I’m not keen on the concept of twittering in church (even with ministerial approval), but I do think it’s a brilliant marketing idea and the sort of thing that actually makes church active in this century. The key, of course, is that some of us go to church for some sort of peace and quiet, which might be disrupted by Mr. Type-e next to us:
If worship is about creating community, Twitter is an undeniably useful tool. The trick is to not let the chatter overshadow the need for quiet reflection that spirituality requires. At Westwinds, people can ask questions about the sermon that the pastors will answer later, or they can tweet in real time and hope another congregant offers insight. Some use Twitter as a note-taking tool. Often, it’s pastor-directed, with McDonald preaching while Voelz taps out, “In what way do you feel the spirit of God moving within you?” Discuss.
Again, I think twittering in church gets directly at the question of what the point of church is: Is it to spread the word of God? If so, then Twitter seems like it might help. Is it to hear (and interact) with a sermon? If so, Twitter might help. Is it a quiet spiritual experience? I’d forgo a tweeting church.
Your thoughts? Would you twitter? In fact, do you?
Let’s say you were a passenger on U.S. Airways flight 1549 that crash landed in the Hudson. Pretend for a moment. You were probably terrified. You probably thought you were going to die. You ended up in some very cold water after standing on the plane in the most surreal moment of your life.
Now you’ve received $5000 for your lost luggage, which seems generous for luggage (unless of course you had a suitcase full of expensive clothes). You were also refunded the price of your ticket. Now what exactly would it take to get you back on the plane? A year’s worth of upgrades? That’s pretty laughable. Why not splurge for a lifetime of upgrades, U.S. Airways?
God, here’s some evidence that I’m a snob, and will burn in hell. I don’t have perfect grammar, but I was reading Lily Ledbetter’s remarks, feeling quite teary already, thinking how this was such a divine piece of legislation, and then I stumbled on this:
MRS. LEDBETTER: Thank you. And thank you, Mrs. Obama.
I fell in love with those people campaigning with them. I have to tell you that. And that’s not on my prepared speech — (laughter) — but I have to tell you I love she and the President.
Lily, Lily! It’s “I love her.”
This is a semi-funny article from the LA Times on using scientific research to get a partner at a Christmas party. The highlights include:
1. stand near the drinks as you’ll look more attractive to drunk folks;
2. moving to Minneapolis where people are a bit chunkier (at least than folks in Southern California);
3. wear red to denote “readiness” (unless it’s a company party);
4. watch what you snack on because it reveals a lot:
Snacking on vegetables highlights your attractiveness and intelligence. Digging into chocolate cake shows off your fun-loving side. A 2000 study found that people considered a hypothetical chicken-sandwich-and-salad eater to be more intelligent and less likely to have cheated in college — but they still preferred to socialize with someone who ordered a burger and fries.
I like work-related dramas, so Jim rented The Dresden Files for me, which is basically a short-running series about a wizard who is a private investigator. And because I tend to be socially unaware of the sci-fi/fantasy world, I have a few questions for readers who are more familiar with TV than I am:
Is this the dumbest show ever? Again, my sci-fi/fantasy prejudice may be coming out here.
Is it in fact a copy of Magnum P.I. complete with a “bachelor” private investigator and an ancillary guy with a British accent who hangs around and gives out clues?
Why would you name a wizard Harry if you didn’t mean to make reference to Harry Potter?
Comments please. I’ve only seen two episodes, so I’m willing to be convinced it is not the dumbest show ever, but you’ll need to suggest a dumber show.
I’m not sure quite what’s with my funk and obsession about Generation X getting screwed, but it does seem like more folks are writing about it:
While there is considerable debate about how projected budget surpluses turned into record deficits, there is virtually no question that the U.S.’s recent reversal of fortune is unprecedented. During the prime earning years of Generation X, the deficit will likely soar beyond $3 trillion, increasing the pressure to reduce spending on social services for the elderly and raise taxes for everyone. According to The Wall Street Journal , by 2030, one of every five dollars of income-tax revenue will be sucked up by Medicare alone, while the cost of education continues to dramatically outpace inflation.
“On top of personal debt and a highly volatile job market, this is the first generation that’s going to have much higher expenses when it comes to caring for the elderly,” said the CEPR’s Ms. Boushey. “Also, there’s a drop in the fertility rate because this group is delaying childbearing, because now you need two incomes to sustain a household.” Another thing the future holds for Gen-X is a host of unknowns. “There are a lot of social experiments being conducted on this cohort,” said Ms. Boushey, “We don’t know how it’s going to play out in the long run.”
