Wolfe Island Wind Towers

Northern New York is obsessed with wind energy.
During the past 3-4 years, Lewis County farmers leased sections of their land to energy corporations, who constructed a series of wind towers on spaces in between their pastures.  Last year the Associated Press ran a story, “Windmills Split Town and Family,” about a local man who suggests [...]

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The Vox: Bluffton Today and New Media for Cranky Old People

I’m in Del Webb’s Sun City Hilton Head right now.  It’s a (semi)retirement gated residential community for white boomers from the Northeast, and I have to be honest–I like it here.  There’s golf, tennis, pickleball, nature hiking, and a plethora of other activities.
There are many things that bind this community of 6,000-plus households together: old [...]

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Speaking Truth to Power in a Press Conference

Yesterday, an ABC sports studio segment called attention to a recent tirade by UConn men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun.

Apparently, during a post-game press conference, a reporter blindsided Calhoun by asking him how he reconciles the fact that he is the highest paid state employee while there exists a $2 billion budget [...]

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Hot off the Press

I hope everyone with kids gets the chance to take a look at the new book Danny’s Day at the Children’s Museum. It’s a short, didactic tome written by Mary Jane Battista (my mother) and illustrated by Kate Newtown.  The illustrations are, by the way, very high quality.

You can order a copy here at Amazon.com

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Peace and Protest: Objections to Goshen College

It’s been a few weeks since this small media ruckus developed, but I want to comment on it nonetheless.
On November 10, the nationally syndicated conservative talk radio host Mike Gallagher aired a segment in which he noted that Goshen College, a small Mennonite institution near South Bend, IN, refrains from singing the United States’ national [...]

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25 News Stories that Need More Coverage

Of late I have become an avid listener of NPR’s On the Media. As good as this program is in holding our corporate media accountable, it still pales in comparison to Project Censored, a longstanding independent study of U.S. media.  The project, which is run by students and faculty at Sonoma State University, seeks to [...]

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The U.S. Media and the War

This week’s recommendation is a short documentary, War Made Easy:  How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death.  This film outlines our nation’s recent trend of using the media to legitimize wars of aggression, most of which are initiated on dubious grounds.
Among the many great points that this film makes is the fallacy of [...]

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