Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Student model
One of the benefits of teaching art is having student-models. One of the drawbacks of teaching art is having students exceed their teacher. I have no doubt, if only because of my own A.D.D. that either Chelsey or Cheri will do a better job than me. Be that as it may, here is a picture of Heather and a photo of her to prove that I can make it look kind of like her.
Amazing Cheri
Last semester, in Intro Drawing, Cheri did this amazing skull...
Just last week she did this lead singer from Greenday
Here's a picture of her working on last semester's final exam, a self portrait.
Some student work
Here are a few from my Drawing II class:
Chelsey, a Junior drew this dude from some boy band
Olivia, a Sophomore took on MLK
This is a modified contour of Megan's hand. Megan is a Freshman in Intro Drawing.
Chelsey, a Junior drew this dude from some boy band
Olivia, a Sophomore took on MLK
This is a modified contour of Megan's hand. Megan is a Freshman in Intro Drawing.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
How’re ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm, once they’ve drank a Starbucks?
I’ve recently been having some pretty interesting discussions by email with a couple of former students. They’ve both excelled academically, I believe, proving the benefits of a small school education. One is a Sociology major at Georgetown University in the Washington D.C. area. The other is working on their Master’s Degree in Communications at a University in London, England.
First of all, this wonderful thing called email is amazing. Without it, I couldn’t write to these kids who are thousands of miles away a couple times a day, before and after school end receive their responses sometimes within minutes.
The student in London can’t wait to finish his degree and return home to Iowa. He doesn’t even want to live in Ames or Des Moines or Omaha, Nebraska, he wants to put his roots back down right here in Crawford County. Score one win against the “brain-drain,” right?
But he seems to be facing quite a bit of opposition on both sides of the Atlantic. Friends and family members here don’t want him to “sell himself short.” They’re very proud of him and want him to see the world while he’s still young.
Friends, colleague and cohorts in London are perplexed that he’d want to return. They assume he should pursue a career in academia, teaching and doing research in college forever. He’s weary of always being in school but never really starting life. He’d just assume be a farmer, sort livestock and mend fences.
The student at Georgetown feels like everyone is staring at her when she walks into the local tavern back home in Dunlap. She wrote a paper for a History course about how differently rural Midwesterners and metropolitan Easterners dress. Midwesterners value physical labor, a strong work-ethic and plan talk, but hate pretentiousness and rampant materialism. And they have a hard time understanding the value of mostly intellectual and abstract labor, like data processing, information technology and excessive reading.
When she comes home, she feels somewhat judged for indulging in exotic coffees, stylish clothing and ethnic cuisine. Yet, this is a kid who is more compassionate and concerned about economic inequality and social justice than most any Midwesterner I know.
The kid in London wrote a thesis on rural Midwestern speech patterns. He’s even applying for a fellowship from some institution to study it for a PhD. He figures it will be at least one way to get back home. He can research, analyze and write at night and be a farm hand for his neighbor or work as a contractor for his cousin during the day. He’s observed that Iowans don’t speak much. And we really don’t speak much about our feelings.
He says we pretty much talk about work, and sometimes about the weather, which of course effects our work, especially for farmers. I think that most Iowans could’ve told you that without a bunch of high-falootin’ academic jargon about linguistics and grammatical construction and what not.
He thinks that most of the people who don’t want him to come home are trying to live vicariously through his adventures. Well, duh. He spent a semester teaching English in a suburb of Shanghi China, he took a road trip to Ireland to tour the Guinness brewery and visit medieval castles. He’s going to art museums in Paris and seeing musicals and dancing at night clubs in London. Of course people are living vicariously through his adventures.
The Washington D.C. kid spent a semester in South Africa, and just happened to check out the art museums in Amsterdam during a layover between fights. She’s making every effort to visit museums in our nations’ capital and in Yew York City whenever she can.
When she’s done with college, she hopes to work for the State Department or some international Non-Government Organization (NGO) helping people in developing nations with urban planning and solving the problems caused by the gap between rich and poor. Yet she has a hard time coming home because people think she’s full of herself because she’s used to dressing up for class or work and looking professional.
The kid in London just wants to hang out with the guys at the local bar and relax with a bud light after a long day of back breaking work that he can be proud of. But I worry about him fitting in. He loves to talk about books and theology and philosophy, and while he likes to wear Carhart overalls as much as the next “regular guy,” he also spikes his hair and wears ear rings.
