Trolling for opinions and experience for next book

Hello everybody
I mentioned in my Feb 2 post that Sara Kate and I are working on a book about green consumer choices. Like Veggie Revolution, this book will be full of "guest commentaries" or "student voice" sections. Those are brief quotes from anybody and everybody of all ages about the subjects in the book. Right now, we're looking for comments on topics related to green choices in transportation and housing.

For example, here are two that we have on the subject of living without a car, for the new book:

"I don't have a car because I don't have my license. It's just never been convenient to get it. Ideally, I'd like to live somewhere with good public transportation, and never need a car. I guess I should get my license, so I could help drive on road trips, or drive friends' cars occasionally, but I don't really want a car of my own. Even if I could afford it, I don't want the responsibility. Or the guilt!
"Not having a car isn't too difficult. In Washington DC, it was really easy; I took the bus and metro everywhere. And in my hometown, which is a very small town, I rode my bike everywhere. It was actually good for me; I rode my bike a lot more in high school than I would have if I'd had a car. What's tough is living in a mid-sized city like Greensboro. It's not too hard to catch a ride to school with a friend, but Greensboro's public transportation system is pretty mediocre. Actually, it's awful. If I want to do anything on my own, like go to a concert nobody else wants to go to, I'm out of luck."
- Emily, age 23

"I just bought a used Honda. Originally I'd hoped to get a diesel vehicle, and either make my own biodiesel or convert it to run on greasel. But I couldn't find a reliable diesel car anywhere! They all had something weird about them, and I needed a car right away, so I could get to work. Maybe I can still do biodiesel later in life, but for now it just wasn't practical. I wouldn't want to pay to get a crappy car converted and then have to get it replaced anyway.
"It was pretty easy for me to learn about the options, at least. I know all about how to make biodiesel now, and if I wanted to have a biodiesel or greasel car, I'm sure I could do it. Obviously it would be a lot easier if we had more resources, if there were more people doing it... but what's going to make these alternative options take precedence over gasoline is those people who get out there first and do it on their own. For those first people it's hard, and there's not much support or information or resources, but it sets a precedent. It gets people talking. It shows that people are paying attention, and that we care about this stuff. We are so dependent on gasoline and finite resources... the end seems like a long way off, but it's not. So yeah, it takes some research, but look how much I know now!
"I also want to get a bike, for going short distances. Although this just isn't a biker's world, unfortunately. It's dangerous! I thought about riding Emily's bike to work when I worked just down the street, but Battleground Avneue? It's a three-lane channel of death. I'd be taking my life in my hands daily. Even with protective gear on, I wouldn't feel safe."
- Ashley, age 22

If any of you would like to send us a paragraph or two (or longer) on any of the following topics, we would love to have them. The working title of the book is The Power of Your Pocketbook: How Americans' Consumer Choices Shape the Future of the Planet. The deadline is June, the book will be out from Fulcrum in spring of 07. If you would like to contribute, we can use your first name, first and last name, or it can be anonymous. It's up to you.

Here are the subjects we need comments on:

Have you ever had to rely on mass transportation for your daily stuff - shopping, getting to work, and so on? any comments on that, good or bad?

Have you ever lived anywhere where you didn't have a car and had to walk or bike everywhere? was that a problem?

Have you lived or traveled in another country that is less reliant on cars? What is/was that like?

Do you have any personal experience with alternatives to gasoline-powered cars (hybrids, cars using biodiesel, etc.)? What was that like? Good and bad

Have you lived in any of these situations? Please describe impressions:

passive solar house

off the grid

strawbale house

rammed earth house

recycled house (an older house relocated to a new lot)

a home that shared walls and green space with neighbors (the greenest use of space - combats urban sprawl)

Is either local or organic food a priority for you? Which is more important to you and why?

Have you lived or traveled anywhere where you saw specific results of globalization, or saw impoverished women working for pennies a day in sweatshops, or other examples of American corporations exploiting workers in developing nations? any anecdote or image appreciated, or a tirade. Either one.

Or if you would like to comment on something I didn't specifically ask, but is related, feel free. The gist of what we're getting at, in the sections on transportation and housing, is how Americans use more than our share of resources and energy by relying heavily on gas-guzzling cars, and and by heating and cooling our buildings inefficiently. Among other things.

