AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Corporate Hearts

Dave Rogers adds some useful comments in our conversation about corporate entities and their attributes. I see his point about ways that corporate entities differ from human individuals (though I wonder how individual we look to our mitochondria?). I don’t by any means want to assimilate corporate groups to the model of a single (rational) individual, and we individuals must resist corporate behavior that contravenes our sense of what’s coherent and liveable. Frank is headed in this direction too (in the same comments); he specifies corporate business entities, and I share his suspicion of businesses. When I talk about corporate groups, I’m thinking about any time people get together to pool their capacities (thus including unions, peace movements, and churches). It’s easy to think of examples in which people live less admirably under the influence of a lowest-common denominator group mind. I don’t want to make any blanket assumptions about group thinking or balance-sheet thinking, though; I want to observe carefully various ways in which groups reflect characteristics distinguishable from their constituent individuals. To that end, I will sometimes speak of the corporate entity as a person; that trope has signficant limitations, so I’ll need to deploy it more carefully than I have in the past.

And as Dave and Pem and Steve (does it seem to anyone else that now that hes a student, he blogs a lot more?) that “authority” isn’t a simple notion. There’s authority, and then there’s authority. This is a major interst of Margaret’s, and I want to consult her before I say much about it—but that’ll mean waiting till tomorrow.

Perils of Asynchronous Communication

Oh, dear! Last night I was blogging from Margaret’s iBook, so I didn’t check my mail. I casually dismissed Dave’s suggestion of “honor” for “hallow,” but then it turned out that my Mom mailed me the same suggestion by email (Sorry, Mom!).

My main hesitancy regarding “honor” involves the specially religious flavor of “hallow”—but I’ll give it more careful consideration since it’s not just Dave Rogers (whichever) suggesting it.

I was surprised by the number of people who wanted to talk about translations of the Lord’s Prayer. I hadn’t assumed it to be a topic of general interest. Just goes to show, I guess.

Principles and Social Life

Not only is the elusive Dave Rogers of Connect & Empower blogging again, but the persistent Dave Rogers of Time's Shadow has been blogging all along, and has some provocative reflections on authority, society, and principles.

He's very much onto something, but I want to disagree at a couple of points. I'm getting sleepy, though (bet you didn't guess), and I'll make my interventions short and, well, who knows how sour or sweet they'll turn out to be?

First, I do think that corporate entities amount to more than the sum of their parts, and that it's not (therefore) a bad practice to allow that a social group might have a heart, or a principle, even if wiser observers like Dave Rogers and Chris Locke insist that they don't (I didn't find quickly a link to Chris's claim that corporations don't have hearts, but he says it, and I'll link when I find it). And I'm comfortable using personal pronouns for them, even if Frank Paynter says I shouldn't.

Second, there's no getting away from "authority," though when authority is benign we tend not to think of it as "authority." When my dentist (that's her in the first picture from August 2001) strongly urges me to floss twice a day, I don't perceive her as authoritarian--I perceive her as concerned and helpful (that's as opposed to previous dentists I've had, who could seem authoritarian about suggesting that you not leave behind your wallet when you leave the office). Dave's caution about listening to authorities merits our attention, but then we also need to work harder on discerning to whom we should pay attention, and whom we should treat with extra suspicion.

There's probably a third thing, too, but I'm too sleepy. I don't suppose Dave disagrees with me here--just want to add my two cents. G'night.

Hollowed

Well, it took some provoking, but (Connect-&-Empower) Dave Rogers rose to the bait of an archaism in the conventional translations of the Lord's Prayer. Dave thinks that "hallowed" doesn't belong in a contemporary translation of the passage, and I'm inclined to agree with him.

It's actually beenbothering me for a while. The Greek word agiasthetw is one of those third-person imerative forms of a verb that means "to saanctify, to make holy." So Dave's right (in his comments) when he observes that substituting "honored" misses some of the force of the Greek verb. We honorWorld Series champions, but we don't hallow them, sanctify them, or otherwise render them the opposite of profane.

One of the problems the translator faces involves a modern Western cultural reticence about "holiness" in general. A whole variety of useful words related to worship and sanctity (words like "pious," "devout," "sanctity") have been siphoned into unsavory discourses that make them less suitable for colloquial use. "Pious" and "devout" can sound smug and prissy; "sanctity" has been so abused by unctuous politicians that one might be excused for wishing that nothing be sanctified again for a long, long time--especially not The American Family, the Flag, Tax Cuts for the Super-Wealthy, so on.

So while I agree with Dave that "hallowed" ought to go, I'm just not moresatisified with any particular alternative.

