The weather here has been unusually warm lately. To help us out, the San Diego Health and Human Services Agency has made a list of Cool Zones where people can go to cool off. The list is primarily for the elderly but it also should apply for everybody. They have also made a list of “Tips to Beat the Heat” with helpful hints about how to stay cool. The most unusual item on the list says:
Place a piece of cardboard covered with aluminum foil in sunny windows to reflect sunlight and heat away from the house.
Via San Diego Blog
Technorati Tags: coolzones, heat, sandiego, summer
One of the exciting parts about the end of the school year (besides getting out of school) is receiving a yearbook. There is nothing quite like looking back on the school year and reminiscing about the good times you’ve had. It is also very nice to have something to remember your high school by. But the idea of yearbooks is under attack. Kids, outraged by the price tag on a stack of paper with pictures, are making yearbooks online.
Yearbooks are definitely worth the money though. It is a keepsake that you can someday show your children. The internet seems a little tacky for that. Also, In my experiences with the Internet, teenagers can’t keep things in one place very long, they get new myspaces and xangas almost every week. Just think about what things will be like in 10 or 20 years. I will still have my yearbooks from high school but the online ones will be long gone, I can see it now.
Technorati Tags: yearbook, school
School got out on Friday so I am now, officially on Summer break. Postings should increase because I am considerably less busy and don’t have many plans for the summer. I do, however, start an internship next week. I’m researching a major international issue and then writing about it. Other than that, it’s mostly surfing, rock climbing, and attempting to fill the time with reading. Any suggestions on summer reading books?
Technorati Tags: school, summer
Today I added the ability to subscribe to comments via email. I have not tested this yet and hope to do so with this entry.
Update: It does not seem to be working… hmm
Update again: It does actually work, it just takes a bit to get the email… have fun with it.
There is an new movement in Iran and the United States to try to stop a war from happening. Say hello to Enough Fear. Right now, all it does is ask for people to send in pictures of themselves giving the international hand signal for stop. They hope expand and pressure both sides to avert a conflict. This is an awesome idea, I’ll post a photo in a couple days.
Technorati Tags: iran, enoughfear
At the beginning of May, I posted a letter I wrote to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran. Before I go any further, let me explain that I had no real intention of actually mailing the letter to Tehran, I was just very proud of the letter.
As for the actual assignment, it was an in class essay. We had 40 minutes to write a persuasive letter to any one of a list of three historical and modern leaders. This was inspired by the letter Albert Einstein wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 relating to nuclear arms.
I decided to write to the president of Iran. The viewpoint in the letter is one not held by many of my peers nor many of the people I have talked to about it. I believe everybody has a right to nuclear power. It is easier on the environment and they cut dependency on oil.
I revised the essay the week following its inception and posted the final copy online one night. I woke up the next morning to a comment by Mani informing me that Ahmadinejad is a liar and cannot be trusted. He later posted a link on his Farsi weblog and, ever since then, I have had a steady stream of traffic to it. I googled my name today and found that my letter had been translated into Persian (correct me if I am wrong on that).
I would like to thank everybody for their comments on the letter… I have read all of them.
Technorati Tags: iran, letter, mahmoudahmadinejad
“I admit that the thought of Ann Coulter in chains is attractive!”
That was Scott Simon speaking at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention. He was talking about how he’d be outraged if any journalist was put in jail. How crazy, journalists have senses of humor… who’d have thought?
Technorati Tags: funny, humor, journalism, journalist, npr, scottsimon
Sorry for the shortage of posts, school is ending and I was sick last week. I return with an excerpt from a blog entry by Kevin Sites. I’m not quite up to 100% so I will only post the excerpt, nothing more.
I’ve been on 60 planes since I started this journey, but every time it’s the same. I wonder whether the next time I land I’ll be able to engage the people I’m going to cover, to capture the reality of their existence. I’ve just left JFK on a jet to Port au Prince, Haiti – a country that I’ve never covered.
…
This is a job, I’ve learned, in which you can’t afford shyness. I need to be able to make a deal with the people I report on, to get them to trade their stories with me for the chance that someone beyond their own families may know what they’ve experienced – the emotion, the drama and the truth which they reveal. A narrative, yes, but is it an exploitation as well? Does it cheapen us both, or strengthen us in the common bond we create and share with others?