As I travel the internet defending the veracity of the Bible (most recently in this thread on Steve Kryger’s post on the popular ThePunch.com.au) it’s often struck me that one of the major truths about the Bible that is lost in the noise as the nu-atheists, armed with their well-thumbed copies of tomes by Dawkins and Hitchens (replete with highlighted cliff-notes so that they all sound on message), clamour all over just about any thread that dares to mention God, is that the Bible is actually a collection of volumes. Volumes collated over a great amount of time – and finally signed off by a series of councils in the early years of the church.
One of the Bible’s great strengths against other religious texts is this diversity of authorship and development. The consistency of message and theology demonstrated across the 66 books is impressive (even if some people would rather look for contradictions – contradictions which are usually just poor reading/interpreting of the text – the number of contradictions is hugely overwhelmed by the number of corroborations and overall consistency). So here’s what I’m picturing in my head. It’s a piece of performance art. Of sorts. Perhaps better described as a piece of literary art. And I hereby claim this idea as my own – and if you think it has legs I’d like you to tell me (also, if it doesn’t)…
Here’s what I think we should do.
Design a set of the 66 books of the Bible in separate volumes (one chapter per page to pad out some of the smaller books – and perhaps some “Study Bible” or commentary type notes, just so Jude is publishable…
I’m thinking nice typography and minimalist cover designs (or perhaps designs like these from Jim Le Page), maybe with spines that link together as an image. Good quality printing. It’d probably be expensive. Maybe with an approximate date of composition on each spine (I know this is notoriously hard to pin down).
But what do you reckon? It’d make a nice statement about what the Bible is, and be oddly functional – because you could take a single book to church if you know what the sermon is going to be on in advance… Anybody have any idea what a set of 66 volumes would cost to publish?
Some people out there aren’t big fans of Haikus. Those 5/7/5 Japanese poems. I am not some people. I even resigned my job with the power of Haiku. So I’m impressed with this website that searches the wikileaks site for naturally occurring haikus. Like these:
Instead, he gulped three
cans of Coca-Cola while
inhaling his food.
He added that there
should be ‘no blank checks, no checks
at all,’ for Hamas.
The vessels are met
either on shore or a short
distance off the coast.
This is a nice bit of anti-Comic Sans propaganda – comicsanscriminal.com – that you should be aware of. Especially if you are a church. Please delete that font from your computers. There is no good reason to be using it in 2011.
I’m filing this for “response letters I’d like to send one day”… there’s a slight language warning. Via DeadSpin.
Here’s the transcript of the original letter:
“Gentlemen:
I am one of your season ticket holders who attends or tries to attend every game. It appears one of the pastimes of several fans has become the sailing of paper airplanes generally made out of the game program. As you know, there is the risk of serious eye injury and perhaps an ear injury as a result of such airplanes. I am sure that this has been called to your attention and that several of your ushers and policemen witnessed the same.
Please be advised that since you are in a position to control or terminate such action on the part of fans, I will hold you responsible for any injury sustained by any person in my party attending one of your sporting events. It is hoped that this disrespectful and possibly dangerous activity will be terminated.
Very truly yours,
Roetzel & Andress
By Dale O. Cox”
Here’s the response the team sent:
“Attached is a letter that we received on November 19, 1974. I feel that you should be aware that some a*&#&$ is signing your name to stupid letters”
This is a nice little visualisation of Facebook connections around the planet. All the lines on the map are created by connections between people (the brighter the line the more friendships exist along that axis.).
So, the Wikileaks saga drags on. At least Oprah is gone from our shores…
The whole Wikileaks thing kind of fascinates me. It’s the archetypal immovable object up against the irresistable force. Freedom of speech (particularly of the press) and a desire for transparent government meets public safety, national interests and diplomacy. Chuck in an Australian with a God complex and a stated desire to change the way governments do business, a few tortured souls willing to sacrifice life, limb and well being in order to leak classified documents they’ve obtained illegally… it’s got all the hallmarks of a follow up to the Social Network – the UnSocial Network.
Part of me thinks transparent government is a good thing. Part of me is fascinated by the trainwreck as governments respond to the saga – Julia Gillard’s uninformed “this is illegal” is one such example. And doubtless it presents problems for governments involved – we’re not talking cynical dictators here, but democratically elected representatives who are trying to serve their people. Leaking information is reprehensible – it’s not up to a lowly member of the military to decide what state secrets come out, and it’s doubtless against their employment contracts (and of course, treasonous). Some information is dangerous. And a dangerous world is likely to require dangerous information – information that shouldn’t necessarily be broadcast to everybody, the problem with the Assange model is that it draws no distinction about who should receive what information. Which is naive. Why should Al Qaeda have access to the same information as the average American citizen about how the American government operates? That makes no sense. It’s not as though governments aren’t thinking about transparency themselves – they just err on the side of caution when it comes to disseminating information. Wikileaks errs on the side of stupidity.
