Two things – I love that one of the characters in this Public Service Announcement is called Fafa, which is what we call my maternal grandfather, and I love that this is a thing…
Oh. A third thing – iMovie on the iPhone/iPad makes rotating videos really easy. You just pinch and turn – so you don’t even have to hold your phone the right way.
As I am a lover of all things taxidermied, and a hater of all things “cat”… I do very much enjoy this. There are many ways to skin a cat, this is one good reason to do it…
Here’s a nice little image of it via BoingBoing…
Wow. What a semester. Luckily I’ve only got to do this three more times…
Sadly, my “break” is shaping up to be almost busier than the semester. Plenty of deadlines to meet. PR work to do. Sermons to preach. Coffee to roast (and make). Cafes to check out.
Hopefully we’ll get away somewhere for some days so if there are a few days of radio silence maintained here – that’s why.
In the meantime, I’ve got a backlog of things to post here that will hopefully keep you amused. No doubt I’ll find some semi-serious things to write about… In the mean time, here’s a cute photo of my baby girl – who is now just shy of half a year old.
I’m looking forward to spending some time with my girls in the next couple of weeks.
I don’t like boring people too much with college related stuff in these parts any more. I’d rather bore you by beating the same old drum and ranting about the ACL.
Anyway. I’ve been blogging my exam prep over at Venn Theology – first for Corinthians, then for Pentateuch. I’ll update the College Resources page here accordingly.
I’ve also uploaded my essays for this semester to Scribd – you can read them at the following locations:
1. Corinthians – In which I suggest that Paul’s view of preaching was heavily influenced by Cicero, a relatively novel argument.
2. Old Testament – In which I suggest that Biblical Theology is the key to understanding the odd mish mash of law and narrative in the Old Testament.
3. Church History – In which I suggest that though some suggest an almost bipolar understanding of Luther where a switch in his head flicks in 1525, he was consistently applying the same theology and ministry practice to changing circumstances throughout his life. And I get a little excited about Reformation propaganda.
I like to think that as I write these essays my implied reader is you, dear reader. So feel free to read these, or ignore them. I can’t promise that they’re entertaining, but putting them online fulfils my desire to be completely open and transparent about what I’m thinking – because full disclosure is the best PR policy – and hopefully means they serve some purpose other than just being lost on a hard drive somewhere like my essays from my first degree were.
They also all have pretty extensive bibliographies that I hope will save other QTC students some time in the future.
That is all.
Word ministry is preaching, but is also more than preaching.
Prompted by a friend, I read the first chapter of Phillip Jensen’s The Archer and the Arrow last night. I wouldn’t actually exist without Phillip Jensen, my parents met and married while attending his church, if his preaching wasn’t good back then, then one or both of them probably wouldn’t have stuck around.
The chapter deals with the necessary centrality of the word of God in the gathering of God’s people, and the centrality of preaching – not just in the pulpit, but in our relationships with one another – where we are to “declare” God’s word to one another. The word rightly occupies the central place in Christian life, and communication. That said, it pushed what I think is a pretty unhelpful modern category, with the idea that the “word of God” necessarily requires “preaching” in order to be central. There are more types of “word ministry” than “preaching” as the Archer and the Arrow defines it.
I’m not going to argue that the act of preaching, thus defined, has no place in the church – it clearly does. Just about every narrative in the Bible that involves people being taught what God thinks, involves preaching: from Joseph (I can’t, off the top of my head, think of anything that looks like preaching coming from Abraham?), to Moses to the kings and prophets, through to the New Testament with John the Baptist, Jesus, the disciples, and then Paul. What I would argue is that to suggest that preaching is the only form of “word ministry” as this quote that ends the opening chapter of the The Archer and the Arrow does, misses some of the richness of the way the word of God is taught in the Old Testament, and arguably in the New (I think Paul’s sufferings for the gospel form part of his presentation of the gospel – but you’ll have to wait for me to post my Corinthians essay to get that argument in full).
