Sharing the Earth

I haven't posted in awhile, things have been moving extraordinarily fast lately. I went on a video shoot with Mark Walker, whom I met at the documentary screening. I met the president of the Economic Club of New York, helped shoot video for Bloomberg, and was there for a Charlie Rangel speech on economics (he isn't too bright). I wrote a lot of pieces, worked on a big multimedia piece (and am still working) and have been wearing myself ragged.

A website in Australia puts everything in perspective and says that I'm overstaying my rights to this planet. If you go to Planet Slayer a project by the Australian Broadcasting Company, ABC, they will let you take a quiz to see how much of a "Planet Hog" you are. You can see how your lifestyle is draining on the planet (who knows where the science is for this) and when you are done taking the quiz, they will tell you when you should have died in order to have gotten your fair share of the earth's resources. I finished the quiz and was told that "you should die at age 5.4." This is designed for children!!!

It sickens me the way that this global "warming" crisis has gone from being bad science that people unfortunately believed to a campaign against the children in our schools, watching our television stations and living in our world. We are telling our 6 year old children that they are wasting the resources of the world by drawing breath every day, because of a runaway theory through which Al Gore is reaping financial gain. What should a parent do when their child comes home from school and tells them that a scientist said they should be dead because they are a waste of resources.

The "science"page said ridiculous things, like that taxis could be better for the environment than bicycles because they cost so much that we have less money to spend on other things that are bad for the environment, or that if you eat beef you are responsible for land being cleared for grazing. The biggest factor is the amount of money you make, the more money, the bigger a "drain" you are on the planet, class envy much? I wonder how many resources went into the "years of research" that they claim support this hateful quiz, we should calculate their drain on society.

For every kid that they corrupt with their vile spew they drain each child's life 70 years.
The bad science they present confuses kids about science exactly 50 books worth.
The amount of space that they take up on the web means that in order to stop internet overcrowding, their site should be deleted in 1 minute.

The result: In 2020 no one will live past 8 years old and they will need to read thousands of books to catch up to anyone from the current era in intelligence, ABC Australia will be off the air for blasting too much of it overheated.

My reasons for those conclusions are just about as viable as theirs.

Robinson Crusoe

I have come to the realization that blogging is alot like being stranded on a desert island with a giant transmitter and no reciever. You write alot of words but cant tell how many people read them. After awhile you are tempted to just write ridiculous things since no one seems to be watching anyway, but you can't. Its quite the exercise in self control.

Multimedia

Here is a link to my first audio/photoessay. I worked on it with my roommate Chris Ross. Emil: From Another Place

To see the rest of the student's pieces, go here.


Aqui esta mi primero foto escrito de Nuevo York. Trabajo con mi amigo Chris Ross.

Mirar los otros estudiantes, ir aqui.

The Faceless Mob

I just got back to my apartment from a Taco Bell run. The nearest Taco Bell is a few blocks away, but living on fifth avenue and 34th street, the trip isn't short. I was pensive for the whole trip, lost in my own thoughts. I walked through a crowded park near Madison Square. There were hundreds and hundreds of people all crammed into a tiny green block, hemmed in by concrete towers on all sides. Everyone claimed their own couple of square feet of grass and entered into their own world. Women in bikini's trying to shed their northern skin, men in Oakley's and cargo shorts reading books and trying to look cool, families with children trying to find a spot on the playground... It struck me that there were hundreds of people present, but no one was paying any attention to anyone else, it was like there were 400 parks, each only occupying a few feet. On the street, people become obstacles, there are so many of them, no one sticks out in particular, old people, foreign people, children, cool teenagers, loser teenagers, businessmen, construction workers; everyone is a small fish in this pond. There are just so many of them your brain gives up processing what you see, all these people are just in your way, their speed and size becomes more important then their lives and their faces.

My mind flashed back to a time like this in China, I was walking down a crowded street in Zhu Hai after eating a delicious dim sum meal and I became overwhelmed by the thousands and thousands of people that I could see in one simple glance. It bugged me the rest of the day, I remember calling home about it, what good is reaching out to one person in a place with millions and millions of lost people. I come from a town where for the most part you acknowledge people on the street, you don't necessarily talk to them, but you glance and smile or at least notice their existance. Here, you could practically ride down the street on an elephant and not be noticed. (Exaggeration)

I was mulling over these thoughts in my head when a woman came up to me and asked if I would answer a question. I thought she was lost and was happy to help.

She asked if I had heard that God was a woman.

I tried to shake her and her male companion, but they chased me down the street trying to debate me. I was frank, I told them I was trying to eat my taco and I didn't have time to deal with bizarre heretical cults.

I regret that.

I'm afraid of becoming desensetized to people, will I ever learn to see beyond the faceless mob? Can I fulfill my goal of seeing people as God sees them? Both as a photographer and as a man? My heart aches imagining how much His must burn for all of these people, all over the world, in thousands of cities packed with thousands of people...


El Espanol para este no esta buena, lo siento. Use una dictionario por mucho.