I get a little stir crazy for a city once in a while myself. So once every month or so I get a chance to make it down to Omaha or up to Sioux City. I make it a point to spend $3 on a cup of fancy chocolate flavored coffee, but 9 times out of ten the traffic and clutter tick me off so much that I’m more than happy to come home to our cozy antique house quiet little hamlet, nestled in the rolling hills of corn and soybean fields.
Those college kids don’t know always how good they have it, but they also don’t know how lucky they are to come from someplace that nurtured them so much. Iowa really is a great place to grow.
First of all, this wonderful thing called email is amazing. Without it, I couldn’t write to these kids who are thousands of miles away a couple times a day, before and after school end receive their responses sometimes within minutes.
The student in London can’t wait to finish his degree and return home to Iowa. He doesn’t even want to live in Ames or Des Moines or Omaha, Nebraska, he wants to put his roots back down right here in Crawford County. Score one win against the “brain-drain,” right?
But he seems to be facing quite a bit of opposition on both sides of the Atlantic. Friends and family members here don’t want him to “sell himself short.” They’re very proud of him and want him to see the world while he’s still young.
Friends, colleague and cohorts in London are perplexed that he’d want to return. They assume he should pursue a career in academia, teaching and doing research in college forever. He’s weary of always being in school but never really starting life. He’d just assume be a farmer, sort livestock and mend fences.
The student at Georgetown feels like everyone is staring at her when she walks into the local tavern back home in Dunlap. She wrote a paper for a History course about how differently rural Midwesterners and metropolitan Easterners dress. Midwesterners value physical labor, a strong work-ethic and plan talk, but hate pretentiousness and rampant materialism. And they have a hard time understanding the value of mostly intellectual and abstract labor, like data processing, information technology and excessive reading.
When she comes home, she feels somewhat judged for indulging in exotic coffees, stylish clothing and ethnic cuisine. Yet, this is a kid who is more compassionate and concerned about economic inequality and social justice than most any Midwesterner I know.
The kid in London wrote a thesis on rural Midwestern speech patterns. He’s even applying for a fellowship from some institution to study it for a PhD. He figures it will be at least one way to get back home. He can research, analyze and write at night and be a farm hand for his neighbor or work as a contractor for his cousin during the day. He’s observed that Iowans don’t speak much. And we really don’t speak much about our feelings.
He says we pretty much talk about work, and sometimes about the weather, which of course effects our work, especially for farmers. I think that most Iowans could’ve told you that without a bunch of high-falootin’ academic jargon about linguistics and grammatical construction and what not.
He thinks that most of the people who don’t want him to come home are trying to live vicariously through his adventures. Well, duh. He spent a semester teaching English in a suburb of Shanghi China, he took a road trip to Ireland to tour the Guinness brewery and visit medieval castles. He’s going to art museums in Paris and seeing musicals and dancing at night clubs in London. Of course people are living vicariously through his adventures.
The Washington D.C. kid spent a semester in South Africa, and just happened to check out the art museums in Amsterdam during a layover between fights. She’s making every effort to visit museums in our nations’ capital and in Yew York City whenever she can.
When she’s done with college, she hopes to work for the State Department or some international Non-Government Organization (NGO) helping people in developing nations with urban planning and solving the problems caused by the gap between rich and poor. Yet she has a hard time coming home because people think she’s full of herself because she’s used to dressing up for class or work and looking professional.
The kid in London just wants to hang out with the guys at the local bar and relax with a bud light after a long day of back breaking work that he can be proud of. But I worry about him fitting in. He loves to talk about books and theology and philosophy, and while he likes to wear Carhart overalls as much as the next “regular guy,” he also spikes his hair and wears ear rings.
I get a little stir crazy for a city once in a while myself. So once every month or so I get a chance to make it down to Omaha or up to Sioux City. I make it a point to spend $3 on a cup of fancy chocolate flavored coffee, but 9 times out of ten the traffic and clutter tick me off so much that I’m more than happy to come home to our cozy antique house quiet little hamlet, nestled in the rolling hills of corn and soybean fields.
Those college kids don’t know always how good they have it, but they also don’t know how lucky they are to come from someplace that nurtured them so much. Iowa really is a great place to grow.
Cubist lion
This is by Moe, a former student of mine who's now a freshman at Brooks' Academy in Long Beach, CA. Pretty cool lion. Long live analytical cubism!
Bulldogs Gear
Concordia University Bookstore: THE ULTIMATE BULLDOG TEE PACKAGE
Anyone shopping for me for my birthday may want to check out the Concordia, Seward Bookstore. I'm an XL, although I'd prefer XXL.
