Saturday, July 15, 2006
Road Links 7.0
From Durango...
To Silverton...
By STEAM Engine...
In a special car...
On an amazing track...
With incredible scenery...A grand and glorious day in southwest Colorado.
Well, I might have thanked the jury first...
Congress convenes...
The problem with turning to the dark side...
Blame Bush, not signing Kyoto, genetic engineering, over fishing...it's over, we're all gonna die...or, it's just a cool freak of nature.
I'm off to Mesa Verde and Monument Valley...
Friday, July 14, 2006
Road Links 6.0
Things seen out the window while driving from Leadville to Durango, CO. Crying Shame the view wasn't any better
Though I can barely bring myself to read anything, here's a shot...Speaking of beauty...
Using your office to run for office, bad move when you have prosecutorial powers.
I wish I could laugh at this...
This would change my life...though I'll likely be dead before it hits market given current drug adoption procedures.
Realism must trump idealism politically - hence capitalism.
Seriously, get a life.
There's more, but I'm doing this today! LATER
Related Tags: beaity, politics, revelation, science, global warmingThursday, July 13, 2006
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Road Links 5.0
Today I am in Leadville, CO and if you are not jealous you ought to be...
See those mountains in the background? They are all around and beautiful. Anyway, this is what I am reading this morning...Well, that's one way to form a "consensus"...
In the cold vacuum of space, wouldn't a ballon explode?
Time's a wasting...
Evil genuis' everywhere plot world domination...
Genetic engineering gone terribly wrong -- This is what happens when rabbit DNA mixes with human...
And this is what happens when you attempt to use an exit as an entrance...
I believe the words "better tolerate" might be preferred over "prefer" in this instance...
More good stuff on denominations...
Wisconson survives...probabaly to drink heavily another day.
The amazing cynicism of the current liberal Christianity...
Question of the century...
I takes talent to write this bad...
Something I just do not need to know...
Related Tags: global warming, space, time waster, liberal Christianity, denominations, joke, humor, sarcasm
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
What Maturity Isn't
I have had a great deal of fortune in my life to meet some very important and influential peopple - leaders. I have met Russian cabinet members, Nobel prizes winnners, even a serving US President on a personal level. The most overwhelming impression I have had of all is that they are simply people.
We tend to think of leaders as better than ourselves and we tend to aspire to leadership as a way of bettering ourselves. I think this a mistake.
Think for a minute - leadership is a necessary role. Many people ging in the same direction requires organization and organization requires leadership, leadership is a role, not a value.
I have heard lots of leaders tell me they are no better than me and I think it ends up sounding like fasle humility and rather disingenuous. I hope I can get away with this and people will come to appreciate it because I am not really a leader.
The ability to lead is a gift, some people have it and some don't. Like all gifts, to be really useful it must be practiced and molded, honed and improved. But also like all gifts it is not something everyone can do, no matter how hard they practice and how much they study.
Most truly effective leaders long ago figured out that they weren't all that special, it's the wannabes that have the problem.
Wannabes do more than simply fail themselves, although they do do that. They fail all those that they have attempted to lead, and more importantly they fail the organization or the casue that they sought to lead. Wannbe leaders may be the most destructive force in the Church.
We long ago confused leadership with maturity in Christianity. Christian leaders must be mature Christians, no doubt, but mature Christians are not necessarily leaders.
There is about a book in the can of worms I have just opened, and I am on vacation and don't want to go there right now, call this post just planting a seed. But in here lies some of what I think is the most important lesson for Christian blogging right now, maybe Christianity, and certainly evangelicalism.
We need to learn how to be mature Christians while not being leaders.
Cross-posted at How To Be A Christian And Still Go To Church
Related Tags: church, leadership, blogging, maturity, Christian
We tend to think of leaders as better than ourselves and we tend to aspire to leadership as a way of bettering ourselves. I think this a mistake.
Think for a minute - leadership is a necessary role. Many people ging in the same direction requires organization and organization requires leadership, leadership is a role, not a value.
I have heard lots of leaders tell me they are no better than me and I think it ends up sounding like fasle humility and rather disingenuous. I hope I can get away with this and people will come to appreciate it because I am not really a leader.
The ability to lead is a gift, some people have it and some don't. Like all gifts, to be really useful it must be practiced and molded, honed and improved. But also like all gifts it is not something everyone can do, no matter how hard they practice and how much they study.
Most truly effective leaders long ago figured out that they weren't all that special, it's the wannabes that have the problem.
Wannabes do more than simply fail themselves, although they do do that. They fail all those that they have attempted to lead, and more importantly they fail the organization or the casue that they sought to lead. Wannbe leaders may be the most destructive force in the Church.