Acabo de volver a mi apartamento de un viaje a Taco Bell. El Taco Bell mas cercano es algunos bloques lejos, pero viviendo en 5 Avenida y la 34 calle, el viaje no es facil. Era pensativo para el viaje entero, perdido en mis propios pensamientos. Camine para un parque apretado cerca del cuadrado de Madison. Habia centenares y centenares de gente abarrotada todo en un bloque verde pequena, dobladillado adentro por las torres concretas en todos los lados. Cada uno demando sus propios pares de pies cuadrados de hierba y entro en su propio mundo. Mujeres en traje de banos que intenta verter sus piel nortes, hombres en Oakley' s y libros de los cortos del cargo y el intentar parecer muchachos, familias con los ninos que intentan encontrar un punto en el patio… Me pego que había centenares de presente de la gente, pero nadie prestaba cualquier atención a cualquier persona, él era como allí era 400 parques, cada uno que ocupaba solamente algunos pies. En la calle, la gente hace obstaculos, allí es así que muchas de ella, nadie se pegan hacia fuera particularmente, las personas mayores, gente extranjera, ninos, muchachos, muchachas, hombres de negocios, trabajadores de construcción; cada uno es un pequeno pescado en esta agua. Hay apenas así que muchos de ellos que su cerebro da para arriba el proceso de lo que usted ve, toda esta gente estan apenas de su manera, su velocidad y tamano llega a ser mas importantes entonces sus vidas y sus caras.

Mi mente destellaba de nuevo a una época como esto en China, caminaba abajo de una calle apretada en Zhu Hai después de comer una comida deliciosa y me abrume por los millares y los millares de gente que podría ver en un vistazo simple. Me desinsecto el resto del día, recuerdo llamar a casa sobre el, que bueno está alcanzando hacia fuera a una persona en un lugar con millones y millones de gente perdida.

Vengo de una ciudad en donde en general usted reconoce a gente en la calle, usted don' de t la charla necesariamente a ella, pero usted echa un vistazo y sonríe o por lo menos nota su existencia.

Reflexionaba sobre estos pensamientos en mi cabeza cuando una mujer subió a mí y preguntó si contestaría a una pregunta. Pensé que la perdieron y que se placía ayudar.

Ella pregunto si había oído que Dios era una mujer.

Intenté sacudir a su y su compañero masculino, pero me persiguieron tragan la calle que intentaba discutirme. Era franco, les dije que intentaba comer mi taco y no tiene tiempo para ocuparse de cultos heréticos extraños.

Lamento eso.

Asustado de el desensetized a la gente, aprenderé nunca ver más allá de la multitud anónima? Puedo satisfacer mi meta de ver a gente como dios la ve? Como fotografo y como hombre? Mi corazon duele imaginandose cuanto debe quemar el suyo para toda esta gente, por todo el mundo, en millares de ciudades llenas con millares de gente…

The Long View

Those of you who knew me in college, particularily my junior year, will remember a photographic obsession that I had with panoramic photographs, particularily 360 degree photos. It came from a photo essay on cave paintings in New Mexico that I saw in a photography magazine. The photographer took long 360 degree images leading to a super long panoramic extravaganza of bizarre lighting. I fell in love with the medium and went out to try some for myself. My efforts resulted in one eerie photograph of the Huron River which made it look like a lake with an island and bench in the middle of it (the place where I'd taken the photo). It remains to this day the only photograph I have ever sold, it went for $100. If I ever become a Van Gogh or Rembrandt the girl who bought it is very lucky because I lost the original file and my brother has the only other copy (and his got caught in the printer and kind of chewed up.)

Now I'm getting into it again, mostly being frustrated with the wide angle options that I can afford and being consistantly presented with breath taking vistas. It also helps that I have a new program that came with the Canon point and shoot I got, called "Photo stitch" It take the tedious hours and hours out of meticulously cloning and healing together 16 photographs and does it automatically. Of course, it isn't always perfect. It doesn't seem to understand a split car very well, but when I get a copy of photoshop to work with I will be able to do that myself very easily. Anyway, check out this picture of the Brooklyn Bridge, I suggest clicking on it so you can view it full size.


Para los gentes quien me conoceron en universidad, especialidad en mi tercer ano, sabais sobre mi amor para las fotografias muy largas. Este es de una historia fotografia en un noticia que yo lei sobre pintas en Nueva Mexico. La fotografias estan de todo y la luz es muy interesante porque hay dos sols en la pictura. Yo amo este y sacude fotografias a concordia mismo. Mi favorito fue un foto de la Rio Huron cual mira que una isla en una lago. Este fue el solo foto que yo vende a un otro, y es muy especial porque no tengo la original ahora y solamente mi hermano tiene un otro foto, y su foto es roto.

Ahora yo amo otra vez. Porque es dificil sacar fotos con mi lenses que tengo y miro muchas vistas que queiro sacar. Ahora yo tengo una nueva programa se llama foto stitch. En la pasada fue mut tedioso y dificil hacer una foto larga. Este programa hace este muy facil. Mira a mi foto para [clicking] en lo.

La Vida Nueva York

I'm going to try my hand at bi-lingual blogging, I think it will be useful for me to start writing in both English and Spanish. I'm sure I won't do the Spanish justice, but it seems like a worthwhile exercise all the same. My family wants me to write more about life here in New York, and so I will try to give some more generic details.

First of all, we spend a tremendous amount of our time here writing things. Just yesterday I wrote a 500 word feature for my professor Russell Pulliam, about my other professor Bill Maddox, who is a writer for USA Today.

