We Media 3: Person to person Web – literally

The sessions at the We Media conference in Miami always interesting, but some of the best information is gleaned in hallway chats during coffee breaks.

This morning I heard a broad British accent hail me with “Hello, it’s the famous Clyde who told us about Facebook.”

It was David Dunkley Gyimah, a hyper-energetic and hyper-talented video journalist I first met in San Antonio at the International Symposium on Online Journalism.

“Famous” is a stretch, but at during a coffee break at that 2004 gathering I had tried to tell my colleagues about this oddball Web site that my students were gaga about. I had recently become one of just a handful of faculty to sign on and I a gut feeling there was something to it.

Facebook? Frat party pictures and dorm chatter? I was met with blank stares. It certainly didn’t sound like anything that would be of interest to media professionals. But David thought the dearth of innovative thinking by the gathered journalists was funny.

So today David and I had another great laugh. And this time he told me about a technology to watch.

While David is a noted video innovator, senior lecturer at the University of Westminster and founder of Viewmagazine.tv, he is also a student in what may be the most unusual doctoral programs in the world. SMARTlab is a “practice-based Ph.D. program” Teams of students actually invent new technology after research that includes “landing” in a community, culture or research environment and spending enough time there to know it intimately.

And what’s on the boards these days? How about an Internet variant the lifeblood of which is real flesh and blood?

One of the SMARTlab teams is exploring a system similar to that used by British intelligence operatives to surreptitiously pass messages. The system uses a set of small Bluetooth transponders that exchange information when the person wearing Unit A gets close to the person wearing Unit B.

Great James Bond stuff, but the SMARTlab folks want to know what happens if you have a whole lot of people with those transponders. Could, for instance, one pass a message across a city or whole country by relaying it from a jogger to a bicyclist to a senior strolling the park to the mailman and on and on. Digitial internodal communications. That’s Web talk on the hoof, so to speak.

This is not just fun and games. One might be able to gather information from nearby stores without stopping or pickup news updates while walking to work. Or send a digital personal message to a distant loved one without ever going on the Internet. Who knows what you could do by putting transponders on dog collars.

So it’s my turn. Next conference, I get to give David the loud hello and tell everyone he is the famous seer. But they'll probably already know that before he is in handshaking distance.

We Media 2: Crisis reporting, one text message at at time

Not all of the gamechangers here at the We Media conference rely on cutting-edge technology. In fact, a project that depends on villagers in rural Africa has, in my mind, one of the best chances of the way distribute breaking news.

Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, is a non-profit organization that has built a unique crowdsourcing information. Crowdsourcing is the journalistic process of gathering information from a large number of people via blogging, texting and other digital media.

Erik Hersman, director of operations, told a auditorium of Ushahindi works primarily in Africa to gather and forward crisis information. While it will take e-mail and Web information, the tool of choice for its contributors is the simple cell phone. Not the iPhone, Blackberry or other smartphone. Just the cheap “dumb phone” that does little else but make voice calls and allows text messaging.

In countries where wired phone systems are unreliable, newspapers seldom make it to the hinterlands and broadcast media is often government controlled, the cell phone is ubiquitous across social classes. For instance, the International Telecommunications Union said about one in four Ugandans – 8.2 million – carry a mobile phone.

When a natural or political crisis erupts, an Ushahidi user sends details by text to the organization. After a local NGO verifies the account, Ushahidi logs the incident on database and plots on a digital map with space for pictures and video. Reports can then be texted back to local leaders, who respond to disaster or mediate community conflict.

It’s almost too simple to be true. It reminds me of the old “farm telegraph” where the call for help was passed from neighbor to neighbor by ringing bells. In this case it is done by with open source software Ushahidi shares freely with others.

Take a look at http://ushahidi.com . This is not only a stellar humanitarian effort by a simple use of technology that could be modified for many uses.

We Media 1: How do you change the game?

Escaping February’s icy grip on the Midwest is always a treat. But for me that usually means a convention and more time in an air-conditioned room than in the sun.

We Media Miami promotes itself as a different sort of conference and I was treated to a different sort of introduction. I had to catch a plane that arrived seven hours before kickoff, which meant I had a chance to relish a Latin lunch and a few minutes of sun before I got to work.

Work? At a conference in Cocoanut Grove? Alas, there is no free lunch (especially cilantro soup). The Reynolds Journalism Institute sent me here to look at the We Media organization’s concept of “gamechangers” for the Web and the world.

We Media describes itself as “a Web site, a community, a conference and a global movement to make the world better through media.” It is the brainchild of Andrew Nachison and Dale Perkins of the Seven26groups consulting company.

The conference is framed around a competition for which 35 Web sites were nominated. A panel of judges this week pared that down to eight.

