Recently I’ve started seeing examples of those much-mocked New York Times trend stories that are not about Millennials, the way the trendiest trend stories usually are. In the articles I’ve been noticing, the trend-setters are Baby Boomers — who are, according to the Times, relocating to New York City to help raise the grandkids.
Now that’s a trend I could get my own 62-year-old head around.
The most recent of these pieces appeared just last weekend, a story about a young woman on the Upper East Side who was about to have a baby, and was delighted that her parents wanted to find a place to live in her neighborhood so they could help out with child care. There were a few hitches; the parents, for one thing, lived in Minneapolis, so they would have to be willing to relocate to Manhattan. (Willing they were; they were both physicians, but they were both retired.) Another hitch struck me as an even bigger obstacle: they were divorced, and they were talking about renting a one-bedroom apartment together. But good feelings for their daughter predominated, as did enthusiasm about becoming grandparents for the first time, and in the end, the Minnesotans found an apartment they liked just a mile away from their daughter and her new baby Tessa. They are taking turns living in it.
This story followed by just a few weeks another Timespiece, which revealed itself as a trend story right away, with the telltale phrase “a growing number” right in the lede. (Other clues to “bogus trend stories,” according to media watcher Jack Shafer, include overuse of “weasel words” like “some,” “few,” and “seems.”) The Times piece began:
Instead of spending their golden years baking in the sun, a growing number of grandparents are choosing a grittier spot to play out their third act . . . they come for the children but stay for the city.
Biologists have an explanation for why this trend, if it really exists, would be good for the grandkids: they call it the Grandmother Hypothesis. Continue reading →
Back in 2012, I wrote about my compulsive counting habit. I’m revisiting it now, in hopes of collecting stories from other counters. If you count too, I’d love to hear about it. Leave me a comment. For as long as I can remember, I have counted. If I’m on a train I might count the electric lines we pass or the rows in my car or the number of windows on each side of the aisle. When I’m bicycling, I count pedal strokes. It’s not something I do deliberately; I’ll just suddenly catch myself doing it. It feels like my mind doodling.
I’d never really thought about it, until once, years ago, my aunt Sandy, my mother and I were driving by a string of power lines on the Kansas prairie and somehow Sandy mentioned that she’d been counting the power lines. Big deal, I thought. Doesn’t everybody do that? Mom didn’t know what the hell we were talking about.
My dad does though. As I was writing this just now, I called him and asked, “Dad, do you count?” He knew immediately what I meant. He does it just like I do, and he says that his mom, my grandma Friesen, counted too. So did her dad, my great-grandpa Neufeld. “It has no purpose, I’ve just always done it,” Dad says. Continue reading →
In the bespangled Pioneer Saloon in Paisley, Oregon, hangs a picture on a wall of a fit, gray mustached archaeologist out in the field. Written in pen, the name at the bottom of the photo is Dr. Poop.
Dennis Jenkins is his actual name, a senior archaeologist at the University of Oregon. Jenkins leads paleo digs in the high sage desert around Paisley. They know him well at the bar.
Jenkins’ crews work a chain of caves standing over a sea of sage beneath the parapets of the Eastern Cascades. They have been finding layers of stone tools, megafauna bones, and, in particular, dried human feces dating back as far as 14,300 years ago. This is from deep in the Ice Age, remnants of the first people. It is the oldest human fecal artifact recorded in the Americas.
My plant friend is some kind of squash. Pumpkin, maybe. It grows along the edge of a community garden that I walk by on my way to work. Like many of those squash-like plants, it uses tendrils to anchor itself, clinging in tight spirals to the fence wires. With no respect for boundaries it spilled its way well outside the garden and onto the sidewalk.
When I walked by it on Thursday morning, the plant was exploring for new territory. One new tendril stuck out several inches, straight as a ruler, with just the tiniest curl at the very tip.
My husband’s in the hospital (he’s going to be ok) for the foreseeable or the next couple of days, whichever comes first, and I’m there with him. In a hospital, you give up control — for excellent reasons — and you haven’t a clue about what’s next. Even if I were granted a clue, I wouldn’t know what to do with it: there should be an essay in the effects on the brain of stress but my brain’s under stress and the neurons aren’t speaking to each other, let alone operating well enough to think through an essay. Another time, maybe. Meanwhile, I’m reduxing a medical-world post about doctors and computers, so click on it if you’d like.
