Lessons from the war in Iraq

(cross-posted here)

This is a little late, but it's still worth extra credit and I still wanted to mention this one thought.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post, author of "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," came to WSU last Friday to give a talk about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, especially about relations with Pakistan. Earlier in the day, he met for an hour with communication students to answer questions, and he spoke about his experiences covering Iraq in the early days of the war when no one expected it to go on very long. He also talked about what it's like to be covering this campaign season.

At one point he was talking about trying to get through Baghdad the day Saddam fell, and how he and a fellow journalist were stopped at a checkpost. They convinced the marine on duty not only to let them pass, but to radio ahead and tell the other checkpoint guards to let them move freely.

I've been reading a lot about journalists in war zones, and this proves things haven't changed that much at all since WWII. That is, the main skill in covering wars is tricking your way into places journalists aren't supposed to be. And not dying.

475 skills exam

And here's a little poll about whether you prefer this blog or the newer one I've been using.

Adios, Blogger

As I previously threatened, I'm leaving this joint.

I decided I'm using this blog enough to get it the way I like, plus making a snazzy new graphic was a good use of time I had reserved for my thesis and ethics paper.

Fortunately the new blog will be easy to find, if you know me well enough to spell my last name: lisawaananen.wordpress.com.
Not the pinnacle of creativity, but sometimes functionality is more important.

References That Are No Longer Clever list

Today the New York Times presents a whole slew of related letters in which distinguished readers want to point out they know their Orwell better than columnist William Kristol, who used an essay by Orwell about Rudyard Kipling to explain why Democrats don't know how to get anything done. It actually is that unnecessarily complicated; read it yourself.

Gag. Having read "1984" is not really worthy of snobbish pride. It should just be embarrassing if you haven't read it. Shame on the NYT for perpetuating the self-perceived cleverness of these people.

I started my References That Are No Longer Clever list a while ago with this one. I try to keep from one-upping them in pretentiousness by keeping the rest of my list fairly short:

• any reference to Bob Dylan singing "the times they are a-changin'"
  
• quoting Murrow's fear comment ("We will not walk in
  fear ... ")
  
• referencing Warhol's 15 minutes of fame, especially when commenting on internet memes or phenomenons
  

To make it clear, I think these are all fine references and certainly relevant in discussions of today's world. But relevant is not the same as clever, and they've been trotted out a few too many times to be used in a self-congratulatory way.

Personally I think Kristol's argument is a weak one - I'm not so far removed from high school that I can't recognize desperate stretches for literary synthesis - but I do respect his attempt to invoke Orwell for something beyond the most obvious.

And now, live from the intertubes

Here it is.
(BRETT: If you are checking this, the autoplay did work but I turned it off because it was driving me crazy.)



I was going to make a shorter version to actually comply with the two-minute limit, but then I decided it just wasn't worth fighting with Audacity any longer than necessary.

"Welcome to the Evergreen podcast for the second week of February, 1927.

An unusually small number of WSC students failed during the past semester, registrar Frank T. Barnard announced. He said two weeks will be allowed for making up incompletes. Although final registration reports are not in, it is estimated that enrollment this semester will be approximately the same as last semester.

The Husky five will come across the Cascades to meet the Cougar hoop aggregation Saturday night in the second cross-state match-up of this basketball season.
The dope favors the Washington squad after they won the first tilt 39 to 16. There is hope, however, that the crimson and gray will emerge from its slump for an upset like the one against Idaho before the disastrous Coast tour.
Remember to wear your rooters cap to support our valiant boys of the hardwood ..."

Thanks to Victor Graf, Christina Watts, Nick Eaton, Mike Feigen, Dan Herman and Brian Everstine for their vocal talents. An additional thanks to Victor and Nick for their technical support.

Wherein Audacity makes me cry

Audacity decided my podcast file no longer existed when I was about three minutes from being finished. I cursed a bit and snapped rather more than usual at the rest of the newsroom that "reoccuring" is not a word while editing tonight's final story.

Then I started over.

To the Pacific and back

Jacob, Christina and I went to the beach Saturday. The weather was favoring us and the tide was low. We spent a few hours finding sand dollars, climbing on rocks and, as Jacob said, "playing chicken with the widest ocean in the world."

We also took a lot of photos, and maybe I'll post more of them later finally up and switch my blog to WordPress since I'm sick of this not uploading and displaying any of my photos properly.