Pat Boone announced his final recording recently in Rolling Stone article.
The album features an all star tribute to Billy Graham. The song, Thank You Billy Graham features Boone, LeeAnn Rimes, Michael Tait, TobyMac, Larry King and others, with an introduction by Bono.
At a time when religion seems so often to get in the way of God’s work; with its shopping malls, sales pitch and its bumper sticker inductionism, I give thanks for the sanity of Billy Graham. For that clear empathetic voice of his and that Southern accent. Part poet, part preacher. A singer of the human spirit I’d say. Yeah I give thanks for Billy Graham. Thank you Billy Graham. – Bono
I’m always intrigued by Bono’s take on Christianity, Christ, God and religion. I think a lot of Christians want to pigeon-hole him, and maybe I’m doing this now, but I think he has a greater understanding of God and scripture than most of us.
Somewhere I have a cool picture of Bono and Mrs. Graham reading the book of Psalms together. I’ll see if I can hunt it down.
Bucknell University Library | Photo by aurimasliutikas
Oh – now this is great. Check out this musical group: Bison Chips.
According to their website:
The Bison Chips are a group of talented gentlemen bonded together by their never-ending pursuit of wine, women, and song. Despite their uncharacteristic panache and boyish good looks, The Bison Chips have exuded a harmonious aura of awe-inspiring proclivities at Bucknell University for over 30 years.
A really fun album. I downloaded it from Yahoo! Unlimited, but you can buy or listen to their music here as well.
Apparently a week or so ago, “my best friend” Shawn Michaels was interviewed before his match with WWE Superstar Edge (Adam Copeland). The brilliant journalist apparently mixed up The Edge of U2 with Edge of WWE. Way to go.
MARIA: Shawn Michaels, tonight you’re facing The Edge. Do you think you can win?
SHAWN: I’ll tell you what, Maria, I — did you just call him The Edge?
MARIA: [nods proudly]
SHAWN: …okay. You asked me if you thought I could win too, didn’tcha?
MARIA: [nods proudly]
SHAWN: I dunno, I guess now that I think about it, yeah! Yeah, I do think I can win. Especially after last week. You know something, Shelton Benjamin I have to admit gave me a run for my money last week. Shelton Benjamin, you are the finest piece of young talent that I have faced in this industry in the last 20 years, and you my friend have an incredibly bright future. Now that notwithstanding, someone’s future who is not looking so bright is … [points at Maria] The Edge! Haha! The name problems aside, he’s facing the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels.
Quality journalism there.
We had a discussion today in our office (however brief it was) about problems in journalism reporting.
This Monday, Newsweek magazine reported that a story that ran on May 9 was inaccurate. Now, an error in a news story is not that shocking, but the results of mistake is where the horror comes in.
The Newsweek article reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that personal at a Cuba detention center had flushed the Koran down the toilet as a means to get al-Queda and Taliban operatives to talk.
While it may seem harmless, 16 people were killed and more than 100 were injured in Afghanistan when angry protests were sparked from the report.
Desecration of the Koran is punishable by death in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and The Arab League have all condemned the report.
Now Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said he regretted that any part of the story was wrong.
“We extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst,” Whitaker wrote in the Monday, May 16 issue.
The magazine said that the information had come from a “knowledgeable government source.” Only now the source said he could not be certain he had seen the account of the Koran incident.
What does it say about our media, when we’re so pressed to get a news story that we find one “knowledgeable government source” to base an entire story on? What happened to being “democracy’s guardian angel?â€
For some reason, “find at least three sources for every story” still echoes in my head from my journalism classes.
Where have we, as the media, gone wrong?
Where did we cross the line that having an exclusive or keeping advertisers happy became the standard?
Why are we as a country more concerned with who testifies in Michael Jackson’s case or Kobe Bryant’s case, than the continent of Africa going up in flames with an AIDS crisis?
When did covering a congressional hearing on steroid abuse become more important than covering the thousands of lives that have been lost to civil war in the Darfur region?
