Joshua Foer in 2007

Joshua Foer (born Sept. 23, 1982) is a freelance journalist living in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, with a primary focus on science. He was the 2006 U.S.A. Memory Champion, which was described in his 2011 book, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.

Personal life[link]

Foer is the younger brother of former New Republic editor Franklin Foer and novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. He is the son of Esther Foer, president of a public relations firm, and Albert Foer, a think-tank president.^[1] He was born in Washington, D.C. and attended Georgetown Day School. In 2004, he graduated from Yale University, where he lived in Silliman College and then Trumbull College.

Foer is married to Dinah Herlands, a medical student he met while studying at Yale.

Career[link]

Foer sold his first book, Moonwalking with Einstein|Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, to Penguin for publication in March 2011.^[2] He received a $1.2 million advance for the book when he was 24.^[1] Film rights were optioned by Columbia Pictures shortly after publication.^[3]

In 2006, Foer won the U.S.A. Memory Championship, and set a new record in the "speed cards" event by memorizing a deck of 52 cards in 1 minute and 40 seconds.^[4] Moonwalking with Einstein describes Foer's journey as a participatory journalist to becoming a national champion mnemonist, under the tutelage of British Grand Master of Memory, Ed Cooke.

Foer's work has appeared in The New York Times,¹ The Washington Post,^[1] Slate,^[2] and The Nation.^[3] In 2007, the quarterly art & culture journal Cabinet began publishing Foer's column "A Minor History Of." The column "examines an overlooked cultural phenomenon using a timeline."^[5]

Organizations[link]

Foer has organized several websites and organizations based on his interests. He created the Athanasius Kircher Society which had only one session featuring Kim Peek and Joseph Kittinger."^[4]. He is the co-founder, along with Dylan Thuras, of the Atlas Obscura,^[6] an online compendium of "The World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica". He is also a co-organizer of Sukkah City.^[7]

Bibliography[link]

• ISBN 978-1-59420-229-2 Moonwalking with Einstein, Penguin Press HC, March 3, 2011

References[link]

External links[link]

• Atlas Obscura
• Greater Talent speakers page
• Highlights from the Jan 2007 Athanasius Kircher meeting

Jonas Gahr Støre
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office 17 October 2005
Monarch	Harald V
Prime Minister	Jens Stoltenberg
Preceded by	Jan Petersen
Personal details
Born	(1960-08-25) 25 August 1960 (age 51) Oslo, Norway
Nationality	Norwegian
Political party	Norwegian Labour Party
Relations	Marit Slagsvold
Children	Three
Residence	Oslo, Norway
Alma mater	Paris Institute of Political Studies
Occupation	Elected MP in the Storting 2009 -
Religion	Lutheranism[1][2][3]
Website	Government page

Jonas Gahr Støre (born 25 August 1960 in Oslo) is the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, having been appointed to Jens Stoltenberg's second cabinet on 17 October 2005. He represents the Norwegian Labour Party.

Personal life[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (April 2012)

Støre is the son of ship-owner Ulf Jonas Støre and Unni Gahr. He attended Berg School in Oslo followed by naval officer training at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy. He later studied political science at the Sciences Po in Paris. He enrolled as a PhD student at the London School of Economics, but withdrew after a few weeks, as he decided not to pursue an academic career.

He started his professional career as a teaching fellow in the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School in 1986. This was followed by a position as researcher at the Norwegian School of Management (1986–1989) and special adviser at the Norwegian Office of the Prime Minister from 1989 to 1995. He was Director General for International Affairs at the Office of the Prime Minister from 1995 to 1998, and he subsequently held the position of ambassador in the Norwegian Delegation to the United Nations Office at Geneva.

His first major international position was as Executive Director (Chief of Staff) in the World Health Organization under the leadership of Gro Harlem Brundtland. This was followed by a year as State Secretary and Chief of Staff for Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in the first cabinet Stoltenberg from 2000 to 2001. Before taking up the position as Foreign Minister he was Executive Chairman of the think tank ECON Analyse from 2002 to 2003 and Secretary General of the Norwegian Red Cross from 2003 to 2005.

