Friday, September 19, 2008

Journalism 040

It's always curious what beloved little tokens of unsolicited information get bestowed upon the mailbox throughout the week. I thought I'd share some of my favorites.

1. Non-governmental organization SOS Children's Villages wrote to remind me that World Orphan Week is coming up on October 5th.

"More than 541,000 children in the U.S. and more than 133 million children worldwide are without parental care. And every 2.2 seconds, a child loses a parent," according to the group, which always says that less than 1% of these children are adopted worldwide every year.

SOS cares for over 70,000 orphans throughout the world.

2. Majon International writes to tell me about a new school called Holotopia Academy started this past summer on the island Punta Campanella, near Positano, in the Amalfi Coast, Italy, which is the place described by Homer in his Odyssey when Ulysses meets the sirens.

"Holotopia Academy's function is to create a worldwide-recognized meeting point for some of the most important thinkers, providing the best conditions for the production of art masterpieces as well as new scientific and philosophical theories and works," according to its website.

3. The Humane Society of the United States writes to tell me about its new website that it set up to assist journalists in writing about animal abuse throughout the nation. The site includes statistics, trends, links to state laws and penalties, cruelty demographics and analysis.

"Animal cruelty is a serious crime that degrades humans as well as animals. Unfortunately, it’s likely to be a problem in your community right now, or soon. After all, these kinds of vicious attacks are happening in nearly every corner of the country nearly every day."

"However, since there is no federal reporting system for these crimes, journalists rarely get the opportunity to analyze animal cruelty’s prevalence. Sometimes the crush of news deadlines also makes it difficult to put these events into perspective."

Monday, September 1, 2008