Find it online (2002-09-30)
Mike Reilley's Getting Plugged In guide for journalism educators is full of tips on how to track down stories on the Web--and how to know it's time to let go of the mouse and pick up the phone.

Lost and found (2002-09-27)
Just over one year ago, I lost everything I owned. Someone stole my truck and the U-Haul trailer attached to it, which was loaded with all my belongings. We were preparing to move from Seattle to Florida. The trailer was taken two hours before we woke up to drive off with it to our new life in the South. We were insured, but the cliche is true--there are some things you can't replace. I sometimes miss my journals, old recipes, the photo albums I made--one for every year of our daughter's life.

I lost my life history, that detritus of letters, cards and scraps of old cloth that most of us keep as postcards from fond memories. It was a revisionist history, to be sure. But it was mine and on dark days, I explored the artifacts and there found solace, whimsy, or at the very least nostalgia.

In the year that has passed, we have filled another home with furniture, dishes, photographs. I've started keeping a journal here, where it can be shared, but not stolen. And I don't spend time poring over old school notes, perusing old love letters. I don't have them. I don't even have any old clothes when it's time to work in the yard or paint a bookshelf. What I do have is a life less cluttered, but rich with the present. And that is a gift.

This morning, I got a call from the Seattle Police Department. Two girls were pulled over during a traffic stop. The police discovered that one had my old Florida driver's license, a Washington driver's license with my information but her face, and, oddly enough, my long-expired library card from New Orleans. Her name is Marcella.

The homeless guy (2002-09-26)
When I was an undergrad at Evergreen, I read Richard Sennet's Uses of Disorder and took it to heart. I wanted to create a space where rich and poor people could meet and interact. I was in a community development program. We examined the shrinking of public space and the push to sanitize what was left of it with laws against sitting on sidewalks, loitering, panhandling, distributing food, etc. I wanted to create a cafe where people of all walks of life would feel welcome and would exchange ideas and stories. I thought if people sat down together and had a conversation, they would have more compassion for each other, or at least less enmity. Yes, this was an idealistic notion. Yes, I graduated and went on to other ideas.

It was 1995. I went on to work for the ACLU. The web exploded. I earned a grad degree, worked at a startup or two, and started a career in writing. It wasn't until I ran across the homeless guy blog that I remembered my old idea.

Kevin Michael Barbieux, of Nashville, Tennessee, writes a blog about himself and his life without a home. His FAQ is full of practical advice on how to help homeless people--from how to approach people respectfully to whether it's safe to offer someone a ride. He writes using the free computers at public libraries. While his is a small part in a big web, it's there. I found it. USAToday.com found it. Steve Outing found it and posted it on Poynter's E-Media Tidbits. And so it gets read.

Longfellow wrote, "If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find... enough to disarm all hostility." Maybe people who read Kevin's blog will be inspired to see things differently. And maybe they will do something about it.