Yule,
It's not my story. But I sure do understand it now.
"IHere's how I slipped from the middle class into near poverty, and what I'm doing about it " by Karen Datko
It's amazing how quickly you can lose everything. Especially when you're not farther up middle class. You keep thinking that things will get better. But most of the time, it doesn't. You get used to living off minimum wage.
Alright, I'll bite:
I think that this does it for the next couple of weeks as far as reading goes. How about you?
A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia as a Research Source, by NOAM COHEN, February 21, 2007.
It's about time.
It's not that Wikipedia isn't useful. It's just not anywhere near as accurate as the Encyclopedia Brittanica, contrary to what Wikipedia says. (Check the big EB vs WP debate, chronicled at the EB site.) And I certainly agree with the historians that a college student citing an encyclopedia (except one limited to some very specialization) is just idiotic.
There are reasons why they vet articles so long at EB. When EB says it, it may not be true but it is the generally accepted truth. And normally they describe the debate.
I've talked about the problems of Wikipedia before in my examination of their descriptions of the Japanese invasion of China. Wikipedia allows the facts to be "debated" even though it really all stems from Jingoism. Think of the entry for George W. Bush: it got hit all the time by people who believed that he was the Great Satan and this didn't add anything worth reading. Noting that he has had slumps in the polls may or may not be relevant, but ranting is not worth reading.
Personally, if I have to get a citation quickly on a definition (especially in a technical field), I'll consult Wikipedia. For computing and software development, it's an invaluable resource because you can find such little gems as the Dining Philosophers' Dilemma".
The real question, though, is why a high school teacher would allow his or her students to cite Wikipedia. We have known for a long time that kids do not have decent filters about what is trustworthy online, which has led to the great increase in belief in clearly unsupported by the evidence. And yet here they are telling their kids that it is trustworthy.
*Sigh*
Dunnno, friend. Maybe it's the years catching up with me. Or the madness that I seem to have descended into. Or I simply broke a stratum and suffer the consequences. But my thinking has become unhinged from time somehow.
And, yeah, it's maddening to have everything back up in the air.
A friend sent me an email saying that he was trying to find his authentic self. A Sisyphean challenge, since there is no authentic self to find. There are inauthentic selves, perhaps, ones that are not a fit at all to your behaviours but they are few. It's not just that I spent my formative years thinking like a Goffmanian, nor my recent rereading of Ludwig's How Do We Know Who We Are?: The Biography of the Self, although that has definitely played a part. He makes a compelling case that there is no authentic self, only the scripts that we tell ourselves. I think that Carol Dweck would agree, too: there is no determinism but only what we make.
Of course, personality does indeed play a part but not as heavy as we think. Rather, it tells us how we are going to frame things. I don't actually care about many people, at least people in general, so if you try to frame things using people as a reference point, you'll probably lose me. But I often act in caring ways because I value the idea of caring. So I can frame the action in the idea and still act in caring, loving ways. And even this is not determined.
Really, Yule, is there anything better?
Although I'd argue that Ressel is the real reason for the shows success. Vasquez had the weirdness but the strangeness of the animation seems to be from Ressel's direction. Having read JV's Johnny The Homicidal Maniac (which is alternately hilarious and deeply disturbing, often all at once), I can assuredly say that JV's got the market cornered on weirdness. And biting the hand that feeds him.
The two pilots aren't nearly as good as the later episodes. But why this ever got on Nick I'll never know. What were they thinking? Still, so funny, so very funny.
As you suggested, I went back and finalised some pieces that were hanging around mostly done. And, yes, I did hold back on the ones that you thought I should. Still, I am rather surprised at what I was capable of producing. I wrote out of boredom more than anything else: I didn't have a point other than trying to figure things out.
So take a look. I'll reply to your questions later. I think you made some good points.
I can't imagine that you think that I have some desire to get rid of the learning of scriptures. (Although I must confess that my version of scripture knowledge and others' ideas are quite divergent; more later on this, maybe.) Singles coming to the church should not need to be hoodwinked with possible opportunities for sex. Or sensuality. If they do not want Christ, why do we want them?
But why should we hoodwink anyone with false Christs? It's a staple of the youth ministry markets. One of the funny (or sadly sad) things you see over and over again at sites like Cranky Youth Pastor is complaints about having to do the next thing to keep kids interested.
What's really sad is that we use it to get kids "interested in Jesus" but it doesn't stick. When they get older, they go out and leave the faith. Maybe they come back when they move back out to the suburbs or have kids.
Because it's all about children, as I said before.
"Poor as Creseus". That was really funny.
I guess that if I had to choose an influence I'd say the social capital folks. There is something about their pragmatic conservatism that's interesting. Most of my more liberal friends are appalled. But there is lots there to understanding the communities that we build.
On the problem of singleness: well, I think that it's more complex than just paying attention to them. Singles are a historical oddity: we didn't have them earlier in the ways that we do now.
The real problem has to do with the metaphor that we use for the church in the States, and I suppose in most parts of the world. Most conservative churches are unabashedly about children. Americans' metaphor for the church is "children".
Ulysses,
I'm glad I got you reading Batesline.com. Your comments about his post on singleness in the church ("Don't Dumb Down Church") were interesting. I'll address some of your questions, then, and let me know what you think.
From what I've read on the Jesus Freaks (and there really wasn't that much done on them), the argument was reversed forty years ago. Then, it was that the traditional services were seen as pandering to people who did not want to truly serve the Lord, but only receive what they wanted: staid, predictable, dead non-worship masquerading as the church. What they wanted was a worship that recaptured the excitement, the rawness of the early church. Naive, sure, but these things weren't thrown out because they were all that and a bag of beans.
Ulysses,
That was probably a good idea. On the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS), my stress score is >400 which gives me "major susceptibility to illness and mental health problems".
And this next year will be over 300 again, just from planned events.
Which probably explains a whole lot.
Although I can't figure out how to reduce it. Looking back, it's always been over 200, except for that brief period at the end of our living in Chicago. I suppose that you're right: moving over there to work with you wouldn't really be that much more stressful than where I am now. Of course, I don't think that "dealing with roaming bands of armed thugs" is listed, although in some neighbourhoods in Chicago, it would have probably made sense.
Anyway, I get your point: "The closer we are to danger, the farther we are from harm." I've used that line with some of my own talks. At least it would be a stable worklife.
Other than that, we are all doing fine, even little Ragnar.
Let me know how things are panning out with the machines.
