The newspaper business

A Peoria, Ill., web logger has an interesting post about a media panel in which he participated. I was especially interested in the last couple of paragraphs about Gatehouse Media's ownership of that city's newspaper.

Gatehouse Media owns many Missouri newspapers, including the papers in Rolla, St. James, Waynesville-St. Robert and Camdenton. Here's what the Illinois blogger says:

The morning ended on a somewhat depressing note for me, as I hung around after the meeting and heard about how low morale is at the Journal Star now that Gatehouse has taken over. Many seasoned reporters have left, benefits have been cut, and staff positions are going unfilled. Basically, the newsroom is being slashed through attrition. Jenni Davis moved from the City Hall beat to Lifestyles editor, and they’re not hiring anyone to fill her position. Instead, they’re going to replace her with one of the business reporters. Now there will be two instead of three business reporters; one more position eliminated.

Gatehouse is cutting costs on little things, too. They won’t buy antibacterial liquid soap for the bathrooms anymore, nor will they buy Post-It Notes. That kind of nitpicking at the budget is the sign of a company in serious financial trouble. They’ve overextended themselves by buying so many newspapers, and now they’re trying to cover the cost of their debt any way they can, from cutting staff to business supplies. There is no joy at the paper right now. And that’s sad.

I don't know if such things are going on at the local newspapers. I left the Rolla Daily News back in December 2004, prior to the arrival of Gatehouse. I've been under the impression that folks working for Gatehouse's Missouri properties are pretty happy with their leadership. I've not heard of "nitpicking cuts," and I know the current news staff is larger than it was when I worked there under both American Publishing Co. and Liberty Publishing Group ownership.

Maybe this report is just a reflection of poor management in Illinois.

Virtual schooling?

The changes in education in the Ozarks have been interesting over the years. Back a hundred years ago when I was a much younger Ozarks Boy (well, it was really in the mid-Seventies), Christian schools began opening in churches. I interviewed the principal/pastor of one in the town where I worked, and he explained the concept was rooted in the Old Testament when God told parents to instruct their children in the way to worship him correctly. The principal/pastor explained that this instruction was done in Sunday School, and Christian schooling was nothing more than Sunday School every day, with all the subjects relating back to God and the scriptures. He stressed parents had to take an active role in the schooling of their children, too.

That sounded like a good idea, but public school educators told me that Christian education would never be a good idea. Christian schools didn't provide adequate socialization skills, they said.

Homeschooling also began to pick up some interest as the years went by. Again, public educators said this was a bad idea because of the lack of socialization.

That's why I found this article about "virtual schooling" so doggone interesting. I guess the success of private schools and home schools have forced the state to accept the truth that some parents can do just as well as the public school.

What was here before Wal-Mart, Branson, Six Flags and Bass Pro?

Some people think the Ozarks didn't exist until they showed up, but here's a web site that shows you there was life here long before any of us were around.
Go take a look at the pictures, read the captions and think about where you fit in the great scheme of life in the Ozarks.

Famous evangelist dies

I just heard on the radio that television preacher D. James Kennedy died of complications from a heart attack he suffered late last year, so I looked up the information on the internet and found this story.
Kennedy was an interesting preacher, I think. He was not a pentecostal like so many of the TV preachers are; he didn't preach a health and wealth gospel, he didn't name it and claim it.
Kennedy evangelized, and he believed he and all Christians are called to infiltrate the world. The AP noted:

"The Bible says, 'Be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth,'" Kennedy said in a 1996 interview with The Los Angeles Times. "God should be in every sphere of life: economics, business, education, government, art and science."

Delaine and I watched his program almost every Sunday morning. I liked most of his preaching, especially when he talked about the Christian worldview of the Founding Fathers. About the only time I didn't care for his preaching was when he laid into Harry Potter in a series of sermons. Kennedy thought Harry was going to lead a lot of children into witchcraft. I thought that was carrying things a bit too far. Harry is nothing but a fairy tale; preachers don't lay into Hans Christian Anderson or the Grimms, so let's just leave JK Rowling alone.

Speaking of "sorcery," think of this: Dead though he is, James Kennedy will continue to preach on through reruns of his program, as does Adrian Rogers, another TV preacher who I like to hear who happens to be dead.

Another favorite TV preacher, Billy Graham, is ailing. So far, though, Ed Young is hanging in there.

Weather affects fruit production in Missouri

Here are a couple of articles to explain why apples are in short supply and why we have no grapes.
Surprise! It isn't because of global warming or climate change.