Jonas Gahr Støre is a multi-millionaire, with a fortune of around NOK 40 million (approx. US$6,800,000 in 2008).^[4][5][6] He owns 25% of the family-owned company Trestø as well as part of Femstø, another company owned by the Støre family. Trestø has a 5% share in the company Clipper Skagen DA and a 1% share in Clipper Viking DA. Both companies are run by Solvang ASA and own three LNG carriers, Clipper Harald, Clipper Viking and Clipper Skagen.^[7]

Political career[link]

In 1988, he was a member of the Conservative Party (Bokmål: Høyre) and applied for a job as a political advisor for Høyre.^[8] He was offered the job, but did not take it.^[8]

In 1989 he became spesialrådgiver på Statsministerens kontor. He eventually became "the right hand"^[8] of Gro Harlem Brundtland, and became a member of the Labour Party in 1995.

In 2005, Støre was appointed foreign minister. Numerous polls have shown that Støre is the most popular member of the current government, although political scientist Frank Aarebrot has said that it isn't really hard for foreign ministers in general to win popularity surveys.^[9] In the 2009 general election in Norway, Støre was elected to the Norwegian parliament (Stortinget), representing Oslo. Støre has widely been considered as a potential future prime minister,^[10][11] however, following the conflict-of-interest stir during the spring of 2012, a number of trade union leaders opined that Støre's chances to become the successor of Jens Stoltenberg were significantly weakened due to the scandal-like revelations of his close relations to billionaire friend Felix Tschudi and possible conflict-of-interest issues in the foreign ministry's decision to grant money to a foundation where Tschudi had significant interests (see below). The trade unions have a significant role in the decision-making processes of the Labour Party, including selection of leadership candidates. Also, information emerging during this period that Støre's family company, of which he himself owned a 25% share, had ownership positions in three LNG carriers where provided as reason for his declining support, the rationale being that this would nominally make Støre out as a shipping magnate (Norwegian: skipsreder), a vocation holding a dominating position among Norway's wealthy upper class for centuries.^[12]

Støre is a strong supporter of a multicultural Norway. He coined the expression "the new We" to describe this, and states as a goal a society where we can "live side by side with hijab and bikini, and celebrate Christmas and Id".^{[citation needed]}

Although generally popular in Norway,^[10] the leadership style of Jonas Gahr Støre has been criticized as being arrogant^[13] and superior. In the 2010 United States diplomatic cables leak internal assessments of Støre by American diplomats claimed that he considers himself as morally superior and smarter than other people.^[14] In connection with 2012 criticism of conflict of interest dealings in his office as foreign minister professor Petter Gottschalk compared him to the Sun King for appearing to equate his own person with the foreign ministry and he also reiterated the characteristics from the 2010 diplomat leaks.^[11][15]

Conflict-of-interest accusations[link]

In 2007 Støre personally intervened in a case where Tschudi's company had been refused permits to transfer oil. Following the intervention, the Ministry of the Environment reversed its position.^[16]

The parliamentary hearing in 2012 about a 2008 grant allocation[link]