But while we're on the topic of translating from the Greek, today Dave Hedges asked what's with the difference between the conventional contemporary Lord's Prayer's "Save us from the time of trial" and the archaic "Lead us not into temptation." That's a tricky one, too. The main verb is a plain word for "to lead in," so that the older version captures that bit quite adequately. The contemporary version substitutes "Save," which seems unduly confusing to me; Jesus isn't talking about "saving" here in the sense of "saving lives" or "saving souls" as he does elsewhere; he's saying "Don't lead us into. . .". But what's with "time of trial" and "testing"?

The Greek word involved has historically been used for "testing," usually in a fairly neutral sense. At some point either because of New Testament usage or in close proximity to New Testament usage, it begins to show overtones of "testing" in a hostile sense (hence, "temptation"). The scene in the wilderness after Jesus' baptism can quite plausibly be rendered as the "testing" in the wilderness (rather than "temptation" in the wilderness), and doing so brings out nicely the echoes of Israel's experiences in the forty years of wilderness wandering. Eventually the Greek word has pretty clearly accommodated a hostile sense for "testing" as part of its range, though it still workss well for just plain testing (and I acknowledge that some poeple will look on any kind of testing as hostile). So contemporary translators judged it most likely that in the Lord's Prayer, the word refers to The Ultimate Test, the Day of Judgment, from which disciples asked to be rescued (not implausibly, since elsewhere Jesus instructs disciples to beware the presumably unpleasant manifestations of the Day of the Lord). Back in James I's day, though, the predominant opinion held that this petition simply went, "don't lure us into spiritual danger," something of an odd request to make of a God one is supposed to love and trust.

My friend Jeffrey Gibson has written a strong article about "testing" and how it turned into "tempting." He's pretty well convinced me, and I'm ready to begin saying "Do not lead us into testing." (Why can't we use contractions in church? Of all possible colloquial usages, contractions seem minimally improper, and they form a standard part of daily discourse. Who would ask a friend, "Do not lead me into the chocolate store" rather than "Don't lead me into the chocolate store"?)

I'm still working on "hallowed," though.

Maybe tomorrow I'll talk about the "Son of Man."

Five Words, First Word Sounds Like. . . .

Translation is the topic du jour, with Jonathon bringing it up (implicitly) relative to the Lord’s Prayer, and Naomi pointing out Davezilla’s Five-Word Bible Project (and kvetching about translations of liturgical texts).

Relative to Jonathon’s post, I noted that the Lord’s Prayer begins with three parallel Greek constructions that the usual English trannslations break into a one-plus-two pattern:

Hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done. . . .

One might represent the Greek [woodenly] by rendering these as:

Thy name be hallowed
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done. . . —or,

Be-hallowed your name
[Be-]Come your kingdom
Be done your will.

Of course, no one’s going to mess with the structure of the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer. Talk about a third rail!

These constructions, by the way, are third-person imperatives (in the passive voice). Third-person imperatives make intro students’ eyes roll back in their heads. “How are we supposed to translate that?” (Well, maybe you don’t worry about translating it; you just read it in Greek and enjoy it.) “That doesn’t mean anything! There’s no way to say that!” (Perhaps not directly, in English. . . .)

We then move into the creative phase of the class, where students try out their hypothetical translations. The official approach to translating third-person imperatives goes, “Let them plow. . .” or “Let her run. . . ” (or whatever), but that’s problematic both because few English-speakers actually talk that way and because it sounds permissive rather than imperative. A wonderful student of mine suggested, ’They better. . .” or “He (she, it) better. . .” as an effective colloquial rendering of third-person imperatives. “he better rake the yard,” or “They better not sponge off the church” do more ably catch the force of the imperative than “Let him rake,” or “Let them not sponge.” But do anticipate congregations willingly adopting the version that reads,

Your name better be hallowed
Your kingdom better come
Your will better be done. . . .

I don’t, either—but it would be a blast, and a better translation.

As for Davezilla’s Five-Word Bible project, I found the funny versions intensely funny, but a number of the summaries entirely missed the point (or contents) of the book itself. The OT actually fares much better than the NT (there must be a better take on Deuteronomy than, “Damn. Itís like ... Africa hot!”). The gospels, though, are way off kilter. Davezilla gives “Christ was one cute baby!” for John’s Gospel, when John doesn’t so much as mention Jesus’ childhood (that line would do better for Luke, I’d say). And Matthew, Mark and Luke might be more aptly assimilated to one another and differentiated from one another. Really, the Pauline epistles work moderately well, and the rest flounder (well, apart from James: ìShut up and do it!î).

Speaking of James, did anyone else hear Paula Poundstone this week on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me? When asked about the recent discovery of an ossuary that seems to have contained the bones of a James, the brother of Jesus, son of Joseph, she not only couldn’t identify whose bones had occupied the ossuary, but she expressed utter astonishment that Jesus might have had a brother. Since the NT refers to Jesus’ brothers at a number of places, I take it that Poundstone (whom I think is one of the funnier people on earth) just hadn’t read the NT much, or that she had simply accepted the Epiphanian view that the word that normally means “rothers” is here used to mean “cousins,” or the Hieronymian view that these are Joseph’s sons by an earlier marriage—though the note of amazement in her voice suggested that she really hadn’t ever heard that Jesus might have had sibs.