We long ago confused leadership with maturity in Christianity. Christian leaders must be mature Christians, no doubt, but mature Christians are not necessarily leaders.
There is about a book in the can of worms I have just opened, and I am on vacation and don't want to go there right now, call this post just planting a seed. But in here lies some of what I think is the most important lesson for Christian blogging right now, maybe Christianity, and certainly evangelicalism.
We need to learn how to be mature Christians while not being leaders.
Cross-posted at How To Be A Christian And Still Go To Church
Related Tags: church, leadership, blogging, maturity, Christian
Road Links 4.0
I'm leaving Denver Today...
This guy gets it...
Because its weird and it wastes time...
Fascinating, Captain...
And then they married and lived happily ever after...
Those aliens, they are just getting so advanced...
Continuing with Mark and the value of denominations...
Looking at marriage, but wondering about how this would work in our relationships with God. Alos wondering if it is not just too much attention to emotion altogether, not enough reason...
Good stuff to think about reasonably presented...
I wouldn't expect any better from Schuller, the problem is too many others have bought into this...
Another gross misunderstanding of happy...
Ain't nothing like the real thing baby.
Related Tags: marriage, relationship, sin, gospel, environment, physics, joke, humor
This guy gets it...
Because its weird and it wastes time...
Fascinating, Captain...
And then they married and lived happily ever after...
Those aliens, they are just getting so advanced...
Continuing with Mark and the value of denominations...
Looking at marriage, but wondering about how this would work in our relationships with God. Alos wondering if it is not just too much attention to emotion altogether, not enough reason...
Public confidence in the "constants" of nature may be at an all time low.I am not sure that the "public" has a clue what the constants of nature are. More importantly, there is more than hint of moral relativism in the search to upend these fundamental understandings of how things work. If they are not constant, it will not be long before the constancy of God is called into question...
Good stuff to think about reasonably presented...
I wouldn't expect any better from Schuller, the problem is too many others have bought into this...
Another gross misunderstanding of happy...
Ain't nothing like the real thing baby.
Related Tags: marriage, relationship, sin, gospel, environment, physics, joke, humor
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Following A Meme
Because I am on vacation and don;t want to work hard to write anything. Source: Thinklings.
1. A book that made you cry
The Death of Superman
2. A book that scared you
Almost any Swamp Thing
3. A book that made you laugh
The Water Method Man by John Irving.
4. A book that disgusted you
I refuse to answer on the grounds that someone might go looking for it.
5. A book you loved in elementary school
Any Batman
6. A book you loved in middle school
Any Batman
7. A book you loved in high school
Classical Comedy - Greek and Roman I had no idea the Three Stooges were that old.
8. A book you loved in college
Spectrometric Identification of Organic Compounds
9. A book that challenged your identity or your faith
Mere Christianity
10. A series that you love
Chronicles of Narnia or The Dirk Pitt Books
11. Your favorite horror book
Horror should be in the movies not books
12. Your favorite science-fiction book
Dune
13. Your favorite fantasy book
LOTR
14. Your favorite mystery book
You figure it out
15. Your favorite biography
The Last Lion
16. Your favorite coming-of-age book
The Teen Titans
17. Your favorite book not on this list
JLA
Related Tags: books, meme, favorites, vacation
1. A book that made you cry
The Death of Superman
2. A book that scared you
Almost any Swamp Thing
3. A book that made you laugh
The Water Method Man by John Irving.
4. A book that disgusted you
I refuse to answer on the grounds that someone might go looking for it.
5. A book you loved in elementary school
Any Batman
6. A book you loved in middle school
Any Batman
7. A book you loved in high school
Classical Comedy - Greek and Roman I had no idea the Three Stooges were that old.
8. A book you loved in college
Spectrometric Identification of Organic Compounds
9. A book that challenged your identity or your faith
Mere Christianity
10. A series that you love
Chronicles of Narnia or The Dirk Pitt Books
11. Your favorite horror book
Horror should be in the movies not books
12. Your favorite science-fiction book
Dune
13. Your favorite fantasy book
LOTR
14. Your favorite mystery book
You figure it out
15. Your favorite biography
The Last Lion
16. Your favorite coming-of-age book
The Teen Titans
17. Your favorite book not on this list
JLA
Related Tags: books, meme, favorites, vacation
Road Links 3.0
I'm still in Denver...
Why I am grateful I was not in La Crosse last week...
When I was a Christian student, I had none...
Today the statehouse, tomorrow the White House...
Boy, that's a weight off Hillary Clinton's shoulders...
NEATO!
Mark Roberts keeps giving the good stuff on denominations...
Too bad none of it comes back...
Absolutely the saddest thing I have read by a Christian in a very long time...
Life imitates television, in the case Reno 911...
