The Supertramp

by | Sep 10, 2009 | The Public Humanist

About a year ago I saw the Into the Wild, Sean Penn’s filmic treatment of the eponymous book by Jon Krakauer about Chris McCandless, a boy my age who left his family and all earthly security at the age of 21 to pursue a dream of living alone in the Alaskan...

My McElwee-McCandless Film

by | Sep 14, 2009 | The Public Humanist

Thirteen years ago two things conspired that eventually led to my film on Chris McCandless: Into the Wild was published, and Sherman’s March was rebroadcast. Of course, I was already familiar with the McCandless story, having followed it closely in newspapers...

Why Am I Doing This?

by | Sep 22, 2009 | The Public Humanist

One night in August, I was soaking wet from having just been in a pond, under the moonlight in rural Ashfield. I was walking around the side of a barn and I was listening to the applause from the audience who had come to see our performance of the Arabian Nights. They...

The Pentagon does the right thing

by | Sep 1, 2009 | Ten Gallon Liberal

A few days ago, I took a look at a Stars and Stripes story detailing the Pentagon's hiring of a PR firm to gauge whether reporters embedded with the military had previously offered "positive" coverage: U.S. public affairs officials in Afghanistan...