Yes I Am Complaining

Now I'm angry. Now I'm really angry. (What I'm hearing in my head is the sound of an ineffectual comic anger, so don't take the anger too seriously.)

Some posts ago (like here) I wrote a very minor post on the LNR and the policy of requiring everyone who makes money to buy advertising before getting anything published. I questioned the policy, and mentioned that I thought it made more enemies than friends.

Now I'm angry.

I wrote, and Bethany's publications person sent, a press release on "A Christmas Carol," our new production for the Christmas season. There are lots of important things to say about the production, not the least of which is that this is the largest cast we've had on the stage in many moons. I've got folks from McPherson calling for reservations. We're bringing business to town and enhancing the theatre program at Bethany.

So what's the LNR's response - you have to buy an ad because you're selling tickets. Not only that - if we just meet the technical requirements that LNR has set - say by buying a classified ad - we get a minor two line announcement in News Briefs.

In order to get the LNR to publish what we wrote for them (i.e., what they didn't bother to report on), we have to buy a display ad. The smallest display ad is $64.

This is extortion! It is legal, I suppose, but it is a clear violation of journalistic ethics. The more you pay, the more coverage you get, and John Marshall doesn't have to actually hire anyone to report the news, it's all done for him by people to pay to play.

Good Grief! This is shoddy on so many levels.

Dan Carr took umbrage at an earlier post in which I pointed out the advantages of online reporting versus what the LNR does. I hope he reads this and writes a defense of a policy that can't be defended.

A Christmas Carol, by the way, is December 7 & 8, 7:30 pm, in the Burnett Center.

The young man at the top of this post plays Jacob Marley. It's going to be an unusual production. The Lindsborg Youth Choir will perform between the staves. Ya'll come.

For more details call the Bethany Theatre Hotline - 227-3311, ext. 7910.

Thanksgiving Winter

It wasn't a lot of snow, it didn't last the day, but wasn't it a beautiful contrast to the seventy-five and eighty degree weather we had last week.

I know that those of you who are here in Lindsborg reading this blog already know what a surprise it was. I went to be late last night, not knowing that there was any snow on the way or falling. Around 1 am I woke and thought I'd forgotten to turn off the outside light. I'd remembered the light, but the snow had already covered our roof and the street lights reflecting off the snow made out of doors bright.

When I woke I immediately snapped on the Weather Channel to see if we could expect more. Too bad, this was all we were going to get.

Around noon I got outside and took a few snapshots, just to remind myself and show everyone up in Minnesota, off in Chicago, Florida and Japan, that we had snow!

Chris Abercrombie's Hemslöjd Tour

Chris Abercrombie's done a short town and factory tour for Lindsborg Hemslöjd. Available at the shop for a mere six dollars, it is a great and positive view of the story of the store and a quick tour by quadracycle.

Narrated by Chris, at his mellifluous best, the piece is an enjoyable and quite striking six minutes. Chris's camera work makes the piece work, and his editing adds just the right pace to this quick tour around town.

My only objection is that Chris, like so many in Lindsborg, hasn't learned where to put the accent on Dalarna. Like most Lindsborgians he pronounces it with the accent on the second syllable. The accent belongs on the first syllable. But, that's a minor quibble. The one mis-mention doesn't detract from the quality of the whole.

The Great Announcement

It has been almost a week since President Leonard and board chair Tad Doering announced the major gifts totaling nearly two million dollars. Here's a video of most of the announcement.



What's most tantalizing about the announcement is the "Swedish Chapel." As soon as I heard it I wondered what Bud Pearson meant. My original idea was the kind of monument to Swedish pietism represented by the Jenny Lind Chapel in Andover, Illinois.



That chapel, the first place of worship for Swedish American Lutherans out on the Illinois prairie was constructed with a gift from the "Swedish Nightingale," Jenny Lind. Lind was quite generous toward the Swedish Americans. She gave a large sum of money to Saint Ansgarius, the Swedish Episcopal congregation in Chicago, for the purchase of a silver chalice. She gave a like sum to the congregation's priest, Gustavus Unonius. She also gave money for the construction of the Lutheran Chapel in Andover, about thirty miles west of the dissenter settlement at Bishop Hill.

