Showing posts with label Omaha World-Herald. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Omaha World-Herald. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
Dear Rozanne:
It's been eleven days since you passed away...and I still think about you.
We had some great, great times together in the twenty-five years since we first met at the church you joined when you were little.
Man, you touched bunches and bunches of lives...not just at church, but also during the years where you delivered flowers and all the years you brought "Omaha World-Heralds."
You really brought the enthusiasm...especially at those concerts we attended. Didn't matter if they were RCTOS events or GPRS ones...or the times it was just you and me at the Pink Poodle Steakhouse.
Rozanne, you set one heck of an example for the rest of us to follow. You stood tough.
And I'm going to keep trying my best to live up to that example.
So doggone glad for the privilege of being a part of your life...and I'm so doggone glad you were (and still are!) a part of my life.
Thanks so much for everything!
Sincerely, Jim
Thursday, October 20, 2016
The 84-Year Itch
I took a look at the opinion page in this past Sunday's Omaha World-Herald...and was stunned out of my wits.
Then a smile crept onto my face.
The paper's editorial staff decided to go ahead and endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton to be America's 45th president.
I don't know how long Nebraska's largest newspaper has made presidential endorsements, but I do know this: It's only the second time since the Great Depression began this month in 1929 that the World-Herald thought a Democrat would be better off calling the shots from the Oval Office than a Republican.
In fact, the fact that Wall Street laid that egg on 10-29-1929 led the OWH's then editors to tell their readers that it was time to kick Republican Herbert Hoover out of the White House and put Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in there for 1932. (Hoover- who died on this very date in 1964- was America's commerce secretary from 1921 to 1928; some historians feel he was the best chief this country's Commerce Department ever had.)
In the intervening 84 years- with one exception- the World-Herald went strictly with GOP nominees. (The paper's editors didn't endorse a presidential nominee in 1964.)
When it came to 2016, editor-in-chief Terry Kroeger joined the rest of the editorial staff in biting their fingernails over Endorsement Time.
They could've decided to sit out Endorsement Time.
Instead, Kroeger and his people made Clinton their choice...albeit with some trepidation. Sunday's editorial cited the fact that many Americans are still ticked off about Clinton's private email server from her days (2009-13) in charge of this country's State Department, all those deleted emails, and her handling of the 9-11-2012 attack at the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.
Kroeger and Co. even cited some Americans' anxiety over HRC stumping for a single-payer health-care system, American style.
The 10-16-2016 editorial, nevertheless, said that giving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Donald Trump just wouldn't cut it.
Trump's alienated too many people (especially those who aren't male, Caucasian, professing Christian, heterosexual, and/or wealthy), failed to show a real grasp of current events, and repeatedly shown a bent for lashing out whenever he's attacked.
Et cetera.
The World-Herald top brass gave Clinton the nod over her vast governmental and political experience...from her days as Arkansas' first lady all the way to her 2016 US presidential bid (her second one ever, of course).
And the paper's editors thought that kind of experience would make the difference in a world whose most closely-watched land (yep, this one) has a debt of nearly $20 billion and whose Middle East region is once again a ticking time bomb.
To sum it all up, Kroeger and his staff said that the first lady-turned-US senator from New York-turned US secretary of state needs to show she's a uniter once she gets the job that her husband Bill once had (1993-2001).
I think she'll do it...as long as we help out.
And I congratulate the OWH staff for endorsing HRC instead of DJT.
Then a smile crept onto my face.
The paper's editorial staff decided to go ahead and endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton to be America's 45th president.
I don't know how long Nebraska's largest newspaper has made presidential endorsements, but I do know this: It's only the second time since the Great Depression began this month in 1929 that the World-Herald thought a Democrat would be better off calling the shots from the Oval Office than a Republican.
In fact, the fact that Wall Street laid that egg on 10-29-1929 led the OWH's then editors to tell their readers that it was time to kick Republican Herbert Hoover out of the White House and put Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in there for 1932. (Hoover- who died on this very date in 1964- was America's commerce secretary from 1921 to 1928; some historians feel he was the best chief this country's Commerce Department ever had.)
In the intervening 84 years- with one exception- the World-Herald went strictly with GOP nominees. (The paper's editors didn't endorse a presidential nominee in 1964.)
When it came to 2016, editor-in-chief Terry Kroeger joined the rest of the editorial staff in biting their fingernails over Endorsement Time.
They could've decided to sit out Endorsement Time.
Instead, Kroeger and his people made Clinton their choice...albeit with some trepidation. Sunday's editorial cited the fact that many Americans are still ticked off about Clinton's private email server from her days (2009-13) in charge of this country's State Department, all those deleted emails, and her handling of the 9-11-2012 attack at the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.
Kroeger and Co. even cited some Americans' anxiety over HRC stumping for a single-payer health-care system, American style.
The 10-16-2016 editorial, nevertheless, said that giving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Donald Trump just wouldn't cut it.
