quackquack

In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions. His administration has taken actions that might have provoked sharp political criticism for his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was often in public fights with the press.

Taxation, financial and environmental regulation, immigration, war and other issues of public policy, are hugely important. But they are only part of the picture. Real reform or revolution will also…

Finally, some real Facebook organizing:

Some 18,000 students accepted the invitation posted last month on Facebook, the social media site better known for publicizing parties and sporting events. And on Tuesday many of them — and many others — walked out of class in one of the largest grass-roots demonstrations to hit New Jersey in years.

The mass walkouts were inspired by Michelle Ryan Lauto, an 18-year-old aspiring actress and a college freshman… until now, Ms. Lauto said, she has used Facebook only to keep in touch with friends and let them know when she is performing in shows. She alerted those 600 Facebook friends to her message calling for a student walkout and asked them to pass it on.

QUIP Panel 2010:

I was virtually in Indiana last night to participate on a panel on Quaker blogging for QUIP, Quakers Uniting in Publications. I couldn’t make it out there so I was beamed in electronically. This is what it looked like from my end.

From the YouTube Blog. This Viacom vs Google battle seems to be heating up.

A bizarre internet phenomenon in China, via the NYTimes:

The Chinese term for human-flesh search engine has been around since 2001, when it was used to describe a search that was human-powered rather than computer-driven. The kitten-killer case and subsequent hunts changed all that… the Chinese public’s primary understanding of the term is no longer so benign. The popular meaning is now not just a search by humans but also a search for humans, initially performed online but intended to cause real-world consequences.

Every time I have spoken or written about this matter in a public forum (and the speaking goes back a couple decades), I am given assurances that “something is being done,” and urged, overtly or…

I share my beliefs because it is important for those persons of the gay and lesbian - and heterosexual - communities, to know that in the midst of the aggression and degradation that is relied upon…

I’ve mostly ignored Brit Hume’s comment this week but this is an interesting take:

In practice, the admirable principle that nobody should be persecuted for their beliefs often blurs into the more illiberal idea that nobody should ever publicly criticize another religion. Or champion one’s own faith as an alternative. Or say anything whatsoever about religion, outside the privacy of church, synagogue or home.

If you treat your faith like a hothouse flower, too vulnerable to survive in the crass world of public disputation, then you ensure that nobody will take it seriously. The idea that religion is too mysterious, too complicated or too personal to be debated on cable television just ensures that it never gets debated at all.

This doesn’t mean that we need to welcome real bigotry into our public discourse. But what Hume said wasn’t bigoted: Indeed, his claim about the difference between Buddhism and Christianity was perfectly defensible. Christians believe in a personal God who forgives sins. Buddhists, as a rule, do not. And it’s at least plausible that Tiger Woods might welcome the possibility that there’s Someone out there capable of forgiving him, even if Elin Nordegren and his corporate sponsors never do.

Or maybe not. For many people — Woods perhaps included — the fact that Buddhism promotes an ethical life without recourse to Christian concepts like the Fall of Man, divine judgment and damnation is precisely what makes it so appealing. The knee-jerk outrage that greeted Hume’s remarks buried intelligent responses from Buddhists, who made arguments along these lines — explaining their faith, contrasting it with Christianity, and describing how a lost soul like Woods might use Buddhist concepts to climb from darkness into light.

Over some 300 years, we’ve evolved ways to handle the tension between what some individual member might feel divinely led to say or do, and what his Quaker Meeting as a whole could approve. We tend to be free about individual stands, cautious about anything said in the name of a Meeting. A blog moves the tension into a whole new context. People aren’t always rational, attentive, or nice online; mistakes could be made, fusses erupt in public!

we wear plain clothing, and engage in an alternative economy as much as we can, in order to promote what we believe are the values that best reflect the character of Jesus and early Christ-centered communities. It is a voluntary public witness to our Quaker testimonies. We hope not to inspire others to dress plain, but to think seriously about the world around them, and develop their own community driven public witness to peace, justice, and the salvific character of Jesus the messiah.

Changes at PBS’s News Hour:

Until recently, the employees who worked on the Web site of “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” on PBS were based in a building a brisk five-minute walk through city traffic from their on-air colleagues. The Web and television staffs interacted only at Mr. Lehrer’s annual holiday party. “They were all the recognizably young ones,” said Linda Winslow, the show’s executive producer. But in early November, the staffs were merged into a single 20-person bullpen…

Martin commentary: The writing is so on the wall. You’re web team cannot be separate from your TV or print team. If you do not have a transition plan for a web-centric future then your program or publication will die. It appears that a severe budget shortfall and the ill-health of its anchor is causing this reassessment at NewsHour but maybe desperation is the mother of reinvention.

Good stuff from Anthony Manousos:

Perhaps the most important innovation in this work is its systematization of the Quaker social “testimonies.” Until the publication of Guide to Quaker Practice, there was no consensus about what Friends’ social testimonies were. Howard surveyed this jumble of advices and distilled them into four distinct and memorable social testimonies—simplicity, peace, community, equality—and one personal testimony (integrity). Howard’s formulation of the five Quaker testimonies has become so commonplace in Quaker religious education that it is often referred to by the acronym SPICE. Few Friends realize that Howard “discovered” or “reinvented” the testimonies in 1943.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the hodgepodge of testimonies in the old Books of Discipline, and reading Thomas Clarkson’s outsider account of circa 1800 helped me understand their use better. They were more practical & experienced-based that the SPICE list. Their underlying pattern was the way they addressed actual problems that had arisen in the Society of Friends. I’ve called them the “collective wisdom wiki” of Friends.

And my response in the comments:

As an old philosophy major I love the elegance of SPICE but I think the lack of specific testimonies has hurt our ability to identify and name issues when they come up at meeting. The modern world still has temptations that divide us from God, hurt our ability to empathize with our neighbors and divide our faith community but how do we talk with one another about these practices?

A guest piece in The Onion by the long-time host of Reading Rainbow:

Thank god.

After 26 long years, I can finally rest easy. Twenty-six years I spent standing in front of a camera, gritting my teeth, and shilling the latest works of every hack children’s book author imaginable. For 26 years, I’ve told kids they could open a magical door to another world just by reading a book, when the only door it ever opened for me led to a soul-sucking career in the horrifying abyss of public television.

Via DavidinIndy

When you’re out in public, think for a second what would happen if Google Street View came by, okay? From 20 Crimes Caught on Google Street View.