After that post was published, I sent it to my husband’s doctor and she sent it to other doctors and after that, nothing more was heard. But ever since, I’ve continued to ask doctors informally whether they like using those computers and the responses vary from “I’m getting used to it,” to “I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.”
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illustration: 1915 By: Frederick Henry Townsend, via Wellcome Images
Last weekend, nerds from across the US and the world gathered in Cambridge Massachusetts to discuss the media coverage of other, often bigger nerds. It is known as the National Association of Science Writers annual meeting and it’s one of the highlights of my year.
This year I thought it might be fun to participate in a panel about journalism ethics. Because a) it’s a crucial topic I believe in passionately and, b) apparently I didn’t have enough people angry at me in my life. Continue reading →
Back in October 2013, Cassandra wrote a post about writers’ frustrations, sexual come-ons, and the hopeful hopelessness of the national navy in landlocked Bolivia. It’s a post so deeply horrible and so deeply sweet that we thought you’d like to read it again.
For every story that makes it to print, there are scads that die in the reporting trenches. This is one of those stories.
In 2001, I moved to Bolivia to become a Peace Corps volunteer and fell deeply in love with the country. In 2010, I returned. I wanted to visit friends and family, but, like any intrepid freelancer, I also hoped to do some reporting. Although Bolivia has been landlocked since it lost its coastline to Chile more than 130 years ago, the country still maintains a navy. This is their motto: “The sea belongs to us by right, recovering it is a duty.” I find this sentiment simultaneously ridiculous and sort of commendable. So why not do a story on Bolivia’s navy, I thought. (Well, lots of reasons. But I didn’t let details deter me.)
The first order of business was making contact. I found a Web page for the navy, but it seemed to be broken. And all other attempts to arrange an interview ahead of time failed. So I developed a two-part backup plan. 1. Fly to Bolivia. 2. Call the navy. And that’s exactly what I did. With help from the hostel desk clerk, I called naval headquarters. “Come on over,” said the man on the phone. So I hopped in a cab and went.
The Armada Boliviana has its headquarters in a nondescript 10-story building in La Paz, a city that lies 4,000 feet above sea level and about 400 miles from the closest coast. I rolled up to the security gate, told them I was a journalist, and explained that I had an appointment. “Who are you here to see?” the security guard asked. Good question. Mistake number one: I had failed to get the name of the man who told me to show up. “Perhaps you’re here to see the Comandante General?” the guard asked. “Perhaps I am,” I said. Wrong answer. Men in Ray Bans and dark trench coats flooded out of the building. Their leader had a secret service earpiece. Confusion reigned as I tried to explain myself in increasingly flustered and broken Spanish. Finally I thought to give them the phone number the man had given me.
Twenty minutes later I found myself in a room with a naval officer named Ricardo. He seemed befuddled by my presence. “Would you like to go on a tour and see some of the sights of Bolivia?” he asked, handing me a brochure with a picture of a small cruise ship. I scanned the page. “Our attention is personalized so that you will feel quality and comfort similar to what you would feel in your own home, allowing you to enjoy your stay and absorb the energies of the sacred-mystic Lake Titicaca,” it read. Now I was befuddled. When did the navy start using its ships for tourist cruises? “No, I’m not here as a tourist,” I explained. “I’d like to do a story about the navy. I’d like to visit a naval base, and perhaps interview an official.”
And so it was arranged. I would return to La Paz on March 23rd for the big “Day of the Sea” celebration, when the country reflects on the terrible loss of its coast and proclaims vengeance on Chile. Ricardo would get me an interview with the Comandante General, the head of the navy. He walked me out of the building. “One last thing,” he said. “Would you like to have dinner?”
Would I? No, I wouldn’t. But I also didn’t want to jeopardize my interview with the Comandante. “Ok,” I agreed. “Let’s have dinner. You can tell me more about the navy.”
