Haunted by an Unasked Question

A thought-provoking read from a journalism prof at UGA:

Once upon a time as a much younger reporter, I covered a story about members of a small south Louisiana church who for weeks kept a dead baby in an ice chest rather than report the death to authorities.

Every night church members prayed over the ice chest in the hope their faith would be strong enough to bring the baby back. And every night they finished by gently returning the ice chest to a large freezer until the next prayer session.

This went on for a few weeks – very nearly the biblical 40 days – until word leaked out and the cops came knocking at the church house door.

Why tell you this gruesome little tale?

It’s a story that has stuck with me for years and years. I tell it to my UGA journalism students as an example of how religious beliefs and governmental rules can intersect in interesting ways, especially in the South. I walk them through the challenges in reporting and writing a story like this. I’ve even tried using it as the basis of a fictional short story to explore the motives of the parents and pastor who didn’t really want to talk to some snotty young reporter without a decent Cajun accent.

Regardless, I always return to the major question I failed to ask in my original reporting of the story and one I’ve failed to answer in my poor attempts at fiction.

What if it had worked?

Read the rest. Especially if you’ve forgotten about the classic short story “The Monkey’s Paw.”

Dutch Royal Family Wins Favorable Ruling On Privacy Against Associated Press

Interesting ruling against the Associated Press in The Netherlands. A court ruled that the press invaded the privacy of the Dutch Royal family by taking pictures of them on vacation in Argentina. Imagine a ruling like that in the United States against a paparazzi photographer in Los Angeles — the celebrity magazines would go out of business.

People will come, Ray

Just watched “Field of Dreams” with my kids. Still resonates with me after all these years. It shares a theme with films such as “Slumdog Millionaire” or anything directed by M. Night Shyamalan (e.g., “Signs,” “The Sixth Sense,” and “The Lady in the Water”): Everything happens for a reason. A shared, common order exists in the universe. As viewers, we simply need to let go and quit wondering why everything is happening so perfectly — and just accept that it is.

What a wonderful concept.

‘The Merry Gentleman’

The lede to Roger Ebert’s review of a new Michael Keaton film:

Good actors sometimes despair of finding worthy opportunities. They cheerlessly attend a premiere of their new film and think, ‘I could direct better than this dingbat.’ Sometimes they’re right. I give you Michael Keaton, whose ‘The Merry Gentleman’ is original, absorbing and curiously moving in ways that are far from expected. Keaton once starred in ‘Jack Frost’ as a boy’s father imprisoned in a snowman. Think about that.

That’s why I love reading Roger Ebert.

Planet not behaving as it should

Interesting article about a planet orbiting a star so closely that it should burn up:

Scientists have discovered a planet that shouldn’t exist. The finding, they say, could alter our understanding of orbital dynamics, a field considered pretty well settled since the time of astronomer Johannes Kepler 400 years ago.

The planet is known as a “hot Jupiter,” a gas giant orbiting the star Wasp-18, about 330 light-years from Earth. The planet, Wasp-18b, is so close to the star that it completes a full orbit (its “year”) in less than an Earth day, according to the research, which was published in the journal Nature.

Of the more than 370 exoplanets — planets orbiting stars other than our sun — discovered so far, this is just the second with such a close orbit.

I read this on Facebook, and a friend of the friend offered these theories:

1) The star and the planet have magnetic poles that are actually repelling each other at that distance with a force that exceeds gravity … strange but possible.

2) The planet’s rotation might be causing it to “bounce” off of the outer atmosphere of the star, so that every time it might sink in it gets knocked back.

3) There may be an alternate source of gravity, like a singularity, so close to this pair that it keeps them in a constant tug of war.

4) The majority of what we know about a far away star comes from the light it gives off. Given that, is it possible that some other light source is “fooling our sensors” to use technobabble?

Draw your own conclusions, but it’s fun to ponder a mystery.

Kennedy’s obit

Here’s Edward Kennedy’s New York Times obituary. Chappaquiddick is mentioned in the 16th graph. It should have much higher, given the effect that incident had on his entire career. It probably cost him the presidency.

How Different Groups Spend Their Day

Here’s a interesting interactive graphic from the New York Times on how people spend their time.

Mexico’s got the right idea

Mexico just quietly legalized possession of small amounts of drugs:

No dreadlocked revelers smoked celebratory reefers in the streets, no armies of conservatives protested, the Mexican media raised no hullabaloo. Quietly and with little ado, Mexico last week enacted a law to decriminalize possession of small amounts of all major narcotics, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and crystal meth. Anyone caught in Mexico with two or three joints or about four lines of cocaine can no longer be arrested, fined or imprisoned. However, police will give them the address of the nearest rehab clinic and advise them to get clean…

Washington’s silence on the issue is telling. In 2006, Mexico’s Congress approved a bill with almost exactly the same provisions. However, the Administration of George W. Bush immediately complained about the measure and then President Vicente Fox refused to sign it into law. In contrast, officials of the Obama Administration have been decidedly guarded in commenting on the new legislation. When asked about it in his visit to Mexico last month, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said he would “wait and see.” Many view such a change as evidence that Washington is finally reconsidering its confrontational war on drugs, four decades after Richard Nixon declared it. “There is a growing opinion that the use of force has simply failed to destroy the drug trade and other measures are needed,” says Mexican political analyst José Antonio Crespo. “It appears that the White House may be starting to adjust its approach.”

Good. The important component of any legalization is the emphasis on rehab. Habitual drug use is a social ill, and we should do all we can to help addicts — but throwing them in jail isn’t helpful or compassionate.

Nikola Tesla gets his due

Great TED talk about the advances in wireless electricity, a technology pioneered by unheralded inventor Nikola Tesla. Every day we understand a little more about his genius. Too bad nobody knows Tesla’s name, but everyone knows about that schlep Thomas Edison.

Google Must Reveal Blogger’s Identity in Defamation Suit

A Manhattan judge ordered Google to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger — and it did. You can read the NY Post’s account of the sordid details here. It involved a New York model who was angry with another model with some comments made about her. She retaliated by calling her a “liar” and and “whore” on an anonymous blog. She would have been legally sound with statements of opinion, but statements of fact can be challenged as defamatory.

Here’s the FindLaw update on the case — essentially telling us this was an isolated case and we shouldn’t worry too much about an impact on anonymous speech on the Internet. There’s no explanation about why Google didn’t appeal the ruling to a federal court. Perhaps they figured it wasn’t worth the fight. The Federalist Papers were published anonymously, after all, but James Madison wasn’t calling anyone a “skank.”