Ouch (HT: SmartChristian)
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong...Francis Crick is NOT the "mind behind the genetic code", I think that distinction would belong to the Intelligent Designer. Crick is at best the discoverer and partial decoder.
Oh yeah, these work...
Tragedy... with much more tragedy to follow for the church.
Blue Suede Flippers?
Related Tags: abortion, science, mental health, denomination, joke, humor
Why I am grateful I was not in La Crosse last week...
When I was a Christian student, I had none...
Today the statehouse, tomorrow the White House...
Boy, that's a weight off Hillary Clinton's shoulders...
NEATO!
Mark Roberts keeps giving the good stuff on denominations...
Too bad none of it comes back...
Absolutely the saddest thing I have read by a Christian in a very long time...
Life imitates television, in the case Reno 911...
Ouch (HT: SmartChristian)
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong...Francis Crick is NOT the "mind behind the genetic code", I think that distinction would belong to the Intelligent Designer. Crick is at best the discoverer and partial decoder.
Oh yeah, these work...
Tragedy... with much more tragedy to follow for the church.
Blue Suede Flippers?
Related Tags: abortion, science, mental health, denomination, joke, humor
Monday, July 10, 2006
The Personal and The Impersonal...
I go to the same grocery store almost daily. The checkers there know me quite well, they're friends. We talk about vacations and kids and church, and whatever, just like friends. Yet everytime I check out they HAVE to ask me if I want help out to the car, and they KNOW I am going to refuse. If they don't ask me they get in trouble. This is an obvious cookie-cutter approach to friendly service.
I understand why they should ask customer they do not know, but why ask a customer like me? The answer is because marketing studies show that most people WANT an anaonymous, impersonal, but "friendly" shopping experience. Thus Wal-Mart can hire the retired to greet you at the door and people feel like searching through acres of stuff for a quart of oil is a good shopping experience.
Couldn't help but think about that when I ran into this piece in the NYTimes. It's about the Internet and using it to "niche".
But the most striking thing about this trend to me is it is as, or more, impersonal as the mass-marketing approach, it simply lacks the mass. When Ebay started one of the things I really enjoyed was dealing with certain vendors that I used regularly and knew - they became firends, we exchanged Chrstmas cards, etc. Not anymore - the less interaction, the better.
From a business perspective, the arguement is, of course, that personal interaction harms productivity, I understand that, what I cannot understand is why we as consumers desire the same impersonal approach. Why are we so isolated from others and wish to remain so?
The daily grocery store habit mentioned above developed for me when I was single and worked from home. That trip to the store was oftent he only social interaction I would have in a day - I relished it, I cherished it. Now it seems as if someone in the position I was in would avoid it.
What really set me to thinking about this was something I linked to yesterday from SmartChristian:
The point is the personal -- the one.
The problems with the mass marketing approach in church's have been well discussed at this point - the commodification of faith, the watering down of the gospel for the sake of the audience, the lack of personal accountability...need I go on? It seems we are now finding ways to continue this trend in the negative direction without even the challenge to get up on Sunday and trapse to the meeting barn.
But the gospel isn't about trends or markets, numbers or niches, it's about Jesus Christ - a person, and it is about each of us, again - a person. We fear the personal because it once you are on a personal level you can be genuinely and deeply influenced, perhaps even changed.
But then isn't change the point?
Related Tags: marketing, niche, internet, church, megachurch, gospel, change
I understand why they should ask customer they do not know, but why ask a customer like me? The answer is because marketing studies show that most people WANT an anaonymous, impersonal, but "friendly" shopping experience. Thus Wal-Mart can hire the retired to greet you at the door and people feel like searching through acres of stuff for a quart of oil is a good shopping experience.
Couldn't help but think about that when I ran into this piece in the NYTimes. It's about the Internet and using it to "niche".
The lengthening of the long tail means that old or minimally popular stuff ? like an old Slate article or a new album by an obscure Bolivian folk musician ? is becoming more valuable thanks to the falling costs of production, storage and distribution. Or as Mr. Anderson puts it on his blog, markets are "increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of 'hits' at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail"My first comment is this is old hat to astute bloggers (once again legacy media behind the curve) - one only need look at things like the new Townhall blog to figure that out.
But the most striking thing about this trend to me is it is as, or more, impersonal as the mass-marketing approach, it simply lacks the mass. When Ebay started one of the things I really enjoyed was dealing with certain vendors that I used regularly and knew - they became firends, we exchanged Chrstmas cards, etc. Not anymore - the less interaction, the better.
From a business perspective, the arguement is, of course, that personal interaction harms productivity, I understand that, what I cannot understand is why we as consumers desire the same impersonal approach. Why are we so isolated from others and wish to remain so?
