Oh, so many 'best of 2010' topics available to write about, and I'm just not up to it yet. A couple years ago, my wife and I sent out 'Valentines Letters' instead of Christmas letters...I think I may take that approach on this blog this year...I'll do the best of 2010 sometime in the first quarter of 2011.
In the mean time, I'm getting ready to take my 15-year-old twin boys deer hunting this weekend. Everything is looking good so far, minus the fact that they have mandatory basketball practice Friday morning (the tags allow us to hunt Friday through Sunday, but I'll be in church Sunday, so that day is out). That gives us Friday afternoon to travel, scout, and make a plan. Saturday is hunting day. Hope the deer are anxious to get shot, or we might end up with an empty freezer this year.
I'm not mentioning the possible blizzard that might hit...so far, things are still looking good (for it to pass to our north), but things change in a hurry around here. We'll see.
29 December 2010
27 December 2010
Blogcation Almost Over
Well, I still have a week to go on my vacation, but I think the blogcation needs to be over...maybe tomorrow.
I'm supposed to take my two 15-year-old sons deer hunting this weekend. We drew two (hard to get) youth tags for the Gene Howe Wildlife Management area over near Canadian, TX, for New Year's weekend. There's a big storm over the west coast now...the track it takes will determine if we hunt in nice 50-degree weather, windy, cold 20-degree weather, or if we get snowed out in a big blizzard. Right now, it appears to be tracking north, which will mean cold and windy, but at least we'll get in the field. Hopefully.
I'm supposed to take my two 15-year-old sons deer hunting this weekend. We drew two (hard to get) youth tags for the Gene Howe Wildlife Management area over near Canadian, TX, for New Year's weekend. There's a big storm over the west coast now...the track it takes will determine if we hunt in nice 50-degree weather, windy, cold 20-degree weather, or if we get snowed out in a big blizzard. Right now, it appears to be tracking north, which will mean cold and windy, but at least we'll get in the field. Hopefully.
20 December 2010
Plagiarism in the Church: How Big a Problem is it Really?
This post started out as a reply to a Collin Hansen post on this subject. I found out about Collin's post by reading Justin Taylor's blog post. I located Taylor's post by using Google Reader, where I follow him, among others. (There, now I can't be accused of doing what I'm writing about!)
Some time ago, a few years after I wrote my doctoral dissertation, I was interested in trying to find out if anyone had used my work in any further work. I entered a few phrases in Google, and was surprised how many hits I got from people who had used my words, but clearly hadn't seen my dissertation. I know they hadn't seen it, because their work was published before mine was. I know I didn't use their work, because in the process of writing a dissertation, one becomes pretty familiar with the research he or she is consulting (for those who have written one, you will appreciate the humor of the understatement, I hope).
So, do this little experiment yourself-
Some time ago, a few years after I wrote my doctoral dissertation, I was interested in trying to find out if anyone had used my work in any further work. I entered a few phrases in Google, and was surprised how many hits I got from people who had used my words, but clearly hadn't seen my dissertation. I know they hadn't seen it, because their work was published before mine was. I know I didn't use their work, because in the process of writing a dissertation, one becomes pretty familiar with the research he or she is consulting (for those who have written one, you will appreciate the humor of the understatement, I hope).
So, do this little experiment yourself-
19 December 2010
Blog Vacation?
Being on Christmas vacation makes me want to take a blog vacation as well. So if you don't see much posted here for the next couple weeks, that's why.
Trying to think of a good new word for it...blacation? Blogation? Vlogcation?
Hmmm.
Trying to think of a good new word for it...blacation? Blogation? Vlogcation?
Hmmm.
17 December 2010
Was Jesus Really Born in a Barn?
Of course, it is possible that Jesus was born in a barn, but I don't think he was. At least, not the barn that you see in your imagination when you hear he was laid in a manger.
Why not?
The primary reason I don't think he was born in a barn is an obscure verse in the Old Testament, Micah 4:8. Now, everybody knows Micah 5:2, the passage prophesying that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. But Micah 4:8 is less well known. It says,
And you, O tower of the flock,
hill of the daughter of Zion,
to you shall it come,
the former dominion shall come,
kingship for the daughter of Jerusalem.
