Noted journalist Huffington plasts Bush administration, campaugns, media
From The Robeson Journal, Lumberton, N.C., Oct. 1, 2008By Bill LindauPEMBROKE -- The Givens Performing Arts Center could hardly have picked a more timely guest to open its Distinguished Speaker Series, with the recent financial crisis, a tight presidential campaign with some highly controversial candidates and other issues. High-profile journalist Arianna Huffington had plenty to say about both topics and more Tuesday, Sept. 23, at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke."We're at a real turning point, a real crisis in American politics," said the petite woman in the accents of her native Greece, in her speech entitled "Road to 2008: Presidential Politics Today".The public first heard of Arianna Huffington in 2002, when she spoke out against gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles. Now an successful journalist and rated one of the 100 most influential people in the world, Huffington said nothing about her take on SUVs, but she had a lot of other things to say to 150 local university students and other politically minded members of the audience. She spoke for nearly an hour, concluding her speech by fielding questions from the audience, and signing autographs afterwards."Isn't it amazing what happened?" Huffington said, commenting on woes on Wall Street."Just a day before, we were talking about whether Barack Obama's expression, 'putting lipstick on a pig', was sexist, and we were talking about Sarah Palin and her pregnant. It takes a major collapse to get the people to wake up.""Political campaigns do not make sense," Huffington later commented. "For months (John) McCain has attacked Obama for spending too much time in Washington, but he's only been there for two years."Huffington left her native Greece for England, here she attained a M.A. degree in economics from Cambridge University. At 21, she became president of the Cambridge Union debating society before she emigrated to the United States. She founded The Huffington Post when she came here. She has written 12 books, and in addition to her duties as editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, she co-hosts the National Public Radio political roundtable program, "Left, Right and Center". "When I was growing up in Greece, while most kids were following sports, I was following the news," Huffington said."Some of my best years of my life were in college in Cambridge, in England," she said. Among the lessons she retained was that people said the thing they feared the most was public speaking."Do you know what the number-two fear is?" she asked. "Death by mutilation."
She mentioned a citizen journalism project by The Huffington Post called "Off The Bus." She said this project was "an effort to get out of the bubble," rather than reporting news "from the bus". It's also designed to promote so-called citizen journalism, getting citizens involved in reporting the news. She said people can participate by e-mailing araianna@huffingtonpost.com.Since the program originated, Huffington has heard from one of its first participants, she said. She said it was a 61-year-old woman who started covering an event in her county, and now she is covering Sarah Palin, Huffington said.She says the media today does not deal with crucial issues as much as it should, focusing more on show business and candidates' peccadilloes instead. She said the media should also stop doing a left- or a right-wing take on issues."If the old media suffers from attention-deficit disorder, the new media suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder," Huffington said."These issues that used to be a left or right position are now solidly mainstream: Health care, global warming, bringing the troops home," Huffington said."Stop looking at everything from left and right and start looking at it from the center." she added, talking about the need to work together. She says both parties in Washington spend too much time debating whether or not one party is speaking the truth, and not enough time working out a plan of action.As an example, Huffington cited the issue of global warming."Instead of spending all these years debating whether or not global warming exists, we could've spent out time debating what to do about it."She also said past presidential elections could have gone the other way if a lot more people had voted. She said the swing vote could determine the outcome this year."The Obama campaign should devote its time to convincing the people who haven't voted," Huffington said. "Eighty-three million did not vote in 2004. They've given up. If we can get 10 percent of these people to vote, it can make a difference."She once against stressed the need to vote, particularly in this election."You may have to close your nose and vote the lesser of two evils," she said. "But there is a vast difference between the two candidates."."The Democratic party needs to come together," said Huffington, a former self-proclaimed conservative. "Then there's the Republican party, with this big soap opera going on."Huffington said skirting more pressing issues by talking about such relatively safe topics as Sarah Pailin's family life does not do any good, either to the public or to McCain's opponents. "My argument is that every minute the campaign is spent talking about Sarah Palin is good for John McCain because it takes people's attention away from the real issues."Meanwhile, "people are losing their homes, they're losing their retirement funds, they're not being able to send their kids to college," Huffington added. "And we have the problems in Iraq,""Iraq is not a mixed bag," she said. "Iraq is an unqualified disaster. It is the worst foreign policy disaster in American history."Calling it a mixed bag is like going to the doctor and he says you have a mixed bag diagnosis. 'On the one hand, you have a brain tumor. On the other hand, your acne's clearing up.'"She said she does not pay much attention to polls, and she cautioned people not to cave in to fearmongering."Most of the people who answer polls are bored and lonely Americans who have nothing better to do than talk to strangers," she said."Fearmongers can make people not rational. It makes people operate from their lizard brains, not their rational brains," Huffington said in the question-and-answer session.
North Carolina runner seeing the country the old-fashioned way: On foot
From Running Journal, October 2008By Bill LindauROCKINGHAM, N.C. -- Doug Dawkins of Rockingham, N.C., loves the great outdoors, he loves to travel and he especially loves to run. Since mid-July, he has been doing it all, by running and walking across the United States.
He started out on the southeastern North Carolina coast on July 14 and his been traveling west ever since. Dawkins has gone through the tip of Virginia, into Tennessee by August, and hopes to continue all the way to California, ending this journey run in San Diego by early December.
Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado and Arizona are the other states on the route he planned.
Dawkins, 56, had been planning this cross-country trek for more than a year.
"I had hiked the Appalachian Trail and I wanted to try something similar to that," Dawkins said, in a phone interview from middle Tennessee, near Hartsville, on Aug. 17. "Plus, I had read a couple of books on journey runners."