On 20 March 2012 Støre became the focus of widespread media scrutiny when the newspaper Dagbladet uncovered^[17] that the foundation of a close friend since adolescence, billionaire Felix Tschudi,^[18] had received expedited grants from the foreign ministry. The foreign ministry formally approved the application on 7 November 2008, however, Jonas Gahr Støre made the announcement in a lecture on 14 October, only four days following the submission of the application on the preceding Friday.^[17] An internal memo from the foreign ministry surfaced in mid-April 2012 that stated "the foreign ministry's support for the project has been approved and announced by State Secretary Walaas in a meeting with F. Tschudi, the Norwegian Shipowners' Association et al on 25 September 2008".^[19] The ministry would match^[20] the investments from Tschudi's own Tschudi Shipping Company AS (TCH) with kr 6 million (approx. US$1 million as of April 2012) for the establishment of Centre for High North Logistics (CHNL). The initiative to the 5-year project, which is stipulated to end in 2013,^[21] had been made by Felix Tschudi, and Tschudi was also chairman of the board of the foundation. The foundation itself was established in 2009.^[22] The first payment, 3/4 of the total, was made in 2008 with the rest paid out in 2011.^[17] TSC has made big investments in the High North (Arctic) region in harbor facilities and shipping.^[23] In the midst of the public discussion over this case information emerged that the accounting firm of Ernst & Young had done a review of the organizing of the foundation in 2010 and among its conclusions stated that it "could possibly be perceived to have as one aim economical benefit for others, among whom would be the groups that are behind the foundation (Tschudi Shipping)". Furthermore the report said that the research performed by the foundation could be deemed as "giving economical benefit to the participants, including Tschudi Shipping, in connection with the development of direct solutions for increased shipping activity with ensuing rise in profit".^[23][24] A copy of the report from Ernst & Young was also sent to the foreign ministry.^[23] On 30 March 2012 the newspaper Verdens Gang announced that important documents related to the foreign ministry's processing of Tschudi's application were missing, and that the ministry, apparently in violation of both the Archives Act and the Freedom of information Act had decided not to archive one of the documents. In this document, a reply to the Norwegian Shipowners' Association—which served as a conduit for Tschudi's application—three weeks before the application is submitted, the ministry gives advice on how to formulate the application and even makes concrete suggestions for changes in the draft text which they are reviewing.^[25] The same day TV 2 told that the public interest research which the CHNL foundation was to conduct in reality turned out to be research on how Tschudi could transport iron ore from his own mine to China.^[26]

The would-be scandal was preceded by the conflict-of-interest based scandal only a few weeks prior, of Socialist Left Party cabinet member Audun Lysbakken who had to resign following revelations that an expedited grant had been given by his ministry to a group closely associated with his own party. It has also become clear that the Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs will examine the case as part of a sweeping audit of grants from all the ministries following the Lysbakken affair.^[22] Several leading parliamentarians have criticized Støre for not requesting a formal assessment of whether he had a conflict of interest in the case, and the newspaper Dagbladet in an editorial even has asserted the Støre case to be more grave than the Lysbakken case.^[27] All questions of a possible conflict of interest have been cursorily rejected by Støre himself though, and his rejection also of any criticism that at least he should have requested a professional assessment of his impartiality has sharpened the criticism from a consensus of politicians and legal scholars alike.^[28][29][30] On 10 April Dagbladet published the results of an independent impartiality assessment of Støre in the matter of the dealings with Tschudi's foundation, commissioned by the newspaper itself from the law firm Kvale. The conclusion is that Støre was not impartial. The Kvale report harshly rejects Støre's repeated contention that the fact that the application for the grant was submitted through the Norwegian Shipowners' Association relieves him of any possible partiality. The report counters this position saying that such an interpretation of the rules would make them hollow and easy to circumvent. 2nd Vice President of the Storting and member of the Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs for the Conservative Party, Per-Kristian Foss, said that this conclusion is the same as his own.^[31] Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg gave his support to Støre early following the first reports of the affair,^[32] and later on he also defended the handling of the Støre case in comparison with that of Audun Lysbakken, who did resign, saying that Lysbakken had by himself come to the conclusion that he had neglected a conflict of interest whereas Støre had concluded that no such conflict existed.^[33] This claim by the prime minister that Støre had assessed his impartiality caused protest from several critics who point out that Støre early on had said that he had in fact not evaluated any conflict-of-interest problems, instead cursorily dismissing such an objection as irrelevant because the application for the project was submitted not by Tschudi or his company, but by the Norwegian Shipowners' Association. The critics according to one newspaper report; a leading source within Lysbakken's party, professor Petter Gottschalk and Per-Kristian Foss stated that the reality was that the two cases had been dealt with substantially using different sets of rules, and that Støre, being a more powerful politician from the prime minister's of party, was being protected.^[34] On 13 April Støre submitted his statement to the parliament's Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs where he reiterated what he had already been quoted saying to the news media.^[35] In this statement Støre also informed that the foreign ministry had two meetings with Felix Tschudi in September 2008, prior to the October application from the Shipowners' Association which was also party to the second of these meetings. During the summer and fall there were also "probes", Støre wrote, from the Shipowners' Association via its project Global Maritime Knowledge Hub, and he also names other parties that according to him were behind the initiative to establish what would later be the Centre for High North Logistics. In an 15 April article detailing these aspects of the foreign minister's statement, Dagbladet claimed to possess a number of documents and emails which contradict this version, instead describing Tschudi as the sole party behind the initiative. A note dated March 2010, written by then Manager of CHNL, Kristin Omholt-Jensen, also describes Felix Tschudi as the initiator.^[36] In a 4 May article, a former deputy mayor of Sør-Varanger (Lisbeth Isaksen) wrote that Barentsinstituttet (established in 2006) received "many millions" from the foreign ministry, before money was allocated for the establishment of CHNL and she questions why the application regarding CHNL was not interfaced with Barentsinstituttet, and she questions why the minister did not go for a proposal regarding a centre to be staffed by local experts and kompetansemiljø—a proposal presented during a presentation in Kirkenes, before the establishment of CHNL.^[37] The leader of the Standing Committee, Anders Anundsen of the Progress Party, expressed slight disappointment that the statement was not accompanied by a retrospective formal assessment of the impartiality question. Anundsen stated that this meant the committee would now somehow have to investigate the matter in order to arrive at a conclusion, and he suggested one way of doing that would be to request such in investigation from the parliament's evaluation section, a bureau which normally handles about 400 investigations at the request of parliamentarians, political parties and parliamentary committees.^[35] Anundsen has commented to the media throughout the developments since the first articles in Dagbladet on 20 March, maintaining a skeptical and questioning stance towards the actions taken by the foreign minister in the original ministry proceedings as well as his responses in the period of unveiling of the circumstances in the media.^{[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][34][35][36]} On 17 April the Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs unanimously decided to open a probe into the matter. The committee's 2nd deputy leader, Martin Kolberg of the Labour Party, which made the initiative for the probe, gave as reason for this the frequent comments given to the media by the committee's leader, Anders Anundsen.^[38] After the hearing on May 7, Per Kristian Foss MP concluded that there will not be any Motion of no confidence against Støre—and impeachment is not an issue.^[39] The committee's recommendations following the hearing were presented on 22 May. The three parties from the ruling Red-Green Coalition formed the majority opinion agreeing there was no basis for criticism, whereas the minority opposition parties felt that strong criticism was called for.^[40] The ensuing parliamentary debate included heated exchanges, particularly between the Labour Party and Progress Party.^[41]