Secondly I spend a lot of time taking photos. This is probably obvious from the fact that most of the time I post a photo instead of writing anything. I go out into the madness of traffic and people and start snapping pictures. Some are good, most are not.

To eat I usually go to a restaurant. They have many different kinds here and you could eat out every day for a year and never see them all.

One thing I don't do much is sleep, there is either work to be done or something to do, or my fiance to talk to.

I am learning alot here and am excited to use these skills for my work in Latin America!


Ahora yo iba traer escribir este blog en dos lenguas. Me piense que es bueno comenzar escribir en espaniol y ingles. Mi familia desean que you hablo mas sobre vida aqui in Nueva York.

Primer, la trabajo aqui es muy loco, de cada dia yo escrito muchas palabras sobre cosas de la nacion. Ayer yo escrito para mi profesor Russell Pulliam sobre un otro profesor aqui, se llama Bill Maddox y el es un escritador para USA Hoy.

Segundo yo usa mucho tiempo sacar las fotos. Es probablamente obvioso porque muchos dias yo no usa mas que una foto. De cada dia yo iba a las gentes y coches en la ciudad y yo sacudo fotografias. Algunas estan bien, mucho no.

Para comer yo usualamente iba a una restaurante. Hay muchos aqui, si traier comer a una nueva restaurante de cada dia para un ano, es imposible.

Una cosa que yo no hago es dormir. De cada noche necesito trabaja o tener divertida, o hablar con mi prometida.

Aprendo mucho aqui y todo ser bueno para mi vida y trabaja en latino america. Especialidad este!

Just in Case

New York really is just like in Monopoly (which is about Atlantic City).

USS Kearsarge

My roommate James Harrison and I visited the USS Kearsarge yesterday as a part of New York's Fleet Week. It was an awe inspiring trip and I'll write more about it later. I got to sit in the cockpit seat of an Osprey Helicopter.

Geriatric Indy Movie is Immature

The opening shot of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull told everything. Paramount pictures' infamous peak flickered familiarly on the screen to the beloved anthem of the Indiana Jones series. I settled down into my seat and prepared to bask in the two hours of Indiana Jones glory at an opening screening in midtown Manhattan. As is traditional in Indiana Jones films, the Paramount logo entered a gentle cross fade which would lay out the opening scene of the movie. I waited to see which mountain it would be, Peru, Nepal, Nevada, Ukraine... a gopher hill in New Mexico? They probably thought it was cute, but it set the tone for the entire film. The Benedict Arnold of film making, George Lucas, once again turned a mountain into a mole hill.

In the 1980's the name Indiana Jones was synonymous with adventure, I grew up on the whip cracking, gun slinging archeology. My love for the Indiana Jones adventures made me want to study Egyptology (my dad even printed out an Egyptian Book of the Dead for me once), and I always found myself playing something along the lines of Indiana Jones. I remember turning my basement into a haunted tomb or foreboding rain forest, swinging from green hoses tied to the rafters. I remember shooting invisible foes defending ancient treasures, they never managed to phase me, I always walked cooly through the darkness shooting from the hip. There was no rhyme or reason to how things would unfold, I just imagined things that seemed adventurous and acted out things from the three movies. My experience with the Indiana Jones trilogy helped to shape me as a child and in the way that I played and imagined the world. The sad thing is, the plot of the newest entry into the "trilogy" seems no better than what I came up with in first grade.

The film seems intent on copying the other three, it is steeped in nostalgia of the nursing home variety. There were not any lines which stuck out to me which were not simply perversions of old classics delivered by the "real" Indiana Jones. The plot leapt around without much development, Russians convince Indiana to help them find an alien's body in a warehouse which apparently he excavated once. Then they jump around inserting an entirely new back story to Indy, having him working as an American spy against the soviets for the past ten years (not the Indy I know) and with a bizarre and horrifically acted British side kick who comes literally out of the blue. Brody is apparently dead, so they had to just make up characters and then have them awkwardly stumble through the story like the kid who is only allowed to play with the big kids because their mothers will yell at them if they send him home. Long stretches of the movie are spent in pointless sappy dialogue between Indy and the other characters, who apparently has become quite the ol' softy since the Last Crusade. He treats young Henry Jones like he's the best thing since sliced bread, lavishing copious praise on the kid at every potential moment, instead of with the sarcastic tough guy attitude that defines Indiana. Sometimes I felt like I was watching a Jane Austen film, the way that Indy treated people like Marion who reappeared in the movie. Rather than with the tension that made their relationship in Raiders so interesting, she seems like a soccer mom and the two cannot stop doting on each other despite the apparent perils which face them.
I say apparent because there really wasn't much peril in the movie. Occasionally some random perils would occur but they didn't seem very sincere. A nuke goes off and Indy hides in a refrigerator and survives, apparently a Nuclear weapon isn't that big a deal and should start off the film. Randomly some 1000 year old Mayans climbed out of the wall and attacked them, but it didn't seem to concern anyone. They had a horribly rendered chase scene through a jungle which did not look very central American at all (really it looked plastic).They fell into quicksand and had a conversation in the meantime, acting like people who know that they are on a sound stage and not in mortal peril. Indiana Jones is brave, this Indiana Jones was indifferent. It was like he didn't even notice that these things were a problem, there were none of the exasperated ejaculations which define key moments of the real trilogy. I actually fell asleep for parts of the jungle chase scene. The closest to moments of peril was when he was thrown a long snake to help him get out of the quicksand and he freaked out. But the scene fell on its face and didn't seem like it could get back up, but it kept dragging on, like they expected us to realize it was funny once we'd seen it long enough. There didn't seem to be any real reason for a lot of things in the movie, it all seemed to be made up as they came to it.

