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Sunday, January 30, 2011

Worth the wait

Old news interests me. I don’t intentionally wait to read things, but inevitably backlogs happen. With work, school and family (in order of time commitment, not importance), it is easy to get behind. Everyone seems to have a busy life these days and in that vein, I must confess to falling behind in my reading. I attribute this to being a bit too ambitious in creating my to-do lists. Since reading is typically towards the end of the list, it often does not get the time I’d like to dedicate to it.

I am selective in my late news though, not just anything makes my delayed reading list. For the last six years I’ve religiously read The Economist. I don’t know if it is the different point of view, being a British publication, but I always find their articles engaging and thought provoking. I’ve also recently starting reading Bloomburg Businessweek, a subscription came with my enrollment in school.

These two publications make up my tardy readings, my standard operating procedure is to be about two to three issues behind. With pretty much everything else, if I don’t read read it right away it gets filed into the ‘not-going-to-happen’ category. I think part of the reason I do make an effort to read most of The Economist and Bloomburg Businessweek is their nuanced point-of-view. Both publications have an ideological tint, but they use that framework to examine issues for relative merits, instead of using it to justify party-line opinions. As seems to be the case in many other media outfits.

I’m sure that I’m not the only one with this tardiness habit, but I might be one of the few who enjoy it. I know that just because I read it late doesn’t mean that there was more thought put into the article between when the news happened, and when I read it. But there is something about being a bit removed from events to get perspective.

The twenty-four hour news cycle doesn’t always produce ground-breaking journalism. There are situations where events develop so rapidly that covering live events is warranted, such as the current popular upheavals in Egypt. But the majority of the time, it seems that cable stations like CNN and Fox News cover stories simply because they need something to fill the airtime, not because it is inherently news worthy.

That is why, with this blog, I promise no up-to-the-minute updates. Some might cynically decry this pledge as an excuse for laziness, and they might be right. But I much prefer to think of it as a promise of quality over quantity.

My plan is for the majority of posts to be about science, and specifically about my struggles to communicate it, as that is my career. I lead a multifaceted life though, so there will be a variety of topics discussed. I am currently pursuing an MBA through Loyola Marymount University’s part time program, taking two classes a semester. I’m also starting a family with my wife and am interested in personal technology.

So with that guide map in mind, this is the start of my blogging journey! As is my way, I might be a bit late to the blogging trend, but hopefully that delay will have produced more fully thought-out content.

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