If God guaranteed you that he would visit your church this Sunday, and bring a message to the congregation, direct from his own lips, speaking his life-changing truth to the spiritual needs of all, would you think about cutting one or two songs, and giving God some extra time? Would you ask the drama team to postpone their 20-minute re-enactment of the Prodigal Son? Would you feel the need, if you were the minister, to put aside some time after God had spoken to tell some stories that made the divine message a bit more real and relevant to the people?… The truth is, of course, that God is with us whenever we gather, and he speaks his very words to us, Whenever we open God’s Scriptures and read his words, he is with us and he speaks. And yet by our actions–by the way we run our meetings, and by the way we preach–we often demonstrate that we don’t really believe in the transforming power of his words.
This presents what I believe is an unhelpful, and unbiblical, definition of what “word ministry” is. Word ministry includes how we gather. How we run our meetings. How we relate to one another. I don’t want to jump the Francis of Assisi Shark and use the “preach the gospel, when necessary, use words” tripe trope. Preaching the gospel will necessarily involve words – but it is not limited to the use of words. We’re not created in a way that makes that an effective form of communication.
I’m reading up for an exam on Friday, and I found this cracker of an article from Gordon Wenham about the Pentateuch, which features an examination of the teaching function of the ritual laws. If one accepts this premise than we can no longer maintain the idea that the only way God’s word is taught in our gathering is from one specially trained dude speaking from the pulpit – and we shouldn’t be belittling other forms of word ministry in order to establish the supremacy of preaching – we should be making teaching the word the purpose of the whole service, not just 20 minutes tucked into a packed program. The songs, the drama, the way we meet, the way we speak, the physical space, the “liturgy”… everything we do together – and even everything we do alone, and outside the gathering, should be a proclamation of God’s word.
Anyway. Here’s the quote from Wenham that I liked:
“But not only is the Old Testament ritual law central to theological understanding of scripture; I also want to suggest it is a model of modern communication technique. For a long time Christians have imagined that communication between God and man is essentially verbal, merely a matter of words. God speaks to man through the prophets or through the Bible: man replies in prayer. We view communication with God as a sort of two-way radio. But God does not restrict himself to words, he uses ritual such as sacraments: ritual is more like colour TV than radio. Ideas are made visible… Educational psychologists tell us that we remember 10% of what we hear, 30% of what we see but 70% of what we do. Modern preachers put most of their effort into teaching by hearing, though 90% of what they say will be forgotten. Moses put his main effort into teaching through ritual, a wise move if he wanted the people to remember such fundamental truths, for ritual is a kind of doing and therefore sticks in the mind much better than words…But I believe we should go further: not simply act out the ceremonies of the Old Covenant, but in our post-literate age devise dramatic rites that teach the fundamental truths of the new covenant as effectively as the Pentateuch teaches those of the old. This will require imagination and sensitivity, but I think would be worth the effort.”
The visual examples the prophets use (eg Ezekiel cooking his food on poo and eating a scroll) are another example. We need to move past this stupid “word ministry = preaching” equation, as much as we need to dismiss the idea that preaching is an unnecessary part of word ministry.
That is all.
This morning Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen, Jim Wallace, and Bishop Julian Porteous were interviewed about Gay Marriage on Sunrise. It wasn’t a train wreck. For which we can all be thankful. Sunrise should stick to this balanced format rather than stoking the fires of controversy with stupid debates featuring people who are clearly intellectually outmatched. Having an informed presenter who is (though slightly misguided when it came to polygamy and the Bible) asking the right sort of questions is also helpful. And by the right sort of questions I mean questions that get to the heart of Christian objections, rather than questions intended to be confrontational and stupid.
The Catholic guy hits the nail on the head in the way Jim Wallace doesn’t. Peter Jensen completely agrees. They talk about Jesus. They talk about the Bible. They talk about marriage being a worthwhile institution. They do it in a much more coherent way than the host, and in a much more winsome way than Jim Wallace did earlier in the week, and than he does today.
