News & Pop Culture – Page 3 – Jonathan D. Blundell

Shane Claiborne on Buy Nothing Day & Black Friday

Shane Claiborne posted a guest blog entry on the Sojourner blog today and recapped his thoughts on Black Friday and Buy Nothing Day. Loved this story ::

I love the story of one pastor who got fed up with all the decorations and clutter. He began to see that we are in danger of losing the very “reason for the season,” Jesus — the Jesus that was born in the middle of Herod’s bloody genocide, the Jesus who was born a refugee with no room in the inn, the Jesus who knew suffering from the cradle to the cross. This pastor went through the sanctuary the night before the big Christmas service and spread out manure all over the floor — nasty, stinky piles of turd. As folks came in the next day in their best attire, he preached — and did he ever. He preached about how the original story of was not about malls and decorations. He preached about a story that was not pretty. He preached about a God who enters the s**t of this world and redeems all that is ugly and broken. It is a story they will never forget. It is the story of our faith.

Here’s a video from Buy Nothing Day events in Philly – posted by our friend Jamie Moffett – (look for Shane on stilts) ::

(embedded video)

web 2.0 rant

[rant]

So I love this idea of ambient intimacy. I love that I can get to know the folks in my community better and better through things like twitter, and facebook status updates and even their blogs.

I love that I can learn so much about people in short 140-character thoughts and quotes and comments throughout the day.

But I’m also getting annoyed that twitter is starting to become a “link dump” and/or a “read my new blog post!” @tonyjones twittered about this last week and I originally thought, well that’s a bit unkind – then I realized how many text messages (aka noise) I get throughout the day that are nothing more than “read my new blog post!”

I hate it because while I don’t mind seeing these things in facebook’s news feed or on my twitter friend feed I also see them in my RSS reader. So having an announcement about them show up on my cellphone as text messages really bugs me.

I know, I know – everyone just wants to plug their stuff — and honestly I’ve plugged a blog post here or there too. But I guess what gets me about the whole scenario is that for those folks I chose to go the extra mile in getting to know and actually opt-in to get their tweets sent to my cellphone (rather than just following them via the web). I don’t need a reminder to check your blog. And the fact that you automatically send me announcements every time you update your blog (rather than just highlighting the really good stuff) — or send a mass of tweets 3 or 4 times a day that share all your blog posts from the last several hours — makes me that less interested in following you or subscribing to your twitter feed. All the automatic posts just add to the noise and turn me off.

Am I making any sense? Maybe not — but I guess that’s why it’s a rant.

In full disclosure, the encounter blog and website are setup to automatically post a tweet anytime and every time a new blog post is updated and/or we post a new announcement or podcast to the website. So you can probably rant and rave about that and argue that I’m being biased (maybe this is where my rant/argument falls apart). However, I would argue in response that both the blog and the website are updated on a fairly limited basis and I’m/you’re not following the encounter twitter feed because you want to get to know someone better – it’s setup as a “news/announcement/prayer feed” for folks interested in encounter.

So there you have it. What say you?

[/rant]

I better post a link to this via twitter to be sure everyone knows about it and responds. 🙂

[rant continued]

update :: I also hate reading RSS feeds that don’t show the entire blog post. I don’t want to have to click “read more” or “this post continues elsewhere.” Just put the entire blog post in your RSS feed — PLEASE! I’m dumping a lot of RSS feeds right now that make me click on another link to read — it makes the entire point of RSS rather pointless.

[/rant]

Hurricane Ike re-tweets

My co-worker just pointed out that I’m now famous – a hurricane re-tweeted me.

For those of you unfamiliar with twitter and/or re-tweeting – it’s similar to a Hat Tip (HT) on a blog. When a tweet (twitter message) is considered good – it’s re-tweeted by all those who like it. Usually labeled with an RT and the user’s name and copies information from another twitter user.

related ::
follow hurricane ike on twitter

Jerry’s not happy with WFAA and Cynthia Izaguirre

So, as previously mentioned, a post I wrote back in Jan. 2008 about WFAA morning anchor Justin Farmer leaving continues to get a lot of visits and comments.

But I’ve come to realize something over and over again now.

One guy in particular is apparently not happy at all with new morning anchor Cynthia Izaguirre and he’s sharing his 3 thoughts all over Dallas blogs.

As of the last count, he’s posted 8 or 9 comments on my blog. He’s copied three of the comments on two separate posts. I did a quick Google search for one phrase he’s used — and as it turns out, it’s not just my blog he’s copying and pasting to.

Looks like he’s also hit up Frontburner on a couple occasions as well as Dallasismyhome.com.

I wonder if he had his heart broken, or is just two busy to write original comments for all the different blogs.

Hmmm. Oh well. Makes those “Obama hates everyone” e-mails seem that much less surprising.

The drive in with NPR

Well I had to drive to work today due to meetings in Mesquite later today.

And I have to say, despite the annoyance that sometimes comes with having to wait on a DART bus or sitting next to someone who’s a heavy smoker — I’d rather do that any day than have to drive and sit in traffic day in and day out.

However driving to work does give me a better opportunity to catch up on the day’s news with NPR.

Some interesting stuff today that you may or may not know…

If you have an accident in the City of Dallas and are not a city resident, you’ll be charged $600 if you request police or fire assistance.
12 people were killed in Sherman, Texas this morning when their bus (carrying them to a mission project) likely blew a tire and ran off an overpass.
Folks in Fort Worth aren’t happy and are protesting the continued drilling of gas wells within their city.
Texas Gov. ~~McDreamy~~ Perry requested that the EPA waive their requirements to add ethanol to gasoline within the state. The EPA told Perry to dream on.
Despite a jury saying a former driver for bin Laden would only have to serve out 5 more months at Guantanamo – the Pentagon tells everyone, “So what? We’re the US Government, we can hold him as long as we like.”
Ammon Shea likes reading — a lot. So he decided to read the nearly 22,000 pages in the Oxford English Dictionary. Among some of his favorite words :: bedinner; bemissionary; gymnologize; twi-thought; and vocabularian.
The US Government says they have found “without a doubt” the Anthrax killer from 2001. Apparently for the US Government, “without a doubt” can be based primarily on “circumstantial evidence.” Sadly, their suspect committed suicide last week – meaning there will never be a trial to prove or disprove the government’s statements given at a press conference last week.
Oh and the Olympics have started in China.

So there you have it, all the news that matters to you/me.

Justin Farmer’s out Brad Hawkins is in… for now

As reported by Uncle Barky (as well as here) earlier this year, Justin Farmer’s last day with WFAA, Channel 8’s Daybreak was Friday, August 1. His contract officially ended August 5th.

Farmer made the announcement back in January (the same day morning co-host Cynthia Izaguirre joined the WFAA team) that he would be heading back to Atlanta to work for WSB.
Uncle Barky also reports that Brad Hawkins will be given the the rest of this year to win the job permanently.

It appears there was no mention of the switch on the air. Just a new face next to Cynthia Izaguirre on Monday morning (even though Hawkins has been filling in for Farmer throughout the year).
Hawkins will join Izaguirre, Alexa Conomos and Greg Fields weekday mornings from 5 – 7 a.m.

Folks seem to have varying opinions on the switch and move (see the comments on my original post). Amazing to see how dependent/accustomed we become to our favorite news anchors.

Category: News & Pop Culture

Shane Claiborne on Buy Nothing Day & Black Friday

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web 2.0 rant

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Hurricane Ike re-tweets

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Jerry’s not happy with WFAA and Cynthia Izaguirre

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The drive in with NPR

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Justin Farmer’s out Brad Hawkins is in… for now

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