If you want to write something, you can send it to me directly at skneidel@earthlink.net, or post it as a response to this blog entry. If you post, please include your email address, in case we need to contact you with a question.

Thanks a lot!
Sally

Resource list of research sites and news sources

Here we have a long but very valuable list of resources that will link you directly to vast stores of information. If you're working on an article and need instant reference to facts or figures, check this index - most likely your information can be found here.

Developed by the Poynter Institute

Index Recommended search engines and directories Learning to search the Web Journalism tools sites Computer-assisted reporting examples Reference tools Specialized directories, databases and info sites Business Campaign and political donations Charity Crime Disasters Education Experts Government info and legal documents Health International Internet Kids Military News, newspapers and facts about newspapers People, place and time Public opinion Public records databases Religions Traffic Recommended search engines and directories (index) Altavista.com. This is the sole search engine on the Internet that provides users the opportunity to do free-form Boolean search in its Advanced Search AND in its Basic Search. To learn how to conduct Boolean searches, click on the Help link on the bottom of the site and then Search. Spend extensive time on learning the Special search terms. Altavista has also provided strong search power for images, audios and videos. If you think this is not good enough, it translates between English and eight foreign languages for free. Altavista has been my favorite engine since 1996. Google.com. Google has gradually become an extremely popular search engine in the last three years or so to the point that many users would say "Let's Google" when they want to do searches on the Internet. Some of its great features, however, are not fully known to the public. For instance, after you have searched a keyword on the Web, you can click on the News tab to find out what the news has said about this keyword. To learn more about Google search, click on Google Help Central. HotBot.com. If you think you have exhausted all what you can find about a topic in other search engines, chances are you will be able to find more in HotBot. Also, the results are accurate most of the time. Many professionals like HotBot more than other search engines. Yahoo.com. Yahoo has hired hundreds of volunteers to categorize all the sites registered with it. Yahoo is still one of the favorite sites from which people want to find information. The pitfall is that, if a site has not been registered with Yahoo, chances are Yahoo cannot find it because Yahoo is a Web directory, not a search engine. Metacrawler.com. Unlike other search engines, Metacrawler is a meta search engine and searches 12 search engines and Metacrawler search partner network apart from its own directory. This fact makes it very powerful. The Internet Sleuth: This is an interesting metasearch engine. Learning to search the Web (index) BARE BONES 101: A basic tutorial on searching the Web. Web searching: a tutorial on search strategy and syntax: This site is sponsored by PowerReporting. It provides extensive explanation about search engines, directories and Boolean search. A comparative chart of search engines is available. Searching the Internet: Recommended Sites and Search Techniques: A library site. Good information and exercises. Web Search Strategies: It provides a tutorial on Web search. Journalism tools sites (index) Computer-Assisted Reporting Bibliography: Don't be misled by the word Bibliography. This page from the Poynter Institute contains both links to online CAR sites and articles, syllabi and books on CAR. Megasources: A source-specific list of Web sites, compiled by Canadian journalism professor Dean Tudor. Wired Journalist: Newsroom Guide to the Internet: This site from the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) has a large collection of Web sites by subject under Online Resources for reporters to find beat information. FACSNET: This is a marvelous site that introduces creative ideas to journalists for reporting, such as finding the living using graveyards or finding people using vehicle registration. The sites aims at improving journalism through education. Gary Prices's List of Lists: The List of Lists is a database of ranked listings of companies, people and resources freely available on the Internet. JournalismNet: This site provides massive search power for diversified stuffs. This is a must site for CAR students. Journalism.org: Research, Research and Ideas to Improve Journalism. I especially like their tools for journalists. National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR): This site contains a Resource Center that carries more than 19,000 investigative stories, 1,700 tip sheets, reporting guides and beat sources. It also has a Database Library. You can access government databases and data analysis. However, NICAR charges you for accessing all the materials. This fact makes the site less useful to viewers who do not want to pay. The Tampa Tribune Computer-Assisted Reporting Home Page: This is probably the best site for searching for information about Florida. J-Lab: J-Lab is an innovative project from The Institute for Interactive Journalism, University of Maryland. If you want to learn how to do budget reporting, this site can give you a lot of help. The J-Files @ VCU: This is a good resource site. I especially like their Search Tips page and Government Data page. