I think the guy from the Oatmeal lives inside my head, or at least that his head is in a pretty similar place to mine. Here’s a list of emails not to send, and elements of email to stop using. I fought long and hard to have email signatures kept to a minimum and spam free in my workplace. You should too. Nobody ever reads a footer and thinks “oh, ok then, I’ll go to your expensive event”…
This is a sentence that introduces the piece with a witty tangent or hook (this is a typical, one might say trademark, aside, of multiple clauses, in parenthesis).
This is where I comment on the fact that this joke has been used previously about the type of blog post that gets lots of comments. This is where I would link to that post, if I could remember what I called it, or could be bothered. This is where I say that I can’t be bothered. This is where I point out that XKCD actually made this joke in comic strip form, thus being pithier than any other attempts.
This is an extended blockquote from the article. This is the link.
“In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research makes, making appropriate use of “scare quotes” to ensure that it’s clear that I have no opinion about this research whatsoever.
In this paragraph I will briefly (because no paragraph should be more than one line) state which existing scientific ideas this new research “challenges”.
If the research is about a potential cure, or a solution to a problem, this paragraph will describe how it will raise hopes for a group of sufferers or victims.
This paragraph elaborates on the claim, adding weasel-words like “the scientists say” to shift responsibility for establishing the likely truth or accuracy of the research findings on to absolutely anybody else but me, the journalist. “
This is where I forget to attribute this post to wherever I found it, breaching blog etiquette. This is how I sign this post off.
Kevin DeYoung is nominally appropriately one of the faces of “the young, restless and reformed” movement. I like him. He writes and speaks with a clarity I appreciate and without (mostly) the hubris I’m uncomfortable with in other prominent brothers.
I like what he’s had to say about appropriately defining the missional movement in this post so much that I’m going to post this extended quote from his appearance at the Desiring God conference in the states recently…
“(1) I am concerned that good behaviors are sometimes commended using the wrong categories. For example, many good deeds are promoted under the term “social justice” when I think “love your neighbor” is often a better category. Or, folks will talk about transforming the world, when I think being “a faithful presence in the world” is a better way to describe what we are trying to do and actually can do. Or, sometimes well meaning Christians talk about “building the kingdom” when actually the verbs associated with the kingdom are almost always passive (enter, receive, inherit). We’d do better to speak of living as citizens of the kingdom, rather than telling our people they build the kingdom.
(2) I am concerned that in our new found missional zeal we sometimes put hard “oughts” on Christians where there should be inviting “cans.” You ought to do something about human trafficking. You ought to do something about AIDS. You ought to do something about lack of good public education. When you say “ought” you imply that if the church does not tackle these problems we are being disobedient. It would be better to invite individual Christians in keeping with their gifts and calling to try to solve these problems rather than indicting the church for “not caring.”
(3) I am concerned that in all our passion for renewing the city or tackling social problems we run the risk of marginalizing the one thing that makes Christian mission Christian: namely, making disciples of Jesus Christ.
Now, having raised those concerns, I need to make sure you know what I am not saying. I do not want:
- Christians to be indifferent toward the suffering around them and around the world.
- Christians to think evangelism is the only thing in life that really counts or that helping the poor really only matters if it results in conversions.
- Christians to stop dreaming of creative, courageous ways to love their neighbors and impact their cities.
But here’s some of what I do want:
- I want the gospel—the good news of Christ’s death for sin and subsequent resurrection—to be of first importance in our churches.
- I want Christians freed from false guilt, freed from thinking the church is either responsible for most of problems in the world or responsible to fix all of these problems.
I want the utterly unique task of the church—making disciples of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit to the glory of God the Father—put front and center, not lost in a flurry of humanitarian good deeds or environmental concerns.”
Preach it brother.
Did I mention that I just got back from two and a half weeks in Greece and Turkey on an, ahem, study tour. I learned two things. Driving in convoys (difficult, but essential) is better with walkie talkies, and the coffee is terrible.
So I give you the perfect solution. CoffeeTalkies. A real product1, brought to you by the Onion.
1 The box is real. The product is not.
How cool is Google’s real time provision of search results. Are other people getting it too or am I signed on for something experimental?
Sometime this week I’ll hit 4,000 posts. This is cause for celebration. What should I do?
Also, please, dear readers, help me to choose a winner from my “make me a Mexican” challenge. The winner will receive a prize, a real prize. Of real value.
Launchlist.net is a pretty nifty checklist to run through before sending your new website into the world wide interwebs. Following it will save you hassles after the fact. Which is always nice.
All publicity might be good publicity. But publicity is not created equal. And if you think telling me where you leave your purse when you get home in some sort of innuendo laced update on a social media platform I’m going to have the following reactions:
a) feel mildly uncomfortable.
b) think “what is going on here”
c) google the repeated phrase.
d) go “oh, that’s stupid.”
e) not think positively about your cause.
f) not donate.