Sunday Miscellanea

Where’s Daypop? How will I know which uninteresting personality test memes I’m ignoring, wihtout Daypop to list them for me?

Margaret’s on her way home after a good visit with Nate. Last heard from around Erie, she’s comfortable and getting productive study time in while riding the train.

I stayed up most of last night working on a sermon that I knew to be unsuitable. (Okay, I took time out to play computer games, too, but that falls into the category of “trying to jar my brain out of a wrong-headed rut”). Woke up early this morning to put in more time on the sermon. Preached it three times at St. Luke’s and, after a satori moment about the intrinsic problem with the way I was casting the thematic structure of the thing, the preaching of it seems to have worked out okay.

I’ve been mostly brain dead all afternoon, but haven’t slept.

Heather took pity on the kids and me, and invited us over for a pasta party at ther place. Tripp and several others were there also, and the children stayed very late plaing a game while I sat like a vegetable at home.

Now, the vegetable goes to sleep, looking forward to seeing Margaret tomorrow.

Change of Address

Dear Readers,

The time has come, and I hope I won’t have to ask again in the near future. Would you please change your bookmarks,blogrolls, etc., to reflect my snazzy new domain name?

I’ll be posting from The Disseminary, an adventure in online resources for theological education. The main page isn’t ready yet, but I don’t know when it will be; we’ll have a more handsome placeholder page, at least, before Thanksgiving.

But my blog will be accessible at akma.disseminary.org. It’s still hosted at Seabury, for now, but this way we won’t need to change the address when I find a different host. Thanks for helping with the transition!

Best Fishes

A Happy b!rthday to b!x; I finally got Denise Howell onto my blogroll this week; I added Juliet Dodds to the University of Blogaria faculty list (I still want to scratch together a UBlog diploma, someday); and I corrected Alex Golub’s address to his new domain name. Good night!

Politics, Damned Politics, and War

Paul Wellstone was the kind of elected official who tempted Margaret and me to wish we believed that the electoiral-politics system actually had the potential to effect change in the USA. We know a staff member of his, though it seems that our friend must have been based in DC. We were anxious for a few hours, waiting to see who else was on Wellstone’s plane, but our friend was not.

Was Wellstone an “idiotarian”? Or more like this. . . ?

And Anil Dash has been targetted for hate mail since he dared question the tenor of discourse over at Little Green Footballs. We instant-messaged for a few minutes, and he manifestly welcomed positive wishes, even from someone who had never addressed him before.

It looks, however, as though the US will be driven into war on the basis of a collection of non sequiturs and untruths. Pippa willing (and that’s a big proviso), I’ll look for you all at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago tomorrow at noon.

Dental, Medical, and Transit News

My day has been fractured into a dozen or so task-defined particles. First, I took the kids to the dentist. They did well, considering how long it’s been since they last went. Pippa has two small cavities, Si none.

Midday mass, with laying on of hands and anointing for healing.

I went to Evanston-Northwestern Hospital to give blood this afternoon. I’m quite anxious about giving blood; I’ve fainted several times under other circumstances, but the ENH staff know this and talk me through it beautifully. One phlebotomist asked what I did for a living and, when she heard I taught Greek, asked about my other languages. “Well, my French is pretty good, German just barely adequate, and I had to learn Hebrew and Aramaic for grad school.” It turns out that one of the other phlebotomists knows Aramaic, is from the Middle East.

I’m using the big word “phlebotomists,” Frank, not to show off but because I don’t know which smaller word fits these personnel best. They aren’t nurses, I don’t think, nor are they doctors. They are technicians, I suppose, but that doesn’t sound just right for “someone who pokes a needle into my arm so blood can ooze out of it in a more-or-less controlled manner.” The more important part of their job is swathing me in ice bags, keeping me talking, pumping me full of cranberry juice, and distracting me from anything that’s happening near where my arm meets tubing.

So the Mid-eastern blood-drawer shows me some glyphs on a yellow pad. I’m thinking, “I squeaked through Aramaic more than a dozen years ago, and this afternoon I get a pop quiz while having blood drawn? That’s just not fair.” But I gathered my consciousness, looked at the pad, and saw nothing I could recognize.

She frowned. “Those are the first three letters: aleph, beth, gimel. . . .”

“Aaah,” I interjected, “I learned from typeset letters, not handwriting.”

“Well, how would you make the letters?” I drew an
א, ב, ג
for her, and she frowned again. “That’s not Aramaic, that’s Hebrew.”