(Micah 4:8 ESV)
The phrase, 'tower of the flock' is migdol eder in Hebrew (I'm not a Hebrew expert, so I'm transliterating...you might find it under different transliterated spellings, such as migdal or edar, etc.).
It means, as the English text indicates, a watchtower for a flock of sheep. It refers to an actual tower in an actual location just outside of Bethlehem. It isn't so much the location as it is the purpose of the place that makes me think this was very possibly the birthplace of Christ.
The place was first mentioned in the bible in Genesis 35:21. At this point in Genesis, Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin. She was buried very near the site of the tower.
Remember that at this time in history, the temple in Jerusalem, less than 5 miles away, was still standing, and sacrificial worship was in full practice. The priests at the temple kept large flocks of sheep (and likely other sacrificial animals) for sale to those who needed them for temple worship. These flocks were of course not kept at the temple (that would have been scandalous because of the odor and mess), but just outside Bethlehem. It is these flocks to which I believe Luke refers in the nativity story (see Luke 2:8). The flocks weren't simply allowed to roam around with no one keeping an eye on them. The tower served as a place from which a few shepherds could keep an eye out for predatory animals, both four-legged and two-legged kinds. It was supposedly about 20 to 25 feet tall, with an upper story and a lower story at ground level. I've been told the foundation is still visible on a hillside just outside of Bethlehem today.
You may have heard it said that the nativity story is not believable because shepherds wouldn't have been out in the fields during the cold winter months that this time encompasses. Private shepherds likely weren't. However, the temple flocks were kept year-round, as sacrificial worship didn't take time off for cold seasons. So these flocks were tended by shepherds on a year-round basis.
Since these animals were destined for sacrifice, they were specially cared for. As you know from passages like Exodus 12:5, Leviticus 4:32, and Numbers 6:14 (there are many others), the sacrificial lamb was to be without blemish (a picture of the sinlessness of the Messiah; see 1 Peter 1:19). One of the critical times for these animals was the first day or so of their lives. They were prone to being damaged out in the fields as they stumbled about just after they were born, and any bumps and bruises at this tender age would likely show up as scars (blemishes) when they were old enough for temple worship. In order to protect them, the shepherds brought the pregnant ewes into the ground floor of Migdol Eder where there was a special birthing room. It was not like an ordinary stable, but was kept ceremonially clean by the temple priesthood. When the ewes gave birth to the new lambs, the babies were wrapped in swaddling cloths, and laid in a manger (feed trough) for a few hours to protect them from any scarring accidents.
If you read Luke 2 carefully, you see there isn't any information there as to the location of the Messiah. So how did the shepherds in the fields know where to go and find him? Note the sign given to them by the angel in Luke 2:12: "And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." What was so unusual about a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths? Nothing. How could it be a sign of anything then? The key was, "...and lying in a manger." These shepherds, employees (as it were) of the temple, would have known instantly and exactly what and where the angel meant for them to go to find the newborn king.
So why is this important? It matters in this sense: everything in the Old Testament points toward the Messiah, the Christ. The entire Jewish sacrificial system was a type or shadow of the one sufficient sacrifice to come- the son of God. The laying of the sacrificial lambs in mangers, wrapped in swaddling cloths, is just one more proof of the reality and authenticity of Jesus as the Messiah, the final lamb and sacrifice which would take away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
There is much more to say on this topic, but I'm trying to keep this at a readable length. If you google 'migdol eder' (and variant spellings) you can find all sorts of variations on the idea, some more credible than others; many which include much more scriptural support than I have.
Migdol Eder as the birthplace of Christ is an idea worth considering.
Why not?
The primary reason I don't think he was born in a barn is an obscure verse in the Old Testament, Micah 4:8. Now, everybody knows Micah 5:2, the passage prophesying that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. But Micah 4:8 is less well known. It says,
And you, O tower of the flock,
hill of the daughter of Zion,
to you shall it come,
the former dominion shall come,
kingship for the daughter of Jerusalem.
(Micah 4:8 ESV)
The phrase, 'tower of the flock' is migdol eder in Hebrew (I'm not a Hebrew expert, so I'm transliterating...you might find it under different transliterated spellings, such as migdal or edar, etc.).
It means, as the English text indicates, a watchtower for a flock of sheep. It refers to an actual tower in an actual location just outside of Bethlehem. It isn't so much the location as it is the purpose of the place that makes me think this was very possibly the birthplace of Christ.
