"Going green" has become a hot catchphrase since An Inconvenient Truth. An article in today's New York Times shows the words being bandied about to incite actual change now, though, rather than just conjure up visions of unattainable ideals. The article begins with an energetic lede about an Arkansas mayor's successes, which he shares at a convention of 100 mayors. It continues to outline the specific characteristics needed to successfully become sustainable and includes models and goals for change. The article is very frank, from its descriptions of the Arkansas mayor's excitability to the acknowledgment that the group was predominantly left-leaning.

The Boston Globe does a great job capturing the astonishment of the Needham community after a murder there yesterday. The Globe expresses everyone's shock when it calls Friday "the wildest day ever" in the town, and its interviews with neighbors--of the murdered and the suspected murderer--give context to the incident. The mentioning of Needham's last homicide, nearly 20 years ago, also serves to anchor the crime as completely unexpected in that town.

An article on a murder continents away, though, leaves me questioning the facts. The Times of London reports on the death of a British student studying in Perugia more clearly than the BBC's website, indicating earlier in the article the significance of the victim's cell phone being found in a nearby garden, but it gives other details that conflict with the BBC report. These are only incidental and relate to the girl's standing in her studies, but other aspects of The Times article leave me wondering where it got its information. A full two paragraph quote from the victim was taken from Facebook, which seems completely irresponsible to me. Perhaps, then, the reporter also tried to put together facts about the girl's background from her Facebook profile. Other information lacks attribution--such as the fact that the girl "is thought" to have attended a certain secondary school--and details on the circumstances of the murder are lacking, compared to the BBC report. How much reporting did The Times actually manage to do? It seems like most was done from a desk in London with little contact with anyone in Perugia.