“Oh, I see; the books I learned from wrote the Aramaic words with Hebrew characters.” (This is, by the way, the truth. My grasp of Aramaic vanished with the closing minutes of Prof. Orval Wintermute’s Dead Sea Scrolls class, but the whole time we were reading from a text printed with Hebrew characters.) By now, though, she’s frowning noticeably; I seem like a fake, even though noone asked me, “How would you do if I modern Aramaic-speaker wrote some stuff down in handwritten exemplars of a script you never learned?” I’d have been able to tell them that I’d flunk that particular exam. Instead, they ambushed me, and I looked even more foolish than usual.

Then in the evening, Margaret defies terror by taking Amtrak to Rochester, to visit Nate on Family Weekend. Nate’s just been through midterms week, a rude trial for a home-schooled kid who had never experienced anything like it before.

Cheese, Olives, Virgins, and Mice

In Early Church History class today, we covered Hippolytus of Rome’s Apostolic Tradition. This always piques the interests of Anglican students, who can readily recognize the influence that work had on the liturgical renewal movement of the 70’s and 80’s.

Much as the Apostolic Tradition’s influence has lasted, some of the most riveting features of the text involve matters no longer practiced in the church. For instance (and this always gets ’em, every year) the Tradition reads

[I]f someone makes an offering of cheese and olives, the bishop shall say, “Sanctify this coagulated milk, just as you also coagulate us in your love. Let this fruit not leave your sweetness, this olive which is a symbol of your abundance, which you made to flow from the tree, for life to those who hope in you.”

Students can't wait to get at that one. “Why are people offering cheese and olives? Was this hors d’oeuvres, finger food before the Mass?”

Likewise, they notice the instructions on professions (I'm mostly copying and pasting from the translation at Kevin P. Edgecomb’s website, to save typing):

If someone is a pimp who supports prostitutes, he shall cease or shall be rejected. If someone is a sculptor or a painter, let them be taught not to make idols. Either let them cease or let them be rejected. If someone is an actor or does shows in the theater, either he shall cease or he shall be rejected. If someone teaches children (worldly knowledge), it is good that he cease. But if he has no (other) trade, let him be permitted. charioteer, likewise, or one who takes part in the games, or one who goes to the games, he shall cease or he shall be rejected. If someone is a gladiator, or one who teaches those among the gladiators how to fight, or a hunter who is in the wild beast shows in the arena, or a public official who is concerned with gladiator shows, either he shall cease, or he shall be rejected. If someone is a priest of idols, or an attendant of idols, he shall cease or he shall be rejected. military man in authority must not execute men. If he is ordered, he must not carry it out. Nor must he take military oath. If he refuses, he shall be rejected. If someone is a military governor, or the ruler of a city who wears the purple, he shall cease or he shall be rejected. The catechumen or faithful who wants to become a soldier is to be rejected, for he has despised God. The prostitute, the wanton man, the one who castrates himself, or one who does that which may not be mentioned, are to be rejected, for they are impure. A magus shall not even be brought forward for consideration. An enchanter, or astrologer, or diviner, or interpreter of dreams, or a charlatan, or one who makes amulets, either they shall cease or they shall be rejected. If someone's concubine is a slave, as long as she has raised her children and has clung only to him, let her hear. Otherwise, she shall be rejected. The man who has a concubine must cease and take a wife according to the law. If he will not, he shall be rejected.

Gotta watch those characters who do what may not be mentioned.
Then students call attention to the rule about the ordination of virgins: “Hands are not laid on a virgin, for a decision alone makes her a virgin.” This associates virgins with confessors, those who have been tortured for their faith, and thus have earned priest-like honors: “If a confessor has been placed in chains for the Name of the Lord, hands are not laid upon him for the office of deacon or elder. He has the honor of the office of an elder through his confession.” Both virgins and confessors created problems for the early church, as they attained their status not by the church’s decision, but by some outside agency (the virgin’s resolve, the confessor’s arrest and torture).

And don’t you hate it when this happens? “All shall be careful so that no unbeliever tastes of the eucharist, nor a mouse or other animal, nor that any of it falls and is lost.” It’s getting late; we will not speculate concerning what other animals were getting at the consecrated elements.

Getting Sleepy

Must blog. . . .

The Dean told a joke during tonight’s sermon, a joke on a familiar theme in which a husband and wife are conversing. It occurred to me as I sat in the congregation with any number of gay/bi/ lesbian colleagues, students, and guests, that the “joke”—one of our most rigid literary genres, in certain ways—makes it necessary that the couple in the joke be straight, not gay. If one were to stipulate that the couple were gay, even indirectly, the way that a joke forces one to use an economy of information would require that the gayness of the couple be part of what’s supposed to be funny. A listener would be inclined to wonder why you told them the couple was gay, if you weren’t going to make that part of the joke.

