BlogSat

There are times while reading the Economist , that I've felt like getting up and cheering. That's right. Standing up, fist-pumping with my lips pursed determinedly and going "oh, yeah." (Look at yon baby pic attached.) Yes, I know I'd look ridiculous. I've wondered why, and my answer was generally because the magazine consistently says smart things with solid reporting and great insights I often agree with a lot of their views and analysis their sense of humor and whimsy (oh, its there!) works for me. I'd always believed that the main reason the magazine was able to elicit this response was because they often took a stand - not the writers - the magazine. Articles back people, or condemn policy, or make recommendations without equivocating. They always phrase it as "This magazine supports..." or "The Economist strongly condemns..." or "We affirm that .." But watching the Jack Dorsey Golden Gate bridge talk made me realize ho...

Two articles that reminded me of how to writing essays well...and all the things I don't do.:) article by Paul Roberts , an English teacher, written in the 1950s: "How To Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words". Found the the link off Seth Godin's blog. If you don't feel like reading the article, summary here . An article by Michael Agger in Slate on how we now read online. A lot of text there, but some good advice and explanations behind why we should bullet, hyperlink, be terse and use contrasts in text.

Some of my best memories from b-school came from working on the student newspaper, ChiBus. So I was pretty kicked that a year after graduating of the results on the first page for ChiBus within the ChiBus site 4 are mine, and bunch are special features that I contributed to. My favorite is this April first issue  article.  Wow, its amazing how long I carried on with that one-trick joke.:) 

....and there's great sports writing. Bill Simmons is one of favorite sports writers writing about my favorite sport to watch , and this article on the KG trade is a great example why. Most other writers did, "trade happened, X is good about it, Y is bad." Simmons makes everything personal, makes everything matter and makes everything interesting. He has the luxury of not having to churn out columns on everything that hits the wire anymore and he uses that time and freedom well. Each article is ridiculously long, but it doesn't matter because its interesting (to me anyway:)) throughout. There's an urgency, passion and a "talking to you" feel that Simmons successfully brings to almost every article of his I've read.