Can you boil down your core beliefs to 500 words? In the 1951, Edward R. Murrow launched the radio series “This I Believe” where people did just that. The essays came from luminaries like Eleanor Roosevelt and Albert Einstein and ordinary folks like 16-year-old Elizabeth Deutsch from Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Last Christmas, my mom gave me the “This I Belive” book, a collection of essays from the 1950s and today. I read a few essays, tossed the book aside and forgot about it.

A few days ago, I found the book in one of the many “piles o’ stuff” in my room. On a second read, I was moved by “An Honest Doubter,” the 1950s essay by 16-year-old  Elizabeth Deutsch. I admire her courage to doubt, her youthful wisdom and her depth of spirit. Here is her opening paragraph (source: www.thisibelive.org).

At the age of 16, many of my friends have already chosen a religion to follow (usually that of their parents), and are bound to it by many ties. I am still “free-lancing” in religion, searching for beliefs to guide me when I am an adult. I fear I shall always be searching, never attaining ultimate satisfaction, for I possess that blessing and curse – a doubting, questioning mind.

The next essay  “Have I Learned Anything Important Since I Was 16?” was from Elizabeth again, written 50 years later. Now a scientist, wife and mother, she reflects on how her beliefs have evolved. It was interesting to see what remained constant, and what changed. Here are a few snippets.

I still believe most of what I wrote long ago. Many of my early traits remain, including skepticism about religious authority, curiosity about the world and the lofty desire to live a righteous life.

….

When I was young, an honest and moral life seemed like a straightforward goal. I now know that it’s not always easy to see what should be done and even harder actually to do it. Nevertheless I’m grateful that I still have some time to keep trying to get it right, and to savor each remaining day in my life.

this is why i love the fall.  and why the mountains make me smile.

 happy halloween from lynchburg, virginia!

[Digital detox returns with a vengeance. This time I unplug from technology for 10 days. My detox begins now and ends on Nov. 1, the day after Halloween.

To see my installments from last spring, click here(pt.1) or here(pt.2) or here(pt.3).]

see you in 10 days ! ! ! ! ! ! !

newspapers + declining readership + declining ad revenues + unprofitable website x recession = FURLOUGHS

this year, everybody at my company was required to take 15 days off unpaid. that equals 120 hours, and that equals $32901849028 dollars not in my pocket. OK not that many dollars, but you get the picture.

my digital camera broke in the spring, and due to furloughs, i have not yet replaced it. the following pictures were taken with a cell phone camera.

furlough = three games of dog-opoly with kid sister.

furlough = dog that inspired dog-opoly.

furlough = climbing rocks.

furlough = wispy clouds.

furlough = sunset.

furlough = fall leaves.

furlough = misty mountains.

Here’s a science story about a wetland restoration project at an industrial site in Piney River. The driving force behind the story was a local biologist’s effort to save the habitat of Virginia’s rare mole salamander — a reclusive creature that spends most of its life underground. (It comes up once a year to mate.)

Biologists, company work together to save wetlands, mole salamander

There’s an eerie silence at the edge of the quarry, where barren rock meets the forest’s end.

About 20 feet back, under a canopy of willow oaks and red maples, lies the breeding ground of one of Virginia’s rarest amphibians: the mole salamander.

In 15 to 20 years, as the Boxley Materials Company mines rock for sidewalks and roads, the quarry edges in Nelson County will extend into the forest, swallowing the wetlands where the salamanders reproduce.

Destroying the wetlands doesn’t sit well with leaders at Boxley, a Roanoke-based company whose site in Piney River is one of 15 locations in the state with reproducing populations of mole salamanders.

“Being environmentally friendly is one of our visions. It’s part of what drives us as a business,” said Donald Barricks, superintendent of the Piney River location.

Nor does it sit well with a pair of scientists: Mike Hayslett, a conservation biologist from Sweet Briar College, and Tom Biebighauser, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service.

The mole salamander is designated a “species of special concern,” according to the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. Though it’s not endangered, it could become so because of population decline or loss of habitat.

In September 2007, the biologists joined forces with the industrial company to build a new wetland outside the range of quarry expansion.

Click here for the rest.

Journalism schools are reporting increasing enrollment numbers, yet newsrooms across the country are shrinking due to layoffs and hiring freezes. Where are these newly trained journalists going to work? How can we channel their grit and digital savvy into meaningful journalism?

The traditional newspaper career ladder is disappearing. It’s becoming more and more difficult to work your way up from a small paper to a major metropolitan daily within 5-10 years. The old model is failing and there is no clear picture as to what the new media model should be.

My friend at the Poynter Institute, Mallary, recently led an online chat with Andrew Donohue, editor of the VoiceofSanDiego.org, a nonprofit news site. Click here for the transcript.

It’s inspiring to see innovators in the journalism industry finding new ways to produce quality journalism. We need more people willing to take risks and finds new ways to rise above the status quo that has become standard in so many newsrooms.

Let me take you inside the writer’s lair, the place where words come out of hibernation and take shape on the page.

The picture above is of my cubicle at The News & Advance. The newroom is housed in the middle of the building, between the administrative offices and the pressroom. Its the windowless nerve center where stories are written and edited, pages are laid out, phone calls are made, deadlines are met. (I don’t know why I wrote that previous sentence in passive voice. Those activities are quite active indeed.) The low cubicle walls are meant to encourage dialogue and collaboration between co-workers. The biggest downside to the newsroom is the lack of windows. If I crane my head approximately 160 degrees to the right, an action more natural to owls than to humans, I can glimpse sunshine pouring through the glass doors at the front entrance. Other than that, it’s the yellow gleam of floursencent lights.

Apropos:
The geography of my work is rich and varied. You can’t tell that from looking at my cubicle.

My job allows me to leave the newsroom upwards of 50 percent of the time. It has lead me up mountains, down rivers, into the forest, to the tops of buildings, across bridges, down winding country roads. My job has led me to churches, hospitals, restaurants, mosques, schools, synogogues, mansions and shacks.

I am so grateful to have a job that takes me to all these places. And of course these places mean nothing without the people who inhabit them and the stories they tell.

This is a picture of the desk where I write in my room. The biggest difference is typewriter instead of computer keyboard. (I also write by hand.) Also, notice the candle light and strategically placed window.