So I was wondering how long it would be before you could tell a “couple” joke without tacitly reinforcing the perceived normality of heterosexual couples, the marginality of homosexual couples, and it occurred to me that this may be one of the reasons I don’t tell jokes much: the genre constraints make it harder to say what I want, on my terms. So although I incorporate humor in preaching, writing, teaching, and most every other aspect of life, I rarely tell jokes, more often narrating events or inflecting words to highlight peculiarities in the world.

That’s a lot to think about during a sermon, and by the time I noticed I’d been pondering instead of paying attention, the Dean was almost over. Sorry, Very Reverend Sir; I’ll pay closer attention next time.

Silence and Furious Joy

It’s been a hard year in Blogaria, and one of the hardest blows has been the news that Chris’s dear friend Rick Gleason died this afternoon, after having survived the twelve days since the Bali bombing.

When the world twists suddenly on us, when our hearts lurch and stammer, people often propose a moment of silence. That’s right; as I tried to say to Chris, it’s too easy to blather when you try to say anything meaningful about this deepest juncture.

I hope there will be due respectful silence for Rick (and Chris, and for Rick’s family). I hope that awe and grief stop trivial clichés, and allow silence to tell the truth about what’s going on.

But I also hope that the spirit of companionship that Chris’s loving commitment to Rick bespeaks will engender some furious memorial rejoicing, some thanksgiving for good things Rick meant to his friends, some conviviality that perpetuates the generosity of spirit of which Chris reminds the rest of us in blog after blog. I hope that the loyalty that Chris has been demonstrating for the last two weeks cuts loose now with some of the joy that keeps death’s power at bay. I hope that though friends move on, that friendship endures and thrives and through a web of one-or-two-degrees-of-separation wraps us together in a loyalty and friendship that beats cruelty and violence.

I hope that gentleness and affection win in our response to maddening loss, and that vicious brutality loses, it withers away and leaves kind souls to celebrate their friendship—in peace.

Peace be with you, Rick; peace be with you, Chris.

Another Busy Day

The Movable Type demo this morning went well; I wasn’t assuming that the ten-minute time slot I had allotted to me would suffice for the prupose, and was even more skeptical when the presenter before me ate up five of my minutes. But I had prepared illustrated handouts, screenshots and arrows and all, and I was lucky that the act before me had used PowerPoint. I plugged the laptop into our network, asked the operator to fire up Explorer, and walked the class through customizing the interface, posting, and commenting, all in about seven minutes—and I think it went fairly well (having hard copy in front of them, to take away, helped measurably). On the other hand, only one of the class has tried MT yet, so it’s hard to gauge how effective the demo was; I was below the anticipated glazed-eyes quotient, though.

Then I survived a small meeting on how to allot the funds left over from a large technology grant. There was less money than Id hoped (that’s the bad news) but the other committee members unconditionally backed my plan to bring in some snazzy spokespeople to kindle enthusiasm for technology (and to help Seabury assess the possible pitfalls of technology for leaders in parish ministry). Arranging that’ll be fun, even though part of it will wash over into my sabbatical leave.

Add in morning prayer, midday mass, evening prayer, rigging up Movable Type for the class that’s using it, my two-hour Biblical Theology seminar, time spent photocopying handouts for the MT demo and more handouts for Biblical Theology, some pastoral conversations, and a couple student appointments. Stagger home, have some frozen pizza with Pippa as Margaret goes to a meeting in the evening, and I’m pretty well worn out.

Introducing. . . Movable Type!

Spent the evening devising a tutorial for the students who now are tackling Movable Type for the first time. I can’t use more than a few milliseconds of class time, so I made a handout for ’em with screen shots and play-by-play. Now I have to go to sleep, print it out tomorrow morning, and explain it in class.

As I said when we first installed MT here at Seabury, a certain amount of the work comes in concealing the power of the system so as not to intimidate users. We’ve already had a few frightened users here, so I have to work extra hard to keep the beginners on board.

All I Survey

Well, it was going to happen sooner or later, but what a blast, to have a domain of my own in which to commit hyperlinked mayhem! It’s already effective, but I haven’t yet made sensible plans for the domain as a whole—so I won’t announce my new address for a bit. But you can imagine me bouncing up and down, typing my address into the location bar and watching my stuff come into view. Whoopee!

I’m Valid!

I followed Mark Pilgrim’s directions, edited my RSS templates as he suggested, and lo and behold! my feed validates. I have a long way to go before my online work is all accessible and valid, but it’s good to know that one thing works as it should. It’s not that long a journey, but it still begins with a single step.

[Update: the results are in, and here’s the button to prove my validity. . . ]

Why We Love Blogaria

It’s so easy to learn when we make mistakes.

We might, on the other hand, launch a scurrilous rebuttal, arguing that we shouldn’t be held accountable for what we said, only for what we meant. We might call names and fume and pout. We might enlist our allies (such affiliations don’t ascend to the plateau of “friendship”) to spill oil on the troubled waters.

