Great pieces from and related to events in Ferguson, MO

I've found myself riveted lately by what's been going on in Ferguson, Missouri over the past nine days and there's been some amazing writing on what's happened there, as well as other great writing and a speech that come to mind as I follow the unfolding events.

The most detailed piece I've seen about the shooting death of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson that precipitated everything was "In Ferguson, three minutes — and two lives forever changed" for the Washington Post by Manuel Roig-Franzia, DeNeen L. Brown and Wesley Lowery. The story was published on August 16th so additional details have and will continue to come to light, but it seems a really solid account.

In terms of the police action both that August 9th day and since, two pieces of writing I keep thinking of that weren't about Ferguson and the events there, but seem very much related, were by Jason Fagone and Matt Taibbi. For Mother Jones, Fagone wrote "How a Squad of Ex-Cops Fights Police Abuses" on retired cops working as investigators for a Florida Public Defender's Office and Taibbi authored the book The Divide (which I wrote on a few weeks ago). Taibbi provided an excellent and infuritating look at the application of justice in America and how there's different sets of consequences for breaking laws depending on what group someone a part of.

Two really well done pieces of writing done as a result of police reaction to protestors in Ferguson were both political in nature, and from two people perhaps often on different ends of a political spectrum. For Time Magazine was "Rand Paul: We Must Demilitarize the Police" by the Kentucky Senator and for his own company site, Venture Capital investor and Barack Obama backer Chris Sacca wrote "A few thoughts on race, America, and our President" about what the unfolding situation calls for.

The last thing to note here on something that I've seen posted in relation to Ferguson and which has stuck with me was video of the speech Robert F. Kennedy gave in which he annouced the death of Martin Luther King Jr. I six years ago linked to an audio-only version and the speech more powerful today than ever.

Writing on different times & different places - by Colloff, Mogelson & Goldberg

There's been a few pieces of writing I've seen in the past few weeks that struck me as excellent and which felt to be about the themes of "different time" and "different place."

In terms of different time was the tremendously well done "96 Minutes" by Pamela Colloff for Texas Monthly in 2006. It was an oral history on a mass shooting on the University of Texas at Austin campus in 1966, when mass shootings were pretty much unheard of. Colloff wrote a riveting piece that made me think about the topic of gun control, as written about both in past posts I've done with it as a label and a Jan 2013 New York Times editorial by former Australia Prime Minister John Howard "I Went After Guns. Obama Can, Too." Also related to both the subjects of guns and a different time was the Time website piece "Symphony Learns President Kennedy Is Dead" from 1963 and which contains an embedded audio file that has a staggering first 40 seconds.

The other two pieces of great writing to mention here weren't about guns and events from 50 years past, but rather about places in the world that are horrifying in terms of how people there live, and just how different their lives are than for those in the developed world.

For the Nov 17 New York Times Magazine was "The Dream Boat" by Luke Mogelson and then the Nov 25-Dec 1 issue Businessweek cover story was "Drowning Kiribati" by Jeffrey Goldberg. The two pieces center on islands some 6,700 miles apart from each other (on opposite sides of New Guinea above Australia) and both portray worlds that people would never hope to be born into. The Mogelson feature is about refugees who attempt to take the treacherous boat trip from Southern Indonesia to the Australian territory of Christmas Island and Goldberg writes about the sinking into the ocean islands of Kiribati and its 103,000 residents. The Businessweek cover text notes how climate change causing the sinking, but really what struck me from the story was how the people there now live. The short lifespans, high infant mortality rates, severe malnutrition and infectious diseases noted by Mogelson are just staggering and it's incredible to read of how people live in some other places.

Writing by Saslow, Gawande & Cowen - on the Navy Yard shooting, food stamps, health care & Texas

There's been a few pieces of writing I've come across lately that were all linked together in a fairly circuitous route.

A writer I find to be one of the best working today is Eli Saslow as his pieces so frequently use great detail to tell an emotional and often heart-wrenching story and two recent Washington Post works of his very much fit that description. Published last month after the gun deaths of 12 people in Washington D.C. was "At Navy Yard, the ‘Cube Farm’ had settled into its reassuring Monday routine. Then, a jolt." and just yesterday was "Too much of too little", a piece with the subtitle "A diet fueled by food stamps is making South Texans obese but leaving them hungry."