Prior to the announcement of the finalists, I went through all the sites myself and then asked 24 students in my citizen journalism-focused Online Journalism class to do the same. We each ranked the sites on a 1-5 scale and then made comments.
Twenty-somethings are hard to impress. I found a few gems in a mostly been-there, done-that field. But the students were harsh, giving only one site a “3.” At least it was one of the sites I liked well enough to grant a “4.”

I often notice in class how jaded young people are about technology. They have grown up with life-like video games, CGI movies and a Google answer for anything. To catch their attention takes work.

For We Media, the students wanted both new process and intriguing output. Mere content would not do it.

The site that did that was Charitywater.org. Like me, they appreciated the social benefit of funding clean water projects around the world. And we both enjoyed the ease of navigation and the web cam documenting well drilling.

To me that was not enough to “change the game.” But the way Charitywater.org ups the ante in fund raising is. The site looks like something from Ikea and has the same appeal to the pocketbook. You can give on any page.

But I think what most impressed me was Twitter campaign. Sure, we have all been asked to use that addictive SMS community to promote a cause. But this was the first time I was given a long list of pre-written comments I could copy and past into my Twitter feed. Very cool.

But not cool enough for the judges. It didn’t even place.

That’s the conflict of ideals and ideas I will explore this week. Through Thursday, I will be blogging from the conference with my observations on why people think the game needs to be changed and how they think we should go about that. And I’ll weigh in with my own opinions – which are never in short supply.

Information rich, media poor

I don’t think I can take any more news. Not in my brain, but in my pocketbook.

Like most Americans, I’ve been glumly looking at my bank accounts, retirement plan and other assets. The result is the realization that I would have done better with a coffee can buried in the backyard.

That search also led me to take a closer look at what I pay for information. I was surprised, but newspaper publishers should be terrified.

Let me preface this by noting that I am a proud member of the embattled middle class, with a professor’s paycheck that still hasn’t matched what I earned in the industry.

I am also a lover of newspapers. I subscribe to two and read others online. But it is not the newspapers that are taking the bite from my wallet. It is all those electronic services I consider basic utilities.

The National Cable and Television Association says the average price of expanded basic cable is about $44 a month and digital averages $60. I pay $84 for digital cable here in Columbia, MO. My wife and I have jobs that require an Internet connection that runs about twice the price of normal broadband in Columbia. We pay $140 a month.

Alas, it was Steve Jobs who finally did in my budget. I succumbed to those alluring Apple ads last Christmas and bought iPhones for my wife and me. Just $170 per month, paid with a nervous smile. That is not far from the national average of $60 per month – per cell phone user and a bargain since my son moved out of the house.

Hardware costs could make the total zoom much higher but the laptop, the wireless router and the cell phone handsets are not monthly charges. Yet.

I doubt that I am the only cost-conscious citizen who conducted a recession excavation of the bill basket. But, what I found surprised me. I pay nearly twice as much for digital media each month than I do for newspaper subscriptions in a year.

I also doubt that I am the only cheapskate who turned down the New York Times offer of $13.40 a week for arguably the finest journalism in the world. Too much money.

But though I could buy a sports car for the $394 I pay each month to look at passing electrons, I don’t think of it as a luxury. I put all that whizzbang technology in the same category as the light switch on the living room wall. The home wouldn’t be a home without it.

After thinking about my dependency on all this interconnectivity, I’ve come to believe that few of us even think of those technology services as “media” costs and instead lump them with our other utilities.” With apologies to my other colleagues trying desperately to monetize online news, I think we are on the wrong track. Americans only want news and information. But they value information delivery systems.

It may be time for journalists to bite the bullet and concede that content is priceless. As in without a price that the public will pay.

The television and movie industries figured this out long ago by demanding a lucrative cut of cable revenues. People are willing to pay for delivery, but not to buy a television program.

The anarchistic-by-design Internet laughs at Web-wide relief for newspapers. However, many Webheads concede that without newspapers and their reporters, there would be little news content to deliver. So there is a small chance content providers will some day be able to cut a deal with Internet Service Providers.

Perhaps, however, a better route would be to develop a valued delivery system for our legacy print editions. The Web is driving subscriptions down, but print editions still hold marketable appeal and generally outdraw newspaper Web sites.

If our problem is more in our circulation system than in our content, it may be time to blow up the tradition of kid-on-a-bike/motor route carrier/coin-fed news stand. Like cable and Internet, perhaps the newspaper should emphasize the value of an information stream rather than the content itself. Could print newspapers have a delivery structure like an ISP? For a single rate to a delivery company (Newspaper Service Provider/NSP), could I get any newspaper I wanted on whichever days I wanted?

Perhaps that “NSP” could even be the local ISP or cable company.

Far fetched, perhaps. But I once thought the idea of using my cell phone as a bubble level was beyond the pale.

Newspapers, farms and Bud's advice

When the Tribune Co. announced bankruptcy in December, I had one immediate thought:

I wish they’d really bought the farm.