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication: AEJMC is the world's largest organization for journalism scholars. Every year, professors and students in journalism and mass communication present their original scholarly work to the summer annual conference. Since 1997, all such presentations are achieved. The full-text achieve is accessible to the general public. If you need research findings and research ideas, this is one of the best databases to go for help. American Society of Newspaper Editors:ASNE's Archives page is very useful for research findings and ideas. E-Mail Lists for Journalists: If you want to spread ganged e-mails, this page contains a lot of e-mail lists for your to use. CAR TALK: This page provides a quick review of CAR. Cyberjournalist.net: MSNBC's Jonathan Dube's site includes tons of search engines, online news and journalist resources. Computers and News 2003. This site is sponsored by School of Communication, University of Miami, in the form of an online news and computer-assisted reporting research project. The site contains research papers on CAR. These papers are good background readings. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: This is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free legal assistance to journalists since 1970. There is a lot of news about journalists and good advice to journalists. For instance, the following sub-sites are very useful to any journalists: Access to Electronic Records — A state-by-state guide to obtaining government data, Access to Places — Do you have a right to gather news? Photographers' Guide to Privacy, Can We Tape? — A Practical Guide to Taping Phone Calls and In-Person Conversations in the 50 States and D.C., and Access to Juvenile Courts — A Reporter's Guide to Proceedings & Documents in the 50 States & D.C. Computer-assisted reporting examples (index) CAR examples: At this site, you will fine five stories written by journalism students using CAR. Reference tools (index) Dictionary.com: Over the last couple of years, I rarely checked a paper dictionary. This is my default site to go to find the meaning of a word. Britannica: Britannica Encyclopedia is the most authoritative encyclopedia in the world. It is free. You can find all sorts of established information. Megaconverter2: This is a marvelous site that converts one measurement to another. You got to try it. A similar site is Online Conversion. Cost-of-Living Calculator: You can find out how $100 in, say, 1932, is worth now in, say, St. Louis. Sun or Moon Rise/Set Table for One Year: If a photographer wants to know what time the sun goes down or the moon comes up on a particular day in a year, this is a good site to go for such information. Specialized directories, databases and info sites (index) Business (index) U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission: This site lists hundreds of recalled products, which could cause safety problems. The Dismal Scientist: This site provides useful data and tools such as State, Metro and Zip Code Profiles, World GDP Rankings, Stock Market Calculator, Layoff Calculator, Mortgage Calculator, etc., to assist business reporting. The Most Powerful Executive Compensation Online Searching Tool: Want to know how much Bill Gates earns each year? You can find more big names's earnings from this site. If you need to corroborate the findings from this site, go to AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch site, which provides similar information. U.S. Securities Exchange Commission's EDGAR database: You can virtually access every document the publicly traded corporations have filed with SEC. Campaign and political donations (index) Opensecrets.org: This is one of the best site for you to know who gave and who received money in political campaigns both on the Federal and state levels. Follow the Money is a similar site for finding out who are influencing state lawmakers. PoliticalMoneyLine allows you to key in a zip code to find out who is contributing to whom. It is linked to 527 databases. You can find more campaign contribution information at the Federal Election Commission site. The Center for Public Integrity tracks conflicts of interest involving state lawmakers in every state and the legislation that comes before them. Tracks funding for state ballot initiatives, much as other sites track elections http://www.ballotfunding.org/. Charity (index) GuideStar–The National Database of Nonprofit Organizations: If you need to know where the money goes from every charity and what each charity does, this is the best site to go. A charity that takes in $25K has to file an I-990 form, most of which are now viewable online. You need to sign up (free). Crime (index) USACOPS: Find the Chief of Police and phone number of a police department in the United States. USA Department of Corrections: A list of departments of corrections from all states, from which you can find stats about offenders, inmates and find specific information about an inmate. Most Wanted: A list of people most wanted by specific divisions of the U.S. Department of Justice. Most Wanted: A list of terroists and fugitives most wanted by FBI. National Criminal Justice Reference Service: You can search abstracts or fulltexts about crimes and law enforcement from 1,500 publications. