We haven’t enjoyed the Things to Read section here in several days, which means I have a backlog of links for you to enjoy. This works well for content today, which has otherwise been spent almost entirely doing necessary but generally uninteresting things. I’ve got about two dozen more interesting items to share, promise.

(If you’re here for the sappy stuff, there first installment is next. There’s another great one at the end of the post.)

First, the Lauren Hill video package by Tom Rinaldi:

Here’s a great followup from yesterday: Mount St. Joseph basketball player Lauren Hill’s courageous layups inspire opponent Hiram College:

(T)hroughout the game, televised live by FoxSports Ohio, she never seemed to stop smiling. She had a noticeable glow and bounce in her step while on the court.
During an in-game interview on FoxSports, she quickly corrected a broadcaster who referred to the game as her last, saying it was her first college game. Hill told reporters after the game she hoped to be well enough to try to play again.

Hays and Koskinen said they found Hill genuinely inspiring and not a subject of pity.

“She is just the most upbeat person despite what she’s going through,” Koskinen said. “Her smile lights up a room. She wants to hug you every chance she gets. You can’t help but want to hug her back and smile. She’s someone I will truly admire the rest of my life.”
The teams dined together Saturday night at the Firehouse Grill in Cincinnati, and the Terriers were nervous about meeting Hill.

“What do we say to her?” Hiram players asked their coach.

Before long, the teams were laughing together, crying, and laughing some more.

Strong young woman.

This story is sure to stick with you for awhile, A father’s scars: For Va.’s Creigh Deeds, tragedy brings unending questions:

Breakfast, shower, shave, mirror. Almost a year. He is 56 now. He looks at the scars across his face, around his ear, along his upper chest and right arm. He gets dressed and goes outside to his truck, and there’s the fence that he somehow managed to climb even though he was bleeding, and there’s the field he staggered across to a rutted road where he was found.

This is how most days begin for Creigh Deeds, a father who had a son with mental illness, who struggled to understand him, tried to get help for him, and was ultimately left alone to deal with him, and who now looks over at the barn where he had so suddenly dropped the feed bucket.

“I lost a tooth over there somewhere, a gold tooth,” he says, shaking his head a little, and then he goes to work.

Perhaps I mentioned this somewhere earlier. In the interest of thoroughness, then, Armed guard on CDC elevator with Obama was not a convicted felon, as first reported:

An armed security guard who was on an elevator with President Obama had not been convicted of a felony, as previously reported, according to two people briefed on the incident.

The man, who worked for a private security contractor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was removed from the president’s elevator during his Sept. 16 visit to Atlanta. The man was questioned by Secret Service agents after he did not comply with a request from agents that he stop recording images of the president with a camera.

Agents became concerned that the private contractor might be a risk to the president because of his behavior; others who later ran a background check on the guard discovered some prior arrests in his history.

[…]

The guard was terminated the day of the presidential visit to the CDC — when his supervisor at the security contracting firm arrived to find agents questioning the guard, he told him to turn over his gun on the spot.

They used the word “setback,” U.S.-backed Syria rebels routed by fighters linked to al-Qaeda:

The Obama administration’s Syria strategy suffered a major setback Sunday after fighters linked to al-Qaeda routed U.S.-backed rebels from their main northern strongholds, capturing significant quantities of weaponry, triggering widespread defections and ending hopes that Washington will readily find Syrian partners in its war against the Islamic State.

Moderate rebels who had been armed and trained by the United States either surrendered or defected to the extremists as the Jabhat al-Nusra group, affiliated with al-Qaeda, swept through the towns and villages the moderates controlled in the northern province of Idlib, in what appeared to be a concerted push to vanquish the moderate Free Syrian Army, according to rebel commanders, activists and analysts.

Other moderate fighters were on the run, headed for the Turkish border as the extremists closed in, heralding a significant defeat for the rebel forces Washington had been counting on as a bulwark against the Islamic State.

Well, this must be awkward, Sources: Navy intel chief’s security clearance suspended, can’t view classified info:

The head of naval intelligence has not been able to view classified information for an entire year.

Vice Adm. Ted Branch, the director of naval intelligence, had his security clearance suspended in November 2013 after being investigated for possible misconduct. In the year since, no charges have been filed and there is no sense of when they might be, leaving the Navy in an untenable situation.

If classified information is being discussed at a meeting, the director of naval intelligence has to leave the room.

If Branch drops by a subordinate’s office, the space must be sanitized of any secrets before he enters.

I had students read this story last week. The headline should be enough to make anyone give it a look, Starting over meant erasing his face tattoos the hard way.

CNN, covering the pressing Internet “news,” Internet lusts after new mugshot guy. If we get to a point where we call this news, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Better than calling content like that “culture.” Already it is filed under “living,” which should always be noted with something just above derision.