The World’s Greatest Newspaper is broke and an uncomfortable crowd of metros is teetering on the brink. Even the New York Times is hocking its skyscraper to pay the bills.

It’s a sad time for those big broadsheets we traditionally use to define “newspaper.” Here in academia, out in the blogosphere and certainly in the corporate boardrooms, the fear is palpable and the dream of an online white knight ubiquitous.

But I keep thinking of the farm.

Out in the Heartland, the papers that report on the 8th Grade Softball Championships and PTA chicken dinners also are hurting. Hurting, but not dying.

The National Newspaper Association and the Suburban Newspapers of America recently reported that revenues for papers with under 100,000 circulation are down nearly 2%. That’s tolerable. The total newspaper industry is down 18%.

The metros are dreaming of a federal bailout. The community publishers have hunkered down and are waiting for another storm to pass.

I learned my key lessons in newspaper economics while working as the general manager of the East Oregonian, a small daily in the namesake town of Pendleton wool. There are still sheep in the hills, but Pendleton is surrounded by those amber waves of grain that encourage God to shed his grace on thee. Dryland wheat farming is a bigger gamble than the stock market – only half your land produces a crop each year and the cash you get back depends on the current popularity of sandwiches and ramen noodles.

But like the East Oregonian, most of those wheat fields have been tended by the same families for generations. That, I learned, is the key to the historic success of the American press.

Newspapers are farms, not factories.

Manufacturing is a highly volatile industry. It takes a constant flow of new capital to develop those new and improved products, to buy and replace ever-changing machinery and to keep the foreign competitors at bay. Ergo the stock market, where investors bet you can appear to promise enough success to edge the value of their shares up a few points next quarter.

Those investors don’t turn the cranks nor staff the assembly line. They impatiently snipe from the sidelines for greater and greater quarterly gains to drive up the price of their stock .

I thought Knight-Ridder’s a 19% profit margin sounded pretty darn good, but Wall Street forced its sale to drive up its stock value. Even in these times of misery, Gannett reports a 9% net profit (down from the mid 20's).
By comparison, Wal-Mart posts a 3% profit, down from about 6%. But the happy face is still on those discount stickers.

In Oregon I came to appreciate patience. On farms there are no fiscal quarters, only crop seasons. Anyone with soil beneath their fingernails knows droughts will take their rotation with bumper crops. That’s what barns, haylofts and grain elevators are for.

Newspapers once shared the economic strategy of the farms. They delighted in being among the oldest continuing businesses in their regions. Families owned them and, like farms, they were passed down from generation to generation. Publishers felt they both owned their communities and the communities owned them. They expected there would be lean years when they ate beans with the farmers and boom years when they shared brandy with the bankers.

In their quest to keep up with the factories, big media borrowed heavily to buy more and more papers they could run with journalistic sharecroppers. The addition of that heavy debt load was never part of the successful farm/newspaper economy. The drought hit in a big way and the notion of a quarterly gain became a joke.

But a newspaper, like a farm, must exist over a span greater than a fiscal quarter.

I will never forget the pleasant shock I had when I was introduced to Bud Forrester, the septuagenarian patriarch of the family that owned the East Oregonian.

“Clyde, just give me a new car and maybe a trip to Hawaii. But take care of my newspaper.” He shook my hand, smiled and walked away.

I had the good sense and the good skills to deliver more than that. When a friend faced the ax because his chain paper’s profit dropped below 20%, I rejoiced that but-for-the-grace-of-Bud, there went I.

Bud Forrester is gone and I no longer ride herd on the East Oregonian. This year I wouldn't be surprised at all if his grandchildren are making do with not-so-shiny cars. But the season will change.

And they’ll get that trip.

In the crowd

Wednesday was a hectic workday and today a juggling day.

I launched a survey of the faculty and staff of MU yesterday afternoon. It was created by a class, but I'm constantly online tweaking it and working with respondents.

And I'm doing that while trying to pay attention at the Information Valet conference. Poorly paying attention, that is.

That said, it's nice to be sitting in a crowd that has more working journalists than academics. So I should get my attention back to them ...

Mental coffee

It's amazing how being busy can clear your mind. You'd think that a landslide of expectations and obligations would smother your sense of direction. But somehow it acts like that morning cup of coffee -- it focuses me on the task at hand.

Tuesday is a non-teaching day for me. Which really means it is a bust-your-bottom day. As this was the penultimate Tuesday before the term ends, it came with an extra level of urgency.

My research class -- cleverly called "Solving Practical Problems" -- is supposed to have its final survey in the field this week. Thanksgiving, procrastination and technical foibles got in the way, however. I spent the morning and much of the afternoon reformatting their questions so the online survey would actually work

During "breathers," I processed the 61 email messages that had arrived since midnight. That meant I had to answer sets of questions from two student researchers -- one from California and the other from New York -- who solicited me as an "expert." And field a half dozen questions about a GPS project I'm toying with. And find the revised dissertation I was supposed to read and approve.

