Where I got good head(lines)

New Scientist: "Theraputic cloning used to treat brain disease".

It's not pretty but it's concise and informative. Keywords: cloning, brain, disease, treat. I'm writing on genetic science in my fiction so anything about DNA and that lot is interesting to me.

Reuters.com: "China accuses Dalai Lama of taking Olympics 'hostage'".

The Olympics are always popular as a subject; China's an emerging economy and therefore a hot hit; and the Dalai Lama is a figure hotly in the news again. A triple threat.

CNN.com: "Author says it's OK to lie on resume".

This is a no-brainer. Honestly, who hasn't thought about it? The story (video) explains what is and isn't acceptable.

NYTimes.com: "AP Death toll for Iraq War reaches 4,000".

Of course, it's the US death toll; but still a significant figure and one that draws attention to the horror of this continuing and controversial conflict. By using AP's name in the headline it gives the figure credibility.

Trinidadexpress.com: "Beach limers do it on sand".

Cute, witty, and timely. There have been weather warnings this weekend, causing beaches to be closed to swimmers in Trinidad & Tobago. This is a slightly naughty--and therefore attractive--headline for a routine update on the story.

Ones I didn't like include:

Trinidadexpress.com: "Waves damage Tobago boats".

If you read the story you'll see that the waves actually sank four boats. That's the story, not the damage to the other boats. Damage isn't really as big a story and will draw less attention.

Observer.guardian.co.uk: "Reinventing the wheel".

A cliche that doesn't really do justice to the story, which is really about how the automobile industry is coping with new fuel crises and taxes on gas guzzlers. It works on the site with a subhead but not in RSS.

Blog N V... or A Few of My Favourite Blogs

I was blogged once. It hurt. I think it put me off blogs for a good long while. My forays into the Blogosphere therefore have been limited, and local.

However, here are a few of my favourite blogs:

Antilles, the blog of the Caribbean Review of Books

Trinidad Media, Arts & Culture

Caribbean Free Radio

Apart from being written by people I know and respect, I find they have loads of information on topics I care about. They aren't all regularly updated but they're all timeless, in a kind of way, and though they're personal, they're also general enough for you to read without knowing their authors. Or the colour of their authors' navel lint.

Trying to upload some screenshots here but the bandwidth is not my friend...

I'll try again later.

Rethinking poverty in the Caribbean

So I've been travelling for work and it's taken me to Guyana, Barbados and Jamaica. Of course, since i live in Trinidad & Tobago that means I've been in four territories in four weeks. That gives you a kind of insight into how the region works and what is going on here.

Some thoughts:

•We're not as poor as we think we are. 

•Some of us have much more than others, but we are all, collectively, in the same soon-to-be-waterlogged boat with global warming.

•The rich are not doing enough to help the poor.

Since I work for a non-profit and my job in the last month was to write and co-produce scripts on the winners of the pan-Caribbean awards programme I work for (www.ansacaribbeanawards.com), I've had a unique opportunity to hear about and see the poor and how they live, particularly in Guyana and Jamaica.

In Guyana I went to an Amerindian village in the interior of Region One. Kids were malnourished, unable to go to school, and at the same time were locked away from their traditional lifestyles, so they weren't modern and they weren't ancient. They just were. Existing in a kind of timeless poverty and isolation that the awardee I went to interview is trying to help them build a bridge out of. At the same time, there is enormous natural wealth in Guyana: timber, gold, diamonds, agriculture, bauxite. Who knows, but there might one day be oil or natural gas found there as well. My column extols the virtues of the place I saw (www.guardian.co.tt/Lisa-Allen-Agostini.html) and asks some questions about development.

In Jamaica, because the awardee I was working with is a child rights activist, I got to hear some terrifying stories about little kids with HIV, families torn apart by drugs and violence against children that would make you cry. (Column next week, please God.)

Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago offer opportunities to see extreme wealth and privilege. Not that those things don't exist in Jamaica and Guyana, don't get me wrong. It's just that when you leave the airport, what you see slaps you in the face.

What are we spending our money on? As a region, are we looking after the poorest of our neighbours? As nations, are we looking after the poorest of our own? Development isn't an abstract concept, or it shouldn't be. Sure we need more airplanes and roads and administrative complexes. But we also need sensible, people-friendly approaches to making our lives better, making sure our children are eating the right foods and in the right quantities, are getting suitable and useful education, are being loved. Development means nothing if the least of  us is left behind.

Jazz Artistes on the Greens

Well since I'm here, I will share some pix of me and my girls at Jazz on the Greens last weekend.

Because I have been travelling so much for work this month I decided to splurge a bit and take them to an outdoor jazz concert at UWI. Miss Thing slept right through it, a very expensive nap. The Lady however loved it. Listened to every note.

The top pic, btw, is the Cuban band whose name I still don't know, with some Trinidadian musicians jamming with them. The amazing guitarist Dean Williams, late of Xtatik and now of Atlantic (I think?) is in front. They was real sick!

It was great. I'll be back next year, God willing.

Back to the blogosphere

Here I am again, trying to blog once more.

I started a blog about two months ago, only to abandon it after one post. It was too much work! But the lazy girl (me) now has to start a blog for my new course, Journalism 2.0.

This is the assignment.

I also have to say what RSS feed I have subscribed to.

Since I've never actually subscribed to an RSS feed, this was a new experience for me.

I usually go to the sites I want to read or visit, daily or weekly or monthly or whatever, as I need to.

However, as I have to do this for my assignment...

I went to iGoogle and put up a few tabs for RSS feed. They are NYTimes.com (old fav), Economist (new), BBC News (old fav), New Scientist (new), Time (old fav, new format), and Google News (old fav) and CNN.com.

As an aside, I've also put in a pretty window with the phases of the moon, and a Bible quote of the day. And Wikipedia. Coz you never know when you're going to have to look something up.

I chose to use the iGoogle reader because I use my Gmail account all the time, it's pretty much my homepage if anything, and it was easy enough to use. I am lazy. This is a fact.

The RSS feeds I chose were based on familiarity and trust. I rarely surf the Internet for "fun" as I find it tedious and nasty a lot of the time, so I mainly use it for work and research. Then it's my right arm! Apart from Reuters and AP the sites I go to for news tend to be NYTimes, WashPost and BBCNews. And, er, Trinidad Guardian, of course. ;-)