"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Sun-Times' Gasping Leaves Us All Winded

This column originally published on Huffington Post/Chicago

It's almost the era that never ends but simply keeps ending endlessly, seemingly every week. If print news were a TV character it would be Fred Sanford, except with real, honest-to-goodness heart attacks, only a few breaths from seeing his beloved Elizabeth.

In the latest turgent episode of "As the Crumbling Newspaper Industry Turns," news broke that Jay Mariotti, the $300,000-a-year (give or take a few thousand) controversial sports columnist at my old newspaper, The Chicago Sun-Times, abruptly quit.

The news was followed by reports that a new round of newsroom cuts would begin shortly. By the end of the business day newsroom gossips were naming a reporter who had been on the short list to go back in January when I, one of the newest kids on the block, was cut, as well as two columnists, two photographers and a few support staff as the next likely, though unconfirmed, targets.

This development comes, almost dizzingly, on the heels of a Chicago Tribune purge that saw barely-two-months-on-the-job managing editor Hanke Gratteau and long-timer James Warren take buyouts, along with an estimated 80 reporters dismissed because no one is making money off an electronic news system that relies heavily on syndicated wire services and a passed-along-by-a-friend distribution model.

How will the Sun-Times dismissals play out? Probably no one will be hustled out by security, as I witnessed in the days before my own January departure, though that fact was later vehemently denied.

There will be more tears, but far fewer people to shed them in a newsroom so condensed that several departments are comfortably occupying the space where just one dwelled as recently as a year ago.

And subsequent Sun-Times editions will surely contain even more freelanced dispatches of delicious depth, bought for a pittance, from ex-staffers who were bought out - or who simply chose to bail out - such as the incredible classical music writer Wynne Delacoma.

Fear, now a familiar face across all the Sun-Times News Group properties, has once again taken up residence and is clanging a loud bell for the unfortunate who have been left behind long enough to wonder whether tomorrow or the day after will be their last.

One editor, who wished to remain nameless, at a suburban Sun-Times News Group property articulated perfectly what Mariotti's bye-bye signals mean.

"There's a sense of the end being near and we don't know when it's coming but we're a day closer," he said. "When you see one of the Sun-Times' most recognizable figures saying we're dead in the water and he doesn't want to go down with the ship it's not good. The worst thing is that Mariotti is ahead of the curve."

Despite there being life after the Sun-Times, the slow, emaciative demise of this newspaper, scrappy to its core (wait until you see Thursday's edition which features fans who have vowed to return to the paper's fold now that the sharp and cutting Mariotti is gone) even in the face of cuts that have gone way beyond fat and into marrow, is nothing short of a tragedy.

Sure, some of the fiercely talented group of people will instantly be snapped up by eager employers, but the real losers are Chicagoans who everyday rely on the printed paper, not the Internet, to tell them what's what in town.

Newspapers' web sites require twice as many, not half as few, excellent reporters to feed the 24-hour news beast, not that that means anything only two days removed from the New York Times' announcement that its ad revenue fell by 17.9 percent, with less than 1 percent growth in online ad revenue despite having poured money into its "golden goose," according to Advertising Age magazine. So prospects for an online only rebirth look grim as well, despite Mariotti's cocksure pronouncement that the internet is where it's at. One longtime Sun-Times staffer candidly told me, "What Jay doesn't realize is that the internet doesn't pay."

Either way, my beloved Sun-Times is almost out of breath and though it's obvious that the city isn't mourning, and management appears gleeful at the Mariotti development - their news release quoted Editor-in-Chief Michael Cooke coolly remarking, "We wish Jay well and will miss him--not personally, of course--but in the sense of noticing he is no longer here, at least for a few days." - it's a bad week for a hometown favorite.

In a parting shot comment to a Chicago Tribune reporter Mariotti said, "I'm a competitor and I get the sense this marketplace doesn't compete," he said. "Everyone is hanging on for dear life at both papers. I think probably the days of high-stakes competition in Chicago are over."

The Sun-Times may not think Jay's departure is a loss, but his spot-on call of the Chicago newspaper market is really a loss for us all.

The Adler Planetarium’s star: Dr. Jose Francisco Salgado

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Take a moon-entranced kid who grew up scarfing down Isaac Asimov and tinkering with music and video, give him the boundless resources of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium then add the creative spark that only Chicago’s funkiest band of violins, cellos, flutes, and tubas can bring, and what do you get?

The kind of sensual, visually-arresting cosmic journey usually reserved for Grateful Dead concerts – in the form of sumptuous interstellar images pas de deux-ing with the Chicago Sinfonietta’s elegant wall of sound under a summery dusk.