But I took time to have lunch with Associate Dean Brian Brooks, my mentor and guide in the academic world. He wanted me to explain how I was working with Missouri community newspapers for my editorial writing class and to explore how we might expand the idea. He is always a great sounding board.

So now I'm hammering away at this blog before I have to leave for a meal with a church "Dinners for 8" group. Wednesday I teach, then jump into the RJI "Information Valet" conference.

This is your (insert adjective) life

I've never been excited about diary blogs. I like to write about my experiences, but not about the play-by-play.

But if you have read the notes to the left, you know I have discovered Twitter. I'm fascinated by how much one can express in a mere 140 characters. That fascination led me to revisit my view on diaries.

The actual driver was the blue mood I found myself in after assigning a group of students to write a "This I believe" essay. I realized that I had never made that type of statement myself and should put my ego where my mouth is.

Twitter is fun, but I've too long stayed away from more traditional writing. So I'll give it a try for the next few weeks. Perhaps documenting my daily thoughts will give me insight to what I believe -- or don't believe.

Clyde-o, the red-nosed professor

Oh fun. For Halloween I get to go as a leper. Or a teenager.

I don’t like to make light of people whose lives are hell – and I also am not poking fun at lepers. But I’m certainly getting the look.

Like a lot of men my age, my skin is paying me back for the abuse I gave it as a boy. In northern California’s blast-furnace summers, we started the summer with intentionally acquiring a cherry-red sunburn. The theory espoused by our elders is that after you burned once, you healed with a tan that spared you of further sunburns.
It didn’t really work, but even in black-and-white family photos you can see I turned dark as well-worn pair of Oxfords. And in a few, you can see my nose threatening to peel away to a stub.

Lo these many decades later, the blisters of those sunburns are turning into the scaly patches of “sunspots.” Worse, I am indeed a cancer survivor, though in the most unheroic way. I had a couple of basal cell skin cancers removed a few years ago. They are the most common form of cancer (a million new cases a year) and seldom kill you unless they are ignored. Not ignoring them means carving them out with a scapel.

But they start with those sunspots. So every year I have the doc squirt the latest crop with liquid nitrogen. It doesn’t hurt at first, but in a few days it looks and feels like someone stabbed the spot with a hot poker. And like a burn, it heals and away.

This year my dermatologist asked if I would try a new treatment that lasts five years or more and doesn't burn. I just had to put up with a red and spotted face for about a month.

Ergo the leprous look. Each night I rub fluorouracil cream onto my face and ears, and each morning I awaken with spots that are a bit redder. After three weeks of this, the spots – and chance of cancer – are supposed to go away.

Fluorouracil is pretty neat stuff. It’s a chemotherapy chemical that attacks the DNA of screwed-up cell while leaving the good skin alone. Kind of a smart bomb for overly bronzed bodies. No pain but great gain.

By the end of the week, my face should be in full bloom. So now the big question: Do I dab on some of my wife’s makeup or celebrate the season with a ghoulish countenance?

I suppose I could also just put on a geeky plaid shirt and flip-flops. In some of my classes, no one would ever know . . .

Facing the music with Itzhak

Musicians intrigue me beyond description. They are our access to an alternate universe where countless emotions flow freely on the backs clefs and dancing notes. From thin air, musicians pluck magic that sticks in my brain for days, weeks or a lifetime.

I’ve always wanted to have music, but that simply is not my lot. Words live in me. Music just visits.

Monday I had more than a simple visit; I was treated to a visage. Itzhak Perlman’s face, to be exact.

Last spring my wife asked if I would like a special musical treat for my March birthday. Cecile knows I can’t tell a sonata from a sing-along, but she also knows I love “historical” opportunities. That’s how we ended up with front-row seats for violinist Itzhak Perlman’s scheduled Columbia concert.

A health problem kept the Perlman from playing for my birthday, but the cherubic master finally came to Jesse Hall this week.

I’ve been to concerts of many kinds in many halls. I am often sadly disappointed by classical music performances that seldom seem as good as listening to my own stereo. But this time Itzhak Perlman’s face was no farther from me than if it had been on the television in my living room. That face became the concert for my eyes that his Stradivarius gave to my ears.

Perlman doesn’t play music. He releases it. To watch him tuck his violin beneath his chin and look down the strings is much like watching a pigeon fancier touch the bird to his lips before giving it to the sky.

And when he plays, it is a constant conversation with the score. Some notes he had to coax – furrowing his brow in concentration. Others he welcomed with a big smile. And during a Beethoven sonata, I swear that Perlman seduced the music into the air.

My lasting impression, however, will be of Itzhak Perlman playing Stravinsky’s Suite Italiene. He greeted the piece as an old friend, laughed with it, reminisced with the sernata and danced the jig of friends for the tarantella.