I also like the Concordia Ball Cap, the travel mug, and of course Professor Wolfram's new book
Anyone shopping for me for my birthday may want to check out the Concordia, Seward Bookstore. I'm an XL, although I'd prefer XXL.
I also like the Concordia Ball Cap, the travel mug, and of course Professor Wolfram's new book
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
The games people play
When you’re a little kid, you can lose yourself in your own reality do it with as many other people as you can convince to join you just about anytime you want, anywhere you want absolutely for free.
I remember playing for hours with my buddy Ron across the street. We played cops and robbers and we played cowboys and Indians. We’d watch “The Big Valley,” with Lee Majors, Linda Evans, and Barbara Stanwick riding their horses around 1870’s California and then we’d head outside and play cowboys and Indians. Our bikes doubled as horses. Being in Phoenix, there was plenty of desert for pretending in.
Then a new kid moved into our neighborhood. Juaquin was may same age, Ron was like a year and a half younger. Juaquin was half Maracoipa Indian. So we didn’t play cowboys and Indians so much. He’d get sick and tired of always having to be the Indian. It wasn’t any kind of political correctness, it was just friends being sensitive to our pal.
Of course then we’d play CHiPs (after another TV show, about the California Highway Patrol). When we played CHiPs Juaquin always got to play Erick Estrada’s character Frank “Ponch” Poncherello, the cool Hispanic motorcycle cop. Ron and I had to take turns playing his partner Jon Baker, the nerdy white guy. It’s okay, Jon could still jump ramps and wipe-out on his bike, even if he couldn’t get the babes. And after all, we were only seven years old. We didn’t care about being babe magnets, we cared about stopping bad guys.
It seems like no matter who the boys are or who their parents are or whether or not they have any toy guns, boys play guns. In fact, that was what we called it. “Guns.” Just “guns.” Eventually we didn’t call it “cowboys and Indians” or “CHiPs” or “Cops & Robbers,” or even “War” or “Army.” We just called it “Guns.”
Both Ron & my Dads had been in the Marine Corps. Mine was fortunate to be stationed on an aircraft carrier in Cuba during Korea. Ron’s was in Vietnam. Of course we had no clue about what he’d been through or what happened there. But somehow we both knew that killing and dying were bad. Kids know that. That’s why we always had the same argument-
“Bang! You’re dead!”
“Am NOT, you missed me!”
“Did not, I got you! You have to die sometime, you have to let me hit you”
“Did too! You can’t always hit me, people miss in real life, you know! Besides, I died last time, it’s YOUR turn to get shot.”
“Why do I always have to die?!”
So eventually we decided to take prisoners. The really scary part was the brainwashing. I know that in first through third grade or so we had no idea what that meant. Maybe we picked it up from some war movie or overheard our parents talking about re-education camps in Vietnam or about that “Manchurian Candidate” movie. All I knew was if there were more than two guys playing and someone was taken prisoner we’d say we “taught him a lesson” and basically that meant that the player switched sides.
I’m not hypersensitive or paranoid about all this. Boys will be boys. They all play war. Ban all toy guns and they’ll use their fingers or make a rock or stick into a gun. It’s not societal, it’s natural. And I guess I’d rather they PRETEND to shoot Nazis or Communists or bank robbers than light barns on fire or spray paint small animals for real.
The only time my bleeding heart Liberalism bothered me was once when I was watching my girls play among dozens of kids on the Louis & Clark playground in the Mall in Sioux City. A little boy had a brand new plastic toy Uzi machine gun. It wasn’t just that he was playing guns when everyone else was just climbing and tumbling and giggling. Part of it was that he was the only kid with a toy. Everyone else was playing on the equipment, so that was just sort of impolite. The other thing was probably jus that I’m a teacher and ever since the Columbine shootings, teachers are unnerved when they see one little kid pretending to shoot dozens of other kids. It was surreal. But I kept it to myself and didn’t reprimand the little guy or chastise his mom in an indignant manor or anything. I just sat there and dealt with my own chills.
Even girls have some aggressive pretending times. Sticks are all swords, not just magic wands.
“So how’d your day go?”
“So and so hit me.”
“WHAT???” trying not to fly off the handle. “What was going on? Did you say something to make them angry? Did you take a toy they were playing with? Did they just up and hit you out of the blue?”
“No, we were playing Karate and she got the first point.”