This seems just slightly unreasonable to me: You’re Scheduled to Work and Expected to Be Here. Right now. In Houston post-Ike. At a Walgreens with no useful stock. I wonder what’s going on.
I don’t know about you, but if I were Ed McMahon and about to default on a mortgage, and Donald Trump offered to buy my house and lease it back to me, I’d squeal in terror and run:
”I don’t know the man, but I grew up watching him on TV,” Trump said in an exclusive interview with The Times.
McMahon, 85, was facing foreclosure within two weeks on his Beverly Hills home of 18 years. The aging television icon, who was Johnny Carson’s sidekick for three decades, defaulted on $4.8 million in mortgage loans with Countrywide Financial Corp. He said in interviews that he was unable to work because of a neck injury that occurred about 18 months ago.
Run, Ed! Run! Move to the valleys with the rest of us riff-raff, and don’t let Donald own your soul! And, frankly, I think this may be God’s way of saying you can’t afford to live in Beverly Hills, and that’s okay.
And, I’m afraid this art is the best I can do for Donald Trump.
Beginning in May (and ending yesterday), I was sued as part of a SLAPP or Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation for more than three million dollars because of letters I wrote, phone calls I made, and emails I sent while acting as a volunteer member of a local non-profit board. Others were also sued. While it all seems a bit unreal to me and I’m not going to describe any of the details, SLAPPs are quite real, and you should be aware of them if you participate in public life in any fashion.
A SLAPP is a lawsuit that involves being sued for exercising the petition clause of the first amendment, which encourages citizens to talk to their government about issues that concern them and ask the government to redress wrongs. Individuals and groups have been sued for:
- writing a letter to the editor
- testifying at a public hearing
- reporting violations of law
- lobbying for legislation
- peacefully demonstrating
- or otherwise attempting to influence government action.
What’s the point of a SLAPP?
The point is to shut you up. The point of a SLAPP is to burden you with legal costs so that you are essentially too scared to talk for fear of bankruptcy. The point of a SLAPP is not to win in court (SLAPPS rarely win in court because they lack merit). The point of a SLAPP is to shift a political discussion from the public arena into the private arena of litigation.
What are the signs of a SLAPP?
SLAPPs have certain identifying characteristics, frequently including involvement of local issues often around real estate development, setting of public good against private rights (e.g., right to own or develop property), and nasty labels. Oh but they’re not limited to that. SLAPPs include public officials suing individuals (e.g., a police office who sues someone who complains about his conduct or a teacher suing parents who criticize her behavior).
Is there any hope?
Barely. Many states have laws that allow the lawsuit to be dismissed almost immediately by a judge providing the judge identifies it as a SLAPP. Fortunately I live in one of those states. Thank god.
What can you do?
1. Insure yourself Make sure that if you serve on a non-profit board that there is insurance to cover the board in the event you are sued individually for millions of dollars. I know it sounds ridiculous, but apparently it can happen to me. Lots of boards don’t have insurance because it’s a pain in the butt to figure out what you need. If you have a homeowner’s insurance policy, this should also include personal liability insurance.
2. Know SLAPPs You should also become familiar enough with SLAPPs that you can immediately identify them so you don’t get stuck trying to respond as if it’s tort. Fortunately, my dad was able to identify the lawsuit as a SLAPP, which saved an immense amount of time and shifted the discussion to first amendment rights rather than tort.
3. Be Proactive Yes, you should be proactive about how you participate. That means being careful and truthful about what you say. That means speaking truth to power.
Resources
First, begin with a study of this photo. I’m glad that guy in the middle isn’t my dad (or my husband for that matter). Hey, Mr. Stern and Grumpy! And then move to the left for Carmella Soprano (yes, I know she’s a fictional character) and her slightly heavier sidekick with a white visor (the better to see her child at visiting day from afar?). And then there’s crazy Ms. Two Hands in the Air, who apparently has gone a full 24 hours without seeing her child.
Apparently residential camp has changed as Baby Boomer parents have become more helicopter-like. At least that’s what these anecdotes suggest.
Exhibit A:
Mr. Picon, who owns several auto dealerships, remembered calling Mr. Kagan, the Bryn Mawr director, on Jaime’s very first day of camp back in 2001.