Recent reports confirm that up to 400,000 people have died in Darfur as a result of the government-sponsored genocide. The New York Times reported recently that President Bush has actually asked Congress to delete provisions about Darfur from upcoming legislation.
Yet while this genocide continues to go on, the top stories online are, “Abu Ghraib abuser sentenced to six months prison” and “British lawmakers ask Congress to back off.”
According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, “News is the reporting of current events usually by local, regional or mass media in the form of newspapers, television and radio programs, or sites on the World Wide Web. News reporting is a type of journalism, typically written or broadcast in news style. Most news is investigated and presented by journalists (or reporters) and often distributed via news agencies. If the content of news is significant enough, it eventually becomes history.
“To be considered news, an event usually must have broad interest due to one or more news values:
Impact (how many people were, are or will be affected?)
Timeliness (did the event occur very recently?)
Revelation (is there significant new information, previously unknown?)
Proximity (was the event nearby geographically?)
Entertainment (does it make for a fun story?)
Oddity (was the event highly unusual?)
Celebrity (was anyone famous involved?)
“News coverage often includes the “five W’s and the H†— who, what, where, when, why, and how.â€
That last news value always upsets me.
So I think the real question is, who decides what the news is?
Does the public decide? With some of the phone calls and press releases I get, I have trouble believing sometimes the general public knows what news is. But granted, we are a hometown newspaper, where hometown events, however small, are important.
Maybe instead, managing editors and publishers who know the business side of the paper should decide what the news is.
Or maybe, we should leave it up to the wide-eyed, green journalism interns.
I don’t know for certain.
I don’t think anyone really knows. But we must keep the discussion open.
When the U.S.S. Maine was sunk in the late 1800’s, Stewart reports that the papers were more than willing to tell the story as they saw fit.
“The pairs blend of fiction, bigotry and jingoism became known as ‘Yellow Journalism,'” Stewart writes. “Later the term was shortened to ‘Journalism.'”
A free, honest and independent press is essential to democracy.
Without it, we might as well all take out lifetime subscriptions to the Thrifty Nickel.
“By removing the investigative aspect of investigative journalism, today’s modern media finally has the time to pursue the ultimate goal the founding fathers invisioned for news gathering organizations,†Stewart writes. “To raise the stock price of the media empire that owns them.â€
So those of you who have kept up with my blog over the last week or so, know that I’m getting addicted to blogging as well as podcasts. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, too bad. Just kidding.
Podcasts are basically radio programs that can be set to download automatically to your computer and then loaded onto your iPod or Mp3 player.
And for those of you who really know me, know I dig radio and I really miss being on the radio. So naturally, I’m looking into this new phenomenon with great interest.
I’m exploring my options for creating a weekly music show featuring either Christian Indie bands and/or Texas Indie bands. Of course with either show, I’m sure I’ll have to do some wrestling updates, because I know how much all of you love wrestling.
But I’m wondering how much interest there is for either.
So leave me your thoughts. Either click on the comments button below or send me an email. Let me know what you’d like to hear.
And if you really want to be my friend, and would like to be a sponsor of the new Powerline, or Lighthouse 21 or whatever the final project becomes, be sure to let me know.
In the mean time, for those of you down with podcasts… check out this show… Spin 180.
God bless.
The Chicago Sun-Times has an interview with Larry Mullen Jr. today. He talks about U2, the otched up ticket sales and how the band is still not satisfied with just being the “biggest band in the world.”
“We want to do better, we want to compete on the highest level, and that means competing on radio, and competing with people like Britney Spears and all those pop artists who are at the top of their game. The songs that are written for them are pretty spectacular, and we want to compete with that. Why else do this? There’s no other reason. None of us need to do it, we’re all financially secure, and for a lot of bands, that’s a huge turn-off. ‘I’ve got the kids now, I’ve got the money, what do I need this for?’ This is revenge for us.”
Granted, in my opinion U2 is the greatest band in the world. But what if I woke up everyday with a mindset that I needed to be the greatest editor in the world, or the greatest Single’s Intern in the world or the greatest Ring Announcer in the world?
How would my life differ? How would your life differ if you thought the same thing?