I remember playing for hours with my buddy Ron across the street. We played cops and robbers and we played cowboys and Indians. We’d watch “The Big Valley,” with Lee Majors, Linda Evans, and Barbara Stanwick riding their horses around 1870’s California and then we’d head outside and play cowboys and Indians. Our bikes doubled as horses. Being in Phoenix, there was plenty of desert for pretending in.
Then a new kid moved into our neighborhood. Juaquin was may same age, Ron was like a year and a half younger. Juaquin was half Maracoipa Indian. So we didn’t play cowboys and Indians so much. He’d get sick and tired of always having to be the Indian. It wasn’t any kind of political correctness, it was just friends being sensitive to our pal.
Of course then we’d play CHiPs (after another TV show, about the California Highway Patrol). When we played CHiPs Juaquin always got to play Erick Estrada’s character Frank “Ponch” Poncherello, the cool Hispanic motorcycle cop. Ron and I had to take turns playing his partner Jon Baker, the nerdy white guy. It’s okay, Jon could still jump ramps and wipe-out on his bike, even if he couldn’t get the babes. And after all, we were only seven years old. We didn’t care about being babe magnets, we cared about stopping bad guys.
It seems like no matter who the boys are or who their parents are or whether or not they have any toy guns, boys play guns. In fact, that was what we called it. “Guns.” Just “guns.” Eventually we didn’t call it “cowboys and Indians” or “CHiPs” or “Cops & Robbers,” or even “War” or “Army.” We just called it “Guns.”
Both Ron & my Dads had been in the Marine Corps. Mine was fortunate to be stationed on an aircraft carrier in Cuba during Korea. Ron’s was in Vietnam. Of course we had no clue about what he’d been through or what happened there. But somehow we both knew that killing and dying were bad. Kids know that. That’s why we always had the same argument-
“Bang! You’re dead!”
“Am NOT, you missed me!”
“Did not, I got you! You have to die sometime, you have to let me hit you”
“Did too! You can’t always hit me, people miss in real life, you know! Besides, I died last time, it’s YOUR turn to get shot.”
“Why do I always have to die?!”
So eventually we decided to take prisoners. The really scary part was the brainwashing. I know that in first through third grade or so we had no idea what that meant. Maybe we picked it up from some war movie or overheard our parents talking about re-education camps in Vietnam or about that “Manchurian Candidate” movie. All I knew was if there were more than two guys playing and someone was taken prisoner we’d say we “taught him a lesson” and basically that meant that the player switched sides.
I’m not hypersensitive or paranoid about all this. Boys will be boys. They all play war. Ban all toy guns and they’ll use their fingers or make a rock or stick into a gun. It’s not societal, it’s natural. And I guess I’d rather they PRETEND to shoot Nazis or Communists or bank robbers than light barns on fire or spray paint small animals for real.
The only time my bleeding heart Liberalism bothered me was once when I was watching my girls play among dozens of kids on the Louis & Clark playground in the Mall in Sioux City. A little boy had a brand new plastic toy Uzi machine gun. It wasn’t just that he was playing guns when everyone else was just climbing and tumbling and giggling. Part of it was that he was the only kid with a toy. Everyone else was playing on the equipment, so that was just sort of impolite. The other thing was probably jus that I’m a teacher and ever since the Columbine shootings, teachers are unnerved when they see one little kid pretending to shoot dozens of other kids. It was surreal. But I kept it to myself and didn’t reprimand the little guy or chastise his mom in an indignant manor or anything. I just sat there and dealt with my own chills.
Even girls have some aggressive pretending times. Sticks are all swords, not just magic wands.
“So how’d your day go?”
“So and so hit me.”
“WHAT???” trying not to fly off the handle. “What was going on? Did you say something to make them angry? Did you take a toy they were playing with? Did they just up and hit you out of the blue?”
“No, we were playing Karate and she got the first point.”
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Friday, February 10, 2006
Spend 17 minutes a day on kindness.
Spend 17 minutes a day on kindness.
Medical authority Allan Luks recently published some surprising discoveries about the “healing power of doing good.”
Luks shows that there’s substantial medical evidence that acting kindly produces health benefits remarkably similar to those we enjoy from exercise programs. People who regularly help others develop stronger immune systems, improved cardiovascular circulation, a heightened sense of well-being, and even live longer.
Two hours a week, 17 minutes a day — of kind behavior seem to produce the most significant results.
