2 THE LAKE GAZETTE - Wednesday, Feb.
8, 2017
CONSETTA
GOTTMAN
General Manager/
Advertising Sales
lgmgr@lakegazette.net
CHRISTINE
WATSON
Bookkeeper
lgbkkpr@lakegazette.net
MANDI
KINDHART-WHITE
News
lgnews@lakegazette.net
KATARINA
PLATT
Composition
lggraphics@lakegazette.net
JANET PAINTER
Years Ago
LINDA WHELAN GEIST
Founder
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What we believe in at The Lake
Gazette...
“I believe that the journalism
which succeeds best — and
best deserves success — fears
God and honors Man; is stoutly
independent, unmoved by pride
of opinion or greed of power,
constructive, tolerant but never
careless, self-controlled, patient,
always respectful of its readers
but always unafraid, is quickly
indignant at injustice; is un-
swayed by the appeal of privilege
or the clamor of the mob; seeks
to give every man a chance
and, as far as law and honest
wage and recognition of human
brotherhood can make it so, an
equal chance; is profoundly pa-
triotic while sincerely promot-
ing international good will and
cementing world-comradeship;
is a journalism of humanity, of
and for today’s world.”
From The Jounalist’s Creed, by
Walter Williams
Greetings from the Ridge.
I can still smell the carpet. I’d
SOS, everyone knows what this means, right? plop myself down on the living
An internationally recognized signal of distress, a room floor and gaze at the row
of burgundy books, The Ameri-
call or request for help or rescue. can People’s Encyclopedia, drag
STRAIGHT OUTTA WEBSTER one onto the floor in front of me
For me and my family SOS means a little more these and open up this book of won-
days. Signs of Suicide. ders. I was looking for Hungary
Sounds like a heavy load to bear. Knowing the signs to do my 5th-grade social stud-
ies report, but what I found on
of suicide, to help prevent the imminent danger that the way to Hungary was more
may be lurking just under the layers of a loved ones exciting than the country itself.
persona. Something we never thought we would Haycock, hummock, Halifax,
need to worry about is quickly becoming something hawkeye, huffcap. . . words
we as parents, friends, sisters, brothers, cousins, spilling out on the carpet in
co-workers have at least thought of. front of me as I only half-heart-
edly searched for subject of my
A heavy load to bear, but not with out help. report. And when Mom left the
For our family turning to friends, family and the room I quickly flipped open the
Lord, who is our ultimate SOS witness. transparent overlays of “hu-
Trusting in Him and asking for direction in the man anatomy,” the thrill of any
paths we take each day will surely deliver the goods young person’s evening. The
encyclopedia was a wonderland
we seek in our lives here on earth. of both knowledge and excite-
Psalm 62:1 Truly my soul finds rest in God; my ment and most of what learned
salvation comes from Him. from it came from the search for
Mandi’s
something else. Anyone who’s
STRAIGHT OUTTA THE BIBLE
Let’s all help others know Him and know they may spent any time in a public li-
brary knows that the things you
rest in His humble guidance. stumble into while hunting for
something else is often more re-
warding than the subject of your
search.
Weekly
Last week I was visiting our
neighbors and their daughter
Mindy was working on a re-
port on the Gateway Arch in St.
Challenge
Louis. The girl was sitting at her
laptop, looking at a black tube
on her desk and said, “Alexa,
when was the St. Louis Arch
built?” The tube answered,
“The Gateway Arch was fin-
By: Mandi Kindhart-White ished in 1965.” I thought there
were ghosts in the room. Then
Weekly Challenge: Speak Life and Show Love Mindy said, “Alexa, how tall is
the Gateway Arch?” The tube
Every day we speak to people. We get to choose what responded, “The Gateway Arch
we say and how we say it. Our words effect ourselves and is 620 feet.” With a half dozen
more inquiries Mindy had the
other people. Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the facts for her report. In a few
power of the tongue, and they who indulge it shall eat the minutes Mindy had gleaned ev-
fruit of it (for death or life). erything important about the St.
With Valentine’s day coming up there are many people Louis Arch, but she’d learned
nothing on her journey.
right here in our community that have already spoken or The term is A.I., artificial
posted words of sadness of the upcoming day. Words of intelligence, and the thingama-
loneliness and feeling unloved. Our words we speak daily jigs are marketed under various
about situations, about people, about our relationships and names. . . Siri, Google Now,
Cortana. Everything from your
when doing the tasks of life have much weight. toaster to your garbage disposal
Whatever your situation today, choose to speak life into it, can now be linked to A.I. and
speaking negative such as cussing, saying it will never work, list goes far beyond the home
this is too hard only gives space to bring death to whatever with self-driving smart cars
you are speaking about. If you can vision it, you can have now prowling the streets of
many cities with empty driver’s
it. Why not have visions of positive outcomes instead of seats. The benefits of some of
negative. these devices can’t be argued
Remember speaking positive where the world sees negative and I refuse to be an old stick-
only brings light to others, causes them to wonder how in-the-mud when it comes to
helpful technology, but when
you can have peace and remain positive. Light overtakes
darkness, therefore speaking life which is light overtakes
death which is darkness. I challenge you this week to put
to work the power of your tongue and pay attention to
the words that are coming from your mouth. Have fun
speaking life and love today over yourself and others
around you.
we relegate the retrieval of in-
formation to a black tube or cell
phone then I’m not sure we’re
doing ourselves any favors.
Herb and I were returning
from a trip to Jackson, Missis-
sippi, and somehow got lost in
the bowels of Memphis, Ten-
nessee. This was before the age
of GPS systems. As is our hab-
it, Herb insisted that he knew
which way to go and I knew the
truth, but after we’d passed the
same gas station for the third
time I commanded that we pull
over and consult a map. Herb
was tired enough that he agreed
so we pulled into the parking lot
of a motel. He maintained that
he could decipher a map quick-
er than I could so I tossed the
thing at him, and then as he was
grumbling at the maze of Mem-
phis streets I looked up and saw
something quite remarkable.
“Herb,” I said. “Look at that
sign.” He looked up. “Lorraine
Motel. What’s the big deal?” I
said, “Does that ring a bell?” He
said, “It’s not even noon, Fre-
ida. We don’t need no motel.” I
grabbed the map from his hands
and pointed out the windshield.
“Look Herb! This is where Mar-
tin Luther King, Jr. was killed.”
Sure enough, we were parked
by the same cars that were in the
lot on that fateful day in March
of 1968. The result was a fas-
cinating afternoon touring the
Civil Rights museum and a de-
tour on our homeward journey
that was the highlight of the trip
. . . all because we had no artifi-
cial intelligence to show us the
way. Serendipity made our trip
richer. The journey was better
than the destination.
When Mindy sat there
downloading answers from her
machine she took no journey.
Artificial Intelligence is all des-
tination with no sidetracks, no
excursions, no exploration, no
surprises, and no getting lost
along the way. Not once in her
evening of exploration would
she accidentally meander into
something that might have
changed her life. I thought about
telling her the story of a young-
ster who used to splay herself
out on the living room floor with
the American People’s Encyclo-
pedia, but she’d have no doubt
given me a condescending smile
and sympathetic nod to my se-
nility. She’d have assumed that
my intelligence was artificial.
You ever in Coonridge, stop
by. We may not answer the door
but you’ll enjoy the trip.
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