The place was first mentioned in the bible in Genesis 35:21. At this point in Genesis, Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin. She was buried very near the site of the tower.
Remember that at this time in history, the temple in Jerusalem, less than 5 miles away, was still standing, and sacrificial worship was in full practice. The priests at the temple kept large flocks of sheep (and likely other sacrificial animals) for sale to those who needed them for temple worship. These flocks were of course not kept at the temple (that would have been scandalous because of the odor and mess), but just outside Bethlehem. It is these flocks to which I believe Luke refers in the nativity story (see Luke 2:8). The flocks weren't simply allowed to roam around with no one keeping an eye on them. The tower served as a place from which a few shepherds could keep an eye out for predatory animals, both four-legged and two-legged kinds. It was supposedly about 20 to 25 feet tall, with an upper story and a lower story at ground level. I've been told the foundation is still visible on a hillside just outside of Bethlehem today.
You may have heard it said that the nativity story is not believable because shepherds wouldn't have been out in the fields during the cold winter months that this time encompasses. Private shepherds likely weren't. However, the temple flocks were kept year-round, as sacrificial worship didn't take time off for cold seasons. So these flocks were tended by shepherds on a year-round basis.
Since these animals were destined for sacrifice, they were specially cared for. As you know from passages like Exodus 12:5, Leviticus 4:32, and Numbers 6:14 (there are many others), the sacrificial lamb was to be without blemish (a picture of the sinlessness of the Messiah; see 1 Peter 1:19). One of the critical times for these animals was the first day or so of their lives. They were prone to being damaged out in the fields as they stumbled about just after they were born, and any bumps and bruises at this tender age would likely show up as scars (blemishes) when they were old enough for temple worship. In order to protect them, the shepherds brought the pregnant ewes into the ground floor of Migdol Eder where there was a special birthing room. It was not like an ordinary stable, but was kept ceremonially clean by the temple priesthood. When the ewes gave birth to the new lambs, the babies were wrapped in swaddling cloths, and laid in a manger (feed trough) for a few hours to protect them from any scarring accidents.
If you read Luke 2 carefully, you see there isn't any information there as to the location of the Messiah. So how did the shepherds in the fields know where to go and find him? Note the sign given to them by the angel in Luke 2:12: "And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." What was so unusual about a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths? Nothing. How could it be a sign of anything then? The key was, "...and lying in a manger." These shepherds, employees (as it were) of the temple, would have known instantly and exactly what and where the angel meant for them to go to find the newborn king.
So why is this important? It matters in this sense: everything in the Old Testament points toward the Messiah, the Christ. The entire Jewish sacrificial system was a type or shadow of the one sufficient sacrifice to come- the son of God. The laying of the sacrificial lambs in mangers, wrapped in swaddling cloths, is just one more proof of the reality and authenticity of Jesus as the Messiah, the final lamb and sacrifice which would take away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
There is much more to say on this topic, but I'm trying to keep this at a readable length. If you google 'migdol eder' (and variant spellings) you can find all sorts of variations on the idea, some more credible than others; many which include much more scriptural support than I have.
Migdol Eder as the birthplace of Christ is an idea worth considering.
Winter Wonder-Land (The TX Panhandle)
I write, 'Winter Wonder-Land' instead of the traditional, 'Winter Wonderland' on purpose...the weather around here in the winter makes you wonder what the heck is going on.
Wednesday this week we broke the all-time high temperature record (old record was 71 degrees) with a temp of 76 degrees. Today it is snowing. Sorta.
They've been talking for a couple days about this snowstorm, and yesterday I participated (because of my job as a college dean) in a conference call with local officials and the National Weather Service about this approaching snow storm. They were very confident in their models, maps and all. We were in the 2" - 4" range, with 6" - 10" just north of us. It was supposed to start in the early a.m., with the heaviest snow starting around 6 a.m. Right now (its 8:30 a.m.) there is no snow on the ground. A few light flurries around, but nothing to brag about. Looking at the radar, it doesn't look like we'll get much more than a dusting.
I wonder what happened to that storm?
Wednesday this week we broke the all-time high temperature record (old record was 71 degrees) with a temp of 76 degrees. Today it is snowing. Sorta.