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children: Search for missing children in states. U.S. Map of Hate Groups: From here you can track U.S. hate groups such as KKK, Neo-Nazi, Racist Skinhead, Christian Identity, Neo-Confederate, Black Separatist and more. Campus crime stats: Find out how safe a U.S. campus is. Search Systems: This is an overwhelmingly useful site from which you can find various information about legistators, sheriffs, state bar, criminal defense lawyers, trial lawyers, supreme court opinions, inmates & offenders, missing children and adults, most wanted and wanted persons, sex offenders and sexual predators, traveling criminals, stolen items, Disasters (index) CBS News Disaster Links: The motherload of disaster planning contacts and information. Disaster Finder: A Who's Who of disaster resources, from comets that could hit the earth to how to deal with animals when you have a big fire, earthquake or hurricane. Wunderground: Live weather radar-every NEXRAD sweep in the country. The National Aviation Safety Data Analysis Center: This site is sponsored by The Federal Aviation Admonistration (FAA) and is an authoritative site for analyzing flying accidents. Aviation Safety Network: Fantastic resource for covering crashes. It often even has a schematic drawing of the crash site and quickly tracks the safety records of that kind of airliner. It also has an Aviation Safety Database, from which you can find aviation disasters since 1943. A similar site is AirSafe.com, from which you can search U.S. airlines accidents by aircraft model. Landings.com: Aviation, Trains, Truck and Bus Crashes, Cruise Ship Contacts. A plane crashed in my area. I need information quickly. This is the best site to go. it helps to identify problems with airlines and with individual planes. This powerful site will give you pilot backgrounds, aircraft safety records, specific maintenance records of planes (if you have a tail number) and tons of other details. Get familiar with this one-you will use it. http://www.faa.gov/ is a helpful site too. Airliners.net: Get pictures of thousands of commercial airplanes listed by N number. Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis: This is the best site for investigating train crashes in history. United Motorcoach Association: Investigate the inspection background and crash history of a commercial trucking or bus line. Education (index) Education World: For information about any topics in education, Education World is an authoritative site. It is hooked up to 500,000 Web resources. National Education Writers Association: For education beat reporters, the Information Center on this site provides useful links to new research and government and education resources. SearchEdu.com: Don't be fooled by the name. This is a valuable search site. Under this site, you can search anything about education. Right under the search box, you can find SearchMil.com, which allows you to search over 1 million military pages indexed and ranked in order of popularity; SearchGov.com, which allows you to search anything from different levels of governments; SearcheBooks.com, which allows you to search keywords carried in thousands of full-text online books. On top of such a wealth of information, you can also search Webster Dictionary, Webster Thesaurus and Britannica Encyclopedia. Experts (index) ProfNet: How can a journalist easily find a professor who can answer you questions? This site provides free services to journalists. You need to register. COS Expertise: This site provides convenient access to professors with special expertise. No registration is needed. Sources and Experts: This expert site is compiled and maintained by Kitty Bennett, a news researcher from St. Petersburg Times. It contains sites that are useful for one-stop shopping for experts on a wide variety of topics; good places to look for authors and editors; and organizations arranged alphabetically by specialty area. About.com: Any time you need to know the context or background about a phenomenon, an object, a famous person or a phrase, you can find interesting answers from this directory, which continually generates original contents. It serves as an encyclopedia about both old and new events, things and people. Other expert sites include Ask Jeeves, Allexperts.com and ExpertCentral. Government info and legal documents (index) FIRSTGOV.gov: The U.S. Government's official Web portal. It contains all kinds of information about the government and the country for citizens, businesses, nonprofits and federal employees. U.S. Government Printing Office: This is a kaleidoscope site of government information for all three branches: Legislative, Executive and Judicial. The A-Z list gets you to different government information sites and government offices Web sites. Contacting the Congress: This is a very up-to-date database of congressional contact information for the 108th Congress. As of May 9, 2003 there are 517 email addresses (of which 413 are Web-based email homepages), and 539 WWW homepages known for the 540 members of the 108th Congress. More traditional ground mail addresses are available for all Congressmembers. Federal Communications Commission (FCC): This is a bonanza for information related to telecommunication. Under the Freedom of Information Act, FCC publishes all its proceedings, rules, and much more online, including the full text of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Congressional Budget Office: There