First day volunteering at 826 Boston, The Bigfoot Research Institute.

Death of the Newspaper and How to Raise the Dead

Plan A: Editors, authors, and deans from journalism schools across the nation voiced their opinions on survival strategies dailies will need to adopt: http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/battle-plans-for-newspapers/

(from the NYTimes)













Plan B: Walter Isaacson, author of this week's TIME magazine cover story about saving newspapers, appeared as a guest Monday on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to give his advice on how to save the newspaper.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Walter Isaacson

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

Slate magazine's academy award coverage is nothing less than brainy. The sometimes controversial writers at Slate are direct, executing their ideas in humor rather than through frustration. The story, Batman Goes Bananas explains why Christian Bale’s latest freak-out may have permanently lost him his chance to be nominated for an Oscar. Chatting about The Oscars reveals why certain movies get nominated and uncovers what members of the committee actually look for when appointing a winner for the best picture.

Ron Rosenbaum is one of Slate's top writers covering the awards. His past critiques appeared in Vanity Fair and New York Times Magazine as well as doing movie reviews on NPR. Before this work, Rosenbaum spent ten years traveling and doing research on Hitler for his book "Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil." His analysis is honest as seen in his newest story "Don't Give an Oscar to The Reader." He writes, “The fact that it was recently nominated for a best picture Oscar offers stunning proof that Hollywood seems to believe that if it’s a “Holocaust film,” it must be worth of approbation, end of story."

Some articles are full of exhaustible colloquial banter, but they're backed up with expert opinion and solid analysis of what to expect from this year's Academy Awards.

I'm Listening

Take a look at one of Neil Gaiman's imaginative audiobooks >

Driving down to central Mass to take ski lessons.





First ski experience... hope I don't die.

Pictures from Harvard's Hasty Pudding : Click Here

Fire Breaks Out in Beacon Hill

Celeste described to me what she witnessed and I wrote it as a feature story.


A two-alarm fire broke out in an apartment building in Beacon Hill next to the State House last Friday. Black smoke shot out the windows sending residents scurrying for safety. Celeste Lam witnessed the fire from her office in John McCormack State Building.

The fire started about 4:20 p.m, “I smelled something really bad,” said Ms. Lam. She was informed of the blaze when a coworker brought up that the stench was coming from a fire down the street. “I was afraid because my apartment is near this building,” said Ms. Lam.

Three units worked quickly to extinguish the fire before it spread to any adjoining buildings including a threat to the nearby State House. “The firefighters arrived in five minutes,” said Lam.

The firefighters discovered immediately upon arrival that their fire trucks were too wide to get through the narrow streets in Beacon Hill.

“The firemen went to the very top of the buildings,” said Lam, “They jumped from one building to the next in order to get to the fire."

According to Ms. Lam the firefighters made an assembly line passing the hose from one another while balancing themselves on the ladder. “The firefighters had to pound on the window to get it open. There was huge piles of black smoke,” said Lam.

The firefighters who responded to the blaze had it under control by 5:00pm.

Officials have not released the cause of the fire. There were no reported injuries.