Earlier this week, several people were injured in a roller coaster accident at Six Flags in Valencia, California. Apparently, a tree fell on the track, injuring two people and causing a number of others to be stranded for hours.
That’s tragic. Amusement park injuries occur more than we think, and they are often severe.
But what caught my eye was the source of the story. The story I saw was on Yahoo, but ran in the Christian Science Monitor. Why did it catch my eye?
A lot of people have never heard of the Christian Science Monitor, but it’s an internationally respected newspaper that has won several Pulitzer Prizes and dozens of other awards for outstanding journalism. When I was in back in high school participating in speech and debate, we used to read many of the articles, and most of the headlines, to prepare ourselves for our various competitions.
The Yahoo story stuck with me because I’ll always remember a competition in the small town of Hondo, Texas, where I quoted an article from the Christian Science Monitor in one of my speeches. I didn’t do as well as I normally did or expected to do, and I couldn’t figure out why until we received the judges’ sheets after the contest. And my judge railed on me for citing a right wing propaganda machine during my speech.
I didn’t correct my judge to let him know about his errors. But I’ve always remembered that story because it’s an important to so many lessons for me. I’m just sorry a roller coaster accident had to be the reminder.
