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Monday, August 4, 2003
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 Monday, August 4, 2003
started 8/4/2003; 1:44:36 AM - last post 8/5/2003; 2:59:02 AM
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Doc Searls - Monday, August 4, 2003 
8/4/2003; 5:44:36 AM (reads: 8157, responses: 3)
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Plus 350-400 buddhas, among other things 
| | A year ago I called my friend James McHugh "a high profile hacker without a Web site, or I'd link to him." Well, now he has one. Which is cool. |
| | He also lives in a museum that's on its way to extinction. You should take a look before it's gone. |
| | Carved hippo teeth. Human skulls etched in silver. Interesting stuff. Visit the site to check it out. |
| | In meat/meet space it's between 8th & 9th on Folsom in San Francisco, next to the also siteless A Taste of Leather. |
Breakage
| | I feel very conflicted about taking my annual blog hiatus this August. But I'm going to do my best to take a break. If some catastrophe occurs, I'll be back. But blogging each day, sometimes thousands of words a day, is a wonderful but grueling way to write. I think bloggers do well to take time out. We can lose perspective, stop thinking in longer form, and also get exhausted. |
| | Things have been tough for him lately: |
| | Obviously, my emotions right now are also wrung out from the barrage of backlash we are now experiencing, and it may be sensible to take a deep breath and a break. I wish at times I could be immune to this - and not get wounded or angry. But this debate is not an abstract one for me or for many others. Our very integrity as human beings and equality as citizens is being weighed in the balance by others with enormous power over us. That's enough to work anyone's last nerve. But I also need some time and space for spiritual reasons. It's hard to describe the agony gay Catholics are now in; and I'm facing a pretty major life-decision. In this, you need quiet to listen to God and pray sincerely for his help in the struggle to maintain a good conscience and lead a moral life. From your emails, I know I am not in this alone, and I'll be praying hard for all of us in this storm, pro and con, to find God's will for us, whatever it is. |
| | The agony isn't only for gay Catholics, who are in the center of the conversational ring right now. It's for all people of faith who believe in a tolerant and loving God. My friend Sayo Ajiboye, a biblical scholar, once told me the hardest lesson Christianity (and all religions) teaches are those of mercy, tolerance and forgiveness. Two thousand years after Christ said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," even our churches have trouble getting the message. (Ambiguity withstanding. A brilliant priest once told me that the trouble with literal interepretations of the Bible — aside from the fact that its many authors reported subtle metaphors and nuanced meanings in languages and other idioms may not have survived multiple translations — is that "Christ spoke in paradox." Making message-getting and doctrine-making all the harder.) |
Going nowhere with Amtrak
| | I've been an Amtrak "member" for a couple years now, not that it makes much difference. Anyway, it's been long enough to provide some experience at dealing with the "troubled" federal railway system. (That's its de facto name: Troubled Amtrak.) |
| | I should know better by now, but I LIKE the damn service, and I'd rather take the train than a car from San Jose to Santa Barbara this Friday. So, once again, I surfed into the breach this morning, attempting to book tickets online, where various "member discounts" are available. After about half an hour of being told, repeatedly, that various pieces of provided information were "incomplete," the booking system finally gave me the message above. I logged off, gave it a few hours and tried again a few minutes ago. Same thing. |
| | How much money, I wonder, is Amtrak losing this way? It's more than zero, that's for sure. |
Smaller is bigger
| | But I don't think this upcoming presidential election season needs to be about left vs. right. That's because I'm still mulling over Andrew Sullivan's line yesterday: |
| | It's between the Democrats' Big, Solvent Government and the Republicans' Big Insolvent Government. |
| | I believe blogs are, on the whole, against bigness. And bignesss is what we get promised, by both sides, in every election. So: our work is cut out for us. |
| | I sense an opening here for a practical libertarian sensibility coming to the fore, from the grass roots — from the blogs. What makes this sensibility a moderating influence is the tie that it makes to sensible governance. |
| | This country has been whipsawed for too long between those who hate big business and those who hate big government, and who have used both to pound on both, to many bad effects. |
| | The trick is to look past the sports events we call elections, to the hard and compromising work we call governance. Are we going to fix the roads? Make public transportation work? Continue opening trade? Fix health care? Can we? (It's a legitimate question.) Should we? How? |
| | Visiting those questions with an open mind, I think, is most deeply what networked democracy is all about. |
The ongoing death of publishing as usual
| | Before the "blogs" era,we were all slaves of our webmasters . Unless you were yourself one, most people, companies and organizations who wanted to have an online presence called a Web site, needed sooner or later someone technically skilled to take care of it for hir (him+her). |
| | It has never been to no-one enjoyment to have to go through through lengthy, and not intuitive procedures to simply make some new text appear on a certain page of your site. Though the Frontpages and Tripods have attempted to come to our rescue we have further understood that Microsoft didn't have a clue about what we needed and how it should have been built and that advertising banners are really the most obnoxius partner of an information page. |
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In response to the "The ongoing death of publishing as usual", I am interested in learning more about how content choices are made. Traditionally, a provider shoveled out content high and low in the hopes it would generate readership. If enough readers were attracted repeatedly, then the provider's content choice and the reader's selection were reinforced. Reader's only control over content was by voting with their feet.