are several bipartisan and respected sources of analysis in the federal government. This is one of them. For management issues, check out the General Accounting Office. CBO and GAO sites are both searchable. For matters of broader scope, try United States House of Representatives. Legal Information Institute: This site sponsored by Cornell Law School provides constitutions and codes, court opinions and many other legal resources. Thomas Legislative Information on the Internet: The Library of Congress gives users the opportunity to search the text of bills, committee reports and other documents. Articles from the Congressional Record can be searched as well. The Smoking Gun: This site specializes in finding actual documents from court filings, government archives and FOI requests. Health (index) Medical World Search: For any information about medicines and medical practices, this comprehensive site can provide most up-to-date information. Redflagsdaily.com: A very aggressive site run by a former ABC News Health writer. The site often takes on conventional wisdom and what it calls "press release journalism." State Health Facts Online: State by state including % uninsured, HIV-AIDS and more. Healthwatch: Topical health stories of the day from CBSNEWS.com. Medscape: You choose the areas you want to search. Intelihealth: From Harvard. Kids Health issues: Updated daily- excellent and easy to use Who is dying from what: The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality weekly report Nursing Homes: This site, sponsored by Medicare, allows you to check all kinds of information about a licensed nursing home in the United States. Environmental Organization Web Directory: (This site may not open properly in Netscape.) This site claims itself as "Earth's Biggest Environment Search Engine." It covers information from animals, government, health, pollution, to transportation. International (index) Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments: The Central Intelligence Agency publishes and updates the online directory of Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments weekly. The directory is intended to be used primarily as a reference aid and includes as many governments of the world as is considered practical. The World Factbook: This is also a CIA site. It carries information from flags of the world to geography. Internet (index) Archive: You have probably redesigned your company or university Web site three times in the last six years, and you think your old sites are long gone. What if someone tells you that you can still retrieve the older sites? You may say "Oh, my gosh!" That's what you will utter when you are at this site, which has archived thousands of old public sites over the years. You will be amazed at seeing your company's or university's old site. This is the only site of its kind. Internet Traffic Report: The Internet Traffic Report monitors the flow of data around the world. It then displays a value between zero and 100. Higher values indicate faster and more reliable connections. Lycos50: Find out what netizens are most interested in on the Internet. See the most popular search words on the web ranked every day by Lycos. MetaSpy Exposed: Monitor what key words other netizens are keying in. The screen refreshes every 15 seconds. There are a filtered and unfiltered versions. Network Solutions: This site unravels IP addresses, host or name servers to figure out who is writing or hosting what. NUA.com: This is world's leading resource for Internet trends & statistics. You can find not only information about the Internet, but also statistics or analyses about online news sites. Kids (index) Kids Count: Sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this site provides various statistics about kids. It is an annual ranking by state including maps. Military (index) Department of Defense Almanac: This is a vast resource with links to all branches of the military. DefenseLINK: This Pentagon site not only contains textual documents but also images of attacks on targets. SearchMil.com: Over 1 million military pages indexed and ranked in order of popularity. List of U.S. Navy Ships: An alphabetical list of U.S. Navy ships with their mailing addresses. News, newspapers and facts about newspapers (index) 1stHeadlines–Top Breaking News Headlines: 1stHeadlines provides a one-stop location where readers can view the latest "Breaking News" headlines from top online news sources around the world in a fast, easy-to-read format. The full-text news stories in seven categories are sortable by source and time. EurekAlert!: This is a service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. You can find news about science by subject. It alerts you to the latest scientific studies often days before they hit the wires. Lost Remote: If you have not followed the news recently, this free weekly newsletter records everything interesting or important from last week. NewsLink: If you want to find information about a particular town, usually you want to start with the newspaper(s) from that town. This site from American Journalism Review has listed thousands of Web sites of newspapers, TV and radio stations by state. It also has a Journalist's Guide to Search Engines. Newspaper Links: Just like New sLink, this site provides quick links to local and national newspapers. For more newspaper directories, go to Yahoo Newspaper Web directories. To find both U.S. and international newspapers, go to