They've been talking for a couple days about this snowstorm, and yesterday I participated (because of my job as a college dean) in a conference call with local officials and the National Weather Service about this approaching snow storm. They were very confident in their models, maps and all. We were in the 2" - 4" range, with 6" - 10" just north of us. It was supposed to start in the early a.m., with the heaviest snow starting around 6 a.m. Right now (its 8:30 a.m.) there is no snow on the ground. A few light flurries around, but nothing to brag about. Looking at the radar, it doesn't look like we'll get much more than a dusting.
I wonder what happened to that storm?
16 December 2010
Things the Internet Has Killed (Part 3)
If you didn't see the first two posts in this series, they are here-
Part 1
Part 2
We are now to the next set, which includes vacations, privacy, and facts.
Vacations- How in the world has the internet killed vacations? Well, primarily by our own addiction to it. It kills vacation by our staying in constant contact with it, whether that be email or just casual surfing, FB, or whatever.
I remember taking my laptop on vacation with me many times in the past. I would spend quite a bit of time on it to the detriment of time spent with my family. Then I started leaving it at home. I got much more family time, but ended up with free time and nothing to do when the others were doing their own things (wife shopping, kids napping, etc.). So I finally decided to go ahead and take the thing along, but to turn off the wi-fi connection. It works. Now, I can work on stuff (like my Sunday school lessons), read (I have Logos 4 installed, which includes a couple thousand books), or just organize my disorganized photos and files, if I have down time. But since the wi-fi is not hooked up, I don't get bogged down in FB or with email.
Bottom line here is, it's really up to you, not the existence of the web, as to whether your vacation is ruined or not.
Privacy- This is the 'scary' one of the bunch, and one that we seem to have less control over than we'd like, or think. The only real control we have is to not participate in the internet at all. Even then, there will still be information about us on the web. Have you ever typed your name into a Google (or other) search box and hit the enter key? Try it...you'll be surprised at how much information is out there about you, and at how many people share your name (even if you have one of those 'unique' names, chances are its not unique).
The people that share your name are actually more of a problem than you might think. How much of that information do you think gets associated with you by mistake? And how hard is it to fix these false associations when you find them? What if one of these people is a criminal? In this culture, when everybody wants to be interconnected with all the information obtained by others (see the 9-11 Report if you need evidence), chances are pretty good that you have false information about you or connected to you floating around on the internet.
Now this, just in- a group of popular web sites has been harvesting your browser history to see if they can target you with ads. This 'history snooping' isn't new, but is just recently made the headlines. Its just another example of how you have to not participate to save your privacy.
Facts- This one cuts two directions. First the good part: facts are a lot easier to find with the ubiquity of the internet. Even 20 years ago when I was a grad student, finding much information about much of anything required a trip to the library. A couple hours in a card catalog, or searching on the terminals (after about 1990), yielded quite a few connections...all of which had to be physically found in the stacks, as they were called. (I suppose they are still there, and still called, the stacks, but I bet its a lonely place these days.) Now, if you need to know something, you type it into a Google box. As one person (name forgotten) recently quipped, "In the past, if you needed to know something, you asked a smart person. Now, the person you ask starts with G-O, and its not God."
But there's the rub...now, to find the information you need, and know it is legitimate information, you need to know more about the subject, or at least something about the sources, that you find. And one problem I never had with a card catalog was getting two hundred thousand hits for a two-word title or phrase. How are we to ever know if we are finding the right resources when we only skim through a few pages of the three thousand pages listed?
There's always the pages like Snopes.com, where we can check facts. But who's checking the fact-checkers? I remember one of those internet myth emails going around a couple years ago about Snopes being a liberal watch-dog site that was biased against conservatives. I have no idea if it is or not, but you can bet that you won't find an entry at Snopes.com about it! (Oh, come on...think about it...if it is true they are a liberal plant, they won't have an article confirming that they are a liberal plant...if they are not a liberal plant, they won't have an article confirming that they are a liberal plant). I hear there are at least a dozen fact-checker sites now...but I'm not familiar with any of them. And word is there are more starting up all the time. But again, how do you know if the one or three fact-checker sites you consult are bias-free?
On with the show in a few days.
Part 1
Part 2
We are now to the next set, which includes vacations, privacy, and facts.
Vacations- How in the world has the internet killed vacations? Well, primarily by our own addiction to it. It kills vacation by our staying in constant contact with it, whether that be email or just casual surfing, FB, or whatever.