Lind's money allowed the congregation to build the simple, pietist style chapel that remains in the midst of the cemetery. Her original gift included enough to build a steeple at the church. The cholera epidemic struck the small community, and the lumber that was to be used for a steeple was used for coffins.

That simple and spare style, common in the mid-nineteenth century Swedish church architecture, with a central pulpit, was what I thought might be intended by a "Swedish Chapel."

Talking to Noni Strand this week I discovered how mistaken I was.

The chapel is not a new idea, but one that Bud Pearson had proposed some years ago. The time was not right then for a chapel. Now, with the Bethany renaissance beginning, the time is right.

The chapel that was drawn originally featured lots of bright, light colored wood, flexible seating patterns, a plane floor (rather than the theatre seating we have today), open space. The design has a kind of airy lightness to it.

However, the Swedish architect who originally drew up the plans has passed away, and one of the tasks of this new fund raising effort is to find a new architect who can update (or draw new) the plans to include a "welcome center" and the offices of the Admissions people.

The idea of a bright and light place of worship and gathering is a welcome one, as is the idea that the theatre can have all of Burnett to work on plays - perhaps using the old chapel space as a black box theatre.

Way Too Long

It has been over a month since I last posted to this blog. I've been to Dallas (had fun at the fair, hated Dallas), danced for Hyllningsfest, heard two operas and video'd them for the department's records. Now I'm in the midst of rehearsals for "A Christmas Carol," opening December 7 at Burnett Center. So I'm trying to do way too much and accomplishing less than I hope for.

Ran into Chris Abercrombie at Scott's last night, which is partly why I'm posting tonight. Chris has just finished a new video for Hemslöjd and I'd love to see it. His creative products have been absolutely fascinating.

Speaking of Creative Products - on top of everything else we're supposed to have a film festival of student films this weekend. Right now we have no entries, so I don't think it is going to happen. But the two new miniature cameras will enable a quick and dirty documentary from the President's retreat this coming weekend. Watch this space on Sunday or Monday. We'll get back to posting this week!

New House Blues

We're enjoying the new house on North Second. I'm glad to be able to walk to work every day. But we've hit a variety of things that don't work quite right and I'm a little frustrated and befuddled.

The Cox connection works upstairs, but not in the basement - where the basement studio is supposed to be located. Half the lights in the basement stopped working two days ago and for the life of me I can't figure out which circuit breaker is thrown. The lawn mower decided that it didn't want to run more than five minutes at a time.

Oh well, it could be worse. We found a new bed and bought it in just ten minutes of shopping. That's not a bad investment of our time.

In the meantime, I'm totally out of the loop on local news. It looks like both the Crown and Seasons are almost ready to open! I'll have to stop into Seasons and see what's going on and do the same at the Crown.

Family weekend this weekend and I've agreed to do some shooting for one of my students. So it is not going to be a weekend where I get to finish unpacking afterall.

Broadway RFD Again

The board for Broadway RFD met again last night. One of our major topics of discussion was show for next summer. Here's three of the four we're considering (I hope I get this right! I don't have my notes here at work, and will update soon.)

West Side Story
The King and I
Kiss Me Kate

Which would you like to see? They're all theatrical wellworns, and crowd pleasers - and each has its own challenges. Which is your favorite?

Is It Good Policy?

I haven't posted for several days now. I've given a great deal of thought to what I'm about to say, and I hope that everyone concerned will read my thoughts for what they are - they are my thoughts. I'm the only one responsible for these thoughts. I am writing to express a concern about a policy in a company that isn't my own. I don't have an ax to grind, I'm not looking to insult or injure, but to express a thought that's been with me for the past six months.

Last week's LNR contained a rather blunt letter from a friend of mine, a fellow member of the Lindsborg Folkdanslag. He was upset with the publishers of Destination Lindsborg because they had not included even a mention of the Folkdanslag in this year's Hyllningsfest edition of the magazine.

