By Stan Friedman

CHICAGO, IL (September 12, 2014) — Many Covenanters routinely share links to social media articles and videos with one another that Covenant News Service believes may be of interest to others. Each Friday we post five of them. Following is a sample of those submissions—their inclusion does not represent an endorsement of any views expressed.

Oprah Edited

I’d like to see him “edit” other contemporary gurus, but then again all streams of self-actualization flow into the Sea of Oprah.

The Complete Guide to Taking Notes Effectively at Work

Digital or analog? Does it matter to you? Does it matter to your boss? On the paper side, the article mentions Moleskine, which basically is a small notebook and yet has a cult of fans who dedicate entire websites to how they use it. (They’re not as snobbish as Apple fanatics, however). The article also references mind-mapping, an alternative to outlining that works especially well for some people. I became an evangelist for mind-mapping after a family member who struggled with connecting character, plots, themes, etc. as part of his school assignments quickly began to put them all together when he learned the technique.

Three Roosevelts Come Alive in PBS Documentary

I’m bad at math, but I’m pretty sure that three fascinating people plus one great documentary maker equal 14 hours of inspiring TV.

The Story of the Only American Not on Earth on September 11

I like stories that approach familiar stories from a different perspective and this one does literally. Ron Garan was an astronaut aboard the International Space Station and had an “orbital perspective” of the tragedy that would alter geopolitical events on the planet ever since.

When You’re the Only White Person in the Room

I didn’t realize when I was culling the links for this week that two of them had “only” in the headline and both were about looking at an event or issue from different vantage points. The story about Ron Garan is interesting. This one is important.

Amanda Shaffer was one of only a handful of white students who attended a black school tells the reporter, “It shifted my point of view. It’s like when you go to the optometrist, and they slap those new lenses on you—you see the world differently.”

One of the things she saw through those lenses was how nervous students from all-white schools were when they came to her school for a basketball game. One of only two white girls sitting in the home team’s bleachers, she says, “One of the things I noticed is that they weren’t actually making eye contact with people on the other side of the court. They were in a place where there were more black people than white people and that is not usual for white people.”