Newspapers.com. Newseum: Freedom Forum has done a great job in keeping the front pages of thousands of newspapers from all over the world. If you try to do research on newspapers, you don't want to miss this site. Newspaper Association of America: This site does not mess around. It provides various sorts of statistics about the newspapers in the United States. The interface is friendly. People, place and time (index) AnyWho: Come to this site to locate the address and phone number of a person in the United States. You can also find who owns a phone number using Reverse Lookup. The information on this site apparently is updated more frequently than other people-finding sites. Try your own name. Also try Infobel, which covers the world. IAF.net – Internet Address Finder: You can find a Web page's Internet address, a person's email address and phone number and the information about where this person lives, and many more. This is a unique site of its kind. Zip: It is for you to find the zip code of a place in the United States. Or you can use United States Postal Service to find a zip code. Yahoo Maps: Go nowhere else to find a spot or direction between two spots in the United States. This is the best. 50states.com: This is a one-stop site for you to find all sorts of basic information about the 50 states of this country, such as state flag, climate, history. It also provides links to local government offices, such as DMV and Courts. EPODUNK also provides background information on any city or town in the US. National Association of Counties: This database contains great amount of information about all counties in the United States. You can find the Web site for a county, which usually contains all kinds of information about that county. Dead People Server: The Dead People Server is a database of interesting celebrities who are long dead or newly dead. They may be "retired" or spaced. By May 2003, close to 2700 entries were found. If you want to find information about a non-celebrity dead person, you need to go to Ancestry.com. This the largest collection of family history records on the Web. However, you need to pay. The Official U.S. Time: For finding the exact current time in your time zone, no site is better than this. There is no need to call anyone or buy an expensive watch. Public opinion (index) Gallup: For public opinions, the Gallup Organization is still one of the most authoritative independent sources. The PEW Research Center also sponsors polls online, which provides a quick view of public opinion and surveys from Gallup, news organizations and PEW. PollingReport: This site shows different poll results from different news organizations. Some polls are not scientific. Public records databases (index) Search Systems: Easy to find state and national links to close to 15,000 searchable public records databases. Use this site to look up licenses for doctors, lawyers, dentists, lawn care companies, psychologists you name it. This is a gold mine! You need to pay for search some of the databases. Infomine: This is a scholarly Internet resource collection. It searches 118,510 academic valuable resources. FedStats: This site provides all kinds of statistics from more than 100 Federal agencies by geography and subject. The interface is very friendly. U.S. Census Bureau:This is the most authoritative site for census information. CensusScope: This is a portal site to Census 2002 data. There are many straightforward charts and maps to show diversified data. STAT.USA:This site is sponsored by U.S. Department of Commerce. It is a "one-stop Internet browsing for business, trade and economic information." It publishes up-to-the-minute statistics. The ODUM Institute: The Odum Institute maintains one of the oldest and largest archives of machine-readable data in the U.S. You can search for or download public opinion poll questions. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics: If you want to find information about inflation, consumer spending, wages, productivity safety and health information, this is the most authoritative site. Religions (index) BibleGateway: You can find passages or words that appear in 16 different versions of the Bible and in 28 foreign languages. This tool is especially useful when politicians or protestors try to quote verses or words from the Bible. Religionwriters.com: a resource from the Religion Newswriters Association and its Foundation. Each free, biweekly edition contains story ideas. Religionsource: From here, you can find experts on virtually any aspect of religion. More than 5000 scholars are approachable from this site sponsored by American Academy of Religion. The Internet Sacred Text Archive: This site houses many full-text sacred texts. It also addresses different religions' traditions, practices and mysteries. A similar site is Denominational and Branch News Services and Newspapers, which provides news services of various Christian denominations and other world religious organizations. Traffic (index) Trip—The Road Information Program: This site contains data about road and bridge conditions nationwide and data about the impact of traffic congestion on motorists and in regional areas throughout the country. QuickAid: Find the information about an International or U.S. airport quickly. Airport Links is a similar site. FlyteComm: Real Time Flight Tracking – see where an airplane is during flight. A remarkable mapping system that is great when you have to meet someone at an airport.