Or, we can say, “Thanks for the clarification, Tutor. I’ll try to be get it right next time.”

Flashback

I was listening to some old-timey music (British rock from the 70’s and 80’s) when it occurred to me that the wheels have turned so that the music of the left’ outrage from Thatcherite Britain has become especially timely today:

They smiled so much and waved their flags
As she saluted to the military band
Most of the people failed to see
She had a broken bottle in the other hand
And she took them by surprise
When she took them by the throat
And said "My friend you're not allowed to vote"
But they shook it all off
With a nervous laugh and cough
"Next time," she said "I'll let those people choke"

The people who grinned themselves to death
Smiled so much they failed to take a breath
And even when their kids were starving
They all thought the queen was charming
-- The Housemartins, “the People Who Grinned Themselves to Death”

"Today, institutions fundamental to the British system of Government are under attack: the public schools, the house of Lords, the Church of England, the holy institution of Marriage, even our magnificent police force are no longer safe from those who would undermine our society, and it's about time we said 'enough is enough' and saw a return to the traditional British values of discipline, obedience, morality and freedom.
What we want is:

Freedom from the reds and the blacks and the criminals
Prostitutes, pansies and punks
Football hooligans, juvenile delinquents
Lesbians and left wing scum
Freedom from the niggers and the Pakis and the unions
Freedom from the Gipsies and the Jews
Freedom from leftwing layabouts and students
Freedom from the likes of you..."
-- Tom Robinson, “Power In The Darkness”

I'm speaking to the Justice League of America.
The U S of A,
Hey you, yes you in particular!
When it comes to the judgement day and you're standing at the gates with your weaponry,
You dead go down on one knee,
Clasp your hands in prayer and start quoting me,
'Cos we say...
Our father we've managed to contain the epidemic in one place, now,
Let's hope they shoot themselves instead of others,
Help to civilize the race now.
We've trapped the cause of the plague,
In the land of the free and the home of the brave.
If we listen quietly we can hear them shooting from grave to grave.
You ought to,

Melt the guns, melt the guns,
Melt the guns, and never more to fire them.

Melt the guns, melt the guns,
Melt the guns, and never more desire them.
-- XTC, “melt the Guns”

Help save the youth of America
Help save them from themselves
Help save the sun-tanned surfer boys
And the Californian girls. . . .

Listen to the voice of the soldier
Down in the killing zone
Talking about the cost of living
And the price of bringing him home

They're already shipping the body bags
Down by the Rio Grande
But you can fight for democracy at home
And not in some foreign land

And the fate of the great United States
Is entwined in the fate of us all
And the incident at Tschernobyl proves
The world we live in is very small

And the cities of Europe have burned before
And they may yet burn again
And if they do I hope you understand
That Washington will burn with them
Omaha will burn with them
Los Alamos will burn with them
-- Billy Bragg, “help Save the Youth of America”

The oldies still are goodies, even if these aren’t getting played on the ClearChannel nostalgia factory stations.

Last Word, I Hope

Here’s what I hope will be my last pontification about blogging and bribery.

I have read numerous times about the ways that corporations send complimentary products to big, fancy influence-peddlers. Was it the Grammys, or the Oscars, or both, when Apple gave iPods to all the nominees (as though Denzel Washington can’t afford an iPod)?

My persistent interest here is that we not romanticize and infantilize “smallness,” so that low-profile bloggers fall under a moral imperative to not accept any goodies from Microsoft or whomever, while such benefices remain an obvious perquisite of notoriety.

If Microsoft brightened some regular schmoes’ lives by flying them to Redmond, schmoozing them as though they were Big Stars, and giving them some freebies, then bless the regular folks who extracted more out of Microsoft than Blue Screens of Death and overpriced bloatware. And I repeat, dear Tutor: if Microsoft, or Apple, or Userland, or Perseus Press, or some other corporate entity or individual benefactor condescends to bestow on me a freebie, then I reserve the prerogative to accept it. (Explain to me the difference in principle between David Weinberger giving me a copy of his book, which I then reviewed favorably, and the Möbius bloggers noting exuberantly how kewl their new toys are.) (And I’m not apologizing for or giving away my copy of Small Pieces, Loosely Joined.) If you-all trust me less as a result, thats your prerogative, too.

The proof of the integrity is in the blogging.

We do no one favors by protecting the moral purity of the poor by denying them the wealth that brings with it the chance of corruption. We don’t uphold integrity when we deny bloggers the opportunity to demonstrate their probity by biting hands that have fed them.

More Money, More Blogging

In all my blogging about money and blogging, I neglected to note that it’s Halley who started the whole topic. She opened the possibility of product placements in blogs (she was mentioning Coke, but imagine what Jonathon Delacour ought to be able to get from Dishmatique). The problem with this for me is that although I defend bloggers’ prerogative to make money, I’m too scrupulous to accept money from any institution other than, say, Harvard University Press, publishers of fine works in many academic fields, especially the Loeb Classical Library, the finest series of classical publications since the Library of Alexandria. Harvard University Press, for all your academic-publication needs.