Dawkins has been doing long-distance runs for more than half his life. The longer, the better, as far as he is concerned. Dawkins, a former postal clerk, took up running after he quit smoking. He started doing 5-K runs, and got into longer distances from then on, doing marathons and 50- and 100-mile ultras.
Dawkins is the founder and president of the Mangum Track Club of Richmond County. He served as race director for the Ellerbe Springs Marathon until this year, and he directs the Bethel Hill Moonlight Boogie 50-mile ultra run and its marathon companion race.
In recent years, he made a yearly summer project of hiking the Appalachian Trail, doing portions of it each summer until he was through.
"This is a similar thing to hiking the Appalachian Trail, except on the trail, you meet a lot of hikers. I'm out here a lot by myself, and I meet different people in different places,” Dawkins said. “You move with the same hikers on the trail, but in this case you move with different people."
Don't expect any postcards from St. Louis or Denver. He mapped out his route to go through rural areas of the United States, instead of through large cities.
"I'd get to meet more people and see more sights," he said. "And there'd be less cars and less traffic.”
Dawkins has had a lot of people pulling for him, including his wife Merrie, his daughters Erin and Dana, a good number of friends and other members of the Mangum Track Club. Many of them kept him company as he made his way through the state, and even into the mountains.
Dawkins has been pretty much a lone eagle since passing out of North Carolina. But he still seems to find himself among friends, meeting a lot of people who admire what he’s doing and willing to help him out. That includes providing him with a roof over his head for the night.
"I'm pretty much on my own now," he said during an Aug. 17 conversation from middle Tennessee. "I have been for several days. Four nights, I'd been staying with people I've met along the way."
As of late August, Dawkins was averaging between 28 and 35 miles a day. He figures that pace should get him to the Mississippi River in 12 days, even with four days of rest.
On Aug. 17, he ran and walked from Gainesboro to a place 20 miles east of Hartsville, Tenn. Along the way, he met a local resident, got into a conversation with him, and found himself with a place to take a break.
“I’m taking today off at Charlie’s house,” he wrote in a journal on his Web site, www.dougsrun.wordpress.com. Dawkins has taken his cell phone with him, and he often uses the computers at local libraries to log his running commentary (pun intended).
“It is a restful place and I have the freedom to rest and relax,” he continued. “I slept until 7:30. Charlie had coffee ready and we spent much of the morning talking on his porch. It is the kind of conversation that can occur on journeys. We have known each other but a few hours but we now talk about my trip and share life stories.
“There is always a story with every person you meet when the time is taken to listen and they are willing to talk. I have enjoyed the morning and still have the afternoon and night to look forward to.”
Dawkins told me that day he was 12 miles away from crossing the Mississippi River. That included four days of rest, he said.
Since he began this journey, Dawkins has done a lot more camping.
He didn't take any camping gear along at first, but in short time decided he needed some for the occasional cold or rainy nights. So, when he's had access to a computer, he's ordered equipment online and had it shipped ahead of him.
He now has a tent to add to his load. He carried about 18 pounds on his run/walk.
"That's 14 pounds plus water."
Water is a variable, he says, depending on the temperature, the distance he puts in and the location of the small convenience stores from which he usually buys his food and other supplies.
"Sometimes I carry two liters, sometimes one...I’ve seen places where the stores are 15 miles apart."
At the time of this conversation, Doug said he has been satisfied with his progress. That's because he did not put down a lot of long-range plans. "I don't plan much further than a couple of days ahead."
Merrie, his cousin and his cousin's wife plan to meet him at the end of his run, when he comes to San Diego. Then it's home for Christmas.
Probably by flight, he says.
Dawkins began his trek at Sunset Beach, N.C., continued through Rockingham, N.C., then into Taylorsville.
By Aug. 1, it was “bye-bye, North Carolina.“ Dawkins crossed into Virginia that day, reaching the town of Glenn Cove by the end of the day.
About four days later, Dawkins was in Tennessee, stopping in Johnson City.
“Yesterday (Aug. 4), I completed 3 weeks with a total of 392 miles,” Dawkins wrote. “I have run/walked 218 miles in 10 consecutive days and need a day to rest. My feet are fine now as well as the rest of me. There is no soreness, only fatigue and a desire to eat.”
A few things he has gone through weren’t all that nice, such as summer heat, thunderstorms and one motorist who yelled, “Get a job!” at him just as he was about to leave North Carolina.
The trek has brought enough good experiences to be worth it, Dawkins says. It not only includes the number of miles covered, but also a restoration of his faith in the human race.
Dawkins writes about an encounter with a biker as an example, calling it “one of the coolest things.”
“I was passing a gas station as a Harley pulled up to exit,” he wrote on Aug. 5. “He swept in hand in a very gentlemanly fashion indicating that I should go first. As I went by he gave me the thumbs-up.:”
“I asked where he was going and he replied New Hampshire. I replied that I was going to San Diego. He said, ‘That’s cool. Have a great trip.’
“I was struck by the idea that he considered me a fellow traveler, just by a different means.
“I immediately thought of my brother, Roger, who travels on his Harley and has been across the U.S. twice. I called him to relate the encounter. It was good to hear his voice and understanding.”
In his journal, Dawkins dedicates each day to one person in his life.
“I was not sure of today’s dedication but the biker provided the answer,” he wrote.
He dedicated the day to his brother.
Dawkins is happy to have so much support, from friends from people whom he has met along his route. People interested in helping him out through donations of water, supplies and/or lodging may log onto www.dougsrun.wordpress.com and check the various links.
