I missed seeing the Texas gubernatorial debate. Apparently not too many networks in Nigeria were concerned about it, but I found this interesting bit of “fact checking” on Chris Bell’s Myspace page.
What do you think? Who do you think won the debate? Did the debate change your mind on who you’re going to vote for and if so, why?
Month: October 2006
Friday fun
From e-mail:
One day God was looking down at Earth and saw all of the rascally behavior that was going on. So he called one of His angels and sent
the angel to Earth for a time.
When he returned, he told God, “Yes, it is bad on Earth, 95% are misbehaving and only 5% are not.”
God thought for a moment and said, “Maybe I had better send down a second angel to get another opinion.”
So God called another angel and sent him to Earth for a time too. When the angel returned he went to God and said, “Yes, it’s true. The Earth is in decline: 95% are misbehaving, but 5% are being good.”
God was not pleased.
So He decided to E-mail the 5% that were good, because he wanted to encourage them, to give them a little something to help them keep going.
Do you know what the E-mail said?
No? Okay, just wondering. I didn’t get one either.
Where are people getting their news?
From a recent study:
Overwhelmingly, people say they get most of their news from local TV: 65.5 percent. That’s more than double second-place newspapers (28.4 percent) and almost six times the figure for the Internet (11.2 percent). The Internet came in below national network TV news (28.3 percent) and local radio news (14.7 percent).
When asked if they could get the same news whenever they wanted — on TV, radio, newspaper, online or a handheld electronic device — almost two-thirds (63.3 percent) said TV. Only 17.8 percent chose newspapers and just 11.1 percent chose online.
That last number seems to get me. I’ve read a number of other sources that tend to give more readership to online sources… but who knows?
Writing like radio
I thought this was an interesting post and worthy of at least sharing here in the main blog, rather than simply staring it.
What Radio Has Taught This Print Reporter About Writing
Beer.
It’s stuck to NPR media reporter David Folkenflik’s computer.
Reminds him to write as if he’s telling a story to his buddies at the bar.
And there’s radio lesson number one, according to print-reporter-turned-NPR-correspondent John Hendren:
Write conversationally.
Ask yourself: Would I say it this way?
You don’t have to sacrifice detail for style, he said. “You can be descriptive and still write conversationally.”
I find that writing for a newspaper is much simpler when you just write the way you would tell the story to a friend but I think so many times we get caught up in trying to write to impress rather than just writing to tell the story that we lose sight of that.
Too many posts
I’m going through Google Reader and trying to catch up on three weeks worth of not reading blogs.
Arrgh.
So much to take in that I’m doing way more skimming than anything.
If you haven’t noticed, there’s a special tool bar on the right hand side of my blog that shows you special blog entries I’ve starred/flagged. I would love to comment on them, but for now, you’ll just have to read what I’ve enjoyed and come to your own conclusions.
Feel free to read the things I like and leave me your own comments and thoughts.
Hopefully in the next week things will be back to normal and I can share even more thoughts and pictures from Nigeria.
I’m sure the Nigeria speaking tour will continue on. I started it last night at home with Laurie, my parents, her parents and my grandparents and only made it through maybe a quarter of my pics and videos. I guess I’ll need to shorten things down (“Yeah, you think?”)
But feel free to keep your comments and questions coming as this stranger in a strange land works through this thing called life.
Playing catchup (or How I’ve Returned Home)
Well for the record, I’m back home in Texas.
It’s so weird to think that less than 48 hours ago I was in Jos, Nigeria.
We arrived in Dallas yesterday at 2:30 p.m. and while jet lag doesn’t seem to have kicked in to bad (yet) the world lag has.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the things I need to remember to do in the next couple days to get caught back up.
Today when I came to work I found out that only moments before a friend and co-worker was injured on our press here at the paper.
Pray for him. His hair was caught in the press and as I understand it, some of his hair and scalped were ripped off. Apparently the injuries were not life threatening but he was taken by air ambulance to a hospital in Dallas.
I remember thinking moments before I left home this morning that it was odd to hear ambulances and firetrucks again, little did I know they were rushing to our office.
So it’s back to the daily grind and trying to find meaning in it all.
It was funny that on the plane back I watched The Devil Wears Prada and Click. In both movies people are searching for meaning in the daily grind. Is success all that it’s cracked up to be?
I think Solomon tells us otherwise, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
“I find no pleasure in them”-
before the sun and the light
and the moon and the stars grow dark,
and the clouds return after the rain;
when the keepers of the house tremble,
and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
and those looking through the windows grow dim;
when the doors to the street are closed
and the sound of grinding fades;
when men rise up at the sound of birds,
but all their songs grow faint;
when men are afraid of heights
and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
and the grasshopper drags himself along
and desire no longer is stirred.
Then man goes to his eternal home
and mourners go about the streets.
Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
or the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
or the wheel broken at the well,
and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.
“Everything is meaningless!”
Ecclesiastes 12:1-8
Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.
Ecclesiastes 12:13&14
Pray for peace and God’s will in Nigeria. Pray that Christians will continue to be bold and affect those around us.
And pray for our group. Pray that we will continue to be bold about our faith in Texas as we were in Nigeria.
God bless and thank you again for all your support.
Just an FYI: I plan to post pictures as soon as I can sit down and sort through them and I plan to keep my Nigeria blog active with information regarding our trip next year as well.