Earth Hour and Earth Day

Posted on July 25, 2012 by | Comments Off

Earth Hour pauses at the US border — The Daily Climate, March 30, 2012 — Consider an hour without power, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, local time. Organizers say as many as 1.8 billion will join in the symbolic environmental event worldwide. But if you live in the US, your neighbors may think you just blew a fuse.

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Posted in Environmental journalism

Media history commentary

Posted on July 25, 2012 by | Comments Off
  • Radio and the Titanic –  Radford University, April 5, 2012 — If Guglielmo Marconi had not been so stubborn, perhaps 1,600 would not have perished when the Titanic sank in the icy Atlantic 100 years ago.
  • Hezekiah Niles: a patriotic newsmagazine editor in the 19th century –Baltimore Sun, Sept. 4, 2011 — Niles was a devoted patriot and an editor with vision. He managed to put aside his own partisanship in order to reach out in the spirit of compromise. He hoped that spirit might hold the nation together. Although his ideas were widely accepted in the North, he found attitudes in the South hardening during his years as editor.
  • Public Broadcasting’s Fight for Funding –Roanoke Times, Feb. 20, 2011 — … The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967, but the roots of educational and public broadcasting go back to the early days of radio, when communities, schools and churches started their own services, according to Radford University communications professor Bill Kovarik. “Federal licensing for commercial stations basically pushed all those educational stations off the air,” said Kovarik, who has written a media history textbook titled “Revolutions in Communication.”

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Posted in Media history

The newsroom and the greatest country

Posted on June 26, 2012 by | Comments Off

Jeff Daniels in HBO’s Newsroom.

Among the hundreds of reviews of  HBO’s The Newsroom during the summer of 2012,  so far, none have questioned the basic accuracy of the screed heard round the world.

You can watch it at this link  or just read it here:

“And you — sorority girl — yeah — just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world.”
“We’re seventh in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, No. 4 in labor force, and No. 4 in exports. America leads the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined.”

Acerbic. Bitter.  Certainly human. But …  journalistically accurate?  Let’s take a look. Continue reading →

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Posted in Currents

Information politics and oil wars

Posted on June 25, 2012 by | Comments Off

Were we wrong on “peak oil”?  Or just misinformed? 

By Bill Kovarik

One of the more painful lessons of recent  history involves the way politics can slant  scientific information.

The latest entry in this category seems to be the curiously sudden abundance of fossil fuels.   Where we once had imminent shortages and a series of resource wars for Middle Eastern oil, we have natural gas from fracking, heavy oil from Venezuela and unconventional oil from Canada’s tar sands now hitting world markets.

Reactions from the world press include the following:

  • “We were wrong on peak oil,” said  George Monbiot of the Guardian in July, 2012.  “There’s enough to fry us all.”   Environmental strategies must change now because “the facts have changed,” he said. Continue reading →

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Posted in Currents

New metaphors for information

Posted on May 14, 2012 by | Comments Off

At the end of the 20th century,  two main metaphors for information were common:   information “overload” and the information “superhighway,” and the two concepts worked together.   Just as trucks on a highway can be over weight limits, so, too, could a person’s capacity to absorb information deliveries also be overloaded.

The problem with this metaphor is that it assumes a one-dimensional delivery of a quantity of information from point A to point B.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Currents

Nobel Peace Prize winners say US must lead global peace efforts

Posted on April 24, 2012 by | Comments Off

CHICAGO (AP) April 23, 2012  — Poverty, a lack of education and arms proliferation present daunting obstacles, yet peace can be achieved if world leaders are more willing to talk and young people are encouraged to get involved, Nobel Peace Prize winners said Monday at their annual meeting.  MORE (Washington Post) 

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Posted in Uncategorized

Virginia Tech anniversary events

Posted on April 16, 2012 by | Comments Off

Memorial events at Virginia Tech, including noon to 2:30 p.m.: Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention open house; second floor of Norris Hall.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Preventing Holocausts – April 18

Posted on April 1, 2012 by | Comments Off

The Program in Peace Studies and the Scholar-Citizen initiative are sponsoring a talk in honor of World Holocaust Remembrance Day:

Dr. Glen T. Martin – “How to Prevent Holocausts”
Wednesday, April 18, 7-8:30 PM,  Hurlburt 248

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Posted in Uncategorized

On April 1, Google re-introduced Morse Code …

Posted on April 1, 2012 by | Comments Off

Note the two buttons - dot and dash - on the "Gmail tap."

Yes, its just two keys that express the entire alphabet.   And, while we’re at it, what about hand-set type and manual printing presses?

(Note the date – April 1) !

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Posted in humor

Steve Vetter on water & poverty Tuesday 2-3

Posted on March 11, 2012 by | Comments Off

Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m., Hurlburt 248 (Combo Room), the Environmental Center will sponsor a talk by Mr. Stephen Vetter, Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow.  The focus will be on the environment (specifically water) as a factor in international development and poverty alleviation efforts.  Mr. Vetter will also address what you as a volunteer can do.  All are welcome.

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Posted in Uncategorized