com, and I come across Jerry's column on why Richardson could be president, read it over, remain unconvinced and then notice that they aren't even identifying him as a state legislator. Am I reading poorly? Is there a tagline anywhere? So the top story on a site for altweekly journalism is a push for the Dem governor by one of his Dem legislators? Anyone else find this weird?

still drowning

under a crushing work load this week, with little "thises" and "thats" popping up every three minutes. Haven't slept past 3 am in at least three days.
But I haven't lost my temper yet, even though I've already had two occasions to do so! (Must count successes where one can find them). I would list for you all the things that have to happen today and all the things I am trying to keep afloat, and even bitch about the lack of realization of such by some, but I need to get back to work, so use your imagination.

annual manual life-sucking force

has taken over. We are in that phase, that final phase, of trying to push out section after section in between signing off on pagee after page of the regular paper. We are all slap happy, taking four times as long as we should to read a sentence. My eyes are gritty from nerve-induced insomnia. And thus, I say, I shall return when the synapsis are firing a bit more steadily.

My God, what is happening in this world?

Favorite sleeping position

Nero doesn't want to get up

Laziest dog ever

no comment

I'm always fascinated (OK, mildly interested) to see the most e-mailed/most commented stories on other media Web sites; particularly when they are unexpected topics. For example, I wasn't surprised to see the Don Imus story getting lots of comments, since that's all anyone wants to talk to me about. Actually, several people have asked me what I think about it. Here's what I think: 1. Don Imus is a racist imbecile and he's been a racist and an imbecile for a long time. Yes, I support free speech but I'm glad he was fired. I don't think people should make money off of saying racist comments. As for the hip hop/Imus connection, Russell Simmons says it better than I could. Is there way too much really bad hip hop that demeans women in the same way Imus did? Yah, there sure is. This was the topic of the hip hop forum at CSF I attended not long ago, in fact. Barbara Ehreinreich makes some interesting points in this article. At the end of the day, all I can say, is I'd take Snoop Dog over Imus any day, but I can take or leave Snoop Dog in a heartbeat. But if the Imus situation means we end up with more hip hop like this and less hip hop like this, then I guess it's a good thing.
I'm a little surprised this was an article in the "most posted" category.

Boring

I mean, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most intense blizzard
ever and 1 being more along the lines of COULD I BE ANY MORE TIRED OF
SNOW? I'd give this morning's snow a --3,486.
In other news, I feel sick, annual manual is in full scale hell, our
cover designer has gone into labor and, yes, you've unwittingly just
read an entire post of complaints about the weather, my health and work.
Guess things are getting back to normal.

questions for the new mex

Yesterday's story about personnel changes at The Santa Fe New Mexican prompted several questions here at the old SFR. If you know the answers, I'd love to hear them.

1. Why is this front-page news?
2. Isn't this just a press release?
3. Why did Rob Dean, versus a reporter, write this story?
4. Isn't having Rob Dean write a story about a reorganization in which he now reports to the former AD slightly problematic? Shouldn't a reporter who isn't affected by this shuffle be writing this story objectively? Again: press release?
5. What really happened to Ty Ransdell?

a note on keywords

I don't remember, very often, to check my sitemeter thingie to see how people are finding this blog, what keywords they are searching under that lead them here. I know this is an important component to driving blog traffic and, God knows, someone is probably writing a dissertation AS WE SPEAK on keywords.
Anyway, I just checked traffic and keywords and learned these are the searches that brought folks to my blog today:

46.15%: julia goldberg
30.77%: jonanna widner
7.69%: julia goldberg blog
7.69%: aid & comfort gala
7.69%: julie goldberg

Narcissism finally pays off; in a completely unfinancial way. I should probably let Jonanna know that people are diligently googling her today. Like she doesn't know that already!

good news of the day

Apparently my health insurance has changed and I am now eligible for unlimited organ transplants. Yes!

OK, here it is

MONDAY MORNING ROUNDUP

STOP THE PRESSES!!

In other groundbreaking events, I am digging this video. If Richardson really wants to compete for prez, he should get this guy (or someone like him) on board.

Speaking of vids, The Hip Hop Voter Project video, made by Andrew Primm and myself, is now playing. I'm linking to it playing on our myspace page, rather than youtube, because youtube is taking 1,000 years to load the damn thing.

Can't believe I missed the season premiere of The Sopranos last night. The boy took me to The Waves to try to cheer me up... it did, but it also made me sleepy. Well, I think they rerun it tonight.

OK, pretty sure I should be working.

