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| East of Pawhuska on Okesa roaad, before the rain hits |
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Osage hills, the photo
Here's where I was painting the previoous watercolor
Osage musings, and a star
I'm assuming every blogger in Oklahoma envies and admires Ree Drummond, thepioneerwoman.com for her award-winning blog, started in only 2006, and now to be made a movie of.
Driving to the bed and breakfast this week across the wide-open spaces of The Osage on fall break, On scenic byway U.S. 60 east of Pawhuska, Susan and I passed this gate.
I told Susan, "I'll bet that's the gate to the home of Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman."
We stayed at the Inn at Woodyard Farms Bed and Breakfast, 918-287-2699--three miles north of Pawhuska--where I had the best waffle this morning I've ever had in my life, and which does not have a website and has been in business for 21 years and which we saw in Oklahoma Today--, and also traveled to Bartlesville, Drummond's home town, and Susan bought her bookbook at the fantastic Woolaroc, Frank Phillips' gift to Oklahoma.
Driving to the bed and breakfast this week across the wide-open spaces of The Osage on fall break, On scenic byway U.S. 60 east of Pawhuska, Susan and I passed this gate.
We stayed at the Inn at Woodyard Farms Bed and Breakfast, 918-287-2699--three miles north of Pawhuska--where I had the best waffle this morning I've ever had in my life, and which does not have a website and has been in business for 21 years and which we saw in Oklahoma Today--, and also traveled to Bartlesville, Drummond's home town, and Susan bought her bookbook at the fantastic Woolaroc, Frank Phillips' gift to Oklahoma.
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| New York Times bestseller--what a success story |
More photos and thoughts of bed and breakfast, The Osage, and Bartlesville, and Woolaroc coming soon.
Autumn in The Osage
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| Gate in the Osage Hills |
I painted the start of this on Okesa road east of Pawhuska in the Osage nation yesterday, before rain moved in. It's wild and free.
Susan and I were in Pawhuska at a bed and Breakfast for fall break. What a scenic corner of Oklahoma. Even more special since we've seen the award winning play, August in he Osage.
Photos to come soon.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
The pages of October
There's a story or two to tell about how we were fortunate to have N.Y. Times correspondent Anthony Shadid, an Oklahoma City native, on campus this week to talk to our students and all interested, including his family members who live here.
Shadid has twice won a Pulitzer prize for his coverage of the war in Iraq, working for The Washington Post. He's been with the Times for less than a year.
I have a notebook full of notes, but I'm writing from memory and emotion here, to recommend one of his books: Night Draws Near--Iraq's People in the shadow of America's war.
Anthony is a Lebanese-American, or as he put it: "I'm an American, of Lebanese descent." He is a Christian, as are many of the Lebanese who immigrated to Oklahoma about 100 years ago. There's another story, one that hasn't been told, although he's working on another book about his southern Lebanese family and their coming to Oklahoma.
I wish you could have heard him talk about covering the war. He's a story teller, and because he speaks at least two kinds of Arabic--that he learned in college and in Lebanon--he has a unique ability to get real stories from real people in a part of the world where Americans are essentially enemies.
So if you want to understand the quagmire America is in in Iraq--"The war isn't over," Shadid said--this book helps. He takes no political stands, just shows the facts and effect of war on Iraq's citizens, and how war ruins the humanity of mankind. He is not kind to Saddam, relating his brutality. Neither is he kind to Bush and America and its invasion...it's just straight reporting. He told my students he prefers "muscular writing"--nouns and verbs, with few adjectives and adverbs. He gives a brief historical perspective of Iraq and its greatness and turmoil and tragedies.
But as he told my students, and this is a paraphrase, he prefers to cover big events by finding small stories that show the bigger picture.
I've only read the first two chapters so far, and am hooked. Excerpts:
Journalism-- "Journalism is imperfect. The more we know as reporters, the more complicated the story becomes, and by the nature of our profession, the less equipped we are to write about it with the justice and rigor it demands. Night Draws Near is no exception."