~ Sourse: ‘Guerrilla Kindness” ©1993 Gavin Whitsett
Thursday, February 09, 2006
The end of an era; Happy retirement, dear friends
Now that the deal has gone through and last week it was reported on in these newspapers, I can finally write about it. The end of an 83 year era in Western Iowa newspapers.
When I first met Mike Lyon, I was intimidated. And justifiably so, but not just because he’s so tall or because he can be “hard to read,” but because he’s a consummate professional. He took pride not just in his own work, but in the caliber of everything Lyon Publishing produced.
I was a gung-ho college kid. I’d been editor of my high school paper but opted not to pursue the same path in college. I drew cartoons and wrote opinion pieces, but didn’t have to gather information and report it, interview or sell ads.
My then fiancé, Bethany had worked for Mike and Barb Lyon in high school and summers after working on the COU yearbook and Ye Aulde Bobcat. She had gotten very good at interviewing and reporting. The summer we got married she somehow talked them into hiring me for some special projects like a special edition of the NEWSpaper for Charter Oak’s Centennial.
That year Lyon published a plat book, so I learned fast about how to sell ads, which can be very hard. Believe me, asking people for money is always hard even if you don’t take rejection personally and you really believe in the product or service you’re providing.
Where both advertising and civic involvement are concerned, Mike was a good teacher and a good example. He believes in small town Iowa and supporting the local community. Advertising in your local paper isn’t just supporting the paper, it’s participating in that community. It shows that you’re proud of your town and it’s investing in that community.
Of course a newspaper is a business and even journalists and publishers need to make a living, but so many small towns aren’t lucky enough to have newspapers. And newspapers benefit their communities in lots of ways, like churches, schools, and sports teams, they are something citizens share in common. They add a cohesive element that brings and holds folks together. They’re a catalyst that can promote community and participation in civic life, activities, projects and politics.
Whether it was Mapleton activities, the Loess Hills, The Iowa Newspaper Association, community clubs and commercial clubs, the fire department or the schools in Schleswig, Mapleton, Charter Oak and Ute, Lyon Publishing and Mike and Barb Lyon have led the way in promoting communities.
As you read in last weeks paper, Mike pioneered the technological revolution in publishing. When I joined my high school newspaper staff we were still mopping photo-developing chemicals up from under our typesetter. Mike took the plunge and started using Apple Macintosh computers with laser printers, then he convinced his colleagues all over Iowa and the Midwest to follow his lead.
Lots of people like to talk about having seen horses, early Fords and now electric-hybrid and ethanol cars during their lifetimes. During his life time, Mike watched his father and grandfather loading printing presses with moveable lead type, developed film in a darkroom and used smelly typesetters and now can download digital images from a camera, complete an entire edition of the Mapleton PRESS on a computer and email it to the printers in minutes.
My fond memories will include laughing and sharing coffee, treats and family stories with Barb twice a day at break time. Like a mother hen, she’d remind us when we were laying out pages that stories and pictures are nice, but you couldn’t even have a newspaper without ads.
I will remember and appreciate all the lessons and advice about designing layouts, ads and t-shirts, and taking and processing photos from Mike. How he’d always call me “young man,” or “friend.”
The front office was always busy with visitors. Many were neighbors and friends, many were clients and merchants, but it was fun to hear the laughter and banter with Mike and Barb of people who came in every week, almost like a restaurant or bar has its “regulars.” And of course lunches at either the Beef and Brew or Picadilly Circus in Mapleton.
Last summer when he broke the news that they were looking for a buyer, the Lyon Publishing “family” wept and comforted each other. This family business wasn’t just a business, it was and will always be a family. That makes it a labor of love.
Mike and Barb, thank you. Please know that many, many people love you and will miss you in this business. May God bless your retirement and restore your health.
Readers, why not shower the Lyons with cards or at least shower these three newspapers with letters to the editor and cards of thanks expressing your good wishes?
The new owner Mark Rhoades also owns the Seward Independent. As an alumnus of Concordia University in Seward Nebraska, I can tell you that we’re very lucky that he’s who finally purchased these papers. The Independent, like the Mapleton PRESS is a well designed, good looking paper with excellent news and feature coverage.
Believe me, there were three alternatives and none of them are as good for us as Mark Rhoades. Many small town newspapers are “rinky dink” things that look like they’re thrown together sloppily by folks who may mean well, but either aren’t well trained or don’t take as much pride in their work as Mike and Barb have.
