Ravenweb Blog

If you have to pick one desert island, all time favorite first sentence of a novel, what would you choose? Though deceptively simple, I always think of the opening of Melville's Moby Dick when I consider memorable first sentences. It's the utility and purposely vague phrasing -- just three words, but a sentence that absolutely sets the stage for the rest of the novel: "Call me Ishmael."

I first learned about Joel Salatin from the 2008 documentary Food, Inc. Salatin was one of the farmers featured in the film extolling the virtues of local food. Fortunately, I had an opportunity to hear him speak earlier this year , and learn more about his Virginia farm and strident beliefs about community-based agriculture. After his talk, I picked up a copy of his book, Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal , and I'm pleased to report it's one of the best things I've read so far this year. Call it the book Michael Pollan would have written if he had been a farmer. Much more than a rallying cry for local food, Salatin illustrates in painstaking detail the everyday bureaucracy and issues with the entrenched industrial food system. He writes about how the system is setup to favor big agribusiness and not the small farmer or the consumer, and the many obstacles small, local farmers face from burdensome regulations. Zoning, wildlife, farm labor and housing, insurance, t...

I really wanted to see Waiting for Superman when it came out in theaters, and I finally had a chance to see it a few weeks ago. That I ended up watching it the day before the Oscar's was coincidence, although I was shocked that the film wasn't even nominated for Best Documentary. A lot has already been written about the movie, so I'll stick to my immediate impressions, which I logged right after seeing the film: The American public school education system is broken. We now lag the other major powers in student performance. Good teachers are vitally important, but unfortunately there aren't enough of them and there are too many mediocre and bad teachers. Even worse, bad teachers are almost never fired. We don't measure teacher performance well enough. We need some way of rewarding excellent teachers. Some public schools are essentially "dropout factories". Charter schools have arisen as a viable alternative to public schools. If you're an ...

I was in the bookstore this evening, and there were a number of displays featuring famous works by prominent black authors. The spread included titles by Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. While all of these writers are great -- and I encourage you to read them all -- it got me thinking about which black authors and titles by black authors I would recommend. After some deliberation and a decision to focus on lesser-known and genre writers, I came up with the following short list of recommended titles by black authors. Happy reading. The Chaneysville Incident by John Bradley The Chaneysville Incident is a well-honed and affecting story of historian John Washington's attempt to discover what happened to thirteen runaway slaves in Chaneysville, Pennsylvania. The protagonist's efforts to reconstruct the past elevate the narrative, through various rhetorical devices and an interesting contrast that plays out thr...

I was fortunate enough to get to hear Joel Salatin speak to about 100 people in Buffalo, NY, about the local food movement. If you're unfamiliar with Salatin, he is an award-winning farmer and engaging speaker and was famously featured in the film, Food Inc . This evening he was in top form as he talked passionately about the many benefits of organic, local food. Organic food, he declared at one point in response to a question from the audience, could indeed feed the world. Many thanks to the organization Edible Buffalo for sponsoring the event and Daemen College for providing the venue.

At last, an empty work inbox:

To all my extended colleagues and connections, Many of you already know, but I wanted put up a short post to announce that Friday, January 28 will be my last day at Moog , and I'll be starting a new full-time position with my parent company ( the Superior Group ) next week. I'm excited about my new position. In my new role for Superior, I’ll be working as Brand and Business Innovation manager for the company and be responsible for the creation, development, and maturation of new ideas and driving innovation for the business. I’ll also lead initiatives as they pertain to branding, online marketing, and our intranet and public web properties. Thanks to everyone for all the support over the years and through my recent job transition.

I've selected a song for 2010 and added it to My Life Playlist . I mulled four songs before picking a winner, and enjoyed the process of reflecting on some great music from the past year. First, the winner: "Crash Years" by The New Pornographers This is Indie rock at its best. And, the three honorable mentions: "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri Raw but brimming with emotional intensity. Watch Christina Perri -- she's going to be a star. "Animal" by Neon Trees Catchy, with fast beats and a big chorus. "Boy Lilikoi" by Jónsi I'm thankful I discovered this incredibly gifted Icelandic singer in 2010. 