They argue that this issue is simply an issue of definition, and redefining marriage.
I like Peter Jensen’s “God has a great deal of interest in what goes on in the community” response to the idea that marriage is a “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s argument.” And his distinction between respecting the law and being forced to take part in conducting gay marriages.
And they do a good job of suggesting that their arguments are natural law arguments. It would’ve been nice to see something about how following Jesus means transforming your views on sex and sexuality as part of the argument about protecting Christianity from having to teach positive things about homosexuality. But you can’t win them all. And this is simply a much better Christian showing than the disaster from this week.
I love that Andrew O’Keefe called out the number of form letters (rather than thought out letters), and vitriolic letters, they’re getting from ACL supporters. And Jim’s funny “no true Christian” response:
“We have people coming onto our website and posing as Christians and proving themselves not, usually by the language.”
Just like we have people going on TV and making stupid and ignorant comparisons to the Nazi regime.
I don’t understand the ACL’s objection to Sunrise openly being part of the campaign – surely they’re better off being open about their bias than pretending to be objective and favouring the cause.
I do like the tone in this interview – it’s much more productive than the debate format where people are yelling at each other and trying to score cheap points. But good on the two churchmen for showing how some winsome, Christ-centred, public engagement works.
While I’m on the subject – it would be remiss, and somewhat non even-handed of me not to gently rebuke this offering on the Sydney Anglican’s website this week. Andrew Cameron does a much better job of essentially presenting the “children” argument Jim Wallace used earlier this week in a winsome, engaging, and empathetic way. And its context is different to the Sunrise interview in that it’s on a denominational website, and for Christians, rather than a nationally televised program. But a good article would have been a better article for sharing with non-Christians if it started with the same argument used by Archbishop Jensen and Bishop Porteous. Christian objections to same sex marriage are ultimately based on Jesus’ affirmation of marriage and the created order, and subsequently Paul’s use of the same argument in Romans 1-2. If Jesus had overturned the created order in his ministry then the “love wins” debate would have merit, but he didn’t. He affirmed it. It’d be nice if more of our arguments started with the centrality of Jesus to Christian belief on social issues – it’d also do away with people who want to raise the eating of shellfish and tattoos as other issues that Leviticus forbids, as though we’re being selective.
I like these paragraphs from Andrew’s piece:
“What we’ve seen is a shift in our society’s ‘common objects of love’ – those matters a society gathers itself to defend, and which help to make it a society. What matters about marriage has shifted over the decades. Our society now loves the idea of love; it loves freedom of expression; it loves eradicating differences. It doesn’t love permanence; it’s ambivalent about children; it’s less convinced that biological parenthood is significant to children; it abhors any notion that each gender might offer something particular and different to the other, and to children. These changes-of-loves are what make it seem that marriage can be renegotiated.
In the middle of these changing loves, Christians can ask helpful questions (there’s not much point being polemical when so little thought has been given to the nature of marriage). We can ask our neighbours: ‘Are you sure that you are not missing something? Do you really want to abandon those older loves? Will that actually help us as a community?’.”
I probably should make it clearer, lest people have questions, that I completely agree with both Peter Jensen and Andrew Cameron – that marriage between a man and a woman is good for society, and better for children, because it matches God’s intention. What I think we need to figure out is how we continue to present that in a way that affirms that Jesus is better for people than marriage (which might mean not getting married in certain cases), and protects our ability to keep saying that once the legislative horse bolts. I think basing the argument on Jesus, the created order, and questioning why it is that we think sexuality is the defining characteristic of human identity is a better way than encouraging our supporters to spam media outlets and politicians, and then comparing them to the Nazis when they disagree with us.
I have been known, upon occasion, to appeal to my journalism degree to justify my bad writing when someone calls me out on it.
Dilbert called me out on this a couple of days ago.
