Tag Archives: reading-group

A bit about News and Creative Communal Information

I’ve mentioned this before, but I figure it’s worth mentioning again. This week I had over five people email me links to news articles they thought I should read. I haven’t had a chance to get to them until now. I really like the idea of sharing news with others and I think it’s important that we value each others opinions enough to read them.
I subscribe to the blogs of every person that I know of personally, and I do my best to read what they write because I think it’s important to value and be interested in the opinions and thoughts of one another.

What Next: A Memoir Toward World PeaceBack in 2003 I read a book called, What Next? by Walter Mosley. It’s a great little book with some practical examples on ways to work towards a peaceful world. One thing Mosley mentions is the importance of staying informed. His suggestions for doing this is to start a reading group (this is before blogs became popular). Basically you find about 3-4 other people who are interested in collaborating. You might have a similar value system, but I don’t know that that is necessary nor necessarily ideal.
Basically within your reading group you’d each chose two or three magazines, news sources, blogs, etc. that your in charge of reading, and then bringing to the group the 2 or 3 most important pieces of news from those sources. This allows you to collectively stay informed on multiple issues and areas without spending your whole day reading up. It’s a good idea, and I think it’s actually being accomplished to some degree with blogs.

In addition to reading the blogs of friends, I find here and there, blogs of others of whom I value their way of thinking, their opinion on world issues and their awareness of the world. It’s those sources that I usually learn about world events and situations, even more so then traditional news media.
I read something once that said all Christians need a Bible and a Newspaper. The Bible is to know how to pray, the Newspaper is to know what to pray for.

How are you keeping up with what’s going on in the world?