Publication Items

 By DAVID HELVARG

Not surprisingly this year's SEJ Conference in Austin, Texas, was overshadowed by a singular but all too predictable disaster, the lack of affordable booze at SEJ events.

Ironically, the last really boozy SEJ conference was in New Orleans where I recall Mark Schleifstein ominously predicting that someday we'd end up meeting in Texas. If only we'd listened to his warnings.

 By PERRY BEEMAN

SEJ's truly marvelous family of committed journalists, educators and other friends came out of the Austin conference with the usual amazement about all the talent, helpfulness and great work that our members exude.

Read excerpts from Bill Moyers' keynote address to the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, Austin, Texas, October 1, 2005.

 THE GRAIL BIRD: HOT ON THE TRAIL OF THE IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER 
By Tim Gallagher 
Houghton Mifflin Company, $25

Reviewed by CHRISTINE HEINRICHS
The announcement of a confirmed sighting of the ivorybilled woodpecker in April 2005 was greeted like a confirmed extraterrestrial alien sighting. It was astonishing, contrary to accepted general wisdom, breathtaking.