September 4 – super highway

super highway
of information, don’t go
without a helmet

I was off during the long Labor Day Weekend but I was also on call.

That means that if there are immediate problems or issues with the TV Station websites that I work with, I am the person to contact.

There were stations on Friday that remembered that High School football had started and they needed assistance.

There were stations dealing with their coverage of the Hurricane Dorien.

(Luckily for me, my company, TEGNA, does not own a TV station in Alabama.)

And there was a mass shooting in Odessa, Texas.

Wednesday finally and eager to be back at work so I can relax.

August 29 – civil conversation

civil conversation
choosing fairness over fear
expression to hope

Hammered out from the Manchester Guardian, online as, The Guardian.

The newspaper states, “A civil conversation has never been more important in American public life. Guardian journalism, driven by fact-based reporting, offers an independent voice of reason at a time when the national conversation is divisive and embittered. At a time of acrimony, America is in need of public civility. For 200 years Guardian journalism has been committed to giving expression to hope, not hate, and choosing fairness over fear.”

I have always liked The Guardian.

Maybe because part of my family emigrated from Manchester.

Maybe because Alistair Cooke (America, Masterpiece Theater) was for many years, the USA Correspondent for the Guardian.

It is a newspaperpaper with an interesting history.

Started in 1821, in 1936, ownership was transferred to a trust that was created in 1936 to “secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of the Guardian free from commercial or political interference”.

I like a newspaper that claims to be, “committed to giving expression to hope, not hate, and choosing fairness over fear.”

Of course, this is a newspaper in Britain, not the United States.

August 28 – Thousands of reasons

Thousands of reasons
community of commuting
a single purpose

Roadway is filled with cars and trucks.

Everybody is heading in the same general direction.

Roads and paths that converge into one.

The road into or around Atlanta.

Same purpose.

The road more traveled.

The path taken.

It is the reasons that are less traveled.

The reason not taken.

That makes all the difference.

The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

August 26 – soul’s long dark night

in soul’s long dark night
character trait, need to be …
taken seriously

I think I know him better than anyone here. This is a quiet, frightened, insignificant man who has been nothing all his life, who has never had recognition—his name in the newspapers. Nobody knows him after seventy-five years. That’s a very sad thing. A man like this needs to be recognized. To be questioned, and listened to, and quoted just once. This is very important.

from the play, 12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose (1954)

Social Media opens a new door.

How badly do you want recognition.

August 14 – Anamiewigummig

House will be called
Anamiewigummig or
A House of Prayer

Came across Anamiewigummig the other day in a story about an NHL player who was homeless, Joe Murphy, Red Wings’ No. 1 pick, is homeless again — and refusing help.

In the article, Jeff Seidel of the Detroit Free Press writes, “Murphy, 51, walks into the Anamiewigummig Fellowship Centre, a drop-in center that provides clothing, food, coffee and a shower for free to homeless people in Kenora.”

I stopped and read Anamiewigummig again.

And again.

And I read it outloud.

Trying to sound it out the way the Grand Daughter does when she reads.

I had no clue.

How would you pronounce this word?

How could you pronounce this word?

Why in the world, if you were naming a fellowship center, would you use Anamiewigummig?

Okay, we are talking about Canada, but still.

Anamiewigummig?

I would not let it go, and a I googled it.

First thing I found out was that Google didn’t like the word at all.

Google asked, Did you mean: Anime Swimming?

Spell check also didn’t like it either which is always a plus in my book.

The second thing I found out is that most of the Google results were connected to the same place, The Kenora Fellowship Centre in Kenora, ON.

The place mentioned in the story about Joe Murphy.

According to the web, The Kenora Fellowship Centre is a ministry of the Presbyterian Church in Canada that provides sanctuary and hospitality, help and comfort to the vulnerable, the disadvantaged and displaced. The centre also caters for countless individuals who are marginalized and alienated because of poverty and addiction. It operates as a drop-in centre and works with legal services, detoxification programs, street patrol and other essential services in the community.

The third thing I found out is that anamiewigummig is an Ojibway word.

“Ojibwa, Ojibway, or Chippewa, and most commonly referred to in the language as Anishinaabemowin) varies from dialect to dialect, but all varieties share common features. Ojibwe is an indigenous language of the Algonquian language family spoken in Canada and the United States in the areas surrounding the Great Lakes, and westward onto the northern plains in both countries, as well as in northeastern Ontario and northwestern Quebec.” from Wikipedia

It seems to be pronounced, AHN A Mie WIG a MIG.

Forgive my rudimentary phonetics.

I am guessing at this from listening to a YouTube video about Anamiewigummig.

The word means, House of Prayer.

And House of Prayer comes from, And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? Mark 11:17 (NIV).

Anamiewigummig.

Pretty cool use of a word.