I remember taking my laptop on vacation with me many times in the past. I would spend quite a bit of time on it to the detriment of time spent with my family. Then I started leaving it at home. I got much more family time, but ended up with free time and nothing to do when the others were doing their own things (wife shopping, kids napping, etc.). So I finally decided to go ahead and take the thing along, but to turn off the wi-fi connection. It works. Now, I can work on stuff (like my Sunday school lessons), read (I have Logos 4 installed, which includes a couple thousand books), or just organize my disorganized photos and files, if I have down time. But since the wi-fi is not hooked up, I don't get bogged down in FB or with email.
Bottom line here is, it's really up to you, not the existence of the web, as to whether your vacation is ruined or not.
Privacy- This is the 'scary' one of the bunch, and one that we seem to have less control over than we'd like, or think. The only real control we have is to not participate in the internet at all. Even then, there will still be information about us on the web. Have you ever typed your name into a Google (or other) search box and hit the enter key? Try it...you'll be surprised at how much information is out there about you, and at how many people share your name (even if you have one of those 'unique' names, chances are its not unique).
The people that share your name are actually more of a problem than you might think. How much of that information do you think gets associated with you by mistake? And how hard is it to fix these false associations when you find them? What if one of these people is a criminal? In this culture, when everybody wants to be interconnected with all the information obtained by others (see the 9-11 Report if you need evidence), chances are pretty good that you have false information about you or connected to you floating around on the internet.
Now this, just in- a group of popular web sites has been harvesting your browser history to see if they can target you with ads. This 'history snooping' isn't new, but is just recently made the headlines. Its just another example of how you have to not participate to save your privacy.
Facts- This one cuts two directions. First the good part: facts are a lot easier to find with the ubiquity of the internet. Even 20 years ago when I was a grad student, finding much information about much of anything required a trip to the library. A couple hours in a card catalog, or searching on the terminals (after about 1990), yielded quite a few connections...all of which had to be physically found in the stacks, as they were called. (I suppose they are still there, and still called, the stacks, but I bet its a lonely place these days.) Now, if you need to know something, you type it into a Google box. As one person (name forgotten) recently quipped, "In the past, if you needed to know something, you asked a smart person. Now, the person you ask starts with G-O, and its not God."
But there's the rub...now, to find the information you need, and know it is legitimate information, you need to know more about the subject, or at least something about the sources, that you find. And one problem I never had with a card catalog was getting two hundred thousand hits for a two-word title or phrase. How are we to ever know if we are finding the right resources when we only skim through a few pages of the three thousand pages listed?
There's always the pages like Snopes.com, where we can check facts. But who's checking the fact-checkers? I remember one of those internet myth emails going around a couple years ago about Snopes being a liberal watch-dog site that was biased against conservatives. I have no idea if it is or not, but you can bet that you won't find an entry at Snopes.com about it! (Oh, come on...think about it...if it is true they are a liberal plant, they won't have an article confirming that they are a liberal plant...if they are not a liberal plant, they won't have an article confirming that they are a liberal plant). I hear there are at least a dozen fact-checker sites now...but I'm not familiar with any of them. And word is there are more starting up all the time. But again, how do you know if the one or three fact-checker sites you consult are bias-free?
On with the show in a few days.
15 December 2010
Blog Experiments
Well, as you can see, the embedded YouTube video takes up more space than is allotted in the template. I guess those things don't automatically scale down to the available space.
I'm still new at this thing (that's why my blog isn't nearly as pretty as some of the experience folks'!).
Speaking of experienced folks, one of the Pyromaniacs has taken over an old blog titled, The Calvinist Gadfly. This looks like an experiment itself, but a promising one. I'd recommend signing up because I have a feeling it will be an interesting and fun experience watching the thing morph into whatever it will become.
>>
I'm still new at this thing (that's why my blog isn't nearly as pretty as some of the experience folks'!).
Speaking of experienced folks, one of the Pyromaniacs has taken over an old blog titled, The Calvinist Gadfly. This looks like an experiment itself, but a promising one. I'd recommend signing up because I have a feeling it will be an interesting and fun experience watching the thing morph into whatever it will become.
