Creswell Chronicle; Recording History (click here for video)

While newspapers in larger cities struggle to keep going, small town papers find their value and connection to their community almost enhanced. We recently followed the owner of the Creswell Chronicle around on a typical day to show why rural newspapers are so important.

Sponsors: City of Creswell

Creswell Chronicle.

It won’t end with today’s election….unless we let it end.

The way I look at it, passing or failing, these two measures are trouble. Oregonians won’t win. It won’t matter how it turns out people are going to lose. I know that’s not what the commercials on television tell you but look who’s behind them.

The way I see it, if the measures fail or pass, jobs will be lost. I have friends who are really scared for their jobs. I have a brother-in-law who stands to lose a lot as well. I live in a state with leaders who dangle ballot measures like this in front of our noses, like a carrot and profess to be for the little guy, but never fully fund the little guy and instead, when times are tough, put ballot measures like 66 and 67 in front of us, pitting Oregonian against Oregonian. It’s wrong.

It is not my business how you vote. I don’t know your history, your bias’, or your motivation. But when this is all over we still have to work together. I hope that each of us will at least vote. When the numbers come out tonight, let’s not panic and listen as the media, and those who want us to fear, tell us the sky is falling. When we wake up tomorrow morning, we still must work together.

Do me a favor, don’t let this feeling you have inside right now, disappear when the election is over. Let’s go in and stop the state from continuing to use us. It’s time to look for new ways of funding our state. It’s time to fully fund OUR priorities and stop those who run this state, from dangling our kids and the most vulnerable citizens, like  carrots in front of our faces to get more money.

Don’t let up. Don’t let them get away with this. It’s our money and it should be funding Our priorities. I’m so sick of this crap I could spit. If we all sat down and wrote out a list of our top priorities in state government I bet education and health and human services would be near the top. So ask yourself this as they read the final numbers tonight; “why do we let them do this to us?”

And tomorrow, ignore the sound bites but not your ability to get involved.

I hear the folks in Salem say they want us to be more involved in the process but I doubt that is true. If we were, if we truly were involved, none of this would be happening.

What if Fear wasn’t a motivator?

What would happen if we refused to live our lives in fear? I mean really, think about it. If we refused to live in fear how would politicians get us to do anything? How would they scare us into voting if we didn’t buy into the idea that somehow the world would end if this issue or that issue didn’t pass or fail.

If we refused to live in fear would commercials exist? Would the News survive? Think of all the industries that would whither away if we refused to get wrapped up in the hype.

Are there real consequences for our actions? You bet there are but we really don’t need to be afraid. I’m not saying we don’t need to be involved and that we can just throw up our hands and let everything roll off our backs. I’m not saying, “Live and let live.” I guess what I’m trying to say is Fear is a lousy motivator. It’s just one more form of manipulation.

We fear because we don’t want anything bad to happen. Bad things happen. A pill or party platform will not prevent life from being difficult. I will feel pain and life will not always go my way but there is no reason to fear these facts of life.

If we all stopped allowing folks to motivate us with fear, what would the world look like?

Okay, come try to scare me.

“If we judged ourselves we would not be judged.”

This morning I read this verse and the story of a king who refused to listen to God. His ego and desire to be right were so great that his heart was hardened which made it impossible for him to listen and prevent great problems from devastating his kingdom.

As I read this story I see so many similarities to our current culture and the interactions I see each day in the newspapers, the blogs and hear on television and radio. We are so busy pushing our points, pontificating our positions and manipulating information that our hearts have hardened and we can’t see it.

Perhaps our real foe is not the party on the other side of the isle. Perhaps the enemy we fight against is not the one we see through our value veils but is the man or woman we look at in the mirror each morning.

There is a fine line between fighting for what is right and fighting to be right and I doubt most of us can distinguish the difference. We have created a town square where those with the loudest voice filibuster the platform with their facts, their figures and their information. The megaphone we bring to the town meeting is not designed to make us better listeners but designed to takeover and push the conversation in the direction “We” think is best.(not matter what the cost)

And while we argue and pick at each other the general public grows numb to what it hears and walks away from the process. In some ways I think that’s what the loudmouths have always hoped for. When you yell loud enough you stop the conversation and think you win.

But what if that’s changing? What if all those people begin to see that the megaphones have an off button? What if by participating all those folks who’ve been quiet for so long, start to covertly and subversively fight back?

Like the story I started with above, will we harden our hearts, turn up the volume on the megaphones and make it worse, or will be shut up and let people have a say? Can we put aside our motives and allow everyone to participate? I doubt it. In order to do so we’d have to admit that we might be wrong and that can’t happen can it?

Maybe we should spend a little more time judging our own motives rather than the motives of those around us. Perhaps the old ways are failing but we are so caught up in being right that we can’t see our kingdom’s crashing down around us.

“If we judged ourselves we would not be judged.”

Huh, makes you wonder doesn’t it? Oh, you may have to turn down the megaphone for a minute.

Find A NEW place to get your information.

People spend all kinds of time digging around for information to make a decision. I recently was speaking with a former newspaper publisher and college journalism professor and asked him a question that I thought he had a wonderful answer for. Take a minute to listen.

Dean Rae is a former Publisher, Editor, Journalism Professor and all around wonderful man.

What does God want me to be? (click here for video)

I was sitting in the car yesterday, thinking and this thought occurred to me; I asked God to make me what He wanted me to be. I never thought it might include some very difficult choices or even problems. I know life with God is never easy. He’s like a tough day at the gym. He allows you to step in and then asks you to do the most difficult thing and trust Him  to get your through it.