A Place to Crash

Midwest Flooding: Where to Go to Build Levees

I used to live in southern Illinois and some of my best friends live in the St. Louis area. I love the area around the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. It’s a beautiful place and the people are excellent, hard-working folk. And they need our help. I’m not sure that people elsewhere realize that FEMA has now labeled the flooding in the Midwest as the third largest natural disaster in recent U.S. history, behind Katrina and 9/11. That’s HUGE.

As the flooding moves south, places north of STL are getting ready by building sandbag levees, and that work is saving towns throughout the area. I’ve been thinking of going up to help. But I had a difficult time finding anywhere online that told me where to go up there to join the work.

CNN shows the people working furiously in Lincoln County, MO, and sends you to their site to “find out how you can help”. But all of the links go to sites to donate money. I know relief organizations need more funding, but I also know that some folks (like me) prefer to donate manpower.

Finally, I found a STLtoday.com article that gave me a United Way number for the Midwest. One more call and I was told where to go if I decided to come up there tomorrow.

Hamburg, IL
Calhoun County
There are two routes into town, with a checkpoint at each where volunteers can report.
618-232-1500 (command post)
618-576-2417 (sheriff’s dept.)

Winfield, MO
Lincoln County
The command center is set up at Winfield High School
3920 E Hwy 47, Winfield, MO
Bring a shovel, sturdy shoes, gloves, and sunscreen
Also need volunteers for food preperation
Coordinator: Rev. Beverly Hardin
636-358-3776
636-566-8406 (command post)

EDIT: Just found another site with other places that are sandbagging. Click here for their info.

Obviously, the needs will be changing as the river crests in particular spots. CNN is saying the worst of the flooding will be around Hannibal, MO by Sunday. So if you do plan on going that direction to help, call the United Way at 800-427-4626 before heading out.

If anyone knows additional places that need volunteers, feel free to leave the location in comments and I’ll update this post as I can.

And if you’re too far away to travel or would rather donate money, you can go to the American Red Cross, AmeriCares, Farm Aid and other groups’ Web sites to donate by visiting CNN.com’s site here.

Tags: midwest flooding, not afraid to be servicey

We All Need Our Wellies

In a day where the news sucked, we all need a little cute. And this is such an awesome story:

Cinderella, a six-week-old saddleback pig has conquered her fear of walking in mud with the help of a pair of bespoke wellies.

After her birth, the piglet refused to join her brothers and sisters as they splashed in the muck because she suffers with mysophobia - a fear of dirt.

But now the pig has overcome her fears with a pair of green boots made of rubber - which have been created with no footwell so that her trotters slip straight in.

Former pig farmers Debbie and Andrew Keeble, who run a farm near Bedale North Yorkshire, were initially baffled by their piglets behaviour.

Debbie Keeble, 40, said: “It was the strangest thing. When the batch ventured away from their mother, Cinders just stood at the edge of her sty shaking while the others explored.

“We thought it was just that she didn’t want to leave the sty or the sow but we soon noticed if we moved them to where there wasn’t any mud, she happily left it and roamed around without any nonsense.

Her husband, Andrew, 42, added: “We scratched our heads a bit but then we thought, we wouldn’t go in the mud bare-footed, so why not try some wellies?”

When we all need to face our fears, we just have to find our own kinds of wellies.

Tags: british, cute, pig in wellies

Honoring A Legend

I didn’t know Tim Russert at all. The closest personal tie I have is that my friend Karen worked in Boston and met him once when he was hiking with his kid near Boston College. But last week if I could’ve picked one of the top five people in news who were alive I would most like to talk about the path they took to get where they are, Russert would’ve been on the list. But mostly because of how he ran the Washington bureau while raising a kid (something many career tv journalists are incapable of doing) and saving a style of classic network news show from extinction (ditto.)

I’ve said a lot about Russert on Twitter, and accidentally got into a heated debate over whether it was disrespectful to start debating whether he was actually good for the news biz or not within hours of his death.