Everyone seemed pretty aware that it was just pretend, and so no one acted in the least bit worried about any of the outlandish perils which overcame them. Plot lines which were begun, such as where did 1000 Mayans come from, seemed to die out because everyone got bored of it and came up with something else. The only thing they maintained was the one plot line that they should have dropped when it was first proposed, an alien crystal skull that will activate a space ship in a city of gold? What?

All in all this movie felt like a very tired old attempt at pretending to be Indiana Jones. It was a lot like my childhood games, probably a lot of fun to play and make up, but not the standard from which other kids should base their imaginings. It would be cute as a fan film, but this was made with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielburg. I am a huge fan of Indiana Jones, and this was probably one of the worst films I have ever seen. Don't waste the money.

Why Nepal Matters

I dug up some very interesting things for this interview and article. In March the Chinese Government closed off the area around Mount Everest on the Tibetan side while coercing the Nepalese government to close their side as well. This extended from March 10 to May 10 so that the Chinese could climb the mountain on their own bearing the Olympic torch. From this spin several controversies, the first is that several medical professionals are concerned that the Chinese are doing this too fast to be healthy, and many people could die in the attempt, they haven’t allowed any foreign press coverage so there may very well have been fatalities. The second issue, and the main angle for my story is that it puts the very poor Sherpas out of business for two of their busiest months. Without the money that they make from guiding these expeditions, Sherpas and their families will have a hard time putting food on the table. All this because the Chinese didn’t want bad press from protestors at the summit of Mt. Everest. I will be asking about the amount of money a Sherpa needs to feed his family and survive, and how this will effect their economy. Breashears also produced and shot a documentary called “Red Flag over Tibet” so he should have a lot of knowledge on the issue of China and Tibet in general, especially as it affects the spill over into Nepal and the Everest Climb. This article will be China’s worst nightmare, bad press about their Everest torch run. I can show that the Chinese are claiming the run as a historic achievement, while driving out of employment the hard working and incredible mountain climbers who achieve far more of an accomplishment than bringing the torch up the mountain, every single year.

The Sherpa of Midtown

Deep in a valley amidst the man-made mountains of Manhattan, lives a man who has climbed with the likes of Peter Hillary and David Breashears, who has reached the summits of Everest and Kilimanjaro many times, and who has worked with National Geographic and the Everest Imax Film crew. He works in a 5th Avenue gift shop, and he is a Himalayan Sherpa.

Standing among “I heart New York” t-shirts, miniatures of the Statue of Liberty, coffee mugs, fiber optic wands, snow globes, and magnets, Lakpa Gelje Sherpa tells me of his globetrotting adventures.

He was born in 1971 in Nepal, a small country deep in the Himalaya Mountains of central Asia. In 1996 Lakpa joined the elite group of climbers that his Sherpa culture produces. The job of a Sherpa climber is not for the faint of heart or the inexperienced. They are the first assault team on the slopes of Mount Everest. They free climb the mountain and lay the paths and the ropes for the comparatively novice westerners who follow in their footsteps.
The Sherpas are the ones who bear the burdens when the climb begins; with their altitude acclimated lungs, sure feet, and strong backs, they leap up the world’s most unforgiving mountain while others crawl.

When someone needs rescuing, it is the Sherpas who undergo the challenging trek to recover them, daily laying their lives on the line to protect their clients. The Sherpas are some of the most noble and adventurous people in the world, annually ascending to a peak which the world aspires to. So what was this one, who had at least 5 Everest summits under his belt, as well as Kilimanjaro and peaks throughout the Himalayas, doing in a kitschy gift shop in Manhattan?
A tourist walks in, ducking out of the endless torrent of people rushing by the tiny shop. He looks around, a blank expression on his face as he examines the New York propaganda. His slogan covered t-shirt isn’t enough and he wants a new one, he hearts New York. Lakpa exchanges the shirt for the man’s cash with his grizzled rope worn hands. Dark eyes which have apprehended the world from its very peak follow the tourist as he shuffles off to join the queue for a view off the top of the Empire State Building. What causes a man to leave his job, his wife, and his son in the mountains of Nepal to sell T-shirts to fat Americans?

It isn’t for lack of friends. Lakpa considers the legendary climber, filmmaker, and author, David Breashears to be a father to him. The Bostonian adventurer has taken Lakpa with him on climbing expeditions around the world, ascending the peaks of Africa, India, China, and the United States.

Through Breashears he has had the opportunity to be part of the Imax film about Everest, an Emmy Award winning documentary. He has climbed with the son of legendary adventurer, Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the summit of Everest. Through Peter Hillary, David Breashears, and his many climbing expeditions, Lapka has rubbed shoulders with all the best climbers the world has to offer.

It was Breashears that helped him get his visa to work in New York at the gift shop, owned by a friend of his from Nepal. But the question remains, what is such an accomplished and extraordinary climber doing at work among the vapid and empty walls of a New York gift shop?