The ACL’s Jim Wallace was on Sunrise this morning.
Here’s what he says.
He breaks Godwin’s law about 1:51 in. Woohoo.
“The issue is that marriage is about children”
It’s so shrill and angry.
Here’s what Queensland Director Wendy Francis said afterwards.
Which is, quite frankly, illogical given that her national director just spent 8 minutes on national television where the rights of children were his only argument. And it has been their consistently reported position on the issue since day dot.
That’s their problem with the gay marriage debate. Here’s mine.
It’s not about Jesus.
This is especially the problem because in just about everybody’s eyes – as demonstrated in the video above – the gay marriage debate is conservative Christians vs everybody else (though Kochie acknowledges that Muslims and Jews don’t like gay marriage either). And the representatives of conservative Christianity in Australia, the ACL, don’t want to talk about Jesus. On national television. They want to talk about motherhood and fatherhood. Two good things. But secondary.
The gay marriage debate is primarily about identity. Nobody is questioning why sexuality should be the locus of human identity. If the premise is true – and it’s not – then the case for gay marriage being a human right is a lay down misere.
Talking about our human identity coming several steps in the process before sexual attraction (or orientation) and sexual identity (gay/lesbian/straight/bi/a) means we can coherently talk about our real identity being found in being created in God’s image, for a purpose, and being able to find a true expression of humanity in Jesus.
Knowing Jesus is the basis of a person discovering, and living out, the purpose they were created for. People are free to reject that, and should be free to choose their own identity outside of social pressure, and even the biological/environmental factors that shape sexual orientation. This argument is harder to win, but it’s ultimately more convincing and more faithful than throwing one’s hands in the air and screaming “won’t somebody think of the children”…
I’d like my children to grow up in a world where their identity isn’t chosen for them based on who they’re attracted to – which isn’t a choice they’ll necessarily get to make anyway – I want them to be free to choose to identify and find their value in serving the Lord Jesus. This is my problem with the ACL, and the gay marriage debate.
From a policy point of view, I think I’ve said this before, but Michael Bird said it heaps better, why don’t we lobby for the state to get out of defining marriage altogether. Let people call their registered relationships whatever they want.
I just finished an essay about Luther’s life, with a particular emphasis on his use of the 16th century’s equivalent of social media – the propaganda pamphlet. It was fun. I read a couple of biographies (including this one). He was a pretty cool guy. Here’s some stuff I think is worth sharing.
On Typography
“I cannot say how sorry and disgusted I am with the printing. I wish I had sent nothing in German, because they print it so poorly, carelessly, and confusedly, to say nothing of bad types and paper. John the printer is always the same old Johnny. Please do not let him print any of my German Homilies, but return them for me to send elsewhere. What is the use of my working so hard if the errors in the printed books give occasion to other publishers to make them still worse ? I would not sin so against the gospels and epistles ; better let them remain hidden than bring them out in such form. Therefore I send you nothing now, although I have a good deal of manuscript ready. I shall forward no more until I learn that these sordid mercenaries care less for their profits than for the public. Such printers seem to think : “It is enough for me to get the money; let the readers lookout for the matter.”
On the Toilet
One of Luther’s biographers says:
“It is strange, and yet certain, that this revelation (justification by faith alone) was vouchsafed to him in the privy of the Black Cloister, situated in the little tower overlooking the town walls… It is simpler, however, to recollect only that Luther was a busy man, with little leisure for private meditation, and that the rule enjoined spiritual reflection at these times. In telling the story of the monk who prayed while sitting on the stool, and had a controversy with the devil about the propriety of so doing, Luther probably referred to his own practice. It must naturally have seemed odd to him at the time, however, that such a revelation should come on such an occasion…”
On the Pope’s Hat
Luther didn’t like the pope much. This is some guys relieving themselves in his hat.
