Random stuff!

Nothing much has been happening lately and I haven't had any lightning flash experiences, hence the lack of posts.

It's Thanksgiving break, and, while I had huge ambitions about finishing up all the work I'm behind on, predictably enough, that hasn't happened. I still have two more days left - well, a day and a half now - so hopefully something will get itself done in. My biggest accomplishment to date over Thanksgiving break was joining the ranks of quarter-century olds on Thursday :-) And I managed to get through the day (and the day after) without too much going wrong and without any reports of food poisoning in any of the 12 or so friends I decided to feed that day.


Ji Yeon, Nayma, Shahyar, Adnan, Tim

Me, Ji Yeon

Danny and Weds

Paola, Aiko, Sri, Seda

So that's that. Now I need to get back to my scholarship applications, and internship applications and fellowship applications and graduate program (ship?) applications, and catch up on weeks worth of journalism law readings.

Fun shtuff!

The Plamegate saga continues. . .

The Judith Miller/Valerie Plame saga is really turning into a circus now. Bob Woddward, of Watergate and Deep Throat fame, has now stepped into the ring, proclaiming that another "senior Administration official" had informed him of Plame's identify before Miller knew about it, i.e. before Scooter Libby told Miller about it. This certainly comes at an opportune time for Libby.

I am all for protecting anonymous sources, when necessary, but I think Judith Miller went a little too far - she was protecting someone who was extremely media savvy, who knew how to use and abuse the media, and who revealed to her information about someone out of a desire for revenge. Being an experienced reporter, Miller, in the first place, should not have promised anonymity to Libby, knowing full well his intentions for revealing Plame's identity to her. And even after having promised him anonymity, she should have made a much greater effort to convince him to release her from her promise to him. Instead, what does she do? She goes to jail, to make herself look like a martyr.

At first, when Woodward stepped into the picture, I was afraid that Miller's decision to remain mum about her source will look even more legitimate. But then, reading a bit more, it seems as if he's going to go down the same route as Miller. For one, it was his source, and not him, who went to Fitzgerald to tell him that the source had told Woodward about Plame even before Miller knew about it through Libby. I think it's pretty clear that, left to himself, Woodward would have continued his silence on this, and would have kept insisting that there was nothing significant about this entire episode.

Woodward is coming under increasing fire for remaining mum throughout all the hoopla about Miller's anonymous source. Despite his almost untouchability, thanks to his role in breaking Watergate, the fact that he kept quiet all this time about who leaked Plame's name, makes him, and by default, the Washington Post, look very bad. He has apologised for not coming forward earlier, but is it too late?

Miller has already left the New York Times, where she was becoming a liability, but with a hefty book deal under her belt, I'm sure. But things just seem to be getting worse. And Woodward, like Miller, certainly considered himself above it all. Miller found out that she wasn't - and possibly still came out the winner. Will Woodward go the same way?
More on this

Why do people boycott elections?

Sri Lanka held its presidential election yesterday, and only 0.014% of Tamils in Jaffna, the capital of northern Sri Lanka, voted, according to the BBC. This figure was typical of Tamil turnout in most other places in the north and east, which are dominated by Tamils. This is compared to 19% of voters who turned out in the 1999 elections, which, while appalling, seems to be a gold mine compared to the turn out this year.

Tamils are disillusioned by both current Prime Minister Mahinde Rajapakshe, and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, who was replaced by his rival. But there is some slight support for Ranil from Tamils, who seemed keen to work out a peace agreement between the government and the Tamil Tigers when he was Prime Minister. Apparently, though, this little support is not enough for them to come out and vote for him, which means that it is now likely that Rajapakshe, with the support of Singhalese nationalists and Buddhist monks - who are vehemently against the Government coming to any agreement with the Tigers - will probably win.

Why do these people do this? There was a similar situation in Iraq when Sunnis boycotted the elections, and then realised their mistake when they had such little voice in the creation of the Constitution. People need to realise that boycotting elections is not the way to make their voices heard. In fact, it accomplishes the opposite - it takes away what small voice they have and leaves them without even the little power they had before.

If Rajapakshe comes into power, the fact that he has the blessings of Sinhala nationalists speaks volumes about the kind of president he will be. With Wickramasinghe, even if he doesn't accomplish much, at least he won't be in the pockets of the monks and nationalists as much as Rajapakshe.

In this case, it is a matter of choosing the lesser of the two evils. But, by boycotting the election, the Tamil people have relinquished the power to put into power the person who will do the most for them - or at least, the person who will do them the least harm. They have sealed their fate, and by their inaction, will probably put into power the greater of the two evils.

In pursuit of a crime. . .

Nev pointed out to me that my last post might be somewhat premature. And I guess he's right, given that I only met the guy for three minutes as I was rushing out the door, and given that I might never hear from him. But, oh well.