She mentioned in an email that Andrew Sullivan blogs about this (the feeling I get when linking to Andrew Sullivan: sullied).

Bribe-Blogging

I didn’t bother reading Mitch Ratcliffe’s interview with Netzeitung, because I doubted that Mitch and his interviewer used much of the vocabulary with which I’m most familiar: words like “covenant,” “form criticism,” “ “justification.” Mitch has posted the interview in English, now, and it clarifies the brouhaha helpfully.

St. Luke

Yesterday was the Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, patron saint of healers (doctors, surgeons), and I served at two masses. At the first, at midday here at Seabury, I participated in sacramental healing: anointing with holy oil and laying-on of hands. At the second (in the evening at our home parish, St. Luke’s Church), I celebrated the mass.

Healing ministry exhausts me in any circumstances, but at the end of a long week so distinctly marked by stress and medical concerns, I was utterly wiped out.

Then I wobbled down to St. Luke’s where I offered the mass with special intentions for Rick Gleason, for Fiona and for Turner Junior, for Misako and Margaret, and for all our friends in the care of physicians.

Distinctions, Inc.

Sheila Lennon and Tom Matrullo have both prodded me relative to blogarian ethics. I’m still manically busy working at the job that does pay me, but by way of quick summary and response.

Sheila says

I am typing in the newsroom of a mainstream major metro daily where no payola is allowed. None. I sometimes leave at night with giant bouquets sent to the society writer or the restaurant reviewer, reporters who are not allowed to keep them under our stringent rules.

Reviewers may keep the books, cds and software they review. They may not sell the overflow; these are offered in monthly "book grabs" open to the entire building. We are monkish about preserving not only our objectivity but avoiding the appearance of impropriety. It's why you can't get rich in journalism.

Tom says,

When I wrote a column about gadgets for a paper, co's like IBM used to send me pretty valuable items - without even an initial call from a PR person. Just flood the mail with stuff. The system seems to presume that bribery works.

I believe heartily that bribery works, and in my line of work I see constant examples of human frailty and corruptibility. These do not surprise me. (And I take Sheila’s allusion to reportorial “monkish” behavior in the very best sense.)

But there’s a significant difference between expecting paid reporters to decline gifts that would engender a confllict of interests, and expecting unpaid bloggers to decline gifts that actually cohere with their interests. (The Happy Tutor asked, the other day, if this isn’t what Gonzo Marketing is about?)

“Was it a millionaire who said ‘Imagine no possessions’?” I doubt that I’m writing to any millionaires—certainly not the reporters among us—but the Tutor’s relentless flogging of every pretension to purity and high-mindedness ought not anesthetize us to the truth behind the rod: that we’re scrambling around, trying to make ends meet, doing what we can with limited resources. If when I preached, I recommended Windows XP because Microsoft was sponsoring the sermon, I’d have a conflict of interests and would be justly reviled. If I blog favorably about Communications Inc. because they gave me a squeeze ball, a pen, and a can of mints, there’s no conflict of interests, only cheap commercialization of what readers will have thought a disinterested voice at the coffee table. That’s disappointing, but not venal—and one could certainly draw comparisons to those who curry favor and trade links in order to look bigger in the Blogging Ecosystem, or who parlay Google buzzwords into high hit counts.

To work. . . .

Ouch-snore. . . .

Its217;s been a long day. Sheila Lennon, Tom, Trevor, and probably several other people contributed to the blogging-ethics conversation. I’m to respond tonight, but it’s important (so far as I can tell) to note that the heart of the issue isn’t, “Would you pay Halley to blog?” but rather is closer to, “Is there something intrinsically problematic in anyone giving a blogger cash or goodies?” I chipped in for Mark Wood’s computer; if he ever links to me, should he add a disclaimer?

If Mike Golby wants to blog, and his friend in the Nigerian banking system wants to pay him to blog, so be it. I may like his blog more, or less, or about the same. And if he starts waxing euphoric about the Nigerian stock market, I’ll just tune him out.

I can’t see what separates blogging from other fields of human endeavor, in which payment is not only permitted, but expected. But maybe I’d see the point better if my eyes weren't three-quarters closed.

Power, Corruption, and Blogs

The denizens of Blogaria are in an uproar about whether the blogger deserves her wages. Doc surveys the goings-on and approves the sudden widespread interest in the ethics of blogging. Dorothea and Mark speak in defense of principled amateurism; Shelley speaks as a consummate professional; Steve happily pursues commercial non-viability, David takes a solemn oath of unprofessional conduct, Mitch added several insightful retrospections, and mountains of us in many different communities are struggling to parse the dos and don’ts in some ethically-intelligible way.