The secretary general of the Norwegian chapter of Transparency International, Guro Slettemark, has commented on this case and other contemporaneous conflict-of-interest cases involving other Norwegian ministers, Audun Lysbakken, Tora Aasland, Bjarne Håkon Hanssen and Liv Signe Navarsete, that in other countries these improprieties would usually be labeled corruption and that they contribute to undermine the popular trust in politicians and even in democracy.^[42]

Part-ownership in a ship that did business in an Iranian port black-listed by the United States[link]

On April 20, 2012 media reported that one of the ships that Støre has ownership in, transported gas from an Iranian port (on two occasions in 2011) that had been black-listed by the United States.^[43]

2008 Kabul Serena Hotel attack[link]

On 14 January 2008, a suicide bomber struck the Serena Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, where Støre was staying.^[44] Støre was unhurt in the incident, which killed six people, including Norwegian journalist Carsten Thomassen.^[45] United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated that Støre was the target of the attack,^[46] but this has been rejected by a Taliban spokesperson.^[47]

Støre cancelled the rest of his visit to Afghanistan the day after the attack.^[48]

2011 Norway Massacre[link]

Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, stated that Støre was one of his main targets.^[49]

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Jonas Gahr Støre" (in Norwegian). Stortinget.no. http://www.stortinget.no/no/Representanter-og-komiteer/Representantene/Representantfordeling/Representant/?perid=JGS&tab=Biography. 
• Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Jonas Gahr Støre: In defense of dialogue TED-talk

v t e Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs 1945-Present Trygve Lie • Halvard Lange • Erling Wikborg • Halvard Lange • John Lyng • Svenn Stray • Andreas Cappelen • Dagfinn Vårvik • Knut Frydenlund • Svenn Stray • Knut Frydenlund • Thorvald Stoltenberg • Kjell Magne Bondevik • Thorvald Stoltenberg • Johan Jørgen Holst • Bjørn Tore Godal • Knut Vollebæk • Thorbjørn Jagland • Jan Petersen • Jonas Gahr Støre

