Typewriter of the moment: Rachel Carson

December 14, 2008

From the library of Life Magazine images available for sale through an agreement with Google:  “Marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, 1952.”  Photo by Hank Walker.  [Photo no longer available at that site; this is the same image, I believe]

Rachel Carson in 1952.  Life Magazine photo by Hank Walker

This photo was taken about the time Carson left the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, about the time her best-selling book The Sea Around Us was a hit.  This was a decade before the publication of her most famous work, Silent Spring, and 12 years prior to her death from cancer in 1964.


Newsbusters shows bias toward stupid

December 14, 2008

What’s the big deal here?  Newsbusters, appearing completely unfamiliar with the discussion format of real news organizations, reveals its Freudian slip:  Newsbusters has a bias, and that bias is toward stupid, and venal.

Jim Lehrer in no way defended the actions of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.  If Newsbusters can’t tell what’s going on in a basic television interview, they have no business claiming to be associated with news in any fashion.

Newsbusters owes Lehrer a retraction.

Resources:


Typewriter of the moment: Sheryl Oring, and “the next president”

December 14, 2008

Sheryl Oring at her typewriter, collecting messages from Americans to the next president.

Sheryl Oring at her typewriter, collecting messages from Americans "to the next president."

Remember Sheryl Oring?  In the spring of 2008 she was wandering the nation with her typewriter and portable table in tow, typing out postcards to “the next president” from people she found in public spaces willing to share their hopes for the next presidential administration.

Five weeks away from the inauguration of Barack Obama, I wonder what Oring’s postcards could tell us?  Where is she now?

Check out her website, I Wish to Say.  Maybe your classroom could support a similar project from your students.  What do these cards tell us about Americans?  What do they tell us about our electoral process?  What do they tell us about our hopes and fears?  DBQ, anyone?

One of several thousand postcards from Americans, collected by Sheryl Oring (and typed by her) to send to the next president -- who we now know will be Barack Obama.

Two of several hundred postcards from Americans, collected by Sheryl Oring (and typed by her) to send to "the next president" -- who we now know will be Barack Obama.

Many of the postcards will be on display through January 25, 2009, at the McCormick Foundation‘s Freedom Museum in Chicago.  Admission is free.

In comments, tell us what you would have told Oring to put on a postcard from you.

Resources:


%d bloggers like this: