Categories
Attitude

Is the world really as scary as it seems?

If you listen to the news media for very long, you get the feeling everything is falling apart and everyone is ready to strangle each other. It can leave you with a feeling of fear and despair. You get the impression apocalypse has already come and the only thing left to do is write off the world and call it a day.

But if you unplug, take a drive across the country, and get out into nature, you get an entirely different feeling. The forests are unaffected by news hype. Mountains and valleys care little about the elections and the latest violence to hit the streets. True, what mankind does to nature affects it. But the story mankind tells itself is much scarier than the reality of a quiet trail, or a babbling brook. Just don’t take in some media before you leave. You’ll probably see a story about a man-eating cougar, a rabid bear or a bigfoot sighting.

The news media itself is suffering from downsizing and cutthroat competition. Perhaps the media loves to scare us because the typical news reporter is scared he or she will lose their job next week. Perhaps when you focus on the worse of humanity, you begin to believe your own hype. 

It is so much easier to focus on the worst of humanity. It is so much more difficult, but rewarding to balance it with the good of nature as well as the best of humanity. It is out there. You just have to be intentional and escape the 24 hour news cycle once in a while.

Categories
K! Magazine

Is Twitter the ultimate evangelism tool?

Cartoon of a church teacher and two girls. One girl says, "You mean we're supposed to go into all the world? We better start tweeting about it!"
©2013 Kevin Spear for “Kidzmatter Magazine”

It’s no wonder traditional media is struggling. When you compare how difficult it was to get a message out just thirty years ago compared to today, well no wonder publishers are scratching their heads!

Categories
children cartoons

Kid PR

Cartoon of a girl and a boy in a corner. The girl says, "Looks like to me you have yourself a public relations problem

Cartoon of a girl and a boy in a corner. The girl says, “Looks like to me you have yourself a public relations problem.”

Don’t you just love how businesses and politicians react to their blunders? Typically, instead of admitting their errors, they will put some public relations spin on it. Come to think of it, we learn how to spin a situation quite early in life, don’t we?

I drew this in Adobe Illustrator.