Alexia Beckerling - an eye for contrast

Alexia Beckerling's photography has taken her all over the world. Her images of Tibetan refugee nuns in Dharamsala, India capture their open hearts - we see their playful smiles and bright eyes, but we also see the intensity and the internal focus of their Buddhist practice.

Her photos of Helmville, Mont. show both the town's geographic isolation and it's sense of community.

Her images of the South African amaMpondo tribe's religious ceremony capture solemn moments as well as the heat and intensity of their dance.

Beckerling's photo sets have a storyteller's motion that comes from her ability to build contrast and contradiction into them. This quality, and perhaps her background in the art world, give her photos an added dimension.

She's hoping to combine her experience working for art galleries in New York and her native South Africa with her photojournalism background to produce multimedia profiles of South African artists. Galleries would show the profiles along with the artist's work, giving patrons insight into the art and the creative process that went into it.

The galleries would increase sales, the artist would get exposure, and Beckerling would get paid. "The way we are going to survive," she says, "is to apply ourselves to the commercial world."

She's back in South Africa after spending eight years in the U.S. getting master's degrees in art history and photojournalism. In that time, she's also worked in art galleries in New York and taught photography in Montana.

Beckerling feels that the artist profiles might be her niche. Her background makes her comfortable talking to artists, and she enjoys listening to them talk about their passion.

"American artists can talk for hours," she says, and that makes the work easier. South African artists are, in general, more reticent, she says, perhaps making her work all the more valuable.

She says she'll miss Montana, but she wonders if she could ever be truly happy in a country that wasn't her own.

Talking about South Africa, she says, "I know how the mountains look. It's a weird thing to say, I know, but that's what I would think of when I was homesick."

Beckerling's profile of printmaker John Armstrong is available here. Some of her photo sets can be viewed on her Lightstalker page. The Missoula Art Museum's curator hopes to exhibit the Helmville photos by mid-July.

Anne Medley - intrepid freelancer

Intrepid - adj. - characterized by resolute fearlessness, fortitude, and endurance. From the Latin trepidus, which should remind one of the word trepidation, as in fear and uncertainty. Adding the prefix in- gives us something like "immune to fear and uncertainty."

Anne Medley is not quite immune to fear and uncertainty, but she is definitely intrepid. How else could she be planning a trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo - a country where an estimated 45,ooo people die from disease and famine every month?

The fragility of the government headed by Joseph Kabila and the ongoing violence in the Kivu region along the DRC's eastern border mean that, in all likelihood, nothing will change for the better between now and when Medley plans to travel there in November.

There are enough African nations involved in the conflict and so many different militia and rebel groups that it must be impossible to know how many sides there are, not to mention who is on whose team.

And this is a war where sexual violence against women is a weapon used to gain and keep control over communities. In 2007 the Washington Post quoted U.N. official John Holmes saying "The intensity and frequency [of rape] is worse than anywhere else in the world."

When I talk to Medley about these reasons not to go, she admits that she'd rather know less than know more about the risks. "I don't want to go in ignorant," she says, "but I don't want to read too much either, because then I'll get freaked out and not go."

If she goes, she would be working at a university in the DRC's Kivu province, the site of the ongoing conflict. She'd be charged with teaching journalism to Congolese students. For her, to pass on this opportunity out of fear would be a shame. She'd miss the experience of the place and the people, as well as the chance to show students how to tell their own stories of life in a country torn apart by civil war.

"I'm just really interested in life," Medley says. "I'm interested in those stories."

To be fair, she understands the risks better than most, having previously lived in Africa. And she's realistic about the extent to which she could travel inside of the country. "I don't expect to do anything huge," she says. "I might only meet 20 people."

Still, this would be living. She'd be pursuing stories no one else could get and sharing her knowledge with a group of future leaders.

"I might as well live a little." she says. And after a slight pause she adds, "or maybe die a little."

Medley cut her teeth working on multimedia projects at the University of Montana and New West, a Missoula-based new media outlet, and also produced a multimedia piece for her master's project about HIV/AIDS in Montana.

