Archive - 2007
April 2nd
Unblocked!
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 04/02/2007 - 14:37Just in: I just received a voicemail from the Office of the President at Cingular Wireless concerning my complaint about them blocking my calls to a specific FreeConference.com number in Iowa. They were calling to let me know that they have unblocked that number.
Is there more to this story? Anyone who has any other information about the battle between AT&T and FreeConference.com, please let me know what you are hearing.
(For those who don’t know the back story, check this story and this story.)
(Cross posted at MyDD)
Palm Sunday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 04/02/2007 - 13:34Every year, I hear the story of the Passion and I would think that over time, I would know it so well that there I wouldn’t hear something new. But yesterday, as we heard the story of the Passion be told again, a simple phrase that I’ve probably heard hundreds of times before jumped out at me. In Luke 22:45, we hear, “At last he stood up again and returned to the disciples, only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief.”
For some reason, I’ve always thought of the disciples falling asleep on the Mount of Olives as being from shear physical exhaustion. It was late at night. They were probably tired. They had come a long way to Jerusalem. Yet the phrase exhausted from grief jumped out at me.
Is this exhaustion from grief which caused the disciples to sleep somehow similar to the exhaustion from grief that leads us to “relax” by watching shows like CSI, Law and Order, Crossing Jordan, 24? (See my previous comments on this in America’s Next Top Model.
Yes, the grief of Holy Week is exhausting. The grief of being a nation at war, and the grief of 9/11 is also exhausting. The grief of families struggling with chronic illnesses, with desperate financial situations and so many other griefs are also exhausting. The question is, how do we best make it to Easter?
April 1st
Edwards raises in excess of $14 million
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 04/01/2007 - 19:13On a conference call with reporters and bloggers this afternoon, Campaign Manager Jonathan Prince and Finance Director Jennifer Swanson reported that for the first quarter, the Edwards campaign raised in excess of $14 million dollars. The exact number of donors was not available, but it is greater than 37,000 donors, which is a preliminary number of online donors. The final number is likely to be around 40,000 donors.
Wait, Wait, it's April!
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 04/01/2007 - 12:09One of my favorite radio shows is Wait, Wait, don't tell me, NPR's weekly news gameshow quiz, or something like that.
Every week, they have a section where a listener is told about three stories from the week's news. It is up to the listener to determine which one is true. Today, I've heard three great stories, all documented on the web.
The first is from Google
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The second is from Reuters
NY gallery cancels naked chocolate Jesus exhibit
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Manhattan art gallery canceled its Easter-season exhibit of a life-size chocolate sculpture of a naked Jesus on Friday after an outcry by Roman Catholics.
The gallery's artistic director tendered his resignation to protest the cancellation.
The sculpture "My Sweet Lord" by Cosimo Cavallaro was to be exhibited for two hours each day next week in a street-level window of the Roger Smith Lab Gallery in Midtown Manhattan.
and the final one is from Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen:
BTW, did I tell you I was pregnant?
For months I have been trying to lose weight. No matter what I did --diet, Pilates, aerobics, yoga, high-colonics-- my belly wouldn't go down in size. Well, now I know why I have been craving olives
I had incredibly excrutiating pains last night. I thought it was the pasta with creamy porcini sauce I had eaten for dinner, but no, this pain was something else. We live right across the street from a hospital, so I asked the ball and chain to take me there.
Those who have been following the news closely probably know which story is true. Others can follow the links and try to figure it out themselves.
March 31st
America’s Next Top Model
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 03/31/2007 - 10:41When I was a kid, I loved the Godzilla movies. At one point, someone suggested to me that perhaps Godzilla was a metaphor for the United States, and particularly for the nuclear attacks during World War II, and it opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about media.
Now, years later, I’m a participant in a discussion list of the Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME). Recently, there has been a discussion about the “Crime Shoot” episode of America’s Next Model. (For very graphic, not work safe images, check here) As one blogger succinctly sums it up, You would be prettier if you were dead.
When I got beyond my immediate revulsion, I started thinking in terms of Godzilla and other monsters. What does this say about our country? The lyrics of Steppenwolf’s Monster come to mind:
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
The Japanese had Godzilla movies to help them process their feelings about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perhaps we have CSI, Law and Order, Crossing Jordan, 24 and other shows to help us process our feelings about 9/11 and the subsequent wars. As one person noted on the discussion list, there is a large market for women that can look pretty as victims of crimes in these shows.
I am not a psychologist, but somehow, it seems like there must be better ways of processing these feelings than to look at pictures of ‘pretty dead women’ on TV, even if the shows have a satisfying resolution of finding the killer at the end. Perhaps we need a new type of American top model. Perhaps instead of becoming numbed to images of death and destruction, we need to learn to own our fears, respond to them positively and become more empathetic.
(Cross posted at Greater Democracy)
