T he Wayback Machine at Archive.org has chronicled and saved at least a portion of the online morgue for the Hartford Advocate.

 

Does a term like morgue, a dusty old room where newspaper clips sit catalogued in files by subject, by multiple indexes, fit in new electronic media?

 

The stories I wrote for the Advocate almost 10 years ago still seem relevant to me, but then again, anything I write or have written has relevance to me.

 

Since it is pretty clear Sam "I am your Viagra" Zell won't be resurrecting the Advocate archives anytime soon, let's hope that the folks at Archive.org keep up this global service that can have local impact.

 

Like what exactly was Hartford 10 years ago online and in real life (at least through the eyes of me)?

 

Green Power: 1998 Earth Day feature about the Swedish experiment in closed-loop manufacturing and environmental capitalism - The Natural Step. Their mantra of low hanging fruit has started to take hold. Not the wave we thought it might be...

 

Branded: A look at the brainwashing experiment that is modern marketing. Corollary to today: in this age of global warming, how long is it going to be before we determine that we should not waste precious resources on lighting billboards at night?

 

We must create a market, or limit the market, for the use of media at midnight, when no one is looking anyways. Cut down on light pollution, etc.

 

But I digress, Branded is well-researched, and one of my all-time favorite pieces that I have ever scribbled.

 

Huskymania - A four-story pre-season preview package of the eventual 1999 national champion men's UConn Huskies team.

Cheerleaders or Reporters?: Homers, anyone? Do reporters who cover the UConn basketball beat act like fans and cheerleaders, or are they trying to be objective? Is it a natural tension in sportswriting? A first-person piece.

 

Riding the Pine : A solid narrative about life as a walk-on.

 

Republicans seek Latino Vote: Umm, Obama anyone? And what in the world was I doing writing about GOP attempts to woo minorities. I should have been thinking like Thomas Frank in What's the Matter With Kansas?

 

Pot Politics: I couldn't find the Scoop item about Drug Czar Barry McAffrey so angry about the questions I asked him in an interview that White House press secretary and best name ever for a government official Bob Weiner called editor Janet Reynolds to complain.

 

This cover opus is about the fractured Drug Policy Reform movement, circa May 1999. I think it has coalesced much more effectively now.

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