This and That

Came across and interesting site this morning. It’s an audio reading of The Living Bible. There are only 3 books up there, but the blogs author says he will eventually be going through the entire bible. I’m sure they are out there, but I haven’t seen any Podcasts like this, where you can subscribe to the bible being read. Would be cool to listen to on a commute… if I had one.

Check it out!

http://www.hoei.com/blog/tlb/ 

I went to see Good Night, And Good Luck last night with some buddies. The film is up for an Academy Award, so we thought we’d go see what all the hype was about. At 27, we were by far the youngest people in the audience by at least 20 years. Not surprising since the film is about Edward R. Murrow and the McCarthyism of the 1950’s. This was a VERY interesting looking into an era in our nations history that hardely any from my generation is aware of. Murrow showed courageous leadership in an industry and era when so many were afraid to do so.

The movie focuses around CBS and Edward R. Murrow in the early 50’s when Senator Joe McCarthy from Wisconsin was terrorizing the country on his witch hunts for communists or communist sympathizers. Up until that point, no one in the media dared oppose him for fear of being branded a communist. Ed Murrow, with his dedication to honest news reporting, and his producer, Fred Friendly, decided to step up to McCarthy through their show See it Now to challenge his tactics and the way he would accuse people based on heresy and speculation. Despite the fact that they faced personal attacks, Murrow and Friendly chose to go public with this because it was “the right thing to do.â€?

I know that a historic film has done it’s job when I leave the theater, drive home and hop on Google to learn more about the subject matter. That’s just what I did. I found tons of cool info from Wikipedia on all of the topics above. In the film, what was most fascinating to me was the speech Murrow gave at the end of the movie. He had been taken off the air because his reports weren’t entertaining enough and viewers wanted entertainment. He made a declaration that TV and RADIO should be about educating the American people about relevant news going on that affects our lives instead of hiding it from us. He said,

“..during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.“

That seems so contrary to what is on TV today. When half the programming is reality TV, will there ever come a time when TV is actually used to stretch and grow our minds, or just another way to enter into a vegetative state for 30 - 60 minutes? How many people consider TV to be more than just entertainment?

Being a lifelong Cubs fan, Sammy Sosa will always have a special place in my heart. Even before the historic 1998 homerun race with Mark McGwire, I always appreciated his style of play since he become a Cub in 1992. His hop, his smile and the way he ran out to right field are memories that will always bring me back to lazy summer afternoons as a junior high and high school kid.

But then there was the corked bat incident, and the quarels with manager Dusty Baker and leaving, what at the time we didn’t know, but his last game as a Cub, early. He also seemed to start playing for himself. “Baseball has been very, very good to me!” Yes it has Sammy, but what about us? Maybe this is a question I should have asked 2 season ago, for as we all know, he went to Baltimore where he has one of his worst seasons of his career. Now that he’s talking of retirement, this Cubs fan couldn’t care less.

It’s sad to see a hero like Sammy Sosa just fizzle out into obscruity at the end of his career. 5th on the all time homerun list, I don’t think I heard anyone ever mention his name last year, at least not very often. So what is to become of this slugger? Only time will tell, but for many Cubs fan (this one included), we’ve moved on. So long Sammy! Thanks for the memories

Last week we launched the new, “BU Leadership Development blog.” It is designed to be a place where “Bethel student leaders can be motivated and learn from each other by exchanging ideas, solving problems together, encouraging personal development, and supporting one another in the things of life.” I hope it takes off. Right now we need to get more content up there, so if anyone would like to be a “guest blogger” shoot me and email.
I’m also proud to say that we have begun Podcasting the various leadership speakers we have on campus. Now through spring break, there will be minimum of one new cast each week, usually on Tuesday’s. You can subscribe to our feed at,

http://blogs.bethel.edu/blog/bsaleadership/Podcast/?flavor=rss2

On February 2nd, Bono (lead singer of the rock band U2 for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past 20 years), recently spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. Bono has been an activist, working on trying to wipeout global poverty for several years now. He is instrumental in the ONE campaing, which urges the government to allocate just 1% of the national budget help with this problem (focusing on AIDS and poverty).
Bono’s speach is very powerful. He does a brilliant job of making his pitch not from a political slant, not from an American or Irish slant, not from a Christian or even religious slant. He simply appeals to human emotion and uses the Christian, Jewish and Islamic Bibles to back this up. It was beautiful! He stresses the fact that several places in scripture (Luke 6:30, Isaiah 58), it points to the fact that God pays attention to the poor, that he is with them. Here’s an excerpt…

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 yolk 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�

To see the complete transcript, go here.