Pumpkin Living

On Sunday September 1, 2013, (which is, as I write this, just barely yesterday) this happened:

Which is pretty awesome, right? Here's what makes it especially awesome: Erin Shaw Street (awesome!), editor of the Southern Living (awesome!) blog The Daily South (awesome!), took notice of and wrote about my PumpkinSpiceWatch blog. She called me a "keen trend spotter," you guys. Me.

She mentions my "pumpkin spice army" (!) which, and I've given this a lot of thought (not really), is basically one-and-one-half awesomes better than having my own Kiss Army. It would have been two more awesomes, but in the interest of fairness I docked myself one quarter of one awesome for not (yet) producing a comic book which has had my own blood added to the ink (and/or the blood of an innocent pumpkin), and then I subtracted yet another (I'm a giver y'all) quarter awesome for not (yet) reaching an endorsement deal with Gene Simmons (...yet?)

This has been a lot of fun. My mom and dad are proud of me, and my pumpkin blog slash convenient excuse to buy all the pumpkin things is now feeling so much enabler love! As Erin namechecks in her post, my super ultra mega über favorite seasonal pumpkin product, Cromer's Autumn Spice Caramel Corn, won't be available until mid-month. When it is, rest assured: I might tell you. Because mine. MINE!

Erin, if you'll email me an address, I'll send you a bag. 

Related:

• Erin Shaw Street on the web
• @erinstreet on Twitter
• SouthernLiving on the web
• @Southern_Living on Twitter
• The Daily South blog
• PumpkinSpiceWatch on the web
• @pumpkinsw on Twitter
• @tryjen on Twitter (my personal account)
• Gene Simmons: Mogul on Twitter

Columbia, We Have A Problem

About a month ago, my friend Emma sat for an interview with our local ABC affiliate, WOLO, for their "Corner of Main and Gervais" segment. Emma is Manager of Strategic Mobilization at New Morning Foundation, and she was there to discuss the billboards which Tell Them - a program of the New Morning Foundation - had scattered throughout town, as well as the forum to be held that night at Tapp's Art Center. The interview was broadcast and added to their youtube channel, like the rest of what they do. Lots of us involved with Tell Them shared the interview, and really appreciated ABC's awesomeness in broadcasting Emma's righteous baddassery.

Cool, right? Not so much. Read on:

I shared the video link on 2/21/13, its original air date. Today I went back to re-watch it, and found it was gone. Then, I attempted to share the link again, and found that while the video is "unavailable", its associated information still shows up. Moreover, I've since learned that the interview was taken down the very next day without explanation, and that several calls to the station to ask why have not been returned. My tweet to @abc_columbia on the topic has yet to be answered, but that tweet is only about 4 hours old as of this writing.

This might not sound like a problem to you, but it sure sounds like one to me. Tell Them is an important nonpartisan, mainstream voice of reason with more than 10,000 members across the state of South Carolina. Their billboard campaign and the message it is sending is a call to standardize reproductive health care in our state and ensure that those teaching the subject are themselves properly educated. So what's with hiding that information after the broadcast fact? At best it's poor Internet practice to delete news they've already shared, and at worst it's actively dishonest.

I would like an answer. Wouldn't you?

Screenshot of my original share and reshare attempt: http://flic.kr/p/e4wUN3
Screenshot of Emma's Interview YouTube URL as of 3/19: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rtcITxF15s
Screenshot of ABC Columbia's tweet: http://flic.kr/p/e4uh2x
Screenshot of ABC Columbia's YouTube channel, where February 21, 2013 no longer seems to have happened: http://flic.kr/p/e4A62L

20 Questions with JBB

Source: PalmettoParent.com

Recently I was asked to answer 20 questions for the local monthly magazine Palmetto Parent.

I worked previously with the nice journalist lady on an article about my work with Adluh, and I was pleased to have an opportunity  to work with her again.

Then I was asked to participate in a brief photo shoot and I was horrified at the idea, since... well, I address that below. I couldn't get out of it, though, and the magazine sent a photographer over to GraySail to point her clickything at me. She was super friendly, very understanding about my nervousness, and did a great job in spite of her subject matter. You can see one of the two shots she submitted to the editor along with the interview on page 30 in the October 2012 issue of Palmetto Parent. It's on newsstands now and will be the only thing available to read in the offices of pediatricians throughout the midlands.

The literal fives of readers who previewed this article mentioned to me that the answers don't sound entirely like... me. That's due to editing; space is very tight in the publication and because I could talk and talk and TALK, the nice journalist lady was faced with the daunting task of editing my answers down to fit. My original answers are printed below, because I know how you are about Schadenfreude, gentle readers. Yes, I know.


20 Questions with... Jennifer Bailey Bergen (Palmetto Parent, October 2012)