Very much related to the Saslow piece on food stamps both because of the topic and with it being by a writer whose byline I'm always interested to see was "States of Health" by Atul Gawande for the New Yorker. About the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare) the piece is from a noted physican and excellent writer and just makes me bothered by what seems to be the fervently held opposition by some to more universally provided health care.

The final piece to note here also relates to Saslow's piece set in South Texas as the October 28 issue of Time Magazine featured the interesting cover story "Why Texas Is Our Future" by Tyler Cowen, economics professor and author of Average is Over. Noted up front in the story is that "three of the five fastest-growing cities are in Texas" and what I also found interesting in the story, and also connected it to the pieces by both Saslow and Gawande, was the mention of how stratified Texas is in terms of it's upper, lower and increasingly small middle class. There's been a lot written about the concept of income inequality, a shrinking middle class and an upper class living in a completely different America than the lower class and Cowen's piece (which requires a Time account to read online any of the nine web pages it split into) shows a state that's both emblematic of the dynamic and driving it.

Esquire & Time Magazine writing - by Junod, McCracken, Walsh and Scherer

The most recent issue of Esquire and last few issues of Time Magazine had some great feature writing (with the Time site typically requiring a subscription to read online) that can be at least somewhat grouped together under the topics of business and it's impact.

The piece from Esquire's 80th Anniversary October issue was "Google: The Celebrity Profile" by Tom Junod and a look at the company, it's power, and the potential for abuse of that. To that end, Junod included in the story the interesting sections below...

"'Google is a data company that monetizes the collection of data through advertising,' says Rob Norman, the chief digital officer of GroupM, the world's largest buyer of online media. "The scale of data capture is massive, and the ability to match data with the likely intent of an individual is unparalleled." Does Rob Norman trust Google, working with Google, as he does, nearly every day? 'I happen to believe that Google is a nuclear power. One's feeling about nuclear powers depends on one's belief in their ability to use the weapons. In my view, Google is as responsible a nuclear power as you can expect a nuclear power to be.'"

"The most famous thing Google ever said was not to the world; it was to Google. "Don't be evil" — it sounds like a warning or an injunction. But it turned out to be a form of permission, a conflation of innocence with intention. Google didn't want to be evil, so Google wasn't evil. Google wasn't evil, so when Google started doing something that seemed morally dubious, Google wasn't selling out; Google was improving a morally dubious practice by the magic of Google's presence."

Junod also wrote in the piece about Google X and Google X-like efforts within the company around current programs such as Google Glass and not current, but also not out of the question, things like storing of biological data... which may be a great thing or may be troublesome if that data and accompanying power misused. From a bigger picture perspective, Junod wrote of how Google leaders looking for people to trust them to make the right moral decisions is somewhat similar to how our government looks for us to trust them to make the right decisions (which I think in the case of the current Presidential Administration they generally are). I've previously done posts which included stories on the CIA-funded data-mining company Palantir and on the world we live in and while Google, Palantir or the government having power certainly doesn't mean that power getting abused, the potential for abuse is something to keep in mind and written well about by Junod.


On the same topic of Google and huge initiatives at the company was a Time Magazine cover story written by Harry McCracken. "Google vs. Death" is about a new company it's launching that's in the vein of current Google X "moonshots" Glass, Makani Power (which puts wind turbines on wings), Project Loon (which beams wireless internet access from large helium balloons) and self-driving automobiles. Calico as a new Google initiative differs in that it's separate from Google X, but as McCracken writes, Calico "will focus on health and aging in particular," very reminiscent of how Junod wrote of Google potentially getting into the field of biological data.

The second Time Magazine story to note here is on a different topic entirely with "The Challenges of America's Energy Revolution" by Bryan Walsh. I've posted a number of times on pieces by Walsh and he often does great work often on the subjects of energy and/or the environment. From this latest piece was the following...

"The same innovations that have resurrected oil and gas production in the U.S. have extended the age of fossil fuels, making it that much more difficult to break free of them. A number of independent studies have suggested that the world has to stop emitting carbon dioxide by midcentury to avoid dangerous climate change. We're not likely to get there if we keep inventing ways to extract and then burn the hydrocarbons still in the ground. 

The last Time Magazine piece to mention here was the excellent  "Michael Bloomberg Wants To Be Mayor of the World" by Michael Scherer. It's tremendously interesting stuff that details, among other initiatives, Bloomberg's work to reduce smoking rates. Also from the piece by Scherer is how this philanthropy by Bloomberg within the context of private benefactors and and their impact...

