Excellent story in the Journalists Resources blog on the importance of newspapers. To put it simply: a prof at Portland State University named Lee Shaker set out to quantify the question by coming up with a measure of civic engagement and then looked at two cities with newspapers that went away (the Rocky Mountain News, inContinue reading “Do newspapers still matter? PSU study says yes”
Category Archives: activism
Facing Drought Together: Ojai Valley News
Let me share Kimberly Rivers' thoughtful newspaper story about an event here in town I helped launch —Facing Drought Together – which did draw a good crowd, and got a lot of conversation started I hope. Here's an excerpt from story in the Ojai Valley News: “I took away the realization that a lot of other people in OjaiContinue reading “Facing Drought Together: Ojai Valley News”
Drought expert to Ojai: You have too many damned trees
JPL/NASA scientist Bill Patzert gave Ojai some hell this afternoon, as part of the Facing Drought Together event: From an excellent, may I say, story in the Ventura County Star by Anne Kallas: “Don’t expect a quick fix. Droughts are slow in coming, and they are slow getting out of. We need to change the wayContinue reading “Drought expert to Ojai: You have too many damned trees”
Everything you always wanted to know about drought*
Four of us from the Ojai Valley area, all concerned citizens from very different backgrounds, think that we need to talk frankly about the drought, and more, do what we can about it. Not just for ourselves, our properties, gardens, orchards, trees, lands, and wildlife, but also for our community.
Hyperactivity linked to moms taking Tylenol-type painkilers
On the front page of the Los Angeles Times, Melissa Healy tells a story of a huge study in Scandanavia that shows that the active ingredient in Tylenol and Excedrine and many other over-the-counter medicines is an endocrine disruptor plausibly linked to hyperactivity and other developmental disorders. Healy makes a strong case simply by quoting theContinue reading “Hyperactivity linked to moms taking Tylenol-type painkilers”
Facing Drought Together: The Ojai Retreat 3/9/2014
Bill O'Brien, a civil engineer, Victoria Loorz, a pastor, myself, and Ulrich Brugger, who directs The Ojai Retreat, are putting together a public conversation which we hope will help motivate people of the Ojai Valley to take a serious look at our drought and what we can do about it. We also intend toContinue reading “Facing Drought Together: The Ojai Retreat 3/9/2014”
Leading British scientist links warming to flooding
In this country, scientists have been historically averse to link weather disasters — such as flooding caused by huge storms — to climate change. The scientific cliche is well-known: No single meteorological event can be caused by climate change. A leading theorist of climate communications, Naomi Oreskes of UC San Diego argues that the generalContinue reading “Leading British scientist links warming to flooding”
A Tale of Two Towns: Can a federal grant make a real change for the poor in Ventura County? | Reporting on Health
For an upcoming fellowship in health reporting at USC's journalism school, I'm working on a couple of long-form stories. This is the first of them — a look at how a federal grant aims to balance the scales of health for poor people in Ventura County. Hope it's of interest. A Tale of Two Towns:Continue reading “A Tale of Two Towns: Can a federal grant make a real change for the poor in Ventura County? | Reporting on Health”
The Titanic/global warming analogy takes a dramatic turn
Last week The New Yorker led off with an uncharacteristically labored analogy/editorial from Adam Gopnik, who pointed out that the Titanic had a twin sister, the Olympic, which sailed unharmed through the frozen northern seas for decades and (he suggested) so could we. "It reminds us that our imagination of disaster is dangerously more fertileContinue reading “The Titanic/global warming analogy takes a dramatic turn”
Connecting global warming and California drought
What is causing the drought in the West? Could it be a jetstream phenomenon connected to the cold winter being experienced back East? Which could be connected to blockages interrupting the polar vortex, causing it to spill southward into places like the Ohio Valley? And could those blockages be connected — as researchers such asContinue reading “Connecting global warming and California drought”
Kit Stolz 