Blogging: The commitment factor

Tips from a writing guru

Georganna Hancock, author of A Writer's Edge, offers some advice for creative writers who long to blog on a daily basis but find it a challenge to do so. Read Georganna's post, Word Play for Writers.


Tags: Blogging, Blogs, Writing, Media by Sistrunk

A man without borders

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This year marks the 21st anniversary of the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, first observed on January 20, 1986. Were he alive today (January 15), King would have celebrated his 79th birthday. Millions of Americans are remembering the civil rights leader and human rights advocate over this long holiday weekend.

King was a husband, a father, and a preacher. He was also the preeminent leader of a movement that continues to transform America and the world. One of the twentieth century's most influential men, he lived an extraordinary life.

To view a timeline of milestones in King's life, click here. Click here for a slide show that tells King's story through his widow, the late Coretta Scott King.

To truly understand King, this writer believes that one should read his writings. The King Estate has copyrighted his works. However, selected examples of his writings may be viewed online. Among them - the address King delivered in acceptance of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. The King Papers Project is housed at Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

Journalists, historians, legislators and community leaders continue to examine whether King's appeal for peace with justice is as relevant today as it was when he was alive. Last year, an editorial in the Houston Chronicle attempted to place King's philosophy into present-day perspective in an editorial. Here is an excerpt from the piece:

Although he rose to national prominence fighting racial segregation in the South, many of the issues roiling the United States 38 years after his assassination would be very familiar to Martin Luther King Jr.

Before his death, the Baptist minister had denounced America's involvement in the Vietnam War, a daring stance that fueled the growing opposition to the carnage in Southeast Asia. He was bitterly criticized in the media and by government officials for venturing beyond the sphere of civil rights, as if that were the only area in which he was entitled to an opinion.

With the country now split by the bloody, open-ended struggle in Iraq and by the mistaken justification for going to war, it's not hard to predict where King would stand on the matter.

Americans debate the revelation that their government is conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans inside the United States. King had plenty of experience on that score. He was relentlessly wiretapped and trailed by the FBI. Then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that King was a communist sympathizer.

Just as he stood with refuse workers in Memphis in the last days before an assassin's bullet struck him down, King would championed the dispossessed evacuees of Hurricane Katrina, potent symbols of a race-based economic underclass that persists as a legacy of slavery and discrimination. The New Orleans nightmare that Katrina exposed indicates that the vision King enunciated in his "I Have a Dream" speech is not yet realized.

Like his role model for nonviolent protest, Mohandas K. Gandhi, King grew to be a world figure by embracing universal humanitarian concerns that surmounted ethnicity and religion. As he once said, "Evil is not driven out, but crowded out ... through the expulsive power of something good."

That's why the celebration of his life today cannot be limited to a single community or issue. African-Americans are justly proud that he rose from their ranks, but his life is significant to all Americans.

Nearly four decades after his death in 1968, some say "King is facing the same fate that has befallen many a historical figure - being frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message." Writer Deepti Hajela explains.

Related: Preserving the Dream




Video: King's entire "I Have a Dream" speech





Tags: Martin Luther King, King Holiday, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Media by Sistrunk

'Priorities'

An example of good blogging

I just came across a thoughtful post on Dennis Fermoyle's site, From the Trenches of Public Ed. This is storytelling that comes from the heart. The post is called Priorities.

Who reads the news?

A humorous look at newspapers

(The following was sent to me by a friend.)


Who reads the news?

- The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run this country.

- The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country.

- The New York Times is read by the people who think they should run this country and who are very good in crossword puzzles.

- USA Today is read by the people who think they ought to run the country but who don't really understand the New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

- The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country - if they weren't on a freeway, or playing volley ball, or at a Botox appointment or an audition - and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

- The Boston Globe is read by people whose grandparents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

- The New York Daily News is read by the people who aren't too sure who is running the country and who don't really care as long as they get a seat on the train.

- The Miami Herald is read by the people who are running another country but who need the baseball scores.

- The San Francisco Chronicle is read by the people who aren't sure there is a country or that anyone is running it. But if there is a country and someone is running it, these readers are opposed to all that the leadership stands for.

- The National Inquirer is read by people who are trapped in line at the grocery store.

Author: Unknown

Tags: Humor, Fun, Newspapers, Media by Sistrunk

Quote of the day

Words of inspiration from MLK

Yesterday (January 15) was Dr. Martin Luther King's actual birthday. The national holiday will be observed on January 21.

I think it's fitting to offer a quote from Dr. King:

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

What is your favorite inspirational quote? It can be from anyone whose work you admire.


Tags: Martin Luther King, Quotes, Media by Sistrunk

Rumors, rumors everywhere!

Debunking online urban legends

One of my biggest pet peeves is receiving urban legends and hoaxes via email. My favorite site to research such stories is Snopes.com.

Snopes has compiled it's "25 Hottest Urban Legends." According to the website, Barack Obama, Starbucks, and missing child alerts are among the current hot topics.

To learn more about the popular email rumors, and whether they're true, click here. If you're not familiar with Snopes.com, I encourage you to click through the site. Bookmark it. It's a great reference.



Tags: Urban Legends, Email, Internet, Technology, Media 101, Media by Sistrunk

Attention-getters for aspiring authors

What you need to know before approaching a publisher

Are you in academia with a dream of writing that first book? Unsure how to get your writings noticed? A noted book editor, Dedi Feldman, offers some great tips, many of which fiction writers also will find valuable.

Via Light Within

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There are lot of web host companies offering cheap domain names and web site design for personal profile and search engine marketing.

Tags: Books, Publishing, Writing, Media by Sistrunk

Internet Truth

In pursuit of the $75 laptop

Designer of computer for needy children starts company

The scientist who designed a notebook computer for poor children that is being produced and sold by a nonprofit foundation has set up a company to commercialize the technology with a goal of producing a $75 laptop computer.

Mary Lou Jepsen, who left her post as chief technology officer of the One Laptop per Child Foundation at the end of last year, said on the company's Web site that she has founded the company, called Pixel Qi, and described it as "a spin-out" from the nonprofit group.

Jepsen invented a low-cost, low-power sunreadable screen while at the foundation from 2005 to 2007. She also co-invented its power management system.

Meanwhile, Intel Corp. is still nursing a PR black eye after pulling out of a deal that could potentially narrow the digital divide in developing countries. Reversing its long-standing opposition to the proposal, Intel said on Friday it will support the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers' project to put computers in the hands of poor children around the world. The low-cost laptops are designed for children such as the Nigerian students pictured above. To date, Peru is the program's largest customer. Details from InformationWeek and the Los Angeles Times.



The OLPC Project started as an attempt to build a $100 laptop aimed at kids in poor nations, but the laptop from the group, known as the XO, will likely end up costing nearly double that amount, at least initially. The organizers of the effort, led by academics and researchers from MIT, hope heavy volume sales of the laptops will drive down costs.

There's still another component to this story. According to the International Business Times, the One Laptop per Child project will broaden its distribution to include needy children in U.S. schools.



Tags: One Laptop per Child, Digital Divide, Laptops, Intel, Pixel Qi, Internet, Computers, Technology, Media by Sistrunk