"Over the past 30 years, the world has been transformed by globalization and technology, and from that tumult has emerged a new class of billionaires who profited from the change, innovators, business leaders and heirs. In the prime of their lives, many have turned their attention to remaking the world, often through policy and politics. It's a return to the era of great benefactors like the Rockefellers, Mellons and Carnegies. It's their world. You just vote in it. The examples are so many, they crowd together. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg gives $100 million to rewrite the rules for Newark public schools, spends millions more on political television ads and then travels to Congress to demand immigration reform. The casino magnate Sheldon Adelson bets $100 million to elect Republican candidates who mostly lose in 2012, and then publicly vows to do it again. Without financiers George Soros and Peter Lewis, marijuana legalization would not have proceeded so far in so many states. Without the generosity of conservative industrialists David and Charles Koch, the groups now organizing to defund Obamacare would be a shadow of themselves. Without billionaires like Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Eli Broad and Jim Walton, the revolution now taking place in K-12 education--charter schools, standardized tests, Common Core, merit pay, the end of tenure--would be years behind schedule."

Oklahoma tornado writing - by Layden, Montgomery, Von Drehle and Kluger

There's been a few great pieces of writing I've seen on the tornado that struck the town of Moore, Oklahoma. The Time Magazine cover story last week was by David Von Drehle and Jeffrey Kluger and titled "16 Minutes". The Editor's Note at the beginning of the issue mentions how Von Drehle two years ago wrote "Torn Asunder: How the Deadliest Twister in Decades Ripped Through Joplin, Mo." so this recent piece on the Moore tornado would have a focus on the time prior and life-saving tornado warning given. Both pieces require Time online accounts to read and each well written and extremely compelling.

For the Tampa Bay Times was "A family is calm, resilient amid devastation of Okla. tornado" by Ben Montgomery upon returning to the area where he grew up. It's a highly personal piece that's detailed and just really solid.

Last piece to mention here was by Tim Layden for the Sports Illustrated website. "At Southmoore High, football provides family, a refuge from devastation" was written based on the days immediately following the tornado that killed 24 and destroyed 1,200 homes, including those of 22 players from the 170 member Southmoore football program. Also included in this excellent piece by Layden was mention of Southmoore Junior Darius Joseph, brother of one of the subjects in a piece from The Okalahoman I posted on last week.

Time Magazine writing - on U.S. manufacturing / Uniqlo / 3 of the Time 100 Most Influential People

There's been a few interesting things out of Time Magazine recently with three of them being short pieces on people in the Time 100 Most Influential People 2013 edition and two feature stories from other issues (and all of them requiring a Time account to be able to read online).

The people whose short profiles stood out were that on Jared Cohen (who founded Google Ideas and co-wrote The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business with Google Chairman Eric Schmidt), Perry Chen (CEO of the crowdfunding website Kickstarter) and the team of Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng (co-founders of the online learning site Coursera).

The feature stories of greatest note to me were "Made in the USA" by Rana Foroohar and Bill Saporito and "What They'll Wear to the Revolution" by Michael Schuman. The latter piece was on Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo (which I've previously linked to a Fast Company article on as they make a major push into the U.S. market) and the feature story on increased US manufacturing. In terms of topic, it was very reminiscent of another piece I linked to previously, this one a September 2012 Outside Magazine piece by Tom Vanderbilt on the same trend.

Time Magazine pieces - by Lev Grossman, Mark Thompson & Austin Ramzy

Time Magazine has had some really interesting pieces from the last few months to note here... and which are available online to anyone with a username and password on the Time site.

The one that stood out the most was the Feb 11 issue cover story "Drone Home" by Lev Grossman. Really a fascinating piece about aerial drones, with the most well-known being the Predator Drone used by the U.S. military, but there now being a host of civilian-use drones here in America. Additionally, the same military use drone technology used by the U.S. could be adopted by any number of other countries and Grossman raises the compelling and plausible idea of a foreign power someday following the U.S. military path of using drones to strike at enemies, but doing so on U.S. soil.

The oldest Time piece to mention here was also by Grossman, but from the Dec 19 Person of the Year edittion of Time. "Runner-Up: Tim Cook, the Technologist" was on the Apple CEO and while the entire piece an interesting one, what stood out to me was mention of the hours put into his job. Remarkable anecdote from Grossman on Cook with "He wakes up at 3:45 every morning (“Yes, every morning”), does e-mail for an hour, stealing a march on those lazy East Coasters three time zones ahead of him, then goes to the gym, then Starbucks (for more e-mail), then work."

