Every Wednesday morning I preside over a morning meeting. In an effort to bring social awareness to my clients, I decided to bring a "current events" portion into the meeting. Most of them were thrilled to have "something different" at morning meeting. I felt that reading news clips in the morning provided an opportunity for healthy discussions and a platform to share opinions. As a natural mediator I found it easy to quell any heated debate and to keep abrasive comments at a minimum. The only resistance I met was from a client who declared: "Everything in the news is so depressing. I don't want to start my day with something sad. I don't want to hear about people dying or the government failing. I vote that we don't have 'current events' in morning meeting."
For the past few weeks, I've tried my best to find the most uplifting and informational articles for morning meeting. An easy enough task, what with the 'inspirational' Olympics going on. But today, I'm dismayed. Today, the headlines read like obituaries, somber and violent. Here is sample of headlines out in the Bay Area today:
-"El Cerrito Take Over Robbery" Two men storm a Chinese restaurant in the most recent East Bay hold up.
-"Hammering Son Faces 5 years in Prison" Foster City man has pleaded no contest to elder abuse for hitting his father in the head with a hammer because he mistakenly thought the 81-year-old man had to be hospitalized before he could be admitted to a nursing home.
-"Fear grips immigrants after Mississippi immigration raid" Nearly 600 immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally were detained, creating panic among dozens of families in this small southern Mississippi town.
-"Bush seeks to reduce whale protection zones" The Bush administration proposed on Monday to scale back protected zones for endangered whales in the Atlantic Ocean, yielding to cargo companies' concerns about new speed limits for ships in these areas.
-"School lets teachers carry guns for security" Harrold, Texas. Along with normal first-day jitters and excitement, students in this tiny district started school Monday wondering which teachers might be toting firearms.
If you want to check out any of these articles, they are available at sfgate.com
Yes, I realize that the SF Chronicle isn't the best place to find good news, but it's the only place I've got this early in the morning.
Fuck it, we're going to play games today.
August 27, 2008
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