Her experience has led her to teaching positions at the American Indian Journalism Institute and the Diversity Institute in Nashville, a group affiliated with the Freedom Forum. She's also working with the National Coalition Building Institute, a Missoula-based organization, to teach kids to use multimedia to combat school bullying and other social ills touching their lives.

These short-term teaching gigs have become her schtick, and she finds them rewarding because her students pick up the technology quickly.

She's also working on her own projects, specifically a documentary/public service piece on sexual health for Salish-Kootenai College.

"I feel enormously fortunate for all the opportunities that I've been given," says Medley. She sees those opportunities as the result of hard work on her part, coupled with the productivity of her social network. She notes that each of her journalism gigs have been the product of knowing someone who connected her.

"Everybody is hurting," she says, "and like them, I'm just trying to piece it together."


Here's the video that launched Medley's career. It's about urban chickens.

This is the organization that is sponsoring her trip to the DRC, despite the fact that she's not a practicing Christian.

Jonathan Stumpf - bacon jam promoter

Jonathan Stumpf is a born salesman. As soon as I ask about the new product he's marketing, something dubbed "bacon jam," he launches into the pitch. "America's fascination with bacon is going ballistic," he says. "It's this retro appeal." He lists some foods I could spread bacon jam on to make them more bacony, and when I suggest others, he senses I'm on the hook.

"The question you should be asking me, Brett, is 'What can I not put bacon jam on?,'" Stumpf says. It's that downfield juke that all good salespeople can pull off. "Umm.. bacon?," I lamely offer, completely losing control of the interview.

Bacon jam is 70 percent bacon, cooked and "rendered down" over four hours. The resulting product is spreadable bacon. "It has the consistency of chutney," Stumpf tells me.

Before finding this calling, Stumpf was working towards a career in online media. After he got his master's in journalism from the University of Montana, he landed in Seattle with his girlfriend and started sending out applications. "Inititally I was hanging all my hopes on these applications," Stumpf says. Those applications just didn't generate interest.

When he started at UM in 2006, Stumpf immediately gravitated toward all things online. He hoped to find a niche there and avoid the troubled waters of the print world. It was an informed move, and he'd be laughing all the way to bank if publications could figure out how to make online advertising generate enough revenue.

As it is, Stumpf is hedging the bacon jam business with an unpaid internship at the Cascade Land Conservancy. He's their new web/marketing guy. Though he likes living in Seattle, and thinks that the Land Conservancy is doing good work, he's frustrated. "I couldn't have set up a worse disaster for myself," says Stumpf.

He seems too quick to take the blame for being underemployed in this tough climate. While in school, he interned with New West, a Missoula-based new media outlet, took MBA-level classes in marketing and entrepreneurship, and finished a multimedia project centered on the Arctic grayling and the controversy over listing it as a protected species.

But until he makes something else happen, he's giving the bacon jam all he's got. Stumpf is working with Skillet Street Food, the makers of bacon jam, to find a USDA-approved kitchen that will mass produce it.

"It'll be interesting when we get to the nutritional facts stage," he says. Then again, everybody loves bacon, and what could you not spread it on?

You can order bacon jam here.

Natalie Mourton - substitute teacher

Since September she's been living in a cramped studio apartment inside a horse barn in Lolo, Mont. "I never thought I would still be here," says Natalie Mourton, 28.

After graduating from the University of Montana with her journalism/photojournalism degree, she thought the barn would suffice for a few weeks until she found a job.

It's now March, and she's at a bit of a loss. "I'm at the point of trying to figure out if I change directions and go back to school again," Mourton says. It might be a pragmatic decision, but it would be a bitter pill, especially since she originally thought about photojournalism as a way to expand upon her undergraduate degree in environmental studies. She reasoned that a journalism background would open doors that had remained closed for her with just her bachelor's. But in the ten months since she got her master's, those doors have remained shut.

To make ends meet she substitute teaches whenever she gets the call, cleans the horse pens at the equestrian center where she lives, and scouts for freelance work. She doesn't mind the teaching, and the stablehand work means reduced rent.

