Category: rePosts

People keep asking me if somehow DFW’s suicide invalidates the message his writing, if it casts doubt on all his life’s work. I can’t say no strongly enough. No no no, it doesn’t. And I say this in part out of my own need to survive. Had someone not walked in and seen me certainly my life would have still been more than a prelude to that arbitrary moment. If someday my disease takes me, it takes me, but it can’t take away a single precious moment I have fought it off, a single moment I have shared with you, or a single moment he shared with us. Please forgive us our trips to the rafters, and don’t reduce us to that moment.
via The Pale King – Boing Boing.

You realize that what makes countries like Japan and Vietnam tower over us is not the might of their technology or military, it is the strength of their spirit.
via Deliverance – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

This is also true with emotional baggage. Some people expect you to take their shit because you are their friend. The highest respect should be reserved for your friends. Yes, you can have small fights with them, fool around with them, go crazy with them, have occasional tantrums because of them, but never ever treat them as if they exist for your convenience. For me that is the highest form of disrespect. Friends bear some of our faults because they know that these are part of who we are. They will freely take this burden upon themselves for they believe it is a small price to pay to continue enjoying your company. They will not buckle under the weight because they are bearing it with glad hearts.We should always strive to make ourselves light, especially for those people who are constantly around us: family, friends, co-workers, etc. People are carrying their own weight too and we should do our best not to add to their burden. We can make ourselves light by making ourselves strong enough to lift ourselves. True, there are burdens that are too heavy for us to carry and we can ask our friends to help us but never shift most of the burden to them. That would be unfair. It is the same thing with shopping bags and luggage. Bring only what you can carry. If you need to bring more than you can carry, politely ask your companions to help you and do not expect them to carry everything. Or if there are just too many bags, hire a porter with a cart.
via Auntie Janey’s Old Fashioned Agony Column #12 | JessicarulestheUniverse.

A classic peacetime mission is Google’s effort to make the Internet faster. Google’s position in the search market is so dominant that they determined that anything that makes the Internet faster accrues to their benefit as it enables users to do more searches. As the clear market leader, they focus more on expanding the market than dealing with their search competitors. In contrast, a classic wartime mission was Andy Grove’s drive to get out of the memory business in the mid 1980s due to an irrepressible threat from the Japanese semiconductor companies. In this mission, the competitive threat—which could have bankrupted the company—was so great that Intel had to exit its core business, which employed 80% of its staff.
via Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO // bens blog.
 

Pakiramdam ko papunta sa wartime ang company ngayon , naku patay.p

3.21.2011
Facebook Doesn’t Kill Churches, Churches Kill Churches
For one of the more thought provoking responses to my post How Facebook Killed the Church check out Elizabeth Drescher’s article in Religion Dispatches entitled Facebook Doesn’t Kill Churches, Churches Kill Churches.
Drescher’s argument is that if the church were more meaningfully social then Facebook might actually be a boon to the fellowship. That is, as I argued in my original post, if Facebook activity is mainly involved in interactions with real-world friends then Facebook should supplement and facilitate real relationships at church. If those relationships existed. And that’s Drescher’s point. Since churches aren’t facilitating deep and meaningful relationships Facebook can’t get any traction. That is, if I’m not using Facebook to connect with people at church that is likely because I’m not that connected to them in reality. But if I were meaningfully connected to them, well, Facebook could be used to help us stay connected and keep track of each other throughout the week.
This argument seems to jibe with responses to my post where people have pointed out how Facebook has helped their church. Following Drescher, we can assume these positive uses of Facebook work in these situations because there is a pre-existing background of meaningful relationality already in place. Again, if we have meaningful friendships at church Facebook can be a great tool in keeping us “connected.” But if these relationships don’t exist, and they often don’t, then Facebook isn’t going to help much at all. Thus, Facebook doesn’t “kill” the church as much as it might mirror a church that is already “dead.”
Here’s Drescher’s summing up:
But until churches and other religious groups, their leaders, and members feel comfortable interacting with one another around real questions of meaning and value—questions having little to do with doctrine and much to do with practices of compassion and justice—their social media participation will do no more to revitalize declining religious institutions than holding weekly Jazzercise classes in the parish hall.
Mobile computing and associated social media have not replaced the main draw of the traditional church: spiritual connection in social context. But they have made it more difficult to mask the modern, broadcast-era practice of social and spiritual disconnectedness that plays out as much in generic coffee hour chitchat about football scores and the latest lame Seth Rogan chucklefest as it does in Facebook pages that enable participants (really, the old Facebook “fan” terminology is more accurate) to see a church’s message and comment on it, but which don’t invite genuine, person-to-person or people-to-world interactivity.
No, Facebook hasn’t killed the church. Churches are doing just fine on that front on their own.
Posted by Richard Beck at 6:05 AM
via Experimental Theology: Facebook Doesn’t Kill Churches, Churches Kill Churches.

I understand why the top students in America study physics, chemistry, calculus and classic literature. The kids in this brainy group are the future professors, scientists, thinkers and engineers who will propel civilization forward. But why do we make B students sit through these same classes? That’s like trying to train your cat to do your taxes—a waste of time and money. Wouldn’t it make more sense to teach B students something useful, like entrepreneurship?
 
I speak from experience because I majored in entrepreneurship at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y. Technically, my major was economics. But the unsung advantage of attending a small college is that you can mold your experience any way you want.
via How to Get a Real Education at College – WSJ.com.

In the past, Mr. Ryan has talked a good game about taking care of those in need. But as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, of the $4 trillion in spending cuts he proposes over the next decade, two-thirds involve cutting programs that mainly serve low-income Americans. And by repealing last year’s health reform, without any replacement, the plan would also deprive an estimated 34 million nonelderly Americans of health insurance.
So the pundits who praised this proposal when it was released were punked. The G.O.P. budget plan isn’t a good-faith effort to put America’s fiscal house in order; it’s voodoo economics, with an extra dose of fantasy, and a large helping of mean-spiritedness.
via Ludicrous and Cruel – NYTimes.com.