This I believe ...

“Death Valley? Are you serious?” my girlfriend asked. “What could there possibly be in Death Valley that you’d want to see?”

“I don’t know, but I want to find out.”

This was how my cross-country road trip from California to Minnesota began. I couldn’t have envisioned, at the time, what lie ahead, but I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to find out.

The sun was rising as we drove into Death Valley that April morning, and in the slanted rays of dawn, the land was as pale as a corpse. Save the muted yellows and browns that color the hills, the land appeared bled of color. Tawny mountains surrounded the tabletop-flat valley, crouching on the horizon like enormous camels of rock, with myriad arms and legs emerging from the crags.

The early morning chill stilled the valley. Nothing stirred. The land was sucked free of sound. The growl of an approaching car could be heard for miles.

More wondrous than the absence of life on this scab of cracked earth, was the existence of it. The varieties were manifold: On a nearby hillside bighorn sheep, so emaciated and drawn that their ribs were visible through the snarl of matted fur, clacked across a field of sharp-edged rock. Finger-length fish wriggled about a scalding trickle of water snaking across the desert. More curious still were the wildflowers blooming across the desert floor. These brilliant, yellow survivors appeared so delicate that they might wither at the touch. In spite of the sun-scorched desert days, frigid night, winds that could bow an oak and a climate so arid it feels like inhaling cotton, they flourished.

Death Valley turned out to be the highlight of our trip across the West. The land was so magnificently bizarre that it was as if it had been plucked from one of Lewis Carroll’s reveries. The inscrutable mysteries of valley life and the absolute tranquility of the land stirred my imagination and my girlfriend’s as well.

“I would never have guessed Death Valley was so beautiful,” she said.

Few people do, I imagine. That’s a shame.

But that’s why I believe in exploring.

Prejudices and false impressions too often cause us to miss all the wonderful things the world has to offer. But when you open your mind to the possibilities and explore, you can discover some pretty magnificent things.

To hear the author reading his essay go to:

Gabcast! This I believe #1




To learn more about NPR’s This I Believe project go to: This I believe

This fish tells one heck of a story

Don't let this be the one that got away. Stanley Fish, a distinguished academic, dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and author of 10 books, writes a blog for the New York Times about politics and current events.

The blog, as it should, goes beyond the realm of typical mainstream media fare and provides thoughtful commentary on topical issues. His incisive blogs deftly blend the probing, analytical mind of an academic with the scintillating prose of an accomplished writer. His commentary is smart and clever and often employs cutting wit. Despite his lofty credentials, his style and voice is accessible. As a result his blog, I believe, caters to a wide and diverse readership.

The columns help readers deconstruct the politics and spin that pervade media today and help people put a frame on the issues of the day.

Take for instance his column on the Don Imus firing:

"Early on in the Don Imus firing controversy I took an abstinence pledge, vowing never to write anything about it. I now go back on that pledge, not because I have anything to say, but because there isn’t anything to say, although almost everybody in the world has been saying a great deal. What I mean is that there are no serious issues that might be appropriately – as opposed to opportunistically – attached to this incident. The story should not be filed under 'free speech' or 'racist speech' or 'the culture of indecency' or 'double standards'; it should be filed under 'blunders with unexpected consequences' ...

"In Mr. Imus’s case, what followed his disparaging of the Rutgers women basketball players was unanticipated not because he had intended no insult, but because intending insults has always been his line of work, and he had no reason to believe that this five-second instance of his ordinary practice would bring everything crashing down. Many commentators have said that Imus should have distinguished between his usual targets – Hollywood celebrities, politicians, sports icons – and 10 innocent and vulnerable young women. But this criticism assumes that behind what Imus said over the years was some kind of social or moral or philosophical calculation. There was nothing at all behind his daily performances; he was just occupying a professional niche – Don Rickles with a network – and doing exactly what he was paid to do."

I don't typically read many blogs during the day, but this one is a staple. Try reading it yourself and you'll get hooked too.

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/

A shortage of drummers

Is it true black people have an extra muscle in their calves?

Is it true you can tell the nationality of an Asian by the slant of their eyes?

What’s the typical night like in an African American home?

The questions sound conjured from a less-enlightened era, an era of ignorance and prejudice when Jim Crow was the law of the land and Separate but Equal was the country’s official creed. Sadly these are the curiosities of today’s enlightened society, having been posted on a race-related Web site. They are questions and sentiments that Leonard Pitts deals with on a daily basis.

Pitts, a Miami Herald Columnist who won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for social commentary, delivered the University of Oregon’s annual Ruhl Lecture, speaking eloquently and effectively about America’s “great conundrum” – race. Racism and ignorance thrive even today, Pitts said. “You cannot know unless you’ve experienced it (racism) how frustrating it is,” he said.

Pitts, who regularly writes about race in his syndicated column, related today’s situation with the slavery-era drums of centuries past. “The drum was the thing that connected us to one another … the way we told the stories that reminded us of who we were …” he said. “In the United States, in 2007, the sound of those drums is brought to us by the media. That’s where our stories are told.”

As evidenced by the above questions, it appears the media is drumming quite softly. Pitts challenged the crowd, which included a large contingent of journalism school faculty and students, to take up the mantle of leadership on the issue.

“As journalists, we are privileged to be the gatekeepers,” Pitts said. “We determine who’s drums will be heard.”

As an institution, journalism must listen for and describe the drumbeat of the races if we hope to erase the intolerance and ignorance that pervades our society.