Author: AKMA

Latest update on the Theology Cards front (Theological Outlines buffs will have to wait — but aren’t five-plus chapters enough for starters?):

23 Evagrius of Pontus, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

34 Eusebius of Caesarea, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

38 Clement of Rome, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

Phil Windley (Ha! no one thought I even remembered Phil — hi, Phil!) points to a useful argument from Timothy Grayson on the subject of digital identity. It’s the sort of argument I love — he calls attention to the extent to which our frustrations and conflicts over “digital identity” and “privacy” involve conceptual confusions left over from the conditions that prevailed before the advent of digital interaction. The technical problems are aggravated by linguistic confusion.

Three cheers for that good catch! The difficulty arises when you try to attend not only to the changing conditions that require us to redefine our expectations (that’s a tough enough job by itself), but also to the moral intuitions, the social forces that inculcate our sense of identity, and the negotiations by which we mediate these non-personal factors. You can’t just “cahnge the language,” nor should we simply turn the language over to people who assure us they know what they’re doing, even if they’re good guys like Kim Cameron and Dick Hardt and Eric Norlin (well, OK, Eric has that sinister NSA side to him, but you get my point). Our language needs to change and will change, but the right answers for DigID will take when the affordances that the technology offers align with expectations that non-geek citizens are willing to bend in order to enjoy the benefits of comfortable, secure, trustworthy online interactions.

Another series of Theology Cards, another couple of chapters of Hall’s Theological Outlines.

Among the cards, we’ve added

20 John Cassian, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

30 Modalism, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

36 Pachomius, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

Meanwhile, we have Chapter Four (Theism) and Chapter Five (Anti-Theistic Theories) finished, and Chapter Six (Revelation) is under way.

Bwa-ha-ha! More questionae going up in Chapter Four of the Theological Outlines, and four more Theology Cards:

25 Jerome, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

27 John Chrysostom, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

28 Mary of Egypt, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

29 Ignatius of Antioch, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

Yesterday David (evidently on vacation, but blogging up a storm) called attention to what calls itself a Big Broadband Bill of Rights. He urged us to sign on, and I went over to check it out.

I’m a determined user of broadband, so the issue concerns me actively — and I support the premise that the U.S. has adopted (or, more precisely, “allowed to tumble into a mixed-up array”) misguided regulations relative to the distribution of broadband services. If I am correctly informed, other nations offer faster, more readily available broadband at lower prices; that should certainly sound like a desirable circumstances to decision-makers over here, too.

I didn’t sign the manifesto, though, for a couple of reasons. First, I balk at furthering the notion that access to broadband constitutes a “right” (even in a metaphorical sense). Enumerated rights ought to stay few and general, and the more we talk about a right to this and a right to that, the more vulnerable all of these rights become to the argument that “when your rights conflict with mine, something has to give, isn’t that a shame,” etc., blah blah blah — an argument that serves too easily to undermine what ought to be deep, durable, exceptionless civil rights (as near to “exceptionless” as mortal social arrangements can make). In other words, I’d be more sympathetic to seeing this as a sub-instance of “free press” than as a sui generis matter right-to-boradband.

Second, the manifesto’s Article 2, section 3 reads, “2.3 You have the right to trust that others will respect your copyright ownership. In turn, you shall respect the copyright protections afforded to us and compensate copyright owners per their request” — and, given the present complexion of copyright law in the U.S., I can’t endorse that. I don’t have anything against a modest regimen more in line with historic copyright protection, but I just don’t assent to the present megacorp-feeding-frenzy of copyright restriction. To repeat: a sensible business model will benefit artists and those who mediate and distribute their work to customers. That’s no0t just what my observations affirm; that’s what the data suggests, too.

The same applies to Big Broadband. Legislators and business leaders should see the long-term economic benefits to making absolutely sure that the U.S. supports the fastest, least costly, most reliable broadband network in the world. THat’s the basis on which they should be supporting Firstmile.us and Big Broadband — not on the basis of a putative right to online access. Great principle, great vision, great models, misplaced argument.

Crossing from repetitive to downright tedious, we’ve got even more of the Theological Outlines online: we have Chapter One (The Science of Theology), Chapter Two (The Dogmatic office of the Church), Chapter Three (Holy Scripture), and about half of Chapter Four (Theism). And we’ve added four Theology Cards:

14 Leo the Great, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

16 Egeria, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

18 Benedict, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

22 Cyprian, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

More questions from Theological Outlines blog. More cards. More to come. (Yes, more Lego Church History too, but not this instant.)

15 Constantine, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

17 Augustine, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

19 Ambrose, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

24 Hippolytus, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

The work on teaching resources continues behind the scenes at the Disseminary. We’ve uploaded several more questionae to the Theological Outlines blog, and we’ve uploaded three more Theology Cards, available from here:

9 Macrina, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

12 Origen, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

13 Justin Martyr, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

The St. Luke’s volunteers came by today to pick up a bed for the Yancuba family, and as I was cleaning out the space where the bed used to be, I found a parish bulletin (location and date withheld) where I had noted that the preacher started by observing, “Today is Father’s Day. Many Christians will celebrate today as the Feast of Corpus Christi. . . .”

That’s the kind of thing that makes me feel feisty and un-American, when a preacher announces that it is Father’s Day but observing Corpus Christi is an optional, “Christian” thing to do.

In one of the Ekklesia Project conversations, and again this afternoon, I alluded to the Theologian Cards for my Early Church History class. I checked, and only Anthony, Perpetua, Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Tertullian were available online. So I just uploaded another batch, and will work through the rest of them in my copious free time. And yes, I’ll get back to work on the Lego Church History series.

6 Basil the Great of Caesarea, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

7 Arius, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

8 Clement of Alexandria, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

10 Gregory of Nyssa, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

11 Gregory of Nazianzus, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

It’s not too hard to format and upload these, mostly just a matter of making the PDFs and JPEG from the main InDesign file, so I should be able to get a few more up here soon. (Though I put “My Cards” in the title bar, anyone interested should know that the drawings were executed by extremely gifted artist-philosopher Steve Lahey.)

It was a treat to visit the garden home of Scandal of Particularity (after having met her at the Ekklesia Project on Monday), where with her husband she generously hosted Camassia, the AngloBaptist, Liz (who — so far as I know — doesn’t have a website, the horror!), and me for a civilized afternoon conversation about liturgy, theology, sexuality, blogging software, other Blogarians, and the Tour de France — among many other things.

The next time someone tells you that online activity cuts into physical-world interaction, sock ’em in the nose you may correct them based on the empirical data of my experience.

I have a hard time even believing that is a dog. Ugly, undoubtedly — but to count as “the ugliest dog,” shouldn’t the connection to dog-dom be a little more obvious?

Either way, Sam will probably be the ugliest dog on Google and Technorati soon — dog tag or no tag.