It's a bit different from the work she was doing to get her degree, and to anyone with a taste for adventure, a lot less exciting than her master's project. For that, she traveled to Chile to document the plight of a small community facing the loss of the cyprus trees that were its lifeblood. For nearly a month she recorded interviews and shot photos that illustrated the community's connection to a resource that was nearly exhausted. Mourton edited and packaged it as a multimedia project, but is unsure about marketing it because she gave a copy to an organization that subsidized her travel expenses. It was also a joint project with an environmental studies grad student who is still working on her portion.

And so another effort that was supposed to open doors is somewhat in limbo. "I don't know that anything came of it," Mourton says of the product she gave to the sponsoring organization.
Though she thinks she could've done more to market herself and her project, she wishes that her UM education would have focused more on those skills. "We should have had more information and preparation for other areas than newspapers," she says.

She also feels disconnected from the university now that she has her diploma. "Once I was done with [the project], that was it." says Mourton. "I basically felt I had no help with that part of it."
Until she makes a decision to move or go back to school, Mourton sees herself in limbo. Going back to school for a health care career "sounds crazy, but if I can't get a job, what else can I do?"

Natalie Mourton's photo portfolio can be viewed here.

Kristine Paulsen - freelance photographer

The first classmate to return my call, Kristine Paulsen, is a photographer who is working part-time at the Montana Food Bank Network. She makes sure they have an accurate count of the number of people making withdrawals.

She's glad she has a job that benefits people who need help, but continues to look for a way to make photography pay the bills. She's got a few freelance gigs coming up, and hopes they'll beget more.

It's no stretch to say that Paulsen's after-graduation prospects were good. After finishing her master's thesis, a multimedia project on the human toll of the W.R. Grace vermiculite mine in Libby, Mont. (viewable here), she headed to an intership at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Her second intership, it was a big step up to a large paper.

"It was a great internship," she says. "That's why I'm so heartbroken about what's happening to them." She's referring to the imminent end of the PI's print edition. She feels for the paper's staffers, who have all been told their jobs will end soon, except for a skeleton crew of 10 to keep the online edition alive.

After that the job search began in earnest. The internship lasted through the summer of 2008, and because she was at the PI, she couldn't apply for the jobs that she saw advertised. But after the internship was over, she just wasn't seeing the same number of photographer jobs. And despite having contacts, few leads have turned up.

The past few months have been especially bad. Paulsen is a member of the National Press Photographer's Association, and says that there haven't been any openings advertised through them for two months. "Photo jobs are non-existent," she says.

With a number of newspapers failing and others freezing hiring, her struggle is not surprising. In fact, Paulsen was aware of trouble in the industry when she started her master's at UM in 2006. "I knew it was rough," she said. "I had [a friend] telling me that. But I didn't think it would completely implode."

The upcoming freelancing gigs give her hope, and renewed interest in her master's project due to the W.R. Grace trial helps to maintain confidence in her abilities "People at the PI said I was one of the best interns," she says. "It's just not the right time."

You can see Kristine's photos at www.kristinepaulsenphotography.com.

Newspapers are dying. Time for plan B for me and my classmates?

The litany of names includes big papers, small papers, medium papers and wire services. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the San Diego Tribune and even the New York Times are sick, and we don't know how to save them. Reams have been written about the troubles of the newspaper industry, so I shouldn't have to include the standard phrases about ad revenue moving online or declines in readership. This won't be a story about which company will be next or a story that offers ideas about how to generate revenue.

This will be a story about former University of Montana journalism graduate students - my classmates - and what their lives are like after graduating at possibly the worst time for the newspaper industry and the U.S. economy as a whole.

I know some of my friends did get jobs in the industry while others did not. What did the gainfully employed do right? What did the jobless do wrong, if anything?

In the coming weeks I will profile as many of my classmates as will talk to me for this story. They'll all be people who graduated recently from UM with a master's in journalism - either photojournalists who might write, or writers who may take a photo now and again.

Projection

Our chess club meets in a large hospital cafeteria. It's a great venue: bright, never crowded, with an especially quiet corner perfect for us.

Polished to a high gloss, a chestnut-colored grand piano sits in the opposite corner, surveying the institutional tables and chairs and silently asserting its superiority.