On beards and being incognito
At one point, when the emperor declared him an outlaw, Luther was “kidnapped” by some friends and hidden in a castle. He grew a beard. When some bad stuff was going down in his home town he travelled back there as a spy, in disguise.
Later, when he was heading home after his castle exile ended, he went to a pub and had this conversation with two guys who rocked up while he was there. At least this is how he tells the story.
Luther – Good evening, friends. Draw nearer and have a drink to warm you up. I see you are Swiss ; from what part do you come and whither are you going ?
Kessler – We come from St. Gall, sir, and we are going to Wittenberg.
Luther – To Wittenberg ? Well, you will find good compatriots of yours there, the brothers Jerome and Augustine Schurf.
Kessler – We have letters to them. Can you tell us, sir, whether Luther is now at Wittenberg, or where he may be ?
Luther – I have authentic information that he is not at Wittenberg, but that he will soon return. But Philip Melanchthon is there to teach Greek, and Aurogallus to teach you Hebrew, both of which languages you should study if you wish to understand the Bible.
Kessler – Thank God that Luther will soon be back ; if God grant us life we will not rest until we see and hear that man. For it is on account of him that we are going there. We have heard that he wishes to overturn the priesthood and the mass, and as our parents have brought us up to be priests, we want to hear what he can tell us and on what authority he acts.
Luther – Where have you studied formerly ?
Kessler – At Basel.
Luther – How goes it as Basel? Is Erasmus there and what is he doing?
Kessler – Erasmus is there, sir, but what he does no man knows, for he keeps it a secret. (Aside to his companion as Luther takes a drink) I never knew a knight before who used so much Latin, nor one who understood Greek and Hebrew as this one seems to.
Luther – Friends, what do they think of Luther in Switzerland ?
Kessler – There are various opinions there, sir, as everywhere. Some cannot extol him enough, and thank God for having revealed truth and discovered error by him ; others, especially the clergy, condemn him as an intolerable heretic.
Luther – One might expect as much from the preachers
Spengler – (Raising book which he sees is a Hebrew Psalter) I would give a finger to understand this tongue.
Luther – You must work hard to learn it. I also am learning it, and practise some every day.
(It is getting dark. Host bustles up, lights more candles, stops before
table.)
Host – I overheard you, gentlemen, talking of Luther. Pity you were not all here two days ago ; he was here then at this table, sitting right there (points).
Spengler – If this cursed weather had not hindered us we should have been here then and should have seen him. Is it not a pity ?
Kessler – At least we ought to be thankful that we are in the same house that he was and at the very table where he sat. (Host laughs, goes toward door ; when out of sight of Luther turns and beckons Kessler, who rises anxiously thinking that he has done something amiss and goes to host.)
Host – (aside to Kessler) Now that I see that you really want to hear and see Luther, I may tell you that the man at your table is he.
Kessler – You’re just gulling me because you think I want to see Luther.
Host – No, it is positively he, but don’t let on that you know him. (Kessler returns to table, where Luther has begun to read again.)
Kessler – (whispering to his companion) The host tells me this man is Luther.
Spengler – What on earth? Perhaps he said “Hutten”; the two names sound alike, and he certainly looks more like a knight than a monk.
(Enter two merchants, who take off their cloaks. One of them lays
a book on the table.)
Luther – May I ask, friend, what you are reading ?
Merchant – Doctor Luther’s sermons, just out ; have you not seen them?
Luther – I shall soon, at any rate.
Host – Sit down, gentlemen, sit down ; it is supper-time now.
Luther – Come here, gentlemen ; I will stand treat. (The merchants sit down and supper is served.) These are bad times, gentlemen. I heard only recently of the princes and lords assembling at Nuremberg to settle the religious question and remedy the grievances of the German nation. What do they do ? Nothing but waste their time in tournaments and all kinds of wicked diversions. They ought to pray earnestly to God. Fine princes they are ! Let us hope that our children and posterity will be less poisoned by papal errors and more given to the truth than their parents, in whom error is so firmly implanted that it is hard to root out.
