I'm starting to get involved with a new project at work and with that comes the meetings and the new people that I'll be associated with. On Friday, I immediately felt as if I recognized one of the participants. I glanced at her occassionally, trying to place her, when it finally hit me.
It wasn't her that I knew, but she reminded me of somebody. The somebody she reminded me of, I finally realized, was Geanie Bowen. I met Geanie a week earlier via another Kansas Citian -- the Kansas Citian that created her.
Geanie Bowen is a character in the book I referenced earlier and finished last week, and the woman in the meeting I attended looked exactly like I had pictured Geanie from the book. The likeness was so profound and my image of Geanie so developed that my mind attempted to associate reality with fiction.
I was careful not to regard Geanie's likeness like I would have the character herself.
It is a testament to the power of imagination and of engrossing writing that one can have an automatic response to someone that isn't even real. She reminded me of someone I know -- someone I know from a good book.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Picket Fences
I'm currently engrossed in Whitney Terrell's novel The King of Kings County, an account of the development of the Kansas-side suburbs of Kansas City that thinly veils some real players and some real tactics. The story is a "coming of age" bit about the son of an aspiring developer who becomes involved with Prudential Bowen, who is doubtlessly modeled after prolific KC real estate mogel J.C. Nichols.
The story is powerful, however, in that it makes its point in a story that has the son riding along. It doesn't pontificate directly, but it makes one think. It is an added perk that I recognize many of the areas mentioned in the book.
It is clear that Whitney and I share the same views regarding the responsibility of ones choice of residence. It is implicit in the book. It is expressed in this quotation I found from an interview:
“The idea that just because you don’t know how your neighborhood was formed ... doesn’t mean that you aren’t an active participant in a society or a city that has chosen to divide itself up that way. I guess the argument would be that Kansas Citians and Americans know how segregation works, and in public they’re against it, but in private, in the way that they buy their houses, they still enforce that old system.”
Buy the book. Read the book. Enjoy the book.
The story is powerful, however, in that it makes its point in a story that has the son riding along. It doesn't pontificate directly, but it makes one think. It is an added perk that I recognize many of the areas mentioned in the book.
It is clear that Whitney and I share the same views regarding the responsibility of ones choice of residence. It is implicit in the book. It is expressed in this quotation I found from an interview:
“The idea that just because you don’t know how your neighborhood was formed ... doesn’t mean that you aren’t an active participant in a society or a city that has chosen to divide itself up that way. I guess the argument would be that Kansas Citians and Americans know how segregation works, and in public they’re against it, but in private, in the way that they buy their houses, they still enforce that old system.”
Buy the book. Read the book. Enjoy the book.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Journalism Found Dead After 41 Hours
I picked up a copy of the paper from the coffee shop on Wednesday because I was struck by the headline: "12 Miners Alive After 41 Hours." I knew from NPR's Morning Edition that morning that the headline was incorrect.
I can't imagine the process that the families of these miners went through. First, optimism that they could reach the miners quickly. Then, when poor air quality indications hit, they doubtlessly began to doubt. Time passed and they may have begun to come to terms with what seemed more and more inevitable. They were partly ready for the news.
That whole process was cancelled out when the good news of their survival arrived. In reality, the company has indicated that they had found the miners, not that they were alive. The message was bungled and when the families began to celebrate, the press ran with the story without looking back. The Star quoted the governor and family members, saying that they "just wanted to dance."
The dance ended 3 hours later when the error was corrected, though first runs of major city newspapers like The Star, the Times and the Post led with the wrong headline. Perhaps any dance in celebration of an effective corporate media ended at the same time.
There are several reasons to mourn about this, particularly in how the irresponsibility of media has exacerbated the obvious pain that the families have dealt with. I can't help but think that we should all be mourning the fact that those miners faced the risks they faced in the first place. In 2006, we are still sending men deep underground to extract a fossilized fuel source to run our high-tech gizmos? This cheap source of energy has a higher cost than we thought, between the millions that suffer from respiratory problems from the soot we put into the air and the countless miners who risk their lives to go get the stuff out of the ground.
Perhaps it is time that our energy sources, and our news sources, join us in the 21st century.
I can't imagine the process that the families of these miners went through. First, optimism that they could reach the miners quickly. Then, when poor air quality indications hit, they doubtlessly began to doubt. Time passed and they may have begun to come to terms with what seemed more and more inevitable. They were partly ready for the news.
That whole process was cancelled out when the good news of their survival arrived. In reality, the company has indicated that they had found the miners, not that they were alive. The message was bungled and when the families began to celebrate, the press ran with the story without looking back. The Star quoted the governor and family members, saying that they "just wanted to dance."
The dance ended 3 hours later when the error was corrected, though first runs of major city newspapers like The Star, the Times and the Post led with the wrong headline. Perhaps any dance in celebration of an effective corporate media ended at the same time.
There are several reasons to mourn about this, particularly in how the irresponsibility of media has exacerbated the obvious pain that the families have dealt with. I can't help but think that we should all be mourning the fact that those miners faced the risks they faced in the first place. In 2006, we are still sending men deep underground to extract a fossilized fuel source to run our high-tech gizmos? This cheap source of energy has a higher cost than we thought, between the millions that suffer from respiratory problems from the soot we put into the air and the countless miners who risk their lives to go get the stuff out of the ground.
Perhaps it is time that our energy sources, and our news sources, join us in the 21st century.
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