Most nights it is silent, or if it gets played, it's by a kid who has escaped his parents and is pounding out "Mary Had A Little Lamb" or "Chopsticks."

But last night as I sat in our corner, huddled over the chessboard, the strains of Liszt's "Liebestraum" gently diverted my mind from the game. I immediately recognized the piece, and though it was not the most complicated arrangement, it was nonetheless played with skill.

I looked aside to see who was playing, but my vision was blocked. I went back to my chess game, and as it progressed, I heard other, less weighty pieces - Joplin's "Entertainer," the Peanuts theme, and one or two others.

Soon the chess game simplified into an easy win, but since my opponent didn't resign, the game continued. My mind wandered back to the music, and to the player. I found myself inventing a persona for this man or woman. Passionate yet kind, methodical yet inventive, hardworking yet relaxed.

Before I knew it I had projected an image of an impossibly perfect personality, all because this person could play beautiful music.

I saw who was playing when the music stopped and a Latino man wearing scrubs walked into view. One of the cafeteria workers chided him for stopping, and he said he'd love to keep playing but he had to get back to work.

A part of me was disappointed that the player wasn't a eligible and attractive young lady. Perhaps because he wasn't, I was left to realize what I'd just done.

It happens all the time. We see an attractive person and give them all kinds of good qualities - maybe kindness or generosity, but above all, a depth and complexity that we deny to plain folk.

In this case the bias was similar. I assumed that someone who produced beautiful music had a beautiful soul.

I'd like to believe that he does. I want to believe that everyone who makes something beautiful has something beautiful in them. I'd like to believe that the beauty of Bobby Fischer's chess redeems him somehow. I want to believe that every brilliant artist or powerful genius has a great soul.

And I'm afraid it isn't always so.

When your lover gives you a gun

I know Dale. He's an amiable middle-aged recovering alcoholic who has more than 10 years of sobriety. He's lost something between the time he left the Navy and now. Maybe the booze took it. He shakes his head over the chessboard singing, “A game of chess is hard to win/ you'll probably just lose / might as well resign right now/ let me show you how.” He's playing a casual game, so his singing is tolerated. He makes comments after every move. “Looks like we're gonna have some exciting chess,” or “a pawn is a pawn is a pawn.” If his opponent slips up and utters anything, he throws it back, “An 'uh-oh' has been declared,” “An 'oh-shit' has been declared.”
Dale is warm, giving, trusting, and wouldn't hurt anyone. When I saw him last he invited me to go with him to dinner at the poor house. He tells me he's going to meditation after his game is over. He says it's great.
I'm not here to talk to Dale though. My mark is Erik, a young man who doesn't fit the chess stereotype. He's slender and medium-height, with a black 'Tool' ball cap, a goatee and visible tattoos – 'strength' written in blackletter gangster lettering down one arm and what looks like a dense ball of black fire on the other. A former long-haul truck driver, he is as down to earth as Dale is disconnected.
The trucking job brought this Easterner to Montana. Hauling a load of energy drinks from Wisconsin, he stopped at a truck stop here for a pack of cigarettes. The woman behind the counter asked if he'd like to meet her at a bar later. “We hit it off,” Erik says.
After several months of telephone calls, Erik moved to Missoula to be with her. It was his opportunity to quit trucking. “It's a lonely life. I got real fat, got depressed,“ Erik says. He thinks the loneliness accelerated the relationship.
Within two months, Erik realized his lover was cheating. “She started not coming home,” he says. Then Erik found out that she'd been married all the time they'd been together.
“She gave me a gun though. I kept the gun.” Erik says. “She told me she wanted me to kill her husband. I laughed, but she didn't. I wouldn't have done it.”
Erik is 27, and he's sure he won't marry, “Not my style,” he says.
What I respect about Erik is the way he doesn't let his ego get caught up in chess. When he wins he doesn't pump a fist, and when he loses he sincerely congratulates his opponent. “When you're a beginner, everyone is looking to beat up on you,” he says, explaining his empathy for the uninitiated. Erik relates how when he started playing chess four years ago, he was entirely wrapped up in it. “Chess is the most dangerous game in the world,” he says.
He credits his rapid improvement in the past year to playing chess three times a week with Greg Nowak, a master strength player known to just about everybody in Missoula as 'The Octopus' for playing hordes of people simultaneously.
“Greg is my idol,” Erik says, “He doesn't have a phone. He doesn't have a TV.” Erik says that Greg is the highest rated player in Montana, so not to play and study with him would be a waste of an opportunity. Erik is willing to pay the two dollars per hour that Greg charges. “He's just trying to cover [the cost of] his coffee.”
Erik considers Greg a mentor, which is why Erik gets upset when Greg tries to take more than his advertised price. "You gotta watch your dollars when you play him. He's tried to take dollars from me a couple times, he's tricky." Despite the occasional breach of the relationship, Erik can forgive. “I'd be pretty sad if he died,” Erik says.
Tonight, Erik is playing a guy whose personality could not be more different than his own. Tim is a young mortgage broker who smirks when he wins, makes excuses when he loses and gives an intentionally crushing handshake before every game. Erik has never lost to Tim, but tonight he does.
“Bullshit,” Tim says as Erik turns over his king, apparently accusing him of throwing the game. He didn't, but his calm over the unprecedented loss only stokes Tim's paranoia. Tim leaves in a huff without saying goodbye.
Greg wanders by and is incredulous when he hears the news of Erik's loss.
“Did you blunder?”
“Yep. Twice.”
Greg seems the more upset of the two.