The daily grocery store habit mentioned above developed for me when I was single and worked from home. That trip to the store was oftent he only social interaction I would have in a day - I relished it, I cherished it. Now it seems as if someone in the position I was in would avoid it.
What really set me to thinking about this was something I linked to yesterday from SmartChristian:
Mother Thresea followed Jesus? way of loving the one among the many. Yes there were many sick, hungry and dieing around Calcutta, yet her energy was concentrated on the one soul created in the image of God she was ministering and interacting with. The many did not distract her from the one. As her eyes penetrated a single soul, the rest of the world seemed to disappear.It has been said that the mega-church trend is following the "big box" marketing trend. I have no doubt whatsoever that as this niche form of internet marketing takes over retail, we are going to see the church try to imitate it, and in so doing they will once again entirely miss the point.
Help us God to love the ?one? so often lost and lonely among the ?crowds? of our modern society.
The point is the personal -- the one.
The problems with the mass marketing approach in church's have been well discussed at this point - the commodification of faith, the watering down of the gospel for the sake of the audience, the lack of personal accountability...need I go on? It seems we are now finding ways to continue this trend in the negative direction without even the challenge to get up on Sunday and trapse to the meeting barn.
But the gospel isn't about trends or markets, numbers or niches, it's about Jesus Christ - a person, and it is about each of us, again - a person. We fear the personal because it once you are on a personal level you can be genuinely and deeply influenced, perhaps even changed.
But then isn't change the point?
Related Tags: marketing, niche, internet, church, megachurch, gospel, change
Road Links 2.0
I Am In Denver...
And This Is What I Am Reading...
Where oh where is the fun in this?
This is nonsensical. Either the possessions of weapons in general is irreligious, or not, but singling out nuclear weapons is just dumb.
How inaccurate do you figure something this compact has to be.
The strictest air pollution control standards IN THE WORLD and it's not enough. In fact the air is cleaner by several orders of magnitude than it was a couple of decades ago - but then this woman would have nothing to do if she didn't complain. Maybe she could use the money to, you know, MOVE!
Speaking of needing a life. Tell me, how many steam trains are left operating in the US?
Advancing middle age - Lord knows I have personal anecdotal evidence.
Mark is right and it is why I am in there fighting. Speaking of which, a Catholic perspective.
Doctors work harder to keep themselves rare, and therefore precious, than any group I know. This column would only have meaning if written by other than a doctor.
It may be possible that some people are too dumb to live.
Related Tags: sex, nuclear weapons, air pollutionj, religion, PC(USA), medicine, joke, humor
And This Is What I Am Reading...
Where oh where is the fun in this?
This is nonsensical. Either the possessions of weapons in general is irreligious, or not, but singling out nuclear weapons is just dumb.
How inaccurate do you figure something this compact has to be.
The strictest air pollution control standards IN THE WORLD and it's not enough. In fact the air is cleaner by several orders of magnitude than it was a couple of decades ago - but then this woman would have nothing to do if she didn't complain. Maybe she could use the money to, you know, MOVE!
Speaking of needing a life. Tell me, how many steam trains are left operating in the US?
Advancing middle age - Lord knows I have personal anecdotal evidence.
Mark is right and it is why I am in there fighting. Speaking of which, a Catholic perspective.
Doctors work harder to keep themselves rare, and therefore precious, than any group I know. This column would only have meaning if written by other than a doctor.
It may be possible that some people are too dumb to live.
Related Tags: sex, nuclear weapons, air pollutionj, religion, PC(USA), medicine, joke, humor
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Road Links 1.0
I AM HERE IN UTAH...
And this is what I am reading...
Sometimes the Anglicans get it absolutely right.
New York, New York...a wonderful(?) town.
J Jonah Jameson moves to Brownsville. Only way to account for that headline.
Sunday Home Run! - AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ!
Jackie Chan as a boy.
Oh what a tangled web we weave - at least if our last name is Clinton.
And to think - I try to make a living legitimately, you know, without engaging in blasphemy.
Fantstic point Andy.
Just shake your head and be grateful you are not this stupid.
Another story about blogging.
Related Tags: travel, Anglicans, church, faith, sacred, Clinton, joke, humor
And this is what I am reading...Sometimes the Anglicans get it absolutely right.
New York, New York...a wonderful(?) town.
J Jonah Jameson moves to Brownsville. Only way to account for that headline.
Sunday Home Run! - AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ!
Jackie Chan as a boy.
Oh what a tangled web we weave - at least if our last name is Clinton.
And to think - I try to make a living legitimately, you know, without engaging in blasphemy.
Fantstic point Andy.
Just shake your head and be grateful you are not this stupid.
Another story about blogging.
Related Tags: travel, Anglicans, church, faith, sacred, Clinton, joke, humor