Rick Smolan
Rick Smolan in the Sausalito headquarters of his production company, "Against All Odds Productions"

Rick Smolan is an American photographer. He is CEO of Against All Odds Productions.^[1]

Background[link]

Smolan is a 1972 graduate of Dickinson College. He has worked for TIME, LIFE and National Geographic. Smolan created the best-selling 'Day in the Life' photography series and is CEO of Against All Odds Productions, which specializes in the design and execution of large-scale global photographic projects that combine compelling story-telling with state-of-the-art technology. Fortune Magazine selected Against All Odds as "One of the 25 Coolest Companies in America". Eight of the company's projects have been featured on the covers of Fortune magazine, Time magazine, Newsweek and US News & World Report.

Photography projects[link]

The Obama Time Capsule[link]

Spanning a three year period from the tumultuous campaign, through Obama’s first 100 days, The Obama Time Capsule captures the challenges and opportunities facing America’s 44th President as he takes his place on the world stage.

America at Home and UK at Home[link]

America at Home and UK at Home were published in April 2008. For these books, 150 of the world's top photojournalists and tens of thousands of amateur photographers fanned out around the United States and the United Kingdom to shoot digital photos of the most important place in their lives: home. Both books offer readers the ability to receive customized dust jackets for their books. AMERICA AT HOME and UK AT HOME were sponsored by IKEA.

Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Clean Drinking Water to the World[link]

"Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Clean Drinking Water to the World" was released in November 2007. The book provides readers with an extraordinary look at the water problems facing humanity and some of the hopeful solutions being pursued by large and small companies, by entrepreneurs and activists, and by nongovernmental organizations and foundations. One hundred percent of the royalties from this book are being used to provide clean drinking water to people around the world who desperately need it.

America 24/7[link]

"America 24/7" was the largest photographic event in U.S. history. Smolan and his long time friend and business partner David Elliot Cohen sent 1,000 top photojournalists (including 36 Pulitzer Prize winners) across the United States for a week to create an extraordinary snapshot of American life. 25,000 stringers, students and amateurs also submitted images to the project website.

24 Hours in Cyberspace: Painting on the Walls of the Digital Cave[link]

Held online on February 8, 1996 it was "the largest one-day online event" up to that date.^[2] "The project brought together the world's top photographers, editors, programmers, and interactive designers to create a digital time capsule of online life. The original website is still available online, frozen in time, at "24 Hours in Cyberspace" "^[2] A photographic exhibition was unveiled at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History on 23 January 1997, featuring 70 photos from the project.^[3]

Passage to Vietnam: Through the Eyes of 70 Photographers[link]

Seventy award-winning photojournalists with unprecedented access to every corner of Vietnam created an intimate portrait of this intriguing country, 20 years after the war's end. The project was created in partnership with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Interval Research.

One Digital Day: How the Microchip Is Changing Our World[link]

"One Digital Day: How the Microchip is Changing Our World" was published in June 1998 in conjunction with the celebration of Intel's 30th anniversary. The book features more than 200 photographs, taken on that single day, revealing a world that only science-fiction writers once dared envision.

The Planet Project: Your Voice, Your World[link]

"The Planet Project: Your Voice Your World", was the largest real time online poll in Internet history. 3,000 pollsters were sent to the most remote places on earth armed with Palm Pilots containing 220 questions in 8 languages aimed at determining what it means to be a human being at the dawn of the millennium. The 8-language web site was visited by 1.6 million people from 241 countries who answered more than 28 million questions. 'The Planet Project' generated 781 million media impressions worldwide.

