Online Newspaper

For years, I have lamented, to anyone who would listen, the lack of an online local news source that truly CARED about the people, the events, and the happenings of Athens and Limestone County.

I'd love to operate an online alternative to the newspaper that had fresh headlines as they happened, police blotter reports right from the scanner and sections for everything from the school board meetings to Miz Jones garden.

We lack a total approach to our local high school sports in the local paper. It's as if only SOME schools deserve coverage. On the internet, you could tab EVERY school and have information about all activities so that the kids could see themselves as the newsmakers they truly are. Elementary School plays, beauty walks and all sorts of community events down to the latest chicken and goat stew event to benefit one of the volunteer fire departments would ALL get the coverage they deserve.

In the age of digital media, the local newspaper is a good thing to a point - but without a viable internet portal that dishes headline news like a viral video source, we miss so much.

I wish I had the money to have a small television, radio and internet portal that offered streaming content online that was up to the minute about everything from prices on fresh tomatoes at the Farmer's Market (which in Alabama are STILL safe to eat!) to what the Senior Center is offering for lunch today.

We need to get to know our neighbors and become a community again. What better way than a totally mobile traveling news van that could put everything online within minutes!

Every Sunday could feature a different church service and afternoon presentations of local productions and events that just made people feel good about living in this particular corner of
Eden.

During the week, features on our neighbors and the local customs and colors that make our community worth living in would fill the day. And, just to keep them honest, we would interview local government officials and remind them that what they say would be printed IN FULL on the website along with the video of the interview.

Features on the Juvenile and Adult Justice System could tell about how our community is dealing with those who haven't become model citizens yet. We could explain what truly happens to those who run afoul of the law. There would even be video of the jail and the food that it served. While it's nutritious, I have heard it's pretty bad tasting. That might discourage some miscreants right then and there!

There are so many 'little' events that never get noticed. Yard sales are the American family's way of keeping up with a sagging economy. Imagine the traffic to their sale if only people could SEE what was being offered for sale! We could ask important questions like "Is this the first yard sale you have had this season?" or "What do you plan to do with the money you make from this sale"?

We could feature birthdays, anniversaries and all sorts of family events of the normal everyday family that aren't part of the big name social scene. It may not be front page news for the print media, but to the lives of the average family, it is not only front page worthy, but deserves a banner headline.

While the passage of the day to day doesn't garner much press in real time, it is those everyday happenings that truly define who we are as individuals and community.

Just sitting here, I can think of SO many ways to make the events of our hometown come to life like never before. We host bike races, competitive runs and a kiddie carnival. They might get a mention in the Sunday paper a couple of weeks after the event occurs.

But what might happen if we could do live streaming and post video that day of something that occured in our hometown?

Like the old song says "Accentuate the Positive".

And by choosing the immediacy of the internet to do just that, we might just very well eliminate the negative or at least, substantially reduce it. People would rather get good attention anyway. It's much more long lasting and keeps their countenance smiling.

If I could figure out a way to do this (and come up with the money to do it), I might just create an alternative to the print media that leaves out so much and a gateway to offer a view into our lives that we seldom even know is available.

News Junkie

As a self-proclaimed news junkie, I can boast a few files in my favorites list that are crammed full of my news sites which I reference every single day, multiple times a day.

I totally realize that this obsession could be deemed strange to people who don't like the news. It's just that they don't understand what I am looking for as I search the news sites.

I like the human interest stories from all over the world and the stories about animals and babies and the stories about bad guys 'getting it'.

I enjoy reading about the political scene because when I cast my sacred ballot, I don't wish to do so as an unitiated, unwashed novice who goes blindly into the booth to check off whatever without much though.

I firmly believe that I have to pick the candidates that best reflect my views and then hound them to death with emails of my positions in order to be part of the solutions I want to happen for my family and for my friends. It has been estimated that for every email or letter that our representatives in this great experiment in democracy receive, that they count it as 1,ooo people who feel the same way but who didn't take the time to write or call.

I also pay attention to the news items about sports and the level of sportsmanship that is exemplified at various events. It bothers me that people who are being PAID to be good sports often act more juvenile than the children who hang their photos all over their bedroom walls hoping to be 'just like them' when they get older.

Most importantly in the news, I read each day hoping to see signs that we are worthy of the redemption that we THINK we deserve.

I confess my addiction freely because I know others who secretly suffer from the same sort of compulsion on their own 'favorites list' each day.

But my favorite news bit comes from finding out that people who never give God Almighty a momentary pause tend to hit their knees during a time of crisis as quickly as the pew sitters who fill churches and sanctuary benches worldwide. He is always there even when we are not.