I watched in awe as he cracked open the door to that other place where beautiful sounds eliminated crowds, the exhaustion of touring and even the polio that hobbles Perlman’s legs. He did not read the notes on the stand before him so much as he glanced back to make sure his friends were still following him into the concert hall. His was not the stare of concentration, but the approving gaze of love.

Today I peck at a tuneless keyboard and try to capture some small part of the wonder I experienced last night. I still don’t have music. But at least I’ve come face to face with it.

And that in turn gave me words.

Coming home is easy. Coming down is not.

I’m suffering withdrawal pains. Adventure withdrawal, I suppose.

When I finally realized (with help) what an anti-social SOB I have been for the past two weeks, I started looking for the source of my irritability. I found it in Mongolia.

I spent the first two weeks of June chasing Chingaas Khaan (aka Genghis Khan) across the dry landscape of one of the world’s most remote countries. It was part of a University of Missouri program that may rank as one of the best means devised of developing international awareness. The Global Scholars program joins teams of Mizzou academics from across the campus with scholars from other campuses for intense study tours of different countries each year.

Not to teach, but to learn. Few of the scholars selected have any previous experience with the country. But on their return they spread the knowledge of another culture across the curriculum.

And the trip to Mongolia certainly hit the mark for me. I will include snippets of information about the Mongolian press, political system, weather and religion in my curriculum for years.

So why am I such a curmudgeon?

While the Global Scholars program irreversibly changed my attitudes toward Mongolia, it temporarily transported me to a new life. Not a life I long to keep, but one I enjoyed more than I realized.

To step out of a comfortable American cocoon into a world that constantly challenges your senses is both breathtaking and overwhelming. I was bombarded with imagery and ideas foreign to both my scholarly mind and my writer’s imagination. Countless books and movies tried to give me a taste of “adventure”. But Indiana Jones and his friends are just the hors d'oeuvres that hint of the banquet.

But the new places were just a portion of the experience. The new faces that soon became familiar friends were equally important.

For two weeks I spent day and night – and even bunked – with people that I would have never met and less likely would have socialized with. I explored the back streets if Ulaanbaatar and our minds with Marty Walker, the retired Marine colonel who now keeps the College of Engineering shipshape. Nicole Monnier, the Russian professor with a disarming pixie stature and delightful a smile, would set me back on my heels with her acerbic wit and criticism. Physical therapy professor Marian Minor looked perfect for the stereotype of gentle grandmother – but then she wowed us with tales of scubadiving and world travel.

There were 12 of us in all. Twelve very different souls packed into bouncing Russian vans, aching from the hard beds in Mongolian gers and trying to smile as we ate another meal of over-boiled beef and noodles.

But we also looked together in awe upon the Eternal Blue Sky and the sheer vastness of the Mongolian countryside. And we sat wide-eyed as historians told us about an amazing genius our culture dismisses as a ruthless barbarian.

And we talked. I plowed the fields of my mind with an adventure but cultivated it with unexpected friendship.

I had never met a scholar on Buddhism before Jim Hubbard. I laughed with Amanda Sprochi over the challenge of being a vegetarian in a land that proclaims “meat for man, grass for animals.” Monika Fischer was gracious when I tried my high school German. The elite academic status of noted Amazon expert David Campbell at first intimidated me. But his amazing range of knowledge and his glimpses into the core of humanity worldwide captivated me.

We all talked and talked and talked. About heady concepts from our academic worlds and about the inane in our real worlds. By the end of the two weeks, my mind was just as full of visions, sounds and ideas as my camera was full of photos and my heart was full of emotion.

That was a few weeks ago. Now it is unbearably slipping away – leaving me unbearable.

I vowed to keep in touch with my new friends, to retain every bit of my new knowledge and to hold tightly to my awakened sense of adventure. But I don’t talk to the gang, other than to share an occasional e-mail. Every time I look at one of my pictures, I find another I can’t remember enough about to write a caption. And I sit at this damned computer day after day rather than riding the steppes or even exploring my own neighborhood.

Withdrawal hurts. I’m not a stoic; I tend to share my pain far too freely. So my family and friends suffer this summer for the enjoyment I had. Knowing that fact hurts even worse.

But the up side of fading memories is that life goes on. And gets better. Some friendships rekindle and memories unexpectedly return with a few notes of a song, a once-again familiar smell or a rediscovered scene in a photograph.

Then I’ll smile. Patience, Clyde. The true reward of past adventures is in the future.

Surprises from nature and man

So remember how I wrote about how dry Mongolia is? And how peaceful Mongolians are?

And then I left the country.

Just as we were packing up, it started to sprinkle. The drizzle turned to downpour that kept up for five days. Look at this comparison of how I saw the Selbe River compared to the shot Brian White took just a few days later:













Mongolia started to turn green again. Pasture was assured for the herds. A pleasant democratic election was a few days away. Life looked good.