The other two recent pieces of note from Time were both well written, but actually stood out to me as reminders of past articles I've linked to and written on about similar topics. In the Feb 7 Time issue Mark Thompson wrote "Killer. Healer. Victim." on the shooting death of former Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle (who wrote a bestselling autobiography covering his time in the military). Kyle was active in trying to help other veterans cope with leaving the military and was gunned down at a shooting range by a someone someone struggling with mental illness and returning home. Really a sad story that reminded me of a 2012 blog post I did which linked to a number of pieces by Thompson and fellow Time writer Nancy Gibbs about veteran mental health troubles and disconnect with society.

The final Time story to mention here was by Austin Ramzy from the Feb 18 issue. "Precious Holdings" is about mining for Rare Earth metals and what's occurred in the market since the Chinese government in 2010 decided to dramatically limit exports of the commodities needed for technology including weapons, electronics and vehicles. Interesting piece that brought to mind a 2011 blog post I did on a Businessweek feature about Rare Earth mining in Alaska.

Time Magazine Cover Story on Military Suicides

Very profound cover story in the latest issue of Time Magazine that brought to mind other pieces from Time on the same subject.



The recent feature by Nancy Gibbs & Mark Thompson was titled "The War On Suicide?" and details the epidemic of suicides among current and former U.S. military personnel. The authors cite current statistics of one active duty suicide a day and one every 80 minutes among all veterans, but go beyond the horrifying numbers to detail the personal stories of several recent suicides by active duty servicemen. Just painful reading the depiction from a surviving spouse of mental health help that was sought in vain within the military.

Along these lines, the piece very much brought to mind some past Time features I've noted and linked to by the same writers. Mark Thompson penned in April 2009 "Why Are Army Recruiters Killing Themselves?" and in December of the same year I did this blog post on the Nancy Gibbs Time cover story "Terrified or Terrorist?" about Fort Hood shooter Nadal Hasan. Both works very much shared with the recent cover story a commonality of showing an active duty military culture of pushing forward and not showing weakness or a need for help.

On the same subject, but with actually a positive take-away was the December 2010 piece "Bringing Dogs to Heal: Care for Veterans with PTSD" by Mark Thompson and then in November 2011, I wrote a blog post featuring another Thompson Time cover story "The Other 1%" about the all too frequent disconnect between non military personnel and those who serve or have served.

It's an extremely difficult problem with no easy solution, but Gibbs and Thompson have done excellent work shedding light on the situation and need for greater efforts by the military at helping it's own.

Time Magazine Pieces - on Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts / Elon Musk / Howard Schultz

There's been a few tremendously interesting pieces of writing from Time Magazine lately to note here.

Cover story from the most recent issue was "Roberts Rules: What the Health Care Decision Means for the Country" by the always solid David Von Drehle. About the deciding vote cast and rationale behind it from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, it's informative writing on what seems to be an extremely measured decision.

Two feature pieces from the past month or two that also stood out as well written pieces on interesting topics were about business efforts from Elon Musk and Howard Schultz respectively. Jeffrey Kluger wrote "Rocket Man" on the founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX who has had big months at each company he leads and Bill Saporito provided "Starbucks' Big Mug" on efforts to both grow the business and aid the economy overall.

Interesting writing in each piece on big steps taken by both company leaders.

Most Intriguing People on the "Time 100 Influential" List

The Time "100 Influential People in the World" issue published April 30th was of course populated with a veritable who's who list of movers, shakers and otherwise incredibly important people in the world.



Of these individuals, below are the fourteen (with the Time pieces hyperlinked) that stood out to me as particularly interesting and people I'd want to know more about (making this my sort of "Most Intriguing Within the 100 Most Influential" list)...

- Sara Blakely: founder of Spanx - According to an earlier vignette in this issue, the world's youngest self-made female billionaire at 41 ... if that's not interesting, I don't know what is.

- Christian Marclay: artist behind the 24-hour long clip film "The Clock" - Sounds to be a fascinating movie and both it and Marclay are featured in "The Hours" by Daniel Zalewski for The New Yorker.

- Salman Khan: founder of Khan Academy - Remarkable story of free education tutorial videos from a guy whose work featured in both a Businessweek profile and Fast Company Most Creative People in Business list.

- E.L. James: writer of the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy books - An author having the top four spots, including a 50 Shades box set, on the current New York Times Fiction Bestseller List is nothing if not interesting.

