Was the judge "kicked out" of church?

While that probably overstated things, I think people need to understand what it's like to be attacked by your church for positions you take.

Here is one of the columns from the Florida Baptist Witness.

I think when a church member is told he "needs to be afflicted" and that his rulings are, in effect, "barbarism" and that the very authenticity of his faith is challenged with statements like: "And it’s incredible that Terri’s cruel death was ordered at the hands of a judge who professes to be a follower of Jesus Christ" -- I think it's safe to say that if I were in his shoes I would feel like I was being kicked out of the church.

More on Schiavo

Here is my column from today on the Schiavo situation.

I've taken a call this morning from a reader who says the judge wasn't "run off." I believe that people can be run off or kicked out without being expressly asked to leave a church. Feeling like a church is no longer a friendly place is a painful thing. But, I leave that point open for debate.

Today's paper critique

The editor's brief critique of today's paper

1A: Very strong front page today. We're off to a good start in a week
where we have so many folks on vacation. Today, I doubt readers even
noticed our dwindling numbers. Excellent writing, Megan, on the Bridges
obit story. Good drop hed with that story. I like the extended cutline
with the Bridges picture, although "sits" needed to be "sat." Excellent
centerpiece on the housing. I like the "Star special report" tagline. Nice
use of white space to let the package breathe. Terrific graphic, Lindsay.
Only complaint --- as I brought up in the budget meeting, I can't tell
where the three police zones begin and end. I also really like Megan's
lead on the Angel unaware story. Also, nice clean refer boxes at the
bottom. Good to add the school to the Teacher of the Week.

2A: Good use of art on the housing jump. Chad -- instead of that long
address that nobody's going to type in, shouldn't we just send them to the
web site and have a section for "links from stories" or something???

3A: Those Schiavo signs are something else. Normally I don't like
protester art, but that works.

9A: Interesting page here -- I like the Space Station package.

1B: WINNING HEADLINE: "Funks spunk leads to ..."

9B: Good full report on the earthquake.

today's paper

1A: Very strong front page today. We're off to a good start in a week
where we have so many folks on vacation. Today, I doubt readers even
noticed our dwindling numbers. Excellent writing, Megan, on the Bridges
obit story. Good drop hed with that story. I like the extended cutline
with the Bridges picture, although "sits" needed to be "sat." Excellent
centerpiece on the housing. I like the "Star special report" tagline. Nice
use of white space to let the package breathe. Terrific graphic, Lindsay.
Only complaint --- as I brought up in the budget meeting, I can't tell
where the three police zones begin and end. I also really like Megan's
lead on the Angel unaware story. Also, nice clean refer boxes at the
bottom. Good to add the school to the Teacher of the Week.

2A: Good use of art on the housing jump. Chad -- instead of that long
address that nobody's going to type in, shouldn't we just send them to the
web site and have a section for "links from stories" or something???

3A: Those Schiavo signs are something else. Normally I don't like
protester art, but that works.

9A: Interesting page here -- I like the Space Station package.

1B: WINNING HEADLINE: "Funks spunk leads to ..."

9B: Good full report on the earthquake.

Editor's daily (or almost daily) critique

Thought you might be interested in seeing the daily critique I do of the
paper. I don't "proof" the paper, per se, so I'm sure there are errors
that are missed, but the point is to give the staff overall feedback on
that day's edition. What do you think?

1A: That CommUnity logo really looks nice, doesn't it? Good to update,
Joy, with list of donors. Nice Home and Garden promo -- sometimes type
works best. Four jumps today --- yuck! How could we have avoided that?
Head Start jump was short. Bet we could have trimmed it. On the Glover
story, I don't see any support in the story for the phrase "All cases
solved ..." I know what we were trying to say, but especially in a town
with the three women case hanging over us, I don't think that hit the
mark. Very, very nice writing on the care story lead -- I can really
picture the guy twirling his finger. Well done. CUTLINES: Pretty mediocre
today. "Firefighters ... get crane training" falls short of the mark.

3A: Not our strongest page here. Mainly, it suffers from a too-small
headline on 3A. The page never really recovers from that and ends up
looking gray and static, despite the breakout and graphic.

5A: This page, on the other hand, is better. The Schiavo hed in four
columns is bigger than the 3A hed in 6 columns. With a nice strong
vertical picture, the page is more compelling.

6A: That was neat the way we ran the Flashback picture really big. I
studied it and I bet readers did too.

