AKMA’s Random Thoughts

I’m thinking over the Primates’ Statement, and although I’d have wished it different, I’m not surprised by its general tenor. One source of puzzlement, though: why do the Primates ask that the US and Canada withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council? Does this imply a hierarchy of the Instruments of Unity, such that the Primates…

Seems as though the Bad Guys have devised a way to induce Safari to generate pop-behind windows, even when the “block pop-ups” preference is checked. I’m just saying. . . .

Tripp pursues one of the main topics of his thesis in this morning’s post. He worries about the dialectical relationship between “teaching” and “worship” in liturgy: “How do we understand the purpose of liturgy as a teaching tool? It seems that whenever we become too didactic, we cannot worship, but the moment we stop explaining…

Fresh from yesterday afternoon’s victory, Pippa and I crowned my efforts today. Early in the afternoon, she found the book on cartooning lying on the table irresistible. She perused it over her lunch, and afterward sat down and pencilled a sketch for me (I’ll post it on flickr when I have a chance). Then I…

I’ve just finished the family taxes (Nate comes next, hang on, fella), and a spate of forms that I fill out annually when Seabury sees what kind of medical insurance it can afford, and I’m working on financial aid applications. Permit me to say, relative to all these, that I have yet to encounter a…

Pippa does not read my blog, so far as I know (this would be a good time to tip me off if you are reading, Pip!), so I’ll crow about Margaret’s and my subtle method for inducing our children to read books that we know they’ll be interested by. We hit them over the head…

Somewhere I thought I had learned that the obsolete word “eke” was used to fit into metrical lines that needed an extra syllable — hence the expression “to eke out” meant “to draw to necessary length by adding the syllable ‘eke.’ ” I thought I had learned this, but I can’t find support for that…

A subhead in the Baltimore Sun suggests verblessly that “Gonzalez latest to refute steroid claims of Canseco.” May we agree that Gonzalez “contradicted” or “disputed” or even “gainsaid,” Canseco’s allegations, but unless Gonzalez presented ironclad evidence, he cannot yet be said to have refuted Canseco? For now, it’s one outfielder’s word against another.

David Isenberg reminds me that “there’s one week left to register [for the Freedom to Connect conference] at the Early Bird price of $250. The higher price, effective 12:01 AM on March 1, will be $350.” Don’t say I didn’t warn you! There’ll be a tremendous line-up of ’net policy thinkers, with a passel of…

Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: collect a bulletin from a garden-variety congregation and go over somme elementary steps by which one could make the bulletin a more effective device for communicating with its users — sort of a makeover program for church bulletins, such as Mean Dean provides for websites at…

I’m not sure how I got to this article [also described here; sorry for the busted link, Mitch and Joe!], but it’s double-edged message delights and daunts me. The first cut, of course, enables me to chortle that other people show so little awareness of their folly. Not only are they foolish, but their limitations…

Once upon a time, I was a church-management know-nothing. I deliberately avoided any of the tawdry books about increasing attendance, about church marketing, about management and leadership with a thin theological icing. I knew I was spiritually superior to people who relied on such works, and I didn’t bother to learn anything about the claims…