India Bulletin unintentionally shows us what’s wrong with India(ns)

The first night I’m home, I’m eating leftovers and reading whatever’s lying around on the dining room table. I find the May 4 issue of India Bulletin. I think, cool, let’s take a look at what’s going on in India. I find the following story:

Alright, fine. Kinda weird and crazy because YOUR SON IS NINE YEARS OLD AND MAYBE HE SHOULD LEARN TO TIE HIS SHOES WITHOUT THE HELP OF A MAID FIRST, but whatever. I roll my eyes and move on. A couple pages later, I find this: 

I flip back to the first story. Then back to the second. Back to the first. Back to the second. Afterwards, I stopped reading the paper.

These two stories were in the same paper, same issue, even took place in the same city. You can read them for yourself here. In the same city that a mother is expressing her pride at the fact that her not-quite-adolescent son can drive one of the family’s 18 cars (he gets to because it’s his birthday, by the way), a different mother is inconsolable because her five-year-old daughter is dead after being raped by a family friend.

There are a million factors that affect each of these stories – race, class, gender, culture, upbringing, geographic location. The families could be analyzed, data could be collected, books could be written. But, and I say this with the exhausted — and now angry — brain of a graduate student, maybe there is a semi-simple solution here.

Let’s all stop teaching our sons that, if they insist enough, they can have whatever the hell they want. 

Is it just me or does that make a ridiculous amount of sense?

“This is not an internship where you get people coffee.”

Such happy interns likely do not exist. (Flickr/David Boyle)

It’s internship season now, and every post on JournalismJobs and MediaBistro proudly declares that they will not be using you as a moving tray. You will be doing Real Work, like reporting things, jumping into hard news, writing front page stories, sitting in on editorial meetings and being allowed to speak. It’ll be great! You’ll be pitching stories, poring through data, getting Deep Throat to tell you all his inner secrets and winning a Pulitzer. You’ll be consuming more coffee than you deliver.

When I see that sentence, I shudder. Not because they’re lying, but because they are telling the truth.

Photojournalism [One-year anniversary of Occupy Oakland crackdown]

Shake Anderson, a member of the Occupy Oakland Media group, speaks to the press on the morning of the one-year anniversary of the Oakland Police Department’s crackdown on the Occupy encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza.

“I wish finance was this fun,” and other ways to describe me.

The six-word bio is an initiative by Smith Magazine for capturing profound and clipped life stories. It is also a component of a Berkeley student’s profile that is shared throughout the Berkeley network and shown to potential employers.

It is, more importantly, an excellent way to waste a lot of time. Kind of like extreme Twitter.

This is not my writing. [Excerpts from The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand]

Cover of The Fountainhead (Flickr/Rodrigo Paoletti)

Dominique: “As a matter of fact, one can feel some respect for people when they suffer. They have a certain dignity. But have you ever looked at them when they’re enjoying themselves? That’s when you see the truth. Look at those who spend the money they’ve slaved for – at amusement parks and side shows. Look at those who’re rich and have the whole world open to them. Observe what they pick out for enjoyment. Watch them in smarter speak-easies. That’s your mankind in general. I don’t want to touch it.” (143-4)

100-year-old’s secret? Reading and eating lightly

Happy 100th birthday, Teresa!

By Nausheen Husain
nhusain@mysuburbanlife.com

Westmont resident Teresa Baker has some advice for the young people of today: read more.

That’s what the newly 100-year-old offered up with other tips last week, days after she marked her centennial birthday May 30.

Out Of Context

Five years ago, on the first day of my first ever Journalism class (in recitation, actually), our teacher’s assistant told us to always do one thing to develop our writing: carry a small notebook around and write down what we observe with our eyes and ears. Be a people-watcher, she said. Don’t ever stop. Turns out, the things people say, when out of context, are pretty damn hilarious. So take a little break and laugh.

The ‘World’ section makes your every problem a #firstworldpain.

While going through journalism graduate school interviews, I was asked the following question: Are journalists activists? I was asked this question twice. Both times, the photo and caption above flashed in my mind automatically.

JoKo And Old Media’s Moment Of Silence

(Here’s a one-second poll.)

When I was little, I loved the New York Times. There were so many words! I didn’t read any of them, but the sight of all of them was exciting. I read the comics. That’s obviously the best part of the paper, anyway.

This is not my writing. [Excerpt from "Bird by Bird," Anne Lamott]

So you might start by writing down every single thing you remember from your first few years in school. Start with kindergarten. Try to get the words and memories down as they occur to you. Don’t worry if what you write is no good, because no one is going to see it.