“I called the camp at 7 a.m. and Dan answered the phone,” Mr. Picon said. “He said, ‘Jaime’s fine. And are you going to call me every morning?’ “
Anticipating a lecture, Mr. Picon said, “I think I am.”
To which Mr. Kagan, himself the father of three daughters, warmly replied: “Well, do it at this time of day, it’s when I have some free time.”
If you don’t think your kid is going to be okay at a residential camp, don’t send him. Period. The camp director can’t say that because he needs your money.
Exhibit B:
Norman E. Friedman, a consultant who conducts training at 44 camps, said parents also take up valuable camp resources by breaking the rules they have tacitly agreed to.
“They’ll give their child two cellphones, so if they get caught with the first one, ‘Just give it up and you’ll have the second one to talk to me,’ “ he said. “That’s widespread, not isolated. I call it fading parental morality. What they’re doing is entering into delinquent behaviors with their children. And what kind of statement is that to a child?”
Well, it’s a statement that says, essentially, The Rules Don’t Apply To Us Because We’re Special. Nice.
Exhibit C:
Starting about seven years ago, camps tried to satiate parents’ need to know by uploading pictures of kids at play daily to password-protected Web sites, a one-way communication tool that seemed to respect the sleep-away tradition of maintaining distance. But such real-time glimpses often aggravate the problem, as the obsessed become obsessed with what they are seeing — or not seeing.
“I have parents calling and saying they saw their child in the background of a picture of other children and he didn’t look happy, or his face looked red, has he been putting on enough suntan lotion, or I haven’t seen my child and I have seen a lot of other children, is my child so depressed he doesn’t want to be in a picture,” said Jay Jacobs, who has run Timber Lake Camp in Shandaken, N.Y., since 1980.
I really shouldn’t read the New York Times.
I suppose it’s actually more lame to simply never increase the minimum wage, but an increase to $6.55/hr? Energy costs are up 25%, food costs are up 5% and the minimum wage is up $.70 an hour (12% of its pitiful $5.85/hr). That could be an entire $3.50 a day before taxes.
The new minimum is less than the inflation-adjusted 1997 level of $7.02, and far below the inflation-adjusted level of $10.06 from 40 years ago, according to a Labor Department inflation calculator.
Seriously. Lame.
Ooh, we’ve been linked to from CNN under From the Blogs.
Oh look! 
Oh, I’m not even sure I can summarize this story without weeping.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an award of one million dollars to a farmworker, Olivia Tamayo, whose supervisor raped her repeatedly, including at work and in her own home, and the employer’s (Harris Farms) solution to the rapes was to move her to an isolated location for easier access:
Tamayo’s ordeal, unfortunately, is not an isolated incident. The sexual harassment of female farmworkers has long been a dirty secret of migrant labor. Studies are sparse, but one by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 90% of female farmworkers in California surveyed in 1993 said sexual harassment was a serious problem. Vulnerable because of their poverty, their limited English skills and often their immigration status, these women are easy prey. Harassers sometimes threaten to report illegal immigrants or their relatives if victims do not remain silent, advocates say.
The article goes on to describe how women disguise themselves as men in the fields so as not to be victimized.
I thought I was having deja vu, but I really did read two completely different articles this week that made me facepalm.
In The Washington Post, we read the tragic stories of ordinary people who have had to begun scrimping and saving because of our floundering economy:
Gindraw-Parrott no longer buys brand-name products unless she’s at a warehouse store like Sam’s Club or BJ’s Wholesale Club. She’s even begun sending herself reminders on her BlackBerry so she doesn’t forget a case of water on sale at CVS or the twice-monthly sale on milk at Kroger.
…
Poli Marinova, a Bethesda marketing communications manager, said she has cut her grocery bills by almost 30 percent without switching to conventional foods. Instead, she skips “luxury items” like sushi and prepared sandwiches and soups. “We’re buying a lot less overall at Whole Foods. We used to buy juice, biscuits and baby food from there,” she said. “Now, we get a lot of that stuff at Costco or the Giant so we can afford to keep buying organic.”
Sorry honey, but if you are sending yourself reminders on your Blackberry to buy cases of bottled water, or still shopping at Whole Foods, you are not earning any sympathy from me.
