New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 12, Number 1 of Illumination (University of Missouri)

New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 13, Number 3 of Explore (University of Florida)

New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 9, Number 2 of MSU Today (Michigan State University)

An eradicated killer

The Demon in the Freezer: How smallpox, a disease of officially eradicated twenty years ago, became the biggest bioterrorist threat we now face.

Winner, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2000. (Richard Preston, The New Yorker)

Friday poll results

Are you on Facebook?

• Yes, I use it all the time: 13 votes (37%)


• I set up a profile, but don't really do anything with it: 8 votes (22%)


• No, I decided not to: 10 votes (28%)


• Face-what? 4 votes (11%)

Writing quote of the day

"In writing, assume full rationality. Assume your audience is at its best and that you have to live up to it. That is, establish your general view of the audience, and then proceed as if you were writing to yourself as a member of that audience -- at your best, most perceptive potential. You must project the most cognitively severe mind -- and the only mind that you can project completely is your own at its most consistent, clearest level of functioning. In that sense, write as if you are trying to convince yourself." Ayn Rand, The Art of Nonfiction 22-23 (1969; Robert Mayhew ed., 2001).

The Year in Pictures, Part 3

The third and final in boston.com's series

The Year in Pictures, Part 2

From boston.com's Big Picture series

The Year in Pictures, Part 1

From boston.com's Big Picture series

How much do I hate this writer?

Private Library from A Space In Time on Vimeo.

A short film about New York architect Andrew Berman's dream project.
Commissioned to design a writing studio in the woods in Long Island, he took the challenge and created a building which seems to float in a sea of foliage.

http://vimeo.com/1696112 (From Vimeo)

Wednesday coffee break: 10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy

You can read the full list, with explanations. Or skip to the condensed version below. (alternet.org)

1. Savor Everyday Moments
2. Avoid Comparisons
3. Put Money Low on the List
4. Have Meaningful Goals
5. Take Initiative at Work
6. Make Friends, Treasure Family
7. Smile Even When You Don’t Feel Like It
8. Say Thank You Like You Mean It
9. Get Out and Exercise
10. Give It Away, Give It Away Now!

New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 23, Number 2 of Coastal Heritage (South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium)

The Big Picture: riots in Greece

"On the night of Saturday, December 6th, two Special Guards of the Greek police clashed with a small group of young men... This incident sparked an immediate and widespread response in the form of angry demonstrations and riots..." (boston.com)

Daily Routines

A site all about how writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days.

dailyroutines.typepad.com

From Vladimir Nabokov's entry: "Summers I spend in the stumbling pursuit of lepidoptera on flowery slopes and mountain screes; and, of course, after my daily hike of fifteen miles or more, I sleep even worse than in winter. My last resort in this business of relaxation is the composing of chess problems. The recent publication of two of them (in the Sunday Times and The Evening News of London) gave me more pleasure, I think, than the printing of my first poems half a century ago in St. Petersburg."

"Hot Housewives in action!"

Science journal mistakenly uses flyer for Macau brothel to illustrate report on China (From The Independent.)

"There were red faces on the editorial board of one of Germany's top scientific institutions, the Max Planck Institute, after it ran the text of a handbill for a Macau strip club on the front page of its latest journal. Editors had hoped to find an elegant Chinese poem to grace the cover of a special issue, focusing on China, of the MaxPlanckForschung journal, but instead of poetry they ran a text effectively proclaiming 'Hot Housewives in action!' on the front of the third-quarter edition. Their 'enchanting and coquettish performance' was highly recommended."

Pity the poor rich

Rich Kid Syndrome: America’s burgeoning money culture is producing a record number of heirs -- but handing down values is harder than handing down wealth. (Jennifer Senior, New York magazine)

"Almost everyone who’s ever worked with rich children or their parents has a making-the-bed story. It’s a chestnut, a cliché almost, a cautionary tale about the first twinkle of entitled behavior in a lifetime of potential cupidity, and it goes something like this: Mom wanders into the bedroom, notices her child’s bed is still in a rumple, and asks the child to tidy it up. The child, usually about 7 and suddenly wise to the hidden economy of the house, replies, “That’s not my job. She’s paid to do that,” and points to the housekeeper. Susan Bradley, founder of the Sudden Money Institute, once ran a forum for wealthy parents at which one of them reported that their child was paying the housekeeper to make his bed. “And everyone thought this was hilarious and very enterprising, showing early business capabilities and that kind of thing,” says Bradley."

A vanishing breed?

The soon-to-be-lost art of science reporting: "While all eyes have been focused on the potential disintegration of the auto industry, a surprisingly silent and astonishingly broad purging has been taking place throughout some of America’s major news media. And while some may immediately react with, “It serves them right,” the truth is that the scientific and medical communities may suffer the most from this loss." (Earle Holland, Ohio State Univ.)

New URMA issue on my desk

Volume 8, No. 1 of Washington State Magazine, Winter 2008/9.

Now read this

Up Then Down: The lives of elevators. (Nick Paumgarten, New Yorker)

The Mad Scientist, Bringing Back the Dead

If all profiles of scientists were only half as good as this one of Mark Roth... (Tom Junod, Esquire)

Wednesday Nyuk-nyuk

Bumper sticker on car outside my office:

WITCHES PARKING ONLY
all others will be toad

Michael Moore weighs in on the Big 3 Loans

"...And Congress must do all this by NOT giving GM, Ford and Chrysler the $34 billion they are asking for in 'loans' (a few days ago they only wanted $25 billion; that's how stupid they are -- they don't even know how much they really need to make this month's payroll. If you or I tried to get a loan from the bank this way, not only would we be thrown out on our ear, the bank would place us on some sort of credit rating blacklist)." An interesting proposal here.

Tuesday coffee break

Scared of Santa: 46 pics from the Chicago Tribune

Friday poll results

As of now, how likely is it that you will be able to attend the URMA meeting (in College Station, TX) in 2009?

• I'll definitely be there: 6 votes (11%)


• More than likely, I'll be there: 20 votes (38%)


• It's not likely that I can come: 17 votes (32%)


• I won't be attending: 9 votes (17%)

Friday poll results

Pre-URMA, what was your journalism background?

• Both a journalism degree and professional journalism experience: 16 votes (48%)


• Journalism degree: 4 votes (12%)


• Professional journalism experience: 6 votes (18%)


• Neither: 7 votes (21%)

Was Darwin Wrong?

Almost half of Americans don't buy evolution, but genetic data, antibiotic-resistant germs, and the anklebone of a fossil whale help build the case.

Winner, essays, American Society of Magazine Editors' Best American Magazine Writing, 2005. (David Quammen, National Geographic)

LIFE photos

LIFE magazine and Google have teamed up to make a searchable archive of millions of LIFE photos, most of which were never published. Check it out here.

(At right: Encased in plaster from neck to waist, children suffering from tuberculosis of the spine relaxing in the sun outside mission hospital, where they will stay for two years. 1949.)