What I'm working on, and what is Mariah Carey on?

For the past couple of days I've been working on a story about unscrupulous Microsoft software resellers who are selling the vastly cheaper academic versions of products to people who don't qualify for the education license. This might be a case where crime does pay, for the seller and the buyer, and if it is, then its a good story.

But for now...

My mom left her Ipod hooked to the stereo in the living room, and I decided to see what was on it. So I chose to shuffle the songs and find out what she was into. John Mayer, Five for Fighting, Janis Ian and Beyonce - in other words, nothing too racy or controversial, and with the exception of Ian, artists I don't dislike.

Then the shuffle hit a song called "It's Like That," by Mariah Carey, an artist I do dislike. I let the song play, knowing that the shuffle feature meant I'd hear a different artist next song. Plus, I was too far away to hit the skip button.

Midway through the song, I thought I'd just heard Mariah Carey rap about chicken and lotion. I assumed I'd heard wrong, and this was just a case of "S'cuse me while I kiss this guy."

But I later googled the lyrics, and my ears were vindicated. Here are the lyrics for that verse.

"You like this and you know it - Caution it's so explosive
Them chickens is ash and I'm lotion
Baby come and get it, let me give you what you need..."

Wow. Mariah is so hot she's explosive. That's not good. And she's also lotion. I gotta say, there had to be other, more suitable words that rhymed with caution.

That album sold like gangbusters.

Next song please...

"Who on the bus got my money!"

Here's an editorial I wrote while I was still at the University of Montana. I'm still not sure what to think about this strange incident.
“Who on the bus got my money!” Aboard the campus shuttle bus, my face in a book, I look up and see a 6-foot-5-ish black man holding an aluminum baseball bat. I look around at the other passengers - some have a look that lets me know their fight-or-flight response has been activated.
“Speak up! Who on the bus got my money?” the man repeats, talking loud, but not yelling. It's only now that I realize he's smiling, and that he's not wielding the bat, just leaning on it. Nobody responds, and he takes a seat across from me.
The passengers who seemed frantic begin to relax. The man starts chatting with two women next to me as if nothing had happened, mentioning that he's headed to play softball.
I think this guy is a genius. This was a performance by someone very aware of the image he is projecting – the African-American student athlete. And he was aware of his audience – predominantly white University of Montana students.
He made a point by playing a joke on the bus that day. Playing the thuggish black man and playing off the fear that image generates got everyone with a brain thinking about race.
On one level, I have to respect someone with the bravery to get on a bus and create this intense situation. In a homogeneous place like Montana, why not force people to confront race directly? Why not create a situation where people come face to face with their attitudes and stereotypes?
Maybe that was his motivation. But whatever it was, I have to believe it was counterproductive. It doesn't do anyone any good to get people to confront stereotypes if those stereotypes are reinforced at the same time.
But what to do on a campus where events promoting diversity are poorly attended? What to do on a campus where panel discussions in the University Center are largely ignored? These events have their place, but lack power and immediacy because they happen in a context removed from daily life.
As a campus community we need to figure out ways to address racial issues in a more immediate and meaningful way, otherwise we leave it up to individuals to address them.
And it won't go well if those individuals have baseball bats.

