Shelley’s recent post reminded me of the good ol’ [sterile] debate about the essence of a weblog, but — much as I agree with her (“Might as well ask, what is proper writing and hope to find a universal answer that will satisfy everyone”) — today I’m going to just link-comment-and-post.
So, first (or “second,” since Shelley was first), Micah pointed me to a story about cost-saving for college textbooks. Micah noticed it because of the rant he’s heard from me over and over about the opportunity for the Disseminary to function as a textbook depot, and (ideally) as a by-chapter textbook depot. We’re trying top scare up a grant to commission chapters for a hypothetical textbook (on any of a number of relevant topics) — the premise being that once a given collection of chapters has been assembled, we can also collect alternative chapters, so that an instructor could select the constituent elements of the textbook she’s using, even the order in which they appear, and call for print-on-demand copies if she so desires. If you have a generous backer, we’ll name the textbook after them.
Jeremy pointed me toward interesting-looking papers that I won’t have time to read, from a University of Canterbury (NZ) conference on technology.
Vergil Iliescu pointed me to an articulate apologia pro vita sua by Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia. As I read the Justice’s words, it seemed increasingly likely that the present stresses over sexuality in the church will not be resolved by new arguments, or even by new attention to arguments that presently have been relegated to the sidelines of the public strutting contest. Rather, I think that it will settle out based on people’s sense of with whom they would want to align themselves. Most of the facile arguments have already been drilled into our heads; most of the subtle arguments fail to command the kind of traction that could make someone change the direction of their thinking; but sooner or later, people will begin to say, “Aw, they can’t be that bad,” or “I just have to stick with this group no matter what.”
The vocational theologian in me regrets that, but the regular human being (supposing such a spirit to subsist in me at all) thinks that’s about par for the course.
I had a great talk with David Akins of the Toronto Globe and Mail this morning about the Lessig phenomenon. If I end up in print, I’ll impose on my friends in Accordion City to save a copy of the page for me.
Finally, for tonight, Jordon just put together a simple, effective, useful church website in a few minutes on a free hosting service. Now (a) be it granted that Jordon saying “ no knowledge of html needed” may be comparable to Ken Dryden saying “no knowledge of hockey needed,” and (b) I would set as an absolute first step the acquisition of a durable domain name for the church, so that you might be able to change providers without redirecting all over creation, but Jordon shows that the basics are indeed free, are indeed easy, and if you read the comments to my initial post, there’s just no reason on earth why a congregation shouldn’t have a website. Not having a church website is like locking the church doors, so that only members can get in.
Posted by AKMA at March 31, 2004 11:39 PM | TrackBack