Shameless plug department: YouthSpecialties recognizes e-vangelism.com
My website e-vangelism.com was included in the "links" section of today's YouthSpecialties newsletter. I've always though highly of YS, but now that they've mentioned my site in their newsletter, I'm even more impressed with them.
:: Andrew 14:17 + ::
...
:: Thursday, June 05, 2003 ::
A Friday Five of my own
With apologies to the original...
Name five things bloggers have called you this week:Arminian Older than she 48 "the blogging equivalent of Keanu Reeves" "Chicken Head!"
Divulge the identities of four of those bloggers:
Aw, do I have to include Gerald? *sigh* Oh, okay.
In no particular order, they are:Debi the (not much) Younger Derek (who actually listens to Neil Diamond -- and he's got the chutzpah to insult me?) Kevin Hendricks (who had to ask his wife's first-grade pupils for some suitable insults) Germaine Williams
Name three bloggers who did not insult you this week:Tim Bednar Jordon Cooper Richard Hall
Name two other bloggers who would love to have a gratuitous link to their site:Dean Peters (two gratuitous links in one) Dave Barry
Cite the one best insult you received on your blog this week:"I was up too late flipping the channels and watched the replay of the fight you merely read about. O'Reilly also told Franken to 'Shut up!' and Molly Ivins was there too, so it was actually three authors. Is all your research second hand? I've seen better confirmation of stories done by the New York Times!" Courtesy of Len Evans (Memo to Len: It's called Working the Angles, not Working the Angels.)
:: Andrew 07:34 + ::
...
Blogless colleague gets blogged @ Joho
I'm this close to sulking because my wonderful colleague, Jennifer Lynch, who comprises one-third of the UMR Web Divas (who actually are two divae and a devo [male diva]), was mentioned in a recent blog entry from David Weinberger. And Jennifer doesn't even have a blog! She and the other divas have been too busy keeping our university website running strong on open-source Typo3 content management system.
Actually, that's why Weinberger mentioned Jennifer. She was on a panel with him at OSCOM, the Open Source Content Management Conference held at the end of May at Harvard. (Yet another reason to almost sulk; she went to Boston while I stayed in Rolla.)
Anyway, it's cool to see the work of Jennifer Lynch, Michelle Heizer and Alex Heizer get big-time recognition -- not just at OSCOM but elsewhere.
:: Andrew 18:01 + ::
...
The 3rd Annual African Nigerian Email Conference
This is just hilarious! "Write better emails. Make more moneys." Link via Living Room, who found it here.
:: Andrew 08:03 + ::
...
Great moments in public relations: The Bimbo Awards
Spaeth Communications is a public relations firm that sends out a great, free monthly electronic newsletter called The Bimbo Awards. Each month, the newsletter "recognizes dumb public comments made during the year. The criterion for nomination is that the speaker causes the listener to believe exactly the opposite of what is said. The award is a reminder that repeating negative words only reinforces the negative message as well as misses the opportunity to convey the right message to the reader or listener." Why the name Bimbo Awards? To memorialize the words of Jessica ("I am not a bimbo") Hahn, whose tryst with televangelist Jim Bakker brought down the PTL empire back in the '80s. The newsletter's lesson for PR practitioners: If you're a bimbo, don't try to deny it publicly. No one will believe you.
This month's Bimbo Award nominees include:
"To apply the word ‘censorship’ to it is probably too strong,” said Tom Adams, California’s education official defending guidelines which resulted in stripping material from a wide variety of classics in an attempt to make comply with ‘social guidelines.’ As the breadth of the changes has become public, writers have been appalled at finding the Jewish content from Isaac Bashevis Singer’s work, making the Little Engine that Could female and rewriting a famous Chicano activist’s memoirs with the word ‘American’ instead of ‘gringo.’ Faced with mounting criticism, Adams added, “I would not go so far as to call it censorship.” (Does the word ‘censorship’ come to mind?)
Discovered using EPA security agents to do personal business, former Administrator Christine Todd Whitman replied, “I’ve never used them for personal errands.”
“This is not a sales pitch,” said the fax from WBA Medical Market Research asking a physician for an opportunity to ‘interview’ him about office products he might be interested in. The doctor sent it on to us with a note saying, “WBA must stand for ‘Worst Bimbo Award.’” (We agree.)
“This is not a squabble,” claimed Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) at the first meeting of the nine Democrats running for the Presidential nomination. (The problem: the ‘debate’ wasn’t anything but boring, and the self-proclaimed candidates’ comments – name calling and flag waving – were only designed to attract the TV cameras and be the chosen sound bite.)
And, from the "wrong thing to say" department:
Mike Price, now the former football coach for the University of Alabama, said he was “too drunk to know” whether he had sex with exotic dancers in a Florida hotel room but was quite sure he hadn’t brought alcoholic drinks for students. University President Robert Witt’s first response was that Price had not done anything illegal. (To make the story perfect, one of the dancer’s names was ‘Destiny.’)
Mike Tyson can’t stay out of the news. In a TV interview, he denied raping a woman in the early ‘90s, but said, “I really wish I did now. But now I really do want to rape her.” (Not surprisingly, Tyson’s advisors did not return phone calls.)
:: Andrew 07:56 + ::
...
:: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 ::
Southern Baptists endorse "utter servitude" of women
From Larknews, the evangelical's pale imitation of The Onion:
PHOENIX — Members of the Southern Baptist Convention voted during their annual convention this week to affirm the "utter and complete servitude of women to men, in all things domestic and spiritual, with no qualifications." The resolution marks the denomination's most dramatic position on an issue that has divided its ministers for years.
"We saw this coming, but it's still ugly," said Barry Nagusi, an opponent of the resolution. "My wife tried to speak during the discussion, but they shut off the mic and hissed until she sat down."