How to make your kid want to play chess

Like all good uncles, I wish great things for my niece, who just turned three in January.
And like all chess players who learned the game after high school, I wish I could have learned the game when I was three.
I don’t think that’s possible, but in Peyton’s case, I’m willing to set up the pieces whenever she’s ready.
Already I’ve won some small victories in pursuing my devious and admittedly vicarious scheme. She knows the names of the pieces and can distinguish them all, and what’s more, she loves to play - asking almost every time she comes over if we can play “the chess.”
She first knew chess as the thing that her uncle does on the Internet after dinner.
I played it coy, though, keeping the mystery of the horsies and castles to myself, until one day she asked if she could play.
This was my cue to give her a chess set I’d bought for $3 at Target for just this occasion. We sat down to open it, and when I unfolded the cheap paper board, she picked out a knight and danced it around the squares, saying, “Neigh, neigh,” as the horse galloped willy-nilly.
I felt proud and hopeful, glad that phase one of my plan had worked itself so efficiently.
We were so close, I thought. We had everything we needed - the board, the pieces, she was sitting on her side, I was sitting on my side.
And then she threw the knight behind the couch.
We remain in phase two to this day. Her favorite activity involves piling my weighted pieces in the middle of their vinyl board and, with one swipe of her hand, sending the pieces in all directions. She calls it “crashing” the pieces.
But we make a little progress each time, because when we clean them up we look for and put away each piece in turn.
“OK, pass me a rook,” I’ll say, and she always finds the right one.
I’m not sure how long we’ll be playing “crashing” chess, but it has its own simple fun, and, for her, I have infinite patience.

Do fish really have loins?

Being unemployed, I consider it my duty to make dinner for my family, who is temporarily sheltering me. Since I'm horrible at home remodeling or repair, this is my way to be useful.
The other day I decided to make a fish recipe. A brief search of the freezer turned up a package labeled "Tilapia Loins." Although tilapia was perfect for the recipe, I was confused. The cartoony skipper on the package - his autograph read 'Captain High Liner' - assured me that these were the finest fish loins I could get.
Clearly I was missing some basic knowledge that would make it OK for fish to have loins, which until that day I thought were located somewhere close to an animal's inner thighs.
I was used to seeing pork tenderloin and top sirloin at the grocery store, but never saw any fish loins. In fact, I thought pork tenderloin was tender because it was a cut of meat located close to the pig's unmentionables - no doubt its tenderest parts.
An Internet search seemed to confirm my worst fears. From phrases.org.uk - "

Should you be asked to 'gird up your loins', or otherwise wonder where your loins are exactly, you could refer to this rather coy definition from the [Oxford English Dictionary: [Loins]: "The part of the body that should be covered by clothing."

That is what might have been called in the UK throughout most of the 20th century as 'the nether regions', and more recently 'the wobbly bits'."

The wobbly bits? Yuck. Captain High Liner may have been selling the best fish loins, but did I want fish loins of any quality?
Fortunately, another search somewhat clarified matters. From wikianswers.com -

The tenderloin is cut from the Psoas Major muscle that runs along the central spine of the animal be it cow, sheep or pig.

Whew. Though it doesn't mention fish exactly, this definition was decidedly more palatable.
As far as I'm concerned, the question remains. After all, isn't it redundant to give a special name to the meat surrounding a fish's backbone?
Just call it fish.

Obama smokes cigarettes, Phelps smoked pot...