- Louie C.K.: comedian - Known for doing things completely his own way both creatively and in business with his television show Louie and self-produced and sold online comedy specials.

- Ben Rattray: founder of change.org - The site which helps enable social change became much more well-known earlier this year with its petition asking for prosecution of George Zimmerman for shooting Trayvon Martin.

- Ann Patchett: author / bookstore owner - It I'm sure helps her cause to be a best-selling author, but was a cool story of Patchett seeing her hometown of Nashville, TN being without an independent bookseller and as a result, opening Parnassus Books.

- Barbara Van Dahlen: Runs the nonprofit organization Give An Hour devoted to assisting with the mental health of veterans and their families. Seems a great mission and reminds me of the Joe Klein cover story "The New Greatest Generation" for Time.

- Hans Rosling: Became known for a 2006 TED talk on worldwide socio-economic development told through statistical models... now with 4 millions views on the TED site.

- Walter Isaacson: Biographer who wrote both the bestselling Steve Jobs (which I reviewed here) and similarly acclaimed works on Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein.

- Erik Martin: 33 year old general manager of the site Reddit, which I first heard about a Jason Fagone piece for Wired written about in this blog post.

- Cecile Richards: The leader of Planned Parenthood and responsible for providing health care and advocating rights for many women in need nationwide.

- Virginia Rometty: IBM CEO who has helped the company to its current position of financial strength and (as the Time piece on her states) she's someone known for pushing the company in the area of corporate responsibility.

- Hillary Clinton: Someone who has obviously lived many lifetimes in terms of her influence and has by almost all accounts done an exemplary job as U.S. Secretary of State.

The Avengers by Joss Whedon

It's been a while since my last blog post on a movie (posted on Inception in July 2010 and sort of posted on The Social Network in October of that year), but saw The Avengers last night and enjoyed it quite a bit.

The film was written and directed by Joss Whedon and while I haven't seen much of his prior work, he's got quite the following and I was interested to see The Avengers after reading recent pieces on him like "The Hero Whisperer" by Lev Grossman for Time Magazine.

The movie was entertaining and whipped through it's 2:20 run time and while the effects were good and all, the story was what struck me. I don't know modern movie-making well enough to know the directing process of a CGI-heavy movie like The Avengers, but the way Whedon's script had such rich mythology and character development as well as brought together the characters was impressive.

I'd be interested to read the movie script sometime and while watching the film, remembered a short July 2010 Esquire piece on Jon Favreau (who executive produced The Avengers). Quote that stood out from him was "I had a writing teacher who said, 'if you want to learn to write a screenplay, read "The African Queen" twice'."

Writing on Family: by Skip Hollandsworth, Don Waters & Karl Taro Greenfeld

Two pieces of writing I've seen lately struck me as profound work that both trafficked in the topic of family... and made me think of a third piece on family I first saw a few years ago.

Most recently read piece was by Don Waters for the June issue of Outside Magazine. "Chasing Family History on California's Surf Breaks" is about Waters learning about and forming a posthumous connection with a father, Robert Waters, who left when his son three years old. It's heartfelt writing that has a number of interesting elements to it, including the unpublished autobiography a dying Robert Waters left to his writer son as an intended bridge, a love of surfing held at different points by both men, and the younger Waters spending time with surfing legend Greg Noll (heavily featured in the excellent movie Riding Giants) to understand better the father that Noll knew some 50 years prior. Also interesting from the time Don Waters spends with Noll is his interactions with son Jed Noll, as a compare and contrast situation between the two sets of father and son.

The other piece of writing on family that struck me recently was actually one from 2009, but I hadn't seen until yesterday. Written for Texas Monthly by Skip Hollandsworth, "Still Life" is a long feature on high school football player John McClamrock and the life of he and his family after being paralyzed during a 1973 game. Very riveting piece which heavily shows the devotion of a mother and brings to mind for me a quote from the Mike Sager Esquire piece "Depression" (not posted online)... “how much can one man take? As much as need be."

Both stories are excellent work (with the Hollandsworth one particularly emotion-inducing) and the subject of family (particularly family devotion and sacrifice) made me think of a Karl Taro Greenfeld piece from Time Magazine. I posted briefly on it when in when I saw the story back in 2009 and "Growing Old with Autism" (excerpted from his book Boy Alone: a Brother's Memoir was powerful and very personal writing by Greenfeld.