With the web, blogs and instant feedback, I've been trying to learn whether or not it is possibile to establish the relationship between content provider and consumer more quickly. IN much the same way that virtually all restauraunts allow the consumer to choose what they wish to eat, I'm interested in seeing if letting the reader chose what will be written is usefull, productive, or just plain stupid.
<abasement>So, consequently< I'm comiiting the sin of using someone else's comments to toot my own horn. Specifically, I'm hosting a poll at my site, which I would like to encourage you to participate in, in which the readership can choose among five topics which I will write about.
That past, I think that the simple shortening of the cycle between original idea and widespread distribution brought about by the internet hasn't really been seen at least since the invention of radio and television, but possibly since the invention of the printing press.
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Gary Petersen - Re: Sunday, August 3, 2003
8/5/2003; 1:14:09 AM (reads: 530, responses: 1)
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I believe you're being overly simplistic in your representation of Scripture, Doc. Christ's message didn't stop with "let he who is without sin". He goes on to tell the woman to sin no more. John 8:9-11 (see below).
His message is not one of tolerance. It is one of turning away from sin and sinful behavior.
I also believe you're wrong in stating that God is tolerant. On the contrary, He is very intolerant. Not of His people, but of our sin.
The book of Exodus speaks to this. In the context of Israel's tendency to worship other gods, God states that He is a jealous God.
Exodus 20:5 "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God
Similarly, Joshua condems the people of Israel for the same reason.
Joshua 24:19 Then Joshua said to the people, "You will not be able to serve the LORD, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins."
Sins unconfessed to God will not be forgiven. The other god I believe is at work here is the belief that we can set our own rules - that the rules of God, as stated in the Bible, are not absolute and that we can ignore those rules with which we do not agree.
The Bible is very clear that homosexual behavior is sinful. Here are two of the verses that make this clear.
Leviticus 18:22 - NASB "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."
Romans 1:27 - NASB "and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error."
Never mind that Jesus also raised the bar on adultery by stating that if you lust after someone who is not your spouse, you have committed adultery with that person in your heart. This is coupled with the Biblical definition of marriage as the union between one man and one woman. In other words, lustful thoughts and behavior outside the bounds of marriage is adultery, which is sin.
I don't know Andrew nor have I read his weblog much at all. But I do know that he is just as sinful as I am (no more or no less). I don't know you, either, but I do know that you, too, are just as sinful as I am (again, no more or no less). I know this because every human is sinful. It is our nature. But just because we are hopelessly sinful does not mean that our situation is hopeless.
Forgiveness comes with admission of sin and repentance of sinful behavior. You're right in that the church of today doesn't get it, but not because the church isn't tolerant enough, but rather because it is too tolerant of sin and too willing to redefine for itself what really is sinful behavior.
Thanks for your writing, Doc. I do appreciate it.
John 8:9-11 (9) And they which heard [it], being convicted by [their own] conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, [even] unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. (10) When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? (11) She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. [KJV]
Gary Petersen
gary at countrykeepers.com
http://www.countrykeepers.com/weblogs
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Doc Searls - Re: Sunday, August 3, 2003
8/5/2003; 6:59:02 AM (reads: 588, responses: 0)
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Well put.
I broke a promise to myself not to go into religion on the blog. So I'll let you have the last words on the matter.
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