A day later, I read in The Buffalo News more heartwrenching tales of deprivation:
“It’s a disgrace,” grumbled T.C. Crews, while pumping gas into his SUV at a Citgo gas station on Jefferson Avenue and East Ferry Street.
…
Steve Francoforte, a city worker from North Buffalo, said he expects his usual summer plans will have to change.
He said he will probably have to leave his Chevy Tahoe, which now costs $125 to fill, at home more and ride his more fuel-efficient motorcycle.
He also figures that he won’t take his 22-foot boat out on the water as often as he would like.
Call me insensitive, but stories like this belittle the true hardships that many people are dealing with right now. You know, the ones who drink tap water and don’t own SUV’s and boats.
Whaling is down. So you know what the whaling industry needed? An angle. And apparently that angle is that eating whale results in less carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere than eating other sorts of meat. That is one of the dumber arguments to be made for large scale whaling and rivals the wearing fur is green greenwashing.
Via Treehugger
I would like to file this under What the F***? but alas, we have no such tag.
Seems a supervisor at a “motivational coaching business” had some crazy ideas as to what exactly motivates people. He woke up one day and said “I know! Waterboarding!”
A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe.
In a lawsuit filed last month, former Prosper, Inc. salesman Chad Hudgens alleges his managers also allowed the supervisor to draw mustaches on employees’ faces, take away their chairs and beat on their desks with a wooden paddle “because it resulted in increased revenues for the company.”
Regardless of whether or not Hudgens participated voluntarily in this exercise, as the company alleges, at some point in time, someone has to be the grownup here and say “Hey, wait a minute! This is stupid and harmful and I’m not going to participate in your shenanigans!”
In the latest installment of the New York Times hurl-worthy series, Sensible Portrayals of the Emotionally Bankrupt Parents (Part 1 Children Are Not Decor), here is Part 2: Never Too Young for That First Manicure. I’d say that’s just not true. And that photo would be a lovely place to start a discussion with your child about class.
It may be time to admit to the world that…drum roll….
1. Clowns scare me in a really deep primal way;
2. I loathe the Beach Boys and think they may be evidence of the decline of civilization.
So a Clown-Preacher named KoKoMo spreading the gospel would be enough for me to run from church screaming.
Yes, this is my Christmas gift: Kokomo the Clown-Preacher.
Steve Lopez of the LA Times surveys the merchants of Beverly Hills about their attitudes toward the economy: A strange trip into the land of $2500 sneakers.
One might expect more from the nation’s largest grower of fruits and vegetables than to have foreign (Nicaraguan) workers use a pesticide known to sterilize workers, but then one would be deeply disappointed in Dole. The take-away notion here is that U.S. companies can indeed be punished for being generally moral-free in other countries, but the financial penalty is not steep all things considered:
Overall, the workers were awarded $5.7 million from jurors who found that the Westlake Village-based corporation acted fraudulently when it sent workers into its Nicaraguan fields without warning them that the pesticide had sterilized California plant workers.
The pineapple. It is not so sweet.
You are too red for our own good.
Since 2004, the USDA and Department of Agriculture have allowed for meat gassed with carbon monoxide to be sold on shelves in supermarkets:
Treating packaged meat with CO extends its shelf-life by keeping it red long after it begins to spoil. In fact, gassed meat holds its color for upwards of one year, whereas CO-free packaged meat typically starts to turn after just 10 to 12 days on the shelf. It’s easy to see why the meat industry likes CO: Gassed meat could save retailers $1 billion annually in lost sales resulting from that finicky consumer aversion to browning meat.
Why would the government permit this practice? After all, the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act provides that a “food shall be deemed to be adulterated — if damage or inferiority has been concealed in any manner; or if any substance has been added thereto or mixed or packed therewith so as to — make it appear better or of greater value than it is.” This bar on concealing adulteration is what drove the USDA to ban the use of paprika in fresh meat products in 1969. CO injections are no different: Their sole purpose is to conceal inferiority and damage.
A few retailers have banned gassed meat including Whole Foods, Wegmans (CC!), Stop & Shop, and now Safeway.
You want to keep meat red? You keep it cold. That keeps it “fresh.” When you inject it with carbon monoxide, it looks “fresh” when it’s already spoiled as you can see in these photos of old spoiled yet still red meat. I hope other supermarkets follow the trend of refusing to sell gassed meat.
Read the whole story in the Topeka Capital Journal.