Growing up on Dexter Avenue

Dexter Avenue is a short street with a long history.

At the East end of Dexter Avenue atop Goat Hill, sits the Alabama State Capitol where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the president of the Confederacy and where George Wallace declared “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

At the west end is the Court Square fountain, where Hebe, goddess of youth and cupbearer to the Gods marks the spot where Montgomery was born from the merging of two rival pioneer communities — Alabama Town and New Philadelphia.

Smack in the middle is Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. first preached of love and peaceful protest, and where the black people of Montgomery, Alabama planned a boycott that launched a revolution.

I grew up going to the church across the street, long after the flames of segregation were first dampened with defiance and eventually smothered out with law.

The Montgomery of my childhood was a vastly different city than it was for my mother or my grandmother.

I’ve never known a time without classmates, teammates and friends of different races. I can’t imagine a time when people could openly abuse others based on their skin color.

I am from a generation of Southerners who grew up in the ashes of segregation. And, it may surprise people who aren’t from the South to know how fertile that ground is.

Among my peers, I see smart, ambitious people of all races working toward goals their parents could hardly imagine.

They are first-generation college graduates. They work in high-tech industries. They travel all over the world, serving in the military and working for global businesses.

They are striving to make wise long-term decisions with their money, their time and their spirits. And, they are raising their children to reject racism and bigotry.

So, while Martin Luther King, Jr.’s great dream remains yet unrealized, I believe we are inching ever closer to it. And, I am proud to have grown up in the birthplace of that dream.

Castellers: Proof that humans are crazy and amazing creatures

I really have no words for this. Just watch:

Casteller from Mike Randolph on Vimeo.

Homepage image: Flickr, MorBCN

What’s up? Oh, just making change …

I’ve been busy lately. Very busy. In the past month, my life has taken a couple of lovely twists and turns, I’ve been to some great shows, I’ve taken on a few side projects and I’ve spent some much-needed time with my friends and family. And, there’s even more in store.

I found an excellent video earlier this week of Dr. Brené Brown speaking at TEDxHouston on the requirement of vulnerability and gratitude to live a “wholehearted” life. It was exactly what I needed to hear in the midst of all this change and growth, so I’m sharing it with you now. What changes are you making at the moment?

Homepage thumbnail: Flickr, joiseyshowaa

Please adjust your Internets …

I’m doing some blogging for The Reynolds Center over at BusinessJournalism.org. It’s mostly tips for business journalists for using the web for reporting, and a few other doo-dads. Please tune in over there for this week, and your regularly scheduled programming will resume here next week.

LSU vs. Tennessee: I feel dirty

Yeah, this happened:

This game was a debacle from start to finish. I know that other LSU fans agree with me when I say that our fanbase is moving quickly beyond uncertain and into pissed-off territory when it comes to the coaching of this team. This win made me feel dirty afterward. We truly deserved a loss.

Our offense is laughable. We have a 3-year starter under center who bears no resemblance to a D-I quarterback. We’ve won games on truly excellent defense (which we did not have before the hiring of John Chavis), great special teams and some kind of super voodoo, but we’re not really contenders, and we know it.  We need a change, instead we keep getting miracles.

I love LSU. I’m not a boo-er. But it’s plain to see that this program is sliding, and it’s not because we lack athletic talent. We “have a want for” better coaching and a better offensive game plan. We give up massive yardage on dumb penalties. The play-calling is so rote that a layperson who watches the team regularly can accurately call the next play 80% of the game.

As much as it pains me to say it, it may be the best thing for the future of this program for this particular team to lose badly down the stretch. I hope like hell it doesn’t come to that, but I don’t think our fans will stand for another season of The Wizard and The Hat.

(Homepage photo from lsureveille.com)

Raw ambition: Learning to love a (partially) raw diet

Apparently 2010 is shaping up to be the year in which I finally tackle residual health issues that I have willfully ignored for my entire life. I’ve already taken on a rigorous exercise regimen, and now, I’ve decided to radically shake up my diet. Yep, I’m trying to shift to eating mostly raw food.

The impetus for change was loud and clear. First, a good friend of ours was dealing with a recurring health issue, and switched to a raw diet. A month later, that recurring issue was under control. (Yes, I understand that correlation does not imply causation, but it’s hard to ignore those kinds of results.) Then, I got my annual physical. My doctor informed me that my cholesterol was a bit high, not dangerous, but higher than it should be. And, I’ve always been at high risk for thyroid issues and diabetes, both of which can be controlled best with diet and exercise. Finally, my partner and I went on a cruise together, which was awesome, but a total porkfest. When we got back, it was time for a cleanse. So, last week, we went raw. (Except for coffee, which you can pry out of my cold, dead hands, amigo …)

You must understand that I LOVE FOOD, and I have no moral pull toward vegetarianism whatsoever. I admire the argument and the commitment, but I don’t feel it. Seeing animals killed and knowing how inefficient meat production is has had no deleterious influence on my drive to partake of the flesh. I grew up in a town of hunters and fishermen and people who earned the money for their first cars from raising cattle, and it’s hard for me to reconcile that with the idea that eating meat is evil. I also love rare steak and crispy bacon and spicy sausage and all manner of seafood, and more than anything, cheese. So, I was prepared for the worst: boring, tasteless hippie food that would not fill me up and would leave me hungry and craving delicious meats.