The kid in question is Dr. Jose Francisco Salgado, an Adler Planetarium Astronomer and Science Visualizer who is quickly making a name for himself around our humble globe as a choreographer of – not to – the stars. His video journeys through the galaxy visit such notable hangouts as the Eagle Nebula and the surface of Mars, and have been such a hit that they’re making their way to stargazers in Spain and Paris.

You don’t have to travel that far, though. After a series of incredible collaborations with the Chicago Sinfonietta – aka America’s most diverse orchestra aka the Joffrey Ballet’s pit crew – the gang is presenting a free encore presentation of Gustav Holst’s "The Planets" on the Jay Pritzker Pavilion stage at Millenium Park Friday August 22nd.

"In 2005 the Sinfonietta came to the Adler looking for a visual backdrop for ‘The Planets’ performances and basically [the Adler] asked me because of all my interests in art, classical music, and graphic arts," Jose told me this week. "I’d been looking for the perfect project and this was it."

I had the pleasure of experiencing his visual choreography during the Chicago Sinfonietta’s May production of Astronomical Pictures at an Exhibition, where Jose choreographed real space pictures and computer generated images from astronomical data to Modest Mussorgsky’s "Pictures."

"The visualizations themselves looked like works of art," Jose said, adding that he gets only the best pictures from his peeps at NASA, the European Space Agency. Some he creates himself with raw data from Adler’s databases. "[Leading the viewer] through the promenade passages, walking through the "gallery," was the perfect way of showing cutting edge images and visualizations. ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ took about four months, ‘The Planets’ took about six."

If you’re the type who regards the constellations as greatly-jeweled chandeliers that sail through our night sky, a mysterious scattering of eternally circumnavigating planets, their many moons and countless stars continually scanned for their secrets, you’re not alone. For others, the very mention of the term "solar system" causes a reflexive yawn.

"‘The Planets’ is about planting the seed, about inspiring people to learn more about the solar system in general and hopefully grab a book, got to the planetarium or next time they’re switching channels and see a documentary to stop and watch it," said the guy who got interested in astronomy as a third-grade boy when he happened upon a book about the first moon landing his dad owned in their native Puerto Rico.

"Astronomy uses cutting-edge technology and data for scientific purposes but for education and outreach also, it’s a great way to engage audiences who are not science attendant," he said. "My interests are not only in science but in technology, graphic arts, photography – I even compose [music] a bit – I use it all to engage people."

And he does it in two languages! Ever so humble, Jose doesn’t go on and on about how few Latinos there are in the sciences, he just works to change it. As the Adler Planetarium's webmaster, he’s got a web page devoted to Spanish-language astronomy resources and is working to create educational resources, such as a planetarium show in English and Spanish, for nationwide distribution.

"’The Planets’ is a good synthesis of the things we have achieved in solar system exploration. It doesn’t cover absolutely everything but it’s a very, very good summary," he said. "What’s interesting is that many people will come out of the concert learning so much just from looking at the visualizations."

"It’s so exciting, to see the conductor synching the music to the visuals," Jose said, "and to see people coming out of the hall and saying ‘Wow I didn’t know that Jupiter had so many moons!’ It’s so very rewarding."

(full disclosure: I am a Director on the Board of the Chicago Sinfonietta, and as such I personally invite you to join us for this FREE concert, under the actual stars, in Millennium Park on Friday August 22nd. I hope you can make it!)

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Nuclear Power Could Fuel Chicago's Economy

This column originally appeared August 8, 2008 on the new Chicago Huffington Post website where I'm a new HuffPo/Chicago Blogger. The direct link is: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/esther-j-cepeda/nuclear-power-could-fuel_b_117636.html

John McCain just put it right out there last Wednesday: the answer to our pressing energy needs? Go nuclear.

While on the hustings in Michigan, and while ridiculing Barack Obama's suggestion to keep car tires inflated for better gas mileage, McCain suggested that 45 nuclear power plants built by the year 2030 would help decrease America's reliance on oil, sending shudders of revulsion over anyone who still has images of 1986's Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster chemically burned on their brains.

Let's for a moment, set aside the Simpsonian three-eyed fish your mind's eye has conjured and give it a think: maybe these wouldn't be "your father's nuclear plants." And maybe there's more to gain than cheap energy: like scores of good old American jobs.