I’ll admit I maybe took offense where none was meant. Not everyone respects the same people. But I think I’m used to the sort of Southern style of “respectin’ the dead” where you waited until after the burial to start arguing amongst yourselves who did what with the will. At least if there were fistfights, you left the funeral home and tussled at the restaurant across the street. This is old-fashioned, but we’re very passive-aggressive about stuff.

I admired Russert as a man and a father who made tough choices between career and the kid, and a journalist who united people who shared nothing in common beyond considering him to be a friend. And I think it’s those friends who immortalized him best in today’s Meet the Press.

Tags: broadcast journalism, meet the press, nbc news, television news, tim russert, tv news

8 Weird Things About Me — Part 1

I realized today that only a couple of people previous to this knew I studied Mormonism at all (note, “studied” does not mean “followed”; just fascinated by its culture.) It’s kind of a random thing with me. And unless you’re reading this on LJ and have had me friended since at least 2004 or so, you wouldn’t really know because I stopped posting about personal and random things on there after I started working full-time in new media. And I wasn’t exactly someone who spilled her soul before that. So most of you probably only know that I work in journalism somehow, have lots of really random thoughts on Twitter, watch far too much telly and like Robbie Williams just a tiny bit. So I’ll do that “8 Things” meme I’ve been tagged for a million times.

1. I watch CNN. A LOT of CNN. If I’m trying to sleep, I’ve almost always got it on. Ever since I was in college and working on Clinton/Gore’s TYD campaign in west Tennessee, I have always been a bit obsessed about missing breaking news. I would nap in the afternoon between classes and dream about the stories Bernard Shaw was talking about.

My ex-husband (yes, for the newbies, I’ve got one and we’re still friends) will tell you many a story about me waking up randomly and turning the TV on because I dreamed of something happening, and finding stuff breaking. Or the nights he would call me from Hartsville or San Fransisco, because he’s nocturnal, to tell me something was breaking. Like the night he and my friend Joe called to tell me about Saddam Hussein being captured and found me awake and in the throes of food poisoning.

That’s the big thing I miss about my old job at WRAL.com — doing big nationwide breaking news like we did that was completely awesome. My best professional memories revolve around horrible events that had us working under really tight turnaround and in front of a lot of eyeballs. I still do as much of that as I can, but Huntsville doesn’t seem to have many huge and horrible things happening around it, or at least the things that attract national interest. And no national sports teams. Still a good place, tho.

- I have really random and strange musical taste. I mean, some stuff is standard (I’m told I have classic country radio likes and dislikes) but the genres are either obscure or downright cheesy. I went through some candy kid days in the ’90s (in the trancy and dancy way, not necessarily in the way portrayed on national press at the time — it was almost like flower-child ways with trance music and responsible jobs) and I still love trance — Armin van Buuren, Tiesto, Hybrid in a BIG way, and yes, BT — his music had a huge impact during a really difficult period during and after my divorce. You’re never going to tell me Brian doesn’t have an awesome soul, haters. But I also like classic country and have seen Reba McEntire live six times (but not since the ’90s, alas.) And you might have gotten the idea that I’ve listened to Virgin Radio a time or two. I always try to watch Jools live, if possible. And I adore artists like Ben Folds and Matthew Sweet and old-school Tori and Liz Phair and all the stuff that used to play on Nashville’s Thunder 92, which was the closest to indie I’ve heard outside of 99X in Atlanta (RIP FM station version, which is greatly missed.) The South will never be as hipster as LA (I think that aspect was the part of my LA experience that freaked me out the most) but we sure had fun trying in the ’90s.

I also like jazz of pretty much all types, anything called U2, atmospheric chill music, random LA artists I kinda stumbled upon during my jaunts to used CD shops during my very short time there and have recently rediscovered, the odd Celtic tune, lyrical Broadway musicals, some of the pop songs that some of you would love to strangle me for, and for some strange reason the scores of Craig Armstrong (check out “The Bone Collector” score — just lovely.) I want to pretend that I’m cynical, but I think I’ve got a romantic soul. I like happy music or very ironically cutting music — no in-between, really.