I was struggling for an answer to this bizarre street paradox, American pop music blaring above me through tinny speakers, tourists with bright t-shirts perusing painted clay mugs, and an internationally seasoned climber spilling his story to me in broken English.

How do these people get lost in translation? Why is it that the people who forge the path up the mountain get a generic footnote in the adventure books and end up working in gift shops, while the people who pay them to pull them uphill in a sled go on speaker circuits to discuss their heroic adventures? What gives?

Let me give you a hint: Beijing Olympic Games 2008.

Neuhaus meets Neuendorf

Today we had as our luncheon speaker, Richard J. Neuhaus, a former "Lutheran" pastor who is now a Catholic Priest and "Intellectual." This of course depends on your definitions of what a "Lutheran" really is. He said to me that he had given being a Lutheran a fair chance because he was one for 30 years.

But being an ELCA pastor hardly qualifies being a Lutheran, as ELCA has directly rejected several of the main doctrines of Luther and Christianity. ELCA's own website suggests that the virgin birth did not take place, which is not remotely a "Lutheran" position. This among other things disqualifies the statement that he ever really was a Lutheran. It is true that he went to St. Louis Seminary, but he did so in the era of the Seminex walkout, a time when the Lutheran Church was probably the least Lutheran since before Luther.

He seems enamored with the "rich" history of the Catholic church, the beautiful contributions that it made in intellectual thought, but largely ignores the horrors and abuses which Luther was fighting against. Luther didn't want to shed the rich architectural and artistic history of the Catholic church, nor its liturgical tradition, he wanted to shed the unbiblical papacy, the sale of indulgences, crusading violence and political issues in the name of the church, and the obviously corrupt periods of Catholic history.

The main focus for this "intellectual" is not surprisingly, the role of reason in determining the faith. He talked about the intellectual elite reaching decisions, placing an emphasis on a few people who are very smart, instead of the Lutheran understanding that our faith is not below our reason, our reason stands upon our faith.

It saddened me to see someone who has been trained in the clear truth of the scripture, abandon it because of his love for his own brain. He said that he saw no conflict anymore between Catholicism and Lutherans because of the "resolution" of the issue of salvation by faith alone. This of course ignores the power and primacy of the pope, the sale of indulgences, praying to the saints, the role and details of communion, and many many other issues. I agree that if there were no longer any differences or reasons to remain seperate from Catholicism, it would be wonderful to reconnect to our Catholic brothers. But there are thousands of reasons not to, millions of points that we are not in agreement about, many of them regarding the very issue of salvation by faith and by grace alone.

Mr. Neuhaus lives in a direct contradiction to his own name. He has lived briefly in the new house, brought up in it no doubt. But he has moved instead to a very old and creaky house with alot of problems in its core. Not because of the Bible, but because of intellectual nostalga.

I am grateful that I instead have a Neuendorf. A new village, whereby I can be encouraged and supported in pursuing the razor thin line which shows the truth of scripture in purity.

Ratman

New York needs some sort of a superhero to deal with the giant rodent infestation.

America

Film Premiere

Last night I got to take part in an incredible new experience, a private New York screening. Carla Caesar, a producer here in New York, invited us WJI students to come to a friends first showing of her 15 minute documentary/promotional film about Micro Financing in Kenya. The screening was held in an upper floor of a rickety old building in Soho, projected on a white painted wall and with no more than the speakers of the projector itself to create a sound space. The room was warm and crowded (partially because nearly our entire class showed up to the event) and they served wine and breads while we chatted and mingled. I had an in depth conversation with a professional artist whose theme was relaying words through a visual representation of braille. By working with braille on a 2d space she made the words inaccessible to everyone, a blind person could not read it because there is nothing to feel, and a seeing person could not read it because it is in braille. I found this an interesting idea, but was also reassured in my college decision to not pursue an art major.

The film was very good and we had alot of opportunities to network at the event, I spoke with the film maker and he said I might be able to come along with him on a shoot while I'm here, I need to see if that is a possibility. There was a woman from the United Nations there, as well as the head a major Micro Financing organization. I will be trying to write something up about the virtues of micro financing for a full fledged article.

Afterwards we got lost trying to go to some supposedly famous cupcake place which seemed to be inexplicably located in what appeared to be the ghetto. The cupcakes were $2 a piece, they were good, but not that good. We made it home eventually and decided to hold a newsroom collaborative writing session in our apartment. We packed the room with laptop laden students huddled around the outlets, desperately seeking to write about their governors. No one finished really.

The Hippie States

Invaded

No its not because our apartment is messy, it's only been a few days.

Prince Caspian

I went to the film Prince Caspian last night without high expectations. Consequently I was completely blown away. The acting and cinemetography was spot on, and they even stayed very close to the actual events of the book, to a rare degree. Many of the things that marred the first film, such as cheezy Disney moments, terrible green screen montages, and strange additions to the plot, aren't present here. The only complaint I have about the movie is that they seemed to be too lazy to rescore the movie and used alot of the same exact tracks off the other one, not just themes, tracks. They redeemed themselves of course by replacing the lame visiting artists off the previous movie's soundtrack with Regina Spektor and Switchfoot, instantly earning my respect. I was very impressed and it is all I can do to stop from going back to see it again tonight. They actually lived up to my childhood imaginings on this one.