1B: WINNING HEADLINE: Meet me in St. Louis. Randy -- we need to track down
Carolina fans going to St. Louie -- can you give Margarita some
names/ideas?

SUNDAY PAPER
1A: Nice lead on the McHenry piece. Nice little story on the Farmer's
Market. Don't forget to look for breakout ideas (one might have been, a
short list of what was for sale and how much it cost, etc.).

3A: I'm really glad we got these dueling columns by local folks, but the
execution fell a little short. First of all, any time you have copy
stretching over four columns, that should send up a red flag. It's VERY
hard to read. Also, we should have had mugs of the columnists and used the
column logo format (note to reporters putting together these kinds of
packages -- please request a mug). Still, I appreciate Alan's
resourcefulness on coming up with this idea and carrying it out.

5A: I like the idea of the news digest -- Lindsay will get us a cool
design for September on that.

6A: A couple of problems on this page. First, I don't understand the drop
hed: "Stalwart stance prompts church action." I thought stalwart meant
"good" or "supportive" -- makes it sound like we agree with his stance.
Second, the lead headline is too small. See how the drops compete with the
main hed for your eye. "Schiavo judge in spotlight" could have run nice
and big, with the drops below. Still, good story choice here and good to
refer from the 3A package as well.

1B: Love the fantasy primer, Randy (big shock, huh). Hey -- how 'bout that
Tourney Notes logo!

2, 5B: Impressive array of local results, information, given that you are
flying solo. Nice job.

1D: Great job on "Get Real," Jackie and Allison. I hope it's a big hit.
Layout looks terrific.

SATURDAY PAPER
1A: Very impressive front page today. Margarita, the Holy Week primers
have been terrific. Had two comments about them at church Sunday. People
learned something and were reminded of some things. Nice job. The Gas
centerpiece is EXCELLENT! Terrific idea, well executed. Only thing I'd
change -- instead of having that tiny jump line under the School item, I'd
have made a more prominent refer box. Good job to get the Hamfest story in
the paper.

2A-3A: Look how appealing these two pages are -- not much traditional
copy, but lots of good information (columns, graphics, breakouts, capital
correspondence, etc.). Very nice job.

6A: Very nice photo package Saturday, Jeff. Good job.

7A: Another strong inside page. Good use of headline sizes. At a glance
box is good.

8A: Yet another strong page. Good use of powerful color image. Graphic
helps as does breakout. Briefs rail helps the page stay active.

Schiavo cont.

While I'm torn on the Schiavo matter on a number of levels, I'm NOT torn
on this -- forcing the judge on the case out of his home church in Florida
over this matter is indefensible. How ironic that the same people arguing
for keeping a feeding tube in place for Schiavo want to remove a spiritual
feeding tube from this man. Very, very, very sad.

Schiavo

Am I the only one that changes his mind every day on this story.

One day I can't bear to think of, in essence, starving somebody to death.
The next, I can't bear to think about denying death, if that was the
woman's wish. I felt a little better when consecutive columns in our paper
by writers I respect took the exact opposite views of each other.

What does bother me is people rushing into to claim they have a monopoly
on the moral high ground on this story. Why can't people just admit that
it's a close, tough call and that reasonable people can disagree. Heck, I
disagree with myself!

ACC tournament

OK, here are my ACC tournament predictions:

Play-in games:
Maryland over Clemson
FSU over N.C. State
Miami over Virginia

Quarters
UNC over Maryland (BUT CLOSE!)
GT over Va. Tech
Wake over FSU
Miami upsets Duke

Semis
UNC over GT
Wake over Miami

Finals
Wake over UNC

Martha, Martha, Martha

As we all gawk at the new, free Martha Stewart, it's important to
remember, as Alan Reynolds does:
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/reynolds-040309.html

That .... she was "convicted of conspiring to cover-up a crime she was not
accused of having committed -- insider trading. She was convicted of
"lying" but never charged with perjury."

Welcome to my blog!

I'm new in the blogging business, so be gentle. Here's what you can look
for in my blog:

1) Discussions about decisions we made at the newspaper, stories we've
written, headlines, photos, graphics and more.
2) The weather. Yeah, big shock, huh?
3) Sports. I'm still a big fan -- might even bore you with some fantasy
baseball posts.
4) Political philosophy: Lots of great information and opinions out there.
5) Anything else that pops into my mind.

It ought to be a wild ride!