Businessweek Pieces on Apple (iPad) & Amazon (publishing and delivery of writing)

There's been a few pieces that stood out from Businessweek lately on the success of both Apple and Amazon.

The Mar 26 edition had a tremendously interesting "Opening Remarks" essay by Peter Burrows and Jim Aley. Titled "iPad: The PC Killer" it covers Apple's dominance with the iPad and Burrows and Aley offered up some ideas that seem to make a lot of sense... with the first two being around why the iPad has done so well and third around business conditions it created. In terms of product success, the authors note both how Apple able to take a longer view approach to a market given fewer product offerings and that the iPad helped by being a follow-on product to the iPhone (a positive both in terms of consumer familiarity with the concept and Apple utilization of the iOS software and App Store).

Most interesting to me from the piece was the idea put forth by Burrows and Aley that the iPad so dominates the market that competitors can't expect to simply offer up a comparible alternative (like HP did with the TouchPad) and expect it to sell. If a product offering in the same pricing or performance ballpark as the iPad, customers will simply pick what they already know to be good. There is still success that can be had by other companies, but it either through breakthrough competing technology (which nobody has brought yet) or slicing off a piece of the market and going after that. This approach of "competing by not really competing" has been successfully done by Amazon with positioning its Kindle (and now Kindle Fire) at price points where consumers don't need to choose between them or the iPad.

Related to this idea of Amazon doing well, there was an interesting piece by Brad Stone on the Businessweek site. "Why the Amazon Naysayers Should Be Scared" looks at the recent excellent financial results from the retailer, with improving margins while at the same time making large investments in infrastructure (facilities and people). Pretty interesting stuff from Stone that also makes reference to Amazon focusing efforts on publishing and the Kindle with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently saying that "16 of our top 100 bestselling titles are exclusive to our store.”

It's pretty remarkable what Amazon has done in the area of publishing and an additional Businessweek story hammers this home with "Amazon vs. Publishers: The Book Battle Continues." Also by Brad Stone, the piece is primarily about Amazon wanting to move towards print-on-demand publishing (with one usage being their CreateSpace division that I used for my book) and the traditional publishing houses fighting them. I wrote about and linked to another Brad Stone story on Amazon from a few months ago and it really seems as if Amazon has a more profitable path forward than traditional powers in the publishing industry and these existing companies fighting an uphill battle to keep things as they have been.

Fascinating things going on in this industry and it takes me back to a blog post done here three years ago on a Time Magazine feature about the economics of written delivery.

Time Magazine Pieces: Future of Oil / Kony 2012 / Change.org / FanFiction / Draw Something

I've already just linked to a few Time Magazine pieces, but there's been a number of other recent Time stories of interest to note here.

The March 26 issue of Time featured "The Warlord vs. the Hipsters" by Alex Perry on the "KONY 2012" video about African warlord Joseph Kony and US-backed efforts to apprehend him. Additionally of note in the piece is information about the group Invisible Children that produced the video (now viewed 86 million times on YouTube). Perry details how the video creators have received a large amount of criticism for things ranging for being too sensational to them directly calling for military action against Kony. Likely due in part to this, Invisible Children just announced (as is detailed in this piece by The Guardian) a sequel video coming April 3rd.

A second Time feature that stood out recently was its April 9 cover story, "The Future Of Oil" by Bryan Walsh. I've linked to a number of pieces by Walsh and as is usually the case, his story comes across as thorough and well-reported. Upshot of the piece is that oil isn't running out imminently (predicted as recently as a few years ago), but new sources of oil are going to be deeper, more remote and require more invasive drilling methods to reach. Result is that people don't need to worry as much about not having oil, but rather should have great concern over the economic and ecological costs of getting to what there is.

Also from this recent issue of Time was "Change Agent" by Bobby Ghosh and Elizabeth Dias. Profiled is the organization Change.org and its founder Ben Rattray. The site allows anyone to launch a petition on behalf of their particular cause and is detailed in the Time piece as being "a certified B corporation that benefits entrepreneurs who want both to make a profit and seek social change." Ghosh and Dias also write significant content about the Change.org petition asking for prosecution of George Zimmerman for shooting Trayvon Martin... now at 2.2M electronic signatures.

Finally, two additional (and short) Time pieces stood out with an interesting concept from each.

