WILLblog

This massive Bur Oak lives in the front lawn of the Natural History Building on the corner of Green Street and Matthews in Urbana. According to Geography Professor Bruce Hannon, it's the oldest living thing on the University of Illinois campus. Now 200 years old, the tree "was a sapling when the prairie fires swept easterly across what is now Champaign, routinely consuming everything before them," says Professor Hannon. "The wetlands that became the campus subdued these fires, allowing only the hardiest trees to survive. The Boneyard creek stopped the spread of the fire and allowed the Big Grove to flourish beginning in what is now downtown Urbana, and spread eastward. Only remnants of that grove remain, along with our most famous tree. It is important to learn the impact on the landscape we have had over that last 200 years. This living survivor provides us with a starting point."

You can help celebrate Earth Day and a Bur Oak Birthday Party at 4 pm this Friday, April 27th at the tree itself. The Grand Prairie Friends will present landscape drawings, and give away Oak seedlings with growing instructions. Growing things that last: what a good idea!

Labels: Earth Day

President Bush made himself available for an extended interview with Jim Lehrer on the Newshour on PBS today, which is airing here in Champaign-Urbana as we speak. The subject is (surprise) Iraq. The President was disappointed that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "fumbled" the execution of Saddam Hussein in such an indignified way...and of course there are a few other problems too.

How exactly do you conduct a dignified execution? Never mind, I don't think I want to know.

Anyway, here's the archive page for this interview from the Newshour, complete with audio links:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/politics/bush-interview_01-16-07.html

I love the Spanish language. One of the things I love about it is the subtle variations of meaning provided by all those verb tenses. Then you have these standard ways of saying things like "It broke on me" which in English would be "I broke it."

Speaking of breaking things, President Bush spoke last night (in English) about how things are going in Iraq. He proposed a new set of steps which includes sending more than 20,000 additional troops. He said mistakes were made...borrowing easily from the lovely Spanish-style passive verb syntax.

But as always, I could be wrong so don't listen to me, listen to the President himself, presented here without filters:

streaming RealAudio

MP3 download

I love voting on Election Day, I truly do. I wear that little 'I Voted' sticker like a badge of honor, like a silent-but-deadly public scolding to all those citizen-slackers out there who can't bother to make a few holes in a punchcard (or whatever...for me this year it was fill-in-the-little-circles). I know, I know, many non-voters don't pay enough attention to make an informed electoral choice, so they feel they're not qualified. Or they think "Why even bother?"

The only answer I have is to take a good look at what's happening. Our communities, our nation, and this miracle we call Earth need our engaged attention. Look at the races that are decided by a few votes, and in one recent case, by a single vote. Then tell me your vote doesn't matter.

But that's not why I'm writing this. I want to rant about something else entirely. Let me share with you a few pictures of my election day voting experience. This is the Hays Center in Champaign, which for years has been my polling place. A lovely little Park District facility three blocks from my house. And it's good that I know it so well because, well, it's not exactly endowed with prominent polling place signage.

We see here a door in the back of the building with a small sign. The doorway is, shall we say, adorned with the colours of autumn. Basically it's choked with leaves, like no-one could be bothered to clean it up and make the place findable, let alone presentable. Here's a closer look.


I know I'm not making any friends with the County Clerk in pointing this out, but that's not my job. I also acknowledge that the Champaign County polling seemed to go very smoothly indeed (take that Mark Sheldon!). Here's my point: We should not only vote, but celebrate the act of voting. It should be a day of enthusiastic expression of what it means to live in a free country. I'm not asking for a parade, but merely a sense of aesthetics. If we care so little about the look and feel of democracy, how can we expect everyone to embrace it?

Who can give you the inside scoop better than someone who actually works there? John Hodgman has been a contributor to This American Life, which airs on AM 580 Saturdays at 1 pm and Sundays at 6 pm. He's also a contributor to Comedy Central's The Daily Show and the nerdy guy on the Mac ads. He's written a book called The Areas of My Expertise--and, seemingly, he has a lot of them--including the hobo "movement."

If you're in the mood for a good laugh--join Robert Seigel as you listen to the interview at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5764627. And then watch the video, which can be found below his photo. You'll never be able to listen to Dan Simeone or Denise Perry again without thinking of what's really happening in the WILL studio (whoops! He was visiting NPR, right, not one of the affiliates?)

Apparently today was not the best day to travel by air. I always carry lots of water on the plane, but on the bright side I guess I'll be traveling lighter.

In case you missed the U.S. official word, or simply want the access to the public record, here are audio archives of this morning's news conference on the terrorism alert for commercial flights, presented by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Streaming RealAudio | MP3 download

Lebanese perspectives on the war in Lebanon? Might be helpful for us to get them, and there are many different Lebanese perspectives. Here's a starting point on the community site kuri5hin.org. Please add suggestions about other resources for information, knowledge, and perspective.

OK, so all the Big Media have fully deployed their Crisis in the Middle East logos. We could of course wisecrack about how this is a bigger news-theme opportunity than the Michael Jackson trial, bigger even than Runaway Bride, but of course it's bigger than a news-theme and it's not funny. We had better understand it the best we can, and try to sincerely and fully address it. The implications and complications of the war in Lebanon and Israel, connected in so many ways with wars, conflicts, and contests pretty much everywhere else, must be covered as comprehensively as possible by our news media.

Too bad in most cases that's not really happening.

One case where it is happening is at the BBC, which too often makes up for the lack of coverage throughout the other English-speaking news media. Perspective, what's that? Aren't there just two sides to every story?

You might find more here at the BBC News In Depth website, which also has a Middle East Crisis logo. Sometimes, logos actually mean something.