Links: Photographing War, Remembering Pat Tillman, Spying on Eagles, and More

Last week, the first link was an NPR interview; this week, it's another NPR interview.  Terry Gross spoke with two South African photographers that have seen the ugly side of covering a conflict.   Both Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva have suffered significant injuries while working in the field, and they discuss those experiences as well as many other things.

Just like the last one, this is an eye-opening interview; a must-listen for anyone that wants to understand the life of a photojournalist and especially budding photographers that want to hear the sound of true dedication.

Staying on this topic, R.I.P. Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, who were both killed while covering the war in Libya.

***

We recently passed the 7-year anniversary of another person that died in war, Pat Tillman.  Tillman, a rising star in the NFL, put his career on (permanent) hold to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He didn't actually agree with the Bush administration's reasons for going to war, but felt a profound sense of duty to his country that compelled him to go.   His death, a shame in itself, became the center of controversy when reports that the US military was covering up its true circumstances surfaced.  At best, his death was from accidental friendly-fire; at worst, it was the calculated murder of a "poster boy" that was turning against the people that wanted to parade him.

In a story from the 5th of October, 2009, Peter King provided some great insight into what Tillman's future may have looked like.

Having soured of his role in an illegal war, Tillman decided to finish his term and return to football.  Many teams expressed interest in signing Tillman when he returned to the NFL, including the New England Patriots, as King explains:

In the last conversation Tillman had with Bauer, he told his agent, "You won't believe the letter I got from Bill Belichick.'' In the letter, Belichick praised him for his courage, his leadership, his willingness to set an example for people in this materialistic society, and he said it was an honor to be in the same league he'd been in.

"In the letter,'' Bauer told me, "Belichick said, 'If you ever need a job when you get out of the Army, give me a call.' ''

Wow.  King finishes the articles with the sentiment that, "After the Belichick letter, I bet Tillman would have walked to Foxboro and taken any role Belichick would have offered."  I can only agree.

You can find out more on Pat Tillman here, here, listen to an interview with Jake Plummer, one of his best friends, here, and check out the 2010 documentary on him here.

(Original link: Pats Pulpit)

***

If you've never seen this before, you can peek into the lives of a family of bald eagles on Ustream.

***

OpenOffice is out, LibreOffice is in.  Following the departing of prominent OpenOffice contributors and Oracle's "pressuring [of The Document Foundation] supporters to step down from their leadership roles in the [OpenOffice] project," the company has announced that it will discontinue commercial development of OpenOffice.

Score one for the good guys?  While OpenOffice is being rendered irrelevant, LibreOffice should see a more sustainable, open development that will care more about its community than Oracle did.  The suite can be found here.

***

Just four days after being fired by Princeton University, Dr. Antonio Calvo killed himself.  Controversy is surrounding this story, as students start to question the events leading up to his death.  This story is so multi-faceted, you should just click the link and read all about it for yourself.  I can't do it justice here.

***

NPR finally caught up to a story I discussed over a month ago, that of the shocking treatment of women in India.  According to the latest census, fewer girls are born each year than boys, but then, if you watched Undesired like I requested, you'd know that already.  Watch the film, then check out the NPR story.

***

And finally, something I completely missed because I don't have Facebook...  Cynic has a series of videos up chronicling their 2009 North American tour.  If you're a Cynic fan, you've got to see it, especially the part with old member Jason Gobel.  It's been so long since I've seen video footage of him!