The Journalist's Creed

*I know that a lot has happened since the last time that I published a blog, I'm sorry about that. I started a new job and have also been working on getting my publishing business up and running in my spare time, but getting into the swing of things is taking a bit longer than I planned with the new job. I like my new job, it's a good company and doing a lot of editing which is great. My plan is to publish here at least once a month but I'm hoping to write more. I will be posting a few things about things that happened within the last few months and our social and political climate going forward. 

With everything that is going on with our newly inaugurated president calling journalists and the media fake news, I think it's only right to remind people that, we journalists, actually have a creed that we take seriously. I also think that journalists need to be reminded of The journalist's Creed now more than ever and that we can not listen or pass off "alternative facts" as news and that we have to question anything that comes out of Trump's White House and hold his presidency up to scrutiny like never before. Journalists have a job to make sure that the public is getting the truth.

The Journalist's Creed 

Walter Williams, circa 1906

I believe in the profession of journalism. 

I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust. 

I believe that clear thinking and clear statement, accuracy and fairness are fundamental to good journalism. 

I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true. 

I believe that suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible. 

I believe that no one should write as a journalist what he would not say as a gentleman; that bribery by one's own pocketbook is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another's instructions or another's dividends. 

I believe that advertising, news, and editorial columns should alike serve that best interests of readers; that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all; that the supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service. 

I believe that the journalism which succeeds best - and best deserves success-fears God and honors Man; is stoutly independent, unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power, constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance and, as far as law and honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradeship; is a journalism of humanity, of for today's world. 

Journalists keep this in mind and remember the responsibility that we have to the public and to ourselves. 

An Open Letter To My Fellow Democrats and Americans

President Elect Donald Trump, publicity photo

(Is it me or does he look tired? and a normal color?)

I love that we are protesting but it's too late to change what has happened and we have to deal with that fact. Where were we 16 months ago when Trump announced his candidacy? We should have been there, protesting instead of taking it as a joke.

I fault myself for his Presidency. I thought like many of us did that it was a joke, and that this celebutante had no chance of winning the Republican nomination. We should have taken it seriously, we took Ben Carson seriously (and he's a big joke) we should have taken Trump seriously. Anyone that throws his/her hat into the Presidential arena, with the amount of free time, money and public backing that Trump had at the time, should be taken seriously.

Hillary Clinton, DNC 2016

Another reason that I fault myself and Democrats as a whole for this Presidency, is we didn't do enough for Hillary Clinton. We were frightened by what could happen if we spoke up for her, especially being a woman. I was terrified of the backlash that could happen if I showed my support for Mrs. Clinton. We as a progressive country failed Mrs.Clinton and for that I apologize. I let fear hold me down and not speak up for myself as a woman or as an American. Women! Our voices matter, especially now. I cannot and will not let my daughter be told that she is any less than a man and I will not let her country tell her that she is any less of an American.

The protesting that we are doing now will not help unless we protest in the right ways. What are the right ways? We get involved, push forward for a progressive, inclusive America. We don't let fear hold us hostage any longer. If our Democratic leaders don't fight for us every step of the way, we push them out of the way and fight for ourselves. We do not let Trump take advantage of us letting our guard down. We do not allow Trump to spew hatred, misogyny, and racism as his tool to scare us back in line. We stand up and say NO. We are a country of the people, for the people and we can do much better than hate. Trump said in his acceptance speech that he wants to work together and unify our country, I say we call him on that and unify in a way that he doesn't expect. We come together as a country to say that no matter if you're a woman, a man, African American, Latino, Asian, Muslim, Catholic, Buddhist, Indian, American Indian, LGBTQ American, White American, etc., we are for ALL of us. Not just a fraction of us. We keep fighting for the America that we want. We don't run away to another country, we stay and we fight for the America that we want: An Inclusive nation. It is what our Forefathers set out to do. As Alexander Hamilton sings in Hamilton "I am not throwing away my shot/Hey yo, I'm just like my country/I'm young, scrappy and hungry/And I am not throwing away MY shot."  America is our shot and we can NOT throw it away.

