Tom Stone's thoughts, ramblings, etc.

Today, as I watch Barack Obama place his left hand – that I shook eight months ago – on the bible of Abraham Lincoln to take the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States of America, I’ll be thinking back to a childhood friend in Louisville and 10 words that have haunted me in the 33 years since he spoke them to me: "God must not love me because he made me black," he said sobbing as he fell to the ground as though deflated by lack of hope. We'd been arguing as all boys do at times. Pushing each other, calling each other names. At some point, he made me really mad and I tried to hurt him -- with words ... one word ... one I'd heard way too many times and always filled with hate. I called him the "N" word. He burst into a rage and we both swung our fists like crazy at each other. He was mad as hell and I was surprised -- surprised I'd hurt my friend so badly. I didn’t know this word could hurt him this badly. After I fell to the gr...

At midnight on Inauguration Day 2009, I'll post my first real blog entry here. It's a story I've been struggling with how to tell for more than 20 years. I shared it with an editor in an informal conversation. And he said, "You've got to write a story about that some day." I've written several drafts and then started all over months or years later. But I think I finally have it just right thanks to the "closure" that comes tomorrow with Obama puts on Abraham Lincoln's bible his left hand -- one I shook about 8 months ago when he was in town here the Sunday before the Ohio primaries. I couldn't quite reach his right hand as he was passing through but he reached back with his left to shake my hand before moving out of reach. Please let me know what you think of the story and whether you have similar ones to share. Write through commentary posts. Or just write to me -- tom@4tom.net. Tom

Have a wonderful son, Kevin who is 8. There are pictures of him at http://KevinStone.net. My ex wife (his Mom) and I split up when he was 2 1/2 -- 6 years ago (2003). Love to help make a positive difference in people's lives through the projects I do and the communications and collaboration strategies I help to enable -- for online learning and other endeavors. I live in Columbus, Ohio , where I've been working for a university since I moved here in 1996. I've had a couple of different units at the campus that I've worked for (four if you count name changes and shuffling of subunits) and a variety of titles/challenges during that time. Right now, they're calling me a Senior eLearning Consultant . That's like an "eLearning Consultant" but older, I guess (or just been around and won't leave for some reason ;-). I help faculty as they put course resources and activities online or build totally online ("distance learning") courses for stude...

OK, so now I've got a blog with my name on it. Why? I didn't want to be the LAST person in the world to have one. And it seems like more than half the world already has at least one. ;-) You'd think I would have signed up a bit sooner for a blog because I love to write and pretend someone's reading it.  My first career was working as a newspaper reporter and editor. So I got used to thinking people were reading what I wrote.  But while I was in college ('83-'87), I did a survey of college students back then to find out where they get their news and how many minutes/hours per day they spent with each type of media, and which one they trusted. NEWSPAPERS? They spent very little time reading them and didn't trust them as much as what they saw in 30-second "stories" on TV news. What the heck?  Thank goodness the Internet hadn't blossomed yet to totally erode all newspaper readers of that age yet as it mostly has now. What else have done? COLLEGE BO...