It sort of gives me hope that our world can yet change and turn our hearts back to our Father.

While there is still time.

Plans? What plans?

Jared and I set out from the house this morning to pick up my sister and her two girls for a nice kiddie movie and a trip to the Botanical Gardens.

Oh how happy we were about leaving early and missing traffic and our wonderful joy filled plans.

Then, we arrived at the theater to find a prim black ink on cheap white paper note taped to the inside of the conspicuously empty theater indicating that there would be NO movie today. Not today, tomorrow, next week or anymore with the Regal Cinema backing.

Yes, sirree Bob, the theater HAS BEEN SOLD!!!

Why did no one call me?

Talk about inconvenience!

So, tails tucked firmly between our legs and our ears laid back and whimpering, we decided we were no longer in charge.

Driving on to the Botanical Gardens, we figured that we would 'deal with it'.

How thankful I am that we GOT to deal with it!! The Gardens were WAY more fun than the kiddie movie would have been and it was a perfect day to take in the beauty gathered by man into one lovely setting and nurtured by God into a miniature Eden of the South.

Plants, flowers and a profusion of bees and butterflies kept the garden lovely and humming. Dragonflies darted around the waterlilies and the pathways that wound around the ponds. The sun was shining just enough and the breeze kept us from melting away (although a few pounds wouldn't have been missed on me!).

Sometimes, being reminded that my plans aren't always worth following through is a good thing.

Today was that day.

Cat and Mouse

Have you ever watched what a cat does when it corners a mouse?

Sure, there are some who just gobble them up, but MOST cats prefer to play with the mouse first.

There is a lot of batting it around and letting it run off a bit only to be heart-poundingly captured yet again. Then, just when the mouse has resigned itself to the inevitable fate, the cat relents just long enough for the mouse to taste freedom before being reeled in for the kill.

OPEC is a lot like the cat and we gas guzzling consumers are most assuredly the mice.

They know we NEED the gas as surely as a junkie with the DT's needs the next fix. We can't stop. Everything we do - EVERYTHING - depends upon the gasoline in the tank.

We have forgotten how to ensure our own survival and have become slaves to a system that we can't escape. Teasing us with temporary fixes, OPEC's cartel knows that we will be back. We can't live without the trickle of fossil fuels in our tanks.

We have other resources. And we have smart enough people to make something different. But the reality is that greed runs the show as surely as the hungry cat who wants a bit of sport before the dinner bell rings.

Jared and I have taken to the open road (or sidewalk, as the case may be) and are walking to his therapy appointments. I can't stand to watch the needle fall from the "F" to the "E" at a pace that would make a marathon runner look weak. At about nine miles to the gallon on a old handicap van, I feel as decadent as if I were driving a Hummer without all of the bling.

And dang it all, if I am going to have to pay the price for the bling, why can't I SEE the bling?

The fact is, whether you are driving a Tin Lizzy or a brand new Ferrari, they all need gasoline. Even the people who are mortgaging their automotive future on recycled french fry oil have a problem.

Ethanol doesn't produce the same MPG as gasoline. Apparently there is nothing like burning up "a dinosaur in your tank" to make that trip on Route 66 (and if you are too young to catch that reference, I am truly sorry for you).

And the limited choices on just where you can get the raw material from greasy spoons across the nation and how to turn it into actual fuel is dicey at best. There are actually waste collection services who, in seeing a new opportunity, have leapt into the breech and are turning fat into fuel. Who knew?

So, in my own ode to the sheiks and potentates of the world, I am eating more salad and using my OWN fossil fuel around my mid-section to carry my carcass where I need to go. If the walk is further than a mile, I will be riding my old, but trusty bike. I suspect there will soon be a whole lot of other people who will rebuff the Arabs and burn something instead of gasoline - like gumption.

We have more at stake here than a tank of gas or who gets the mouse.

We have the very real possibility that we will, by our own demand for gas and oil, become a dependent caliphate that begs for subsitance instead of standing on our own two feet and making the needed decisions to cut the umbilical cord to the Arabian Penisula and the greasy cartel.

Enough ranting for now.

It's time to shower.

While I am more than happy to burn my fat as a gasoline substitute, it still produces an unpleasant and polluting exhaust. So, I will take a quality and timed shower.

Meanwhile, remember that there ARE a great number of people who have never owned nor thought about having a car. And they have lived an entire life never thinking of themselves as being deprived.

Maybe it's time we do the depriving. We need to cut off the cat and become better mice. The bait is becoming too expensive to use.

To quote the words of Ali ibn Abi Talib of Saudi Arabia: "A man's measure is his will."

The question we need to ask ourselves is are we mice or men and in either case, is our will worth the bondage of a gallon of gas?