A cup made from plants?

We had a group lunch at The Brown Bag this afternoon, which is just a few minutes walk from our office. The food was very good, but a little pricey (like most places here), and as I was drinking my iced tea I noticed that the disposable plastic cup said it was environmentally sustainable and "made entirely from plants." I didn't even know such a thing existed.

High fructose corn syrup and mercury

The FDA found quantities of mercury in high fructose corn syrup, a "natural" sweetener that is used in nearly every packaged and processed food we eat.

The topic hasn't had much coverage yet. The Washington Post and U.S. News & World Report both ran short stories recently.

Go to this Web site. Really.

MediaStorm.

Getting picked up

A few smallish news Web sites have picked up some of my stories, AXcess News and Kansas City infoZine. All of our stories go on the foundation's Web site, and then if we're lucky, they show up elsewhere.
Jody said the only way we can be sure of whether our stories get picked up is to Google ourselves occassionally. I'll keep checking.

Richard Avedon exhibit, JAWS

Sunday Diana and I saw Richard Avedon's exhibit Portraits of Power at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. It was the last day of the exhibit that opened in September. Unfortunately we arrived at 4:30 p.m. and the exhibit closed at 5, but because we arrived so late we weren't charged admission. We both really enjoyed the exhibit, though we had to rush through.

And coincidentally, Bridgette emailed this link to me because she thought I might like it.

Last night I went with a few of the other interns to the National Press Club to meet some of the D.C. area members of Journalism & Women Symposium, or JAWS. The group met at a bar called The Reliable Source to discuss inauguration experiences. I met some very impressive women including the ombuds(wo)man for NPR, Alicia Shephard, the Washington editor of Glamour Magazine, Linda Kramer Jenning, award-winning investigative reporter Roberta Baskin, and a staff write for The Washington Post, Pat Suillivan.

Friday

We had a staff meeting and office pizza party today. I think we were all a bit too excited about the concept of eating for free (everything here is more expensive than we're use to, including food).

Tonight after work we're going to an exhibit at Howard University called "The American President," an Associated Press photojournalism exhibit featuring some Pulitzer Prize winning photos. The event is free, too.

I'm so glad it's the weekend.

20th annual Scripps Howard Celbrity Superbowl Poll

Every year Scripps Howard News Service polls about 130 celebrities asking them which team they think will win the Super Bowl, their best guess at the final score and why. The poll is then published by about 300 newspapers and Web sites across the country during the few days before the Super Bowl.

We were each assigned three people to try to contact, some have participated in the past and will be easy to get ahold of, and some have not. My job is to contact Ringo Starr, Stephen Colbert and Dick Vitale.

Amazing.