Opinion
The three lists that indicate what we are looking for
"WHAT are we looking for?"
A clearly-irritated female voice echoed across the aisle of a building supply store.
I do not know the lady or her husband. (I assume it was a husband; it did not seem like a first-date location or question.)
But I could have told her what he was looking for.
Vinton Today: Just the news, not the paper
I was walking into work one day with a colleague.
Ahead of us, another co-worker was walking to her office.
"I don't know what's wrong with her," said my peer. "She just does her job and doesn't come to our meetings."
When we got to the upstairs office, there was another meeting going on.
Hackers, passwords and pins
We've all heard it over and over, don't use the same passwords for your online accounts...bank, e-mail, online store accounts, facebook, etc.
They also tell you NOT to write down the passwords.
After last weeks episode with facebook hacking, I thought, "No big deal, they can have my facebook account, it's not that important.
Getting bad news numbers with good news
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.
Pastor's Blog: THE LORD GIVETH AND THE LORD TAKETH AWAY
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. A perspective on Vietnam from someone almost as old as the war
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.
March Madness, Badness and Sadness
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.
Journalism has need for keeping secrets, as well as blabbing them
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.
What what matters most often does not in modern media
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.
On the media: Being first vs. being the best
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.