First Merchant – I am a plain, blunt man, look you, who understand little of this business, but I say to myself, as far as I can see, Luther must be either an angel from heaven or a devil from hell. I would give ten gulden to have the chance to confess to him ; I believe he could give me good counsel for my conscience. (The merchants get up and go out to feed their horses.)
Host – (to students) You owe me nothing ; Luther has paid it all.
Kessler – Thank you, sir, shall I say Hutten ?
Luther – No, I am not he ; (to host) I am made a noble to-night, for these Switzers take me for Ulrich von Hutten.
Host – You are not Hutten, but Martin Luther.
Luther – (laughing) They think I am Hutten ; you that I am Luther; soon I’ll be Prester John. (Raising his glass) Friends, I drink your health (putting down his glass), but wait a moment; host, bring us a measure of wine ; the beer is not so good for me, as I am more accustomed to wine. (They drink.)
Luther – (rising to say good-night and offering them his hand) When you get to Wittenberg, remember me to Jerome Schurf.
Kessler – Whom shall we remember, sir ?
Luther – Say only that he that will soon come sends his greetings.
(Exit.)
Facebook is a bit of a minefield for marketing/communication people to navigate at the best of times. It can be incredibly useful, and plenty of businesses swear by it, but it can also be an incredible waste of time. Especially because Facebook keep changing the game. And they keep finding all the really effective ways people are using the platform to boost their business without paying – and killing them.
I’ve got a few marketing clients who use Facebook, I use Facebook advertising to help out with my sister-in-law’s bridal make-up and children’s theatre companies, and I use Facebook to promote Stir, a Christian event in Brisbane, and think about how we use Facebook as a church. Incidentally – it appears Facebook is currently doing a survey where they’re giving out $25 in advertising credit.
I know heaps of sole trader small business/creative/entrepreneurial types who use Facebook as the sole means of promoting their business and finding clients. While these friends of mine have chosen Facebook because they don’t want to spend on advertising – I don’t think this change represents a hurdle for these types of business. This model, resisting advertising, relies on creating good products, and putting these creations on Facebook in a way that encourages sharing. It’s word of mouth stuff. That just takes strategy, encouraging people/customers to share your business with their friends, and putting up posts that people are more likely to interact with and share. That business model isn’t really going to be threatened by this change unless a huge number of people start paying to have their posts shared in a way that clogs up all of their friends’ news feeds.
In the last couple of days Facebook has rolled out a new revenue raiser. The “promote post” option – not just for pages, but for individuals. You can pay to make sure every one of your friends sees your latest update. I assume the cost is figured out by how many of your friends are regularly interacting with your posts, and how many friends you have might also be a factor.
This is potentially a game changer – both positively and negatively. Here’s some reasons why.
First of all – Facebook is now a public company, it has to make money for its shareholders, it has to produce revenue to pay its costs, and people don’t really love anything Facebook does to make money, because for some reason we think it’s free.
There’s an old saying, If you’re not paying for Facebook, you’re the product, not the customer. It’s trite, but true.
Second, the real strength of Facebook, for companies, and particularly for churches, is the platform it provides to communicate to people who have opted in by liking your gear – ads that convert to likes are ultimately more valuable in the long term, than ads that convert to one off sales, or event attendance.
Third, in my experience, advertising is good at securing likes. But, unless you’re serving up ads to your fan base, rather than to your targeted audience, it’s likely that you’re paying about $0.80 for a like that goes nowhere. The chance to send a guaranteed post to the newsfeeds of 800 people for five British pounds is, in my mind, better than the return on investment where you pay $20 for 25 likes. But used together, there’s a good chance to turn likes into something a bit more ongoing.
