Being a journalist, I never feel bad talking to journalism students because it’s a grand, grand caper. You get to leave, go talk to strangers, ask them anything, come back, type up their stories, edit the tape. That’s not gonna retire your loans as quickly as it should, and it’s not going to turn you into a person who’s worried about what kind of car they should buy, but that’s kind of as it should be. I mean, it beats working.
David Carr
One out of five American children are hungry. Feeding America, the country’s largest hunger relief organization with more than 200 food depositories located through America, reported that children suffer the most from hunger. “It’s never a child’s fault that they don’t have enough to eat,” Nikki Grizzle, Director of Marketing and Public Relations for the nation-wide children’s charity, Blessings in a Backpack, said, “so why should they suffer?” Children who are malnourished for an extended amount of time can suffer mental, physical and cognitive disorders, according to Ross Fraser, the Director of Media Relations at Feeding America. James Conwell, the Communications Manager of The Greater Chicago Food Depository, reported that within Cook County, one out of four children are hungry, whereas the national average is one out of five. “It’s kind of an invisible issue,” Fraser said.
Atalanta (noun): A huntress who would marry only someone who could beat her in a foot race. She was beaten when a suitor threw down three golden apples, which she stopped to pick up[1]. According to Greek mythology, Atalanta’s father left her to die on a mountaintop, for she was not the son he had desired. Legend has it that bears cared for Atalanta until hunters had found her. She was raised in the wilderness, apart of a wild pack of family bears. Atalanta was a fierce and female and happy huntress who was utterly uninterested in men; she took an oath of virginity to the goddess Artemis. Her father eventually returned to his daughter and demanded she wed, despite her lack of desire for marriage. A game was thus proposed. A competition. Those who lost to her in the foot race would be killed. The winner? Her husband. With help from the goddess Aphrodite, a young man Hippomenes was given three golden apples to roll on the ground during the race; slowing Atalanta down, for they were irresistible to her. Zeus turned the couple into lions after they made love in once of his sacred temples. Other legends say Aphrodite turned them into lions because they didn’t honor her. Lions could not mate within their own species – only with leopards. Atalanta and Hippomenes would never be together again. Underhandedly, Atalanta was given the opportunity to once again be alone in the wild. Returned to her independence. Free.
Jesse Jackson Jr. deserves a pat on the back. After having an affair with a waitress, being Candidate #5, and resigning from Congress due to his bipolar disorder and ongoing federal investigation 15 days after being elected, it’s hard to remember the once-promising political candidate he was; a rising star in Chicago, Presidential material, even. He tried, right? It’s not his fault all of these “false” scandals broke out! But, to quote Cassius, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
“I wish I was your age,” Rick Kogan – yes, the Rick Kogan of the Chicago Tribune – says to one of Columbia College’s introduction to journalism classes that I happen to be apart of. A few of us twist around the plastic chairs to get a glimpse at the man of the hour. I am in the front row of a beautiful conference room with a beautiful view at WBEZ’s Navy Pier home, waiting to be enlightened. Truthfully, I had been doubtful: do I really want to be a journalist? This is a dying field. Rick Kogan walks up the isle with the confidence only a cultured, urbane writer can. “You’re in for a remarkable journey,” he says to our wide-eyed, diverse class. And so it begins.