Tim Yenter has continued the story of Charlie Parker, offering a revised version of the original 14 chapters and adding a 15th. If you haven’t read Charlie Park, go! Do it now!
Monthly Archives: January 2005
Answering a Call to Action
Last week Dave Long threw down a challenge: read Bad Ground, the second book from Dale Cramer that’s received strong reviews (including being listed as one of Publisher Weekly’s best books of 2004) but isn’t selling well. The book is published by Long’s employer, Bethany House, so there’s an interesting dynamic at work in his challenge (he acknowledges it, but thinks the book is worth the risk).
I finished the book today (too cheap to buy it, it happened to be lying in my pile of reviewer’s copies–without Long’s challenge I never would have cracked the binding) and threw together a quick review. For something you’d find on the shelves of a Christian bookstore, I’m fairly impressed. It could hold its own in Barnes & Noble, though it does have a few weaknesses.
Much of Long’s blog is about making Christian fiction a label that’s said with a little less derision. Bad Ground is a solid step in that direction. I guess it just surprises me that publishing a novel with elements of faith is such a difficult thing. It goes sickeningly to one extreme (in Christian bookstores) or it’s so light it’s lost and condemned. I guess I have some experience with that, but it’s just sad that a good story can’t just be a good story.
James Dobson: Does Anybody Here Know SpongeBob?
The founder of Focus on the Family, James Dobson, singled out the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants for promoting homosexuality. Dobson was referring to a music video remake of the disco hit “We Are Family” which starred children’s television characters, including SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney, Big Bird, Elmo, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Winnie the Pooh, Jimmy Neutron and dozens of others (it’s worth noting that SpongeBob only appears in background clips–he doesn’t actually sing like most other characters do). The We Are Family Foundation, which made the video, plans to distribute it to 61,000 elementary schools this spring along with educational lesson plans promoting tolerance and diversity, all in celebration of a proposed National We Are Family Day on March 11, 2005.
“We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids,” said Dobson’s assistant, Paul Batura. “It is a classic bait and switch.”
Mark Barondeso, general counsel for the We Are Family Foundation, suggested that anyone who says the video promotes homosexuality “needs to visit their doctor and get their medication increased.”
The music video also includes cameo appearances by Billy Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg and Diana Ross. The organization’s attempt to establish National We Are Family Day has been supported by Senators Bob Dole and Orrin Hatch. The initiative also has broad backing from a range of partners and sponsors, including PBS, Nickelodeon, Disney, Sesame Workshop, Scholastic Entertainment, Fed-Ex and more.
With all those involved, Dobson choose to single out a fictional character that appears in the video for less than five seconds. It’s all painfully reminescent of Jerry Falwell accusing Tinky Winky the Teletubby of being gay in 1999.
Perhaps Dobson should team up with the one character who apparently didn’t appreciate his role in the music video: Oscar the Grouch, who declared in the middle of the song, “I’m in my worst nightmare! I’m in the middle of a heart-felt anthem!” Or perhaps Dobson has seen the John Hagee video, Pulling Down SpongeBob’s Squarepants: Exposing Satan’s Yellow Bellied Plan.
Colored Waiting Room
The Library of Congress has an archive of photos showing signs enforcing racial discrimination from the 1930s and 40s. It’s pretty brutal to think of that as a normal part of life. It’s especially jarring to see the photographs out of context–my first thought when I saw the picture to the right was the movie Pleasantville where a black & white town suddenly bursts into technicolor.
Hello, My Name is KEVIN
Because Jordon Cooper did it and it seemed like a cool idea, who are you?
Answer the following questions in the comment section so I can pretend like I know you.
Name:
Age:
Profession:
Location:
Why do you read this blog?
What do you like about this blog?
What do you dislike about this blog?
Star Wars or Lord of the Rings?
If you could take over MonkeyOuttaNowhere.com for a day what would you do?
If a TV movie based on MonkeyOuttaNowhere.com was ever made, who should play me?
(questions blatantly stolen from Jordon Cooper)
All Aboard the Blogging Bandwagon
Until January 25 you can download The Beginner’s Guide to Business Blogging for free. Though it is a bit repetitive, the guide covers all the basics (including ‘what is a blog?’) and explains how a blog can be good for business.
Rocky Mountain National Park in 1912
The U.S. Geological Survey has put thousands of photos online from geological events like earthquakes and the Mount St. Helens eruption to National Parks. May favorite is Rocky Mountain National Park, the park my family went to every summer. The archive has 139 RMNP photos from the 1873-1921, including this 1912 picture of Estes Park. (link via Nick Ciske)
Hockey Time
I played hockey yesterday. Assuming you can call skating around by yourself and slapping the puck around hockey.
Someone asked the other day if a hockey season didn’t happen would anyone notice. In the culture at large the answer seems to be no, and in my personal life I haven’t noticed that much either. But there is something strangely lacking, something not quite right.
2004 Reading List
It’s time once again for the annual reading list. Well, actually it was time two weeks ago, but I’m just now getting to it. Yet again my reading list numbers are low. It seems not riding the bus to work every day really hampers my ability to read. And starting my own review blog hasn’t seemed to help abolish the need for this list. Meh.
This list is also full of business books, which are sometimes mildly interesting, and books I had to read for reviews, which often times aren’t as interesting.
So here we go.