>>
Holiness of God "Sermon Jam"
I found this video on YouTube and thought it was too good not to pass along. Instead of a simple link, I thought I'd try embedding it here. We'll see if it works.
This is a collection of sermon-segments from R. C. Sproul, C. J. Mahaney, and John Piper.
This is a collection of sermon-segments from R. C. Sproul, C. J. Mahaney, and John Piper.
Things the Internet Has Killed (Part 2)
Today, I'll be taking up the next four things on the Newsweek list of Things the Internet Has Killed. These are civility, the CD, the phone book, and letter writing.
If you missed it, the first post is here.
Civility- At first thought, this one is a no-brainer. But upon reflection, I'm not so sure the internet is completely at fault for the loss of civility in our society. I think the series of events and trends that started the process rolling go back as far as one can see, and certainly back to the 1960s.
Another major player in the loss of civility can certainly be laid at the feet of talk radio. But if you look at the early pioneers of talk radio, such as Rush Limbaugh, you don't have to look hard to see that what he was doing back in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a response to a lack of civility in the media, particularly television 'news' programs; he didn't create the incivility himself. Rush has certainly been on the cutting edge of the new style of radio entertainment, and has spawned entire industries of the same, both on the right and on the left (though the left has really struggled to pay the bills with their version of talk radio).
The early days of the internet, with its bulletin board discussion groups and the like, gave birth to the anonymous online personality. It didn't take long, with the popularity of the early ISPs such as CompuServe (CS) and AmericaOnline (AOL), for this idea to become common in the general public. Just like how the anonymity of being in a vehicle increases the risk of actions like road rage, the even more anonymous anonymity of the online world made polite discourse nothing more than a nuisance to many. Today, I can't even pull up a YouTube video to show my kids for fear of all the obscenity in the comments, right there on the page. As G. K. Chesterton once said, total depravity is the one aspect of Scripture that is empirically verifiable. He was right. Look no further than the comments posted on most popular blogs.
The CD- If you are my age (46), the CD came along late enough in life, and lasted long enough, that is is a surprise to many that is is already becoming obsolete. At least, the store-bought kind is becomming obsolete. Now that I can download songs for 99 cents from Amazon.com, I don't bother buying albums any more. Why pay ten or twelve bucks for an album with two or three good songs? Now I can get the ones I want without all the fluff and filler. But since I drive an older car, with no USB port, I have to burn these to a blank CD to listen to them when I'm on the road. So that part of the CD market is still alive, at least until automobiles are all connected to the web (which is already happening) or have sound systems designed for the newer media, like Ipods and such (which is really already happening).
I do wonder, though, if the demise of all hard media will last. After all, solid-state drives (things like USB thumb-drives and the memory inside your Ipod or MP3 player) haven't been around very long, and the durability over time of these types of storage is really not well known. How many fifty-thousand-song MP3 collections have to disappear before everybody starts keeping hard-copy backups? At the rate that online videos, music, and similar productions are growing, keeping up with all the backups will be a major industry unto itself. Blank CDs will certainly be a part of this (I'm including DVDs under the label CD here.)
The Telephone Book- This is actually one of the few things that I'm glad to see die. Just recently, I was contacted by AT&T Yellow Pages about renewing my ad with them. (I run the typical ad for a college/university for my work.) I gleefully told them I had bought my last YP ad and they need not bother contacting me again in the future. They didn't seem surprised. My ad cost me just under $2000 a year, and I'm not sure anyone ever saw it. Back in the 'old days', when you opened the phone book when you needed to find any kind of business or institution, a phone book ad was essential. These days, I don't know if anyone under my age ever picks one up. I've read statistics in several recent reports showing that almost all phone number searching, as well as business address searching, is done online.
I was recently at the Wayland Baptist main campus down in Plainview for a meeting. In the area where student mailboxes are, they stacked close to a thousand copies of the yellow pages. That was done several months ago, as I happened to be on campus when they were unloading them. When I was back the other day, it was hard to tell that a single copy had been picked up by the students. They just aren't interested in such a throwback to their grandparents' world.
Now, with smartphones, one does not even need to dial information (which costs money)...instead, one can browse the internet (for free) for the number. The phone book is indeed dead.
Letter Writing- Unlike the proverbial warning on your passenger mirror, this one is bigger than it appears. As a college instructor for years, I often wondered why people couldn't write. It wasn't long before I realized that folks couldn't write for two simple reasons: they don't write, and they don't read.