"Drawsome" was about the OMGPop created app Draw Something that was recently purchased for $180M by Zynga. Of note in the piece was description of how the game was built not as a competition, but rather collaborative effort (between either friends or complete strangers) to complete Pictionary-like drawing challenges.

Last piece to mention was about a book I likely won't read, but find interesting how it was written. "Homer-Erotic" details The Song of Achilles from high school teacher Madeline Miller. Concept is a "based in potential fact" fictional retelling of the Trojan War as depicted in The Iliad from Homer. It's a fascinating genre of writing, this idea of spinning off from the truth (or spinning off from characters created by others as FanFiction does).

Trayvon Martin / "Stand Your Ground" Pieces - for Time Magazine, Miami Herald & Tampa Bay Times

Over the past few weeks I've come across some very well written pieces on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The writing has been for a variety of publications with each piece containing something a bit different around the tragedy and Florida "Stand Your Ground" law that's so far kept the shooter, George Zimmerman, from being charged by prosecutors.

The largest article was "The Law Heard Round The World" by John Cloud for the latest issue of Time Magazine. Cloud notes that the exact exchange between Zimmerman and Martin is unknown to the public (there are apparently witnesses, though), but what is known is that Zimmerman was told by a 911 dispatcher not to pursue Martin, but then followed and shot in during the course of a confrontation. An interesting post-script was also tacked on to the piece by noting that "officers did indeed take Zimmerman into custody that night and questioned him; according to reports, police also asked the prosecutor for an arrest but were refused."

This information takes the case heavily towards an examination of the "Stand Your Ground" law that prosecutors would have been following in (at least for now) deciding not to charge Zimmerman. Two excellent pieces about the law (which is also detailed well by Cloud) were in the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald. For the Times, Ben Montgomery wrote "'Stand your ground' law protects those who go far beyond that point" and David Simon (creator of "The Wire" for HBO) provided "Opinion: Welcome to Florida. Beware of gunmen standing their ground." Montgomery details how the people who wrote "Stand Your Ground" assert that it wouldn't provide safe haven for Zimmerman in this case, but that the laws wording and the legal systems usage of it may make it entirely applicable to this case. Along these lines, Simon relates a story from 1998 Baltimore where prosecutors made the decision to not give free reign to shooting in the interest of property protection. Additionally, Simon notes how "Stand Your Ground" or laws of its ilk in effect consider everyday citizens to be like police (but, without any of the screening or training) in how we evaluate whether their actions at any given time are justified.

Finally, the same April 9 issue of Time that contained the Cloud article also had the Joe Klein column "Triumph of the Gun Fetishists." There's not a large amount of content on Trayvon or "Stand Your Ground", but what is covered is what seems be be a push against gun laws in the US. Klein specifically notes the National Rifle Association and efforts on behalf of the "National Right to Carry Reciprocity Act" that three years ago narrowly failed Senate approval, but could well come back up again. If passed in a similar form, it would provide "back-home" gun control (or lack thereof) for any residents visiting another state or location with different restrictions around carrying guns.

Trayvon's death is a tragedy and it certainly appears that Zimmerman created the confrontation that resulted in the shooting. What's fascinating in an entirely macabre sort of way is now whether a law passed (behind a movement passing these types of laws) will mean that Zimmerman can't even be tried by a judge and jury of his peers. It doesn't take away from the loss of Trayvon, but his shooting really brings into the open a direction that our society seems to be taking with what we allow pass into law.

From this perspective, it reminds me of Representative Gabrielle Giffords being shot, six people killed and there then seeming to be little discussion of Arizona gun laws and how it it was for the killer, Jared Loughner to obtain his 9mm Glock pistol used in the attack.

Time Magazine Pieces: Journalists Escaping Syria / Climate Change & Bill McKibben

There were a few excellent pieces of writing from the past couple issues of Time Magazine, starting with the most recent Mar 19 edition.



Cover story was "Escape from Syria" by Vivienne Walt and tells the story of journalists being targeted for death by and attempting to escape the Syrian Armed Forces of President Bashar al-Assad. It's extremely harrowing content taken from journalists William Daniels and Edith Bouvier who were able to get out of the country (with Bouvier badly injured) after surviving the rocket attack that killed journalist colleagues Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik. Extremely important writing in this piece that's prefaced in the beginning of the issue by "The Need to Bear Witness in Syria" from Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel.