There’s a world of difference between good awareness raising – where the campaign is linked with the cause in the public consciousness (like Jeans for Genes Day and even Movember), and campaigns based on being cryptic and excluding people not in the know.
Awareness as the “ends” of a campaign is ridiculous. Awareness is a means to an ends in PR. Campaigns should push people towards the end, not just stop at people being “aware.” What good is being “aware” of breast cancer? It’s not much good for the sufferers, or for those who are genetically predisposed to suffering.
See Stuff White People Like for a more biting summary of this problem than I am able to produce. Basically raising awareness is the stuff people do when they are not interested in actually doing something.
“An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe that all of the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness.” Meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, and then magically someone else like the government will fix it.
This belief allows them to feel that sweet self-satisfaction without actually having to solve anything or face any difficult challenges. Because, the only challenge of raising awareness is people not being aware. In a worst case scenario, if you fail someone doesn’t know about the problem. End of story.”
This campaign is as dumb as the bra colour one from January. I saw it defended, when a friend dared to question it, as “awareness raising” which is the window dressing of real action.
Newsflash: Everybody is aware of breast cancer, most people have lost a friend or loved one, or know somebody who has. If you have the public profile of breast cancer you can actually just ask people for money. Set a funding target. Go for it. Have a telephon (is that how you spell the fundraising thing done by the telephone?).
Here’s the message that is apparently doing the rounds… tell me how anybody thinks this is a “success”…
“About a year ago, we played the game about what color bra you were wearing at the moment? The purpose was to increase awareness of October Breast Cancer Awareness month. It was a tremendous success and we had men wondering for days what was with the colors and it made it to the news. This year’s game has to do with your handbag/purse, where we put our handbag the moment we get home for example “I like it on the couch”, “kitchen counter”, “the dresser” well u get the idea. Just put your answer as your status with nothing more than that and cut n paste this message and forward to all your FB female friends to their inbox. It doesn’t have to be suggestive. The bra game made it to the news. Let’s see how powerful we women really are!!!”
Let’s see how powerful we women really are? I’m sorry. If the “power of women” is using Facebook to get on the news then somebody tell our Jules, or Hillary Clinton, or any other successful woman. Most of the PR industry are women, if power is about media attention then those women are the gatekeepers. And if anybody in PR thinks this campaign has had a serious effect on the image of breast cancer – other than trivialising it – then I’m yet to meet them.
Furthermore, if women need to resort to sexual innuendo to be powerful then there’s something vastly wrong with society. Seriously. I thought we’d moved past that.
That is all.
UPDATE: Funnily enough, a corollary, a perfect foil, a Facebook awareness campaign that works (in my opinion), is going on at pretty much the same time. The “RU ok” campaign is a perfect example of an awareness raising campaign that actually benefits the purpose it promotes. It encourages people to ask their friends if they’re ok – and it raises curiosity without trading on double entendre or outright crass innuendo.
William Tapley aka the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse has a new song on YouTube.
I am going to make a Third Eagle Mix Tape. Anybody want one?
‘Don’t be dumb. Rapture comes. Trim your wick or face the gun.’
This is a nice little resource/essay that outputs typographic css for your web design.
“The mechanics of the em unit offer an excellent way to size child elements in relation to their parents. In fact, if every child element defines its sizing values in em, a chain reaction is set off. Each child becomes proportionally bound to its parent, which in turn is bound to its parent, all the way up to the root element, ancestor of all. In this way, the proportions of the whole document end up being defined in relation to a single, shared value: the font-size of the body.
Documents sized in this way enjoy a golden property, one that most web pages would do well to provide: proportional scaling. Should the user or designer change the base font-size, all the other elements on the page will resize accordingly, preserving their original proportion to the body. It will look as if the view has just been zoomed in or out. “
I tend to liberally pepper my writing with the humble endash (-) or emdash (–) to break up clauses and insert injunctions not worthy of parenthesis or new sentences. But I’m apparently behind the times. It seems the humble colon is the punctuation I need in these situations, it has many functions that I have failed to accommodate:
1. The lister: “The meal requires three ingredients: milk, eggs, and flour.”
2. The talker: “He shouted at the sky: ‘I’m retired!’”
3. The natural extension: “She saw him for what he was: a prodigy.”
4. The juxtaposer: “His face was red: the guests were staring.”
And now:
A new colon is on the march. For now let’s call it the “jumper colon”.
For grammarians, it’s a dependent clause + colon + just about anything, incorporating any and all elements of the other four colons, yet differing crucially in that its pre-colon segment is always a dependent clause.
I love this quote:
“To that end, rules be damned, a new punctuator has been born.
My plan for today:
Totally random thought:
Best meal ever:
That’s the jumper colon. Check out Twitter, Facebook, or Myspace and you’ll find one.
Last night: soooo crazy!