Since Twitter’s robbed my ability to blog beyond random related chain thoughts, I’ll supply a couple more later. I’m about to watch my favorite, Anderson Cooper, talk about the FLDS.

Things that are just plain stupid: Punishing Roommates.com

I’ve had a helluva week, and I feel like when someone gets a week like this on occasion, they should be allowed to put on a Lewis Black mask and rant about something. Something that just annoys the tar outta you. I will call this the first of my semi-regular-when-I-remember-to-do-it series on “Things that are just plain stupid.” I could easily do tonight’s on my favorite topic (stupid studies that tell you the obvious) but I’m going to instead talk about a lawsuit involving Roommates.com.

Roommates.com is a pretty decent site. I actually got some good leads there when I was looking for a house share in Raleigh and then a roommate in Chapel Hill. Yes, there are those of us who are adults who cannot only not afford to buy a house, but we can’t even afford to rent a whole one by ourselves. And Roommates.com caters to us.

Craigslist can also be good (found two great roomies there) but can also get a little scary if you’re a single woman who’s not looking to be someone’s dungeon slave for free rent. Yes, there are lots of ads for that sort of thing, and I’m sure there are plenty of folks who look right at those ads and squeal with glee. Not me. So I like the boring ads, where they want a deposit up front and for you to be fairly neat and to not bring three cats with you. Weird, I know.

So, Roommates.com asks you a bunch of questions so they can match you up. Kinda like an OK Cupid! or Match.com test. And just like those, it asks you if you’re straight, gay or bi, and if you have any preference in your roommate’s sexual preference. It also asks the same thing about gender. Seems simple, right?

Nope. An appeals court has ruled that asking such questions is discriminatory under the Fair Housing Act, and that the site can be sued for it. So when you’re looking to date someone online, it’s okay to say you’re a straight woman looking for a straight guy to have lunch with, but it’s discriminatory to ask for the same thing of someone you LIVE WITH. Um, okay.

Don’t get me wrong — I am not saying that I personally have anything against living with someone gay or bi, or male for that matter. And it bothers me every time I see an ad for a “nice, clean Christian woman looking for same.” Anyone else seen the scene of “The L Word” where Jenny and Shane are interviewing roomies and the girl showed up for a sit-down and ended with her giving them a pamphlet on the evils of homosexuality? That’s exactly how interviews on Roommates.com would go if folks who aren’t open-minded unwillingly end up interviewing someone who’s not of that mindset.

And there are lots of girls (and girls’ families) who would be even more creeped out by the thought of living with a straight male. When I was first in college, my parents strictly forbade it. I know now sometimes it works out better than with female roomies (not that I’ve ever had many female roomies, but my habits are more suited to guys or nothing at all) but I’m weird. Most girls I know would at least like the choice. Heck, I know a lot of women who would pick a gay man.

I don’t think that most folks are trying to be sexist or homophobic here — you just wanna know these things before you end up feeling really uncomfortable somehow. And if it’s wrong to feel uncomfortable, so be it. But it’s reality.

So don’t punish Roommates.com for being at least honest enough with its clientèle to work with this. And if you’re looking for a free place to live as long as you clean the guy’s house and pretend to be his wife for social occasions, I think I saw an ad on Craigslist West Palm…

(Note: Race was also one of the items that was labeled discriminatory on the Roommates.com questionnaire, but since I really don’t see that as a real issue in choosing someone to live with, someone can tackle why that is or is not a good thing to be there. I think it’s the only criteria that really comes close to being “discriminatory” in looking for housing, just like being rejected at an apartment complex because you’re black would be. But I really don’t want to touch that one any more.)

Respect For All, Not Just Those Who Agree With You

Earlier today, police in Chapel Hill announced that the body of a young woman found shot to death around the corner from my old apartment was that of Eve Carson, the student body president of UNC. She was apparently both pre-law and pre-med and was known in the local political community. She will be missed by many who never knew her but knew how much she was a part of the Carolina Tradition.