We met in the Plaza Murillo, and I could see immediately that I had miscalculated. Ricardo arrived in a navy blue blazer and a stifling cloud of aftershave. A gold chain glistened above the V of skin visible through his partially unbuttoned shirt. He kissed my cheek, and we hailed a cab. A few minutes later we arrived at the restaurant, and now there was no mistaking Ricardo’s intent. He had chosen a Chinese restaurant/dance club/karaoke bar called “Love City.” I’m not translating here. The name was in English. And that was how I found myself on a date with a married, fifty-something Bolivian naval officer.
Ricardo ordered tall beers and sweet and sour chicken (for the both of us) as I tried to put some professional boundaries on an evening that seemed suddenly out of my control. “Let me tell you about my husband.” “I am so interested in Bolivia’s navy.” “How nice that we can have dinner as professionals.” “Let me tell you more about my husband.” “Please tell me about your wife.” These tactics failed miserably. I tried a more direct message. “I am married and you are married, so there’s nothing between us except friendship,” I said. “We’re professionals.”
Ricardo adopted a wounded expression. “Are you losing confidence in me?” he asked. “I can’t believe that you think we came here for anything more. I have a wife!” he snapped. But soon his hand crept to my knee. I threatened to leave. Instead we ended up in the karaoke bar. “One song and then we’ll go,” he promised. He chose a ballad about unrequited love.
Bolivia lost its 400 miles of coastline in 1879 when Chilean forces occupied Antofagasta, the main city in a region rich in saltpeter. The invasion launched what became known as the War of the Pacific. “Bolivia was totally unprepared for war, especially one so distant from its population centers and resource base, and suffered from grossly irresponsible leadership,” writes Waltraud Q. Morales in A Brief History of Bolivia. In 1884, Bolivia signed a treaty ceding control of the coast to Chile. Another treaty in 1904 allowed Chile to annex the stolen property. This was more than a century ago, but Bolivians know how to hold a grudge. They never forgot the injustice, and diplomatic relations between the two nations have remained frosty ever since.
And they’re not likely to thaw any time soon. Bolivia has been demanding that Chile return its coastline for decades. And earlier this year, the country brought its grievances to the Hague.
After six beers, three songs, and several attempted gropes, Ricardo offered his perspective on the issue. Because Bolivia’s eastern border butts up against the Rio Paraguay, which flows into the Paraná River, which flows into the Atlantic ocean, well . . . Bolivia already has a coast, he said. And then he drew me a diagram on a napkin. That rat’s nest of pen marks represents Bolivia’s 46-kilometer-long “coastline,” which boasts a barely populated outpost called Puerto Busch. By that logic, Bismarck, North Dakota, is a coastal city too.
The evening ended poorly. I grudgingly shared Ricardo’s cab. But when he offered to come up to my room, I declined. I did return to La Paz for Day of the Sea, but I couldn’t bring myself to phone Ricardo. I attended the parade alone, and never interviewed the Comandante. Instead I forced myself to do man-on-the-street interviews. (In English, I find these conversations merely uncomfortable. In Spanish, they were utterly humiliating.)
The Bolivians at the parade talked about the importance of having a seaport for exporting products, but they also lamented the loss they suffered in 1879. It still stings. “Before we had the Pacific Ocean, and now, no. It’s important to recover what was once ours,” said one woman.
I never wrote this story. I never even pitched it. But if I had, maybe this is how I would have ended it. It’s easy to poke fun at a landlocked navy. But Bolivians couldn’t be prouder of these men. In a country that has been fractured by protests, politics, and rampant racism, the sea is a uniting force and a symbol of hope. Life was better once, and it can be again . . . if only greedy Chile would give Bolivia back its goddamn sea.
***
There’s no shortage of stories on the Bolivian navy. My favorite lede comes from The Guardian: “Sunlight glinted off the lake, a scenic expanse on the roof of South America, and Bolivia’s navy was busy perfecting the art of yearning.” Find the full story here. Also see these:
Recently I’ve started seeing examples of those much-mocked New York Times trend stories that are not about Millennials, the way the trendiest trend stories usually are. In the articles I’ve been noticing, the trend-setters are Baby Boomers — who are, according to the Times, relocating to New York City to help raise the grandkids.
