From the 11 August 2007 Creighton News, p. 3A: "Remember When . . . 1897 - One Hundred Ten Years Ago": "Three little boys about ten years of age thought they would take a tour. Going down the railroad track they got as far as Plainview finding lodging in a hay stack. Missing supper and breakfast they returned the next day."
From the 11 October 2007 Verdigre Eagle, p. 2, "Glancing Back" by Jodi Wiese, "73 Years Ago, Sept. 13, 1934": While Earl Boldenow and Miss Eda Bohren were returning to Center from a dance at Verdigre Thursday night, they failed to make the turn at the Felix Stoural corner and the car left the road turning completely over twice. The occupants were not seriously injured. The car is said to be okay except: one front wheel is badly twisted; the doors won't shut; the radiator won't hold water; the turtle-back won't close; the window and windshield glass are rather scarce; still it is a good car for the shape it is in."
From the 28 October 2007 Sunday World-Herald Parade, p. 14, "Ask Marilyn" by Marilyn vos Savant: "Why do nearly all the stories on newscasts focus on negative events? There are plenty of feel-good human-interest stories to be told. Is it because viewers feel better about their own lives when they see the bad things that happen to others?" [Answer] "I don't believe these stories make viewers feel better. I think they make people feel worse: sad, fearful and more. Despite that, I believe the news is full of negative events because bad things often happen suddenly, so they seem more newsworthy. . . . Limit the news you get from TV and focus on newspapers instead. You won't miss the bad stuff--and can read it if you want--and you'll find many positive, interesting stories."
From the 26 October 2007 The Week, p. 45, "The folly of multitasking" by Walter Kirn: Multitasking messes with the brain in several ways. At the most basic level, the mental balancing acts that it requires--the constant switching and pivoting--energize regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination and simultaneously appear to short-change some of the higher areas related to memory and learning. . . . Even worse . . . multitasking boosts the level of stress-related hormones . . . and wears down our systems through biochemical friction, prematurely aging us. In the short term, the confusion, fatigue, and chaos merely hamper our ability to focus and analyze, but in the long term, they may cause it to atrophy. . . . [After citing the high percentages of junior high-high school students who multitask, using two or more media at once--" 'I get bored if it's not all going at once,' said a 17-year-old"] They're the ones whose still-maturing brains are being shaped to process information rather than understand or even remember it. . . . It begins by giving us more tasks to do, making each task harder to do, and dimming the mental powers required to do them. It finishes by making us forget exactly how on earth we did them . . . which makes them harder to do again."
From the 9 November 2007 The Week, p. 16, "How I outsourced my brain" by David Brooks: "I no longer need a brain. . . The beauty of the Information Age . . . is not that it enables us to know more. It enables us to know less, as we outsource most mental activity to the great 'external mind.' [his GPS system for directions, his iTunes for songs, his TiVo for TV shows] . . . . The job of remembering names and key facts, which my aging brain finds difficult, has been outsourced to Google, Yahoo, and Wikipedia. My Blackberry keeps track of anything else I might need to know. Who needs to meditate in order to achieve oneness with the universe? I have fused with the knowledge of the cybersphere."
From the 7 December 2007 The Week, p. 5, editorial note by William Falk: He writes of depression at how few fellow commuters are reading, much less reading books. "The rest are either dozing or entertaining themselves with iPods, laptops loaded with TV shows and movies, and hand-held devices that their owners peck at frantically, like pigeons in a Skinner box. . . . A new report found that 15- to 24-year-olds spend an average of just seven minutes a day on voluntary reading. . . . Young people are reading plenty on the Web, and texting, and expressing themselves on MySpace and Facebook and 10 million blogs. But on the Web . . . . You 'forage,' jumping from link to link, entry to entry, message to message. It's a world of fragmented attention and immediate gratification. Reading a book . . . you have to focus. That practice develops concentration, and the capacity to follow--and express--complex thoughts and ideas. Not surprisingly, national tests have found that the ability to write and read complex materials is withering, even among graduate students. Read a whole book? R U serious? LOL."
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