Yesterday, an Auburn student was killed in much the same way near campus. In both instances, there’s a very good chance that the only thing that happened is that the women crossed paths with the wrong stranger at the wrong time, and were also unlucky enough to be alone.

Women have repeatedly been sexually assaulted in Bicentennial Park in Nashville (a beautiful public park much like Central Park near the State Capitol) just because they dare to walk through there alone, even in the middle of the day. Even here in Huntsville, I’ve found myself finding it hard to find a good place to attempt to start walking or hiking on weekends, because a lot of the great walking and hiking trails are also known for having a lot of “public indecency incidents” where men are exposing themselves (or worse) to people. Not to mention that the recent slaying of the Georgia hiker by a transient who hung out on the Appalachian Trail shows that a woman going off alone on hikes is taking her chances even when she’s prepared and in good shape.

I know people are killed everyday of many classifications and classes and colors and shapes and whatnot, but it really sucks when we’ve become a society where someone whose sense of reality is warped might actually think that when they see a single woman out in public alone, they are just “asking for it.” To me, even if that’s a thought that’s not acted upon but is used in judgement of women who “take chances” by doing something in their life that might “leave them open to misinterpretation.” That could run the gambit from wearing a short skirt or drinking with the guys to just simply hiking without a guy to protect them (oh, pity me for not having a big, strong man to validate me enough to go in public!) Honestly, that’s not too far of a jump from those in the Taliban who keep women out of school because they should be at home — they too take chances by opening their mind to a life beyond their veils. The very fact that the disapproval exists gives the thought a little bit opening to be warped another way and let people think it’s okay to do what they wish with those women, because they are, clearly, “asking for it.”

And even if that’s not always expressed sexually, that does encourage a level of judgement that would make it possible for someone to see a single woman simply walking to class and think, “Wow, if I kill her and steal her car, then no one would see it. I don’t know her. It doesn’t matter.”

This might be a bit of a rant, but it’s behind a bigger point. We as a country and as a world need to encourage cultures of respect for all, not of divisiveness. Just look at the last few elections. I don’t know what we can do as people to turn things around, but it’s gotta start. Even if it’s on the elementary level of “Please don’t kill people.” Or at least the Southern version I like, called “You don’t start killin’ people unless they need killin.’” And believe me, that last part is a very, very small number that’s reserved for folks like Hitler and Bin Laden and the meth head who’s breaking into your granny’s house. Pretty much everyone agrees on folks in this category.

New Media and the WGA Strike

This might be the best op-ed piece I’ve seen about the WGA strike, and it manages to make the writers’ case without trying to elevate them to sainthood. Instead, Robert Ellsberg talks about how shortsighted the producers and studios have been in this case, particularly where new media is concerned (and obviously he knows what he’s talking about.)

The Internet is not new-fangled. It’s not even the future, because it’s here. Ed Zwick and Marshall Herkovitz created a wildly-popular web series, Quarterlife. So popular that network television bought it.

And so, at last, here’s that “literal” part. This is what lies ahead. It’s really obvious:

TV, movies and the Internet are already so seamlessly merged that streaming, Tivo playback, movie downloads, and network broadcasts run on the home video screen, one and the same. Now, go to the next step.

If corporations only have to pay $250 for residuals on the Internet as opposed to $20,000 on TV — where do you think all reruns will eventually be shown?

You can already see that happening, because networks are de-empathizing syndication revenue in favor of pursuing DVD sales and ad revenue on Web content. Both of these things are what the writers are so concerned about. Don’t they see that writers not only have an idea of what people want now (after all, that’s why they’ve been so successful in pleading their case virally online) but also have taken an economics class along the way?

