Blog readership jumped 58% in 2004.
8 million American adults have created blogs.
27% of Internet users read blogs.
Yet 62% of Internet users don’t know what a blog is.
(Pew Internet & American Life)
Monthly Archives: January 2005
The New York Times on Jay Bakker
Phil Vischer: Ernie & Bert were standing very close–that’s concerning
The SpongeBob vs. Dobson smackdown continues with VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer weighing in, as well as the executive producers of Doug and (drum roll) Focus on the Family finally responds. (read the response or listen to the Jan. 25 & 26 shows)
In a nutshell, James Dobson accuses the media of misrepresenting him. He claims he has no problem with SpongeBob (or the 100+ other characters that appeared in the video) and insists that his main concern was the pro-homosexual bias of the We Are Family Foundation. Which as Vischer points out, really comes down to a question of whether or not “respecting sexual identity” is a problem. We’re supposed to love people, homosexuals and hypocrites included. But are we supposed to affirm them? Endorse them? Respect them? It’s an iffy line, one that Dobson seems to know pretty clearly, but I’m not so sure.
As Vischer asked, if you disagree with the We Are Family pledge, does that mean you endorse the inverse? Should we disrespect homosexuals? I don’t think Dobson would go that far, but his statements never seem to clearly state that that kind of approach is also out of line.
Blogs: How to Avoid the Karmic Weenie
Legendary ad-man and vice chairman of Ogilvy & Mather, Steve Hayden, talks about the marketing potential of blogs. Of course, there’s also the potential downside:
Brownies 1, Kevin 0
I had a brilliant plan. Brownie mix, pecan pieces, carmel. I’d make my own brownies to rival the tempting carmel brownies at the Starbucks, situated so enticingly in the middle of Barnes & Noble. I’d have a week’s worth of snacks for the same price as one indulgence.
Easier said than done.
The edge of the pan is hard as a rock. I nearly bent the spatula. The center of the pan is chewy–too chewy. You can taste carbon. They’re not exactly burnt, but they’re not right either. The carmely nut goodness drizzled across the top has kept me from chiselling the whole pan into the trash, but it will happen soon enough.
See you at Barnes & Noble.
Peter Furler: The record company was greedy
ChristianMusicToday has a revealing interview with Newsboys lead singer Peter Furler talking about rock and roll being boring, their record company pushing them to do a worship album, and a return to sarcastic songs like “Breakfast.”
SpongeBob: Who would you rather go bowling with?
“Let me ask you, who would you rather go bowling with, SpongeBob and his friends or the Rev. James Dobson? Who would you rather go out with and have a few beers? Probably the only common ground I have with the Rev. James Dobson is that I haven’t seen the video, and I’ll bet he hasn’t either.”
-Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, responding to accusations of a pro-homosexual agenda.
And the flurry continues…
Continue reading SpongeBob: Who would you rather go bowling with?
Jon Stewart on Jesus
“It’s hard for me to believe that Jesus’ first priorities would have been a capital gains tax cut and the occupation of Iraq.”
-Sojourner’s Jim Wallis on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (you can watch a clip of the show online for a limited time) talking about his new book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.
(link via Dave Rogers)
Ponytail
Yesterday Abby said I can grow a ponytail if I write a second novel. And I have witnesses.
Not that I really want a ponytail, I just like the challenge.
Someone also commented to me at church the other day that with my growing beard I’m really working on the beat writer look.
This goes along with a previous comment saying I can grow a beard and become a cooky old man if I publish a novel before I’m 32. The stipulation was that it had to be in a real bookstore, not merely a Christian bookstore. Of course I currently have a beard, so I’m not sure what the motivation was (though I think it may have been one of those huge, halfway down your chest beards).
The Mathematical Conquest of Literature
Over at Faith*In*Fiction Dave Long has been talking about all sorts of statistics for quantifying how a novel is written. Things like Overall Dialogue Percentage (ODP), Literary EKG (LEKG–wait can an acronym include an acronym?) and Protagonist Consciousness Indicator (PCI). While it sounds incredibly boring to the non-book geek, it’s interesting to bring some numbers to the wordy business of books.
Just how much dialogue is in a book, and what does that mean for the reading experience (a quick glance at my novel comes up with 29% ODP)? How quickly paced is the story? And who’s telling the story? It’s easy to get a general feel for these things, but cold hard numbers can tell the real story.
As goofy as this all sounds, I think it’s brilliant. Somewhere out there a grad student needs to be writing their thesis about this, taking the time to figure out all these numbers for all the classic works of literature and giving us some solid numbers and benchmarks to work with. A .300 batting average is pretty good, but what kind of LEKG do the best thrillers have? And are the numbers Long proposes really the best numbers to look at?
It’s about the dorkiest thing I’ve ever heard–but I love it.