Brown Bag Vegan

What the hell does a vegan eat for lunch anyway?
After reading an article in the Bee last week which examined the new found importance of "frugality" in our crumbling economy and how economic crisis and penny pinching is extending into our lunch hours bringing back our old school companion: the brown bagged lunch.
This made me think about my own lunch standards which mainly compose of copious amounts of hazelnut coffee lattes and a few vegan cookies for good measure. In short, my lunches leave much to be desired not to mention the toll they take on the coin purse at the end of the week, a cool 25 dollars just for coffee! So thanks to the Bee's article I am left feeling a little guilty not only for my irresponsible lunch choices and wanting to bring back a little dignity to my diet which, being vegan you would expect to be full of green vegetables and granola, is instead a caffeinated mess.
I have made the decision to bring a packed lunch for lunch everyday and have been pleased with the results, me personally I have never really had a problem with a sweet little lunch time sandwich but given the circumstances of bagged lunch everyday of the week I decided to branch out and try to make new and exciting treats for myself each day for lunch. Kim chi baked egg rolls on Monday, Breaded eggplant sandwiches and chickpea curry and brown rice are a fraction of my week's menu.
Preparing a lunch for the next day is not only rewarding because you can make your money last, spending what you would on a single meal on a week's worth of groceries, but because you can feel accomplished for making so many adult choices that allow you to bask in the glory of your own unbelievable maturity and independence. It also allows you to pack yourself second helpings and still have a few dollars left to buy yourself a box of wine and celebrate our economy's decent into third world squalor.

Wanted: Guerilla Journalists

One thing is for sure, the Associated Press article written by David Bauder is sure to have some journalists both inexperienced and new to the game, like myself, as well as seasoned media writers quivering with fear and questioning their jobs as well as the fate of the "doomed" industry but for me Bauder's article only spurns my desire to become a journalist, if not one with a completely different philosophy concerning the medium itself.

Bauder describes the hard to swallow fact that many newspapers around the country are going the way of the Dodo and many journalists are running scared and fear for the industry itself. However, he also describes the other option for journalists who have turned away from working for bigger publications and have been working for online publications around the world.
In my opinion these changes are exciting and organic, that many journalists can now have the freedom to really write what they find important instead having an oppressive cut-and dried version of the news. This really is a turning point in the way news and information is delivered to the public there are even examples of citizen journalists that have shown the direction that journalism is undoubtedly heading.

Many social networking sites like twitter saw huge surges in user traffic in times of crisis like the massive earthquake that hit China last year in May. Many of these users out shined the news casters in their real-time accounts of the quake before the news media reported on it.
I agree with Bauder's prediction that journalism will be focused more on individual journalists to capitalize in this shift to a new form of viral news rather than on large companies to move towards the Inter web and all of its possibilities.

I also feel that this is a very exciting time in fact, the best time for aspiring journalists because of the massive shift in how the events happening all over the world will be brought to the public's fingertips rather than their doorsteps in the form of a morning paper. If journalists could utilize the power and possibility of the streaming real-time video from normal people there could be a revolution and recreation of news media and what it ac tally takes to be a journalist. Relevant news could be brought to the people and for the people without the pressure of corporations fueled by dollar signs and bottom lines on honest journalists that want to bring the truth to the masses.

Things are not bleak in journalism they are adjusting to changes that must be made in order to make way for the new and re-thinking what journalism will mean both for consumers and journalists. Society is always changing, naturally journalism must change with it. Journalists will always be relevant and vital for society bringing to light what needs to be seen,heard and reported to the world. All that is required are individuals that are still hungry to make a difference and make sense of the world and its chaos.