So much for the idyllic. When the former Communist Mongolian Peoples Democratic Party declared victory, the rival Democratic Party cried foul and alleged voter fraud. Some people were more than a bit politically peeved -- a crowd attacked the MPDP headquarters and burned it. The riot left 400 police injured and pall of smoke -- and dread -- over Ulaanbaatar.

And now madness has set in. Someone torched the Cultural Palace and National Art Gallery, damaging the artworks students were unable to save from the flames.

I cannot tell you how sad I am to hear this latest turn in events. Both parties had defensible policies -- but different version of how Mongolia should develop its new-found natural riches.

Political anger is an emotion I understand well. I can recall my rage at Richard Nixon and the sick feeling in my stomach when I read of the Bush Administration's attacks on Constitutional rights.

I'm writing this from Charlottesville, in the Shenedoah Valley of Virginia. They know disagreement here -- locals in gray helped VMI professor Thomas Jackson "stand like a stone wall" until Phil Sheriden's boys in blue ripped through. Thousands died within a few miles of me over a political disagreement.

I know that many of the landmarks of the South were lost in the battles, as they always are in war. But to turn your anger pointedly on the cultural archive of a people who have influenced the world for 800 years or more is insane. And very sad.

Brian White is providing continuing eye-witness reports on his blog. More on-scene reports on the situation are from Radio Australia and The Associated Press.

It's not easy being brown

I never really appreciated the wonder of green.

After two weeks in Mongolia, I just spent three days in Boston. Like the Sceptered Isle for which it is named, New England practically glows in its lushness (I think mere politics kept it from being New Ireland.)

Where Mongolia is dominated by the grays and browns of its gritty soil, Boston fills the eye with chlorophyll. Given my Britannic genes, it was like soaking in a warm bath after a day of hard labor.

I know, however, how unfair it is to judge a land by your heritage. I spent several years in Texas, where the highest point on the horizon is a freeway overpass. I nearly when crazy for lack of a comforting mantle of surrounding hills. I had a friend, however, who had been terrified by a trip to my native West. Those mountains, he said, loomed over him like mountains.

The Mongolians more than love their open spaces – The Eternal Blue Sky is their spiritual anchor. And drought-parched land is such a part of their land that they don’t really see the lack of lawns in their cities or the brown of the landscape. When rains finally cause the hardy grass to jump out of the soil, their jubilation is for better pasture.

But I love green and always will. I’ll also always love Mongolia and the Eternal Blue Sky, I can’t easily comprehend finding the splendor in dry emptiness just as I delight in eye-filling foliage. But like the unqualified love for both my children, it is part of my soul.

Mongolia's past is prologue

So is the past just a portent of Mongolia’s future?

Although I had visited before and fallen in love with the Mongolian people, the country itself was still something of a distant mirage in my mind. My 15 days with the University of Missouri Global Scholars program, however, awakened me to both the reality and dream of the land of Chingaas Khaan.

Much of Mongolia is shockingly bleak. In the drought-stricken Khentii region, finding a live blade of grass took hands-and-knees inspection. The cows, camels, sheep, goats and yaks wandering the steppes did little better with their parched tongues. A precious few herders live the traditional life in felt gers, moving frequently in search of better pastures.

But in Ulaanbaatar, construction cranes rival hood ornaments on upscale new cars. Fashions and hemlines are high. And so is the optimism. Someone is pumping lots of money into this forgotten nation.

Mongolia must be the most overlooked keystone in the global economy. The fact that it is a democratic country nestled between Russia and China is alone enough to raise an eyebrow. But since finding that the hooves of its herds pounded over huge mineral reserves and potential oil fields, Mongolia is poised for another of its many evolutions.

Chingaas Khaan was nothing if not wily. He understood that the best road to success was adaptation. He invented the Mongolian Way – an intensely emotional way of retaining his culture as a spiritual value while absorbing and capitalizing on the attributes of other peoples.

I have no doubt that Mongolia will put its own ancient spin on the 21st century. The gers won’t disappear as nearly half the population moves to the city – but they will likely become as “authentic” as the teepees in the American Southwest.

The potential of wealth for a country of 2.5 million souls evokes visions of Middle East sheikdoms or Latin American banana republics. But I don’t think so. Mongolians are both hard-headed about their independence and loyal to the teachings of Chingaas Khaan. Back in his day, the Great Leader developed a unique method of pillaging – he sent teams of accountants to the vanquished city to catalogue the booty so that it could be doled out to Mongolians in what he considered a just way.

If I wait another six years for a third visit, I have no doubt that I will find another Mongolia. Change is in the dry Mongolian air. While I’ve heard Westerners bemoan the fading of those quaint traditional herders, that’s really a selfish wish for their own entertainment.