Fourth, until this change – there was no guarantee that what you post on Facebook gets into your friends’/followers’ news feeds. Facebook is clever. It knows you won’t come back if all you see is 13 photos of cats from your aunt’s crazy friend who you accepted because you know how fragile her delicate ego is and you didn’t want to push her over the edge. It also knows you don’t want to be constantly spammed by businesses you don’t really value, who somehow tricked you into hitting like. Facebook works out what you want to see using a clever algorithm called Edgerank. What they’ve told the world is that edgerank figures out your relationship to all the elements that can possibly appear in your news feed using an algorithm that values how often you interact with the person/page, how many other people think their post is worth interacting with, and how recent the post is. If you’re a business (or person) and you have a bad social media strategy, where you post too much stuff that nobody cares about, pretty soon your stuff is pretty rarely going to hit the news feed and people will have to deliberately seek out your content. The stats on this are pretty appalling – most people like a Facebook page and never go back – which means they aren’t going to see your stuff very quickly, and any time and effort you’ve spent gathering a tribe of loyal followers is going down the drain.
This has implications for how you use Facebook if you’re interested in people seeing your stuff. Social media success, as far as the expensive social media consultants (or your cheap ones like me) are concerned, is about boosting interactions on your posts. This means posting stuff that encourages a response, posting really likeable stuff that people want to share, and trying to keep discussions going when they start. But that’s really hard, and takes time and effort, and there are plenty of businesses out there who have killed their edgerank by just not getting it (or knowing about it). So this promote post option offers a fresh start for businesses like that. It also gives businesses who do produce good content the opportunity to boost their edgerank – if what Facebook says about promoted posts is true (40% more interactions on promoted posts), then it is likely that the $5 hit, delivered a few times, will add value to your Facebook presence.
I’ll be using this option with a few of my clients, and factoring it in for a few of my content driven social marketing budgets. Because it takes a lot of the guess work out of using Facebook, and puts heaps more control back in the hands of page owners who have been dudded by the switch to Timeline (but that’s another story for another time).
I won’t be using it for my profile – partly because I don’t think it’s worth it, I have photos of a cute baby daughter to generate interactions. And the beauty of this is that once you’ve done it a few times, if you get a good response, you won’t have to keep doing it until Facebook inevitably reconfigures its EdgeRank algorithm.
Apparently, according to Fox News, all that is needed to link something good, with something bad, is the use of a common language.
Powerful ‘Flame’ cyberweapon tied to popular Angry Birds game
“The most sophisticated and powerful cyberweapon uncovered to date was written in the LUA computer language, cyber security experts tell Fox News — the same one used to make the incredibly popular Angry Birds game.”
And the image that they used with the story (in case you are smart enough not to click through)…
Fox News published this amazingly over the top, and downright idiotic headline and lede in English. Norwegian psycho Anders Breivik published his manifesto in English. Link established.
Seriously. This is horribad journalism. I know. It’s odd to be getting angry at Fox’s stupidity over a story like this, but it’s a dumb story that serves a much broader point about their credibility.
That is all.
Anti-sexploitation lobby group Collective Shout does some smart, and necessary work, opposing the degradation of society. They’re like the ACL, only without “Christian” in their name, so not as cringeworthy. And they’re more focused.
Collective Shout cares about such things as logos.
This is theirs.
This is the flag adopted by Greendale Community College in Community.
I can’t look at the Collective Shout logo without being influenced by Community. So I thought I’d be funny. And I dug up a YouTube clip and tweeted:
The marketing people behind @CollectiveShout need to watch this Community clip and rethink their logo: youtube.com/watch?v=Y6oez0…
— Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) May 31, 2012
I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting much in response. I was, after all, stirring the pot a little, and mostly just showing off pop culture chops… But I got one. And it was snappy, relevant, and put me right in my place. It was from a real person. They weren’t just toeing a party line.
@nm_campbell seen it mate. you might want to alert the Red Hot Chili Peppers too. Same problem.