We also have to preserve President Obama's legacy as much as we can. President Obama gave us so much, that I have no idea how to thank him for the sacrifices that he and his family have made, except to say, Mr.President your legacy will not be lost. I will fight to preserve it, the roads that you begin to pave for America's way forward will continue, we will keep fighting to be the great nation that we have always been, we will rise up and be the Americans that you want us to be. Thank you for your service to our great country, it has been an honor to have you as our President.

The Moon

Blue moon rising in December in Denver

To say that I've taken a lot of pictures of the moon would be an understatement; you might say I have an obsession with the moon. 

It started when I was little, looking with awe at the moon, fixated on what was up there. The vastness of the moon. It has the ability to change how you look at the world and how the world views you. We expect to see in the moon in  the sky every night and when it's missing, our world is darker, smaller and a lot quieter. 

My favorite time to take pictures of the moon is the fall and winter seasons. The moon seems bigger, closer and brighter this time of year. Although I have taken some amazing pictures during the summer as well, like the moon covered behind the red of forest fires and during a red moon eclipse in June. Favorite thing is dancing at Red Rocks under the moon in the summer, but nothing beats the moon on a crystal clear night in January, especially if it's just snowed. Maybe it's because I'm a winter baby that I love the moon. 


Moon at the beginning of an Eclipse in June

When I take pictures of the moon it calms me and I'm able to think a little clearer, Maybe it's because when I take photographs I breath deeper. It feels like my soul is at peace when I make art, I feel better about everything. And when I take photos of the moon it's so quiet and it's just me. I hope when people look at my photos they get that sense of peace and take something away from them about how big the world and universe is, if that's what's up there what new thrilling thing is just around the corner for us?


Moon through sky light. 

Just a Short Note

Since I last posted a lot has been going on. I LLC'd my publishing company and have started putting into motion the submission process for our annual literary zine. Wow, I don't think that a more Frasier-esque sentence has ever been written by me. Anyway, I've been in the process of writing a business plan, an operations agreement, flyers and getting things together to start a podcast with my business partner, Rebecca. So I've been busy, but I am getting my shit together because I do want to keep writing blogs. For now I am putting my fiction serial on hold, still working on it, but just won't be posting here for the time being, I will still be posting about movies, books, pop culture, politics, etc on Wednesdays and Fridays. I'm getting on a schedule, it's important to do these things I've been told by people....plus it keeps me dependable. I'll also be posting info about my business here and on the business website. A lot of that will be about writing, publishing and literature so more than likely I'll be starting another blog for my business. I will release my business name when the Facebook page and website it up. Anyway look for my blog tomorrow morning.

Infinite Sorrow

I know that I was supposed to start my fiction serial this week, but editing has gotten the best of me so I decided that I would post early about a somewhat overlooked film, "The End of The Tour" about David Foster Wallace's interview with Journalist David Lipsky. I will be posting again about another overlooked movie later on in the week and will be posting on Friday about news etc. and will hopefully have my editing finished up and will start posting the serial on Sunday/Monday. 

In where I write about a much overlooked film, "The End of the Tour" 


Jason Segel as author David Foster Wallace in the film 
"The End of the Tour"

The movie "The End of the Tour", is about a week long conversation/interview between writers David Foster Wallace and David Lipsky, about Wallace's infamous novel, Infinite Jest. "The End of the Tour" gets to the heart of Wallace, but it does almost miss it in the beginning.

The reason for that is Jesse Eisenberg's Lipsky comes across as a little smarmy at the start, but it's only because Lipsky at the time was searching for himself. Eisenberg does an honest, somewhat halting performance of Lipsky: the writer desperately wanting to be successful.

 As writers we all want that recognition and acceptance from other more successful writers, especially someone as brilliant as Wallace. I like the honesty of Eisenberg's performance, he's just a guy who is lucky enough to spend days getting to know one of his idols and he so badly wants his acceptance. I've been there, that feeling and awe, but wanting to treat them like they are just people so that they let their guard down to let you in, in a meaningful way, so that you can do your art, while they're doing theirs. It doesn't get more intimate than that.

David Lipsky got lucky not many writers, particularly writers of Wallace's stature, want to let another writer in. It's like being looked at by the world, the way that this person or writer views you and you don't want to be viewed as not able to get the work done, that you are a joke.