Marv was answered by the editor. The editor pointed out that the Folkdanslag had been offered an arrangement similar to that offered to the Swedish Folkdancers. The Swedish Folkdancers took the LNR's offer, the Folkdanslag chose not to take the offer.

The offer was the same kind of offer that the LNR makes to any organization that holds an event at which tickets are sold and/or funds are raised. If you don't buy an advertisement in the LNR you don't get a news story. That may be stating the policy a little too baldly, but that is what the policy amounts to.

I discovered the policy last spring when the paper published no notice of the final production of the 2006-07 Bethany theatre season, Talley's Folly. I was told of the policy by our then director of communication, too late to do anything about either placing an ad or protesting the policy.

That policy was one of the reasons I started doing this blog. If the LNR wouldn't bring news to the people, I would. A little arrogant on my part, I suppose. I was certainly angry when I began this blog.

I was angry not simply that the LNR had that policy, but also that I hadn't been given even a courtesy call telling me of the policy. (I wonder, do the school sporting events all have to take out advertisements for each game?)

The more I think about this policy the more I think it is misguided. The paper may be gaining some involuntary revenue, but it has become an object of derision in much of the community and has made a number of enemies with the policy.

I wonder about the ethics of the policy as well. In most newspapers the editorial side of the paper is sharply divided from the business end. When a non-newspaper person took over the publisher's job at the LA Times a few years ago he wondered why there was the wall of separation and how quickly he could tear it down. The newsroom rebelled.

The reason to keep a wall between the business and the editorial wings of the paper is to keep at least some semblance of objectivity in the reportage, to keep some kind of credibility with the readers. If the paper only prints the news that pays, how credible is the reporting? Would the paper print a negative review of a show that took out a display ad, or would the only pan only a play that purchased a two line classified? Would the paper do independent reporting on businesses and not-for profits when the paper's bottom line depends upon those same organizations buying space? Can a newspaper that prints news only when the sponsor pays be trusted?

I know things are different in Small Town Journalism. But no newspaper can survive long without its reputation in tact. Pay to play journalism is the quickest way I know to lose your reputation, and frankly, the LNR has lost much with many Lindsborgians. Marv Johnson is just the latest to complain about the paper's policies.

It's ultimately their paper and they can do with it what they want. But with the rise of citizen journalism - our little town supports multiple bloggers - I wonder how long they can make the people pay to get noticed in the LNR.

Pick Your Spot

Construction continues on the Bethany Campus. One of the walls at the east gate to campus has been faced with brown stone, looking much like the gates at First and Olsson.

The parking lot is about half paved. The front half of the Hahn gym parking lot is ready for occupancy. Today, September 7th, Tom Classen became the first parker on the new lot. Here's how it looked:

North South Divide

I've been away from the Blog for the weekend. Life has been incredibly busy as I've worked on a slide show for the Lindsborg booth at the state fair. Saturday was taken up with traveling around town snapping photos of friendly people, many of them waving.

One of the most interesting things I found out - probably something that most of you know - is that the addresses shift at Lincoln Street. North of Lincoln on North South Streets, the even numbers are on the east side of the street and the odds on the West. South of Lincoln the sides are reversed. That is as surprising to me as my call to Ron MacLennan was to him on Sunday evening - which is why he looks so startled in the photo for today.

I was told that this had something to do with the Lutheran Churches - which are both North of Lincoln and the Covenant, Methodist and Baptists churches, which were all South of Lincoln (at the beginning of the 20th century).

This seems strange to me, but it certainly isn't beyond possibility.

What seems quite likely is the other story I heard about Main Street south of Lincoln. I heard that it is difficult to do retail South of Lincoln because the town tavern has always been located on that block, and some of the more pious members of the town won't go on that block of South Main or let their children go on that block of South Main.

What have you heard about that? Is it true? Is it still true? Are we actually, as small town people, that unthinkingly narrow minded?