— Collective Shout (@CollectiveShout) May 31, 2012
There were a couple more tweets exchanged following this – but I left way more impressed with Collective Shout than I planned to be, this, people, is how you use social media – they actually do a great job on the social media awareness/activism front, so it doesn’t surprise me that they’ve got someone behind the keyboard who is savvy and engaged enough to produce this sort of response to pseudo-criticism.
I’m writing an essay at the moment about Luther. This explains the relative paucity of posts this week, and other essays are to blame for the last two weeks’ relative absence.
I’m going to look at Luther’s approach to communication throughout his life. And in the process of my research I came across this pamphlet that Luther distributed during the Reformation. In 1545, in his Depiction of the Papacy…
Image Credit: Wikifiles
The Latin reads:
“The Pope speaks: Our sentences are to be feared, even if unjust. Response: Be damned! Behold, o furious race, our bared buttocks. Here, Pope, is my ‘belvedere'”
Confession: I have been a bad citizen of blogworld
A long time ago, in a virtual galaxy not so far from me, people used to comment on blogs as a blogging love language. I knew that, It was blog etiquette. Somehow that world passed me by. And I miss that.
Image Credit: Apparently there’s a conference called blog world. Who knew? (This guy)
I have commented much more sparingly than I used to. Others seem to have a similar blog comment malaise. I’m going to do my bit to hold up my end of the social (media) contract. And be more appreciative of the good content other people are writing that I’m thinking about.
Here are some links, rather than comments, as my first step towards rectifying this situation.
Andrew has pretty much killed Things Findo Thinks, replacing it with A Borrowed Flame. I liked this SLR camera simulator he found.
Anna at Goannatree has been writing about writing about writing. She’s posting about her PhD, which is about literature. Which is pretty meta. I enjoyed this post, which came hot on the heels of this one about a week of dissertation themed life in Scotland.
Al writes nice little posts, and I like them. His posts about Tim Chester’s posts about Social Media made me grumpy, not at him, at Tim Chester. So angry I commented on the first one. Also, his post about preaching at weddings is something I’m going to file away for the future.
Ali posted something last week about her near brush with a raving gunman in Sydney, and this week introduced me to The Tallest Man on Earth. She also tagged me in a book spine poetry meme which I will participate in once my books consist of something other than light reading on Corinthians and the Pentateuch.
Arthur and Tamie are getting ready to finish life in Melbourne, start life as parents, and start life in Tanzania. Their posts are fun. I liked this one.
Ben has a new theme. Which looks nice – though for some reason the first second after you load it the fonts are really effeminate, only to be replaced with the felt tip styled ones.
David posted a good little review of the 2 Ways 2 Live App, and a better post about marriage and stuff.
Izaac has been pondering preaching, I commented on two of those because I think the idea that word ministry is ONLY preaching is a bit spurious and doesn’t fit with the Bible’s picture of prophetic ministry, or the way Paul conceives of his teaching of the churches he cares for to include his life and sufferings.
Mikey posted about the search for black curtains, spiritually inspired cake, and excellence – following this discussion on Hans’ blog. Hans has an excellent post on Christianity and homosexuality too.
Steve at Communicate Jesus also reflects on the excellence thing.
Peter Ko posted on a strange issue (I thought). Apparently there are young Christians who think it’s a good idea for unmarried Christian couples to holiday together. Alone. And further, that it’s a bad idea for people to be “legalistic” about the issue. This isn’t legalism. This is wisdom. And thus, I became an old person.
Simone has been writing reports and musicals.
This isn’t a comprehensive list of the posts I’ve enjoyed from the blogs that I read, but I hope that in some way it makes amends for my poor online citizenship in recent times.
UPDATE: I completely forgot this one. Which was, indeed, the motivation behind providing a list to blogs I enjoy. Dave McDonald has started a blog tracking his fight with cancer, and the thoughts that go with it. This sensational letter to Sam Harris is a fine example of what he’s producing and why you should read it. Plus – it’s a great way to keep him, his family, and those around him, in your prayers.
June 9, 2012