Besides, you can count on some Chiingist to erect a “Mongol Land” under the Eternal Blue Sky.

Going to the Gobi

The Gobi Desert. It is hard to imagine a more forbidden name. Sandstorms, nomads, camels with two humps. And no water.

I unfolded my legs from an eight-hour train ride from the Gobi. It is indeed dry. Sandstorms are awesome but not fun. But the camels are a blast.

We spent three days wandering around in the desert in a Russian van that had no first gear and only worked in four-wheel-drive for a few feet. Gritty sand blew into everything -- I doubt my camera will last much longer.

But the Gobi is not without life. small lizards scurry across the sand and large green insects vaguely akin to grasshoppers cling to the thorny brush.

The people in the Gobi are mining the region's new gold -- tourists. A monk wearing a cartoon-emblazoned towel led us through a new-age "World Energy Center." A group of believers chanted then plopped onto the sand to suck up energy. Ger camps are blossoming everywhere.

My favorite adventure was a stop at the ger of a young couple who raise camels. Bactrian camels are almost like big dogs. I loved them, expecially when they gave me the reins and I got to jog through the desert unaccompanied.

But the Gobi has long been conquered. As far as I walked and rode into this vast and legendary desert, the tracks of inconsiderate man were everywhere. The discarded beer can is the universal symbol for "We Were Here." Garbage is our legacy.

Here are more photos.

The greater Mongolia

Today was our wrap-up session, as half the group leaves for home tomorrow and the rest (including me) goes on a side jaunt to the Gobi Desert. The farewells were bittersweet, but the conclusion of the tour gave us a chance to contemplate Mongolia as the academics we are.

This is a country of surprises, challenges and opportunities. It is all but unknown to most of America, but once changed the entire civilized world and is positioned to have major impact again.

Our trip to the very rural countryside emphasized the contrasts in Mongolia. We were all delighted to return to Ulaanbaatar, which in comparison seems on the cutting edge of modernity. As Brian White noted about the capital, "We are hanging on to civilized life by our fingertips here."

But as the sages among us have noted, all that could change in an eye blink. Mongolia has discovered that its herds of goats graze over a fortune of buried minerals. Will it become the new Kuwait? And if so, will the people benefit or just the leaders and their foreign sponsors?

I may be an optimist, but I think Mongolia may take the "good" path to its future. The sultans of the Middle East historically grabbed the wealth for themselves when they conquered. But Chingaas Khaan had a trailing army of accountants who inventoried all the booty in a captured city and then divided it among the Mongolian people.

The Mongolians may let the Chinese, Koreans and Canadians turn the first spades in the mineral boom, but I have no doubt they will hold onto a major share of the total wealth. If the Mongolians are true to their heritage, that means we may see a wealthy country of highly educated and articulate people who keep in the office while the tourists go out to the countryside to see the quaint (and by then subsidized) nomads.

Today was our wrap-up session, as half the group leaves for home tomorrow and the rest (including me) goes on a side jaunt to the Gobi Desert. The farewells were bittersweet, but the conclusion of the tour gave us a chance to contemplate Mongolia as the academics we are.

This is a country of surprises, challenges and opportunities. It is all but unknown to most of America, but once changed the entire civilized world and is positioned to have major impact again.

Our trip to the very rural countryside emphasized the contrasts in Mongolia. We were all delighted to return to Ulaanbaatar, which in comparison seems on the cutting edge of modernity. As Brian White noted about the capital, "We are hanging on to civilized life by our fingertips here."

But as the sages among us have noted, all that could change in an eye blink. Mongolia has discovered that its herds of goats graze over a fortune of buried minerals. Will it become the new Kuwait? And if so, will the people benefit or just the leaders and their foreign sponsors?

I may be an optimist, but I think Mongolia may take the "good" path to its future. The sultans of the Middle East historically grabbed the wealth for themselves when they conquered. But Chingaas Khaan had a trailing army of accountants who inventoried all the booty in a captured city and then divided it among the Mongolian people.

The Mongolians may let the Chinese, Koreans and Canadians turn the first spades in the mineral boom, but I have no doubt they will hold onto a major share of the total wealth. If the Mongolians are true to their heritage, we may see a wealthy country of highly educated and articulate people who keep in the office while the tourists go out to the countryside to see the quaint (and by then subsidized) nomads.
Today was our wrapup session, as half the group leaves for home tomorrow and the rest (including me) goes on a side jaunt to the Gobi Desert. The farewells were bittersweet, but

Road to adventure

My energy and my enthusiasm are at odds with each other tonight. It is after midnight and I am dog tired. But my head is still swimming with the sights, sounds and smells of three days on the road in rural Mongolia.

Chingaas Khaan spent most of his youth in Khentii region of northeast Mongolia. Later it was his staging ground for the reorganization of bands of nomadic herders into the mighty Mongol nation.

