By Ron Hutchcraft
It used to be "Breaking News." Now it's more like Heartbreaking News.
Turn it on and you're likely to see and hear a lot of angry people. If you turn off the TV and check out social media, there it is again. Everybody's angry about something. Lots of hostility. Lots of yelling. And, sorry to say, there's bitterness and hate in the air.
Everybody's talking - or shouting. Nobody's listening.
By Brad Hutchcraft
Nashville wasn't a place I thought about much...until I had someone living there who I love very much. So, when the news of power outages in that area hit this week, I found myself extraordinarily invested in the situation. I typically keep up with the news, but this went deeper - following the local electric company on social media, glued to updates, checking other people's posts about Nashville.
The same question was on my mind that all the locals there had and many continue to have as they wait: when will the power be restored?
By Ron Hutchcraft
It wasn't very loud. Just three little words, softly spoken.
But they were loud enough to drown out a gunshot that had reverberated across the nation.
The widow of assassinated influencer, Charlie Kirk, talked about the young man who ended the life of her husband and the father of her children. Through tears, she spoke words that stunned a nation:
By Brad Hutchcraft
My lawn was green and inviting. A few days later, it was brown and dying, in the worst shape I've ever seen. What happened? A life-robbing sneak attack from a tiny but nevertheless insidious visitor. Armyworms.
I had never heard of armyworms. I still know little about them. But here's what I do know: They come, they attach themselves to a healthy lawn, and they suck the life right out of it.
By Ron Hutchcraft
They say we can see some 3,000 stars. I'm looking out my window right now. I don't see even one star!
That might have something to do with the fact that it's almost noon. Give it a few hours and they'll all be there.
Because stars shine the brightest when the sky is darkest.
By Ron Hutchcraft
My phone's been blowing up for a week or more. Mostly not good news.
Lots of storms. Lots of sadness.
Severe thunderstorm alerts, tornado and flood watches and warnings. Stacked up in my texts like planes waiting to land at O' Hare. Like much of the country, it's been a "Groundhog Day" cycle of one stormy day after another. I miss the sun.
One moment they were in their apartment building. The next they were under it. Ninety people trapped when a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Myanmar suddenly leveled their building.
Fifty Myanmar children went to pre-school that day. At least a dozen died there in the sudden collapse of their school. The rest were listed as missing.
One doctor in Mandalay said: "Wherever I looked, I saw collapsed buildings. Only dust."
By Ron Hutchcraft
Sometimes "Breaking News" is really "Heartbreaking News." This is one of those times.
They're running out of disaster words to describe it. The damage done by those monster California fires that have consumed everything in their path.
"Devastated." "Obliterated." "Apocalyptic."
By Ron Hutchcraft
"But wait! There's more!"
No, not the line at the end of a TV infomercial...
But the line that lingers at the end of Christmas. Despite all the great that Christmas offers - there's more! So much more!
All those people in the Christmas story - Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Wise Men - they had been living with anticipation of the coming of the Messiah.
By Ron Hutchcraft
Health clubs and spas love January! Business skyrockets as December bulges turn to January workouts.
A "new year" sounds like a great time to work on a new you. Thus, the infamous New Year's resolution. "A firm decision to do or not to do something."
Sadly, research shows that about 88% of our resolutions won't happen.