TOP

News resources

By now everyone has probably spotted the clocks at the top of the page and the environmental news tickers, by way of explanation. The first job I ever had that involved media was at KSTP TV in Minneapolis, I was in college at U of M down the street. Nights, 3 days a week, my job was to attend the bank of news tickers, called "Rip and Read." Every hour I'd cull the teletype machines for local, national and international headlines, rip them into categories and hand them over to the announcers who read the news right off the wire.

My constant and only companions in the basement of that 4-story building were the bank of clocks on the newsroom wall that marked the simultaneous procession of hours around the world. I looked for time stamps on the news wires and tried to match them up in order of last first and by time zone. I had a clipboard marked for region: London, Rome, New York, etc. and this was my file system.

Since then I have rarely seen a newsroom which could be fairly called a "real" news center unless it had that ubiquitous set of clocks on the wall. When I found these clocks, it just seemed a natural fit for our space and a reminder that we truly are a global group. We may be scattered around the world, as is our audience, but what brings us together in the end is a desire to write about the environmental challenges which affect everyone on a globe that grows smaller every day.

Here's a list I'll throw out for inspiration:

• First HN51 virus death in Iraq where a "hot" war currently wages.
• Hemp clothing - cost, mfg process
• Whale beaching
• Women's heart disease
• Veggie food mfgs - Green investing
• Florida panthers ( the animal, not the team)
• Eco friendly shampoo - people and pets
• Hair dyes: content,recurring dermatitis if beauticians,alternatives
• Deoderant: Green alternatives, mineral salts, "Toms" brand
• Recycling
• Olive oil as a moisturizer
• Biodiesel
• Salt water desal plants
• Hybrid autos - Ford Motor
• Adobe HQ goes green
• Bamboo floors, clothing, work out cloths, towels
• Sustainable housing for disaster relief areas
• Synthetic reefs
• Dole pineapple leaving Hawaii - organic vs bio engineering on the island
• Synthetic drugs vs herbal remedies - research, cost
• Paper or plastic?
• Disposal of electronics, batteries
• Walmart going green follow-up
• Environmental impact of disaster clean up NO, Pakistan, Banda Aceh, California
• Rebuilding a greener New Orleans
• Disposable society and the disappearing landfill
• Bono
• Synthetic corks replace organic cork in wine
• NASA - global warming
• Messaging history: Pony express, Western Union, Internet
• Rain water collection
• Plastic packaging and a tool to open
• Sunscreen products
• X-blade wars

Let's turn up the heat!

Good morning team. As we prepare for a long rainy weekend here in "sunny" Florida, I wanted to reach out and get everyone's creative juices flowing (no pun intended). Kathleen LaRoque has joined our team with the primary responsibility of building our advertising base. In order to attract those entities with whom we would like to be affiliated, we need to continue to build out stats and readership. To do that we need more frequent articles.

You are all gifted writers. With your energy and ability, each of you can easily take a topic a week and drive out an insightful and thought-provoking article for our readers. We have received many positive comments about Greener Magazine and know that with your talent we will only become more successful with an ultimate goal of, as Cuba Gooding said so eloquently in the movie Jerry Maguire, "showing all of us the money!"

Harlan will be posting an extensive list of topics for you to choose from. He has also added a "ticker" at the top of this whiteboard that provides some great ideas. Please scroll through and comment on which you'd like to tackle.

Our magazine is unique. Unlike other internet magazines which are merely online versions of their ink and paper publications, Greener is exclusively electronic. We also have the advantage of writers located throughout the world and we are the first to include interactive maps on our site! Thank you all for bringing your special talents and perspective to the project. Let's turn up the heat and bring in the readers!

Howdy, Greenies, Hemp, Purina, and More

Hi everybody
Nice looking blog, glad to be here.

I would really like to hear more about green investment opportunities too, also how to go about buying green energy from local power companies. Any links or leads about that would be appreciated.

Nancy, I was interested in the comments in your post about the pet treat Greenies, and about hemp. Sara Kate and I are working on a new book about how we have the power to choose which corporations we fund. It's about buying selectively, as informed consumers. Our consumer choices are more important than our votes really in shaping the future. But, anyway, any links or leads about particular pet foods and about hemp versus cotton, or other green fabrics, would be great. Or stories, people to call - any and all tips welcome.

I met somebody the other day who used to work for Purina. He told me that Purina no longer exists, it was broken up and went to Nestle, which now does all the pet chow, and Cargill, which now does all the industrial chow. Both companies kept the Purina label though because it's so familiar and popular. Both the pet chow and the industrial chow for farmed animals are composed largely of slaughterhouse waste ("meat by-products"). Does everybody know that? I've sort of lost my perspective, too immersed in this stuff. By-products include heads, organs, feet, fat, skin, chicken poop, "feather meal," bone meal, etc.