I'm glad I recorded Kita last fall

not so good friday

Good Friday and Easter weekend, in general, are biggish holidays in northern New Mexico. The banks close early, government closes early. Everyone goes home early. We don't go home early. We have the same job to do as always, except we can't get anyone on the phone to do it.
At the moment, I am trapped at my desk waiting for a call back from a prospective SFR talk candidate. I need to go home and check on Nero, who seems to have picked up on the vaccuum in my life and transformed himself from a happy go lucky ignored pup into a sick dog. He woke me up at 2:30 am to go out and my guess is he's waiting to go out right now as well. However, if I miss my call I will be up shit's creek and therein lies the rub. Leave, stay, leave, stay.
This story about Dana Papst lying on his drivr's license is confusing to me. It doesn't really have a comment from Colorado officials, which might help.
Also, is this funny?
Because it doesn't seem funny to me. Of course, I am a tough audience when it comes to such things as other people who think they are funny.
Other things that are not funny: A telephone that doesn't ring!

it's been a long time

since I complained about what I ate for lunch. I had an egg salad sandwich and it was so disgusting that I threw most of it away. I would tell you where it came from, but that, no doubt, would come back to bite me in the ass. Suffice it to say, if you're anywhere near my office contemplating buying an eggsalad sandwich from anywhere near my office, I'd rethink the plan if I were you.
I have to admit the Manny Aragon indictment and courthouse scandal kind of made me lose my appetite. It's all such a morass. I mean, innocent until proven guilty but, c'mon, how can people elect and elect and re-elect people who are so obviously up to no good over and over again, to the point that it decades a decade for this shit to come home to roost? Blech!
I also find myself agreeing with Mario about the whole charity donation aspect. So you take money from someone who turns around and gets indicted for doing wrong, thus the money they gave you is tainted. So then you give it to charity where, apparently, taint doesn't matter and, in so doing, you look good because you're not using tainted money to get elected. I'm sure the charities need the money (public corruption may have been the largest contributor of charitable giving this year), but it's not like you're a hero or something for giving it. What would be really good is if it just didn't cost money to run for office anymore.
I mean, $26 million?. My God! Well, I guess Richardson only needs $20 million, assuming he doesn't have to keep returning the money (ain't no way I'm linking to Barry Massey's story on that... although Mr. Massey might note how others, in fact, credited the AP for their work, a lesson the AP might wish to learn from).

myspace holds mock presidential elections

I like the part of the article where it says the Myspace votes won't count in the actual election. Yes, thanks for clearing that up.

thank you

I want to thank everyone for all their kind messages of condolence over the last few days. I don't know why words of sympathy are comforting (misery loves company doesn't seem to cover it), but they are and I'm grateful.
Thursday morning, when the boy and I set out for the vet, Kita in the backseat, it had not been decided that we would be putting her to sleep, but I knew in my heart that that was what would happen. My vet, who has treated Kita for the near 15 years I've had her, isn't one to rush to judgement. In fact, eight months ago Kita didn't look so hot, but he advised just trying everything we could to keep her going, which we did. Eight months is a long time to still have your dog to walk and hang out with and feed and enjoy. The last two weeks, on the other hand, were a steady decline, despite boiling chickens and pep talks and desperate random attempts to coax Kita into eating. The final two days, she wouldn't really eat, or drink or walk or get up. So when the vet gave me his opinion, that only heroic measures were left (IV, basically) and that the real question, at this point, was: Are you ready?
Well, on the one hand, no. Never. And, on the other, yes, I was. Not ready to have her gone, but ready to do the right thing and let her go. So we did. If you have never been present for such a procedure, I can tell you, it's hard. Really hard. Actually, kind of traumatic, as was leaving the vet afterwards and going home and having her be gone.
Thusly, I missed two days of work last week (though I have no idea what I did during those two days) and the weekend wasn't particularly cheerful either. But it's Monday now and there's lots of catching up to do. I don't know if I will ever stop missing Kita; certainly it's weird at home without her. But I am looking forward to the little memorial service I am going to have when we get her ashes back: me, the boy, the ex, and the ex-ex (that's three generations of boyfriends; one dog). Looking forward isn't exactly the right word...I'm not looking forward to it as in I expect to enjoy myself, but I do want to have the opportunity to lay her to rest in a more spiritual, less vet's office, kind of way (although my vet said a very powerful, long prayer before the deed, which I appreciated). Anyway, that's really all I can say for now (and likely more than anyone really wanted to hear). Now it's back to the paper. We are actually in the midst of Annual Manual. You might think I haven't been bitching as much as usual because I've been distracted with grieving. That's only partly true; I actually hired an editor for it this year, so she's the one with the bitching...although, she hasn't been doing much of it.