Fun Writing

Many of you reading this know I used to be a journalist for a small daily paper. It was fun, but as with newspapers across the country, staffing levels started to fall and we were asked to do more with less. Eventually I got burnt out, went back to school and now work in higher education, but I still enjoy writing.

Each Fall for the past four years I've had the opportunity to cover high school football games and, my uneasiness with the game aside, it's fun to be able to write a couple stories a week and see my name in the newspaper. The weekly games are fun and the preview story prior to the game is decent, if not routine at this point. As a freelance writer with an actual full-time job and family responsibilities, it's not like I'm hanging out at practice and doing fun feature stories.

So when my wife (who works at a different college) told me of an interesting story involving one of the students where she works, my first thought was to see if I could do a feature story on her. After a few emails with the Sports Editor, I got the go ahead to do it and today I get to interview her. Unfortunately the story won't run until next weekend (hopefully) but when it does, I'll either link to it or post it here.

But enough about me writing about writing, here's my favorite links since the last time I posted.

The Death of the Midwestern Church - Even if you're not religious, this story is interesting in the effect the decline of central gathering places, especially in small communities, can have on those areas.

Ta-Nehisi Coates' Flawed Attack on Bernie Sanders - A reasoned counterargument to the Coates' article I posted yesterday. For what it's worth, Coates retweeted this story.

Sledding as a Revolutionary Act - The interesting history of sledding as civil disobedience.

ISIS Has Destroyed One of Iraq's Oldest Christian Sites - I may be wrong here, but this offends me more as someone who values history more than it does as a Christian. It's a terrible thing, but if you believe God is everywhere, it's a disappointing loss whereas if you value history, it's an irreplaceable loss.

Marco Rubio's South Carolina Strategy -  As I also mentioned yesterday, elections are fascinating to me. This is what I was referring to. Seeing how campaigns plot to get to the magic number they need.

To Be Young, 'Gifted' and Black, It Helps to Have a Black Teacher - White students are 50 percent more likely to be identified as "gifted" as black students with similar scores.

How the Government - And This Columnist - Failed Flint - This story about Flint is tough and there are so many issues and so many failures by people and systems.

Obviously it was a slow day at work yesterday and I had plenty of time to read. Thanks for taking your time to read this.