Are Greenies better than that? I don't know.

Sara Kate and I have a blog too, check it out. http://veggierevolution.blogspot.com

All for now!
Sally K

Greg's idea for Green Investing articles, and other things

I like the idea. I for one am very interested in Green Investing. I'd like to move my pathetic IRA account to a green fund, but have no clue what to do, no time and energy to go look at possibilities, don't want to get into the clutches of a broker (sorry Greg - no insult intended). I at least know what green investing is, but I'll bet lots of green minded individuals are vague about it. Some basic info and advice would be welcome, I bet.

Other things: I'm in a bit of a quandary. My site's main emphasis is vegetarian lifestyle, and although I firmly believe that vegetarianism is a key component of sustainability, and all vegetarians should be equally keen on green, I feel that I get the best response when I stay focused on veggieness. Most of my visitors seem to be beginning vegetarians, who are mainly interested in how to adapt to a vegetarian lifestyle. I never hear from anyone who wants to be green, and most of the traffic goes to recipes. I would like to put more emphasis on environmental, sustainable issues, and do get traffic to articles on those topics, but not nearly as much. I love being part of the eco-blog network, but am at a bit of a loss how to integrate the veg focus with the green. I rarely see the two connected, occasionally there's a vegan connection, but most vegetarians aren't in fact vegan. Any suggestions? Observations?

Judy

Hello All

So glad to be joining you. Have nothing to contribute, just wanted to stick my hand above the water and wave as the current carries me downstream. When I hit a sandbar or grab onto a log, then I'll be able to read thru the posts and talk - Judy

Another possible topic

Team: I took my mother to the dermatologist today. The doctor had a short article posted on his wall about avoiding rashes. One of the suggestions was to use olive oil rather than moisturizer on the skin particularly just after coming out of the shower. The doctor mentioned that applying a small amount of olive oil to wet skin would help reduce the instances of rash. A possible article for the magazine could center on why olive oil and what ingredients in moisturizers may cause rashes. Nancy

Graphically speaking

I just added a "real" whiteboard to our sidebar in case anyone prefers to chat in real time or doodle. Yes Nancy, there are games too. Give it a whirl you'll need to know the PW which I'll send you under separate cover.

If anyone knows of other tools we could add to further facilitate our conferencing, bring them in.

Thanks, Harlan

Blogger Book (Blook) contest

From our friend in London -



Contest for writers at Lulu, on-line publishing. The contest entry deadline is just six days away so it might be a little tight for this year but something to think about next time around.

Good morning Starshine

There was a song back in the '70s that started out with that line followed by "the Earth says hello". I thought it was a great way to open my first note to the team. Good morning to all of you.

I hope each of you is as excited as Harlan and me about the whiteboard concept. I work in a virtual environment regularly and the ability to share thoughts and ideas in this manner helps tremendously.

So what thoughts do I have to share with everyone today? As many of you are aware, I semi-regularly write about gardening. There are many topics that tie back to sustainability from xeriscaping to mulch products to chemical and pesticide use. How about clothing made from hemp that keeps a person just as cool as cotton and, my understanding, that it is infinitely easier to grow and process? It's not just for smokin' anymore - another throw back to the 70s.

Watching the news over the last couple of days there have been reports of recent whale deaths -one in England and two in a month on the east coast of Florida. What is the cause? Is it global warming, is it encroachment from oil mining in the states, is it chemical/pesticide related?

And, finally, how about our pets? What shampoo products do folks use and how safe are they for our pets and the environment? Do they have a warning label that refers to not getting it in your eyes? After the bath, does your pet want to scratch as if he is trying to get something off of his skin? Also, what types of treats do you give your pet and from what ingredients are they made? Are Greenies safe and are they really easy for pets to digest? How safe are those plastic-looking bone products dogs supposedly love?

Lots of food for thought, so to speak, to hopefully get your creative juices flowing. Harlan says I'm always full of ideas, at least I think that's what he means... Anyway,I'll leave you with "our early morning singing song." Have a great day everyone and we'll be looking for your thoughts and ideas posted here.