Opinion

       Vinton Today readers read a total of nearly 5,800 stories on Monday. (We averaged 5,000 a day last Monday through Friday).     The thing that makes me happiest about this is that all of the news that was new on Monday was of the "good" kind. There were no untimely deaths to report, no shootings, no violent crimes or other tragedies.

  I've heard "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away" used in the context of dealing with times of tragedy, loss and grief.  I've been wondering lately if this was really in the Bible or if it's just one of those quotes people incorrectly attribute as scripture.  After doing a little research, I found that it's a misquote from Job 1:21.

       I only have one personal Vietnam story. It's about my dad's cousin, Mike.      As a kid, I only met Mike once, and was in awe of him. He had been to this mythically awful place and come back with an injured knee. I remember him using a cane or crutch. He seemed so tall.       I was born in 1965, when Vietnam was still early in its phase as an actual war.

       Question: Who coined the phrase "March Madness?"      Answer:  I do not know.      Every year about this time, America hears the name of some college it has never heard of before. Last year, of course, it was UNI. This year, another three-initial school is in the Sweet 16 (and I wonder who first said that): VCU.

       During a conversation with a Washington County law enforcement officer about a decade ago, the officer let it slip that he was going to run for sheriff the next year.      He called me back a minute later.      "Please don't write that," he said. "I am not ready to announce it yet.

       One of the ways in which modern America media fails is this: We spend way too little time writing about things that matter, and way too much time writing about people who don't.       One of my favorite media guys, Charles Osgood, declared his daily radio show an "OJ-free zone" during that celebrity media circus 16 years ago.

       Twice in the past week, I was the only media guy in the room when someone said, "I don't like the media; I really don't like the media," or  "The media is the problem."       Both times, everyone in the room knew that I was the only media guy in the room.

  I Corinthians 6:12-20 Matthew 4:1-11 "I am yours and you are mine" When my father died, it put me into a kind of identity crisis.  My mother had died six years earlier, and at the age of 45, I felt like an orphan.  For 45 years, I was Art and Pauline's girl, and Art and Pauline were my parents.  Whose was I now? My friend, Melissa, who had recently lost her own father, reminded me as she reminded herself, that God is the father, the father, our father, and no matter what our circumstances, we are still God's beloved children.

Everyday we wake up and think, "What are we going to put on the website before the e-mail goes out at 11:45 ..." Usually we don't wonder if the news we put on the site will go further than the folks that know and love Vinton, because those are the only ones we care about serving. Sometimes our chief writer gets a bit irritated when I see something some place else and say, "Hey, did we get this on the website?" I should know by now not to ask such a stupid question.

       ACT 1 was preparing to open its spring show. The Vinton-Shellsburg Jazz Band was celebrating its second place finish at the Jazz Festival, and its invitation to the Iowa High School Jazz Championships in April.     You may have read those stories this week on Vinton Today.     Or you may have read them a year ago today on Vinton Today.