To get a dramatic sense of how technological changes have affected journalism over the past 150 years, compare this amazing 1864 photograph showing a New York Herald encampment during the civil war, and this San Francisco Chronicle article about how several bystander videos have allowed anyone in the world to watch the fatal shooting of a young man by transit police at an Oakland BART station late on New Year’s Eve. (The prevailing speculation is that the young officer might have thought he was using his taser, not his gun; he does look baffled after he shoots the young man.)
Every time I talk to someone who works in newspapers, or who used to work in newspapers, the conversation inevitably turns to the fate of the industry. Someone here in Oakland seems to be doing their best to keep newspapers alive:
Or maybe no papers get delivered to this address at all. Those colorful boxes shaped like a child’s blocks could just be art, like the stone-filled fenceposts or the sculptures in the yard.
I’ve been informed by several people that the page does not fully load when they visit the blog. They see the top few inches, but then everything below that gets cut off. So far it seems to be only people who are using Internet Explorer Version 6 who are having the problems, so I’ll blame Microsoft.
Unfortunately, I have to ride my bike 8 miles to work in a drizzle right now, so I can’t look into it until tonight. I apologize if anyone is having trouble viewing the site — refreshing the page sometimes seems to solve the problem, but only sporadically. If anyone else is having any technical difficulties with the site, then it would be a great help if you could let me know by email (dmc at fragmentaryevidence dot com will work) or by leaving a comment. Technical information (browser type and version number, operating system, etc.) is always helpful. Thanks!
Like something out of Lewis Carroll, in Oakland’s chinatown:
I couldn’t buy any misfortunes because the fortune cookie factory was closed that day, but I peeked inside and discovered that misfortunes go for a buck fifty a bag — cheaper than kettle corn, and less fattening!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
The New York Times had an article a few weeks ago with the headline “Bad Times Draw Bigger Crowds to Churches.” Slate’s press critic, Jack Shafer, who has never met a trend story that he didn’t want to debunk, posted a rebuttal a week later, citing Gallup research suggesting that church attendance did not increase as the economic news got worse and worse over the course of 2008.
I have no idea who is right, since I don’t think I made it to the end of either article, but they did remind me of some pictures I took in October, during the most tumultuous period of this ongoing crisis (at least so far; let’s see what fun is in store for 2009).
I took the dog for a long walk up toward the hills one day, and passed two churches that were seizing the moment like any savvy investor would: when prices fall, it’s an opportunity to add to your portfolio!
And who can blame them? When you traffic in the eternal, I suppose it’s only natural to remind people who are anxious about something as worldly and material as the stock market that a few hundred points up or down in the S&P 500 don’t even register on the great Bloomberg terminal in the sky.
And if your reminder happens to draw some worldly, material people to your church to hear more about God’s eternal love, and perhaps to drop a few bills in the plate, then so much the better. Worldly concerns and eternal concerns may be different, but they don’t have to be mutually exclusive, right? Just ask Joel Osteen.
I don’t remember what made me snap photos of these signs, because they don’t seem so remarkable when I look at them now. They do, however, raise a worldly and eternal question: What stocks would Jesus buy?
Thursday, January 1, 2009
A front gate in Berkeley. Photo taken with my cell phone, of course.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
New year.
New blog.
New me?
We’ll see.