But, I was wrong. Raw food is DELICIOUS. Everything I ate was fresh and yummy and actually satisfying. I also felt really energized and alert, to my surprise. Did I miss my cheese and meats? Yep, but not enough to break out of the diet before the weekend. By Friday, I realized that I should keep it up to some extent. So, the goal is to eat mostly raw from now on. I’ll try to eat raw for breakfast and lunch, and weekday dinners alone, at least. Vacations and weekends and nights out are fair game for whatever. I’m really not planning to be super-strict about this at all, but I am ready to incorporate this kind of eating into my life. I know it will be healthier, and it tastes good too.

After a weekend of enjoying “regular” food (Andrea’s mom made a paella that was so good it would raise the freaking dead.), tonight I was more than ready to get back on the raw wagon. So, there’s quinoa sprouting on my counter right now for tomorrow’s tabbouleh. The fridge is stocked with fruits and veggies and nuts for the next couple of days. And, I have a whole long list of new recipes to try. I’m looking forward to this experiment, and I’ll keep you posted about it.

If you’re interested in trying a raw diet too, here are some resources I’ve found incredibly useful:

Ani Phyo’s books: Her recipes and her style are very approachable.
And her videos
thebestofrawfood.com: This site has great tips and recipes and shopping lists, including a transition plan for people like me.
rawfoodtalk.com: People on these boards can be, well, militant, but there are plenty of  answers to noob questions here.

Some awesome projects from friends

My friends have been busy doing some pretty cool stuff, so it’s time to give them all some shout-outs!

ARGO Network & ARGO, the blog

I had the pleasure of meeting up with my friend Matt last week in Miami. I took him to Versailles and then picked his brain about work and life, which was certainly more fun for me than him. But, like many others in our industry, I find him such a forward-thinking and articulate guy when it comes to the craft of journalism that I can’t resist squeezing out all  his idea juice when I get a chance.

In addition to his usual contributions on Snarkmarket, Matt’s also mostly been hard at work on NPR’s Argo Network, and part of that means running a great blog for everyone involved. Argo, the blog is full of useful info for journalists and bloggers of all stripes on everything from new tools for reporting, blogging best practices, effective social media strategies and more.

God Loves Poetry

Kevin and Andres (South Florida Twitterati’s cutest couple?) came up with a great idea to turn hatred on its head at godlovespoetry.com. They’re using the ridiculous Westboro Baptist Church press releases to make blackout poems about love and tolerance.  The guys’ Tumblr art project came together beautifully and quickly, and it’s a great example of how easy it is to mobilize online these days. A lot of people are apparently quite happy to see that  screed put to a positive use, because God Loves Poetry is already garnering media attention.

My name is not Lisa

My friend Lori has done a really excellent hub-and-spokes presentation of her various and sundry web projects using flavors.me over at mynameisnotlisa.com. I am planning to shamelessly rip it off ASAP. As our web identities expand, it’s important to aggregate them neatly whenever possible. I’m seeing a lot of this lately, and it’s very exciting from a journalism standpoint too. Just think of all the contextual storytelling applications from this kind of treatment!

So, now it’s your turn! What are you working on?

Note: Home page image for this post was from nhuisman’s Flickr.

Thanks, and a follow-up to ‘Twentysomething’

Wow. I am just back from a week-long vacation, and I see that many of you stumbled across this little blog of mine. I am overwhelmed by the response, and I am enjoying catching up on the comments. Your stories are incredibly moving, and I am grateful y’all have chosen to start a discussion here.

A few items it seems I should address:

1. This is a personal site. Yes, I’m a journalist, but I’m not providing unbiased analysis or reporting on this site, at least not yet. As of now, this is just my little corner of the Internet, and I’m writing from my personal experience about my life, thoughts and work for the benefit of friends, family and whomever stumbles along. I am thrilled that so many of you have decided to use this space to discuss your own ideas and experiences, and I hope that trend continues past the life of a single post.  Getting my own thoughts out is good for me, but hearing yours is more interesting.
2. I am a white middle-class American, and it would be entirely disingenuous to disregard these basic facts about my worldview. That said, I do not live in a vacuum. I am from rural Alabama and I live in South Florida. What I wrote was born from  discussions with friends across many races, ethnicities and economic strata.  Stagnant wages and limited employment opportunities reach far beyond the middle class, and, yes, hurdles for minorities are even higher.  I am not blind to these issues, and I didn’t intend the post as a  whine about the state of the white middle-class, but rather to articulate that our ENTIRE generation faces significant challenges at the moment.
3. The post was not written as an affront to older people at all. I am grateful for my upbringing, and I admire what my parents and grandparents have accomplished in their lives thus far.  I certainly owe everything I have accomplished in some part to those people who made sure I was educated, involved and aware. The goal is not to disregard or to usurp what came before, it’s to continue to build something better. I am certain that my parents and grandparents wish that for me and my brothers as much as we wish it for ourselves.
4. Yep, I am perhaps overly optimistic about what our generation can accomplish. The impact of this recession on myself and my peers is profound, but when we get our chance to shine, I believe we will rise to the occasion. I believe in many ways we already are, in fact. Just look at the impact we’ve already made in technology and communications alone — Facebook, YouTube, Mozilla, WordPress and Digg are all products of Gen Y.  Twentysomething Americans will continue to grow into global leadership, just as every other generation has, and it is my great hope that we will be more socially, economically and environmentally responsible about it than our forebears. I see my peers as less politically divisive, more inclined toward teamwork, focused on open communication, full of creativity and driven toward service and stewardship. Maybe I just have a good group of acquaintances, but I think there are too many examples across too large of a group for those observations to be entirely coincidental.  Yes, I realize idealism is a hallmark of youth if not naiveté. But, idealism is one of the few gifts we’ve got at the moment, so I’m choosing to dream big. I make no apologies for that, and I challenge myself and my peers to continue to meet those lofty expectations.