this is actually very simple to implement yourself... i'll do it for you if you would like.
basically, this is the approach... you need these functions: show_add() add() edit() update() view() remove()
the view will take a parameter that would optionally limit the number of characters... lets say the journal database is this simple:
journal_id entry date
you might do this:
$result = mysql_query("SELECT journal_id, entry, date FROM journal ORDER BY date DESC");
while(list($journal_id, $entry, $date) = mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
echo substr($entry,0,100)."...";
}
of course you would post the date, and links to edit the story if you are logged in as an administrator or something, but that is the basics. you should be able to build the rest quite easily.