Trump's alienated too many people (especially those who aren't male, Caucasian, professing Christian, heterosexual, and/or wealthy), failed to show a real grasp of current events, and repeatedly shown a bent for lashing out whenever he's attacked.
Et cetera.
The World-Herald top brass gave Clinton the nod over her vast governmental and political experience...from her days as Arkansas' first lady all the way to her 2016 US presidential bid (her second one ever, of course).
And the paper's editors thought that kind of experience would make the difference in a world whose most closely-watched land (yep, this one) has a debt of nearly $20 billion and whose Middle East region is once again a ticking time bomb.
To sum it all up, Kroeger and his staff said that the first lady-turned-US senator from New York-turned US secretary of state needs to show she's a uniter once she gets the job that her husband Bill once had (1993-2001).
I think she'll do it...as long as we help out.
And I congratulate the OWH staff for endorsing HRC instead of DJT.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
I Always Thought It Was the Message That Counts
Recently, the Kansas City Star did a report on how churches here in America are having trouble finding organists- and how this country's universities and colleges are experiencing difficulty in attracting students to pick up the King of Instruments. The article also talked about how the University of Kansas (boasting of a multimillion-dollar pipe organ) has one of the strongest organ programs in the United States today.
24 students strong.
Well, the Omaha World-Herald picked up this article and, after having staff writer Kevin Coffey do a local interview to add an Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue slant, put it on the front page of the paper's Living section on 2-23-2013. (One of the points the local edition made was that Nebraska's colleges and universities are bucking the trend the Kaycee original lamented.)
In both versions of the article (you can still catch it at www.omaha.com; type in "Pipes aren't calling many"), you'll find some quotes from University of Kansas organ professor James Higdon.
Higdon bemoaned the trend toward praise bands in many of America's churches, not only labeling the groups "pick-up garage bands" whose members know just six chords...but also saying that the praise bands aren't going to last.
You could see where the professor's coming from; after all, he teaches at a major university with one of the nation's best organ curricula. Higdon's got to look out for his back end and that of his school. (And why throw a few thousand years' worth of compositions out the window?)
I don't want to throw all those compositions out the window, either.
What's more, I'm in a praise band, too...and I love it.
The church I'm in launched its contemporary worship service in September of 2007, and it meets at the church's Fellowship Hall each Sunday at 9:35 AM. (For a while, the service was held at our church's sanctuary...but moved back downstairs in 2011.)
Long before that, I was a substitute organist at the very first United Methodist church I joined...when I was still living in Sioux City, IA. (This was from 1994 to 1997. At that time, that church's lead organist was the wife of the church's pastor. And unless I hear otherwise, they're still married!)
Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is this: Whether it's traditional worship music, contemporary praise music, or a mix of the two, it makes me no difference.
I'm more concerned about the message in each church service. That's what I'm trying to dig.
The basic message doesn't change whether you're using a six-manual pipe organ or a Fender Stratocaster. (At least, that's what I find.)
And as far as I'm concerned, the underlying message is: "God loves each and every one of us...and He wants the very best for us. (And if we could just work to get along with each other.)"
24 students strong.
Well, the Omaha World-Herald picked up this article and, after having staff writer Kevin Coffey do a local interview to add an Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue slant, put it on the front page of the paper's Living section on 2-23-2013. (One of the points the local edition made was that Nebraska's colleges and universities are bucking the trend the Kaycee original lamented.)
In both versions of the article (you can still catch it at www.omaha.com; type in "Pipes aren't calling many"), you'll find some quotes from University of Kansas organ professor James Higdon.
Higdon bemoaned the trend toward praise bands in many of America's churches, not only labeling the groups "pick-up garage bands" whose members know just six chords...but also saying that the praise bands aren't going to last.
You could see where the professor's coming from; after all, he teaches at a major university with one of the nation's best organ curricula. Higdon's got to look out for his back end and that of his school. (And why throw a few thousand years' worth of compositions out the window?)
I don't want to throw all those compositions out the window, either.
What's more, I'm in a praise band, too...and I love it.
The church I'm in launched its contemporary worship service in September of 2007, and it meets at the church's Fellowship Hall each Sunday at 9:35 AM. (For a while, the service was held at our church's sanctuary...but moved back downstairs in 2011.)
Long before that, I was a substitute organist at the very first United Methodist church I joined...when I was still living in Sioux City, IA. (This was from 1994 to 1997. At that time, that church's lead organist was the wife of the church's pastor. And unless I hear otherwise, they're still married!)
Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is this: Whether it's traditional worship music, contemporary praise music, or a mix of the two, it makes me no difference.
I'm more concerned about the message in each church service. That's what I'm trying to dig.
The basic message doesn't change whether you're using a six-manual pipe organ or a Fender Stratocaster. (At least, that's what I find.)
And as far as I'm concerned, the underlying message is: "God loves each and every one of us...and He wants the very best for us. (And if we could just work to get along with each other.)"
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