Months before Chicago-based energy giant Exelon announced their comprehensive plan to offset or eliminate over 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gases - the equivalent of taking almost three million cars off roads and more than Exelon's own carbon footprint - by 2020, John Rowe, the company's President and CEO, was getting nuclear power on Chicago's radar.

At a May Executives' Club of Chicago breakfast, Rowe pitched his plan to corporate America's elite. After ticking off reasons why natural gas reserves and coal coupled with wind, solar, and water power schemes are both unsustainable and too expensive he pitched nuclear (which I'm very happy to report he pronounced correctly) energy.

"I can't imagine society dealing with carbon without nuclear energy...to sustain [American's] way of life," he said. "The alternatives range from being substantially inconvenient to catastrophic."

In a room full of investment bankers and business wonks twisting in their seats, Rowe admitted the very term "nuclear" was enough to turn people off, but he insisted it was the only foreseeable path to energy independence. A path fraught with challenges but loaded with opportunities as well.

"One plant costs five to seven billion dollars and eight years to build, and even if we started now the new ones wouldn't replace those out of service - we need hundreds of new plants," he said.

And that's where the opportunity comes in. According to Rowe, a guy who has invested heavily in Chicago schools - many of them in rough inner-city neighborhoods - a nuclear push would require human capital on an epic scale. "We can design and operate them, but who will build them?" he asked. "We need people to build these things, everything from PhDs to welders to make it happen. We need people."

Imagine if you will the full weight of Chicago's corporate and governmental resources trained on a city full of young brown and black student cash cows - millions of dollars poured into neighborhood schools in 'hoods and townships across Illinois designed to build the next generation of resident engineers and skilled laborers tasked with building the next generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants across America!

Savor it: Chicago, epicenter of the world's sustainable energy brain and brawn trust.

Hey, it could happen...because at the end of the day it's all about making money. And at the end of Rowe's speech it was apparent that it's also about leveraging influence.

Peruse the latest polls on voter attitudes toward pro-nuclear candidates and you'll find no surprises: a July USA Today/Gallup poll found - shock! - that more Republicans (58 percent) feel favorably toward a pro-nuclear power plant candidate than Democrats (51 percent). They were certainly similar in May.

Rowe was clear on this point: "It's not going to be cheap and convenient but it will be a lot less [costly] if we face these issues squarely. And we need the political will to get these things done."

Perhaps McCain, and Chicago's corporate ruling class, were listening.

Say goodbye to XP and embrace change

"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

There is no life after death for hard drives – not mine anyway. Having lost everything a few weeks ago, I started anew. Which is how I came to learn a lesson in death, rebirth, change, and surrender through Microsoft's Vista operating system.

I ordered "one of everything" from my favorite PC manufacturer, knowing I was getting all the newest stuff but not predicting that the moment that baby fired up, I'd be reduced to a computer novice, unable to execute the simplest function – "save as" – at the worst possible moment: on deadline.

After several days of chanting "change is good, change is good, change is good…" while bumbling through folder architecture that only vaguely looked familiar, then finally coming to some rudimentary ability to navigate my electronic life, I let go of my self image as "tech savvy" and blew in a call.

"When in doubt, hover," said Adam J. Hecktman, a Director at Chicago's Microsoft's Technology Center, referring to the instantly expanding and, for my taste, waaaay too smart tool bars crowded at the top of Microsoft Word. I sheepishly admitted to him that after about two weeks of typing like a tourist strolls down Michigan Avenue, I finally realized that the circular logo on the top left hand corner was clickable and contained the "save as" function I so desperately needed. Like on Michigan Avenue, there's a lot to look at.

"We call [the toolbars in the office suit] the ribbon. It's laid out so that the tools you need are grouped together by functionality and instantly accessible and fully customizable based on what you're trying to do," he said. Which brought me back to what I was trying to do: that is, the same thing over and over again – type a text document – in the same way I always have, so I didn't have to think about the process, only the final product. But that's not how life is, is it?

Sure, when I bought my new computer I could have ordered XP, and stayed in my comfort zone, but I saw the storm clouds gathering and decided to just get wet now.

"The magic date [for XP] is the 'end of sales' date – June 30, 2008 – but that's not an 'end of support' date. We will continue to provide security updates and other critical updates for Windows XP until April, 2014 – there are some people who will keep their Windows-based PCs for many, many years."

Adam and I had a hardy laugh at the thought of there being people "somewhere out there" still proudly running their PCs on DOS, writing manifestos in WordPerfect. Then we laughed hardily at me who has a step-by-step guide to installing DOS on Vista – so a certain video game can be played – sitting on the desk in front of me. Some things, after all, are worth holding on to.