The press has always been free to publish fruit from a poisonous tree – provided it’s in the public interest. And I reckon wikileaks, broadly speaking, falls into that category. They’re not stealing the documents themselves, hacking databases or surreptitiously accessing information from behind iron curtains – they’re simply a distributor. But a distributor with an agenda. Just like Fox. So while I reckon the leakers are in the wrong, I think it sets a dangerous precedent to go after the distribution channel rather than the leaker. Wikleaks simply represents the new media’s style of distribution. Too the masses, for the masses, by the masses. The “information is power” equation functions on the law of diminishing returns. More information available to more people doesn’t mean more power. It just robs power from those who previously held it. It’s diluted. In a lot of ways it’s better that the information is available to everybody than that it’s available to a select few on the black market. That’s part of having a free press and a commitment, in principle, to democracy. It’s one thing for Julian Assange to speak of getting rid of the US’s stranglehold on politcal power globally – but what do you replace it with? He’s a typical anarchist in some sense – he doesn’t seem interested in the future, just in displacing the present.
Attempts to control information in this day and age is like standing in front of a cracking dam wall and plugging the gap with you finger. It won’t work. And you’re going to get smashed when the wall cracks. I think that’s what this has taught me. I’d say governments are better off just aiming for complete transparency. The idea of not doing anything you’re ashamed of is as old as debates about privacy. But it works. If governments were more open to freedom of information requests and being transparent then there’d be less chance of damage happening through leaks. Give the people a torrent and it’s likely that bad news would be buried in the sheer volume – and when it surfaces you can always acknowledge that it was there and say “that’s why we’re making this information available”… the Internet is changing the way information can be disseminated and the management of the leaks, from a PR/news cycle perspective has also been interesting. It seems Julian Assange has no real editorial brain. He hasn’t done a great job at managing the flow of information, the bang to buck ratio is poor. Pushing a glut of information out there at once is guaranteed to bury some of the good stuff. Even if you pick a few strategic articles to promote the release by giving juicy exclusives to particular outlets. His strategy has been bad. His personal strategy has been pretty bad too – even though he’s won over a few celebrity campaigners who have adopted him as a cause de jour. The Swedish claims seem a little bit too convenient – but the man does appear to be a bit of a self-interested slimeball with delusions of grandeur.
Here are some good wikileaks articles for your perusal:
“The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive ‘secrecy tax’) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption.”
The Economist points out that wikileaks is just the tip of the iceberg, or rather, an example of how easily information can spread in the Internet – suggesting that plugging this leak won’t stop the dam bursting:
“Yet the debate over WikiLeaks has proceeded as if the matter might conclude with the eradication of these kinds of data dumps—as if this is a temporary glitch in the system that can be fixed; as if this is a nuisance that can be made to go away with the application of sufficient government gusto. But I don’t think the matter can end this way. Just as technology has made it easier for governments and corporations to snoop ever more invasively into the private lives of individuals, it has also made it easier for individuals, working alone or together, to root through and make off with the secret files of governments and corporations. WikiLeaks is simply an early manifestation of what I predict will be a more-or-less permanent feature of contemporary life, and a more-or-less permanent constraint on strategies of secret-keeping.”
Here’s an hour long documentary on Wikileaks that you can watch at your leisure.
Image: Well timed Dilbert from Church Crunch.
In a week or two I’ll start not cross promoting so much because I’ll assume you’ve all been made aware of it. But in the meantime, I like this post a lot. And I think it’s important and I’d like to make it a bit of a resource post when I have conversations with friends who are in ministry and are thinking about how to use “social media”… I have those conversations often.
I plan to write something about the whole wikileaks fiasco, though it’ll probably be long and boring.
In the meantime. Be sure to check out what experts are suggesting is the most interesting cable to be leaked by wikileaks. It’s not about K-Rudd. It is a statement guaranteeing the US’s most “special relationship”…
Here’s the header. Read the whole thing. It’s worth it.
Saturday, 12 December 1998, 16:13
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 LONDON 000368
NOFORN
SIPDIS
DOE FOR GPERSON, CHAYLOCK
EO 12958 DECL: 12/12/2018
TAGS EPET, ENRG, PGOV, RS">RS, NI
SUBJECT: ENGLAND: RELIABILITY AND LONGEVITY OF UK-US RELATIONSHIP CONFIRMED
REF: A. LONDON 365 B. LONDON 366
Classified By: Consul General Robbie Honerkamp for reasons 1.4 (B) and (D )
I am contemplating making a regular feature of weird single serving blogs on Tumblr. This one features photos of Kim Jong Il looking at things.
It’s odd. And provides some sort of insight into the style of staged Public Relations shoots in North Korea. Somehow the idea that Kim Jong Il looks at things must provide some succor to his legions of loyal, browbeaten citizens. Everything about his reign is stage managed. Which means the oddness is intentional.
It has been a while since my last typography related post. So here, as my penance, is a list of typographic sins, with examples (in a PDF) for you to mull over. It’s pretty standard fare. But they are good rules for keeping in mind in order to satisfy your pedantic/designer friends…
Two spaces between sentences.
Repent of this sin by using only one space.
Dumb quotes instead of smart quotes.
Evil: “Thou shalt not misuse type” § Good: “Thou shalt not misuse type”
Dumb apostrohe instead of a smart apostrophe.
Profane: Don’t use prime marks § Sacred: Don’t use prime marks
By the way, apostrophes always face this way: Pot o’ gold.
They never face this way: Pot ‘o gold.
Failing to tuck periods/commas inside quote marks.
Immoral: “I love type so much”, she confessed.
Chaste: “I love type so much,” she testified.
Infographics make the web go around. So it was only going to be a matter of time before people started putting together disinformation graphics. So, I give you, Helpful Figures.