Rise of the Empire

There are many buildings in New York City, but none of them are quite as legendary as the Empire State Building. Towering over the New York skyline, the massive edifice seems to capture the essence of the American attitude: that we can build our own world; shape our own destiny.

The Empire State Building is more than just a symbol or a tourist attraction, the building is vertical real estate, a concrete fiefdom. Like a small kingdom, this self contained “empire” has a college, restaurants, banks, businesses, a post office, and even an armed security force. The citizens of this empire have their own passports, and the gates of this city are lined with guards. It is threaded with upright highways; towering shafts of steel and cables that pull their suspended passengers quickly through the kingdom. The vertical city has been the host of foreign dignitaries, from the King of Siam to Queen Elizabeth. In total, the building encompasses approximately 40 acres of vertically terraced land, half the size of Vatican City.

The bowels of the tower’s second basement consist of pale corridors twisting underground. Within this network of halls is hidden a small Christian college, the building’s maintenance crews, and beside them is the throbbing heart of the empire’s security forces, an array of monitors and offices where blue clad soldiers watch over the kingdom entrusted to them, like a barracks for the garrison above.

At street level the tower greets foreigners to its small kingdom with a spectacle of marble and brass, a large aluminum relief of the tower decorating the three story lobby. Retailers spill out into the streets, vending their wares beneath the bulk of 370,000 tons of concrete and steel. Security forces screen visitors to the tower through metal detectors and laptop checks, while the 21,000 denizens of the tower show their passes and continue uninhibited.

Ascending through the tower’s 85 rentable stories (if you have the appropriate security clearance), one encounters an unbelievable variety of businesses: the Boy Scouts Council, Lufthansa Airlines, the Human Rights Watch, medical practices, law firms, accountants, and countless others. Accommodations range from lavish to sparse, some floors look like a palace, others a cheap hotel. There is an intense diversity in the institutions which share the Empire State Building, but they all seem to share a common ideal for prosperity, a culture of success.

The empire’s borders do not cease when the available real estate ends. It thrusts upward, piercing the sky with a massive spire, like a wizard’s tower overlooking New York. From here the populace looks out across the world over which their empire rules, a sea of people, a mountain range of skyscrapers. They, like a mighty seer, partake in a communion of the senses, perceiving all at once the lives of a million and a half souls. It is here, at the top, that the American dream can be seen with piercing clarity; strive ever upwards, for even the sky is no limit.

I Met the Politon

"The Heart of Evangelism"

Jerram Barrs asserts in his book, “The Heart of Evangelism” that people are not projects. This seems like an obvious assumption, people are people. But somehow, in our evangelism this basic concept often gets tossed under the bus.

The methodology of evangelism is a highly debated topic; everyone has a strategy which they try to apply with broad strokes, calling it a revolutionary “new way” of doing evangelism. Barrs does not give us a radical “new way” of conducting evangelism, he reiterates the old way.

Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul approached evangelism in a very different way than these so called “New Approaches” to outreach. For them, evangelism is embodied in the purity of truth.

They separate their cultures from the truth so that truth can be applied to the cultures it transcends.

Barrs accepts and promotes this, saying that we cannot have a single method of evangelism and apply it to all situations and people.

Our evangelism should be theologically based not methodologically based. We should be transmitting the truth in whatever way possible to reach the lost. If truth is our focus, then we will not compromise under any circumstance or culture. Christian truth transcends culture not because every culture shares a piece of it, but because the truth remains the truth despite what human culture thinks.

The heart of evangelism is the truth of the gospel, a piercing truth that can transform and eradicate the hearts of darkness which we inherit at our birth.

Took this today, pretty darn happy with it.

More Photos

Made in China

I found this during my break. This has absolutely nothing to do with my classes at the World Journalism Institute but I couldn't help but post it. Apparantly a monument was commissioned for the National Mall in Washington of Martin Luther King Jr.
Inexplicably, they outsourced the monument to the Chinese. The sculpture represents him like a chinese dictator, and is hewn out of the massive "Stone of Hope." A full story can be found here.

Night Falls, I Do Not

I took some city shots tonight on the way home from class, I knew I would regret not bringing a tripod. I regret it.

My apartment is the building to the left in the foreground.

Don't let the sign decieve you, they didn't lock the door so they couldn't mean it.

Really could have used that tripod...

I like this one for inexplicable reasons.

High Rise

I went out on the stairwell of my apartment building this morning to get a picture of the view. The Empire State building is too close to get a good enough picture.

The Calvin Who Had No Hobbes

Today was a very busy day. I began class at 8:30 this morning, breaking only for lunch and 2 hours in the afternoon, with lectures continuing until 8:00 this evening. I took a lot of notes and did a lot of thinking, in the end reaching the conclusion that my training at Concordia, Ann Arbor has served me well. The first three days are focusing on World View Training, and in particular it seems, the teachings of the Presbyterian church and a man named Francis Schaeffer who seems to have had a tremendous impact on my instructors. This sounds cynical, but it is simply the reality of the class so far. I am enjoying it and am learning a great deal, but find the subtleties of Schaeffer's ideas to be at odds with Confessional Lutheranism (and then by extension: the Bible). Really it is good for me to be exposed to real life "Calvinists" and to be forced to address the differences without the support of hundreds of other Lutherans around me. In fact I'm the only Lutheran participating in the World Journalism Institute this year.