"Eradicating an ugly word won't erase history. And in order to learn from past mistakes, we must understand our history." So wrote one of my friends 1  in an email exchange in which we discussed The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  and the Alan Gribben NewSouth Edition that's been in the news lately -- the one in which the editors decided to eliminate the racial slurs, including the "n-word." I was bothered by the new edition when I first heard about it and then again when I engaged in some vigorous oppositional debate about it with a neighbor. According to Gribben, the "racial insults" in  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  (as well as  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ) "repulse modern-day readers" such that "this editor gradually concluded that an epithet-free edition of Twain's books is necessary today." On the surface, the intention seems laudable: make Twain's works more accessible to American schoolchildren. An...

One year ago today, on January 12, 2010, a devasting earthquake struck Haiti. For me, this was a tragedy unlike others, even of similar or greater proportions, because it was personal and directly involved my next door neighbor, Erin Lancer, who was in Haiti when the earthquake happened. Erin was there visiting with the little boy (Geoff) she and her husband (Mike) were planning to adopt. The immediate aftermath was a rush of days and efforts by her family trying to cope with the situation and help bring her back home. The local news picked up the story, and Mike Lancer posted to Facebook constantly, updating friends and family about Erin's status. Within a few days, Erin came home to Buffalo, but without Geoff, who she had to leave behind because the adoption hadn't been finalized yet. Frantic efforts followed to finalize Geoff's adoption and clear the way for him to join the Lancer's in the U.S. Politicians got involved, including Senator Chuck Schumer of NY. Then...

2010 was an eventful and transitional year for me, with highs and lows, and moments of happiness and sadness. January I started the year determined to branch out professionally from managing technical projects in the web/tech space. In an effort to make new contacts and connect with unusual suspects, I finally embraced social media, and created accounts on LinkedIn and Twitter . Gradually, I met many new, interesting people, and really became energized about work and professional networking. April In April, my mother passed after a long illness. I felt the full gamut of emotions: grief that my mother had passed, relief that she was no longer in pain, sorrow that my daughter's time with her grandmother was so short, and resolve, to go out and embrace life.   In October, on the date of her birthday, I posted some of my memories of my mother . May Toward the end of Spring, I joined the Reserve Hose Fire Company . I'd been looking for a way to give back to my communit...

In Drive , Daniel Pink challenges the old guard notions of motivation that remain entrenched in business today and still hold that people are driven primarily by external carrot and stick motivators. Examining and citing old and new research, the author contends that carrot and stick motivators actually only work in certain circumstances (with rule-based routine tasks) and people are instead strongly motivated today by some combination of the following factors: Autonomy - the desire to direct their lives Mastery - the urge to get better and better at something that matters Purpose - the yearning to do something as part of something larger than ourselves The implications of a reassembled paradigm of motivation are huge and far-reaching. In a normative workplace, everything from prescribed work schedules, fixed work processes, and performance bonuses could and should be recast if you approach motivation differently. One other note. It's worth noting that Daniel Pink writes v...

There is an early sequence in Unbowed when Wangari Maathai describes a fig tree and nearby stream where she would constantly go to fetch water. Even as a girl, Maathai relates how fascinated she was by the crystal-clear stream and all the life in the water and around it, in the shrubs, reeds, ferns, and surrounding fig tree. Later she would realize how everything was connected -- how the "fig tree held the soil together, reducing erosion and landslides," and how forests, fresh water, wildlife, everything contributed to a functional, sustainable biodiversity. Fundamentally, Unbowed , is the story of Maathai's devotion to the natural balance and sustainability she felt at a young age. The text details her education in Kenya and abroad and key role in establishing the Green Belt Movement, an environmental and communal grassroots organization based in Kenya with a primary focus on planting trees and combating deforestation. The book details Maathai's many struggles a...

