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December 8, 2013

Thanksgiving, 2013

Posted by Nathen under American Gut, Amory Lovins, charity, KCRW, Left Right and Center, Long Now Foundation, Mil-Tree, Mojave Desert Land Trust, Planet Money, Radiolab, Rocky Mountain Institute, Seminars About Long Term Thinking, Sound Opinions, The Human Food Project, This American Life, Wikipedia
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My family celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday this year instead of Thursday, so I spent Thanksgiving day giving money away and buying Christmas gifts–a great way to do it! This is the first holiday season in my life that I’ve begun with a solidly-above-the-poverty-line income. It’s a whole different experience. I’ve given to charities before, of course, but always with a little mental wrestling over each gift. This year I could make a list of everyone I really wanted to support, send each some money, and it just felt fun. Here’s my list so far:

The Long Now Foundation: I got on to these folks through their really, really good Seminars About Long Term Thinking. They see our culture’s “pathologically short attention span” and have a mission to “foster long-term responsibility.”

Mojave Desert Land Trust: These folks really caught my attention when they managed to purchase (save, really) a large and beautiful swath of desert on the western edge of Joshua Tree, surely the next to fall to big box stores as Yucca Valley slouches east. It made me so happy. They focus on land conservation and stewardship around here, including wildlife corridors.

Rocky Mountain Institute: Amory Lovins has been a hero of mine since I saw him speak at the University of Oregon ten years ago–to this day one of the most inspiring lectures I’ve seen. (Here’s a TED Talk.) He started RMI with the vision “a world thriving, verdant, and secure, for all, for ever,” and the mission “to drive the efficient and restorative use of resources.”

Wikimedia: I use Wikipedia almost every day, and so do you, probably.

Chicago Public Media: WBEZ in Chicago, which produces at least two of my regular podcasts, This American Life (in-depth news, great stories) and Sound Opinions (music news & reviews). I can’t quite tell if they also produce Planet Money (economics-related stories and explanations), another of my regulars… they seem to be associated with This American Life, so I threw in some extra money for it.

New York Public Radio: Mostly for Radiolab, which makes science-related podcasts.

KCRW: Probably the best radio station in the world. I have cut myself off from the daily news cycle in the interest of staying sane, but I still listen to a lot of KCRW. Their music programs are great, and they produce Left, Right, & Center, the only political show I listen to intentionally these days.

The Human Food Project: These folks are going after large-scale microbiome base rates in various populations. They have an open source project going called American Gut where you can join and get your gut microbiome sequenced and compared to the others involved.

Mil-Tree: A local military/civilian integration and healing project based on the work of Ed Tick. Their Art of War show was one of the most moving things I witnessed this year.

 

July 15, 2010

My News Sources

Posted by Nathen under Benjamin Lester, Darlene Lester, decisions, endorsements, Ethan Mitchell, headlines, Jay Smooth, Jeannie Lee, Left Right and Center, listening, lists, Long Now Foundation, Maya, media, National Public Radio, news, Paul Krugman, Planet Money, politics, Radiolab, This American Life, Thomas Friedman, Wall Street Journal
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I like to know what everyone thinks is going on. To this end, about a year ago, I filled up my igoogle home page with feeds from a bunch of different news sources. They are political news sources, for the most part. I don’t care at all about sports or celebrities. I tried to pick stuff from the hard left and hard right and then some mainstream stuff, thinking I could read headlines every day or two and read the articles that grabbed my attention.

It’s not working out that well. I’m too busy to read much. I do glance over the headlines a bit, but there are a lot of them and often my eyes just glaze over. And while I want to know about the rest of the world, I’m even more interested in what my friends and family are doing. If my sister-in-law, Maya, has posted on her blog, or my mom on hers, my brother Benjamin on his, or my friend Jeannie on hers, or my friend Ethan on a couple of his blogs (one about everything and one about his wife Susannah’s struggle with leukemia–both amazing), or several other friends and family with blogs have posted, that’s what I read while I’m brushing my teeth or during whatever scanty extracurricular-reading time appears.

So I need to cull. I’m considering getting paring it down to the few feeds that I actually click on. That would look like this:

Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman columns at NYTimes.com–occasional reads.

Wall Street Journal feed–very occasional reads.

NPR’s political feed–pretty regular use, but usually just audio clips from “All Things Considered,” plus a nearly-daily five-minute news overview, also audio.

A google news feed gathered from a bunch of sources–very occasional reads.

Plus PsychCentral‘s Mental Health News and Children/Parenting News feeds–pretty frequent reads, a few a week–and Nildoctrine‘s feed for his hilarious feminist political vlogs.

And plus my podcasts, which I have absolutely no problem keeping up with: Left, Right and Center, Planet Money, This American Life, Radiolab, and The Long Now Foundation’s Seminars About Long Term Thinking. These I love the most.

I’d call that a US-centric, left-leaning-centrist list. I’d be ditching my right-winger stuff besides the Wall Street Journal–FrumForum which looked pretty good when I checked it out, but I just haven’t been checking it out, and National Review, whose cartoony headlines and terrible writing meant that I almost never looked at it, and regretted it when I did. I’d ditch quite a bit of left-winger stuff–The New Republic & Mother Jones (cartoony headlines again), Truthdig (generally good but not catching me), and Democracy Now! which I think is great but consistently depressing. Also The Onion, which is hilarious but I’ve stopped looking at it, and a CNN feed, which is weak.

That list doesn’t really do what I originally wanted–covering hard left to hard right–but it seems OK for now. What do you think? I’m interested in the media-intake schemes of anyone who made it this far through my post. How do you make these decisions? Do you think I’m missing anything crucial? Make me some recommendations!

Also, anyone interested in my actual media diet can look at my reading list here.