It’s easy to say there’s something dubious about a gazillionaire corporation buying off bloggers for a weekend’s mess of pottage. That, most of us can denoucnce comfortably. But some puzzles persist in the more general discussion of blogging and bucks.

For instance: I preach the gospel week after week, arguably (at least within my particular ideological/theological community) a more important function than blogging—but I unashamedly accept money for preaching. And, again granting the premises of the whole operation, the people who pay me to preach have a tremendous stake in my capacity to compose a sermon uninfluenced by the temptation to curry favor with my employers (or “patrons,” if you prefer). I put a lot of effort into preaching, and I’m pretty good at it. Should I decline payment on principle?

If I’m about as good a blogger as I am a preacher, should I decline payment for the hours I put into composing blogs?

Here’s another conundrum for you: I teach to feed my family and, more importantly, to pay the broadband bill. But teaching (as the Epistle of James notes) carries a tremendous responsibility, since a teacher stands accountable both for her own follies and for the follies she transmits to her students. Is my pedagogical compass thrown off by my being paid? If so, does anyone know where I can submit my pedagogical compass to more effective distortion? I have a college tuition bill to pay.

Doc is an Official Journalist, as is Tom. David must be pretty nearly official, if not as unimpeachably official as others; certainly he appears in the Globe and in Darwin. Should professional journalists not blog (because they’re professionals), leaving the field clear for the unpaid bloggers? Doc gets paid to give talks; David and Chris get paid to give talks. Is David more enthusiastic about IBM because they sent him to China? Not so far as I’ve been able to tell.

Here’s another riddle: I happen to be nuts about Apple computers; have been for years. I’m probably more likely to say foolish, biased things in favor of Apple—without their having laid a cent on the table in front of me—than I would be to flatter someone who wanted me to shill for his new digital identity enterprise solution (I’m; not sure what an “enterprise solution” is, but it sounds like the kind of thing a Software Corp. would try to sell).

I do not agree with Dr. Johnson that “no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” Extraordinary writers pour their brilliant gifts into words for our delight and instruction all the time, without receiving a cent for their ardor. (Academic writing can be a lot like that, much of the time—sigh.)

Okay: I should take stock.

• Pay for writing doesn’t necessarily make you corrupt
• Not being paid for writing doesn’t necessarily make you reliable
• Passion for a topic or product doesn’t make you more reliable or less reliable

Dorothea and Mark worry about the tendency for sponsorship to corrupt, and only a fool would argue that they have no basis for concern. But lack of sponsorship doesn’t constitute a warrant for greater credibility. We’re thrown back on the uncomfortable challenge of discerning on whom we can rely in any case. Personal interest—whether it be sponsorship, or employment, or stock interest, or ownership (should Dave Winer not blog about Radio?)—enters into our assay of how reliable a blog might be, but it’s not, can’t be, a binary criterion.

In this context, Mitch makes a nice point about the relative importance of trust and brands. He suggests that the nineties’ emphasis on brand-building misses the point that the vital quality is trust. But isn’t it still more complicated? May I not trust the Subaru brand, precisely because their autos show evidence of being highly reliable?

But Mitch’s point holds insofar as he means that a recognizable brand isn’t worth much if it’s synonymous with “untrustworthy.” I will not throw a stone at any particular brand, nor kick one while it’s under indictment for fraudulent business practices, but at that point a recognizable brand might be the last thing you want.

I trust Doc. I try to live and write in ways that make it sensible for you to trust me. I don’t apologize for being paid, nor do I expect others to do without in order to preserve a problematic dispassion from their topics. But—to get us back round to the presenting symptom—if a manufacturer came round to me with a goodie bag and invited me to their hardware pleasure dome, I would (a) almost certainly accept, and (b) write about the trip, and (c) make clear as can be that readers knew what was going on.

That’s no foolproof insulation against bias (I’m a great enough fool to defeat any such insulation you install), but it helps you build the context for knowing how much you trust what I write. And it doesn’t set an arbitrary limit on how I pay for my next change of clothes.

[The whole discussion is good, but the best moment comes when David Weinberger writes, “Blogging about opera is still jazz. ”]

Truth, Integrity, Money, Blogs

Well, now the cat’s among the chickens (is that the idiom? It doesn’t sound quite right).

Mitch Ratcliffe alerted readers to the dubious propriety of bloggers being granted special favors, and Dave suggested that Doc’s disavowal of complicity was misguided (Dave put matters more vividly). Then Doc agreed, and offered us a full account of his journalistic interests and his possible beholden-ness to Microsoft. Now David is explaining why we can and can’t count on him ever to tell the truth about Big Redmond, and Tom is keeping it all linked up, and Jeneane and even the Happy Tutor are putting their oars in (perhaps in the Tutor’s case, I should say “paddle”). What’s a moralist to do, when everyone’s already staked out the terrain? [Now