On a different note, I finally managed to retrieve some of my clips (for those who don't know my portfolio saga, I lost my portfolio with all my clips in London - I think it was a ploy by my former employers to engage me in bonded labour for the rest of my life, because I left it at work, and it disappeared). But anyway, thanks to the wonders of technology, I have managed to download most of them again. So now, I can prove that I really did work for a daily newspaper, because I've got stories with my byline on them on Lexis Nexis to prove it.

And on a third note, sometimes I get really fed up with people in New York, especially the ones that answer the phones in most places I call for stories, because most of them are unbelievably rude and go out of their way to be unhelpful. But I've been shown that there are some good people in this city that I'm not too fond of.

I've been working, or trying to work, on a story on crime and its consequences. I even came up with a great story. A young guy was killed in a hit and run 20 years ago, and the guy who ran him over was just arrested last week. I saw this story in the New York Times and it quoted three people. I wanted to find these three people, and possibly others through them, to do extended interviews with them about how they were impacted by the crime, about the guy who did it not being arrested for 20 years, and how they feel now that he has been arrested. I looked high and low for them, called a bunch of people with the same names as them (none of which turned out to be the right people), called the DA's office, police precincts, the information department for the police and NYC, and came up with nothing.

In desperation, I emailed our dean of students, who is also a computer whiz to see if he knew how I could locate the right people. He put me in touch with another student here, who works at a newspaper, I think. And that guy, Dom, BLESS HIM, has managed to track down the numbers of all of them. He informed me that type of Lexis Nexis this oh-so-prestigious institution provides for us is not sufficient for finding people, and found the information for me from the version that his company uses. Which had me a little peeved, because the two entire days I spent trying to track these people down were a complete waste of time, since, if I were a real journalist, all I'd have had to do was perform a Lexis search. And I'm pretty sure Columbia has enough money to subscribe to the correct form of Lexis Nexis.

But anyway. At least, I've got their numbers,. Now, the problem is actually getting them to talk to me! Here we go!

Enter Reuters reporter Inihtar!

I tend to get quite obsessive at times. I pick something that I decide I want, and draw up strategies about how I can achieve the object of my obsession, and get very upset and tense when something seems to come in the way of achieving said obsession.

Well, my latest obsession is getting an internship - well, a job would be ideal, but beggars can't be choosers - at the AP or Reuters. So yesterday, I went to a panel discussion about AIDS at the Reuters office here. I actually didn't even realise I'd signed up to go to it until I got the email letting me know that I was One of the Chosen Ones and was really not in the mood for it - but seeing as I was One of the Chosen Ones, I couldn't very well not go!

So, cribbing and complaining to myself, I went. The panel itself was interesting, and quite enlightening, but since the discussion had started late, and I had to get to class afterwards, I left as soon as the Q&A session started.

As I was walking towards the elevators, I noticed a guy standing a few feet outside the room, listening to what was happening. Somehow, in the middle of me hurrying to the elevators, and him straining to hear what was happening inside, we managed to strike up a conversation. He was a reporter at Reuters. As soon as he said that, I decided class or no class, I was talking to him. He looked at my name tag and asked me what I did at Columbia. I told him I was a journalism student.

"Really?" he said. "I've been wanting to do my master's degree at Columbia. Maybe I should come up there and sit in on a class."

"Yeah," I said. "You definitely should. It's great, and the professors are great, they're very experienced, and they have great reputations!"

We chatted for a bit, and exchanged cards. And then, out of the blue, he said, "You should do an internship at Reuters!"

"I KNOW!!" I said. (This guy can read minds!!)

"Well," he continued. "This is how you get into it. By making contacts with people like me."

"Ok," I said. "I'm keeping in touch with you for sure then!"

And I intend to! So much so that he's going to regret having told me to do so!

So, I've got a new best friend who's a business reporters at Reuters, who's going to get me an internship there!

PS: Is it me or are most of my blog entries somewhat anticlimactic?

V-day!

Today is Nov. 8, Election Day, and a very biz bizy one for us aspiring journos. Well, for normal ones as well. I got up at the unholy hour of 5:15 a.m., and betook myself to the Bronx to stand at polling stations and intrude on people's privacy by asking them whom they voted for. That and a few other questions, but essentially that.

Apparently, everyone in the Bronx is voting for "Freddy" Ferrer for mayor, because he's Hispanic, and for no reason other than that. This bothers me slightly, because, apparently, from what I've heard, the guy is a bit of a wet mop personality-wise. But then a few of the more informed individuals I spoke with told me that he did a lot for the Bronx when he was Borough president. So, maybe there is a bit more to him than that. But, he certainly doesn't have the commanding presence - or the money - that Bloomberg has, so despite all the votes he amasses in the Bronx, he's not likely to win. And even those who voted for him conceded as much.