I've believe for a long time that people write at their basic reading level. That is, if you read comic books and pulp fiction, you write like those, and if you read Tolstoy and Shakespeare, or the Bible, you write at a level considerably higher than the comic book crowd. Throw on top of the fact that most students don't read anymore (they watch TV or play video games instead), the secondary fact that the bulk of the writing done by most people of school age now is in the form of 140-characters-or-less text messages. That certainly explains why essay questions on tests never go past two or three sentences...nobody can think that far out. (I wonder what this has done to people's ability to play chess?)
One of the main reasons I started this blog was because I thought I was losing some of my ability to communicate effectively in writing. Here's my first post, hinting at this reason. Over the past year-and-a-half, my writing ability has certainly been helped by writing this blog, and I've been able to remember a lot of stuff I thought I'd forgotten about spelling, grammar, and all the other minutia of writing.
I would encourage everyone who cares about their ability to communicate or wants to keep their mind sharp to start a blog. Maybe no one will ever read it (I don't think I have much of a following yet), but it will be beneficial to you to think, to put your thought into writing where others can challenge them, and then to defend (or change your mind about) the things you've written.
More in a few days.
If you missed it, the first post is here.
Civility- At first thought, this one is a no-brainer. But upon reflection, I'm not so sure the internet is completely at fault for the loss of civility in our society. I think the series of events and trends that started the process rolling go back as far as one can see, and certainly back to the 1960s.
Another major player in the loss of civility can certainly be laid at the feet of talk radio. But if you look at the early pioneers of talk radio, such as Rush Limbaugh, you don't have to look hard to see that what he was doing back in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a response to a lack of civility in the media, particularly television 'news' programs; he didn't create the incivility himself. Rush has certainly been on the cutting edge of the new style of radio entertainment, and has spawned entire industries of the same, both on the right and on the left (though the left has really struggled to pay the bills with their version of talk radio).
The early days of the internet, with its bulletin board discussion groups and the like, gave birth to the anonymous online personality. It didn't take long, with the popularity of the early ISPs such as CompuServe (CS) and AmericaOnline (AOL), for this idea to become common in the general public. Just like how the anonymity of being in a vehicle increases the risk of actions like road rage, the even more anonymous anonymity of the online world made polite discourse nothing more than a nuisance to many. Today, I can't even pull up a YouTube video to show my kids for fear of all the obscenity in the comments, right there on the page. As G. K. Chesterton once said, total depravity is the one aspect of Scripture that is empirically verifiable. He was right. Look no further than the comments posted on most popular blogs.
The CD- If you are my age (46), the CD came along late enough in life, and lasted long enough, that is is a surprise to many that is is already becoming obsolete. At least, the store-bought kind is becomming obsolete. Now that I can download songs for 99 cents from Amazon.com, I don't bother buying albums any more. Why pay ten or twelve bucks for an album with two or three good songs? Now I can get the ones I want without all the fluff and filler. But since I drive an older car, with no USB port, I have to burn these to a blank CD to listen to them when I'm on the road. So that part of the CD market is still alive, at least until automobiles are all connected to the web (which is already happening) or have sound systems designed for the newer media, like Ipods and such (which is really already happening).
I do wonder, though, if the demise of all hard media will last. After all, solid-state drives (things like USB thumb-drives and the memory inside your Ipod or MP3 player) haven't been around very long, and the durability over time of these types of storage is really not well known. How many fifty-thousand-song MP3 collections have to disappear before everybody starts keeping hard-copy backups? At the rate that online videos, music, and similar productions are growing, keeping up with all the backups will be a major industry unto itself. Blank CDs will certainly be a part of this (I'm including DVDs under the label CD here.)
The Telephone Book- This is actually one of the few things that I'm glad to see die. Just recently, I was contacted by AT&T Yellow Pages about renewing my ad with them. (I run the typical ad for a college/university for my work.) I gleefully told them I had bought my last YP ad and they need not bother contacting me again in the future. They didn't seem surprised. My ad cost me just under $2000 a year, and I'm not sure anyone ever saw it. Back in the 'old days', when you opened the phone book when you needed to find any kind of business or institution, a phone book ad was essential. These days, I don't know if anyone under my age ever picks one up. I've read statistics in several recent reports showing that almost all phone number searching, as well as business address searching, is done online.