Punctuation can go viral. Syntax is a meme.”
It’s very rare that I ask personal questions here but: how’s your colon use going?
Al Mohler is a largely impressive figure. If you haven’t heard of him you should read his blog. You should also read this profile piece (H/T Gary). And especially, I think, these paragraphs about his approach to getting his opinions heard and engaging in the political sphere:
“Mohler is not so much an intellectual or theologian as he is an articulate controversialist, a popularizer and spokesman who has branded himself as one who speaks to and for evangelicals. His multimedia finesse makes Francis Schaeffer appear amateur. His books (one is titled He Is Not Silent, a nod to Schaeffer) rehearse familiar arguments about the importance of maintaining a biblical worldview, and offer little in the way of original analysis—though Mohler is capable of nuanced scholarship, such as the dissection of Barth in his dissertation. Ivory-tower discourse is simply not his primary calling.
Rather, his vocation is to redefine the notion of “culture warrior.” Mohler rejects the clich of infiltrating Washington to take dominion in Christ’s name. “I don’t invest a lot of hope in the political sphere,” he says. “I believe in Niebuhr’s analysis, and then some—evangelicals invest too much confidence in a political recovery that Scripture doesn’t prescribe.” Mohler prefers instead to offer a stream of commentary on a diverse range of subjects, provide the secular media with a consistent evangelical viewpoint, and give constituents talking points to defend the biblical worldview on any subject that might come their way—all while running a seminary and serving the SBC.”
If ever you’re writing a speech and want to include some jokes – here are some handy tips from the political realm that transfer nicely into any public speaking. It’s from an American context – but the rules still apply for making jokes and maintaining dignity.
Rule No. 1: First, the obvious: Be self-deprecating. “Humor is a powerful weapon,” says Jeff Nussbaum, a speechwriter who has worked for Al Gore and Joe Biden. “But to earn the right to wield it against others, you need to turn it against yourself first.”
Rule No. 2: Singe, don’t burn. The best jokes walk right up to the line—but don’t cross it. “You never want get an oooo out of the audience,” says Jeff Shesol, a former deputy speechwriter for Bill Clinton. “I can’t believe you just said that is pretty good, but oooo is different.” Gentle ribbing is good. At last year’s WHCD, Obama welcomed his audience of journalists. “Most of you covered me,” he said. “All of you voted for me.”
Rule No. 3: Use jokes as damage control… The damage control strategy can backfire. Al Gore often joked about his stiffness—”Al Gore is so stiff, racks buy their suits off him;” “Al Gore is so boring, his Secret Service code name is Al Gore”—until his speechwriters realized they were only reinforcing the image.
Rule No. 4: Delivery matters. John Kerry learned this the hard way in 2006, when he botched a joke in front of a group of students. He meant to say that if you don’t study hard, you’ll end up making dumb decisions like President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. Instead, he said that students who don’t perform well would get “stuck in I
If you’re not funny and you need to be, it’s ok to solicit material from a funny friend. Just don’t botch the delivery like Kerry did.
“The best political comedy speeches are a mix of punchlines, extended riffs, and set pieces. Punchlines are relatively easy. White House speechwriters usually solicit ideas from funny people around the West Wing—apparently David Axelrod is a comedic force—as well as TV writers and professional comedians. Clinton and Gore, for example, relied heavily on Al Franken and Jay Leno. Other times they’ll simply pay an outside writer to do it.”
“Writing jokes for politicians is different from writing for a late-night talk show. (Although sometimes the two overlap.) “For a politician, it’s not just about getting laughs,” says Eric Schnure, a speechwriter who has written for both Democrats and Republicans. “It’s about being liked.” Some humor is therefore off limits. No impersonations. No joking about loss of life. No cursing. It’s just not worth offending someone you have to work with the next day.”
This doesn’t necessarily apply across the board, but I think it can be applicable in preaching, though I don’t recommend ever aiming for lame jokes. And you should almost never pause expecting laughter. Wait for laughter, then pause.
“Luckily for speechwriters, the bar isn’t that high. Even the lamest jokes get laughs. “The weird thing about all these jokes is, none of them are funny,” says one Senate speechwriter. It’s more about seeing normally stentorian politicians crack wise. The mere fact of it is entertaining. As Attie puts it: “It’s humor in a suit.””
There are a couple more insights in the original article.
Some time this week I’ll be reigniting my conversation on this post about gay marriage, politics, ethics and the Christian, there are a few points in the discussion that I’m yet to address, I just need some clear head space.
But I like this quote from C.S Lewis on democracy in the meantime. It nicely articulate why I lean libtertarian on matters of government intervention in certain elements of our lives.
” I am a democrat [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man.
I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government.
The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation. . . .
The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.”
It’s from his chapter “Equality,” in the book Present Concerns, which I haven’t read. But I lifted it holus bolus from this post from Justin Taylor.