But it was an interesting experience, and certainly tougher than the work on the primary storyI did in Jamaica, Queens, mostly because everyone in Jamaica speaks English, and not many in the Bronx do. The area in Jamaica I covered for the primary was also mostly Guyanese, and since South Asians and Guyanese look somewhat similar, people felt some sort of kinship with me (the same kind that makes people in the Bronx vote for Freddy, I guess).

It was cold and exhausting, and not particularly fulfilling, but I guess it's part of the donkey work that makes up the J-school experience. The most disappointing part was that no one had a passionate hatred for Bloomberg, which might have made life a bit more exciting. Oh well. . .

But this was one of those one-person-does-the-reporting-and-someone-else-does-the-writing assignments, so I didn't have to bother with writing up a story from my skimpy notes, so I was grateful for that.

And by the way, our student work web site is functional as of today, and I've added a link to the left (Columbia Journalist), so check it out! I don't know if anything of my work will make it, but one can hope. . . But there's some pretty decent stuff on there, local of course.

More weds pics!

Nev told me that you can't tell from the pic of Weds that he's a baby, so here are a couple more pics. I need to stop this. I'm like one of those spinsters whose lives revolve around their cats! And he's not even my cat!!

Issues!

I just wanted to throw this out there - I have a 9:00 meeting with the executive director of an organisation that could potentially play a very key role in my master's project, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to ask him. And I'm going to bed now, so that situation is not going to be rectified.

And two, is it bad to quit a job that you were warned that you should perhaps not take on by the people offering it to you? Let me elaborate. I applied for a job on-campus, partly becuase it seemed like it would give me good contacts with working journos. During my second interview, my boss (boss-to-be at that time) told me that she had also gone to the J-school, and she knew the work pressures there and warned me that I might not be able to handle school and a job. I assured her that I would, and that I was keen to take on the job.

Now, the job is basically writing random press releases,and drafting memos, and I'm bored and tired of it and pretty much hate it. So I want to quit. My dilemna is that, if I quit, will I be in their bad books, because they warned me against taking it, and I still took it? But I'm not quitting because I can't handle it. I'm quitting because it's so mind-numbingly boring! What should I do? Maybe someone should just send them a link to this blog anonymously, and then I won't have to worry about quitting!

Farewell:-(

I hate goodbyes. Well, I guess there aren't many people who actually enjoy them. But, Emsten left today, to go back home to her sunny little island, and the apartment really feels empty. Today of all days, I had class all day, so I woke up early and made my specialty, aubergine (eggplant, brinjal, whatever!) curry, and had a last croissant and coffee with Emsten before rushing off to class.

Rushed back from class for lunch with Emsten, and Okia, who joined us, and little Wednesday, who, as usual, kept trying to eat us AND our food. I got Emsten her last black bubble tea from Cafe Swish where I took her about five or six times in her four weeks here, and we chatted about Emsten's little twin sisters, and this, that and the other. Rushed back to class after lunch, and rushed back home, with a few minutes to spare before the car came to pick her up and take her to the airport.

We chatted for a bit as Emsten, incredibly organised, had already finished packing (Me, I would have been stuffing things into my suitcase until the last minute, but she had everything perfectly folded and packed, and even a little rectangular space just the right size for her toiletries kit, which went in last). So we checked around for the last time, chatted a bit and took her stuff down. When the car came, we said goodbye, with promises to meet up again on her sunny island, and heartfelt wishes for her upcoming wedding(!!!) and she left. It seemed almost anti-climactic. Such a quick goodbye, to such a good friend.

When I came back to the apartment, it felt so empty. I'd gotten so used to it being the four of us in our apartment, and now it feels strange to have my room to myself again. We hardly even saw each other during the week, but just knowing that she was around, and a quick hi and bye as we dashed in and out of the apartment, still made it nice, more homey somehow. I wished I could have done more, hung out with her more, that we'd had more little chats, but both of us were busy and life has a habit of just taking over sometimes, and you end up doing what you have to do at that moment, not what's important in the larger scheme of things.

When I saw Okia later, she commented too that it felt strange not to have Emsten around. "I already miss her," she said. "Me too," I replied:-(

And Emsten gave me an early birthday gift that left me speechless - a nano!! I had been going on about how it would be so nice to have one for when I'm in the gym and just to listen to - but really, do you need an excuse to have an nano? - and the other day, we were downloading our favourite songs onto my comptuer and listening to them, and reminiscing. . . and the next thing I know, the woman goes and gets me a nano!!

But that's Emsten! Emsten, if you read this, I hope you had a safe flight, and are back safe and happy, and are blissfully planning your wedding. And tell your parents girl!