From Alice to Ocean[link]

In 1977 National Geographic assigned Smolan to photograph a story about an Australian woman, Robyn Davidson, who traveled across Australia with camels. Davidson later wrote a book about it, Tracks (1980). Smolan's photography appeared both in the magazine andTracks. In the early 1990s, Smolan published his pictures of the trip, in From Alice to Ocean; which has the distinction of being the first interactive story-and-photo CD made for public release.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Biography
• America, Moment by Moment:Rick Smolan ’72 shapes the largest collaborative photography project ever - Dickinson College
• Interview about 24 Hours in Cyberspace
• TED: Rick Smolan: A girl, a photograph, a homecoming
• Fast Company Video Interview

Harvey Fineberg is President of the Institute of Medicine. He served as Provost of Harvard University from 1997 to 2001, following thirteen years as Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. He has devoted most of his academic career to the fields of health policy and medical decision making. His past research has focused on the process of policy development and implementation, assessment of medical technology, evaluation and use of vaccines, and dissemination of medical innovations.

Dr. Fineberg helped found and served as president of the Society for Medical Decision Making and also served as consultant to the World Health Organization.

At the Institute of Medicine, he has chaired and served on a number of panels dealing with health policy issues, ranging from AIDS to new medical technology. He also served as a member of the Public Health Council of Massachusetts (1976-1979), as chairman of the Health Care Technology Study Section of the National Center for Health Services Research (1982-1985), and as president of the Association of Schools of Public Health (1995-1996).

Dr. Fineberg is co-author of the books Clinical Decision Analysis, Innovators in Physician Education, and The Epidemic that Never Was, also published under the title The Swine Flu Affair, an analysis of the controversial federal immunization program against swine flu in 1976. He has co-edited several books on such diverse topics as AIDS prevention, vaccine safety, and understanding risk in society. He has also authored numerous articles published in professional journals. In 1988, he received the Joseph W. Mountin Prize from the Centers for Disease Control and the Wade Hampton Frost Prize from the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association. Dr. Fineberg earned an A.B. in 1967 from Harvard College, an M.D. in 1971 from Harvard Medical School, a Master of Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government in 1972, and a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1980.

Fineberg served his medical residency at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, and was a fellow in Harvard's Society of Fellows. He worked as a practicing physician at two Boston-area health centers from 1974 to 1984. He taught at the Kennedy School of Government from 1973 to 1981, and served on the faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health from 1973 to 1984, when he became the school's dean.

On October 18, 2011 Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, awarded Dr. Fineberg the highest prize in public health -- The Frank A. Calderon Prize in Public Health.

Dr. Fineberg is married to Mary E. Wilson, a former associate professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health.

References[link]

• Biography

External links[link]

• Institute of Medicine
• Harvard University
• Harvard School of Public Health
• Society for Medical Decision Making
• World Health Organization
• Centers for Disease Control
• American Public Health Association
• VIDEO: Efficiency and Quality in Health Care, Harvey Fineberg speaks at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
• TED Talk: Harvey Fineberg: Are we ready for neo-evolution? (2011)
• The Swine Flu Affair, an analysis of the 1976 swine flu outbreak.
• Dr. Harvey Fineberg Delivers the 2011 Frank A. Calderone Lecture, Dr. Fineberg's lecture took note of opportunities that exist to improve the public's health even in a time of austerity, and warned of the risks of complacency, timidity and obstinency and other "seven deadly sins of public health."

LZ Granderson (born March 11, 1972) is an American journalist and commentator for CNN and ESPN. He writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A senior writer and columnist for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com's Page 2, he has contributed to the station's Sports Center, Outside the Lines and ESPN First Take. He is a 2010 nominee and the 2009 winner of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for online journalism and a 2010 and 2008 honoree of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for column writing. He also has hosted the web-based ESPN360 talk show Game Night.

Granderson was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, where he developed a passion for the National Hockey League and hockey. He is divorced with a son. He currently resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Before he moved to ESPN and Page 2, he was a sportswriter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a columnist at The Grand Rapids Press.^[1][2]

^[3]

Granderson's writings for Page 2 usually center on the social and human aspects of sports.^{[citation needed]} He writes about his own personal struggles, the life of athletes, and occasionally provides social commentary. He submits two articles weekly for Page 2 and writes a weekly op-ed column on CNN.com concerning social issues.^[4]

On April 18, 2012, Granderson wrote an opinion article titled "Ted Nugent should be in jail" for the online CNN website, accusing Ted Nugent of threatening the life of President Obama, based on comments from a speech Nugent gave.^[5]

Granderson is a graduate of Western Michigan University.

References[link]