As I said earlier, this experience will stretch and challenge me in many necessary ways. Bizarrely, this is also my first experience with having a roommate arrangement (I now have two). I have traveled throughout the world, lived in a hut in the Darien Rainforest, and in an apartment in downtown Macau, but this is my first experience living with someone else. I'm sure my fiance will be glad I have gained a little experience in sharing a living space before our wedding!

I'm getting to know the subway system pretty well already, mostly a bi-product of getting lost and having to find my way back home in midtown Manhattan. I took a trip to China Town this evening in the hopes of getting a story. No one would speak to me, at least not in English, and my mandarin isn't much good for anything other than saying hello and buying groceries.

We were also given several books today to read. I am continually amazed at how much stuff they are giving us here, both as a burden and a gift. I read "Imagine" by Steve Turner tonight as required, and once again that Francis Schaeffer character played a central role. I suppose it's sort of like getting constantly bombarded with Sasse but for Calvanists...

We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families

I just finished the masterfully written journalistic book, "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families" by Philip Gourevitch. The book details the horrors of the Rwandan Genocide of 1996 along with the surrounding issues and implications that it had.

What makes this book so good is the approach with which Gourevitch handles the terrible atrocity of genocide. He manages to find and illustrate order in what appears to be a chaotic event and a nationwide descent into madness. He does this by asking questions of everyone, following up on leads, and then getting out of the way.

Of course he has opinions about the event, it wouldn't be an analysis if he didn't. But Philip Gourevitch makes his case by simply laying out the facts and exposing the reader to the many voices and stories of post-genocidal Rwanda. Every assertion that Gourevitch makes, such as criticism of the U.N's criminally inefficient response, is such a natural result of the evidence that he presents that you really do not feel he is making a statement, only reiterating that which is already present. Gourevitch doesn't pull any punches when he describes the brutality and the sickening ugliness of the genocide, but he treats the victims with dignity and not as a gory spectacle for international media consumption.

The book leaves you sickened and angry about the United Nations. It demonstrates how easily relief organizations can be misused and even turned into criminal fronts themselves. It conclusively makes the case for responsible journalists and charities to bring these issues to the forefront.

Settling in, Hitting the Streets

I arrived safely and made it the apartment complex without any real problems. The trip there had very few adventures, but I did have an interesting conversation with my cab driver, Rueben Lathem. I told him what I was doing in New York and asked him about the city. I was pleasantly surprised to find him quite receptive to my questions and tried to remember as much as I could about what he was telling me. I certainly wasn't prepared to be starting my journalism experience so quickly!

Rueben Lathem was born in Trinidad and grew up in Michigan, but he claims his real home is New York City where he has been for over 30 years. He talked to me about how much the city has changed in his time here. (By this time I had the sense to pull out a voice recorder and get some quotes.)

"It used to be that this was a bad city, alot of drugs and gangs, but these days it is very safe;" he said, "Times Square used to be a [bad] place. I could look at you and tell that you aren't from New York. Crooks can look at you also and see that, so they come and pick your pocket, you suddenly realize that you['re] lost and your wallet is gone. So the government put alot of cops on the street, just in plain clothes so that when someone cries out that they've been robbed, the cops are right there. So now, Times Square is a place you can go!"

The program was implemented in the late 80's by mayor Rudolph Guliani, a person for whom Rueben seemed to hold in high regard. Today he says that you still need to be careful, but that for the most part New York is a safe city for visitors. He encouraged me to talk to everyone, saying that everyone here has a different story and a different way of telling it. I think in this town, getting to those stories will be very interesting.

You Nork!

Well this is it, I'm off to New York in a couple of hours. Today we have an orientation meeting and we check in to our apartments for our stay. I'll post pictures and things once I get to blogging tonight.

A hobbling hobgoblin laptop.

Today I am writing from my laptop! This old cow has been out of commission due to a dehabilitating illness (read virus) that kept it from functioning. Now it works! Well, sort of works... When I start it up, it grinds and winds until entering the main windows desktop. Once I get into the desktop it asks me for my staff login. Not knowing what the staff login is, I put whatever seems fun. This then begins a short video of a man metamorphing into a butterfly where a massive window appears in his head and we are teleported through bad animated drawings to the tune of cheezy music. A giant WINDOWS 95 logo smashes into the screen and then a massive error message appears that says my graphics whatever FAILED in at least 30 point font and in vicious blood red. I don't get what the issue is, since for one thing I am running XP, and clearly the graphics are working well enough that I can work with photos and things. I found a work around though, if I slide the login off the screen it doesn't bug me about becoming a bug. You can't quit out and you can't even ctrl alt delete it. But the virus is gone, and windows is reinstalled. Tomorrow I leave for New York, lets hope this old boat can keep up.

"The Shawl"

"The Shawl" by Cynthia Ozick, is the kind of story that haunts you for the rest of the day. It takes about an hour to read, but several hours to get out of your thoughts. "The Shawl" relates the story of a Polish Jew named Rosa who survives the Nazi Holocaust. Her baby daughter Magda is murdered by a Nazi, who throws the child into an electric fence. The Shawl is the swaddling cloth of this child, and provided something for the child to suckle after her mother dries up from starvation.