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Two additional Time pieces of import were from the Mar 12 edition and dealt with the subject of climate change and efforts to mitigate our impact on the environment. Both pieces by Bryan Walsh, "Cold Warrior" profiled environmental writer Bill McKibben and "Nature Is Over" overviewed (as part of the issue's "Ten Ideas Changing Your Life" section) changes to the earth and environment in what's now being termed the Anthropocene epoch: the age of man.

Time Magazine Pieces: Facebook timeline / JC Penny pricing / GOP Presidential Race / Mediterranean diet

There's been some excellent writing from the past few issues of Time Magazine. In the Feb 6 edition, the excellent David Von Drehle wrote "Who will be the GOP Candidate?" on the current slate of Presidential nominees.

More recently, the Feb 13 issue had two interesting business related pieces with "This Is Your Life (According to Your New Timeline)" by Allie Townsend on Facebook and "The Price Is Righter" by Brad Tuttle about pricing strategies at J.C. Penney under new CEO Ron Johnson, former head of Apple retail stores.

Finally, the latest issue of Time contained "Eat like an Italian" on the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet. It was an excellent piece by Stephan Faris that really hammered home how good it is to eat fruits, vegetables, nuts and bean.

Time Magazine Pieces: on Warren Buffett, Barack Obama & YouTube

Couple of excellent feature stories in the last two issues of Time Magazine.

Cover story from the Jan 23 edition was Warren Buffett Is on a Radical Track and it featured a look by Rana Foroohar at the business titan.

Some of the things detailed and touched on in the piece were Buffett's belief the economy will continue to improve, his views on taxes for the extremely wealthy and personal life. It's an extremely well written profile on an important and interesting guy. To this point, the piece made more appealing the idea of reading Alice Schroeder's biography The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

From the most recent Jan 30 issue were two excellent features... including the cover story on President Barack Obama and his foreign policy record thus far.

Written by Fardeed Zakaria, The Strategist is a nuanced and equitable piece on the foreign policy successes in addition to failures thus far Obama has had. Also from this issue was The Beast With A Billion Eyes on YouTube, it's place in American viewing habits and where it's trying to head. Solid writing as usual by Lev Grossman and a very interesting read.

Excellent pieces... its a shame Time puts online content behind a print subscriber paywall preventing new audiences from seeing the quality of work.

Time Magazine Pieces - Familial DNA testing / Rhode Island Pension Reform / Jon Huntsman / Nest Thermostat

Quite a few interesting stories from the December 5 issue of Time Magazine.

All pieces require a magazine subscription to read online and first of note was The Case of the Grim Sleeper by Terry McCarthy. Pretty fascinating content on familial DNA testing and how it was used to locate a suspected serial killer in Los Angeles.

Another feature was by the excellent David Von Drehle titled The Little State That Could about the recent Rhode Island pension reforms enacted by State Treasurer Gina Raimondo. Her efforts might run counter to those from AFL-CIO labor leader Richard Trumka (profiled well in this Esquire piece), but Raimondo comes across in the story as someone extremely intelligent driving necessary change.

With the subject being in the same adult voice in the room category, Joe Klein's column was Jon Huntsman's Big Idea. As Klein writes, the top six banks hold assets of almost 65% of U.S. GDP and Huntsman's idea is to reduce their power (via a targeted fee) and hold on the economy.

Final thing of note from this issue of Time was the short Reinventing the Wheel on the new high-tech home thermostat from Nest. Very interesting product designed to foster energy conservation through both it's technology and stellar user interface (with the company founded and led by Apple iPod creator Tony Fadell.)

Money Writing from Businessweek, Bloomberg & Time

Several piece of writing on money I've come across lately that were interesting by themselves... with two downright fascinating when viewed in relation to one another.

From the Nov 28 issue of Time Magazine came the feature Below The Line on living in poverty. Written by Barbara Kiviat, it's a solid piece that looks at the 46 million Americans living on less than an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four. A lot of interesting content there... including how different external events (sickness, injury, car breakdown) can be cataclysmic financially for those barely making ends meet.

A different story on what feels like the opposite end of the financial spectrum was Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion Undisclosed to Congress from Bloomberg. Very much made me think of my blog post from a month ago on Boomerang by Michael Lewis as well as Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating by Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone.

Also on money, but not in the same curl your stomach vein were two short pieces from the Nov 21 issue of Businessweek. All Those Stock Buybacks: A Bullish Sign? is on the trend of companies feeling valuations low and buying their own stock and James Altucher, Wall Street's Keeper of the Pain on the venture capitalist and author (of both books and his self-titled blog).