I stopped to think: Adam and I have had full, rich lives in the twenty-two years since Microsoft launched Windows. That's twelve versions, and a whopping six years since the last new opsys, XP, was released. Many, many, lifetimes in the computer world – it was time to get used to something new, and in no time all my pals will be asking me for tech support again.

Until then, I'm meditating on the teachings of Buddha who said, "Everything changes, nothing remains without change." And I'm keeping in mind the words of Adam, my new Microsoft friend, who gave me wisdom I believe I'll be able to carry with me for a lifetime: "When in doubt: hover."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

The power of family

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

Almost everyone dislikes stereotypes, but there are some similarities, some characteristics so strong, that it’s fair to say they're generalize-able across Hispanic culture from all different age groups, Latin American countries, and socio-economic strata. One is love of family.

A few will roll their eyes at this old saw, but some stereotypes really are true. Try this experiment for yourself: next time you're with a group that has a Latino in it, ask each person what they'd do if they won a million bucks. I can almost guarantee you the Hispanic will be the only one to say without hesitation, "Buy my parents a house."

George Burciaga – a Pilsen kid who's hit it big – is no different. He was brought to my attention as a Cepeda "aaahh, life as it should be" subject because his wildly successful Chicago-based tech boutique, SmarTECHS.net, is not a "successful Hispanic business," it's simply a successful business which happens to be Latino-owned.

On Thursday George is set to be honored as Illinois' Small Business Person of the Year, and not for nothin', either. He leads a team of 24 tech wizards of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds in a 10-year-old, 9 million dollar venture that offers Information Technology services to businesses all over the country. And he started it all out of his two-room apartment as a 23-year-old.

"I started off consulting as an intern at a financial institute and one day I asked my boss: 'If I came in as a business would you hire me?' He said 'yes' and a week later I walked into his office with my incorporation papers and he allowed me the opportunity."

It took the thirty-three year old Burciaga all of two seconds to tell me why he even dreamed of getting into technology – a field well-known to be seriously in need of qualified Latinos – and why he decided to take the risk of being a business owner.

"It had nothing to do with technology! I was raised in Pilsen by my grandparents who were very poor and my entire goal was to move them out of their neighborhood. Pilsen at the time was not the Pilsen we know now – my uncle was shot in the street," Burciaga said. "I saw my grandparents taking a beating by working two jobs and dealing with the drugs and violence... I simply saw the technology niche, which wasn't oversaturated, as the opportunity."

Niche?

"Well, at the time there weren't a whole lot of IT companies, not even just by Latinos, back then [late 90's] it was a fresh, new, cutting-edge market and was not oversaturated. Today I'm trying to build the Latino growth within IT, it's very low as it was then, but we're a great firm that happens to be Latino, not a Latino firm that became great. I never leveraged that and said, 'Hey, I'm Hispanic.' I kicked the door open and I do a hell of a job."

Indeed, he's done such a good job that in April of this year he was also named the second place winner in the National Small Business Person of the Year Award, which came with a trip to DC and dinner with the President ("He congratulated me and then gave a really long speech on the importance of small business to the country").

And now that smarTECHS.net is a resounding success, and the grandparents got their dream home, George is off to open opportunities for other kids to follow in his footsteps.

"We're launching 'smarTECHS on Campus' at Robert Morris College this fall. We're creating IT residents who train like doctors do in a hospital. We'll be opening a 3,000 square-foot facility on campus where the kids will train, then they'll come to us for 10-12 weeks and we'll fill their skill gap before they leave school by putting them right in the line of real fire with real clients who will participate.

It's an opportunity to connect people and actually bring technology into the community; I'm so excited about it."

I'm sure his family is thrilled, too.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. editor's note: neither Ms. Cepeda, nor www.600words.com, pays for or receives free of charge, technical assistance, production assistance, or even unpaid advisory from SmarTechs.net, or any subsidiary or representative thereof. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

How 9/11 killed the newspaper

"Pregunta del Dia" by Esther J. Cepeda

"Pregunta del Dia" translates from Spanish into "Question of the Day" and today’s come from an anonymous woman in the audience at the Chicago Headline Club's June 11 panel discussion "Deadline: will newspapers survive?" where the tops of the Chicago news shops came together for what was more a wake than a vibrant discussion of the bright future of old-school journalism on a new digital stage.

Q. "Why are newspapers giving [reported content] away for free? No one's going to pay for it now that they're used to getting it for free!"

A. The stunned silence of the panel members gave way to the obvious "train has already left the station" explanation of why that's no longer an option.