Many small town newspapers have been swallowed up by huge corporations. This isn’t all bad. I love the look and photography and writing of some of our neighboring towns papers. But if you happen to see the several of them on the news stands next to each other, you notice that they all look alike. Just like every Applebee’s, Denny’s, and McDonald’s looks the same.
And of course many towns just lose their papers altogether. The best way to keep that from happening is two things. Please continue to support us with your subscriptions and your advertising, and contribute.
Especially in this day and age of digital cameras, even camera phones, computers, faxes and emails it is easier than ever to help support and participate with your local newspapers. You don’t have to be a professional writer or photographer- or even amateur ones like me! Send us your letters, send us your story ideas, and send us your stories and pictures. In the past, people have contributed travel journals, puzzles, columns, tid-bits, recipes, and of course pictures.
When I first met Mike Lyon, I was intimidated. And justifiably so, but not just because he’s so tall or because he can be “hard to read,” but because he’s a consummate professional. He took pride not just in his own work, but in the caliber of everything Lyon Publishing produced.
I was a gung-ho college kid. I’d been editor of my high school paper but opted not to pursue the same path in college. I drew cartoons and wrote opinion pieces, but didn’t have to gather information and report it, interview or sell ads.
My then fiancé, Bethany had worked for Mike and Barb Lyon in high school and summers after working on the COU yearbook and Ye Aulde Bobcat. She had gotten very good at interviewing and reporting. The summer we got married she somehow talked them into hiring me for some special projects like a special edition of the NEWSpaper for Charter Oak’s Centennial.
That year Lyon published a plat book, so I learned fast about how to sell ads, which can be very hard. Believe me, asking people for money is always hard even if you don’t take rejection personally and you really believe in the product or service you’re providing.
Where both advertising and civic involvement are concerned, Mike was a good teacher and a good example. He believes in small town Iowa and supporting the local community. Advertising in your local paper isn’t just supporting the paper, it’s participating in that community. It shows that you’re proud of your town and it’s investing in that community.
Of course a newspaper is a business and even journalists and publishers need to make a living, but so many small towns aren’t lucky enough to have newspapers. And newspapers benefit their communities in lots of ways, like churches, schools, and sports teams, they are something citizens share in common. They add a cohesive element that brings and holds folks together. They’re a catalyst that can promote community and participation in civic life, activities, projects and politics.
Whether it was Mapleton activities, the Loess Hills, The Iowa Newspaper Association, community clubs and commercial clubs, the fire department or the schools in Schleswig, Mapleton, Charter Oak and Ute, Lyon Publishing and Mike and Barb Lyon have led the way in promoting communities.
As you read in last weeks paper, Mike pioneered the technological revolution in publishing. When I joined my high school newspaper staff we were still mopping photo-developing chemicals up from under our typesetter. Mike took the plunge and started using Apple Macintosh computers with laser printers, then he convinced his colleagues all over Iowa and the Midwest to follow his lead.
Lots of people like to talk about having seen horses, early Fords and now electric-hybrid and ethanol cars during their lifetimes. During his life time, Mike watched his father and grandfather loading printing presses with moveable lead type, developed film in a darkroom and used smelly typesetters and now can download digital images from a camera, complete an entire edition of the Mapleton PRESS on a computer and email it to the printers in minutes.
My fond memories will include laughing and sharing coffee, treats and family stories with Barb twice a day at break time. Like a mother hen, she’d remind us when we were laying out pages that stories and pictures are nice, but you couldn’t even have a newspaper without ads.
I will remember and appreciate all the lessons and advice about designing layouts, ads and t-shirts, and taking and processing photos from Mike. How he’d always call me “young man,” or “friend.”
The front office was always busy with visitors. Many were neighbors and friends, many were clients and merchants, but it was fun to hear the laughter and banter with Mike and Barb of people who came in every week, almost like a restaurant or bar has its “regulars.” And of course lunches at either the Beef and Brew or Picadilly Circus in Mapleton.
Last summer when he broke the news that they were looking for a buyer, the Lyon Publishing “family” wept and comforted each other. This family business wasn’t just a business, it was and will always be a family. That makes it a labor of love.
Mike and Barb, thank you. Please know that many, many people love you and will miss you in this business. May God bless your retirement and restore your health.
Readers, why not shower the Lyons with cards or at least shower these three newspapers with letters to the editor and cards of thanks expressing your good wishes?
The new owner Mark Rhoades also owns the Seward Independent. As an alumnus of Concordia University in Seward Nebraska, I can tell you that we’re very lucky that he’s who finally purchased these papers. The Independent, like the Mapleton PRESS is a well designed, good looking paper with excellent news and feature coverage.