David Foster Wallace so wants to be approachable, just an average guy, but he knows that he is an incredible writer. Jason Segel's stripped down version of Wallace is Wallace. Segel is able to understand the crippling pain of understanding everything that Wallace had to him. It surprises me how open Wallace is, but really what did he have to lose by not opening up? I remember being 17 and reading Girl With Curious Hair, Wallace's short story collection, it was hidden in the back of my high school library along with copies of Sylvia Plath's Ariel and Hemingway's The Dangerous Summer that I had hidden there because I had hit my limit on books to check out, I was also doing research on Mozart,  so I had depleted the library's biography section. The library was my favorite place, there were books there, that's besides the point, Wallace's short stories made me look beyond the "normal," to realize the absurdity of life and how full of excitement it could be.

My favorite parts of "The End of The Tour" is when Wallace is trying to get Lipsky to understand his depression and to put it behind himself. He wants in vain to leave it there, he's embarrassed by it, it's his Achilles heel. Depression is funny that way, some of us will be open about it, but most of us who have been through bouts of depression feel that we will be looked at as abnormal, that we don't fit in the world. I look at my depression as something to learn about myself, watching for triggers keeping myself off that line. I don't want to go back to having to take antidepressants, ever. That said, I believe that antidepressants can help people, for me, I felt lost and even lonelier on medication so I've figured out other ways to keep it at bay. I felt it coming on when I first left my day job a few months back, I went into survival mode, throwing myself into a daily routine of getting my kid up, ready for school, taking the dog for a daily walk and finding projects to keep myself busy. My depression began years ago after I lost my newborn son, Zachary, at birth. I got pregnant with my daughter not too long after that, which kind of kicked me out of it, but about a year and a half after her birth I was attending classes at Metro State here in Denver, I started having issues concentrating and getting into my academics. I was also having a hard time being a mom, I hadn't really dealt with losing my son and being a mother to another child so quickly. I got on antidepressants and they helped for about a fraction of what they were supposed to and I decided to just quit taking them. I didn't taper off of them, I just quit. Which, I know isn't the most responsible thing to do in the world, I just couldn't do it anymore. Yes, I am a Cannabis smoker and most would say that I am self medicating, but let me tell you, I can deal with and function on a much higher level then I ever could being on antidepressants, and trust me I tried quite a few of them to get me functioning.

Talking about writing, Wallace puts it all into perspective at the beginning of "The End of The Tour", "At the end of the day it's just a plain piece of paper and me." He gives a look into what it is like to be a writer, what can we turn that piece of paper into. If we're lucky it becomes something like Infinite Jest. 

The best part of this movie, and about understanding Wallace,  is at the end of the interview, David Lipsky is laying in Wallace's "guest bedroom" fuming about a discussion the two of them had earlier in the day about Wallace's fame, drug use and depression. Wallace sums himself up by saying, "It was much more that I had lived an incredibly American life, this idea that if I could just achieve x, and y, and z, that everything would be okay. There's a thing in the book how when somebody leaps from a burning skyscraper, it's not that they're not afraid of falling anymore, it's that the alternative is so awful, and so then you're invited to consider what could be so awful that leaping to your death would seem like an escape from it. And I don't know if you have any experience with this kind of thing but it's worse than any kind of physical injury. It maybe in the old days what is known as "Spiritual Crisis." Feeling as though every axiom of your life turned out to be false and there was actually nothing and that you were nothing. And it's all a delusion and you're so much better than everybody 'cause you can see how this is just a delusion, and you're so much worse because you can't fucking function. It's really horrible. I don't think that we ever change. I'm sure that I still have those same parts of me. Guess I'm trying really hard to find a way not to let them drive. You know?" and that's what depression is really, trying hard not to let it drive.

You can find "The End of the Tour" Available on Amazon Prime if you have an Amazon account and on Hulu. It's well worth the watch, especially if you enjoy reading David Foster Wallace, it's a small glimpse at a genius writer.

