Fwd: sfx News: From Greenland to Electioneering

[Don Begley]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Don Begley <[hidden email]>

Date: October 2, 2008 9:15:16 PM MDT

To: [hidden email]

Subject: sfx News: From Greenland to Electioneering

Reply-To: [hidden email]

Melting Ice and Rhetoric: October 3: Greenland's Melting Ice on Frito Friday (7:00 pm) October 8: Unwinding the Rhetoric (6:30 pm)

What Happens if Greenland Turns Green?

Greenland is the world's largest island, and the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is the Northern Hemisphere's largest terrestrial permanent ice- and snow covered area. Scientists have been monitoring the ice sheet for decades and are discovering that the ice appears to be melting. If true, what will a green Greenland mean for the rest of the world?

Dr. Sebastian H. Mernild, a post-doc fellow at the International Arctic Research Center and Water & Environmental Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is in Santa Fe this weekend. The internationally renowned researcher has agreed to join Frito Friday, October 5, for a casual and informative discussion on his research on the Greenland Ice Sheet in a climate perspective.

Dr. Mernild discusses the future perspectives for this scenario at Frito Friday. He says, "Ice mass and snow cover serve as water reservoirs that are highly vulnerable to ongoing climatic variations and change. The Arctic is undergoing a system-wide response to climatic change, and the effect of a warmer and wetter climate on terrestrial cryospheric and hydrological processes and their components have already been documented."

Click here for more information on Dr. Mernild's work. Join Dr. Mernild at 7:00 at Santa Fe Complex to learn more about his perspective on the future of Greenland's ice and the world's coastlines.

Swimming Against the Flow (October 7, 6:30 pm)

Presidential debates; vice presidents, too; ads, emails and web pages: claims and counterclaims abound. Come to this second workshop at Santa Fe Complex to learn how to look beyond the scripts and see what is really going on this this fall's campaigns.

From soap to soapboxes, ads, debaters and talking heads work overtime to control or influence the flow of information available to voters. Learn how to swim against the flow, by navigating upstream through the flood of information around us to find where the information comes from and investigating its accuracy in this second of the Three Tuesdays workshops before November's elections.

On Tuesday night, October 7, journalist Tom Johnson will show workshop participants how to track data to their upstream sources. Web pages and their data are not static events; learn how to find the "signs" of where they came from, who owns the site(s) and sometimes who links to them. Johnson will discuss how investigators can use these attributes to advantage and also take a step back to consider the "architecture of sophisticated web searching."

The third and final workshop, on October 14, will explore the payoff for the research done by the workshop's participants: following the money to see what and who is supporting the campaign. This final workshop looks at web sites that make it easier to follow the election money and focuses on how to get their data into a spreadsheet. Then what? A short intro to slicing-and-dicing the numbers. (Even if you are a spreadsheet maven, please come and act as a coach.)

These workshops will give participants an opportunity to do some hands-on ("On-line hands-on", that is) investigation of New Mexico politics. Participants are also encouraged to bring a laptop if they can. After learning to do the online research needed to understand what's happening in the fall political campaign, participants will have the opportunity to do homework assignments and contribute to the Three Tuesdays wiki so their discoveries will be available to the general public.

Everyone is welcome but space will be limited. A suggested donation of $45 covers all three events or $20 will help produce each session. Click here to sign up.

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Tom Johnson's 30-year career path in journalism is one that regularly moved from the classroom to the newsroom and back. He worked for TIME magazine in El Salvador in the mid-80s, was the founding editor of MacWEEK, and a deputy editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His areas of interest are analytic journalism, dynamic simulation models of publishing systems, complexity theory, the application of Geographic Information Systems in journalism and the impact of the digital revolution on journalism and journalism education. He is the founder and co-director of the Institute for Analytic Journalism and a member of the Advisory Board of Santa Fe Complex.

Santa Fe Complex is located in the Railyard Art District within walking distance of the hotels, restaurants and shops at the plaza downtown. We're housed in two facilities, the project space at 624 Agua Fria and the work space at 632 Agua Fria.

The conference area contains meeting rooms and facilities for short-term use associated with on-going sfComplex projects. The project space houses the great room, where we hold events and offer Internet access, working facilities, a coffee lounge and work carrels for laptop users.

While there is parking at 624 Agua Fria, the Romero Street parking lot is more conveniently located for the 632 facility. Romero St. is an old-style Santa Fe ox-cart road just east of the 624 driveway. Follow it until it opens up to two lanes and turn hard right into the parking lot for 632.

Here's a map to our location. For more information, call Don Begley at 505/216.7562.

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Santa Fe Complex | 624 Agua Fria | Santa Fe | NM | 87501

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