:: Andrew 07:43 + ::
...
Rushkoff: cracking the codes of Judaism
Some fascinating thoughts in author Douglas Rushkoff's June 2 blog post about "hacking into" Judaism. (The hacking section of his post is a tangent to his announcement that a website had pulled a radio interview with the author, for reasons not made clear in the post.) I find much of what Rushkoff says about Judaism to translate to other monotheistic religions (as well as other institutions -- education, government, media). He writes:
What are some of the Jewish codes, myths, and superstitions that need to be cracked for Judaism to thrive?
Well, by "crack the codes" I was really just playing off an extended comparison to the computer hacker mentality. Judaism is not set in stone - it is a process in which we must participate. But, in order to do so, we can't have any sacred cows. We have to know how Judaism works, how its texts are put together, and what it is we're supposed to *do* about it.
So, the sacred assumptions that need to be cracked are different for everyone. ...
Continuing, he riffs on the need for a more open-source theology in Judaism:
[W]e need to engage in interpretation of our texts, together. This means accepting that rabbis aren't more holy than regular people. They are not our priests, they are our teachers. They are not our parents, they are our partners. This is a scary thought to many people.
It's a scary thought to many people in the church as well.
:: Andrew 08:56 + ::
...
Say it ain't, Sosa!
Could this be the beginning of the Cubs' June swoon? Sammy Sosa's bat shatters during a routine grounder, and out pops a cork.
I was watching the Cardinals-Blue Jays game last night when the news broke. An astute viewer quickly emailed play-by-play announcers Joe Buck and Al Hraboski to suggest that Chris Kattan throw out the first pitch at Corky Romano Day at Wrigley Field. Clever.
:: Andrew 08:48 + ::
...
C.S. Lewis on likeness to Christ
Our imitation of God in this life -- that is, our willed imitation, as distinct from any likenesses which He has impressed upon our natures or our states -- must be an imitation of God Incarnate. Our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the divine life operating under human conditions.
... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Four Loves
From Christian Quotation of the Day
:: Andrew 08:14 + ::
...
:: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 ::
Online training for online evangelism
The Internet Evangelism Coalition, a consortium of various ministries, mainly parachurch organizations, has developed an online course for people interested in sharing their faith through the Internet. The course is a good start, and long overdue in my opinion, but has nothing to say about the merits of blogging as an outreach effort. Link via a wonderful little pseudoblog that should be updated more often.
:: Andrew 08:03 + ::
...
Fighting the mediocre fight
In response to my latest attempt to carve out a bigger niche in the world of writing, I've had two bloggers bringin' it: First, Kevin Hendricks called me a Chicken Head. But I think he did it just to get in a plug for his blog on my blog (and perhaps also for his webzine, ReALmagazine.com). Then, Jared Williams, whom I suspect is still bitter about my butchering his name several posts ago, called me the blogging equivalent of Keanu Reeves. Whoa.
But still, no name-calling from any established authors. Where are all the ideologues opposed to my radical views of cyberspace? Clifford Stoll, where art thou? Bring it on!
:: Andrew 14:49 + ::
...
Blogroll update
I keep discovering via technorati new blogs that are linking to me all the time, so I think it's only fair that I reciprocate. Ergo, the blogroll is updated to reflect these new entries, plus a few other blogs that aren't connected to this one -- yet. But my hope is those bloggers are also hopelessly addicted to technorati and will discover this link from my blog to theirs and will, of course, do the right thing and reciprocate. If not, then, I'll have to start a fight or something.
:: Andrew 08:17 + ::
...
:: Monday, June 02, 2003 ::
A brilliant book-marketing strategy
Get two ideological, egotistical authors together at a book forum, and let them yell at each other and call each other names.
Talking head/commentator/conservative Bill O'Reilly and alleged humorist Al Franken, an unabashed liberal, both have books coming out in September. So someone got the brilliant idea of getting the two ideologues together for a little book chat at Book-Expo America. It is, USA Today reports, an annual convention for booksellers and publishers where authors are not known for shouting insults at each other.
All that may change, however, after O'Reilly and Franken's verbal sparring Sunday. After Franken droned on for 35 minutes -- well beyond his 15-minute allotment -- he attempted to interrupt O'Reilly, which, as anyone who's ever watched "The O'Reilly Factor" knows, is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. O'Reilly shouted Franken down, then called him an idiot.
I wonder if I could sell more books by picking a fight with another author. Any takers? You want a piece of this? If so, leave a comment. Make it mean and nasty (but please, keep it clean; this is a family blog). Call me a name (but, again, please keep it clean). Get my dander up. I dare you.
:: Andrew 07:55 + ::
...
The new stylebooks are in! The new stylebooks are in!
Yes, it's a gala day (wav file) here in the UMR Public Relations Office. We've just received our new AP Stylebooks! The AP Stylebook is the journalist's Bible, the definitive word when it comes to the proper use of the language for U.S. newspapers (and a valuable reference for news release writers). This new version is sleeker than the 2000 model. Among the new entries (with explanatory notes, where applicable):
al-Qaida
bioterrorism
Saddam Use Saddam in second reference to Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
And, of course, the most important entry:
blog Internet jargon; if used, explain that it means Web log or Web journal.
Reading the new stylebook is going to be so much fun! But not as much fun as reading the old UPI Stylebook, which hasn't been updated since the early 1990s, I think. That's about the time UPI, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist as a wire service. But UPI had a much more entertaining way with words. For example, the old UPI Stylebook included this, my favorite, entry:
burro, burrow A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the ground. As a journalist, you are expected to know the difference.
:: Andrew 14:38 + ::
...
Simon Dawes, 