Before the invasion--"Against the cacophony of the Arab world, Baghdad seemed quiet, so hushed that it felt a little unreal. As America framed the war one way, the Arab world another, Iraq simply seemed to be trying to come to grips with its arrival."
Words--"Time and again, I am struck by how seldom I hear the word hurriya, "freedom" in conversations about politics in the Arab world... . Much more common among Arabs is the world adil, "justice.... . And justice, it seemed to many in the Middle East, was no longer served by the Americans... ."
Chants--"'There is no god by God and America is the enemy of God!'"
With more than 100,000 dead Iraqis and more than 8,000 Americans dead so far, and with Baghdad--ironically called "the city of peace" still without electricity seven years after we invaded....this book helps me understand. It doesn't give me answers, but it is worth reading because we're going to be there a long time.
P.S. Anthony Shadid, his wife who also works for the NY Times, and his beautiful daughter, will be returning to Beirut, Lebanon, to work. from my part of the world, "Vaya con Dios." You make me proud to be a journalist, and reaffirm my faith in who important journalism is to our free society.
Buy the book. I did. But of course I got his autograph: "To Terry & Susan Clark--My new friends in Oklahoma!"
Shadid has twice won a Pulitzer prize for his coverage of the war in Iraq, working for The Washington Post. He's been with the Times for less than a year.
Anthony is a Lebanese-American, or as he put it: "I'm an American, of Lebanese descent." He is a Christian, as are many of the Lebanese who immigrated to Oklahoma about 100 years ago. There's another story, one that hasn't been told, although he's working on another book about his southern Lebanese family and their coming to Oklahoma.
I wish you could have heard him talk about covering the war. He's a story teller, and because he speaks at least two kinds of Arabic--that he learned in college and in Lebanon--he has a unique ability to get real stories from real people in a part of the world where Americans are essentially enemies.
So if you want to understand the quagmire America is in in Iraq--"The war isn't over," Shadid said--this book helps. He takes no political stands, just shows the facts and effect of war on Iraq's citizens, and how war ruins the humanity of mankind. He is not kind to Saddam, relating his brutality. Neither is he kind to Bush and America and its invasion...it's just straight reporting. He told my students he prefers "muscular writing"--nouns and verbs, with few adjectives and adverbs. He gives a brief historical perspective of Iraq and its greatness and turmoil and tragedies.
But as he told my students, and this is a paraphrase, he prefers to cover big events by finding small stories that show the bigger picture.
I've only read the first two chapters so far, and am hooked. Excerpts:
Journalism-- "Journalism is imperfect. The more we know as reporters, the more complicated the story becomes, and by the nature of our profession, the less equipped we are to write about it with the justice and rigor it demands. Night Draws Near is no exception."
Before the invasion--"Against the cacophony of the Arab world, Baghdad seemed quiet, so hushed that it felt a little unreal. As America framed the war one way, the Arab world another, Iraq simply seemed to be trying to come to grips with its arrival."
Words--"Time and again, I am struck by how seldom I hear the word hurriya, "freedom" in conversations about politics in the Arab world... . Much more common among Arabs is the world adil, "justice.... . And justice, it seemed to many in the Middle East, was no longer served by the Americans... ."
Chants--"'There is no god by God and America is the enemy of God!'"
With more than 100,000 dead Iraqis and more than 8,000 Americans dead so far, and with Baghdad--ironically called "the city of peace" still without electricity seven years after we invaded....this book helps me understand. It doesn't give me answers, but it is worth reading because we're going to be there a long time.
P.S. Anthony Shadid, his wife who also works for the NY Times, and his beautiful daughter, will be returning to Beirut, Lebanon, to work. from my part of the world, "Vaya con Dios." You make me proud to be a journalist, and reaffirm my faith in who important journalism is to our free society.
Buy the book. I did. But of course I got his autograph: "To Terry & Susan Clark--My new friends in Oklahoma!"
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