That’s one impressive way to go out (despite being forgotten)…
In his new book, art historian and author Paul Koudounaris elucidates the macabre splendor and tragic history of Europe’s catacomb saints
Year: 2015
You Don’t Need A Mediator to Blog
It’s very easy to blog. You should do it on your own domain. You don’t need a venture capital funded company to help you.
If you need help, let me know. The future is independence from these sorts of silos.
Medium is introducing a host of features aimed at encouraging users to post shorter, less polished pieces.
Yale’s Religious Treasures
My masters degree in religion is from Yale, and it’s great to see the religious treasures there highlighted. However, I can’t believe the Dura Europos baptistry (from the earliest house church we’ve recovered and one of the first depictions of Jesus we have) didn’t make the list (the Mithraeum did, though… which is also spectacular).
Nevertheless, good read and makes me miss my days working in the Yale Art Gallery as a grad assistant…
In reality, this supposed bastion of elite godless education is teeming with people studying religion, teaching religion, and doing religion. Yale has a divinity school with a Christian identity, albeit a non-denominational one that welcomes students of other religions and no religions. It has two large chapels, the famed Battell Chapel on the undergraduate campus and the graceful Marquand Chapel at the divinity quadrangle. And Yale, a place that started out as a training ground for Congregationalist ministers (whose students included none other than Jonathan Edwards) retains to this day a dazzling array of religious treasures and relics, all publicly available.
Theological Eating
At the beginning of the year, I decided to stop eating meat and meat products. I have some experience with this from my days in graduate school (it was more of an economic decision then!), but I was still going into this new year / new eating pattern with the full understanding that it’s very hard to change patterns even if it is 1/1 on the calendar.
Yes, we are humans and we are organic animal beings that are meant to include meat and animals in our diet (and yes, I consider fish, shellfish, etc as part of the animal kingdom).
I want to explain why, as I’ve gotten a good number of questions about my decision. As an aside, the most contentious conversations I’ve had about my “theological eating” has been with more conservative Christians who, at first blush, deny the reality of concepts such as evolution, but are quick to point out that our species became who we are because of meat consumption…but that’s for another post).
I call this whole eating style “theological eating” for me. That’s corny and pretentious and a little ostentatious. But it reminds me of why I’m doing it. Merianna and I (and MH and Laura) are big “animal people” in that we are outnumbered by our animal co-habitators in our home (including a recently acquired tortoise that will outlive me and costs more to maintain than I do every month). I’ve always been very empathetic with animals going back to childhood.
I’ve also been very compelled to examine my own use of resources and materials. I’ve been terrible at the follow through, but I always had a huge amount of guilt when I ordered a Big Mac or a steak at Outback or bought a discounted slab of chicken breasts at Ingles or Bi-Lo. Part of that guilt was because of the animals themselves and my far-removed connection between their probably not-so-great life and death and my own plate. Part of that also has to do with the economic system that we perpetuate by exchanging our dollars for meat “grown” in such a manner. Part of this has to do with the realization of the advertising machine that corporations put into marketing their products to children, adults, and the elderly. Theologically, I can’t be honest with my own faith if I don’t address a very core issue of both the suffering of probably cognizant beings as well as my own participation in an economic system that I don’t support because of a story about a man who lived a long time ago.
I’m also using one small bowl (a bowl I “borrowed” from Wofford College in 2000… promise I’ll return) and one utensil (an awesome titanium spork… yep!) for most of my food intake at home.
This isn’t just about meat, either (but oh boy is it difficult to find good kosher vegan cheese…whew). I’ve also started heavily examining products such as cereals, grains, sugar, water…even beer that I put into my body and pay with my money. I’m extending this to areas such as how I buy tech gadgets (people that know me know that I spend a good deal of time, money, and attention on those), books, music, appliances etc. For the past year, I’ve pretty much worn the same “outfit” (as Merianna calls it) everyday of an awesome black shirt with a pair of slacks and brown shoes. When one cannot be mended anymore, I buy a new one (happened just this week and I had to get a replacement). Thoughtful and deliberate consumption, if you will. I’ll call it “theological eating.”
The unexamined life might not be worth living, but the examined life is not a walk in hippy park, either. I’m not making this lifestyle choice in order to make you feel bad about ordering a #2 at McDonald’s or plopping down $12 for a steak at Applebees, either. This isn’t out of disdain or judgement. We all walk our own path and mine is not for anyone else or better than yours (probably worse).
We live in an amazing period of our species’ existence. It probably won’t continue on some progressive curve upwards, and we should realize and enjoy our fortune of being born in such a time. That involves enjoying the resources around us.
Nevertheless, I feel like I need to be more deliberate about my choices, and that’s why I am hopeful this is the right path for me.
Bob Dylan At the Grammys’ Charity
Mr. Dylan took jabs at music icons like the songwriters Leiber and Stoller (“Yakety Yak,” “Stand by Me”), saying that he didn’t care that they didn’t like his songs, because he didn’t like theirs either. Nashville wasn’t spared. In barely diplomatic terms, Mr. Dylan mocked the country songwriter Tom T. Hall, saying that his sentimental 1973 song “I Love” (“I love baby ducks, old pickup trucks”) was “a little overcooked,” and implying that Mr. Hall was part of an old guard that was bemused and left behind by the musical revolution of the 1960s and ‘70s.
via At Grammys Event, Bob Dylan Speech Steals the Show – NYTimes.com.
