Election Choices

Mercifully, Election Day — and an end to all the snarky campaign banter — is just over a week away. Unlike four years ago, the outcome is in doubt. Barack Obama rode a wave of hope and excitement to the White House in 2008. However, even ardent supporters are muted this time around, and many have abandoned the president altogether.

Obama has failed to deliver on promises to turn the economy around, and just as with many other recent presidential campaigns, this one likely will hinge on how voters believe they will be impacted in their pocketbooks. Despite being in office for four years, Obama continues to blame President Bush, Republican lawmakers and many others for the faltering economy and even escalating deficit. As we’ve seen with the deaths of U.S. embassy personnel Libya, the president refuses to take blame for anything that goes wrong under his watch. A little humility might win him some votes.

Mitt Romney has ridden a wave of anti-Obama sentiment, but has failed to fully capitalize because he still has plenty of sticky issues. By repeating the same lines for three debates he appears robotic. Many see him primarily as a rich businessman-turned-politician out of touch with the problems of common folk. And he is yet another old white guy nominated by the GOP, albeit healthier than his predecessors.

In addition to the economy, the election will be determined by which party better motivates voters to get to the polls. An unenthusiastic base could spell trouble for Obama, if millions decide to skip voting rather than reward him for another four years of mediocrity. For Romney, it will depend on energizing evangelical voters, many of whom would have to ignore their beliefs that Mormonism is an aberrant religion.

I’ve talked to several people who don’t think it matters who is in the White House, although obviously these men paint starkly different portraits of America’s future. I can’t really blame a jaded electorate. The candidates have spent months not so much spelling out what they would do in the next four years, but instead focusing on how to best demean the opponent.

Print Journalism Slide Continues

I’m afraid those of us who make a living from print journalism are deceiving ourselves. The loss of revenue and subscribers continues unabated in an era when most readers don’t want to bother paying for content they think they can find for free on the Internet.

The announcement by Newsweek last week that it would cease publication after 79 years is a case in point. At 1.5 million subscribers, Newsweek certainly has many more readers than a lot of publications going belly up. But the subscriber base has dropped in half in the past seven years and advertising is virtually non-existent. The periodical has been bleeding red ink for years.

But CEO Baba Shetty failed to face reality when he told The Wall Street Journal that Newsweek would gain “hundreds of thousands” of online subscribers at $25 annually during the next year. Currently Newsweek has just 27,000 online-only subscriptions.

Advertisers who shunned the print edition won’t flock to Newsweek’s website. Neither will readers. News has been missing from Newsweek for a long time. Most cover stories these days are first-person opinion pieces with no sources. Newsweek is a shell of its former self, masquerading as a current events resource. 

Nearly all magazines are in financial trouble. My former employer, Christianity Today, last week let go Senior Associate Editor Mark Moring, who had worked for the company for 19 years. I hope the day never comes when CT goes out of business, because it truly provides a clarion voice for the evangelical world.

Pentecostal Evangel, where I now work, isn’t immune from subscriber attrition, although it helps that the magazine is distributed primarily in bulk to churches. Yet not that long ago I had two full-time news writers on staff; now I’m a one-man department.

Magazines must strike a delicate presence between having a web presence with easy-access material combined with marketing their product as unique, valuable and unavailable elsewhere. Our magazine doesn’t put everything online for free that is in the print version, and I think that’s wise.

I rue the day when we have only a few magazines left and professional journalists become obsolete. Our society will be ill-informed if all we have to read are opinion-laced blogs.

Downsized Office Space

Our cramped workplace had to consolidate further last week under orders from management. I escaped the shift to small cubicles that three of my co-workers had to endure, but I participated in an office-wide downsizing of space due to the department’s loss of storage areas.

The staff had to toss many materials that had been kept in previously unused offices. Most of the reference works hadn’t been consulted for years. Somehow the important issues and topics of 1993 aren’t that pressing in 2012.

Dozens of books and magazines that had been on shelves in spare nooks and crannies now have been carted to a warehouse across the street or to a historical archives vault down the hall.

The whole process prompted me to weed through magazines I’ve kept for nearly 20 years in my office cabinets. Most of them went to the recycling bin last week. This de-cluttering exercise left me with the impression that we save too much stuff. I have too many books and CDs on my shelves at home. Usually I only read or listen to a handful of favorites while the remainder collect dust. It’s probably time to do some more sorting at my house.

Dozens of books from our office also went to a giveaway pile in the hallway, where employees from other departments quickly snatched nearly all of them up. Those volumes will now sit around on their shelves for years.

Football Worship

The older I get the less enthralled I am with professional football — and the more irritated I become with those who are.

I spent much of my early adult years watching NFL football all Sunday afternoon. I would be anxious to get out of church by noon so I wouldn’t miss the kickoff. And I would be upset to leave for Sunday evening services — back when those used to be held — when a game wasn’t over.

Now I have to wonder why. None of those games added anything to my life. They just soaked up time that would have been better spent with my wife and sons. A few years ago I kicked the pro football habit. I haven’t watched an NFL game, including the Super Bowl, in quite a while.

I appreciate the skill of talented athletes, but why should I devote myself to following them? If the Chiefs or Rams or Bears or Packers win or lose, it doesn’t make any difference. Unlike in my early adulthood, Americans can now watch pro football not only all Sunday afternoon and Monday night, but also Sunday night and Thursday night as well.