Believe me, there were three alternatives and none of them are as good for us as Mark Rhoades. Many small town newspapers are “rinky dink” things that look like they’re thrown together sloppily by folks who may mean well, but either aren’t well trained or don’t take as much pride in their work as Mike and Barb have.
Many small town newspapers have been swallowed up by huge corporations. This isn’t all bad. I love the look and photography and writing of some of our neighboring towns papers. But if you happen to see the several of them on the news stands next to each other, you notice that they all look alike. Just like every Applebee’s, Denny’s, and McDonald’s looks the same.
And of course many towns just lose their papers altogether. The best way to keep that from happening is two things. Please continue to support us with your subscriptions and your advertising, and contribute.
Especially in this day and age of digital cameras, even camera phones, computers, faxes and emails it is easier than ever to help support and participate with your local newspapers. You don’t have to be a professional writer or photographer- or even amateur ones like me! Send us your letters, send us your story ideas, and send us your stories and pictures. In the past, people have contributed travel journals, puzzles, columns, tid-bits, recipes, and of course pictures.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
U2 lead singer Bono's remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast
If you're wondering what I'm doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I'm certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It's certainly not because I'm a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I'm here because I've got a messianic complex.
Yes, it's true. And for anyone who knows me, it's hardly a revelation.
Well, I'm the first to admit that there's something unnatural...something unseemly...about rock stars mounting the pulpit and preaching at presidents, and then disappearing to their villas in the south of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough when Jesse Helms showed up at a U2 concert...but this is really weird, isn't it?
You know, one of the things I love about this country is its separation of church and state. Although I have to say: in inviting me here, both church and state have been separated from something else completely: their mind.
Mr. President, are you sure about this?
It's very humbling and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be warned - I'm Irish.
I'd like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where those laws are written. And I'd like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man serve these higher laws...but of course, they don't always. And I presume that, in a sense, is why you're here.
I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here - Muslims, Jews, Christians - all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God.
I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too.
Yes, it's odd, having a rock star here - but maybe it's odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was...well, a little blurry, and hard to see.
I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.
For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land...and in this country, seeing God's second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash...in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment...
I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.
Even though I was a believer.
Perhaps because I was a believer.
I was cynical...not about God, but about God's politics. (There you are, Jim.)
Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick - my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world's poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord's call - and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic's point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.
'Jubilee' - why 'Jubilee'?
What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lord's favor?
I'd always read the scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)...
'If your brother becomes poor,' the scriptures say, 'and cannot maintain himself...you shall maintain him.... You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.'
It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he's met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he's a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn't done much...yet. He hasn't spoken in public before...
When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' he says, 'because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.' And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favour, the year of Jubilee (Luke 4:18).
What he was really talking about was an era of grace - and we're still in it.
So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made incarnate - in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn't a bless-me club... it wasn't a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions...making it really hard for people like me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church people.
But then my cynicism got another helping hand.
It was what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest W.M.D. of them all: a tiny little virus called AIDS. And the religious community, in large part, missed it. The ones that didn't miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad behaviour. Even on children...even [though the] fastest growing group of HIV infections were married, faithful women.
Aha, there they go again! I thought to myself judgmentalism is back!
But in truth, I was wrong again. The church was slow but the church got busy on this the leprosy of our age.
Love was on the move.
Mercy was on the move.
God was on the move.
Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet...conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS...soccer moms and quarterbacks...hip-hop stars and country stars. This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!
Popes were seen wearing sunglasses!
Jesse Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster!
Crazy stuff. Evidence of the spirit.
It was breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks.
When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened - and acted. When churches starting organising, petitioning, and even - that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying...on AIDS and global health, governments listened - and acted.
I'm here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; you changed the world.
Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.
Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.
I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff. Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. "If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places."
It's not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. (You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.) 'As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me' (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.
Here's some good news for the president. After 9/11 we were told America would have no time for the world's poor. America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. And it's true these are dangerous times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.
In fact, you have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for global health. Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support for the Global Fund - you and Congress - have put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.
Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive. Historic. Be very, very proud.
But here's the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There is much more to do. There's a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.
And finally, it's not about charity after all, is it? It's about justice.
Let me repeat that: It's not about charity, it's about justice.
And that's too bad.
Because you're good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can't afford it.
But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.
Sixty-five hundred Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about justice and equality.
