dan collier

The 2008 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced. Of note, the article in the Washington Post about violin virtuoso Joshua Bell busking in the Washington D.C. Metro station was very good, and won the award for Feature Writing. The Washington Post also won the International Reporting award for a disturbing series about modern day mercenaries. This article about Blackwater USA was part of the series.

Bob Dylan was given a Special Citation.

And among the winning Editorial Cartoons, was this:

I posted about last year’s Pulitzer Prize winners here.

Malaria and how to beat it – The Economist reports on a study in 3 African countries that looked at the effectiveness of selling cheap mosquito nets versus giving away mosquito nets to mothers at health clinic visits. The free nets were more effective at preventing malaria in children. This finding may not stretch too far beyond mosquito nets, but I think it could be extended to healthcare in general. Despite well known risks, people without disposable income will forego preventative care. And it is cheaper for society to pay for prevention than treatment.

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Is the US really bringing stability to Baghdad? – I thought this was a good article from The Independent (UK) as a counter point to the avalanche of “the surge is working” news reports. The reporter is a longtime Middle East correspondent and formerly was stationed in Lebanon.

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The Poetry of Roger Clemens – From free form to haiku.

“Glute”

I have strained my glute
On a couple occasions.
I wish I could tell you
How many occasions.
-Feb. 5, 2008, deposition

While out for a drive this evening, a radio station played Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech from the March on Washington in 1963 in honor of his birthday today. The text is good but obviously King’s elocution and the crowd response add to the speech. Video is available on YouTube. I think it is worth listening to the whole 17 minute speech, but here are a couple great lines to peak your interest.

We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

Barack Obama has been referring to the “urgency of now” lately. It is one of a dozen great phrases in this speech. At 45 years old, this speech highlights how far this nation has come, but also how much there is left to to do to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today my friends – so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

After listening to this speech I’d like to be hopeful, but it seems unwise to refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt against such a preponderance of contrary evidence.

This blog is the first journal I have ever kept for fun. Beyond a place to note stuff I’ve been thinking about, it is a way of tracking ephemera from websites I liked to thoughts about my travels to current events. Below are some of the other online services that I’ve been using to fulfill that purpose recently.

Goodreads – I like the service and interface Goodreads provides. Generally, I think Amazon gets better reviews but I’m using Goodreads to track what I’ve read and what I want to read. I think this a is a cool visualization of the books I read in 2007.

Where I went in 2007 – Last year, I spent the night in 4 countries, 2 states, 1 federal district, 1 US territory, and 16 cities and towns. I like how easy Google Maps makes it to keep track.

Google Reader now lets me share articles that I find interesting. Google Reader is for managing RSS (really simple syndication) feeds, a way of tracking websites that update frequently. Over the last year, I’ve used it as much as email.

’08 Candidates on Executive Power – The Boston Globe elicited responses from candidates for president about executive power. You can look at answer in a couple different ways, but direct comparison seems best for some of them.

Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?

Does the president have inherent powers under the Constitution to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes?

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Who said what about whom? – The New York Times has this visualization tool to see which candidates other candidates are talking about the most.

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The Post-Steroid Record Book Annotation System – Roger Clemens may claim he never used performance enhancing drugs, but he’s guilty of a few of these.

The Official YFSF Record Book Annotation System

* = Steroids
! = Amphetamines
$ = Gambling
|| = Cocaine
~ = Alcohol
? = Before integration
# = Before expansion
. = Dead ball era
? = Wore glasses
† = Crazy religious freak

Design for Asia Awards 2007 – Business Week has a photo set of the winning entries. I would have given it to the camera, about which they write “It evokes the days when cameras lasted a generation with its retro look and feel”.

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Chinese Kids Get Foreign Toys – Time magazine has an article on an interesting trend. In my house it has been a long standing battle against collecting more and more cheap Chinese plastic toys. We last bought a Chinese toy probably in early spring.

About a month ago, I googled Lego to find out where they are manufactured. Jaxon will soon be happy to learn they are made in Denmark and Czech Republic, and decorated in Denmark, Czech Republic, Mexico and the US.

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Race and IQ, cont. – More Malcom Gladwell on genetics and IQ. A good one page summary of the 4 page article I linked to.