Some of my Christian friends are more devoted to football than they are to the Lord. Are they sitting down with God for 10 hours a week? Do they post Facebook sayings from God every day as they do about their favorite team? Do they wear clothing declaring the glory of God as they do for gridiron players?

I don’t understand all the hero worship for athletes who fans will never know personally, people whose personal lives are frequently consumed with immoral behavior. What is this weird attachment to a violent sport? Is this a diversion to avoid dealing with important issues in life?

Water: A Precious Commodity

We live in a country subdivision that relies on a well for water. A great benefit to this is the low cost — $180 a year, no matter how much water we use. The downside is that the well or pipes periodically have to be shut down for maintenance or repair, nearly always without warning.

Usually this means an hour or two of inconvenience. But late Friday afternoon the well went down for what turned out to be nearly 24 hours. Not the most opportune time, as 25 guests began to arrive in our home for a church meeting. Sorry, folks, you can’t flush the toilet.

Dirty dishes from the gathering stacked up on the kitchen counter. As Saturday morning rolled around, we looked for innovative ways to get some water: raiding the stash of bottled water from the garage spare refrigerator; emptying the tray from the dehumidifier on the porch; grabbing ice cubes from the kitchen refrigerator.

Later in the morning, with the well trouble still unfixed, I drove into town with three coolers and loaded up water from my son’s spigot. Back home, at least we could pour a bucket down the toilet when necessary. By Saturday evening the water we take so much for granted began flowing again.

By then we realized how much we depend on water, and not just for flushing. Without turning on the tap we can’t fill the coffeepot, wash our dirty hands, brush our teeth, take a shower, wash dishes, fill the bird bath or water plants.

I always thought losing electrical power was the worst outage a home could experience. Now I’m not so sure.

A Lesson in Compassion

When helping people out, there is a fine line between being kind and being an enabler. I’m afraid I crossed the line Tuesday night.

As I was painting a room at church, a down-and-out young couple wandered into the building off the street. They asked if the church could put them up for the night. A wise benevolence committee long ago established a checklist that keeps our inner-city church from being an easy mark for anyone unaffiliated with the congregation looking for a handout. But in the need of the moment, I couldn’t recall any of its contents.

As I listened to the plea from the couple, I failed to follow the guidelines and fell prey to the heartstring notion that Jesus wanted me to help these folks. After all, I have the means and they don’t; surely the Lord would want me to be compassionate rather than hardhearted.

But I started to realize the folly of making a decision with my heart rather than my head as I pulled my car into the driveway of a nearby inexpensive motel.

“I can’t stay here,” the woman announced.

“Huh?” I responded.

She went on to explain that the proprietor thinks he can walk into a tenant’s room at any time. And besides, he refused to return a Precious Moment figurine of hers.

Oh.

Her companion suggested it would be OK, so in we went. The clerk at the desk took one look at the woman and said he couldn’t rent her a room. He suggested we try another budget motel down the street, which we did.

Everything seemed to go smoothly, even though my male passenger didn’t have any identification. Then the kind elderly woman behind the counter pulled out a notebook. She noted that the woman in front of her had stayed at the motel the previous week and caused a ruckus. An ambulance had been called and apparently there was an altercation with a police officer. At this point, I’m figuring out that the woman I’m trying to put up for the night believes most men are out to mistreat her.

“We can go somewhere else,” the young woman told the clerk.

By now I’m thinking I’m in the middle of a bad sitcom that may never end.

Thankfully, the clerk says she will rent a room this night — but there better not be any trouble.

The couple thanked me as we parted, and I made it clear that I, not the church, had paid for the room. This wasn’t out of pride, but rather embarrassment. By then I had seen enough red flags that I should have refused: the couples weren’t transients; they had lived in Springfield for years. They weren’t decrepit; they looked to be around 30 and in fairly good shape. It wasn’t a night of torrential rain; it was beautiful with a low around 65. Both admitted to receiving monthly government assistance checks, much of which likely is frittered away on addictive substances. And worst of all, they weren’t married as I first assumed. They had only known each other a couple of months, so I was paying for them to shack up!

As I drove away I felt that I had been taken, angry that I was out 43 bucks.

However, soon I stopped feeling sorry for myself and looked upon this man and woman with pity.

They have no discernable skills or education to earn an income in this depressed economy. And even if they do scam churches and individuals for a free night in a motel, there isn’t any future in that. What kind of life is it to not know where your next meal will come from or where you will sleep tonight?

Maybe providing one night’s comfort isn’t such an onerous act after all.

Bargains Before Our Eyes

My wife and I hadn’t been in an Aldi grocery store for decades, until last night. We went in an effort to find another way to cut spending. My earlier memories of Aldi consisted of a disorganized store of cluttered boxes full of junk and low-quality foods.

But that’s no longer the case, at least at the store where we shopped, which is only a few years old. I suppose we’ve become food snobs, preferring to shop for all-natural choices at inflated prices.

But imagine my surprise when I discovered natural trail mix, lean ground turkey, 100 percent juice, and name-brand fresh fruit and vegetables, all for a much lower price than at the grocery chain down the street, and certainly less than the health food store across town.

Selection is limited and some of the cool stuff isn’t stocked regularly, but we found a lot of healthy bargains at Aldi. It took us a while to get the hang of renting a shopping cart for a quarter and paying six cents for each paper sack to haul away the goods, but those are smart ways the store keeps costs down.

At six miles away, Aldi is the closest grocery store to our house. I think we’ll be making fewer trips to the health food store, which is 15 miles from where we live.