But this is something that old media has really had a lot of time grasping and have continued to fight against as the geeks come into the newsroom — that first paragraph. We are now all the same thing. Well, not quite completely, but we’re a helluva lot closer than we were four years ago when I went to work at WKRN. And when I was at The N&O 10 years ago, you could see it coming even then. There are a lot of folks who tell me regularly that they have never seen a full newscast of my station, but they visit their Web site daily. And this is a relatively low-tech area, other than the Arsenal — in Raleigh, it’s already merged as stations provide 24-hour news channels streamed through their sites.

It’s a beautiful thing to me, because this is really all I’ve done (my broadcast producer experience is pretty limited, but I also learned a ton that still helps.) But it’s scary to folks who have spent their careers selling spots for thousands instead of pennies-per-click for ads. I’ve learned a lot about both sides in recent years, and the skillset needed to successfully sell Internet ads is drastically different to that needed for TV sales and traffic. It’s the same for newsrooms, who see us as the people who screw up their stories after the fact by writing things differently than they did for air. They see doing things for a Web site as extra work, and since most of them are overworked on a regular basis, they’ve got a point.

But by seeing new media as the red-headed stepchild who lives in the basement and steals your food, some in old media run the risk of making the same short-sighted mistakes that the AMPTP made in thinking that they could actually succeed without the writers. The greatest danger to a TV station’s revenue stream is not the station’s Web site that gives people stories hours before the newscast airs, thus making the newscast not must-see viewing. The greatest danger is that freelance journalist down the street who decides to start their own Web-only local news site, goes out and goes after stories themselves and creates a site that is so user-friendly that people forget there are other news sources around. The danger is that there are people out there who do know how to write and newsgather and make really great work without having a traditional newsroom structure or a transmitter, and the Internet has given them a reasonably level playing field to grow in.

And really, that’s also the greatest danger for the networks and the studios in the WGA strike, too.

…Out of the ashes, the creative talent — who make the movies and TV people watch — will have found a new canvas to paint on, as they always have throughout history. It will be called the Internet. You know, that thing that doesn’t make money. And stories there will continue to amuse, excite, scare, annoy, educate, titillate and entertain everyone. And the old dinosaur movie studios and “TV” networks will be lost in the dust.

I Really Tried To Like It…

I have to admit this, even if it hurts and will horrify 3/4 of my friends. CNN’s “Planet in Peril” sucked.

No, I don’t feel better. I WANTED to like it. It starred Anderson Cooper, whom I have adored on one level or another since he kept me company on the night shift on “World News Now”, and featured environmental topics, which are generally interesting and important. It also starred Sanjay Gupta and that guy from the Travel Channel who’s not Anthony Bourdain.

But honestly, the whole thing bored me to tears. Education is okay, but preachiness is not. And I guess I’m old fashioned. I like my travel shows to stay on the Travel Channel and to leave my news alone. “Planet in Peril” looked like a good excuse for three famous and attractive men to travel around the world, risk a little life and limb (but not really) in their tight wet T-shirts, and then tell us why this is important. And none of them (except that Travel Channel guy, who looked like he was about to start doing dirty things to himself in the woods while playing with lizards (no double entendres intended.)

It made me remember that short-lived MTV celebrity environmental show that Cameron Diez hosted awhile back called “Trippin’.” The official premise was that Diez and her friends were bringing the wonders of nature to a generation who wouldn’t know a locale unless Rhianna filmed a video there. But the truth of it was that it was Diez and all her attractive famous friends would go to gorgeous remote locales and have a blast on the company’s dime. And it actually accomplished more because it didn’t really pretend to be more than a talent lovefest. No one had any illusions it would change the world.

Don’t worry, I still wear my “Anderson Cooper 360″ windbreaker and spend a lot of my days monitoring CNN, who did a pretty nice job with the wildfires this week (think MSNBC had the edge on great video, followed by local affiliate KABC. I think they have greatly improved their quality of broadcasting in recent months while letting some good talent do their thing. But I just think “Planet of Peril” could have been better with less “look how lush our HD shots are!” and more empathy.

A Stunning Live Shot

I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to cover a wildfire when your house is burning in the live shot behind you.