Because there's no way we can look at what's happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn't accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the tsunami. 150,000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, "mother nature." In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it's a completely avoidable catastrophe.
It's annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.
You know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, "Equal?" A preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, "Yeah, 'equal,' that's what it says here in this book. We're all made in the image of God."
And eventually the Pharaoh says, "OK, I can accept that. I can accept the Jews - but not the blacks."
"Not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way, man."
So on we go with our journey of equality.
On we go in the pursuit of justice.
We hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more than 2 million Americans...Left and Right together... united in the belief that where you live should no longer determine whether you live.
We hear that call even more powerfully today, as we mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King - mother of a movement for equality, one that changed the world but is only just getting started. These issues are as alive as they ever were; they just change shape and cross the seas.
Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market...that's a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents...that's a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents...that's a justice issue.
And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject.
That's why I say there's the law of the land¿. And then there is a higher standard. There's the law of the land, and we can hire experts to write them so they benefit us, so the laws say it's OK to protect our agriculture but it's not OK for African farmers to do the same, to earn a living?
As the laws of man are written, that's what they say.
God will not accept that.
Mine won't, at least. Will yours?
[ pause]
I close this morning on...very...thin...ice.
This is a dangerous idea I've put on the table: my God vs. your God, their God vs. our God...vs. no God. It is very easy, in these times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity.
And this is a town - Washington - that knows something of division.
But the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can come together on behalf of what the scriptures call the least of these.
This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democratic idea. It is not even, with all due respect, an American idea. Nor it is unique to any one faith.
'Do to others as you would have them do to you' (Luke 6:30). Jesus says that.
'Righteousness is this: that one should...give away wealth out of love for him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives.' The Koran says that (2.177).
Thus sayeth the Lord: 'Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord will be your rear guard.' The Jewish scripture says that. Isaiah 58 again.
That is a powerful incentive: 'The Lord will watch your back.' Sounds like a good deal to me, right now.
A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it¿. I have a family, please look after them¿. I have this crazy idea...
And this wise man said: stop.
He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.
Get involved in what God is doing - because it's already blessed.
Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.
And that is what he's calling us to do.
I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how much some churchgoers tithe. Up to 10% of the family budget. Well, how does that compare with the federal budget, the budget for the entire American family? How much of that goes to the poorest people in the world? Less than 1%.
Mr. President, Congress, people of faith, people of America:
I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing.... Which, to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional 1% of the federal budget tithed to the poor.
What is 1%?
1% is not merely a number on a balance sheet.
1% is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you. 1% is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. 1% is the African entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to you. 1% is not redecorating presidential palaces or money flowing down a rat hole. This 1% is digging waterholes to provide clean water.
1% is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism toward Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from boondoggles and white elephants of every description.
America gives less than 1% now. We're asking for an extra 1% to change the world. to transform millions of lives - but not just that and I say this to the military men now - to transform the way that they see us.
1% is national security, enlightened economic self-interest, and a better, safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in this town of deals and compromises, 1% is the best bargain around.
These goals - clean water for all; school for every child; medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty - these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals, which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a globalised world.
Now, I'm very lucky. I don't have to sit on any budget committees. And I certainly don't have to sit where you do, Mr. President. I don't have to make the tough choices.
But I can tell you this:
To give 1% more is right. It's smart. And it's blessed.
There is a continent - Africa - being consumed by flames.
I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did - or did not to - to put the fire out in Africa.
History, like God, is watching what we do.
Thank you. Thank you, America, and God bless you all.
Great quote
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices." ~ Edward R. Murrow
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Banksy - Google Image Search
Banksy
This is a graffiti artist that my friend Ken told me about. Ken's a former student who's working on his Masters' in London. Bansky is an artist who really makes you think. Some times it's because of "trompe l'oeil" reality bending, but offen it's because he challenges our political assumptions and our social complacency.
I really like this work, becasue when I first started teaching it was a little Lutheran School in Reseda, CA. The congregation was mostly older, white, middle-class and comfortable. The students were Mexican, Black, Asian, and White, mostly working class, some middle class- their parents wanted to keep them out of trouble and out of public school. But the neighborhood was poor. Black, Mexican, and Middle Eastern, and poor (did I mention that?) The compound had allermed gates all around it. What had once been the FRONT steps to the church (now perpetually locked) faced a street accross from a park and every morning, there sat the homeless people, seeking who knows what? Shelter, solice? But receiving no welcome, let alone help from the church.
Click on the image of the angel or the name Blansky for a link to his website,
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