If you have an suggestions of other over looked movies etc please let me know in the comments or follow me on Twitter @ ChristineLarran or on Facebook Christine Larranaga or at my website https://christine-larranaga.squarespace.com/   and please feel free to check out some of my photography on Flickr @https://www.flickr.com/photos/missy2876/

Changes

I've decided to do some re-vamping here and I may need to do some more changes down the line, like creating separate blogs, for now though I will keep posting here and on my website. Starting next week I will be posting three times a week. Sunday/Monday I will be posting my fiction serial, Wednesday will be about movies and Friday will be editorial, news, and random journal posts about how my business is doing, writing,etc. I've been thinking about doing this for awhile so that I can get myself into a rhythm with my posts. I just want to make things a little more deliberate instead of just doing whatever.

My publishing business is getting closer to becoming more of reality as I've been working with funding etc to get things started. I'm hoping that I can start my podcast soon. It will be hosted on my website christine-larranaga.squarespace.com Myself and my friend, Rebecca will be hosting it and will be talking about everything from Literature, Movies, Politics, single mom hood etc. basically everything that we find interesting. I will be posting the names of both my business and the podcast soon so that interested parties can take a look and a listen, I just want to get set up and on the way before I give specifics. Hopefully we will be looking to take submissions for books etc, by October 1 and hoping to have the podcast set up mid- September.

If you have any questions, comments, ideas for stories, please let me know in the comments below or contact me on Twitter @ChristineLarran

A Soldier's Family

*I just wanted to post this for my brother and family. It's an Editorial that I wrote when he first entered the military. 

My brother is 24 years old and has just enlisted in the United States Army.

“He was the most beautiful baby in the hospital when he was born and all he wanted to do was sleep,” My mother always says when talking about his birth and he was really the most beautiful baby there.

I was five but I remember clearly going to the hospital to see him. I stood on a little stool and looked in the nursery room window at what my father was pointing at; a calm serene little bundle with golden curls on his head. He just laid there sleeping, not a care in the world.

Of all the things that my family thought that he would be, we never thought that he would be a soldier. I thought he would be a director or a writer for the movies, he’s always had a wonderful imagination and he it uses too. He would entertain himself for hours making up his own worlds that had both Jedi’s, and Transformer’s living in huge block cities. One of his favorite things to do was to re-enact Indiana Jones movies and add more to his favorite scenes. One time he even tied up the little girl that my mom baby sat and left her there while he was fighting off some bad guys.

Now he’s going off and joining the military.

His joining the military has been hard for my whole family. We have a big close nit family, made up of my mom’s brothers and sisters. Being so close, this has affected them as well, not just the immediate family.

When people find out that my bother has joined the military they always say, “I didn’t know that your brother supports Bush and the war in Iraq.”

Well, his joining the Army has nothing to do with Bush or the war, in fact my brother is against Bush and the war, but he joined to protect his family, America and to further his career. People always assume that when anyone joins the Army that they are joining for those reasons, they never look at the whole picture or the person. And they hardly ever look at the family who is left behind.

This has been one of the hardest things for me to deal with. My brother has always been there and he is the one person that I have always just been able to hang out with, without having to worry about anything with. Especially lately, he has become not only my brother but my best friend. He makes me laugh and I can talk to him about anything and everything. He has become my daughter’s adopted father when her birth father wouldn’t step up to the role and for that I am thankful. She really loves him and there is no one in her tiny world who compares to him not even me, to her he is the sun.

My mother has taken this hard too. She adores my brother after all he is the youngest of us all. As usual though, she is taking it in stride ready to deal with anything. It has to be hard to be sending her child off to the military.

My sister and her husband recently moved back from Hawaii after living there for 2 ½ years. She has been spending as much time with him as possible before he leaves for basic training. The two of them are very close and are close in age as well. They love being together. She is very upset that he is going into the Army, because it is something that she didn’t want him doing, especially with the war going on, but even before she thought going into the Army was crazy.

Our extended family is very sad and worried about him going into the Army. Everyone will miss him and have some void now that he is leaving. He has meant something special to everybody. My Uncle Jim has always been close to my brother, looking after him like he was his son more than just his nephew. When my brother was little my uncle used to take my brother with him quite often and my brother has always enjoyed his time with my uncle.  

The war in Iraq is something that we all think about it, but we never say anything. I think that the hardest thing about him going into the Army isn’t his leaving for boot camp, but that we don’t know where he is going. That’s the scariest part, the not knowing. All you can do is hope.