No Impact Man

He didn't just amp up his recycling and go with reusable grocery bags instead of the plastic ones. No, Colin Beavan went as far as cutting the power in his house in an attempt to be the "no impact man" in the documentary of the same name.

I was a bit surprised at what he found, and I don't just mean what happened when he, his wife, and their two-year-old girl gave up toilet paper.

They learned something about consumerism and the values of a consumer culture. When you cut out TV (and the power) you spend more time outdoors. When you need help, it's nice to have a supportive community of friends. You can even tell when the seasons change by what's growing in the ground (you don't need a calendar to know what time of year it is!)

I've been to New York, but guess I didn't fully understand the self-absorbed culture. Ultimately, I think Beavan learned what he does has an impact on people around him. He learned we're interconnected, and it's not all about me. Shocker!

Take or leave the environmental message (strange thing for me to be saying about an environmental documentary) but I think you'll find the things he learned contain lessons for people of faith.

Here are a couple of the key things I took from the film that don't require you to wash clothes in the bathtub.

Community. Colin's wife worried what would happen when she couldn't watch reality TV. By the end, she said she couldn't believe how long days are when spent with others or spent outside doing things. 


Be more connected to the land. Living in the midwest, this isn't as much of a problem. I know where food comes from, but apparently many people don't. Thank a farmer.

Stop consuming so much. This is something we could all benefit from.

All Tied Up: Week 2

Date: 1/11/10
Style: Striped
Colors: Blue, Red
Width: Standard
Shirt: Blue, Red on White
Jacket: Blue
Story: City budget shortfall, sales tax revenue down

Date: 1/12/10
Style: Striped
Colors: Light green and blue
Width: Standard
Shirt: Light Blue
Jacket: Whatever that kind of tan one is called
Story: The stimulus project the White House announced is not a done deal, also had to cover a double fatality on a slick street. I was the first reporter on the scene. Police Sgt. Bud Edwards came up to me, visibly shaken, but an arm around me and remarked how it reminded him how much he hated winter. Police are people too. They'd rather not have to deal with death.

Date: 1/13/10
Style: Striped
Colors: Brown with orange stripes
Width: Standard
Shirt: Orange
Jacket: Brown
Story: Covered release of a report highlighting challenges of immigrant children in Nebraska. Then I found out a prominent local doctor had been arrested for pandering. That kept me a little busy, running to the courthouse, digging for info online, calls to the cops, the clinic. In the end, we ran a 30-second story on it.

Date: 1/14/10
Style: Polka dots! Our first non-striped tie of the year
Colors: Black with pink dots
Width: Standard
Shirt: Black, gray stripes
Jacket: Black
Story: Governor Dave Heineman's State of the State address.
Other: I live-tweeted the State of the State speech, and until someone tells me otherwise, I will take credit for the first person to do that, at least to do it from the event itself. I was tweeting on my iPod from the senate chamber on the public WiFi (Follow me on Twitter @stevewhitenews)

Date: 1/15/10
Style: Striped
Colors: Purple, Silver, Black
Width: Standard
Shirt: Light purple
Jacket: Gray pinstripes
Story: A follow-up to the State of the State, focused on education reform.
Other: News anchor Colleen Williams and her husband Chris welcomed their second child at 12:31pm this day.
And another note: Notice the purple? Once again supporting the Vikings. And I've got plenty of purple to make it to the Super Bowl!

All Tied Up: Week 1

Date: 1/1/10
Style: Striped
Colors: Pink, Black
Width: Skinny
Shirt: Black
Jacket: Gray
Story: Author who'd written book on fitness medicine, a New Year's resolution piece
Other: I bought this tie at the VOTA concert we hosted at church in December (see pics of the show here including the tie)

Date: 1/5/10
Style: Striped
Colors: Green, Blue
Width: Standard
Shirt: Blue
Jacket: Tan?
Story: Sports reporter who wrote a book on sports journalism. That's two stories to start the year about authors.
Other: That's a very pregnant news anchor, Colleen Williams in the "double boxes" with me.