Accompanied by Mongolian historians O. Sukhbaatar and Munkh-Erdene Lhamsuren, we caravaned through Khenti in two Russian jeep/vans and a more modern but less comfortable Mitsubishi. It was a tour of history, wonder, lifestyles and vistas tempered with a developing environmental disaster.

Mongolia is dry in the best of years. But this year the rains did not come to Khenti. The grass in the pasture takes a good eye to find. The cattle are thin and many carcasses littered the landscape. And this is early summer. With no grass now, the livestock have little chance of making it through the sub-zero weather.

If he herds die, so do the Mongolians.

Bed beckons, but there are plenty of photos on the Flickr site. And here is the short version to be fleshed out later.
-- "Road" is a relative term in Mongolia. At times it meant nothing at all as we simply drove off across the trackless steppes looking for our next waypoint.
-- "Road sign" is not a relative term in Mongolia. It is simply meaningless.
-- Camels are curious, but don't like cookies.
-- Milk tea is really salty milk and water, but tastes surprisingly good.
-- A ger is strangely roomy comfortable.
-- Mongolian faces are beautiful. As are their hearts. They welcomed this band of strangers into their gers, fed us from their larders and charmed us with incomprehensible words but universal smiles.
-- Chingaas Khaan camped in more places than there are inns in which Washington slept.
-- We erroneously start the history of Mongolia in the 1200's when Chingaas Khaan rose to power. But centuries before him the Turkic people, the Huns and others rode the steppes. Still earlier -- much earlier -- Stone Age people turned giant stones into art.
-- The secret to keeping a UAZ van on the road is to carry an extra distributor in your tool box
-- Dust storms are nasty. Just nasty. You taste them for days.
-- Hours, miles and bruised tailbones fade rapidly when you spend them with a handful of colleagues from various MU departments. I learned as much about myself, my school and my profession on this trip as I did about the simple cow herder who conquered most of the civilized world.

Too much to tell

In the past couple of days, I've chatted with Buddhist monk, posed with Lenin's statue, eaten horse for lunch, examined the bullet-riddled skulls of purged Mongolians, wandered the infamous Ulaanbaatar Black Market and, well, had one hell of a time.

But I still have to pack for a weekend trek to the the steppes and I'm too tired to write. So instead take a gander at the zillion photos I put on Flickr. I'll write again when I get back from the wilds.

The Grand Tour updated

Before World War 1, affluent young men and women celebrated their entree to civilized life by taking "The Grand Tour," a leisurely cruise to exotic ports around the world.

Winthrop and Penelope, buzz off. Meet Turk and Spence, the "two idiots with $600" and a desire to see the world.

When we were touring the Mongolian National Museum in Ulaanbaatar, I heard an accent from one of my favorite places in the world. "North England?" I asked as I passed a somewhat scruffy young man asking his friend where the **** they were supposed to be going next.

"Yeah, Manchester. You from America?" And indeed I was. There is an instant and amazing kinship among people who hear something close to their native tongue in a sea of unintelligible voices. And when I told him I was a journalism professor, his smile broadened, he nudged his friend and said, "Have we got a story for you!"

I wish I had met Paul Turko and John Spencer about 40 years ago. I take it back. I probably wouldn't be writing if I had.

Turk and Spence just graduated from Leeds University but wanted to have an adventure before going on to grad school. So they scraped up 300 pounds ($600) each, stuck out their thumbs and hitched rides to Ukraine.

And there they met Natasha Fedorova, whose gentle smile and gazelle-like grace would stop traffic on any continent. Natasha gave her boss an excuse, grabbed her bag and joined the adventure.

They took a train across Russia to Irkusk, delighted in the deep waters of Lake Baikal and headed down to Ulaanbaatar. Only to find me. Bummer.

The saving races is that they ran into Degi first. With true Mongol style, he offered them a place to sleep, access to his favorite watering holes and expert translation/guide service.

When I left the four, Turk and Spence were loudly debating their next move and wondering whether the Pacific Ocean was really a barrier to hitch hiking. Natasha looked bemused. Degi just patiently waited for the two Brits to stop talking and get moving.

And I'm sure they did. Keep an eye out for them. Or at least watch their YouTube movie for a bit of fun (but remember Manchester United fans seldom spare the course language).

Clyde TV, Mongolia edition

I'm a print journalist, so video does not come naturally. But the Web makes it easy to add motion images. And now my still camera -- a Panasonic Lumix FZ7 -- has a nice video feature that lets me take nice shots without hauling a special camera.

So I gave it a try this morning. With the 13-hour time difference, I could not sleep. I was up at 3:30 a.m. I did email and sorted photos, then decided to walk through the awakening streets of Ulaanbaatar.

Here's a still image of what I saw, but you might enjoy this brief video. Be prepared -- I had no camera operator or remote control, so had to do a bit of running to get into the scene.