But here's what none of the experts ever say: That train left the station on 9/11/2001.

I've said this in roundtable discussions time and time again, though not this one, and I always get to see the light bulb blink on. Before 9/11 newspapers were merely toying with the idea of putting content on-line. That was, at best, an afterthought.

Then 9/11 hit and in a nearly unprecedented move, after the second tower fell, managing editors across the country started the presses rolling on a special afternoon edition. "America Attacked" – Tallahassee Democrat, "Terror" – Tampa Tribune, "Horror" the Washington Times. People were glued to the TV. Radios thrummed all night.

Then came the next day, and – let's face it print runs are horribly expensive – that afternoon edition just was not happening. But people wanted constant updates on what was happening everywhere.

Meanwhile frantic family members across the country started pleading their on-line case for any, any information about their loved-ones whether it be flight information, last-spotted posts, pictures, information on what to do if another attack occurred – and newspapers noticed, though super late.

A study published in 2003 by the Newspaper Research Journal found these today-unimaginable statistics: "[An] analysis of 89 U.S. daily newspaper Web sites on Sept. 11, 2001, shows that 65 percent of the home pages in the late morning and 38 percent in the late afternoon said nothing about the World Trade Center bombings. By late afternoon only 43 percent of the home pages had at least one photo or video of the 9/11 attacks."

Crashed web sites and high demand made the lightbulb come on: free "afternoon editions" on the web.

And who could have conceived of charging people for information critical to the safety of a nation under attack? Who was thinking about "monetizing page views?" No one. No one with a soul, anyway.

The "American tragedy" that those with genuine love for the printed newspaper call the tidal wave of internet "user-generated content," and "up to the minute news" that's "killing" newspapers is one born of an actual tragedy.

A tragedy that journalists – like the police, fire fighters, nurses and doctors who streamed to New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania to help in any way possible – selflessly, and with little regard to personal safety, flocked to in order to deliver the stories of the dead, hurt, and missing to eager news consumers.

And that's how it came to be that news became ubiquitous, never-ending, and free on the internet; the result of one horrible "freedom of information act."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

John Lennon was no William Shatner

by Esther J. Cepeda

"Pregunta del Dia" translates to Question of the Day and today’s is a rumination from myself (I can do that y’know)

Q. Is Star Trek "God" and is William Shatner "Jesus?"

A. Yes you read that correctly, and no, I did not mean is Captain James T. Kirk "Jesus."

Allow me to set the dots and then I’ll connect them for you.

No, I’m not a heretic, it’s just that coincidences (events that coincide i.e., correspond exactly) this week have led me to wonder.

Not only did William Shatner, hereby referred to only as SHATNER, appear to me in the form of a direct mail piece sprung on me late at night in a tired stupor and as a four-color animatron as I purchased on-line, but so did "Star Trek"(which I hated, hated, hated as a child because it was boring to me and seemed to be always on TV on my lonely Saturday afternoons). This flowed from the mouths of two people I admire greatly within 24-hours of each other.

Thursday morning – at the top of the world – on the 66th floor of the Sears Tower in Chicago, John W. Rowe, 62, chairman and chief executive officer of Exelon Corporation at a meeting of the Executives Club of Chicago, talked about reducing carbon emissions by 2020 and invoked a Star Trek episode in which some-thing-or-other tried to eradicate the carbon-based life forms.

Friday morning Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times columnist, wrote about ex-Gov. George Ryan mis-quoting Lincoln by actually quoting someone who was playing Abraham Lincoln in an episode of…you guessed it.

The other obvious contender for such mythical status is "Star Wars" and its’ "force," (another pop-culture phenomenon I know nothing about) which is openly practiced as a multi-lingual, multi-cultural religion in some corners of the world, but: 1) Darth Vader doesn’t actually walk among us (James Earl Jones isn’t nearly that tall or intimidating) like SHATNER. And 2) SHATNER is, well…SHATNER!

How a show that accurately predicted the future -- today's realities -- and how Shatner can become one man-character-god, infused into my life in a billion different ways (my freshman AP biology teacher made our final "A nature example of the Prime Directive." I had no idea whatsoever what that even meant. I can’t believe I slid out with a "C.") is beyond comprehension. John Lennon once got himself in hot water for comparing his fame to Jesus. SHATNER has legions doing it for him (Oh yeah, just Google it).

I surrender. I have no answer to whether SHATNER is "the savior" but I’m going to paint him as the Virgin Guadalupe on black velvet just in case.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com