I Regret the Error

By: | January 2, 2014

correx
Happy 2014, the year after The Year We Broke the Internet.

Last week, in a gloomy essay in Esquire, Luke O’Neil wrote that publications old and new have abandoned basic reporting—and worse, their basic concern for the truth—for the sake of speed and splash. “Big Viral, a Lovecraftian nightmare … has tightened its thousand-tentacled grip on our browsing habits with its traffic-at-all-costs mentality—veracity, newsworthiness, and relevance be damned,” he wrote.

Big Viral is real—though the exact number of its tentacles has yet to be confirmed—and though it can be used for good or evil, its destructive potential is enormous. But juicy stories, real or fake, have always traveled faster than boring facts. They’ve always rewarded their tellers. They’re just traveling faster and further than ever before.

While Big Viral can’t be stopped, it may be possible to housebreak it. Journalists have suggested several excellent strategies for correcting viral errors, and clever apps such as Retwact help users chase down bogus social-media posts.

For such tools to work, though, we tweeters and retweeters need to learn—or relearn—some respect for the facts. And for that, journalism already has a pretty good hack. We just need to repurpose it for the rest of us.

Continue reading →

Holiday Review: Snail Season and Remix

By: | December 31, 2013

Tonight, if we can remember the words, we might be singing about auld acquaintance. And we have many: several People of LWON–Heather Pringle, Erika Check Hayden and Thomas Hayden–moved on in 2013 (and Virginia Hughes just before that). We miss them all.

So I thought I’d try to bring at least one of these fine folks back into the fold, if only for a day. Here’s one I wrote about snails a while back, and the slideshow response from the snails of the Hayden garden. We won’t forget any of our old acquaintances, our fine writers, our friends–but if I forgot some of those snail images, I wouldn’t mind so much. Continue reading →

Holiday Review: Closed-System Sibling Knowledge

By: | December 30, 2013

This post — a proposal which, like Erik’s, could solve a significant world problem if only anybody would listen — originally ran on March 12, 2012.

A week or so ago, I commented on an Abstruse Goose cartoon about probabilities.  My brother-the-statistician commented on my comment, taking me apart – lovingly — for missing the point.  Then I commented on his comment and said I didn’t understand statistics anyway. Then Tom commented on my comment and said he never understood what his brother-the-physicist was saying either and wondering whether it’s a math/science thing or a sibling thing.  It’s a sibling thing, I said.  Among siblings, knowledge is a closed system.  In a closed system, there’s only one pie and any of it you eat, I don’t get.  So anything my brother knows, I don’t know.

Also:  my sister can bake pies, I can bake only cakes.  Christie only does running, her sister knows football and baseball; Christie doesn’t know who’s playing the Super Bowl.  Heather loves gadgets; she gave her brother a GPS watch that sat in its box until someone else showed him how to use it.  Tom’s sister is a yogi who bends herself into unusual shapes; neither Tom nor his physicist-brother can bend over far enough to tie their shoes.  Closed-system sibling knowledge, I thought, was a subject that psychology hadn’t gotten around to yet. Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | December 29, 2013

shutterstock_10320695323 – 27 December

This week was LWON holiday review! (Translation: we give you the gift of some our favourite posts of 2013 and you give us the gift of a holiday. It’s like Gift of the Magi!)

Richard explained why his dad really is older than the universe: and what that means for the universe.

Erik revisited the nuclear-powered hyperactive killing machines that many of us call pets, and that could help solve the Yosemite Plague problem.

Christie shares her elegant and excellent rumination on why professional writers should blog.

Roberta showed us her beavers in the anthropocene.

And Helen took us back to the changed DC streets of the Shutdown.

Holiday review continues next week, with a special treat! Happy holidays all.

Holiday Review: An Open Letter to Yosemite National Park

By: | December 26, 2013
Dear Yosemite:

I am a long-time user of your fantastic park, stunning natural resources, and free public bathrooms. As a recreational rock climber, I have frequented your grounds (and used your clean and welcoming bathrooms) many times over the past 20 years, often dodging payment by coming in late at night and sleeping in odd places.