Our snow-covered backyard, courtesy of an intense band of lake effect snow:

There are a number of Thanksgiving songs, but few that I enjoy that much or that are universally recognized. Hankering for some distinct Thanksgiving rock/pop music, I made my own playlist of songs that express "thanks" or "thank you" in the title or lyrics. It's a start, but I would love to add to the list. So please suggest other songs in the comments. "Kind and Generous" - Natalie Merchant "Thank God for the Bomb" - Ozzy Osbourne "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" - John Denver "Thanks That Was Fun" - Barenaked Ladies "Thank U" - Alanis Morissette "Thank You" - Dido "Thank You" - Led Zeppelin "The Thanksgiving Song" - Adam Sandler  "Thnks fr th Mmrs" - Fall Out Boy Happy Thanksgiving!

Zombies are nothing new, of course. From the seminal Night of the Living Dead and its many imitators to more recent reincarnations, in film, books, and video games, including Shaun of the Dead , the Resident Evil video game and movie series, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies , and Zombieland , zombies resonate strongly with readers, gamers, and movie-goers today, as much as any other horror figure, even the vampire. To this tradition, you can add Amelia Beamer's entertaining and hip The Loving Dead . The novel achieves that all too rare measured treatment of subject matter that too often ends up over the top. A modern retelling of the zombie apocalypse, The Loving Dead starts off as an ordinary, plausible story about young people in San Francisco and then shifts when one of the characters gets sick and turns into a zombie. As the infection spreads and more and more people become zombies, Beamer keeps the focus on a small group of characters, who head to Alcatraz in a desperate ef...

Dear Random House , My daughter absolutely loves your Step into Reading toddler book Super Friends: Flying High . Unfortunately, as of this writing, there are no other Level 1 Step into Reading superhero books in the series and few books overall featuring strong female heroines. I think it would be really great and empowering if you followed up the first book with a Level 1 Super Friends book featuring Wonder Woman. I know, there are Barbie and Disney Princess titles, but I believe Wonder Woman is galvanizing in ways those characters aren't. And  Wonder Woman has a new look and costume that is well-suited for a new generation of girls. I tried to send you feedback about this using your Feedback link but the form did not submit correctly. Then I considered pitching the idea to you, but you made it quite clear on your FAQs that you only deal with agents. "Like most big publishers, Random House only accepts manuscripts submitted by an agent--the volume of mat...

Have you ever had to work around a company rule or policy that prevented you from doing your job effectively? Ever used non-company software and tools to get things done? Or reached out to a co-worker to skirt a dumb work process? If so, than Hacking Work is your kind of book. Hacking Work is all about the rising tide of benevolent hacking at work and the people who bypass corporate-centered systems in favor of efficient, user-centered approaches. The text is not anti-work or anti-business. On the contrary, it's about saving business from itself and reintroducing effeciency and human innovation back into the workplace. Because, ultimately, if your organization is not as effective and flexible as it can be, a competitor down the street or across the world will be. Fortunately, the maturation of available software today, including loads of free, open-source options and the proliferation of social media, make it easier than ever to introduce hacks that create efficiencies and be...

My story Costumed won the 13th Annual Saugus.net Halloween Ghost Story Contest . The story has been posted on the Saugus.net site and on my site at www.ravenweb.net/writing/costumed/ (different formatting and background color).

Today would have been my mother's 72nd birthday. While she passed earlier this year, she's still very much with me. As I celebrate her birthday and life today, I thought it fitting to share some of my memories of her with others. The following was originally presented as a eulogy at my mother's funeral on April 6, 2010. ## The temperature was 81° degrees when I got to the hospital on Friday afternoon, shortly after I received a call that my mother’s condition had taken a serious turn for the worse. It felt like a collision of opposites: my mom on her deathbed and a beautiful and unseasonably sunny day. But then I remembered how much my mother used to love being outside and it all began to make sense. Whether it was planting or pruning, weeding or walking, or just enjoying the sunshine or a mild breeze, my mom came alive when she was outside.  So it was no surprise that my mother’s last day was also the warmest day of the year to date. It was as if the Earth and all of...