Once again I felt that the plot itself was not the important thing. The focus of this story was on perspective. In particular, how a perspective shaped by the horrors of the Holocaust can color all things a darker and more dismal tone. Ozick approaches seemingly ordinary things through the eyes of her character, rather than providing the reader with stark, uninterpreted reality. Ozick does not allow things to be as they are, she only presents them as Rosa sees them.

For example; Rosa casts her niece, Stella, as an Angel of Death. Her niece had lived through the Holocaust as well, and has dealt with it in a different way. We do not see Stella as she is, we see her only as Rosa sees her, evil and twisted and plotting against her. Rosa describes Miami in terms that are especially jarring to anyone who has been there. The beautiful hotels along the beach are described as dark and ugly teeth devouring the city, a description that only fits the sadly distorted worldview that Rosa now has. Everything Rosa does or sees is tainted by her experiences of the Holocaust.

This sort of descriptive narrative is a valuable thing to make use of in writing. We should strive to make our descriptions not only tell what is there but to reflect the perspective of those we are speaking of. We are given few details about Rosa's life in "The Shawl," but you come to know her not because of facts about her experience, but because you see things through her eyes. I am reminded of the moment in the Pixar film, Ratatouille, when the arch food critic Anton Ego orders up a dish of perspective. When the protagonist serves him a peasant dish (Ratatouille), it sheds a tremendous amount of light on the character of Anton Ego, as we see through his eyes his reasons for becoming a food critic.It is not the details and the facts which make a story great, it is the opportunity to see through the eyes of another, to understand them from the inside, at a level that cannot be achieved with "just the facts ma'am".

"The Bear" by William Faulkner

Today's blog post is a response to my second reading for the World Journalism Institute: William Faulkner's novella, "The Bear."

The story follows a young man through adulthood, allowing us only into his life during two weeks of a few select years, for an annual hunting trip. During these trips he seeks to bring down a legendary old bear named Old Ben, and in the meantime, grows in maturity and wisdom.

I wish that I could say that I enjoyed reading this famous short story, but I don't feel that Faulkner's style quite fits my taste. He tends to pile up adjectives and commas to the degree that it is impossible to tell where a sentence begins or where it is going. I actually began to count the words in one of his longer sentences, but after I reached around 200 words I gave up.

I was put off by the writing style, and came to wonder why the Journalism Institute would have me read it. However the more I thought about the story I began to see the point.

Ike McCaslin, the story's protagonist, is in a situation quite similar to that of the journalist. He is involved in an annual struggle against something bigger and more powerful than him, in a vast and complex forest. The pursuit of this animal, this epic hunt, is what shapes and matures him. After years of struggle, the bear is killed and eventually the very lands he hunts in are sold to a logging company, ending the pursuit forever.

The journalist too is involved in a similar hunt. We must daily seek after the elusive and hidden truth. The ways in which we pursue this truth are as important as the discovery itself. The ethical journalist must respect the rules of the hunt, as did Ian McCaslin. He must come to understand the world in which he hunts, to be able to read and understand the signs that are around him. He should treat the inhabitants of that world with respect, even those which he seeks to overcome. In the end, the world in which we report does not belong to any of us, to exploit, to rule, or protect. For we are reporters in God's kingdom and we hunt only by His willing and blessing.

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

I have been assigned several readings by the World Journalism Institute to complete and compose responses to. I'm posting my first one here. The reading in this case was an article by Gay Talese titled "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold."

The article, published in April of 1966 at Esquire magazine, is well known as a pioneering example of so called, "New Journalism." What is intriguing about this piece is not its content (it is simply a celebrity biographical sketch), but the way in which it is presented. From a narrative point of view one could say that the article tells one of the dullest stories conceivable, Frank Sinatra hanging out at a bar and later getting upset at some T.V. crews, while struggling with a cold. But what makes this so memorable and holds it all together is the amount of meat that Talese hangs on such a skimpy narrative skeleton.

Talese intertwines the life of Sinatra with a highly descriptive account of what amounts to only a few hours. Talese draws connections from little things. Like an Internet link he attaches pages and pages of material to a glance or a tone of voice. The story has depth but doesn't get mired in the details.

Today we live in a world where we have infinite information and opinions available at our fingertips. The task of the journalist is no longer simply to provide facts and information, but to arrange and to link up that information in a way that is accessible and informative. As we write, we must not fail to provide additional information allowing the reader to delve further into the story, but we can't pile on data without a structure and a purpose.

Preparing for New York

It comes at you so fast. It was hard to imagine just how soon I would have to prepare for my intensive study in New York. Only yesterday I turned in over 50 pages worth of projects for my last semester of university study. My fingers still burn from the rampant typing and my brain is just now starting to wind down, but now I must prepare for New York City.

I've never been to New York, its kind of funny really. I've been to Hong Kong, Macau, Panama City, Manila, Moscow, Frankfurt, Zhu Hai and Chicago but never to our own Big Apple. I'm looking forward to it. The opportunity which I have been given through the Bretzlaff scholarship to study with some of the industry's best Christian journalists cannot have come at a better time for me. In just a few months I will be married and off to Latin America to serve as a photo-journalist for the mission field in South and Central America, this training will be invaluable! The position is volunteer and is brand new for my church body (the LCMS) so I will be a pioneer in this new and exciting field. It will help to have the connections and the support of Christian Journalists working in the secular press.

Today I need to acquire the materials that I will need for this course which begins next Sunday, I will be posting my pre-class essays here for your reading pleasure.