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Journalism

August 13, 2006 - 12am

I was just watching 60 Minutes.  Mike Wallace was interviewing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: I saw something there completely foreign to American politics.  Wallace asked questions of a sitting head of state, and Ahmadinejad predictably attempted to dodge the questions.

However, Wallace refused the evasions as par for the course and persisted in his line of questioning, asking questions three and four times until he got some sort of answer from Ahmadinejad.

Can you imagine a reporter having this sort of tact interviewing President Bush?  For that matter, can you imagine Bush answering a difficult question posed to him?

It’s a sad reflection on the state of American politics and journalism when the idea of forcing an elected official to answer a question with any degree of honesty is a surprising event.

When I Grow Up

August 6, 2006 - 12am

I finally realized what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I’ve always been fascinated by abandoned, lost, places. When I was young, I used to go exploring the woods surrounding my house. I discovered an illegal junkyard with a dozen cars in it. Most had been there for decades, and I investigated every one of them. It wasn’t the cars themselves that interested me; every single one of them had a story. Every one had something that they could tell me about who had been in them, what kind of lives they had led. Surrounding them on all sides was someone’s junk, the heaped and forgotten detritus of an anonymous life. Baby carriages. Bird cages. Long forgotten toys. I knew that everything there had meant something to someone once.

Less than a mile away, I also discovered the remains of an old homestead. Almost nothing remained of it, just a clearing overgrown with long grass. In the center stood the crumbling remains of a foundation and an electric pole, sans wires to the power grid. I wanted to know who had lived there, when, why they had left, and when they had gotten there.

This interest in the forgotten never left me. For me, there’s mystery, dignity, and an exciting sense of uncovering the unknown. Christine and I biked out to an abandoned hotel to poke through the ruins. Megan, Mike and I toured the underground tunnels in downtown Seattle. I would love to become an urban explorer, but it’s a dangerous hobby and not the sort of thing one wants to do on his own if he values his life.

I wish that I’d realized that there could have been a future and a career for me in archeology and exploration. I think it would have been a far more interesting and rewarding life than the one I’m leading now.

I Dream of Being an Underwear Model

August 4, 2006 - 12am

So, you know that dream where you’re somewhere important, but you’re in your underwear? I had that dream a few nights ago. Normally, this wouldn’t be such an odd thing, except for the following:

• It was at my old job, a department store in the mall. I was hiding next to the shoe department and hoping no one would see me.
• An stodgy, uptight, Jehovah’s-Witness-type-religious friend from high school was with me. I haven’t seen him in seven years.
• He was also in his underwear.
• This didn’t phase him one bit.
• Once someone gave me my winter leather jacket, I no longer felt embarrassed about my junk being a sixteenth of an inch of fabric from public display.
• I haven’t had one of these dreams since I was in fourth grade.

I’m going to chalk this one up to a sore back and a rude awakening by a gasoline-powered pressure washer sitting in front of my windows. Hopefully it won’t repeat itself.

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