Date: 1/6/10
Style: Striped
Colors: Tan, Brown, Black
Width: Standard
Shirt: Brown
Jacket: Brown
Story: State budget
Other: Notice my pink forehead? Yeah, that was the last night for that camera. In went in to the shop after that.

Date: 1/7/10
Style: Striped
Colors: Pink, Blue
Width: Standard
Shirt: Blue
Jacket: Black
Story: "No Snow Day for Farmers", talking to farmers to see how they were coping with the blizzard
Other: What you don't see is that I was wearing jeans, long johns, two pairs of socks, and boots. And that it was -15 outside, before the windchill

Date: 1/8/10
Style: Striped
Colors: Purple, Black
Width: Standard
Shirt: Light gray
Jacket: Gray pinstriped
Story: Three stories: Visit to the homeless shelter on a -15 day, a house fire, and a stimulus-related job announcement.
Other:Wore a purple tie because the NFL playoffs were starting, to support my Minnesota Vikings!


And to recap, you'll notice that's five striped ties to start the year. What does that say about me?

All Tied Up

I realize I was a pretty terrible blogger in 2009, although I was tweeting more (@stevewhitenews). I resolve in 2010 to pursue more creative ideas, specifically writing more for fun.

Last year, I wore a different tie on the air each day until St. Patrick's Day, when I donned my shamrock tie I got in Ireland. But unless you were really paying attention, you wouldn't have noticed that I went that long without a repeat.

So at my wife Sara's prompting, I'm going to try it again this year and see how long I can go without repeating. But this time I'm going to chronicle it for you here!

I'll start with my New Year's Eve tie, worn on the news 12/31/09.

Style: Striped
Colors: Blue, White
Width: Standard
Shirt: Light blue
Jacket: Navy blue

Best Movies of the Decade

AT-AT used in Empire Strikes Back, originally uploaded by echobase_2000.

Quick, name the best movies of the decade.




Still thinking? Maybe you can help me decide what we're calling this decade anyway (the aughts?)




If you've come up with more than two at this point, I'm impressed.

With apologies to whatever program I heard discussing this, as the '00s come to a close (can that be?) the decade has not been a good one in theaters.

But when it comes to TV, I can quickly rattle off a list of shows with staying power: Lost, The Office, Arrested Development, 24, House, American Idol, Survivor, Rescue Me, Grey's Anatomy, and on an on.

Not to say there haven't been some great movies, but where's this decade's "Star Wars", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", or even its "Titanic"?

I think as close as we've come are "The Dark Knight" and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Those are the only films I can think of that were box offices successes as well as critically acclaimed.

If anything, the movies from this decade that will last are probably Pixar films like "Finding Nemo" and "Wall-E."

So what am I forgetting?

Lil' Smokies, Brett Favre, and Purple Pride

I want to use the napkins and the plates. Not just any ones, mind you, the purple and gold I bought 11 years ago. It was 1998, the Vikings were headed to the Super Bowl and I wad headed to the party store. As a lifelong Vikings fan, I was going to be ready when they won. I picked up some napkins and plates with the team logo on them, so I could eat my nachos and lil' smokies with purple pride.

With Cris Carter, Randy Moss, and Robert Smith, they were going to wipe out years of frustration, finally winning the big game. And then it happened. The most dependable kicker in football missed.

As a Vikings fan I should have known better. Of course Gary Anderson was going to miss. After all, he's gotten our hopes up by completing a perfect season until that NFC title game.

Now it's just another footnote on Wikipedia, another sign of this team's failure, along with those four Super Bowl losses, the Herschel Walker trade, and the Love Boat scandal.

But while we've had great offenses and great defenses, the one thing Vikings fans haven't had since Fran Tarkenton is a great quarterback.