Since you’re following the returns tonight, Understand today’s election with these 5 awesome interactive tools:

It’s Election Day in America. What with candidates vying for control and issues that need deciding, voters may find themselves confused about where they stand. Thankfully, some very savvy media designers have come up with delightful tools for understanding the election and its outcomes.

I love campaign tic tocks. This is the first one I’ve found from the midterms, there are some very interesting presidential critiques in there as well, the sort of thing you don’t often see about a sitting president. Battle for the Senate: How the GOP did it defies excerpting, but check it out if you’re interested in campaign news.

Which is as decent a transition as any toward the more media-based material. This video is titled College journalist disarms police confrontation and is worth watching:

Some quick links:

Entirely unacceptable — LU Student Reporters Detained

AP Exclusive: Ferguson no-fly zone aimed at media

The ACLU’s letter on the above link — Ferguson’s No-Media Zone Extended to the Skies

Police union files injunction to halt Sun-Times, Tribune FOIA requests

The New York Times’ financials show the transition to digital accelerating

Inside The New York Times’ video strategy

Sky News boss admits they have ‘ripped the costs’ out of broadcasting

Ads Are Coming to the Comments Section of Publisher Sites

This would seem to be a big deal, Free online AP courses debut on edX Web site:

Rice University launched a free Advanced Placement biology course Monday on a Web site overseen by two other elite schools, a potentially significant milestone for a movement that aims to bring college-level courses to high school students.

[…]

Sometimes students pay to take AP classes from online providers. Advertised tuition for such classes ranges from $75 to more than $500.

“Our program you can take for free,” said Reid Whitaker, executive director of the Center for Digital Learning and Scholarship at Rice. “This is a comprehensive program. Free resources. That’s a game changer.”

You’d think that has to impact the AP business model.

Here’s a piece with plenty of generational observations. It prompted an entertaining conversation on Twitter with a colleague last night, particularly the last paragraph. Stampede Of Teens: What YouTube’s Convention Taught Me About Its Culture Of Superfans:

YouTube’s challenge is to replicate this fandom offline, beyond the teens and tweens who roved the halls of VidCon. The site is already rolling out billboard and video advertising campaigns to expand their stars’ reach, and to make them more than just Internet famous.

When I wandered just a few steps outside and spoke to food vendors or hotel employees, I found no one had heard of stars like Meghan Tonjes or Tyler Oakley—the kind who drew crowds inside the convention center.

For VidCon attendees who grew up with YouTube, the distinction between “YouTube famous” and “famous famous” may be meaningless.

No one ever said “Ed Sullivan famous.” The modifier is merely a diminishing agent. Ultimately you don’t see that person at the airport and say “Oh, she’s only YouTube famous never mind.” You know of her or don’t. You can see that entire thread here.

You have multiple audiences. You need multiple approaches and a unifying narrative. A variety of alumni means a variety of tactics for social media inclusion:

Wondering why you’re not finding great success with your alumni social media marketing? Well, wonder no more because we’ve done some digging, and figured out just how you can revamp your social media behavior for the betterment of all. In this blog, we’ve broken down your alumni into three groups based on age and interest because a variety of alumni means a variety of tactics for social media inclusion. The results may not be what you would expect (and if they are, Bravo!). Take what we have to show you today and stop wasting your time. Start creating impactful relationships with your alumni via social media.

We talk about this stuff a lot at work, as you might imagine … This Will Be the Top Business Skill of the Next 5 Years:

Every few minutes, a new buzzword rips through the business world, skids, gets a few quick books written on it, and ends up in a pile of tired terms next to “synergy.” Today, one of the biggest corporate buzzwords is “storytelling.” Marketers are obsessed with storytelling, and conference panels on the subject lately have fewer empty seats than a Bieber concert.

[…]

Good stories surprise us. They have compelling characters. They make us think, make us feel. They stick in our minds and help us remember ideas and concepts in a way that numbers and text on a slide with a bar graph don’t.

Here’s one now … This is storytelling:

I saw this elderly gentleman dining by himself, with an old picture of a lady in front of him. I though maybe I could brighten his day by talking to him.

As I had assumed, she was his wife. But I didn’t expect such an interesting story. They met when they were both 17. They dated briefly, then lost contact when he went to war and her family moved. But he said he thought about her the entire war. After his return, he decided to look for her. He searched for her for 10 years and never dated anyone. People told him he was crazy, to which he replied “I am. Crazy in love”. On a trip to California, he went to a barber shop. He told the barber how he had been searching for a girl for ten years. The barber went to his phone and called his daughter in. It was her! She had also been searching for him and never dated either.

Read the rest.