I was recently at the Wayland Baptist main campus down in Plainview for a meeting. In the area where student mailboxes are, they stacked close to a thousand copies of the yellow pages. That was done several months ago, as I happened to be on campus when they were unloading them. When I was back the other day, it was hard to tell that a single copy had been picked up by the students. They just aren't interested in such a throwback to their grandparents' world.
Now, with smartphones, one does not even need to dial information (which costs money)...instead, one can browse the internet (for free) for the number. The phone book is indeed dead.
Letter Writing- Unlike the proverbial warning on your passenger mirror, this one is bigger than it appears. As a college instructor for years, I often wondered why people couldn't write. It wasn't long before I realized that folks couldn't write for two simple reasons: they don't write, and they don't read.
I've believe for a long time that people write at their basic reading level. That is, if you read comic books and pulp fiction, you write like those, and if you read Tolstoy and Shakespeare, or the Bible, you write at a level considerably higher than the comic book crowd. Throw on top of the fact that most students don't read anymore (they watch TV or play video games instead), the secondary fact that the bulk of the writing done by most people of school age now is in the form of 140-characters-or-less text messages. That certainly explains why essay questions on tests never go past two or three sentences...nobody can think that far out. (I wonder what this has done to people's ability to play chess?)
One of the main reasons I started this blog was because I thought I was losing some of my ability to communicate effectively in writing. Here's my first post, hinting at this reason. Over the past year-and-a-half, my writing ability has certainly been helped by writing this blog, and I've been able to remember a lot of stuff I thought I'd forgotten about spelling, grammar, and all the other minutia of writing.
I would encourage everyone who cares about their ability to communicate or wants to keep their mind sharp to start a blog. Maybe no one will ever read it (I don't think I have much of a following yet), but it will be beneficial to you to think, to put your thought into writing where others can challenge them, and then to defend (or change your mind about) the things you've written.
More in a few days.
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Now, Google it.
Except for rare instances, you’ll be surprised at how many ‘hits’ you get. How? If you didn’t steal it, and it wasn’t published for others to steal from you, how did others use your original words?
I think there are several factors in play.
First, we are talking about a finite body of information (the gospel). Within the limitations of a language, there are only so many ways to say what the gospel is. There are bound to be repeats. I'm talking here about unintentional, chance-based used of similar language.
Second, and this is probably the biggest factor, our memories are not like video tape…they are dynamic. We hear things, and then repeat those things, sometimes years in the future, without realizing where the thoughts came from. We think these are original thoughts, but they are original only in the sense we have processed them in our minds and forgotten their genesis. (It makes one wonder if there is truly any original thought...how are we to know that no one in history has ever thought what we are thinking?)
Third, in combination with the second factor above, the internet has made it possible to put almost any thought in writing in a public venue. In the past, we had a lot of unoriginal thoughts (though we didn’t realize it) and they passed through our minds, or were even spoken in public, and nobody noticed. Now, when we repackage an idea we think is original but is in fact something we heard in the past, we put it in a permanent, written format, and put it online where the net bots can quickly find it. This makes the (unintentional) problem more noticeable.
Finally, a rhetorical question: If we express what we understand to be the gospel, do we OWN that material? If not, how can the use of that verbiage be called theft if someone else uses our words? If you believe that you DO own that material, what does that say about the gospel? There was recently a series of posts over on the Resurgence blogs about copyright and Christian music intended for use in worship. It was thought-provoking, though I don't know that it went far enough at times. (Personally, I believe that if one writes worship music, markets it as worship music, and then profits from it above and beyond ones costs, he or she is going to have a tough argument to convince me he or she has not robbed God by committing some form of usery against His people. This isn't a fully-developed idea by me yet...I'm working on it. I may be wrong. But it bugs me, deeply, to think that a gathering of believers, singing a song together to praise God, may be breaking the law by not paying a license fee to some organization.) I wonder how much of that applies to sermons and Sunday School lessons?
There is certainly a large gap between intentional use of someone's thoughts and the mistaken regurgitation of an idea we heard long ago but don't really remember isn't original with us. But motives are hard to judge. I would urge caution before accusing someone else of plagiarizing your work, at least until you’ve tried the little experiment I mentioned above.