We've suffered through guys like Tommy Kramer, Wade Wilson, Sean Salisbury, Rich Gannon, Jeff George, Brad Johnson and Tarvaris Jackson. Along the way there were also forgettable guys like Spergon Wynn and even St. Cloud State's own Todd Bouman.

Sure some of those guys put together a good season here or there, but arguably only one quarterback in that stretch put together a string of success, as Daunte Culpepper gave us glimmers of hope.

Tarvaris Jackson is a tremendous athlete with a strong arm and quick legs. But he hasn't shown he can win consistently. Brett Favre to the rescue -- he could have been the bona fide Hall of Fame quarterback the team has lacked.

But now that too is just another story in this team's ongoing saga of losing.

Guess I don't have to dig up those plates and napkins this season. There's always next year.

Is "Christian" music dying?

tobyMac, originally uploaded by echobase_2000.

If you look at the headliners at some of this summer's Christian music festivals, you may wonder what year it is -- 2009 or 1999.

The top tier of Christian bands is largely unchanged over the last decade. Sure dc Talk is no longer together, but frontman tobyMac (pictured) keeps the Talk train moving. Another dc Talker now fronts the Newsboys.

Both acts will be playing this year's Sonshine Festival in Minnesota, a prime example of what's changed, and what hasn't.

Sonshine's headliners include Switchfoot, Skillet, and Relient K, all bands that are well-known in Christian circles.

That's not to say there aren't up and coming bands led by faith-fueled musicians. There are tons of them. It's just they're not following the path of the Newsboys. Like Switchfoot and Relient K, the new bands would rather be market of the general market music scene, not pigeonholed as Christian.

That's great for a festival like Cornerstone that I've been a part of. Cornerstone is more on the fringes of Christian music, and this year played host to plenty of bands that don't neatly fall in the confines of "Christian" music. Bands like Anberlin, Los Lonely Boys, Shiny Toy Guns, Underoath, and Family Force 5.

They're all bands you can download on iTunes, or if you still want a CD you can get it at Target or Best Buy. That's a big change from the '90s where new Christian acts had to get their CDs into Christian book stores.

For more than the last decade, many of the young bands whose members are Christians have gone around the Christian music industry.

That's why the headliners at festivals like Sonshine haven't changed much. New bands don't want to take their place as the top Christian bands. They'd rather be like Switchfoot with hits on pop radio.

Take Anberlin. They play the late night talk shows and chart on alternative rock radio. Or Underoath, a screamo band with plenty of mainstream credibility. They'll top the Billboard albums chart, headline the Warped Tour all summer, only taking a single pit stop to play Cornerstone.

That's the new paradigm. Make music not for the choir but music that goes to the corners of the earth, competing right alongside mainstream bands.

The Christian music industry may still have a place, if nothing else for worship music for the church. But it's probably not going to be what it was. That's not to say Christians aren't still making music. They are, and will. And we'll be better for it.

Anberlin

Anberlin, originally uploaded by echobase_2000.

Here's one of my favorite shots from last week at Cornerstone.

When I plug my iPod in to my computer, every song I've listened to is "scrobbled", that is submitted at the website last.fm where it tracks the artists I'm listening to, suggests similar artists, and creates a radio station based on my tastes.

It comes as no surprise this week that Michael Jackson is the most played artist on the site (and people's iPods) this week.

Top Artists and Top Tracks Charts – Last.fm

The chart shows this past week he had twice the number of listeners of the closest acts (Radiohead, Coldplay, and The Beatles).

And of the top ten songs played for the week, only two aren't Michael Jackson songs. For the record, "Billie Jean", and "Beat It" are the top two. You have to go to #247 to find a Kanye West song or #321 to find U2.

Family Force 5 Honors Michael Jackson's Thriller

Family Force 5 Honors Michael Jackson's Thriller, originally uploaded by echobase_2000.

Soul Glow Activatur wears his "Thriller" shirt. And if you notice, his guitar has a Michael Jackson sticker on it too. This was from Cornerstone 2006.