... British tabloids exposed Phelps, but haven't captured Obama's habit.
Phelps has been hit with a three month suspension from US swimming and Kellogg has canceled his sponsorship over the photo. The governing body of US swimming says they're sending a message with the suspension, and Kellogg says his behavior doesn't represent their brand.
Phelps is taking this one on the chin, apologizing and promising to win back the trust of his fans. He and his coach are accepting the suspension and are apparently eager to resume training and competition, although Phelps may not compete in the 2012 Olympics.
Journalists are now debating whether Phelps should face criminal charges.
All this because Phelps is considered a role model. Which he is.
But pressing charges would be going too far. Bringing heroes down won't ensure young swimmers avoid drugs, and would only amplify sympathy for a man who is under constant scrutiny and never would have been caught if he weren't so famous.
If we want to keep creating role models for our kids, we need to acknowledge that no one is perfect, and that making mistakes is a part of life. If we don't, we risk not having heroes at all.
Look at Barack Obama. He is, and should be, a role model for our children. He is proof to so many that you can grow up to be President. Should we throw that away because he smokes cigarettes? We don't want our children to smoke, but we shouldn't bring down a hero.
Just so with Phelps.

Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

"The measure of a book is how carsick I'm willing to get reading it." - Brett Thomas-DeJongh
I got pretty sick reading Shantaram, a novel about Mumbai (Bombay) and an Australian escaped convict trying to survive there. One reviewer called it a "glorious wallow of a novel," and it certainly is that.
Nearly a thousand pages long, it is a mostly autobiographical account of living off the grid in Mumbai, taking crazy risks, and nearly always paying the price for them. Beyond the adventure story lie the themes of redemption, freedom, loss and most of all, love. The authors love for Mumbai - his love for the the Indian spirit and culture - make Shantaram worth reading.
The story is most absorbing when the main character takes up residence in a Mumbai slum. He finds a role there as a slum doctor, giving free first-aid to the slum dwellers. Roberts' fascination with the slum's cast of characters and his awe at how they live in relative peace in such squalid and crowded surroundings lends this part of the book an authenticity and a unique perspective.
I found myself feeling disappointed when the hero left the life of a slum-dweller to become a jet-setting mafioso. I got over it, however, when the realized the story traded the colorful characters of the slum for the slicker and richer but no less interesting characters of the Mumbai underworld.
Roberts' intense introspection and meditations on grief, loneliness, and redemption could only have come from a man who has lived the life of the protagonist. And here, the broad strokes of Roberts' life create a sweeping yet deep story.

Advocacy or fear-mongering?

Death is scary enough without groups on all sides of the assisted suicide debate stoking fears about end-of=life issues.
I live in Montana, where a recent district court decision has legalized physician-assisted suicide in the state. Pro-life groups and others are drafting legislation as well as a ballot initiative, as is a Missoula Democrat who wants to codify the court decision. Until the Legislature addresses the issue there will be a policy vacuum.
Catholic groups are filling that space with rhetoric, with a Catholic bishop claiming that assisted suicide cheapens and degrades human life. He would say that humans don't have the authority to end life - that authority belongs to God.
Advocacy groups supporting assisted suicide are using rhetoric that suggests that if people don't have the assisted suicide option, they are doomed to die a horrible death.
In my view, both sides are using scare tactics to influence public opinion before the Legislature considers the issue.
The pro-life groups are using fear of damnation, trying to convince potential voters that living life to its natural end is mandatory for anyone who is looking for St. Peter's stamp of approval.
On the other side, the advocates for the judge's decision are playing to a fear that we all share - that our deaths will be painful and horrifying.
In the middle of all this are the real heroes = Hospice providers. They know that in the vast majority of cases, a patient can be made relatively comfortable before death arrives. They are the ones who see the gray area surrounding end-of-life decisions because they're exposed to it all the time.
They are aware of all the options available to the dying. Refusal of treatment and doses of morphine can be used to hasten death. Patient's can refuse oxygen, discontinue dialysis, or simply stop eating. And now, patients can ask their physician for a lethal dose of whatever.
Unlike those bound to a dogma, hospice workers educate without passing a judgement.
I'd like to see the pro-lifers acknowledge the complexity of the issue, and I'd like to see the advocates admit that assisted suicide is used (where it is legal) so very rarely.
If that happened, we'd have a better informed electorate that would be making a rational decision rather than voting from fear - something we should always avoid.