I am not a bad guy and frankly feel terrible about what I have done in my younger days as a dirtbag climber living on Butterfingers and Trader Joes “no cook” curry packets. So as recompense for all my using your bathrooms without paying entrance fees, I now offer my services in this, your current moment of crisis.

As many outlets have reported, Yosemite is in the middle of an outbreak of the fearsome, sometimes-deadly hantavirus – spread by filthy rodent poop laid down by creatures not civilized enough to use your fine water closet facilities. Obviously, you have a problem – how do you remove the vermin without poisoning (which might kill pets and children) or traps (which in my house never freaking work anyway)? The answer – get ready for it – is the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America. Yes, the obnoxious yappy creature in the movie “The Mask” who wasn’t Jim Carey and the only actor in Frasier who didn’t annoy us. Continue reading →

Holiday Review: Why Blog?

By: | December 25, 2013

On a recent episode of the literary podcast All Write Already! Susan Orlean said, “I’ve always been skeptical about the value of blogs.” While I agree with her arguments in favor of writing for pay and under the guidance of an editor, I’ve also come to believe that under the right circumstances (i.e. you are not blogging for free or amost-free to enhance some corporate entity’s bottom line), blogging can make you a better, more inspired writer. In this post, which originally ran on May 24, 2012, I explain why.

WhyBlogAschwandenMonday, we marked LWON’s second anniversary. I was not one of the original contributors to this blog, but a year ago this week, Tom Hayden invited me to contribute my first post. Since becoming an official LWON contributor last June, I’ve written almost 30 posts, about one every 12 days. For this work, I’ve received exactly zero dollars, zero prizes* and zero resume-worthy rewards.

If you’d asked me a couple of years ago whether I’d ever blog without compensation, I’d have scoffed. I have a strict policy of never writing for free. Writers who give their work away to commercial outlets piss me off, because they cheapen our profession and train publishers to expect writers to work without pay.

LWON is a worthy exception to my rule, because this labor of love exists solely on the voluntary efforts of LaWonians. None of us make any money from this site, and we are not beholden to commercial interests or outside influences. This place belongs to us. Continue reading →

Holiday Review: For his bairns, and his bairns’ bairns, and their beavers

By: | December 24, 2013

Here at LWON we’re celebrating the holiday week by bringing back some of our favorite posts. This post originally appeared in July 2013.

The Ramsay family has lived at the Bamff estate, 1300 acres of heathery hills and woodlands in eastern Scotland, for nearly eight centuries. Today, environmentalists Paul and Louise Ramsay share the property with three families of beavers. The couple brought the animals to Bamff in 2002 as part of a controversial effort to reintroduce European beavers, which hunters eradicated from Scotland some 400 years ago. I spoke to the Ramsays about dams, wetland conservation, the spread of wild beavers, and a mysterious snake potion.

How did the Ramsay family acquire the estate?

PAUL: It wasn’t acquired by violence and blows but because an ancestor in the 13th century, described in the original charter as Master Neish, was the physician to King Alexander II. He did some good service to the king, partly as an advisor.

I read that there’s a slightly more fantastical origins tale. Can you tell me the story? Continue reading →

Holiday Review: The Shutdown

By: | December 23, 2013

Here at LWON we’re celebrating the holiday week by bringing back some of our favorite posts. As the newest member of the team, I only have eight posts to choose from, so I feel a little silly kicking this off. But not silly enough to skip the party. Here’s something I wrote back in October, when things in my hometown of Washington were a bit weird. New posts will resume in 2014. (Which is next week! Yikes!)

Capitol at nightThe first I knew of it was about 11:00 Monday night. The Capital Weather Gang, a brilliant blog that was snapped up by the Washington Post a few years ago, posted on Facebook: “Have seen some reports of a fireball (large meteor) in DC area around 8:25 pm. Anyone see it?”

Comments came in. A friend saw it while driving home after a rehearsal with her teenaged daughter. “Very cool!” she wrote. Other people spoke up, reporting seeing it in Herndon, Va., and Baltimore, Md. The meteor, it turned out, entered the atmosphere over southern New Jersey and headed northwest into Pennsylvania. Its flame was visible from Virginia all the way up into New York and Connecticut. Continue reading →