Archive for October, 2008
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
With Obama in the lead in most national election polls, voters are putting their money where their votes are. Amazon has been tracking for the last several weeks the sales of Halloween masks of both Barack Obama and John McCain. Most polls give Obama a 5-10% greater number of voters, which is interestingly similar to the lead Obama holds in Halloween mask sales. I personally have not decided who I’m going to vote for, but I’m pretty sure that no matter which way I decide I would still prefer a McCain mask, simply ’cause it’s much more funny to wear a mask of an old person.
ht TechCrunch
Monday, October 20th, 2008
Note: For some reason, Bing searches for “Halloween Masks” are coming here. Instead, see this post: Halloween Mask Sales Reflect National Election Polls.
Twitter was abuzz a few days ago as a 14-year-old girl from South Carolina went missing. Oftentimes in the past Twitter has been used during a time of tragedy for communication about the situation, but this time things were different. Twitterers rapidly went to work getting the world out by “re-tweeting” the situation by saying something like:
“RT Twitter AMBER ALERT @genochurch‘s 14 yr old daughter is missing http://tinyurl.com/5yodvb – PLEASE RETWEET”
The words in this tweet quickly began to trend as (by my calculations) about 1200 people forwarded the message to all of their followers.
I’m not exactly sure how Kenzie, the girl, was found, and I’m not really sure Twitter was directly involved, but literally thousands of people were aware of the situation. Obviously in a situation like this, the more who are able to be alert the better. Of course something like this is awful, but I’m fascinated by the practicality of Twitter and similar services in a time of personal need.
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
Today is Blog Action Day, a day where more than 11,000 bloggers are coming together to post about the topic of poverty and issues of social justice. I’ve read several great posts on other blogs which have joined in on this project.
I decided that I would simply and quickly bring up the topic of love. I believe that love is at the core of global issues (even, in this case, poverty). If we as people would learn to love without expecting anything in return, the world would most certainly be changed. Loving people well is one of the most important things we can do. I pray that we would turn our gazes outward and look at other people with the goal of loving.
Now here’s the thing. I wanted to be a part of this fantastic event, and I have a great idea for a post topic other than the one I’ve chosen. In fact, I’ve been thinking about this particular topic, and I’m not sure a blog post is the best format to introduce it. I haven’t yet decided how I’m going to write it or in what format, but that will be announced soon. I’ll be working on it in the near future, but to keep you curious, I decided to announce the title of this project: “Social Justice is Dead”. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds; it should actually be really exciting. Keep on the lookout for it.
Also see 88 Ways to Take Action Against Poverty Right Now.
Friday, October 10th, 2008
Scot McKnight posted earlier today on his blog that his book, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, is now available to the public via Amazon and bookstores. Upon seeing this, I realized that I have not yet posted my review of his book, which I was supposed to have done before the book was released. I apologize to involved parties for this falling-short of mine, particularly in that I was careless and didn’t double-check the date of its release which I thought to be mid-November. Regardless, I wanted to give a mini-review today in celebration of its public release.
I want to first say that I highly recommend this book. I’ve got two main reasons for that which I’ll quickly explain: it’s a fun, easy read and it’s packed with valuable insights.
I must admit that I expected Scot to deliver when it came to the accessibility of the book, and he met my expectations well. I enjoyed the metaphor of the blue parakeet that was carried throughout the book (although I didn’t understand it completely at first, which was likely my fault). I also found Scot’s stories fun and relevant to the ideas he presented. Additionally, I found the layout and organization of the chapters to be very sensible and appropriate, something that I expected of Scot, as I enjoy his blog partly for reasons related to that.
More importantly, though, I truly felt that the ideas presented in The Blue Parakeet were important and insightful. One of my favorite things about Scot’s writings is that they are filled with great observations. I noticed that throughout this book: Scot observes well (in this case, how the Bible is traditionally read) and offers his and Scripture’s opinion on what should be done to better the status quo. His description of the Bible as story, something that must be listened to, and relational, while not completely new, was thorough and informative, and I found myself thinking about how I approach the Bible in my own life. I think that the “exciting ‘Third Way’” that was promoted on the back cover was thoroughly demonstrated in The Blue Parakeet, and I recommend this book to Bible-readers of all backgrounds.
Sunday, October 5th, 2008
Following on my last post, Publishing Companies Are Getting it Right, I wanted to make mention of an organization that I recently discovered that aims to connect musicians with fans in an innovative way. NoiseTrade, founded by Derek Webb and friends, offers a unique – although not entirely new – method of artist/fan interaction. With the NoiseTrade model, an interested listener can go NoiseTrade’s website and find two unique ways to attain new music: a fan can choose to send an annoying email about the album of interest to five friends or the fan can pay a price of their choice for the album.
I find both options interesting. I’m not entirely sure either option garners more money for the artist, but I would imagine the artist would get a larger cut of the sales. I find both options very interesting, though. The second option, what I like to call the Radiohead Model, seems to be gaining steam after Radiohead popularized the concept, and I’ve noticed a lot of artists giving out singles using the first model.
Regardless, I’m excited that services like this are emerging. I’ve got some complaints about the NoiseTrade service, but I’m so pleased with the concept as a whole that I won’t even discuss them here. My only other thought is that it kinda makes me feel dirty to get an entire album just for emailing five friends about it or after paying only $2. This makes me wonder a bit about American consumerism or selfishness or something, but that’s for another post. Check out NoiseTrade for now.
HT: Brody Harper