Visualizing Who Is Tracking You On the Web
Granted, you have to use Firefox for this plugin, but after a morning of doing my daily work routine I found this rather astonishing and revealing about the depth of the tracking being done on the web today…
Using interactive visualizations, Lightbeam enables you to see the first and third party sites you interact with on the Web. As you browse, Lightbeam reveals the full depth of the Web today, including parts that are not transparent to the average user. Using two distinct interactive graphic representations — Graph and List — Lightbeam enables you to examine individual third parties over time and space, identify where they connect to your online activity and provides ways for you to engage with this unique view of the Web.
Pretty Much Me Tonight
Change Your Verizon “Super Cookie” Privacy Settings
If you’re a Verizon customer like we are, I’d recommend you take a few seconds to go uncheck a few of these “enhancements” to your account that Verizon shares for marketing purposes if you care about privacy and our data…
Consumer information includes information about your use of Verizon products and services (such as data and calling features,device type, and amount of use) as well as demographic and interest categories provided to us by other companies (such as gender, age range, sports fan, frequent diner, or pet owner).
via Verizon Wireless – Privacy Settings.
The Picard Maneuver
Still need to blog
One day Facebook will be gone. But your blog can live on…
Recently I’ve been writing stuff on Facebook, because the engagement level there is so high. But I’ve found that if I want people who don’t use Facebook, and there are still important people who don’t, you have to put it somewhere else, and for me that’s here on my blog.
When I was 7, this was the first magazine I ever bought with my own money
Realizing Our Place in the Universe
“This image, captured with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the largest and sharpest image ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy — otherwise known as M31.This is a cropped version of the full image and has 1.5 billion pixels. You would need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image.”
via Sharpest ever view of the Andromeda Galaxy | ESA/Hubble.
I had to download the 4.3 GB file. For science.
Let’s Play Two
“He was Mr. Cub and no other player in franchise history — or in the club’s future — will ever be adored in the same way.”
via Cubs Hall of Famer Ernie Banks dead at 83
R.I.P. Mr Cub
Sad day for us Cubs fans and baseball fans in general. What a great man. We should all earn from his example
Nonprofits and Affordable Marketing
Interesting thread here from a non-profit group looking for good, but cheap, marketing. We hear this every day (multiple times) as Harrelson Agency mainly focuses on helping non-profits, religious groups, community organizations, and startups get marketing right.
My solution? Realize that marketing is an investment, and one that you should budget for wisely but not try to push off to someone on your internal team who doesn’t have the time or skills to do more than update your Facebook page.
How does my startup hire an affordable marketing expert?
We’re a non-profit niche social networking company serving a minority group. We are have a volunteer working on marketing our pending web social network app, however as CEO, I’m looking forward to hire an expert in web marketing tactics mainly to help make our launch a successful one.
The main role of the person is with helping us plan with our marketing strategies as well as helping us implement them. We are very hard pressed with resources, what’s the best way to hire one which we can afford, at say a rate of $10/hr or even less. I really do not have trust in freelance websites because of the poor quality I’ve received from them so far.
via How does my startup hire an affordable marketing expert? — Clarity.
Sweet Carolina
“I bought a borrowed suit and learned to dance
I was spending money like the way it likes to rain
Man I ended up with pockets full of cane
Oh my sweet Carolina
What compels me to go
Oh my sweet disposition…”
via Ryan Adams – Oh My Sweet Carolina – Live On Letterman – YouTube.
State of the Union… in emoji
If digital archaeologists ever “dig this up” 2,000 years from now, they’ll surely be puzzled by our lapse back into character driven hieroglyphics (complete with the ability to hover over emoji’s if you can’t figure it out):
Barack Obama said his address to Congress this year was all about “finding areas where we agree, so we can deliver for the American people”. And if there’s one thing we can all agree upon, it’s emojis. Hover over an emoji to see the president’s actual words.
Economic Virtue
We’ve been taught to think that the only economic virtue is competitiveness. This is a faith: I’ll get into it for all I’m worth, seeking the maximum advantage for myself.
Do Vegetarians Eat Eggs?
A few days ago, Merianna asked me if I was still eating eggs. It’s a good question, after all. Part of my 2015 package of resolutions (trying to make it sound congressional) was to not eat meat or animals unless I killed them (which is unlikely, but had to make that allowance).
When I moved to Connecticut for graduate school, I became vegetarian for a while. It didn’t hurt that there was an abundance of vegetarian shops around me, as well as a falafel stand right outside of the house where I had an apartment. I even dabbled with being a vegan for a short time but couldn’t stomach that much tofu cheese.
As a matter of theology, I decided 2015 would be the year I’d stop eating meat altogether. So Merianna’s question this week was a valid one.
I said “no” to eggs (again, out of a theological choice based on how eggs arrive in our grocery stores). If we had chickens or got the eggs from my parents’ collection of chickens, I’d have no problem eating them.
On her podcast with Elisabeth this week, Merianna starts with her take on the discussion. It’s a fun listen.
Are Eggs Vegetarian?
Keeping the Canon
The older I get, the more I want to share the joys of “the canon” and liberal arts in general. Every generation feels that its world is slipping into the morass of public, but our Amazon reviews and Buzzfeed listicles don’t make me feel any more assured that we’re not…
Although serious writers continue to work in the hope that time will forgive them for writing well, the prevailing mood welcomes fiction and poetry of every stripe, as long as the reading public champions it. And this I think is a huge mistake. Literature has never just been about the public (even when the public has embraced such canonical authors as Hugo, Dickens, and Tolstoy). Literature has always been a conversation among writers who borrow, build upon, and deviate from each other’s words. Forgetting this, we forget that aesthetics is not a social invention, that democracy is not an aesthetic category; and that the dismantling of hierarchies is tantamount to an erasure of history.
via What We Lose if We Lose the Canon – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.