newspapers and a wedding video

The piece in the New York Review this issue about the rise of blogs and the decline of newspapers is really, really interesting, perhaps the most well-though-out and engaging thing I've read about how things are and they way they're going. Usually these things seem to take polemical form. Newspaper defenders say, "Blogs are parasites on all our hard work," and bloggers (at least the ones I read) go, "The MSM is out of touch and does nothing but defend the status quo," and everyone gets plugs their ears and says, "LALALALALALA," a la Stephen Colbert. Happens in many arenas, I suppose. But Michael Massing doesn't seem to have an axe to grind here, he's just curious about what's up. Very refreshing. Although I have to say, the article was ever so slightly harder to take seriously because of the inclusion of Ross "Douche Hat" Douthat. That nickname is just too funny.

On an unrelated note, awesome wedding video. These people are cool:

hum-te-tum

Finished Midnight's Children a while ago now. I liked it a lot but Booker of Bookers? It wasn't THAT good. Now, I'm about 150 pages into The Mantle of the Prophet and almost done with No Country for Old Men. TMOTP is pretty academic in structure and tone but it's engaging and the subject matter (Iranian and Eastern Islamic history) is so new to me that I'm really enjoying it. The author focuses on individuals as a way to examine the larger history, which, considering the apparently huge volume of interesting characters in Iranian history, was a pretty good choice on his part. NCFOM is pretty much exactly the same as the movie version. I mean exactly. Plot, characterization, tone. If it were a graphic novel the Coen brothers would have just made a frame-for-frame recreation. Entertaining but ultimately not that interesting. One difference: The book does more overt philosophizing (think monologues) than the movie.

In other news, I interviewed for a new job at CHF but don't think I'm going to get it. That's alright, though, it was worth it just to get myself out there in a positive way as a possible candidate for other job openings. And it got me to update my resume and get some more experience interviewing. Both valuable things.

In training news, I hurt my back a little over two weeks ago but it healed in a week. I did some lower-intensity workouts last week and played in my summer league games and with Joose on Sunday and then yesterday got back onto the plan I set up last month. With frisbee 3x/week I think that big gains in the gym will have to wait until the fall. After (hopefully) Regionals in early October. We got the final tournament schedule for Joose and it is as follows:
August 1/2: Summer Daze Disc Harvest in Worton, MD
August 15/16: Summer Glazed Daze in Winston-Salem, NC (won't be at this one because of the beach)
August 29: Horsetown Throwdown in Poolesville, MD (I guess the team came together too late to get a bid to the Chesapeake Open, which is a much bigger tournament)
September 19/20: Sectionals in Upperville, VA
October 3/4: Regionals in Upperville, VA (se espera)

Hurray for frisbee tournaments! Continuing the disjointed and rambling nature of this post, I just opened the 2008 UNDP Human Development Report and haven't even started reading it yet but noticed that at least half the credited staff (some of the names are of indeterminate gender to my ignorant self) and a majority of the leadership of the report are women. Cool.

some new books

I'm almost done with Midnight's Children, so I got to thinking about what I'd like to read next. Then once that ball was rolling it was hard to stop and I came up with this order from Amazon:

• Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
• The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, by Roy Mottahedeh
• Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace - or War, by Mary Anderson
• Refugee Health: An Approach to Emergency Situations, by Medecins Sans Frontieres
• Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global Health, by Ruth Levine
• The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, by William Easterly

Looking at it now this next bout of reading is awfully subtitle-heavy. Also soul-searchy. I guess I'm trying to figure out a bit more about the big picture of actual aid work. And read Lolita, finally.

walking

Via Maggie Hannapel, whom I have not seen or talked to in a long time, but whose screen name still pops up when I sign into gmail, a quote from Thomas Jefferson:

The object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk; but divert yourself by the objects surrounding you. Walking is the best possible exercise.

The past couple of days have been frustrating exercise-wise. I hurt my back while doing front squats on Monday. The pain isn't as bad today as yesterday, but I'm still uncomfortable and won't be lifting heavy for a while. But that quote from Jefferson reminds me of two things. First, I can still exercise, I must still exercise. It doesn't have to be intense, but the discomfort I feel while twisting or bending doesn't excuse me to just sit around and mope. Second, that there is absolutely no greater joy in life for me than to surrender myself to simple curiosity. I haven't really explored the blocks around my new neighborhood yet. I've been driving through them for one reason or another since I was little but there are one-way side-streets and little circles and alleys that I've never been on. Today will not be a day for testing my limits but rather for getting rid of the limits I've imposed on myself by my rapidly-solidifying routine.

Time for a walk.